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Amanpour
Interview With Former U.S. Ambassador To Hungary David Pressman; Interview With "Kyoto" Co-Writer Joe Murphy; Interview With "Kyoto" Actor Stephen Kunken; Interview With, "On the Hippie Trail" Author And "Rick Steves" Founder And Host Rick Steves. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired March 07, 2025 - 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)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I always quote Viktor Orban because he's a very respected, tough guy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Who's inspiring Trump? Warning signs from an illiberal democracy with a former U.S. ambassador to Hungary.
Then --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHEN KUNKEN, ACTOR, "KYOTO": Every day now, scientists try to tell us how to live our lives.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: -- "Kyoto," London's hot new play. How co-writer Joe Murphy and star Stephen Kunken turned the intricate climate talks into a must-see
political thriller.
And --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICK STEVES, AUTHOR, "ON THE HIPPIE TRAIL" AND FOUNDER AND HOST "RICK STEVES": That was the compost pile from where I would become an adult. And
because of that experience, I've always believed that it is a beautiful thing to get out there and get to know the world.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: -- "On the Hippie Trail" with the famous travel writer Rick Steves. From Istanbul to Kathmandu. And why we should all get out of our
comfort zones.
Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London.
A new world order ripping up the transatlantic alliance, upending western security, just some of the descriptions we've heard of Donald Trump's
foreign policy. In just over a month, the president has executed a startling realignment of America's place in the world. Effectively throwing
U.S. support behind Moscow. And in this, he seems to be taking inspiration from one European country, Hungary.
We know Trump likes strongmen. He tells us all the time. And he certainly likes Viktor Orban. The two leaders apparently spoke on the phone just this
week about, quote, "everything." Orban has been tightening his grip on Hungary for years, proudly reshaping his nation as an illiberal democracy.
Well, one American saw this up close, and now he says it's hard not to notice the parallels with what's happening in the U.S. David Pressman was
America's ambassador to Hungary from 2022 until this year, and he joined me to discuss his experiences and what it tells us about where America is
headed.
Ambassador David Pressman, welcome to the program.
DAVID PRESSMAN, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO HUNGARY: It's great to be here, Christiane.
AMANPOUR: You know, the news wires are full of these conversations that Prime Minister Orban and President Trump keep having with each other,
especially now in this new sort of Ukraine-European showdown. What do you think both sides get from each other? Who inspired who? What's going on
between the illiberal Hungary and what's happening in the United States?
PRESSMAN: It's a great question. I think to take a step back for a moment, and let me just begin by prefacing what I'm about to say by saying Hungary
is a beautiful country and the Hungarians are extraordinarily gifted and wonderful people. And I was privileged to represent the United States
there.
But what is also true about Hungary is it is the site of one of the great struggles of our time, which is the battle between democracy and
authoritarianism. And you reference Prime Minister Orban's recent engagements. I mean, Prime Minister Orban, when I was in Budapest, would
speak about Hungary as a -- in his words, at a partisan political convening actually in Budapest, as a Petri dish to fight against the woke illiberal -
- woke liberal virus.
And you know, to a certain extent, I think Orban's right. I mean, Hungary is a testing ground. It's a testing ground, I think, of an example of how
you take one of the greatest successes of the post-communist era and turn it into an increasingly authoritarian and illiberal country.
And to your point, there are -- Viktor Orban is not alone. I think increasingly around the world there are authoritarian leaning leaders who
view Orban as a prototype or a model and think that they have figured out how to crack the liberal democratic order.
AMANPOUR: Let me start with your own story. You went to Hungary as a longtime, I guess, foreign service officer. You were made ambassador in
2022. You're the first openly gay U.S. ambassador to Hungary. And you suddenly became very famous. You know, U.S. ambassadors don't usually
become that famous, but your name, your face, was all over the newspapers.
Before you even set foot there, we have this image of a boat on the River Danube with your name and a skull and crossbones, and it says, Mr.
Pressman, don't colonize Hungary with your cult of death. What did you think was going on there?
[13:05:00]
PRESSMAN: I mean, it's outrageous, and they were scared of me. And I think one of the things that the Hungarian government has constructed over the
course of the last 14 years that Viktor Orban has been in power is architecting essentially an ecosystem of rewards and punishment.
And what they do with that is they try to render voices who are dissenting voices or voices who may have a perspective that is critical of some of the
policies of the Hungarian government. They try to render those people individually radioactive.
So, one of the tactics certainly they took vis-a-vis me as the representative of the president of the United States in Hungary, was to
attempt -- even before I ever stepped foot in the country, was to attempt to focus Hungarians' minds on the fact that I was gay.
And, you know, Christiane, I remember one of the very first meetings I had with a senior Hungarian official and I sit down in this meeting, really
nice guy. I sit down and he opens the conversation by saying, Ambassador Pressman, I know you're here and you want to discuss gender ideology and
LGBT issues. And I had to interrupt the guy and say no, no, no, I don't want to discuss that. I want to discuss your relationship with Vladimir
Putin and your relationship with the Chinese Communist Party.
And so, I think what the government did vis-a-vis me in particular is they made a strategic error, which is they continued to try to promote me
personally as somehow a marauding outside force that was attempting to overthrow the Hungarian government. I mean, quite literally, the prime
minister spoke about that. But what they -- what ended up happening is it ended up giving me and my team a platform that is, as you know, pretty
unusual for a U.S. ambassador.
AMANPOUR: Indeed. Yes.
PRESSMAN: And we certainly tried to leverage that to communicate with Hungarians.
