Return to Transcripts main page
Amanpour
Interview with Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili; Interview with International Crisis Group Director of Iran Project Ali Vaez; Interview with "Still/Here" Choreographer and Director Bill T. Jones; Interview with American Immigration Council Senior Fellow Aaron Reichlin- Melnick. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired October 28, 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. A disputed election in
Georgia. President Salome Zourabichvili joins me from Tbilisi. She says voters are victims of Russia's hybrid warfare.
Then, Iran attacks, Israel responds. What happens now? I ask analyst Ali Vaez how to resolve tensions in an already volatile region.
And --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL T. JONES, CHOREOGRAPHER, "STILL/HERE": Make something beautiful. Have honest conversation. Don't fall back on cliche. And be brave.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: -- a controversial dance work returns to the New York stage. Legendary choreographer Bill T. Jones is very much still here.
Also --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AARON REICHLIN-MELNICK, SENIOR FELLOW, AMERICAN IMMIGRATION COUNCIL: It's important for the public to understand what does mass deportation actually
mean.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Hari Sreenivasan speaks with immigration expert Aaron Reichlin- Melnick about the real cost of Donald Trump's mass deportation plan.
Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London.
In Tbilisi, Georgia, voters have come out to protest the results of this weekend's elections. Opposition leaders claim the vote was tainted by
Russian interference. Outside observers report troubling conditions, citing pervasive intimidation of voters inside and outside polling stations.
Videos like this are circulating, claiming blatant ballot stuffing at one election precinct.
And this contested election is not happening in a vacuum. In Moldova, in Lithuania, in the Czech Republic and now, in Georgia, there are persistent
allegations of Russian interference. As Moscow uses various methods of hybrid warfare to deter countries formerly in its orbit from moving closer
to the west.
Now, the Georgian president, Salome Zourabichvili is leading the opposition response. She says, recognizing these elections, quote, "would be
tantamount to legitimizing Russia's takeover of Georgia." And she is joining us now from Tbilisi. Madam President, welcome back to our program.
SALOME ZOURABICHVILI, GEORGIAN PRESIDENT: Thank you very much.
AMANPOUR: You've been outside, you've just come in from these protests, which you called, so far they're peaceful, to protest this -- a vote, and
not to accept it. Why exactly? I mean, people went to the polls, are you not worried about, I don't know, violence, or some awful crackdown or
something?
ZOURABICHVILI: Not at all. Because we have seen protests in Tbilisi when the Russian laws were adopted, we have seen protests last year, this year.
The Georgian population is very peaceful, but they peacefully defend their constitutional rights to have their vote, to keep their vote. And in this
case, it's more than their votes, it's their European future.
AMANPOUR: Let me just ask you about what leads you to say that they have been rigged. We've heard obviously from outside observers and the others.
We know that Russia still occupies, I think, about 20 percent of your territory, similar to what it occupies in Ukraine. But it obviously denies
interfering. What is your evidence?
ZOURABICHVILI: Well, the evidence is the fact that 70 percent of the Georgian population in all opinion polls is supporting the European way and
the European integration. And suddenly, it's turned around in one election when people have been coming out steadily to support this European past.
[13:05:00]
Everything has been used in this election, all the different frauds and rigging of election, all the instruments, and especially a new one,
electronic voting, which has been proven that they have been using I.D.s that were taken from citizens and have been used seven times, 10 times, 17
times. All this evidence has been and is being collected.
What is now in process is showing the systemic nature of the violations that have taken place. Frauds we have known, frauds of this extent, and
frauds of this multiplicity of manners is the first time, it's without precedent in Georgia and I think also in other countries.
AMANPOUR: You mentioned and we mentioned that -- well, you said that a lot of your population came out to protest the Russian type laws like anti-
LGBTQ laws that this party that claims to have won imposed because it is in power. Georgia Dream is prime minister, you are president. So, that -- it
has cracked down on foreign NGOs, calling them foreign agents, like the Russians have and, et cetera.
But Georgian Dream says they too are pro-E.U. They also want to get E.U. They read the same polls that you do, that the mass population wants to
join the E.U. So, they want to join the E.U. Why would they be interfering?
ZOURABICHVILI: I don't know. But clearly, who we have to listen to are the Europeans that have clearly said to the Georgian authorities, to the ruling
party, that you cannot pretend that you will join the E.U. doing what you are doing, you cannot join it while adopting Russian law, you cannot join
it adopting LGBTQ law, you cannot join it when you are announcing as your election program that you will put in jail the opposition leaders, that you
will ban some of the opposition parties, that you will put the non- governmental organizations under Russian laws, the way the civil society is treated in Russia.
So, that is the answer of all the European leaders and of the recent European Council. There will be a new European Council in coming days,
which will certainly confirm this. It's not up to the Russian -- Georgian prime minister to say at what conditions we will join Europe. We have to
deliver on the promises that we have made and that the Georgian population is ready to upheld.
AMANPOUR: What do you expect the protests to achieve?
ZOURABICHVILI: Well, today is just a demonstration and it's very impressive. I just come back from there, and it's very impressive that
demonstration that has been just announced yesterday is filling out the main avenue of Tbilisi. Those people are coming very peacefully to say we
have voted, we want our votes to be defended, and we want our European future, our integration future to be defended. That's all they are saying
today. They're listening to the political parties and to their game plans that they are proposing. And that will continue probably the next days. I
don't know exactly when.
