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Amanpour
Interview with Former U.S. Ambassador to the E.U. Gordon Sondland; Interview with "Louder: The Soundtrack of Change" Producer and Former Georgia State House Democratic Leader Stacey Abrams; Interview with Singer- Songwriter Melissa Etheridge; Interview with Council of Economic Advisers Former Chair Jason Furman. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired October 24, 2024 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[13:00:00]
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, and welcome to "Amanpour." Here's what's coming up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We told them to enter the building before us. If there are any booby traps, they will explode and not us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Israeli soldiers admit forcing Palestinian prisoners. to act as human shields in Gaza. An exclusive report from Correspondent Jeremy
Diamond.
Then, as mainstream Republicans react to reports of Trump's extremism, the former E.U. ambassador, Gordon Sondland, swings from supporting Trump to
opposing him, and back again.
And --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The fights that we're in can be overwhelming and we lose the thread. Music lets us find it again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: -- in "Louder: The Soundtrack of Change," rocker Melissa Etheridge and activist Stacey Abrams show the power of music to spread a
message.
Also --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JASON FURMAN, FORMER CHAIR, COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS: There's no other country in the world that wouldn't rather have our growth rate, our
inflation rate, our unemployment rate, everything we have right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: -- Walter Isaacson talks to former Obama adviser, Jason Furman, about politics and the economy.
Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in New York.
In Lebanon and in Gaza, the human toll of Israel's war grows more shocking. Overnight, at least one person was killed and five injured in a series of
airstrikes in Beirut's southern suburbs. The Lebanese health ministry calls them the most violent since fighting began, as well as reporting hospitals
being targeted.
And Gaza is at the breaking point, that's according to a U.N. report which warns that Israel is bombing measurements for life expectancy, education,
standard of living, back to 1955 levels.
The IDF justifies its attacks, claiming Hamas and Hezbollah are deeply embedded amongst civilians, which makes an exclusive new report
particularly horrifying. Correspondent Jeremy Diamond investigates claims that Israel is forcing Palestinians to act as human shields in Gaza to
avoid putting their own troops in harm's way.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They walked through the rubble at gunpoint into potentially booby-trapped buildings and
down darkened tunnels. Some were teenagers like 17-year-old Mohamed (ph).
MOHAMED (PH) (through translator): I was handcuffed and wearing nothing but my boxers.
DIAMOND (voice-over): Others, like Abu Ali Yassin (ph) were grandparents.
ABU ALI YASSIN (PH) (through translator): They placed me in areas where I could be exposed to gunfire.
DIAMOND (voice-over): These five Palestinians, all civilians, say the Israeli military detained them and used them as human shields in Gaza.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): We were forced to enter homes. Each time, our lives we at risk. We feared death. We were afraid something
might happen. They would ask us to do thing like, "move this carpet," saying they were looking for tunnels.
DIAMOND (voice-over): Now, for the first time on camera, an Israeli soldier is coming forward with his own account, describing how his infantry
unit used two Palestinians as human shields.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We told them to enter the building before us. If there are any booby traps, they will explode and not us.
DIAMOND (voice-over): We've blurred his face and changed his voice because he risks reprisals for speaking out. Breaking the Silence, a watchdog group
which verifies soldiers' testimonials, provided photographs and facilitated the interview. The soldier says a 16-year-old boy and 20-year-old man were
brought to his unit this spring.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Their hands were tied behind their back, and they had a cloth over their eyes.
DIAMOND (voice-over): The instructions from the intelligence officer who delivered them were clear.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He told me to take them. In the next attack, use them as a human shield. He told me that they have a connection to Hamas.
DIAMOND (voice-over): For two days, his unit followed those orders. This haunting photo captures the scene, the silhouette of a Palestinian man
flanked by two soldiers ordering him forward.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When we went to the attack, before they enter a building, we took the cloth off so they could see. In my company, one of
the soldiers knew Arabic. He just shouted in Arabic, open the door, walk to this building, or the other.
DIAMOND: You're using them because you think this building might be booby trapped.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, my soldiers didn't like that at all, and they refused to do this anymore.
DIAMOND (voice-over): The soldiers decided to take their concerns to their senior commander, telling him they believed they were violating
international law.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The commander told his fellow, a simple soldier doesn't need to think about international law.
DIAMOND: He didn't say, you guys shouldn't be doing this, this shouldn't be happening?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He said that we need to do this. He said that our lives are more important.
[13:05:00]
DIAMOND: So, he didn't just tell you don't worry about it, he said keep doing it?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, yes.
DIAMOND (voice-over): Eventually, the commander relented, telling his soldiers they could release the two Palestinians.
DIAMOND: Suddenly, you're allowed to release?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, it made it sure to us that they are not terrorists.
DIAMOND (voice-over): In a statement, the Israeli military said the IDF's directives and guidelines strictly prohibit the use of detained Gaza
civilians for military operations. The relevant protocols and instructions are routinely clarified to soldiers in the field during the conflict.
But the Israeli military's use of human shields in Gaza appears to have been widespread. So common it even had a name, Mosquito Protocol. Both
Israeli and international law banned the use of civilians in combat.
Israel also accuses Hamas of using civilians as human shields. There is ample evidence for it. Tunnels dug beneath homes and rockets fired from
residential neighborhoods.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For me, it's more painful with my own army. Hamas is a terrorist organization. The IDF shouldn't use terrorist organization
practices.