AMANPOUR: OK. So, I've spoken to their foreign minister often, and they very proudly admit that they are, quote/unquote, "an illiberal democracy."
They like it. I mean, they use that word, and they feel that it is -- you know, they use it as -- you know, we're not liberals, you know, we're
conservatives, we are more right-wing, et cetera.
But, you know, they have weaponized woke. You know, the press, the courts, LGBTQ, it all falls into the basket of saving hungry. I've seen it said
making Hungary great again. And now, it's not just them, it's elsewhere in parts of Europe, and of course it's in the MAGA movement that is now in
power in the United States.
So, having said that, I want to read what you -- you know, what you wrote about how they control people. You wrote, when I walk away from this
experience, one of the things that's most alarming to me is just how easy it is to actually control people. It doesn't take secret police. It doesn't
take guns. It doesn't take gulags. The reality is that if you have the ability to overwhelm the media ecosystem with lies, you make the cost of
engaging in public debate so high that it becomes an existential one.
How did Orban do that? I mean, again, he was elected democratically. How did it go from that to this?
PRESSMAN: Yes, great question. Let me take that in a couple of pieces. First, to your first point, I think it's really, really important that your
viewers internationally and in the United States understand that this is not about liberalism or conservatism. I mean, you quoted Foreign Minister
Szijjarto, who I work closely with. This is not about whether you have liberal views or conservative views, this is about small d democracy and
Hungary's relationship with Putin and Xi Jinping.
And in addition, it's not about liberalism and conservatism. I mean, the Hungarians, as you know, hold themselves out as sort of this bulwark
against this corrupt, decaying western values and transgender ideology and migration and all these things when, in fact, what's happening in Hungary
is a country that is consistently ranked one of the poorest countries in Europe, for the last two years running has been ranked the most corrupt
country in the European Union and is really struggling.
And so, what the political impetus is for the prime minister is to focus Hungarians on all of these outside adversaries and enemies, whether it be
George Soros, whether it be Ursula von der Leyen, whether it be the United States ambassador to try to explain why Hungary is suffering in the way
that it is and is not performing as its peers are.
Now, with respect to the media ecosystem, look, the media ecosystem in Hungary at this point in the United States government's estimate and
independent estimates was controlled 85 percent by a single political party by Viktor Orban's party.
[13:10:00]
And what happened is an oligarch class that was enriched through these corrupt deals, often through Russian energy deals and other corrupt deals,
including with China. Bought up all of the media outlets, all of the radio stations, all of the television stations, all of the print outlets. And now
-- and donated those assets to a foundation, of which the board of directors of that foundation is all party loyalists. And that they get
editorial direction on a weekly basis from Viktor Orban's government.
So, this system, this mediocre system, is then is utilized in a really venal personal way to try to go after Hungarians who are voicing dissenting
views. You know, I mean, one of the things, if I could, is you mentioned Foreign Minister Szijjarto'spride in liberalism and standing up to
wokeness, they often speak of Hungary as a defender of Christian nationalism.
I mean, one of the people that the Hungarian government has gone after is this extraordinary Christian pasture named Gabor Ivanyi. And Pastor Ivanyi,
across Hungary, is widely revered from liberals to conservatives. I mean, this is a man who spoke up against communism, takes care of the poorest of
Hungarians, takes -- you know, runs homeless shelters. I mean, an incredible individual. He married Viktor Orban to his wife. He baptized
Orban's children.
But when Pastor Ivanyi began to express concerns about the authoritarian leaning policies of Viktor Orban, this Christian pastor had his church
registration stripped from him and was made to go bankrupt and then had the tax authorities investigate him. So, this isn't -- this is about
persecuting Christians in as much as it is about anyone else.
AMANPOUR: And again, it's interesting to try to figure out why, but I also want to figure out it is a big deal in the MAGA movement too. I mean,
basically, you know, Orban, after Trump's election, said the future has begun. He posts pictures of himself with Musk and Trump. A top official at
the Heritage Foundation, of course, behind Project 2025 said, quote, "Modern Hungary is not just a model for the conservative statecraft, but
the model." Orban says, we've entered the policy writing system of President Donald Trump's team. We have deep involvement there.
So, play that forward. What does that mean for America?
PRESSMAN: Yes. I mean, I really -- I wish that those who find a model in the Hungarian and Viktor Orban's leadership could really dig into and
unpack the facts. I mean, I even heard a prominent U.S. official recently refer to the Hungarian government's actions, vis-a-vis their universities
there as somehow a model for what the United States should consider. And I think what's motivating that is a legitimate policy disagreement in the
United States about issues involving controversial social issues in the United States on which Americans have different views and strongly held
ones.
But even using the university example, I mean, what happened to the Hungarian universities was not necessarily about, you know, pushing out
woke ideology, they took all of the public universities that existed in Hungary. They removed the boards of directors of those universities. They
transferred all of the universities to these newly created private foundations and installed Fidesz party loyalists to run those foundations
for lifetime tenure.
So, what happened was while they were talking about woke-ism there was a wholesale removal of public assets into private pockets. And so, for those
who are looking to Hungary as an inspiration of somehow standing up for values and ideas that Americans have different views about, I really think
that some facts in this conversation are necessary and important. Because I think when you look at what's happening, what you see is not conservatism,
but what you see is corruption.
AMANPOUR: So, you know, even Marco Rubio, then as a senator, now as secretary -- well, then as a senator during the Trump first term, expressed
concern about Hungary's slide into autocracy. How would you characterize it now? What do you think now that Rubio is essentially, you know, on Trump
team and as secretary of state? What do you think the U.S. will do with Hungary or in, essentially, following the script, which is actually using
the law to change the law?