Now, the outcome of all these is twofold. One is that they are calls for international investigation to add to the evidence that has been gathered
here to show the image, the global image, the massive image of the manipulation and intimidation that happened.
And then, the pressure probably will come from European and American governments that have also called for an international investigation that
pressures on the government to review -- re-examine the results of this election. If that doesn't happen in a reasonable time, then probably the
call will change to new elections, but that's up to the political parties and again, to the population.
AMANPOUR: What -- so, Georgian Dream is labeled, I think, by you all as a pro-Russian, pro-Kremlin party. The backer, I think his name is
Ivanishvili, is Georgia's richest man. He's a billionaire. He has a fortune worth some 25 percent of your GDP. What makes you think he's pro-Russian?
People who know him say he's not pro-American, pro-E.U., pro -Ukraine, pro- Moscow. He's just pro-power. He's pro himself. Why do you think he's pro- Russia?
[13:10:00]
ZOURABICHVILI: He's pro himself. He's pro his money. I've just said that in a recent interview. But at the same time, objectively, and that's what
is important, the Russian -- Georgian policies, the policies of the Georgian Dream since the last two and a half years, at least, have been
gradually moving towards Moscow.
Moscow has been constantly complimenting, including very recently the result of the elections, complimenting the Georgian Dream and making sure
that they are conformed to the propaganda of Russia on many issues that are very common between this government and Moscow. And the interest of Moscow
in this is to make sure that Georgia does not follow up on the path towards Europe.
We have gotten the candidate status last December. We were very close to starting our path to opening of negotiations of adhesion and that is what
displeases Moscow. And every move that the Georgian government has made this year is clearly designed to go against all of the recommendations of
the European Commission to make sure that we don't get the approval of the European leaders and the European Commission to closer to the E.U.
AMANPOUR: And the -- your current prime minister, head of Georgian Dream, has said they won in a landslide and claims that anything that the
opposition is saying is, yes, every country has irregularities, but nonetheless, we won in a landslide.
Given the fact that one of your predecessors, Mikheil Saakashvili, is still in jail, do you worry that you might be targeted if the opposition victory
stands -- or if the government victory, sorry, stands.
ZOURABICHVILI: I have to be worried about myself when I'm worried about the whole country and where it can go if things are in the hands of the
Georgian Dream. What they have said in their electoral program is that they would put everyone in jail. That they will ban opposition parties, that
they will implement completely the law on foreign agents, which will prevent not only the NGOs that are working with our international
organizations to work, but also humanitarian organizations that could prevent also the transfers from our emigre communities to Georgia. That is
the program of the Georgian Dream.
AMANPOUR: OK.
ZOURABICHVILI: So, my personal future in that is not as important as the future of Georgia. And that is what our partners, both European and
Americans, have to worry about more than about myself.
AMANPOUR: Madam President, thank you so much indeed for joining us, and we will continue to follow this story.
Now, Iran faces a dilemma whether and how to respond to Israel's retaliatory strikes this weekend. With one Revolutionary Guard commander
vowing action, while President Masoud Pezeshkian says we do not seek war. He warns, though, that tensions will escalate if Israel continues its
aggression, he says. Iran reports five people were killed in the attack on Friday night, but Israeli targets avoided nuclear sites, energy production
facilities, and leadership positions.
So, will Israel and Iran revert to their shadowboxing deterrent postures, or will this direct confrontation escalate? Ali Vaez is director of the
Iran Project at the International Crisis Group, and he's joining me from Washington. Welcome back to the program.
So, Ali, what is the sort of conventional wisdom or what are the tea leaves saying from Tehran right now?
ALI VAEZ, DIRECTOR OF IRAN PROJECT, INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP: It's great to be with you again, Christiane. Look, the reality is that the Islamic
Republic has never been as vulnerable maybe since the 1980s, in the middle of the Iran-Iraq war.
Its regional shield, Hezbollah, has been cracked. Its internal shield, which are these Russian made air defense systems, have been completely
decimated by this Israeli attack. And its sword, its ballistic missiles, have been dulled as a result of Israel's multi layered aerial defense
system.
And it's now facing a bunch of really, really bad options. If you allow me to use a poker analogy to refer to the Ayatollah's calculations, I think
the three options are either to check, to not retaliate. The concern there is that if they use this time to repair their own internal defenses and try
to rehabilitate their regional allies, especially Hezbollah, it might get too late too quickly because they learned the lesson from not responding
after Haniyeh's killing that it only encouraged Israel to go too far too fast, especially in decapitating Hezbollah.
[13:15:00]
And therefore, there is concern that this would normalize attacks on Tehran and invite even more attacks if they don't respond.
So, the next option is to raise, is to retaliate, but this time, one rank higher than what they did on October 1st, but that could result in more
potentially destruction on the ground in Israel and even potentially American or Israeli casualties. And then, the Israeli counterstrike would
be much more effective and forceful because Iranian defenses are now much more weaker.
And then, finally, the final option is to go all in and try to dash towards nuclear weapons. But that's also easier said than done.
AMANPOUR: Why is that easier said than done? Because your last point is what is being raised as a concern, for instance, by analysts in Washington,
Americans in government and outside government, who are saying, paradoxically, this could do precisely that.