DIAMOND: And so, when you hear, you know, spokespeople for the Israeli military, Israeli government officials saying, you know, the Israeli
military is the most moral army in the world.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's bull -- of course, I don't believe that.
DIAMOND (voice-over): Dr. Yahya Al-Kayali (ph), who worked at Al-Shifa Hospital, knows that all too well Months after he says Israeli soldiers
forced him to risk his life he cannot shake this terrifying experience.
DR. YAHYA AL-KAYALI (PH): A soldier asked me to come. He was talking to me to English, told me I will kill you if you didn't enter there. I was
thinking that I will be killed or die within minutes.
DIAMOND (voice-over): His brush with death and the day he feared he would never again see his family.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Jeremy Diamond reporting on a deeply disturbing development there. Now, war in the Middle East looms over the American election. In a
town hall last night, Democratic Candidate Kamala Harris said, quote, "far too many Palestinian civilians have been killed." And she called for
renewed efforts towards a two-state solution.
Harris also called warnings from former officials about Donald Trump's proclivities a 911 call to the American people. Gordon Sondland was Donald
Trump's ambassador to the European Union. After July 6th, he said his support for Trump was, quote, "off the table." Now, he says, he'll vote for
Trump again. I asked him about that when we spoke here in New York.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Ambassador Sondland, welcome to the program.
GORDON SONDLAND, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE E.U.: Thank you, Christiane. Nice to be with you.
AMANPOUR: So, you have been pro, anti and now pro-Trump again. Let me just read what you said two years ago, that you wouldn't support Donald Trump's
re-election because of January 6th. You told the Wall Street Journal, we are the most admired around the world for the way we turn over the keys to
the next leader. And he really F-ed that up. I won't support him.
But here you are supporting him. So, what changed?
SONDLAND: I'm back. Yes, he did F it up. And it was not anyone's finest hour. But I have to put January 6th into perspective compared to four years
under the Trump -- pardon me, under the Biden-Harris administration.
It's been an abysmal disaster in all quarters, from a business standpoint, from a national security standpoint, confidence of our allies, the way
they've treated Israel. I can go down the list.
AMANPOUR: OK.
SONDLAND: And it pales in comparison to what happened on January 6th.
AMANPOUR: OK. You say that, but that sounds a little like sanewashing. That was a full-scale assault on the center of American democratic power,
and a refusal to accept a loss, and a refusal to hand over peacefully as American tradition and law states.
You can't really say it was nothing in comparison. Can you? I mean, you might support him, but you can't play down something that you thought was
so awful at the time, and that so many think is so awful, including around the world.
SONDLAND: Oh, I'm not playing it down in any way, Christiane. First of all, it was not a good day. Number two, Trump lost the election in 2020.
Were there anomalies? Were there voting errors? Was there fraud? Of course, there was. Did it change the outcome? No, it did not. Joe Biden sadly
became president of the United States.
AMANPOUR: Now, you say sadly. I want to ask you about your issue, which is the economy. That's one of your issues. So, let's take it. You just said
you're looking for a better economy, and you think Trump will do better.
But right now, we've got 23 Nobel Prize winning economists of all stripes calling Harris' economy plan vastly superior to Trump's. Her agenda will
improve the nation's health, investment, sustainability, resilience, employment opportunities, and fairness will be vastly superior to the
counterproductive economic agenda of Donald Trump.
[13:10:00]
The economist, which is not some liberal rag, as you know, from all your years reading it and being in Europe, says, The U.S. economy is the envy of
the world. That's its front cover. Inside, the headline says, America's economy is bigger and better than ever. And then, they go on to say that
actually Trump and his tariffs will pose a bigger threat to the American people and their economic health and spike inflation again. What about that
do you disagree with?
SONDLAND: Well, I disagree with the whole thing. First of all, I think people misunderstand how Trump has used the tariff and how he will likely
continue to use the tariff. He uses the tariff the way the owner of a dog uses a shock collar. They push the button to get the dog's attention. And
in the case of tariffs, there is nothing that has a more immediate impact when you're trying to get a third-party to the table to discuss an issue of
vital importance to U.S. interests than to threaten tariffs and to, in fact, temporarily impose them, if necessary, in order to extract the
behavior you want.
I saw a firsthand example of that with the automobile manufacturers in Europe, when we threatened tariffs, and they came to the table within days.
Normally, through normal economic dialogue, sometimes this can take decades. So, tariffs are highly effective if they're used correctly.
AMANPOUR: Well, that's the question, will they be used correctly? I mean, look, the Wall Street Journal, again, not a liberal rag, and very
conservative on the economy, disagrees 100 percent on tariffs and told Trump so during their weekend interview with him. He says it's the
loveliest word in the dictionary, but it means a tax on the American consumer, and it is, according to all these economies, definitely an
inflation booster. It can be. So, that's one thing.
The next thing is the huge amount of information, evidence and facts that are coming out about Trump's anti-democratic leanings. You know, because
you were there, that he does praise people like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. These are not Democrats. They rule by diktat. They are
authoritarians.
You've just heard John Kelly, a former general, a former Homeland Security official under Trump, and his longest serving Chief of Staff say that he
fits the dictionary definition of it. And he also said, I'm going to play this, about Trump's affinity for aspects of Hitler. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN KELLY, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF FOR PRESIDENT TRUMP: He commented more than once that -- you know, that Hitler did some good things too. And of
course, if you know history, again, I think he's lacking in that. But if you know what his -- you know, Hitler was all about, it would pretty hard
to make an argument that he did anything good.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: I mean, seriously, Ambassador, certainly the places where you were ambassador, in Germany and in -- you know, in that international
allied group, I mean, how do you even explain this? How do you -- you can't dismiss that as not such a big deal.