PRESSMAN: Yes. It's -- it remains to be seen. However, one thing I did take a lot of comfort in when I was U.S. ambassador was, no matter how much the
Hungarian government tried to frame the activities and policies of the United States as somehow the actions of a woke Democratic Party, in fact, I
think the concerns I'm articulating are much more bipartisan in nature in the United States.
[13:15:00]
I had, Christiane, some of the most conservative members of the United States Congress come visit me in Budapest, and you don't need to listen to
my characterization of what they said, read their statements. I mean, they were, to a person, concerned deeply about the relationship that was
emerging between Viktor Orban and Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orban and Xi Jinping, the corruption that was happening, the closing space for civil
society.
And you're right. The current secretary of state, when he was a senator, spoke very clearly to then-President Trump about his own concerns on this.
So, I hope, again, that the facts prevail. What the policy ultimately is remains to be seen. But I think it would be a mistake to buy into this
phony narrative that Viktor Orban is trying to sell that he's somehow a champion of conservative values when, in fact, what's happening there is
something far more base.
AMANPOUR: Both Orban and Trump appear to be on the same side when it comes to Putin, Ukraine. Where do you think this is going to lead? How much power
does Orban have within the E.U. and NATO to be a spoiler? As we know, this week the E.U. is trying to get together to figure out how to pick up the
pieces that the Trump administration has left it regarding pulling its support from Ukraine.
PRESSMAN: Look, Viktor Orban was -- when we left office, was one of the most isolated political figures, certainly in -- within the alliance and
within the European Union, because what he was doing was leveraging his membership in those organizations for his own personal power and financial
benefit. And so, I think that it would be a huge mistake to relieve that pressure.
I mean, I can't explain to you what is happening with shifts in U.S. policy vis-a-vis President Zelenskyy in Ukraine. I'm deeply concerned about it,
obviously. But I can explain to you why Viktor Orban took the positions he did vis-a-vis Vladimir Putin's Russia. And he did that for power and for
money.
I mean, remember, this is a man who exempted his country at a time where Europe was finally getting serious about energy diversification after Putin
invaded Ukraine in February of 2022, Orban exempts himself from the sanctions that are imposed, particularly on pipeline oil. Then instead of
reducing his dependency upon Russia, increases it, imports more oil. And in 2022 arbitrage the price and made $2.2 billion that then went into his
government. And by the way, that money then went from his government to this oligarch network we were talking about.
So, it's -- I can understand what is motivating Prime Minister Orban's policies vis-a-vis Putin. It's something pretty simple. I don't understand
what's motivating the new U.S. policy.
AMANPOUR: Ambassador David Pressman, thank you so much.
PRESSMAN: Thank you for having me.
AMANPOUR: And next to London's hot new play, "Kyoto" tells the story of more than a decade of climate talks that led up to the groundbreaking Kyoto
Protocol of 1997. It saw the world commit to reducing carbon emissions.
In a twist, the play's protagonist is real life oil lobbyist Don Pearlman, who's doing his best to stall any and all action. Sound familiar? Well,
just last week, the oil giant BP announced that it'll be turning away from renewables and back towards fossil fuels, just as Trump dismantles decades
of painstaking climate protection at home.
Now, the play is written by Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson. It's striking a real nerve here in the U.K., and it's just snapped up two Olivier
nominations. I went to theatre to talk about what inspired them.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Joe Murphy, Stephen Kunken, welcome to the program. So, first I want to ask you, what was the, you know, inspiration? Because you've done a
lot of very timely and political plays. There was "The Jungle," about refugees, and now this one, amongst others. Why this?
JOE MURPHY, CO-WRITER, "KYOTO": You know, it's about three years ago now that we started the process of beginning to think about the disagreeable
society that we live in, you know, we live in a society of culture wars of entrenched polarization, and how do you write something that speaks to that
as a problem?
So, we were searching for stories about agreement, stories that would valorize the achievement of agreement and the process of agreement. And it
was through that lens that we came to Kyoto, which, you know, back in 1997, the first time that the world agreed unanimously to do something about
climate change, to reduce carbon emissions.
And it felt to us like a kind of romance story, in a way. Something beautiful, something that would be an important thing to strive towards,
especially in the times that we live in. So, we found ourselves writing about climate change, I suppose. And the achievements.
AMANPOUR: Well, it is the existential, you know, crisis of our time.
[13:20:00]
MURPHY: It is. But it's also something that's really difficult to write about and something other than an apocalyptic tone. So, how do you do that?
And that's --
AMANPOUR: And so, it's interesting you say romance. I mean, Stephen, you played Don Pearlman. Who is a real-life Reagan era oil lobbyist, and he's
the narrator.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KUNKEN: This is --
CROWD: Oil.
KUNKEN: This is --
CROWD: Oil.
KUNKEN: This is --
CROWD: Oil.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: And it didn't seem like a rom-com to me. I mean, it was a bit of a thriller. Very fast paced, very humorous. How did you approach basically
being the baddie?
KUNKEN: It's a great question. I don't think baddies think of themselves as baddies.
AMANPOUR: Right.
KUNKEN: I think that everybody tries to find their own music and their own path forward. And Don is clearly in integrity with his own ideas and
provides zealous representation for his clients. Whether or not he falls on the right side of history or ideas, I think is for other people to
determine.
But I -- not unlike the Joes, I was really looking for --
AMANPOUR: That's the two writers, Joes.