VAEZ: Absolutely. And I've been arguing from the beginning of this year, the more Israel succeeds in weakening Iran's regional deterrence, the more
it fails by pushing Iran towards the ultimate deterrent, which are nuclear weapons.
But the reason I say it's not as straightforward for the Iranians is that their nuclear program is deeply penetrated by Israeli and western
intelligence. And so, if they decide to dash towards nuclear weapons, it will probably be detected and it would, in and of itself, become an
invitation for an attack by Israel or the United States.
Also, they can reach highly enriched nuclear material. That doesn't mean they have a deliverable nuclear weapon. The weaponization process takes
about six to 18 months. And in that period, they're vulnerable. But even if we take it to the ultimate end game, if they have nuclear weapons, this
year alone, Iran has attacked both Pakistan and Israel, two nuclear weapon states. So, that shows that conventional -- unconventional deterrence
doesn't necessarily protect you against conventional attacks.
AMANPOUR: Indeed. So, let me ask you about the United States. I want to read from one of your fellow analysts and colleagues Vali Nasr, former
State Department official, has said, you have a disconnect where the junior part -- he's actually now talking about the United States and Israel. You
have a disconnect where the junior partner in the Alliance has the grander vision for the region, and the senior party is left trying to respond to
events. This is not a good place for the United States to be. Core to the assumption of the Israelis is that in a wider war, the United States will
be doing the fighting. The United States is sleepwalking into another long- term conflict in the Middle East.
So, do you also see the U.S. as the wingman or the passenger right now?
VAEZ: I'm afraid, so far, this has been the case, and there is plenty of blame to put on the Biden administration for where the region is, in
general, with Gaza and Lebanon and now these tensions between Iran and Israel. But I think we should also give them credit that in the absence of
American pressure I think Israel would have done more, would have targeted Iranian critical infrastructure and even its nuclear program and tensions
could have escalated and spiraled out of control.
Now, there is a hope that after the elections, whether Democrats win or lose, and President Biden would have less to lose and would think about his
legacy more, and therefore, would be willing to exercise more pressure on Israel and pull the plug on this cycle of escalation, which by definition
is not going to have any winners.
AMANPOUR: Do you think that in some way, given that Iran, which Israel views as its biggest threat, has been weakened, as you put it in the
region, also with the Hamas, Hezbollah kind of being decapitated, well, being decapitated? Do you think that there's a chance now for the United
States to put even more pressure for a ceasefire in Gaza, an end of war in Lebanon? How do you see the wider situation playing out?
VAEZ: Look, if the U.S. is not in pursuit of maximalist objectives, and I don't believe that the Biden administration is or is engaged in daydreaming
about a new order in the region, it has -- it knows the limits of American power and believes that already enough has been gained in terms of Israeli
objectives, that after the elections there would be space to try to turn these tactical wins into sustainable, strategic wins, and that is possible
now that Iran actually feels more vulnerable and is looking for an off ramp.
[13:20:00]
But again, that requires creativity and courage, which can only happen in a very short window right after the U.S. elections.
AMANPOUR: Fascinating. Thank you so much, Ali Vaez, International Crisis Group from Washington.
Now, 30 years ago this week, a groundbreaking multimedia dance work called "Still/Here" opened at Brooklyn's Academy of Music and ignited a firestorm
of controversy that still echoes today. Choreographer Bill T. Jones first staged "Still/Here" at the height of the AIDS epidemic. And while his piece
confronts everyone's mortality, one prominent dance critic at the time had labeled the work victim art, a claim to martyrdom by a gay black man. Well,
that man, Bill T. Jones, begs to differ.
And three decades later, he's asking new audiences to weigh the artistic merits of the piece for themselves. I had a sometimes feisty conversation
with him at BAM, where "Still/Here" returns this week.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Bill T. Jones. Welcome to our program.
BILL T. JONES, CHOREOGRAPHER AND DIRECTOR, "STILL/HERE": Good morning.
AMANPOUR: Good to see you. This is a piece of work that you conceived, created, and performed exactly 30 years ago.
JONES: Yes.
AMANPOUR: Creator, choreographer of "Still/Here." I guess first tell me what it is that you created back them? What was going through your artistic
and personal mind?
JONES: I said the next piece I make was going to be without conflicts. Let's choose a topic that we would agree on. You, as a woman, have your
gripes, I'm sure, about the culture. I, as a black man, I have mine. Gay people, trans people. But what could we not disagree on? What could we not
disagree on? And that is our mortality.
So, I wanted to find a work that would let -- be able to let me breathe spiritually and also, be relevant to the lives of people who might see it.
In the workshops, the survival workshops, we had a concept called the arrogance of the well, because there was a feeling at that time, and I'm
not sure if it's true right now, that we were poor, you poor things, you're so sick, you're dying. Well, those poor things are us.
AMANPOUR: So, just to be clear, the mortality that you're talking about, the context was the AIDS epidemic?
JONES: It's life. The context was life, and AIDS was a decoy for many people. The reason I made this piece was because a woman in Boston who was
a breast cancer survivor challenged me to make it, and I said, why would I know -- what do I know about breast cancer? She said, for that reason you
should make it. It is a fact of life and it does not have to be maudlin, it's as real as birth.
AMANPOUR: What do you want people to know about mortality?