SONDLAND: Well, first of all, I never dismiss anything as not such a big deal that's anti-Semitism. I'm Jewish. I'm the son of Holocaust survivors,
and trust me, my radar and my Spidey sense is always up when I sense anti- Semitism, just as African American or black people sense when someone is prejudiced, even if they don't say it out loud, people get a Spidey sense.
In the situation with Trump, I've been around him. I know one of his closest friends for 40 years who is Jewish. He has a Jewish daughter. He
has a Jewish son-in-law. And I can tell you, if I sensed even a scintilla of anti-Semitism in Donald Trump, I would not have served with him.
AMANPOUR: I fully accept that, and you're absolutely right to point that out. I'm not necessarily talking about anti-Semitism, I'm talking about his
affinity for total loyalty for, like he said, Hitler's generals showed --
SONDLAND: Well, let's leave Hitler out of it because I don't --
AMANPOUR: No, because he says it. He said it.
SONDLAND: Oh, I -- this is John Kelly who's got an axe to grind. He was fired.
AMANPOUR: Why do you say that? John Kelly is a conservative. He was his official at Homeland Security. He was his official at the top level in his
White House What axe to grind?
SONDLAND: Listen, Christiane --
AMANPOUR: No, but seriously, Trump has said these things. He also dined with Nick Fuentes. He calls, you know, immigrants and others, you know,
vermin.
SONDLAND: Well, he has some -- schedulers. But let's talk about John Kelly. I have the highest respect for John Kelly and his service, and I do
believe John Kelly served the United States with distinction. I think there was some interpersonal axe grinding going on.
[13:15:00]
And for John Kelly to come out two weeks before the election, I think is a bit disingenuous, but that does not take away my admiration for his long
service to our country.
AMANPOUR: I understand, and I'm just going to push back, because John Kelly was asked again now, but he said this in the past, it's in a book by
CNN's Jim Sciutto, and he said it in the past. And Mark Milley, does he have an axe to grind? Mark Milley was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. To
Bob Woodward, he has said, I am afraid, and we are afraid, that we're going to be dragged back to active service so that Trump can fulfill his
retribution promise and court martial us.
He also says he's fascist to the bone. I mean, why is it that so many top serving people who've been defending their country are scared of Trump 2.0?
SONDLAND: Well, my own experience with Trump was there was Trump the president, and there was Trump the show. And I had enough personal
interaction with him through phone calls, through meetings, on serious matters where the show was nowhere to be found. He was focused. He was
decisive. Did he always give the right answer? No, he's not perfect. He's human.
But once that would be over, then the show began the hyperbole, the rallies, the silly press conferences, you know, the illusions to people's
genitalia, whatever you want to put on the list, that's part of the Trump brand, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. That's what gives him
kind of the Teflon coating to be able to say things to people that no one else would say.
But do I believe down to his core that he's fascist or anti-Semitic? Absolutely not, or I wouldn't be sitting here right now.
AMANPOUR: OK. I still would like you to examine and think about and tell us why he admires Putin so much. Why he admires Xi so much.
SONDLAND: Well, I have an answer for that. I have an answer for that. He's very counterintuitive. Most presidents, whether they're Democrat or
Republican, condemn those people. And those people, Putin, Xi, Kim, they sit back in their capitals and they laugh. Oh, jeez, the president of the
United States condemned me. I guess I'm not going to sleep tonight.
In Trump's case, he does the counterintuitive thing. He actually praises them and he says, wow, Vladimir, you're amazing, you're smart, you're
tough, people do what you tell them to do. And he says that in public, and it sort of puts them on their heel. In private, on the other hand, he'll
say, Vladimir, I love you, you're great, but don't take Ukraine or I'm going to have to bomb the crap out of you. And he means it.
AMANPOUR: OK. I want to ask you about Ukraine and I'm not sure that he means it, because if you remember, when Iran actually attacked. U.S. ally
Saudi Arabia's oil fields, Abqaiq, Donald Trump did not go to the rescue and the help of Saudi Arabia, and that's an alliance. So, let's just put
that aside.
What I want to ask you is this you are a big supporter of Ukraine. Do you think that Ukraine can expect actual help from a Donald Trump
administration militarily to fight against Putin remember he fully torpedoed and delayed, anyway, the delivery of weapons? And what do you
think is the result of these North Koreans apparently coming to Russia to help fight against Ukraine?
SONDLAND: I believe that he is going to support Ukraine wholeheartedly. In fact, he actually showed a little cuff to your colleague, Fareed Zakaria,
when, you know, Fareed was talking to Zelenskyy, and Zelenskyy said, yes, I have heard from President Trump recently. We had a telephone call, and
President Trump said, essentially, and I'm not quoting, don't worry, I have your back. And I truly believe that.
I think he wants to be the one to solve the problem, which is part of Donald Trump's persona. He wants to be the problem solver and not give
anyone else the credit.
AMANPOUR: OK. So, so far, I haven't seen many international problem solved under the Trump administration, but I want to ask you about the North
Korean soldiers. That's a real worry.
SONDLAND: Well, what's interesting about the North Korean soldiers, think about it, you're a soldier in North Korea. You're desperate to get out.