KUNKEN: Yes. Joes, plural. I was looking for something that as an actor that really started to deal with how do we get through this time period?
How do we find commonality with people that we find distasteful? I couldn't do another political cycle where social media just had me hating all of my
-- all of the people around me. I wanted to try to get inside of people who I found their ideas disagreeable and see if I could find connective tissue
with them.
AMANPOUR: So, that's interesting. This play was written before Trump won, where there was actually some hope, whether it's the Biden administration,
whether it's the E.U., who out of COVID, had really made a green economy, the agenda. So, I mean, when you were writing it, there was -- were you
hopeful?
MURPHY: Gosh, that's a really good question. I think we were, actually, to be honest, slightly fearful. We were fearful of that the election -- the
recent election in America may go the way that it eventually did. And we were trying to, I suppose, to contribute to the dialectic of a different
side of the argument and go, we've got to understand where these people are coming from. We've got to understand where everyone in society is coming
from.
I mean, the other day at CPAC, Steve Bannon stood up and he said many abhorrent things. But he said one thing that I thought was really
interesting. He said, they cannot defeat what they do not understand. By they, he was talking about the media. And I think that's right. We have to
understand our opponents in the creation of society. So, we have to get to what the nub of this argument is.
And I think it's something like, what Trump is offering is a kind of short termism that is attractive and avoids the complexity of the challenge. And
we know that we cannot do that any longer, but we have to provide a language to people that persuades them that doing something complicated is
better than doing something -- than ignoring the problem.
And hopefully, the play admits to the complexities of climate change and of political polarization and can welcome an audience of all different
political persuasions. That's the hope here, to get everyone into the same room.
AMANPOUR: On that, Stephen, Don Pearlman might have thought that he was the good guy, but he knew the wealth of information that the so-called Seven
Sisters, and that's part of this play, almost like the tobacco industry before 60 Minutes blew their cover and before they had to be called in
front of Congress, they knew and they had the data that tobacco was causing cancer and they lied about it. The fossil fuel industry has known for years
what carbon in the atmosphere does and tried to kill it. And that's basically part of this play.
But how did you absorb Don? Because I don't believe he's still alive, right? But you did talk to his son. What did you get from him that enabled
you to play his character?
KUNKEN: I think there's two things that are -- I think are interesting about the way Don exists in the play and the way Don existed in the world.
One came from what is in -- what the Joe -- the language the Joes have given, which is there's the innovation curve versus the extinction curve.
And I think Don very much believes in an America that can find their way out through innovation and through rigorous exploration, a world forward.
You can't stop progress. It's not our fault that we have oil, but it's here. So, how do we find our way out of it?
[13:25:00]
And I think as a very intelligent lawyer he figured that any policy that could beat him would be policy that might stand the test of time.
AMANPOUR: I've heard you said, both of you in various interviews, that this is also a play about -- it's a thriller. It's very fast paced. You have all
these incredible actors representing the United States. I mean, it's quite humorous the U.S. representative. You have a young Angela Merkel. I've
forgotten that she was the German environment minister during Kyoto. You have the Argentinian conference chairman. You have the British Deputy Prime
Minister John Prescott. I mean, they're all amazingly funny and serious and heartbreaking, and the Tanzanian delegate as well, representing -- and the
island communities, the low-lying island communities in the Pacific. And it's all happening now as well.
So, in a way, watching it 30 plus years later, it's like, oh, my God, we're still having that argument, the same argument.
MURPHY: The temptation is to feel exactly that kind of despair. And I won't pretend that I haven't felt that at times. But I think it's also important
to remember that we would exist in a worse world had Kyoto not happened.
So, you know, it feels like a slight cliche of the moment to say multilateralism is dead. And, you know, Senator John Kerry was here the
other day and --
AMANPOUR: At the play?
MURPHY: At the play.
AMANPOUR: He's still fighting the good fight.
MURPHY: He is. And did many great things. And of course, you know, his signature on Paris doesn't have quite the same relevance at the moment, but
I'm sure it will in the future. But people come here and they see something that, as you say, feels relevant, feels quick. But fundamentally, they see
something that is -- you know, it's set in a U.N. for a but feels personal and here we are in our version --
AMANPOUR: It just looks like it. I mean, it looks like the Security Council.
MURPHY: It does.
AMANPOUR: Yes.
MURPHY: But this is -- also, as you say, it's a personal space full of human beings and human relationships. And you know, the temptation, the
allure of the current language to call, you know, things like these swamps or blobs is not true. They're characterized by the humans that take them
forward.
AMANPOUR: Can I just say, Obama administration called it the blob and obviously Trump called it the swamp? I mean, there's a bipartisan disdain
for this kind of thing.
MURPHY: And I think that's a really crucial point. It's not -- we're not sitting on one side of the political argument when we say that this kind of
environment takes more characterization. And to do that, you need to put forward the human beings, right, who works to make these deals.
AMANPOUR: So, was that part of -- I mean, I notice obviously audience members are sitting right at the table. And during various parts of the
play, including in the intermissions you talk to them.
MURPHY: Yes.
AMANPOUR: Have you noticed a difference between the way audiences react to it since the Trump election and before the Trump election, because this has
been going for a while?
KUNKEN: When we did it at the RSC, we were in that moment of time of who do we want to be? What are the choices for the American election? And there
have been other elections as well, but you could feel certain moments had a kind of gave permission for people to laugh and sort of enjoy that, and
we're going to do the right thing.
It was a cautionary tale that I think people felt that they were -- we were going to obviously come out on. People who are coming to the theater might
think we were going to end up on a different side than we ended up than when we arrived here at the Soho Place. And that -- now, it's become more
of a bit of a call to arms. You can feel people feeling much more morose, have to pull themselves off the floor.