JONES: Is that it belongs to all of us, and it can be ennobling, and it's one of those challenges that frighten the hell out of us, but it's
ennobling if we can find a way to live with it.
When, in the workshops, I had mothers talking about a woman was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was pregnant with her child. What is that? I
may not be even around to love my child. When I ask her, well, how do you get up every day? How do you love? That's what the nature of the survival
workshops were. People were explaining their strategies.
This is a piece to make people -- help people to live, not to mourn. This is about us, and that is the challenge of making art, like mine, that asks
people to have a strong, aesthetic point of view, but at the same time, to be open and brave enough to talk as human beings full of fear like most of
us are.
AMANPOUR: What does it look like, for those who haven't seen the original and will come to view the re-opening October 30th, again, 30 years --
JONES: Yes. Yes.
AMANPOUR: -- what will we see? How does that, you know, show up, what you're just talking about, on stage?
JONES: Well, that's a big question. I'd have to be a dance journalist now, wouldn't I?
AMANPOUR: But you're a choreographer.
JONES: That's not the same thing. We don't worry about the words, that's what they do, right? Well, people will come to a lovely opera house, the
very famous opera house, and the curtain rises on a very bare stage, but there are screens. My friend, Gretchen Bender, who is now a much-revered
video artist, at that time was trying to find the vocabulary that would speak to what we had discovered in these workshops.
She and I had been talking about daytime television and how don't look at Geraldo or don't look at Oprah or whatever, but look at the people in the
audience and their eyes. She said, that's what your survival workshop persons should be like in your work.
So, those screens will have images of the many, many people, of every age and economic class, and they will have their moments on the screen, and the
performance happens in and around those screens, which keep changing. That's the first section. It's called "Still." It's Alijayic (ph).
[13:25:00]
The second section is scored by the great Vernon Reid, who is a bonafide black rock musician, screaming guitars and all, but he took hours of
testimony from those workshops and he spliced it together in a very clever, witty, sometimes funny, ultimately poignant way, so you hear those voices
coming at you across the floodlights.
And my company is beautiful. They are still quite varied. We distinguished ourselves years ago, different body types, different trainings, different
temperaments, and you can see all of that. They are dancing often abstraction. But what you hear is very concrete in the air. The trick for
me in contemporary dance has been what you see and what you hear are greater than the sum of their parts.
AMANPOUR: What stands out to you all these years later about how the initial audiences reacted? How did they react to what -- I mean, you seem
to -- you are a provocateur, you are trying to push the envelope and make - -
JONES: Art happens when something is being pushed against. So, what was the audience going through? They came to see a work that had not yet been
mediatized. Many people were quite moved by it. People stood -- shot to their feet. And they immediately want to talk about what it was and the
ethics of what it was, and could they see themselves in it? And why was it existing? But the work is a very -- it's a charming work ultimately. And it
was designed to have a popular appeal.
AMANPOUR: I want to read something. And this was in the program notes from 30 years ago. You said, my intention since the onset of this project has
been to create a work not as a rumination on death and decline, but on the resourcefulness and courage necessary to perform the act of living.
Do you feel you were successful?
JONES: Yes, I was, and I am still successful. I believe the test is now the world is beset by so many other concerns. Are you worried about the
rise of sea levels? Are you worried about the war in Gaza? The war in Ukraine? There's war, war, war. And it comes, we have a thing called doom
scrolling, which you probably know very well.
There was no such thing as doom scrolling at that time. People weren't sitting and looking at the world go up in flames. They were still -- they
felt they had some agency around the relation -- what they were feeling and what they were seeing on the news. Now, people, I think, feel it less sense
of agency. They feel anger.
AMANPOUR: Do you feel that people who had AIDS or HIV back in the '80s and '90s, let's say the '80s, felt that they had agency? Was there a sense --
JONES: You mean like women with breast cancer and people with cystic fibrosis?
AMANPOUR: Whoever. But we're talking 30 years ago --
JONES: Yes, yes. That --
AMANPOUR: -- where there wasn't this kind of doom scrolling. How did people with those kinds of --
JONES: How do people? How do people?
AMANPOUR: Actually, I meant did.
JONES: No, I mean do.
AMANPOUR: Because it's -- fine. OK.
JONES: Because I want to -- I insist that the work is not a nostalgia trip.
AMANPOUR: Right.
JONES: It's not looking back. It's talking about something that is important right now.
AMANPOUR: OK. So, what we're going to do then --
JONES: We live and we die.
AMANPOUR: What we're going to do is read, have you read, the current program notes, OK?
JONES: OK. I am different and have experienced several types of survivorship over the last 30 years. One of these is surviving in the face
of the relentless conversation that a work of art must endure. Mortality is an aspect of the human condition that does not follow fashions nor
aesthetic conversations. It is a powerful fact that we can only stand our ground in the face of, or we fall down and are swept away.
AMANPOUR: Do you think that 30 years later, given the context, given the progress of science, given the progress of the communications, media, given
the progress of therapy and people being able to talk much more openly now than they did 30 years ago, that there is a difference in the way people,
or have you observed a difference in the way everybody, women, men, whoever it is, deal with their mortality than 30 years ago?
JONES: Well, considering I'm not a social scientist, and I wouldn't have the statistics and what's one of the problems of our era right now --
AMANPOUR: You're feeling.
