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Amanpour

Interview with Former U.S. Attorney General and Former White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales; Interview with Mother of Hostage Alon Ohel Idit Ohel; Interview with Loyola Law School Professor and Biden Administration Former Senior Policy Adviser for Democracy and Voting Rights Justin Levitt; Interview with "Operation Mincemeat" Author Ben Macintyre. Aired 1-2p ET

Aired April 01, 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]

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, and welcome to "Amanpour." Here's what's coming up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: It's a shame what's -- you know, what's going on, it's a shame. But we very much appreciate their coming to the

table.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GOLODRYGA: Trump versus big law. As some firms make a deal and others fight back, I talked to former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales about

why this should matter to every American.

And a mother's plea, Idit Ohel urges the world not to forget about her son, Alon, still held by Hamas.

Then --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUSTIN LEVITT, PROFESSOR, LOYOLA LAW SCHOOL AND FORMER SENIOR POLICY ADVISER FOR DEMOCRACY AND VOTING RIGHTS, BIDEN ADMINISTRATION: On federal

elections, the president has very little power.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GOLODRYGA: Loyola law professor Justin Levitt joins Hari Sreenivasan to examine Trump's latest attempt to overhaul the U.S. voting system.

Plus, "Operation Mincemeat" goes to Broadway. We look back at Christiane's interview with bestselling author Ben Macintyre about the risky caper that

helped change the course of World War II.

Welcome to the program everyone. I'm Bianna Golodryga in New York, sitting in for Christiane Amanpour.

Well, President Trump and his team continue to test the boundaries of the U.S. Constitution from detaining students on visas due to their speech, to

repeatedly floating the idea of a third term. It is so often the courts that are in the last line of defense for those who oppose the

administration's actions. But are big law firms prepared to take them on?

Amongst his many executive orders, Trump has targeted major practices and their lawyers who have -- who he perceives have been opposed to him in the

past. He has aimed to take away security clearances and access to federal government buildings for massive firms due to their having worked with his

political rivals. And so far, it appears to be working. Some of these firms are now caving, most prominently, Paul Weiss, which entered protracted

negotiations with the administration to get the order targeting it rescinded.

The consequences could be dire with many firms reluctant to challenge the administration in even changing the focus of their pro bono work. Alberta

Gonzales is a former White House counsel to George W. Bush and the former United States attorney general who warned in September that he viewed Trump

as perhaps the most serious threat to the rule of law in a generation. Albert Gonzales, thank you so much for joining the program.

And is it these types of executive orders that led you to that belief, that he is indeed a threat to the rule of law in the United States?

ALBERTO GONZALES, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL AND FORMER WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL: Well, I think -- I mean, what we're seeing today is even more

than I had imagined. I think that -- I wish we had a president as -- like with every president, who looks forward in terms of what the needs of the

country are and providing leadership going forward.

These actions going after law firms that he believes were against him previously is just him looking backwards, and I don't think that's good for

the country. I don't think the attacks on law firms is good for the rule of law. Lawyers have a special obligation, a special role in protecting,

promoting the rule of law. And when that is challenged, then it changes -- it challenges one of the fundamental pillars of our democracy. If we don't

have the rule of law, we don't have a democracy, we don't have America.

And so, I think people need to be paying attention to what's going on here. And I applaud the firms that are standing up and bringing suit. I'm not

going to -- it's hard for me to criticize Paul Weiss and Skadden, those firms that have tried to reach in a settlement because I don't know all the

terms. I don't know what the financial pressures were on the firms, but I - - from my perspective, I think it's important to stand up for the rule of law.

GOLODRYGA: Well, those firms that you mentioned that are fighting back the executive orders, Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block and WilmerHale have had some

success in the courts thus far. Do you think ultimately though that they will prevail and maybe even if they do, there's still something unsettling

about perception and whether or not these law firms, even if they prevail in court, will think twice about taking up some of these cases that the

president deems make him look bad.

[13:05:00]

GONZALES: I think that there will be second guessing about taking up some of these cases. And I think that what that means is that you and I,

Americans, American companies are not going to have our choice of representation. And I think that's wrong. I think that all of us should

have the right to choose who we want to represent us in court.

I think this is more than just looking back. As I spoke about earlier, I think it's also perhaps looking forward. I think the president may -- and

again, I don't -- I've never spoken to the president, but one time. I don't know him and I don't know his motivations, but he may be looking at who is

going to challenge what he wants to do going forward.

One of the main advantages or the things that we -- that makes the rule of law so important is it serves as a check on abuses of power. And I think

it's very, very important that lawyers, that our court systems, our criminal justice system, all of our citizens that pay attention to what's

going on and to make sure that there are no abuses of power coming out of this White House.

GOLODRYGA: This does have at least the perception of extortion, especially when some of these firms, the two that you mentioned, Paul Weiss and

Skadden, have settled with the administration and these executive orders have been rescinded against them in exchange for them taking on either $40

million or a $100 million of pro bono work in areas that the president supports. Is this even legal?

GONZALES: Well, that remains to be seen. We've got challenges going on in the court now -- in the courts now and we'll see whether or not it's legal.

It -- to me, it appears offensive and it doesn't look right, quite frankly. As I said, I'm disappointed at the settlements. As I said, also, I don't

know all the terms, I don't the financial pressures that were involved here. I don't know the decision making at these firms. But it doesn't send

a very good message.

I applaud the ABA for standing up and others in the legal community standing up and talking about how this is problematic, and we do need to

pay attention to it. And at the end of the day, this is probably something that's going to be resolved in the courts.

Obviously, there are a lot of issues in the courts today and I think it's very important that we have the best legal talent available to, again, all

of our citizens, all companies to ensure that the rule of law is being respected and followed.