There are certain moments where I talk about Don's idea of America where --
AMANPOUR: Just remind us what it is.
KUNKEN: The idea of America is that the world depends on a strong America. And --
AMANPOUR: That's all in question right now, particularly in this last week.
KUNKEN: Yes.
AMANPOUR: Where America seems to be retreating from its historic protection of Europe and the rest.
KUNKEN: Well, and the way that plays now, sometimes there are some nights that people laugh abrasively. And that injects a certain kind of fire for
Don back into that moment. It becomes --
AMANPOUR: Do you feed off the audience?
KUNKEN: Oh, absolutely.
AMANPOUR: Yes.
KUNKEN: But you can feel as you work the room that there are certain people who are -- sit back in their chairs and then when you engage in them, they
lean forward, as you say. And that's the point. I mean, this moment, I think there are certain administrations and times where I think we as a
public defer and believe everything is being done well for us by people in rooms.
And in these moments, education and leaning forward. Maybe that's the positivity of this moment is that a play, finding yourself, you know, on
the frontline yourself, we're a much bigger army, you know, en masse than we are just thinking that the people that we elect.
[13:30:00]
AMANPOUR: So, that's interesting because you're talking about play as a sort of a convener, bringing people in, but also, I've heard you talk about
this kind of theater, particularly this subject, maybe even "The Jungle" given the time as a protest play. I mean, this play might have not been a
protest play had Kamala Harris won, you know, "The Jungle" or "The Handmaid's Tale," which you were in, might not have been so incredibly
difficult to bear had Hillary Clinton not lost when you were playing and Trump had won with all his, you know, misogyny and all the rest of it.
"The Jungle," which you did about refugees was also a protest play --
MURPHY: In a sense, yes.
AMANPOUR: -- as to how the world was dealing with the most vulnerable amongst us.
MURPHY: And artistic spaces, theatres, always the places for that. I mean, one doesn't want to have to protest, but that is a reality of the social
contract. I think artistic spaces still remain complex spaces, where you can try to tease out the thread of different ideas, question how things
relate to each other, and all of this kind of thing, which is essential to understanding the moment that we're in.
I mean, it's no accident that for the subject of the play, we go back to 1997, a different time altogether. And it's often helpful to look to the
past, to get your bearings in a very confusing present. And, you know, God knows that we're in one of that present now.
AMANPOUR: What do you think, Stephen, is the kind of the aha moment in this play?
KUNKEN: For me, it's the -- there -- what it ended up being was an emotional connection to wanting to do something. And that is incredibly
powerful. I mean, I think when we talk about this as a protest piece, we're not -- I think we've worked very hard to try to not make us come down
completely on one side. It's a protest piece against complacency.
And get up and figure it out. Educate yourself and get into the fray. And you may not feel the same as, Kiribati doesn't feel the same way as
Tanzania. And Tanzania -- and we say that in the play. And there are going to be informed opinions on all sides. But don't give away your power. And I
think for me, in that moment, the power of just commitment to wanting to do something was -- is shocking in the play.
AMANPOUR: BP, as we speak, British Petroleum, has announced it is turning away from renewables and back towards fossil fuels, and employing a lot of
the Trumpian drill, baby drill, and all the rest of it. How does that make you feel?
MURPHY: It's a real struggle and you know, there's a thickness to the throat and one doesn't quite know what one is meant to say. Certainly, my
instinct is to react to things that I hear through the mouths of new presidents in a way that I've reacted to previous presidents. And I wonder
if that's actually a big error. And that what we need to do is to really listen to what is being said, to not respond to everything that is being
said, to pick our moments and to really think about our argument.
I talked earlier about short-termism and the attraction of talking about short-term goals that will make us richer and make us stronger for a
moment. And we need to find a way to argue for the long-term. These U.N. fora, they are long-term institutions by design. Paris, which admittedly
the U.S. has pulled out of for the moment, could not have happened without the Kyoto Protocol.
Everything -- each instrument of international law is built on top of the other. It's a great thing that Trump has not pulled out, for example, of
the convention which was signed in Rio. Now, that might seem, you know, a mad thing to go, that's a positive, but it is, and that means that there
are legal instruments that remain possible to build on.
AMANPOUR: And that was the first one, that was '92.
MURPHY: 1992.
AMANPOUR: I covered that, and it's amazing that it's part of this continuum. In terms of -- let's just go back to "Handmaid's Tale," because
again, it's a real issue, the rights of women. And you can see with the new, quote/unquote," manosphere, with the, you know, bros, with all these
people, from Mark Zuckerberg to, I don't know, of course, Donald Trump. I mean, it's what Margaret Atwood foretold. Tell me what it was like to play
that when you thought maybe Hillary was going to win and then when she didn't and all of that progress was rolled back and is now being rolled
back, a lot of it.
KUNKEN: Well, I had committed to do that part in -- right before the election and thought -- and I think when I arrived, we all believed that
was -- we were making another cautionary tale and we arrived on the ground and it was a whole different reality.
[13:35:00]
It's hard. It's invigorating to work on those things. It's interesting though because we went through an entire cycle in the six years that we
made that show. We had the moment of protest and then we came back out and we thought, wow, we -- something was achieved here. These voices were hurt.
We saw those red outfits, those crimson clothes appear outside of Congress and we were making an effect. And then, the show has just wrapped, and
we're in a different world again.