JONES: Yes.
AMANPOUR: You're an artist.
JONES: My feeling? I'm dealing in a body that's aged. I'm dealing in a body that's survived. And I am asked to bring this work back in this
wonderful hall. So, I'm feeling pretty damn good.
People are frightened. Children have a weight of fear that they should not have. There are people in this piece who were not born when the piece was
made, and they sometimes say to me, in different contexts, I say, well, you know, it's just like your world. They say, well, no, but your world, Bill,
30 years ago, you weren't worried about the world going up in flames, we are.
[13:30:00]
So, in that case, I feel for them. I would not want to be a 19, 20, 21- year-old person just starting out in the sexual journey of my life now.
AMANPOUR: What do you think is different today with the fear, as you point out, of war and climate change and the world going up in flames for the
average 19, 20, 21-year-old than for us when we were that age in the '80s, for instance, when there was a fear of nuclear war?
JONES: I'm not 19 years old. Why would I be so pompous as to try to answer for a 19-year-old? They tell me that they feel that their future is less
certain than I felt my future was.
AMANPOUR: OK.
JONES: I had this belief in art. I thought that art was participation in the world of ideas was like religion. If you want to know what makes life
worth living, give yourself to an aesthetic pursuit. What is a poetic phrase? How can language be used and am I an anonymous number or am I
somebody -- am I some entity that has a place?
I think artists in this very ego driven world that we live in, celebrity culture, can give us a chance of answering that question, I have some
uniqueness. I have a voice that matters. And yet, I'm part of, how does Hannah Arendt say, plurality. She says politics is plurality. How do we
live together? That's a big one for me.
That's what a work like "Still/Here" is trying to do. It wants to make some common experience, and the common experience is we live, we grow, some of
us will reproduce, and we will certainly die. I thought we all knew that. But we have to be reminded again and again that that is the arc. Now, what
are we going to do with it while we're here?
AMANPOUR: What should we do with it?
JONES: Make something beautiful, have honest conversation, don't fall back on cliche, and be brave.
AMANPOUR: Are you still angry?
JONES: By the minute, sometimes yes, sometimes no. But more than anything, I'm very much in love with my husband, and I can say I have a husband now.
I could not sit at that time. I have a lovely company, old enough to be my children in some regards, and we have a lively discussion. Oh, I have a lot
that makes me very happy. I live in a lovely house, which has like a garden around it. I sleep in the very room that my dear companion, Arnie Zane,
died in. So, my life has no -- I don't have things hidden. There are not resentments. I have a way of getting things out and being part of a
discussion.
AMANPOUR: Arnie Zane, who died, was part of the context of when you performed and created "Still/Here" first. But this is what you said to Bill
Moyers, the journalist. You're talking about essentially a criticism that was leveled at you. One critic from the New Yorker didn't even want to see
your original production.
JONES: Didn't want, did not see it.
AMANPOUR: Didn't see it, didn't want to see it. And basically, said it was just victim art and as such, it was rubbish and not worth seeing.
JONES: So, what this article, written by a magisterial critic who had -- I had great respect for, before this, she suddenly pulls that he frightens me
card. He frightens me. We're talking about modern dance. You're not out in the street confronting a black man in the park. Why is he suddenly
frightening to you? That's a dog whistle.
So, now, how did we get there? That's what that article was. That article was an obfuscation, and she also said things like, there's no dancing in
the piece. Come see this piece.
AMANPOUR: She hadn't seen it?
JONES: Yes.
AMANPOUR: But this is how you describe yourself afterwards, because she had said, you know, it's odd that, you know, her criticism was that it
identifies as black or gay or both or whatever.
JONES: And that's a criticism.
AMANPOUR: You said to Bill Moyers --
JONES: Wait, wait, wait. Let's just stop a moment. She --
AMANPOUR: She said that.
JONES: Yes, it was such a foolish and stupid and entitled position.
AMANPOUR: Correct. And you -- and this is --
JONES: Why are we talking about her now?
AMANPOUR: Because I want to ask you about what you said about it.
JONES: Yes.
AMANPOUR: You said to Bill Moyers, he happens to tell a writer on the wrong day that he is HIV positive. Now, he's no longer Bill, he is an HIV
positive black male homosexual.
Does that -- is that still relevant 30 years later?
JONES: It's relevant if we make it in this interview relevant. And I'm going to refuse to, because I'm not going to address the question.
AMANPOUR: OK. Because?
JONES: It's stupid.
AMANPOUR: Time has moved on?
JONES: It's stupid. It's stupid. Look, I'm the real deal, I have survived, I'm a major artist and doing a work which is much bigger than I am. For me
to go back talking about being the victim, right, of life's circumstances is not useful in this little time we have together.
AMANPOUR: Fine. I'm going to ask you one more question about being victim. Because, you must know, I see it, it's almost de rigueur these days.
There's a lot of victimhood, there's a lot of snowflakery, there's a lot of I am this and you can't call me that, and everybody's getting cancelled. We
live in that era right now. And I wonder how that affects you. And what you think that that is so prominent now, something that made you so angry 30
years ago, does life change?
[13:35:00]
JONES: I feel like you're trying to put me into some sort of a corner, and I'm not going to go there.
AMANPOUR: No, I don't. I'm not.