You're starving You're not being paid well, and they say, you get to go to Russia and you get to fight, you know, for the Russians and become part of
the Russian meat grinder. And look who's right in front of you. Ukraine, a western democracy. A lot of those people, believe it or not, are laying
down their arms and defecting to Ukraine. And I believe that there is going to be an intelligence trove delivered to us through Ukraine by defecting
North Korean soldiers.
AMANPOUR: That is so interesting. This is the first we're hearing about that, and it's really an interesting, counterintuitive point. So, thank you
for telling us about that.
[13:20:00]
I want to ask you about the showman and the real man, as you put it. You know, he has said several things to different audiences about sending the
military against his enemies from within. To Fox, he has doubled down twice. To the Wall Street Journal, he said he wouldn't do it. So, we don't
know. We'll wait to see what he does, but certainly, his enemies are -- oh, well, his opponents are concerned.
But let me ask you about -- I'm going to play for you this thing that Tucker Carlson, who's in the Trump camp, said recently this week, about
Trump coming back. Just listen. It was at an introducing of, I think, a rally.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TUCKER CARLSON, CONSERVATIVE COMMENTATOR: There has to be a point at which dad comes home. Dad comes home. And he's pissed. When dad gets home, you
know what he says? You've been a bad girl. You've been a bad little girl, and you're getting a vigorous spanking right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: A bad girl, Ambassador? I mean, what is this? No, it's not funny.
SONDLAND: I don't know. I know Tucker. He's a friend. And, you know, what can I say? It was a performance. Look, here's the situation, you have a
massive federal bureaucracy that is accountable right now to no one. You have a bunch of nameless, faceless, government employees who were not
elected by anyone who are making very important policy decisions.
And again, whether President Trump is re-elected or Vice President Harris is elected, I hope that their own personal agendas for the country, which
is why they were elected in the first place, is followed by this vast government bureaucracy, and it won't be without some very, very tough love.
AMANPOUR: And finally, do you believe that if he loses, Trump will accept the results, no matter what they are?
SONDLAND: I think if he loses fair and square, he absolutely will.
AMANPOUR: There's no evidence of any cheating, not then, not now. Ambassador --
SONDLAND: I said that before.
AMANPOUR: I know. Ambassador, thank you very much indeed.
SONDLAND: Thank you, Christiane. Enjoyed it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Now, as for concerns about Trump's proclivities, today, he told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that he would, quote, "fire" the
special counsel Jack Smith within two seconds if re-elected.
Next to how culture and the arts transform society, a new documentary, "Louder: The Soundtrack of Change" takes a look at how music has helped
inspire activism and drive political movement, especially when powered by female musicians. Here's some of the trailer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SELENA GOMEZ, SINGER, ACTOR, PRODUCERS: Music is one of the most powerful ways to put a message out there.
STACEY ABRAMS, PRODUCER, "LOUDER: THE SOUNDTRACK OF CHANGE" AND FORMER GEORGIA STATE HOUSE DEMOCRATIC LEADER: It is a painful thing to tell a
dark story.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But we've learned that the louder you are, the more the forces of oppression will try to silence you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Earlier, I spoke with producer and voting rights activist Stacey Abrams, as well as Grammy award winning singer-songwriter Melissa
Etheridge. Here's our conversation.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Stacey Abrams, Melissa Etheridge, welcome to the program.
ABRAMS: Thank you for having us.
MELISSA ETHERIDGE, SINGER-SONGWRITER: Thank you so much.
AMANPOUR: OK. So, Stacey, I want to ask you first. This is called "Louder." It's about women making change in music. I get why Melissa's
doing this. Let me just ask you, Stacey, is there some -- was there one moment of art and activism, music and activism, that sort of triggered you
to make you feel this way?
ABRAMS: I grew up in the Deep South where music has long been a part of both our cultural heritage, but also our heritage of protest, and how we've
understood our right to expand our rights. But growing up, probably the seminal moment for me was Tracy Chapman and listening to "Talkin' Bout a
Revolution" and then later "Born to Fight," which concretized for me the connection between music and action. But also, the power of a single voice
to articulate what can sometimes feel inchoate or overwhelming and give you this very chiseled sense of direction.
AMANPOUR: Melissa, you know, so many groundbreaking female artists in this documentary, and we've shown many of them in the trailer. Just a few names,
Nina Simone, Chaka Khan, Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, Madonna, Tracy Chapman, as Stacey says, and Beyonce. You have said, music has the ability
to bypass the brain. What do you mean by that, Melissa?
ETHERIDGE: Oh, that means that a song can obviously impact your feelings, can impact your thoughts even, but mostly, how you feel without first
analyzing it. It can -- music can go right into your soul, that can lift you up or make you think or remind you of something. And it's an incredibly
powerful tool for change.
[13:25:00]
AMANPOUR: So, I want to ask you both because -- about, you know, the personal impact that you both have had. So, the singer Loretta Lynn,
famously back in 1975, the great country singer, wrote a song about a birth control pill. So, many people were not happy. The documentary, you say, the
louder you are, the more forces of oppression will try to silence you. That's what you say, Stacey. And of course, the doc is called "Louder."
So, Stacey first, what personal experience do you have with being shut down because of your loudness?
ABRAMS: I am a woman of color in the political space, that is often not welcoming when you first arrive. But part of the responsibility is not
simply to think about your experience, but who will follow. Who else is not being heard? Who else doesn't even know they have the right to show up? And
that's why this documentary and these songs are so transformative.