And I think one of the pieces of solace that we can take in this moment is that time is long. You hit a certain age, I think, where you look at the
cycles, and things will change. There is hope. It requires moments of reinvigoration and it requires -- you know, there's a moment in the play
where Don says, this isn't my world anymore, to his son or hopes that he's going to say that to his son.
And I -- there's a moment now where I look at my daughter and her generation and how they are educating themselves that says, you know, the
arc of this is going to be long. This is a problem that another generation is going to have to deal with. How do we help that generation to have the
tools to deal with it? And art is a very powerful educating mechanism, very much so because it doesn't just deal intellectually, it deals with the
human spirit and it deals with the power. It deals with that moment that I -- of just connective tissue through energy. And I think you -- we -- there
are a lot of schools that have come to see this.
MURPHY: Yes.
KUNKEN: And I'm --
AMANPOUR: That's so interesting, schools.
KUNKEN: And I'm fascinated.
AMANPOUR: Yes. The young people, the next generation.
KUNKEN: And they lean over these edges.
AMANPOUR: Yes, yes.
KUNKEN: And they really get it.
AMANPOUR: That's great. Well, on that hopeful note, it is generational, this struggle. Stephen Kunken, Joe Murphy, thank you so much indeed, and
congratulations.
KUNKEN: Thank you.
MURPHY: Thank you so much.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: And "Kyoto" is on at London's Soho Place Theatre until May. Now, you must have heard of the Hippie Trail, a legendary route for travelers
thousands of miles overland from Istanbul to Kathmandu. Today, of course, it's much too dangerous to travel through countries like Iran or Taliban-
controlled Afghanistan. But it's the journey that inspired Rick Steves, the highly respected travel writer.
Now, he's on an entirely different journey as he battles prostate cancer. And he tells Walter Isaacson why he believes travel is a vital force for
peace.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WALTER ISAACSON, CO-HOST, AMANPOUR AND CO.: Rick Steves, welcome to the show.
STEVES: Walter, nice to be with you.
ISAACSON: In 1973, you went backpacking through Europe, and then in '78 you do this amazing hippie trail track, and you record it in a notebook, in a
journal with a BIC pen. And now, you've gone back, you've looked at that journal and you've published it. Why did you do that?
STEVES: Well, thank you. Yes, I had a -- you know, I've always been a traveler. I was a piano teacher back then. I wasn't thinking about being a
professional travel writer, but I bought every summer -- my students wouldn't practice in the summer. So, I'd say I'm seeing September. I'm
going traveling. And I went to Europe every year and I was getting, I was kept tempted by going east from Istanbul and doing that classic hippie
trail. That's what everybody was doing when the Beatles were going to India to see the Maharaji, all the backpackers. It was the ultimate road trip.
And every summer I would buy a hardbound empty book, a 200-page totally blank book and I would fill it up with very thoughtful and diligent and
beautiful handwriting. I can't even read my handwriting now. And so, I had my empty book and I did the trip with my best buddy and happened to
documented with a 60,000-word journal and photograph it all along the way.
And it turned out that was the last year you could do that trail because the next year the Shah fell and Ayatollah Khomeini came in and Iran turned
into a religious theocracy or a theocratic dictatorship, the USSR invaded Afghanistan and that was a war zone. So, it was the right time in my life,
it was the right time historically, and I documented it.
And I've been thinking about what that did to change my perspective. And, Walter, when I think about it, it's like that was the compost pile from
where I would become an adult. And because of that experience, I've always believed that it is a beautiful thing to get out there and get to know the
world. That's so fundamental.
And I've been aware that we, in the United States, are about 4 percent of humanity. 96 percent is out there. And with that perspective, I've built my
career as a travel writer and a tour organizer and a TV host on public television. And I've got a mission, and my mission is to equip and inspire
Americans to venture beyond Orlando.
ISAACSON: But let me pick one thing that seems to be part of what you did, which is you documented, you have a notebook. And the people I write about
from Leonardo da Vinci all the way through Ben Franklin, they all kept a journal on paper and I haven't seen you talk about this, but this seems to
be a core of something that we're missing today. But it's a beautiful way to see how your mind grows.
[13:40:00]
STEVES: You know, there's something about writing a journal and I don't even know if I can -- yes, you know, there's a, there, there's a page from
my journal. And I -- it's like I don't know why, but I did that right from when I was a teenager. I had a journal, carefully written journal when I
was 18 years old and I came home. Other kids were out staying out late. I was at the youth hostel writing in my journal. And again, this is when I
was a piano teacher. I had no interest in being a travel writer.
But I think when I look back and try to psychoanalyze it, I treasured those little moments, those little eurekas, those little revelations, those
lessons, those funny moments. And I wanted to net them like somebody nets butterflies as they flutter by. A butterfly is a beautiful thing, but then
it's out of your life. And here comes another one. And did I see that correctly? Well, if I could net them and pin them onto my wall and then
study them and enjoy them and treasure them and put them together and find meaning in them that's a beautiful thing.
So, I'm a big fan of journaling. I remember when we were taking our kids to Europe every year, they would have a journal. And the most treasured
souvenirs I've got are my journals from those trips. And then, when I started writing travel guidebooks, a couple years after this trip, I wrote
my -- I decided to give up my piano students and I turned my recital hall into a lecture hall and I decided I was going to be a travel teacher.
I didn't have the bandwidth anymore to be doing all that journaling because I was writing books and, taking care of all the details in the hotels and
restaurants that go into writing a guidebook. So, my journal writing went by the way path. But I always had my little black Moleskine notebook. you
know, journalists have this little -- I have it in my shirt pocket. It looks like a passport.