JONES: No, no, no. Well, let me try to think about it for a moment, if in the world of television I'm allowed to think.
AMANPOUR: You are allowed to think. We're a thinking program.
JONES: Well -- but we're talking more than we're thinking, right? Now, the fact is that I have to find a way to -- I am also an aging person in a
young person's field. I have had people --
AMANPOUR: Like myself.
JONES: Yes. Isn't it wonderful? And you look fabulous.
AMANPOUR: Thank you. And so, do you.
JONES: Oh, thank you. Thank you. I have had to find ways to speak to my young dancers in such a way that they can see me as a whole person. People
have threatened to cancel me.
AMANPOUR: Yes.
JONES: Here, this is a person you're reading about who was such a radical. People have come to me and said, it's oppressive to be in your work because
of gender. Gender. I mean, I had -- when this piece was made, people were not doing pronouns. So, this piece now has to find its way in another
psyche, in another way people think about their bodies, right?
There's a section called "Slash, Poison, or Burn." It's extremely gendered. It's about women and their breasts. But there are people who say, I am not
a man or a woman. How do they see themselves in this work? And I think that's humbling and it's important that I and we and all the people of my
generation watching this interview have to realize we have to know how to listen. But now, I have to realize you are in a position to have authority.
What are your values, Bill T., in the studio? What are your values in art? How do you treat women? How do you treat trans people? How do you think
about your own definition as being a gay person? Do -- have you internalized loathing and homosexual loathing? All these things are --
that's why my dukes are up, and like Muhammad Ali say, I'm like the butterfly, right? I've got to be able to keep -- to stay moving.
AMANPOUR: Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.
JONES: Thank you. Float like a butterfly and sting like a bee, except be careful who you sting, because you'll get cancelled. No, I don't care about
that, I'm being too clever. But the idea is to be an artist these days, you've got to be smart and you have to be conversant in all sorts of
different languages and don't expect anyone to be entitled. Don't expect any entitlement.
AMANPOUR: So, final question, are you planning to sting with this still?
JONES: Oh, I don't know. I have no -- I've learned after a long career, do not plan. The audience is a multi-headed hydra. It looks like one body, but
there are thousands of heads and you don't know who's watching. And you don't know whose children will be told about this. So, have some humility
and have a lot of courage. And, Bill, if you can, have some fun.
AMANPOUR: Well, I think we've had some fun.
JONES: Well, you're something. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.
AMANPOUR: Thank you, Bill T. Jones.
JONES: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: And I certainly learned a lot from that conversation. Now, with just over one week to go to the U.S. election, over the weekend, Donald
Trump delivered one of the most extreme, angry, full of racist comments closing arguments in modern presidential history, calling illegal migrants,
quote, "vicious and bloodthirsty criminals." And if elected, he'd launch the largest deportation program in American history on day one.
But how much would it cost? How could you do? How could you enact such a plan? The American Immigration Council has been crunching the numbers, and
Senior Fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick joins Hari Sreenivasan to discuss that recent report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HARI SREENIVASAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Christiane, thanks. Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, thanks so much for joining us.
Your organization, the American Immigration Council, had put out a fascinating report recently. It's titled "Mass Deportation: Devastating
Costs to America, Its Budget and Economy." Now, just -- you went through this kind of theoretical exercise almost, and really just looked very
specifically at what sort of costs it would be if we were to be able to do something like this. So, why write this now?
AARON REICHLIN-MELNICK, SENIOR FELLOW, AMERICAN IMMIGRATION COUNCIL: Well, right now we are at a time where mass deportation has become a popular
topic for politicians and policymakers to propose. And given that issue, it's important for the public to understand, what does mass deportation
actually mean?
It's not just some theoretical, amorphous idea, we're talking about an U.S. law enforcement operation designed to round up over 13 million people over
a period of time and to deport them outside of the United States. And that is a huge operation which would have dramatic consequences for the United
States, its economy, and its people.
SREENIVASAN: Have we ever done anything like that? Have we ever moved that many people? This is now past, what, the population of North Carolina.
[13:40:00]
REICHLIN-MELNICK: The previous record operation carried out under President Eisenhower was focused mostly on Mexicans and, unfortunately,
some Mexican-Americans who were, at the time, largely living around the U.S.-Mexico border, many of whom were migrant farm workers.
But today, the undocumented population lives in every state, in every -- in most communities and it represents a wide and increasingly diverse array of
nationalities as well.
SREENIVASAN: One of the staggering numbers in this report was just a price tag for this. If we were able to carry out some sort of a mass deportation,
you put the tag at $315 billion. How'd you come to that number?
REICHLIN-MELNICK: Yes, well, that number was calculated in the most conservative way possible, because it is the estimate just of the
theoretical costs of a single one-time mass deportation operation, presuming no costs change currently. And we calculated that by looking at
four individual costs. The costs of arresting people, the costs of detaining them, the cost of processing them for removal, and then the cost
of actually carrying out those deportations.
And we calculated an average cost, using today's prices, per each part of that and multiplied it by the affected population. But that doesn't take
into account all the additional costs that would be needed to carry out this kind of staggeringly large operation, which is why we also developed
an estimate for what it would take to deport 1 million people a year.
SREENIVASAN: So, let's break that down here. The first one, $89.3 billion on arrests. Who would actually be able to carry out all of these arrests?