You have women, especially like Loretta Lynn, who used her position and her privilege to say, I'm just like the rest of you, and I'm going to say aloud
what some of you are either afraid of or rightly to, you know, oppressed to say yourself.
And so, for me, it is every time that I speak up about an issue, every time I face a challenge. And every time someone says to me, you shouldn't say
that because it could be controversial, even though you're right. Our responsibility in being loud is to say that our own personal positionality
is irrelevant. It is what can we do for others and how can we use our stories in our moment to expand the opportunities for others.
AMANPOUR: And, Melissa, I think potentially the music world is more forgiving, you can be loud and perhaps with more acceptance. Do you find
that or were you also, you know, sort of put down for being loud?
ETHERIDGE: Well, you can be loud to a point in the music business. I was raised in the '60s and '70s. And by the time I was making music
professionally, it was the '80s and early '90s. And this is a great time of change and a great time of fear.
And of course, you know, I came out publicly as a lesbian, and that was definitely not to be spoken aloud or loudly. And although I didn't -- I
can't say I felt a lot of pressure not to, I knew that this was out of the norm and it was going to make some people uncomfortable.
AMANPOUR: And indeed, you have said that once you did that, and it was in 1992, all any interviewer wanted to talk about was that, you know, you
coming out. But then, later, you wrote a song, you know, basically, "I'm the only one." The music video showcased two women. And apparently, it
wasn't as dramatically received as you might have thought.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They were dancing with each other, looking at each other, and I'm like, oh my God, I can't wait till they say they're not
going to play it. Not a word, nothing. It was a huge video, and I was like --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: So, I want to know how you view yourself in the arc of the acceptance, certainly of many, many gay singers, lesbian and gays, in the
music world?
ETHERIDGE: Well, I came out at a time when the gay community needed to be heard because we were dying of AIDS. And this was something that needed to
be pushed to the front. So, there were so many of my friends who were working in the political space who were doing so much inside in Washington
trying to bring this to the forefront.
And, you know, finally coming out, I think it was -- everyone was kind of waiting to see what was going to happen. And when -- what I've always felt
is if I make music that moves people, if I make good music that people want to hear, they're going to overlook or going to go, well, OK, she's gay, but
maybe that's not so bad because I really like the music.
And I believe the music really carried that. And this was before social media. So, some people heard the music first, then read the newspaper later
that said I was gay. And so, it was a different sort of slow -- kind of a slow burn into the public that this acceptance was slowly coming along.
[13:30:00]
I remember a man brought his daughter to my show and they were -- once they found out I was gay, they were like, I'm not sure we're going to go but
then they went and they sent me a letter, said they were so glad they went. It changed their minds. And that's what you want. You want people to have
that great experience.
AMANPOUR: Stacey, I want to ask about changing minds and about the current election with the huge gender and youth and all sorts of gaps along all
sorts of dividing lines. So, The New York Times says that Trump leads Harris among young men, 58 to 37, whereas Harris leads among young women by
a whopping 67 to 28 percent.
Stacey, is that a good thing for society? Is it obvious that there would be such a gender gap or not? How do you assess and assimilate those numbers?
ABRAMS: I begin with a very large grain of salt. These are surveys of communities attempting to assess long-term beliefs based on short-term
questions. But let's understand what's at stake. We have one candidate in Kamala Harris who is responding directly to women losing the right to
control their bodies. We've got 13 states with absolute abortion bans, 28 states with gestational bans, and we know that for women across the
country, their lives are at stake, that there are reports of women dying, including in my home state of Georgia, because of these laws.
We also know, however, that for young men, in particular, there have been very strong challenges for focusing, particularly on young men of color,
being able to navigate in a time when someone like a Donald Trump is pitting people against one another and is undermining the potential that
most of us have.
And so, what I look to is that the gender issues are ones grounded in what is possible and who is willing to think about that possibility. And of
course, Kamala Harris has been much more articulate about this and much more intentional about this. And so, where protest music enters the
conversation, it is to say, we are all entitled to participation, we are all entitled to opportunity, we are all entitled to inclusion, as Melissa
talks about, which is a very long way of saying.
I hear about the gender gap, but what I do is have a lived reality. We're often the questions of housing, of health care, of starting your own
business. Those are issues that resonate across the board, and it's a question of who can prove it. And this is a moment where a woman can prove
that we can get the job done. And that is, for me, a transformative moment, and I want us to be louder about that.
AMANPOUR: Before I just get back to some of the protest music, I want to ask you, Stacey, because you were credited very, very heavily, almost
single handedly with making, you know, Georgia for the Democrats in 2020. How are you feeling about Democrat and Kamala Harris' chances in Georgia,
your home state, right now?
ABRAMS: Well, I appreciate the accolades, but let's be clear, I was just louder than a lot of folks about what was possible in Georgia. But what I
would say is that we are a purple state. We are a state where this is a competitive race, and you can tell because both candidates are coming here
again and again. We are excited to have Vice President Harris and President Obama coming to the state.
But what we know is that voter turnout is high, that the attempted voter suppression brought by the governor and the secretary of state isn't
working. Voters who were told they cannot vote by mail are finding other ways to cast their ballots, despite what Republicans have done, not because
Republicans have done something good. But more importantly, what we are seeing is that everyone in this state is excited about turning out and
being engaged, and they know that this election matters because Georgia matters, and that, for me, is the progress we need to see.