ISAACSON: You did your journeys in the 1970s and I'm almost convinced we may have crossed paths because I did my first hitchhiking in 1973 through
Europe and then did sort of the hippie trail. Mine was Marrakesh across North Africa, all the way searching for the perfect sunset and the perfect
way. But I also believe there's a reason, you know, we wouldn't have our kids do this if one of my students or my daughter or something said, yes,
I'm going to hitchhike for six months and take buses, it just feels too dangerous. Are we overprotective? Should our kids be out there on buses and
hitchhiking through Africa?
STEVES: You know, Walter, first of all, the takeaway of the book is, my hippie trail was Istanbul to Kathmandu. That was the end of the rainbow for
the hippies. But the takeaway is, you can have your own hippie trail. Like you had yours across North Africa. Somebody could go biking across the deep
south of our country. You could do any number of things and have your hippie trail.
I think the value is getting away from home and looking at it from a distance. You know, one of the five pillars of Islam is to make that
pilgrimage to Mecca. And Muslim friends of mine have explained to me, Muhammad was not all about going to Mecca, he was all about learning about
the world by leaving your home and gaining an appreciation of this wonderful planet that we share.
Now, as far as can people do it today, I would say it's no more dangerous today than it was back then. Now, I know statistics are optional these
days, but it's really important for us to get out there and overcome our fears. Because honestly, I really think statistically, when we go
traveling, it's no more dangerous than we stay home. And when we travel, we make the world a safer and more stable place.
Fear is for people who don't get out very much. When we are afraid, people with an agenda can manipulate us, as history has taught us, and I think
we're learning right now. When we travel, we realize that the flip side of fear is understanding. And when we travel, we gain understanding. And then,
that --
ISAACSON: Well, wait. Let me push back there. You say the flip side of fear is understanding. We gain that when we travel. People have traveled so much
more in the past 20, 30 years than ever before. And yet, in Western Europe and the United States it's become more nativist, more anti-foreign, there's
a wellspring of pro-nationalism going on. Travel doesn't seem to have helped.
STEVES: You know, it depends on how you travel. If somebody is just jetting around going to golf courses and going to casinos and going to resorts on
the beach, they're not having a transformational experience. I'm really about transformational travel. I've been teaching travel really hard ever
since I was a kid. And, Walter, it occurs to me, there's sort of a Maslow's hierarchy of travel needs.
At first, I was all excited about teaching the bottom run, the practical skills, packing light, catching the train, finding dinner. Then I moved up
that hierarchy and I was impassionate about teaching history and art and culture and cuisine, appreciating the fine points of the differences
between cultures.
[13:45:00]
And lately, I've realized that the pinnacle of that Maslow's hierarchy of travel needs is what I call travel as a political act. Intentionally
getting out of your comfort zone, intentionally encountering culture shock. I think it's wrong when travelers try to avoid culture shock. Culture shock
to me is a constructive thing. It's the growing pains of a broadening perspective, and it needs to be curated. But I just love to come home with
a little less fear and a little more appreciation that the world is filled with good people. It's filled with joy, it's filled with love.
Of course, I'm not naive, there's complicated problems and bad characters out there. But the more we travel, counterintuitively maybe, I think the
safer this world will become. But you got to travel in a way where you do get out of your culture -- your comfort zone. And you celebrate different
cultures. To me it's just a very, very healthy thing. And it relates to, do we want to live in a world that is primarily all about walls or primarily
all about bridges?
ISAACSON: You talk about getting out of your comfort zone. I'll read something from your book, which is, Europe is a well-worn pair of shoes,
very comfortable, but as a traveler, I need more, something to wallop my norms.
How come then you just write guidebooks mainly focused on Europe for tourists going to Europe instead of getting people out to other places?
STEVES: Yes, the big step, Walter, is leaving our country and going to some other country. I'm -- for me Europe is the wading pool for world
exploration. It's a springboard for getting more comfortable with the world. My favorite country is India. And that surprises people because
people think of me as so crazy about Europe. But from a teaching point of view, I have the biggest market when I go teaching people to instead of
going to Orlando again, I keep using that metaphor, you know, reaching out, go to Portugal, check that out, go to Ireland.
I love Ireland because I get the sensation I'm understanding a foreign language. And from there, you can go further. Also, I'm a businessman and I
want to work hard and help people go to a place where there's a big market. And there's a huge market for going to Paris.
ISAACSON: Now, where do you think people should go today besides Europe? I mean, we've talked about Europe, could you go to Iran? Should you go to
Cuba? Should you go to the Palestinian territories? You've been to those places. You write about them.
STEVES: Yes. Well, I've been thinking a lot about how do you get the most value out of your travel? And if I -- and I wrote a book called "Travel as
a Political Act," and I think half of the pages in that book are experiences from the places that have been most transformational for me,
the places that you take home a different perspective and so many lessons. And those have been places my government has told me I'm not supposed to
go, or discouraged me from going, or not even allow me to go.
If I think back on my travels, the most impactful trips I've had, I would imagine, were Nicaragua and El Salvador back in the day, Cuba, Palestine,
Iran. A lot of Americans don't realize that Cuba and Iran are real destinations, not when there's a war going on and probably not right now,
but some of the bestselling lonely planet guidebooks are to Cuba and to Iran.
The number one Caribbean destination for travelers from Germany and from Canadian -- from Canada is Cuba, but Americans go, you can actually go to
Cuba. I've had great experiences there and I love the idea that we can get to know the enemy. And when we get to know the enemy, it's -- it makes it
tougher for their propaganda to dehumanize us. And when we get home, it makes it tougher for our propaganda to dehumanize them. And it broadens
your perspective.