You know, what agencies would be necessary? Do we physically have the manpower, so to speak, to do it?
REICHLIN-MELNICK: Well, right now, ICE does not have that manpower. The agency has several internal divisions that carry out arrests of people in
the communities, and the two big ones are what's known as the Criminal Apprehension Program and the Fugitive Apprehension Program.
And so, Fugitive Operations is the department inside ICE that goes out into the community and arrests people who are targets. And primarily those in
the Criminal Apprehension Program are mostly going to state and local jails and picking up people who are already in custody.
So, as you can imagine, that's much easier. If somebody is already in jail, the federal officer just has to show up and have custody transferred. But
if people are out in the community, you need to send officers out to do an arrest. And that is much more expensive.
In the Trump administration, we calculated and looked at the Trump administration and really the error, which we have the best data for. So,
that was 2016 through 2020. And during that period, the average ICE arrests during that period, fugitive arrests were less than 30,000.
So, right now, the Fugitive Program is really only going after tens of thousands of people a year, but not that many overall, considering there
are over 13 million potentially removable people in the country. And so, looking at that, the U.S. does not have that manpower right now and would
either have to hire hundreds of thousands of people to do this in a short- term, or 31,000 people to do it for a million a year. And otherwise, if they couldn't hire those people, they'd have to pull them from other law
enforcement agencies, which means you would have the people investigating child pornography suddenly taken off to go after some grandma who's been
here for decades.
SREENIVASAN: Got it. So, then, you're talking about the detainment costs, and for that you estimate $167 billion. Where would that take place if --
whether it's a million people a year or 13 million all at once?
REICHLIN-MELNICK: For this 13 million all at once estimate, that figure is massively conservative because that is the cost estimates using --
presuming that there would be no additional costs incurred by detention. In other words, that the current cost per person for detention would not go
up. But we know it would. Because if you look at other short-term detention facilities that the U.S. government has thrown up at the border, they're
called soft sided facilities used to hold migrants, they are much more expensive than the facilities currently used by ICE to detain people, which
are usually jails and prisons that have been constructed, in many cases, you know, years ago or decades ago. Many of them are converted federal
prisons owned by private prison contractors. And so, those costs are lower than building new facilities.
And right now, if you look at official Bureau of -- BOP statistics from the federal government, it shows that, you know, as of the end of 2022, there
were 1.9 million people detained in jails and prisons around the country. That's federal, state, and local jails and prisons.
[13:45:00]
So, if you wanted to detain 13 million people, that means you would have to increase the national jail capacity by more than six times. And even if you
wanted to detain a million people a year in ICE detention, you'd have to increase total capacity of all jails and prisons in the United States by
more than 50 percent, and you cannot do that easily and you certainly can't do that cheaply.
You know, we're looking at these soft sided detention facilities at the border, it cost more than half a billion dollars per 5,000 detention beds.
SREENIVASAN: Wow. The actual removal costs you estimate at $24 billion.
REICHLIN-MELNICK: Yes, and this is because the ICE air system is primarily run by contract air charter flight services, and the costs to operate those
flights are very high. At a congressional hearing in 2023, Acting ICE Director Tae Johnson testified that the average cost per flight hour was
around $17,000 per flight hour.
SREENIVASAN: We have talked about the costs of -- the implementation of some mass deportation idea. What are the economic costs if we were
theoretically to take 13 million people out of the existing U.S. economy and the roles that they perform today?
REICHLIN-MELNICK: Estimates are that undocumented immigrants are anywhere from 4 to 5 percent of the U.S. workforce. And so, if you carry out mass
deportations, you are shrinking the U.S. labor force significantly. And that is going to affect the overall economy, because it's not the case that
immigration is a zero-sum game, that if one immigrant comes here, that's one American who doesn't get a job. That's because immigrants also help
create jobs, not only through their consumer demand, but also because they often start businesses or help ensure that American businesses can stay
active and keep hiring others.
So, when you look at a mass deportation operation of this population, we estimate that mass deportations would lead to a drop in U.S. gross domestic
product of anywhere from 4.2 percent to 6.8 percent. And I know that sounds theoretical, you can throw these numbers around, but for context, that is
larger than the Great Recession. In the height of the Great Recession, there were 15 million Americans out of work.
SREENIVASAN: So, you know, one of the framings that has been very successful for Former President Trump in his campaign speeches and rallies
is that this is a zero-sum game, that Americans will be elected. given opportunities to get the jobs back that the illegal workers are taking.
What's wrong with that thinking?
REICHLIN-MELNICK: Yes, I mean, part of that is wrong because there is a labor shortage and there just simply aren't enough Americans to take these
jobs. You know, if you cut all of these people out of the population, there will be certain jobs that just will go unfilled. And as those jobs go
unfilled, the firms that are trying to hire there, the companies, the businesses, many of them small businesses, they won't raise their prices or
adjust their prices and stay in business, they'll just go out of business.
And if they have Americans who are working there as well, and which you'll find was very common, those Americans will lose their job too. One recent
study found that for every 500,000 undocumented immigrants deported, 44,000 Americans lose their jobs.
But beyond that, you're also looking at the fact that undocumented immigrants work in a lot of the fields that help America thrive. You know,
one in seven people who work in the entire construction industry, everything from day laborers, all the way up to the CEOs is undocumented.