AMANPOUR: So, Melissa, I think that you have not been shy about, you know, political endorsements and the rest in the past. And I don't know what you
make of the impact of a, let's say, celebrity political endorsement. What do you think, for instance, the impact of Taylor Swift, who has such an
amazing devoted following, who very clearly and very smartly wrote why she was endorsing Kamala Harris, what you think of that impact?
And then, the opposite to that is, you know, Chappell Roan, she won't formally endorse she says who she'll vote for. And then, she got a whole
load of pushback from her fans for refusing to endorse.
ETHERIDGE: Oh, it's really a fine line because we are in the business of entertainment and that's lifting people up and making them forget their
troubles and entertaining them. And when you personally step out and say, look, this election means a lot to me as a woman, as a gay person, you
know, and this is why. And I think youth and fear has a lot to do with that. And her coming from the Midwest is -- I'm also from the Midwest, it's
also -- you know, we don't talk about those things.
[13:35:00]
You know, it's very hard to sort of break out of that -- the politics and then personal. And I think it is important, especially this election, the
impact on so many women -- and you get these artists, who, the music business right now, women are by far the top artists.
AMANPOUR: Let me just also ask you, because, you know, looking at the trailers and the documentary all the women are progressive women, the
singers. What about women who might be more conservative, women who may even support Trump? Why were they not featured?
ABRAMS: So, let's understand, protest music inherently is about pushing against a system that is not designed for you. A system that doesn't see
you, a system that does not respect you. And traditionally, in this country, that system has been conservative. And so, most of the protest
music has been in response to conservative orthodoxy, conservative laws, conservative belief systems.
The challenge with doing protest music that has a conservative voice is that we have not created a space where that's -- where protest has come
from. By and large, protest music, especially for women, has been about how do we fully insert ourselves into the lived experience of this country? How
do we have full access to the promises of this country? How do we create our own American dream? And to date, that has been almost exclusively
coming from a moment of progress.
We want to move from where we are to where we can go. And progress beyond the political is about change and saying we're going to do something more,
something new, something additive. That means that if you're looking through the pantheon of singers who have done protest music, you are often
and almost exclusively going to find women who are protesting in the space that is considered progressive because they're trying to make it better for
everyone.
AMANPOUR: Stacey Abrams, Melissa Etheridge, "Louder," thank you so much indeed.
ABRAMS: Thank you for having us.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: And the documentary is available to stream now on Max, part of the Warner Brothers Discovery family, which is what we are as well here at
CNN.
Let's return now to the U.S. presidential election and one of the key issues for voters, which is the economy. From inflation and tariffs to the
impact of immigration. What would each candidate's approach look like in practice? And what would each mean for the American people? Walter Isaacson
speaks to Harvard economics professor Jason Fuhrman, who was one of President Obama's chief economic strategists.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WALTER ISAACSON, CO-HOST, AMANPOUR AND CO.: Thank you, Christiane. And Jason Fuhrman, welcome to the show.
JASON FURMAN, FORMER CHAIR, COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS: Great to be here.
ISAACSON: You know, a few months ago, a lot of people, I think even you, thought that in order to tame inflation, we might have to get to above 6
percent unemployment, but now inflation seems to be tamed. Have we come to a soft landing, and how do we pull that one off?
FURMAN: Yes, we're in better shape than I thought we would be. We're not all the way there yet. Inflation is still a little bit higher than it
should be. My hope is that it's painless to get the rest of the way. And, you know, a lot of this is a combination of the Fed acting decisively,
getting a little bit lucky, and having just a credible system where people really believe there's going to be 2 percent inflation and it becomes self-
fulfilling.
ISAACSON: But when you look back at it, was this inflation then mainly caused by overspending and overheating, or was it sort of supply chain and
other issues that were transitory?
FURMAN: It's both. And some of the spending itself was transitory. Large checks went out to people in 2020 and 2021. No one's gotten checks since
then. So, some of that money faded. But also, the big supply chain problems faded and solved themselves as well.
And the labor market is actually looser. There are fewer job openings and a little bit higher unemployment rate today than was the case two years ago.
ISAACSON: In general, though, we've got inflation pretty well tamed or pretty well, you know, down. Unemployment is down. The stock market's way
up. It seems good, but people don't feel good. Why is that?
FURMAN: Yes, the United States economy is the envy of the world. There's no other country in the world that wouldn't rather have our growth rate,
our inflation rate, our unemployment rate, everything we have right now.
People have gotten more positive over the course of this year about the economy. Some of it is we went through just a terrible experience with
inflation. You know, whoever's fault it was, it still was bad for people. It still was hard for people. We're only digging out from it now.
[13:40:00]
I think part of it, though, is when people say the economy, they mean something that's much broader. There's some other set of things they're
upset about that aren't quite the same as the recent macro data.
ISAACSON: But you look at one of the factors, which is housing costs. And the news this week is that existing home sales in the U.S. have gone down
more than any time in the past 30 years. And this is two years in a row we've had a decline in home sales. That seems to be part of the
affordability crisis people are thinking about.
FURMAN: Yes, it's no accident that housing is a big issue in this presidential election in the way that it hasn't been for a while, because
house prices are up quite a lot. And as you just said, the volume of sales is down. We're not making as many houses as we ideally would be making.
We're not making them in the right places where people most want to live. And so, yes, this is a bigger issue today than it's been for a long time.
ISAACSON: Well, you teach Economics 10 at Harvard, and I guess everybody knows the laws of supply and demand. But tell me why are house prices at a
persistent high? Is it basically that we have too few housing units in America?