So, these days a big challenge for all of us is to avoid the crowds because we all want to go to those Instagram spots and we all want to go to those
places that are trending in social media, and we all have those bucket lists where we got to see the famous place and get a picture of us in front
of it. We've got to break out of that.
ISAACSON: Your book, "On the Hippie Trail," talks about a lot of adventures, one of them involved a bus ride, I think from Turkey to Iran.
Tell us that one.
STEVES: That was a great way to kick off this adventure. I'll never forget when my friend Gene and I headed east from Istanbul, Walter. We -- it
occurred to me, I don't know a single soul between here and Seattle where I live. But started off, we had tickets and it was like, OK, great. We've got
row seven seats A and B. And at the bus lot -- when the bus came in, the door opened and everybody rioted to get on the bus. And we thought, what's
going on? Just relax, we've got tickets. So, we walked in last, and it occurred to us by row three that those numbers didn't matter at all. We
just had two places on the bus.
[13:50:00]
And we got the last two seats for this 48-hour trip and they were the ones that were added as an afterthought over the stairwell in the back of the
bus and the only ones that didn't recline and over something that was really hot and really noisy and really bumpy. And I thought, this is going
to be a long trip.
Every time I stood up to stretch the bus driver would see me in the (INAUDIBLE) and he'd say, Mister, sit down. After a couple of -- after the
first day when he handed over the wheel to the first mate, before the guy could even get back to the bed behind the last seats, the new driver had
run off the road and we were stuck for a day trying to get our bus off the Meridian. I woke up just with smoke and screams and sparks, and I thought
this is going to be a short trip, but thank goodness nobody was hurt there.
The next day, the driver realized we're never going to let the second -- the first mate drive anymore. And he just said, we're going to just get to
Tehran when we get to Tehran. When -- I remember one time he said, OK, this bus is smelly. Everybody has to go into the river and take a bath. And
we're not going to Tehran until everybody takes a bath. And at night we would stay in these horrible hotels. The English-speaking people would hang
out here. The French-speaking people would hang out there.
We'd talk about, are we really going to get to Iran? And it was just the beginning of a trip. And we kept going farther and farther away from those
traveler's paradises like the Greek Isles, and we kept thinking we could still turn back. In three days, we could be in Santorini. But we kept
pushing forward. And we finally crossed Khyber Pass, and we descended into India, and crossing into India was like the biggest high five moment I've
ever had in my travel career.
ISAACSON: How did you just went through a bout of prostate cancer, I think it was, and that seemed to affect you, as even just the introduction in the
book you mentioned some of these things. How does that affect you?
STEVES: Well, I've had -- I had prostate cancer. I was diagnosed last summer, October. I got my surgery, took out my prostate and thankfully, my
doctor -- we've just tested my blood and my doctor says I can consider myself cancer free. And I've gone public on this and I think it's very
important for men to realize that just like women got to be tuned into their body when it comes to something like breast cancer, prostate cancer
for men is our version of breast cancer.
And I tackled this, Walter, like a traveler. It was for me a trip I didn't know I was going to take. I was kind of thinking, you know, I'm 69 years
old now. I never spend a night in the hospital until this. And you know, my time will come when I have some health challenge. And I wanted to be
curious, I wanted to be positive, I wanted to be, you know, a good patient, I wanted to be thankful and tuned in. And it's been a good experience.
And right now, I'm just very, very thankful for the medical technology we have, for the amazing surgeon I've been blessed with, and the fact that we
live in a country where we can get prostate cancer and reasonably expect to get over it. A lot of people don't appreciate that, I don't think. It's
very easy to see the problems in our society these days and complain about them. But this is a very, very good place to live if you've got a challenge
like that.
ISAACSON: You talk about the difference between being a tourist and being a traveler, but I also want to get you to that next level you kind of
mentioned. Tell me what it means to be a pilgrim.
STEVES: You've got an opportunity when you travel to broaden your perspective and have that transformational experience and go home with the
best souvenir. And that's an empathy for the other 96 percent of humanity.
So, I think we can travel seeing that the road is playground, that's a tourist. The road is school, that would be a traveler. And a lot of people
say, I'm not a tourist, I'm a traveler. OK. Well, that means you're going over there to learn and to be that cultural chameleon and broaden your
perspective. Or the road can be church or mosque or synagogue, and that means you're leaving home to learn about yourself and explore dimensions of
life you might not be able to so well explore at home, and that's travel as a pilgrim.
And pilgrimage travel is very trendy these days, more people than ever seem to be taking the Camino to Santiago de Compostela. And I have a pilgrimage
experience when I'm traveling. It can be just be poetic, to be thoughtful or to be more spiritual, but I find God on the road quite vividly. And I
just think it's a beautiful thing.
Now, you don't need to be a monk and you don't need to be just a hedonist, but you can calibrate it. You can mix it. And that's something we all have
the opportunity for. And I think the default is going as a simple tourist. And the goal is to mix it up and be a tourist, a traveler, and a pilgrim.
And that's one of the things I teach a lot when I when I take my show on the road.
ISAACSON: Rick Steves, thank you so much for joining us.
STEVES: Thank you, Walter. It's been a delight, and I wish you a bon voyage.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[13:55:00]
AMANPOUR: Opening our eyes to so many new horizons. And that is it for now. Remember, you can always catch us online, on our website, and all-over
social media, or catch up on our podcast. Thank you for watching, and goodbye from London.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:00:00]
END