And in specific trades, that's even higher. One in three roofers, drywall installers, stucco masons, and ceiling tilers, they are also undocumented.
And you think it's hard enough to get a contractor now or to pay for repairs, imagine if a third of the people doing those jobs suddenly weren't
here. The prices would go up and fewer people would be able to access those services. You wouldn't suddenly see a huge increase in Americans taking
those jobs. There might be some substitution, but it would not be 100 percent or if it was 100 percent, that could take decades and there would
be significant economic downsides in the interim.
SREENIVASAN: Let's walk through a little bit of Vice President Harris' immigration policy as she's laid it out. And does it, first of all, differ
significantly from President Biden's?
REICHLIN-MELNICK: Well, it's certainly different -- is different from President Biden's campaign policy promises back in 2020. But from what has
been put out so far, it does not differ significantly from the Biden administration's current approach, and that approach has -- that has been
developed really significantly over the last two years is basically what I've called the carrot and stick approach.
[13:50:00]
The Biden administration is offering migrants alternate legal pathways to entering the United States, either through parole programs that people
inside the United States can apply to sponsor people to come here or through the CBP One app, which is a means that people can essentially get
in line to go through a port of entry along the southern border. And those who don't use those tools are now being increasingly targeted for detention
and deportation by the Biden administration. And we've seen the Harris administration largely adopt this, at least when it comes to the border.
Inside the United States, the Biden administration is heavily pro- immigrant. Immigration enforcement is down. There are no mass raids like we saw under the Trump administration. And there's no sign I've seen that the
Harris campaign is suggesting it would start those kinds of mass enforcement operations again.
SREENIVASAN: So, is the policy working? I mean, because we had a record number of border crossings in 2023, right?
REICHLIN-MELNICK: Well, we had a record number of apprehensions. It wasn't necessarily a record number of crossings and that it's because about 20
years ago, the statistics on apprehensions were much lower -- were a little bit lower because most people crossing the border made it through without
being caught.
Today, the southern border is blanketed in surveillance cameras. We've got tens of thousands more agents than back then, and the majority of people
coming across the border are taken into custody. So, apprehensions hit a record even while crossings arguably didn't.
But setting that aside, numbers are down. Numbers have been down significantly this year due to two things, due to the Biden administration
reaching a deal with Mexico in late December of last year, and Mexico has now embarked on its harshest and record setting enforcement operation and
the harshest and most record setting enforcement operation in Mexican history and also, the Biden administration in June began turning away
asylum seekers who crossed the border between ports of entry by changing the process and raising the standard for people seeking protection.
So, right now, September was the lowest border apprehensions of Biden's time in office and, indeed, was about at the level of summer 2020 before
Trump left office.
SREENIVASAN: Candidate Harris on the campaign trail constantly refers to the failure of the immigration reform legislation that she says failed in
part because President Trump got on the phone and told the Republicans not to vote for it. Now, that bill, if it had gone through, what likely changes
would we be seeing by today?
REICHLIN-MELNICK: I think the situation, at least when it comes to the southern border, would look somewhat similar. And that's because the Biden
administration's June policies adopted some parts of that bill. However, the bill itself had -- was not -- was imperfect. It had created this border
emergency authority that was mandatory, except at the times when it was voluntary, and it was at times voluntary, except when it was mandatory. And
it was, in some ways, a little too committee driven to actually be great, effective, sensible policy.
But that said, it also came with resources, and that is the thing the system needs more than ever. It would have led to the hiring of thousands
of new asylum officers, hundreds of new immigration judges and more agents, more officers, more resources, which, as I've long argued, is the big issue
right now.
We have an under resourced asylum system that has been straining under its weight for years now, but Congress keeps trickling dollars and cents to it
while pouring money into the enforcement side of things. And for the first time, this bill would have given the adjudication system a huge burst of
funding.
SREENIVASAN: Is there kind of a pathway here for any sort of structural reform to immigration in 2024? Do you see a path to navigate?
REICHLIN-MELNICK: Well, there's a couple of paths. One is simply through education. A really fascinating new poll out of the University of Maryland
found that when you actually explain to people what mass deportation is, that it means rounding people up and putting them in camps, that it means
spending hundreds of billions of dollars, and then you compare it to a path to legal status for people who have been here for years without committing
crimes, who pay back taxes and who pay a fine, they overwhelmingly prefer a path to legal status over mass deportation.
[13:55:00]
Step two is to get Congress to act. Because the problem is this is a -- this has been an issue for decades. The last time Congress made any major
changes to our legal immigration system was in November of 1990, one month before the World Wide Web went online. And the last time that we made any
changes to our immigration enforcement and asylum system was in 1996, in the height of the Macarena craze.
So, we are using these 20th century relics to run our immigration and asylum system, and we haven't changed that structure. And the thing is,
there are more points on which politicians and the public agree on immigration than there are points that we disagree. And we have to keep
focused on those and making the changes that we need while acknowledging that compromises are going to be have to made on both sides. But until we
can have that adult conversation, unfortunately, I'm worried that we aren't going to see progress in Washington.
SREENIVASAN: Senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, thanks so much for joining us.
REICHLIN-MELNICK: Thanks so much for having me.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: And that is it for now. Thank you for watching, and goodbye from London.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:00:00]
END