FURMAN: Yes, supply and demand is a big part of it. And one thing is, especially in some of the places that people most want to live, which is a
lot of the coastal cities, that it's hard to build. You can't build as high, maybe you need extra parking spaces, maybe you need an extra set of
permits, places like -- and by the way, including Minneapolis that have made it easier to build have not seen the same, you know, huge increase in
rents that you've seen elsewhere. So, supply is a big part of the answer. And a lot of that supply reflects local choices.
ISAACSON: And when you say supply, reflecting local choices, is it the cost of construction or is it that we have just too much not in my backyard
type regulation and too many building code regulations, and it just gets too complicated to build affordable housing?
FURMAN: Yes, there's a little bit on the cost side. A lot of what we do, you know, making a car or a watch today, we make it with many, many fewer
people, where enormous, enormous productivity increases in manufacturing. To make a house, it takes about the same amount of people, about the same
amount of time, the tools aren't that much better than they were 30 or 40 years ago even.
So, there is on the cost side efficiencies that we haven't had and maybe things like more prefabricated homes for more affordable housing could play
a role there. But the big thing is the NIMBY, the not in my backyard, the government creating constraints on supply.
ISAACSON: So, what constraints would you take off if you were housing czar?
FURMAN: Well, here in Cambridge, the city council is doing a terrific reform. Cambridge is not known for its deregulation and the like, but
they're going to hopefully make it so you can build up to six stories anywhere in the city, you can build multifamily housing. For everything you
build, if you build, I believe, 10 or more units you're going to have 20 percent of it be affordable, and they'll get rid of a lot of the other
rules, like setbacks and the like. And my hope is that we do that here in Cambridge. We get more houses, those houses are more affordable, more
people can come live here.
ISAACSON: I was reading in preparation for this, Kamala Harris' very detailed plan for housing in America. And even I got totally confused. I
mean, $25,000 credit here, but first-time homebuyers, and you have to figure out who's a first-time homebuyer, and then it goes up in different
ways. Do you think that plan is too complex?
FURMAN: Look, I think her core motivation is we need 3 million more houses, completely agree with that. She has a $40 billion fund to give
incentives to cities across the country to do what, as I said, Cambridge is hopefully doing right now. So, I very strongly agree with that.
All of these different tax credits I agree with the thrust of your question, I think they're quite complicated. Some of them could be
counterproductive. If they raise demand too much, they'll actually increase house prices, not lower them. And --
ISAACSON: Well, give me an example of one of her suggestions that you think might be counterproductive?
FURMAN: I think a $25,000 first-time homebuyer credit, it sounds great, but you're going to see a lot of homes go up in price, maybe even by the
full $25,000. So, you're handing money to homeowners, not homebuyers.
And look, everyone in our country could use a bit of money. I'm not against that, but we have a large budget deficit. Our scarce resources, I think,
are poorly spent with something that's a transfer to existing homeowners, just not something we can afford, given all the many priorities we need to
put ahead of them.
ISAACSON: I was also looking at Trump's policy about housing. You know, it wasn't very specific like, you know, Kamala Harris' plan, but part of it
was just get immigrants out of this country, send them back home, and that'll open up housing.
[13:45:00]
Does that make any sense? And are there any other proposals from the Trump side that you would think are reasonable?
FURMAN: Yes, I haven't seen anything from Trump on housing besides this assertion about immigrants. In general, there is evidence that when you
have more immigrants it, on average, drives up house prices, but it'll do different things in different neighborhoods. Immigrants also play a role in
the building industry and constructing houses.
And overall, even if it was the case that expelling large number of immigrants with lower house prices, it would only lower them by a little
bit at what I think would be an unacceptable cost in terms of both humanity and decency as well as other issues in the economy.
ISAACSON: Well, immigration and what to do about immigrants and asylum seekers and undocumented workers is a huge issue, as you know, pretty much
driving a lot of this election. And you wrote that immigration is actually one of the reasons we've had a strong economic performance. Explain that.
FURMAN: Yes, we've had 3 percent growth. We've had tons and tons of jobs every month, you know, hundreds of thousands, and that would not have
happened without this big influx of immigrants. The reason is the American population would be shrinking were it not for immigrants. That's in part
because the fertility rate is below the replacement rate and in part because the population is aging and more people is retiring. So, we're an
economy that really depends on immigrants. We all benefit from them.
But I do not think it's an ideal system that you're basically relying on something and need something that you don't have a formal legal process to
do. We basically have a set of laws that if they were fully enforced would be inhumane and uneconomical, but -- you know, but we -- but not enforcing
the law isn't a good answer either.
ISAACSON: Now, you've written about how immigration is helping propel our economy, and of course, Donald Trump is saying that immigrants are taking
your jobs. Is it true that immigrants are taking people's jobs?
FURMAN: No, if you look at the employment rate for people between the age of 25 and 54, and the reason economists like to look at them is above that,
you might not want to work, you might be retired, or below that, you might not want to work, you might be in school. So, we look at 25 to 54. It's a
very good way to measure these things.
That employment rate is a decent amount higher than it was before COVID. In fact, it's the highest it's been in about 25 years. So, immigrants, if
anything, maybe seem to have been creating jobs for people by increasing demand, by working well together and the like. The -- you know, we have a
very high employment rate right now and might be worse without immigrants.
ISAACSON: The other big economic issue in this campaign is tariffs and a great divide between Donald Trump, who seems to like tariffs almost for
their own sake. I mean, not just as a weapon to try to protect small segments of the economy, but thinking tariffs are generally good. And I
think it's right to say Vice President Harris is part of the more mainline consensus that free trade is good. Do you think we have to rethink our
resistance that the political establishment has generally had a resistance to tariffs?
FURMAN: I don't think we need to rethink it very much at all. There's a set of tricky issues around China, which does abuse aspects of the
international system. I think you need to deal with that in a targeted and focused way, and tariffs might be part of the answer to that. But more
broadly, when we're talking about buying stuff from Australia, Germany, or even the majority of what we buy from China, the benefits of free trade are
that you get better variety and lower prices for consumers.
You also end up with more exports and more higher paid jobs in the export sector. And, you know, I'm not sure how much we need in terms of
manufacturing beyond a defense base. But regardless, tariffs actually haven't helped manufacturing jobs in this country. Because, for example, if
you put tariffs on steel, you might help some steel workers, but then you end up hurting some autoworkers because you use steel to make cars, it
makes American cars more expensive. We can't sell as many of them around the world.
So, tariffs are just a terrible way to protect manufacturing jobs since an awful lot of them are intermediate inputs into the manufacturing process
itself.
[13:50:00]
ISAACSON: Well, let me push back a little on the manufacturing jobs issue and tariffs, because even economists like David Autor, who works near you,
have talked about the China shock and that we lost half a million manufacturing jobs when we brought China into the WTO.
Maybe in theory tariffs are bad and free trade makes sense, but to a guy who was -- or a gal who was in a factory working and those factories are
now gone, isn't that a real blow to our economy?
FURMAN: Look, there's this study about the China shock, and I think it finds something correct, that you lose jobs when those imports flood in.
There was another study that used the same technique by a great trade economist, and he found a similar, and perhaps even larger, number of jobs
were created in exporting.
And so, what you see is that China -- and by the way, it was mostly China's growth, not the China's entry to the WTO that mattered here. It created
jobs in some areas, lost jobs in other areas. And by the way, you know, it does that at a much, much bigger scale as technology. All the time
technology is destroying some jobs, adding some jobs, and if we had kept the world frozen the way it was 50 years ago, 100 years ago, 200 years ago,
we would all be much, much poorer.
So, I agree, we need to think really seriously about what we can do to help people, but if your answer is tariffs, you're going to end up helping some
jobs, hurting other jobs, and the net will be a negative.
ISAACSON: One of the other proposals that Vice President Harris has made is a wealth tax, and it hasn't been totally clear how that would be done,
whether you'd tax unrealized capital gains, but tell me, how would you structure a wealth tax, or would you just say that's a bad idea?
FURMAN: Yes. So, I think there is room to raise taxes on high income households beyond what we've already done. There's a limited amount of room
there, by the way. There is not enough taxes that we could raise from the rich to pay for everything that Harris would like to do, everything that
the Democratic Party would like to do, and also put our debt on a sustainable course. But there's some money there.
You know, the easiest things are just raising the tax rate a little bit, raising the tax rate on capital gains a little bit, plugging some of the
loopholes, like the way people pay themselves as pass through entities in order to get a lower tax rate. There's another proposal regarding taxing
capital gains before the asset has been sold, as the gains have been accrued. I think there's some merit to that, it's worth considering, but
there's a lot of places you can go before you get to that.
ISAACSON: One of Donald Trump's ideas and now very specific proposals for dealing with the deficit is really a slashing of the federal government,
getting rid of education departments, cutting the bureaucracy. He's even talked to Elon Musk who is used to firing 85 percent of the workforce in
some of his companies when he feels things have gotten too flabby.
Do you think there's a -- either a possibility or make it some sense to see if we can really do what, say, President Milei is doing in Argentina, which
is slashing government spending?
FURMAN: I don't think that Donald Trump's approach to that will work. And if it did work, I think the consequences would be terrible. First of all,
most of our government spending is on things like health care and Social Security, and he's basically taken all of that off the table. So, he's
starting with a minority of where we need to go.
There's certainly some fraud, waste, and abuse in government, but it's hard to tackle, you know, that fact without getting to, you know, a lot of what
people really, really care about and, you know, education, research and development, medical research, these things have incredibly high returns.
It would be a real tragedy to see a big cut in any of them.
ISAACSON: When it comes to foreign policy, there were a lot of people in the first Trump administration who acted as guardrails, you know, General
Mark Milley, Chief of Staff John Kelly, and there's a worry that they've disappeared and will not be there if there were a second Trump
administration. Is that true in economic policy as well, that if there were a second Trump administration, the people who provided sort of a guardrails
of stability wouldn't be there?
FURMAN: Yes, I'm very worried. There's both fewer Republican friends of mine who are willing to serve in an administration, and it appears that
there's less demand for the sane, rational people from the Trump side as well. And even within his first term, the direction of economic
appointments went towards ones that were less constraining on the raw instincts of Donald Trump. And I'm afraid we could see the same thing on
the economic side this time around.
[13:55:00]
ISAACSON: Jason Furman, thank you so much for joining us.
FURMAN: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: And finally, tonight, celebrations. Earlier this week, we brought you the story of the New York Liberty women's basketball team
winning their first ever WNBA title. Today, the city is marking that with a ticker-tape parade down a route known as the Canyon of Heroes, a tradition
that was started in 1886 when Wall Street workers spontaneously threw paper from their stock ticker machines out of their office windows. That was to
celebrate the unveiling of none other than the Statue of Liberty.
That is it for now. Thank you for watching, and goodbye from New York.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:00:00]
END