GOLODRYGA: Donald Trump was asked about these executive orders. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: You mean the law firms that we're going after that went after me for four years ruthlessly, violently, illegally?

You mean -- are those the law firms you're talking about? They're not babies. They're very sophisticated people. Those law firms did bad things.

Bad things. They went after me for years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GOLODRYGA: Again, you weren't connected personally to many of these cases, but your reaction to this description from the president?

GONZALES: Yes. Can I just say, the law firms didn't decide one morning, we're going to go after Donald Trump? There were clients that hire the

firms to investigate, to bring a case against Donald Trump. And I understand how the president, like any one of us would be angry, tired of

the number of investigations and prosecutions that he's had to endure these past few years. And it does raise questions about whether or not this is

political or personal, but for the fact that I look at the results, this man is a convicted felon. He also has -- subject to a huge fine for sexual

abuse to Jean Carroll.

So, it's his conduct. I believe it is his conduct that has resulted in these investigations, in these prosecutions. And if he's tired of it, then

perhaps he needs to change his conduct. But the notion that all these firms have taken action against him personally, these firms exist, first, to make

money, but also to ensure that justice is made available to everyone in this country. So, that would be my response to what I just heard.

GOLODRYGA: Are you surprised that you're not hearing more pushback from Republicans if for no other reason than the irony is not lost, that many of

these law firms, one of them Jones Day, is known to have taken many cases successfully against Democratic administrations, President Biden and his

administration as well, going after some of their policies and President Obama as well had been challenged for Obamacare and other policies of his.

So, where are the Republican voices that may say, you know, this could set a precedent that we may not like once Democrats are back in office?

[13:10:00]

GONZALES: You're absolutely right. It could set a very dangerous precedent. And I am disappointed that we're not hearing more. I understand

that there are many associates across the country in these big firms who are very disappointed in the leadership of the firms that don't understand

why there hasn't been more of a public outcry about this.

This is the livelihood of lawyers. This is what we do, is represent even the most distasteful of defendants. And so, sometimes we don't have much

choice in the cases that we take, sometimes we do, but sometimes we don't. And so, to punish these firms for the previous actions to make it more

difficult for the firms to be successful, that's just not right as far as I'm concerned.

And I'm hopeful that more firms will come together. And I think the more success you see in the courts, I think you're probably going to see more

people -- more firms, more lawyers step out -- step up.

From my perspective, I'm a former judge, the notion about watching this to me, it's not surprising that the judges who have at least ruled initially

on these kinds of cases, they call it -- I mean, I'm going to paraphrase here, they viewed it as appalling. I mean, it's just not right.

GOLODRYGA: Can ask you about another story that is getting a lot of attention today. And this has to deal with the massive wave of this

administration sweeping up migrants, deporting them with little or no due process. And the administration coming out unusually today and

acknowledging that it had deported a Maryland father who was here legally, mistakenly deporting him to El Salvador, but then saying that they lack --

the U.S. court's lack complete jurisdiction to bring him back. Is that true in your view, the United States admitting that somebody who was here

legally was deported illegally and there's no recourse that can be taken?

GONZALES: Well, I don't know -- perhaps what they're saying is they have no recourse as a matter of law to reach back and take this individual from

another jurisdiction and bring it back here. I do think they certainly have the ability to negotiate with the El Salvadorian government and work out

something where this individual could be brought back.

GOLODRYGA: Yes.

GONZALES: But I don't think that they could simply breach the -- you know, the sovereignty of another country to bring him back. So, I think there are

some challenges there. It's not surprising. There was an admission that someone was detained and transported even though they -- you know, they

weren't part of this this gang. And so, a mistake was made and it's not surprising that a mistake was made given the fact that this whole operation

played out.

And again, I think the judge -- this is what -- in the area of immigration, foreign policy, national security, there's a great deal of discretion given

to the executive branch of the president of the United States in securing our country.

GOLODRYGA: Yes.

GONZALES: I think we all understand that and we accept that. But nonetheless, that discretion is not without some limits and some of -- one

of those limits is ensuring that who you think your -- your transporting is in fact a member of a very dangerous gang and not an innocent American or

someone who's innocent and has a legal right to be in this country. And that's the issue here is whether or not was sufficient process made

available so that we ensure that people that had a right to be here in this country and were not dangerous were in fact protected and not deported.

GOLODRYGA: Alberto Gonzales, thank you so much for joining the program. We appreciate it.

GONZALES: Thank you.

GOLODRYGA: Up next to Israel, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to face major protests over his conduct of the war in Gaza, and

over allegations of corruption within his own office. The family members of hostages and even former hostages themselves are taking to the streets to

protest the government ending the ceasefire and resuming the war in Gaza. They argue that continuing the war only endangers the lives of those who

are left behind there.

There are thought to be 24 hostages still alive in Gaza, including Alon Ohel who was taken from the Nova Music Festival on October 7th. During the

recent ceasefire, fellow hostages came with news that Alon is still alive, but badly wounded and could go blind.

[13:15:00]

And his mother, Idit, joins the show live from Lavon Israel. Idit Ohel, welcome to the program. The last time I spoke with you was on October 7,

2024, and at that point, you had no proof of life as to whether or not your son was still alive. No information about him at all, and now you do. And

the news that you do have is that he is in dire condition. He is badly injured and is being treated brutally.

Talk to us a about your message that you keep repeating both in Israel and to the world about the urgent need to bring your son and all of the

remaining hostages back home.

IDIT OHEL, MOTHER OF HOSTAGE ALON OHEL: Well, my son is injured, as I say, but it's life-threatening injury. And what I'm asking is that he will get

medical attention. He has never seen any doctor or any me -- had never gotten any medical attention from the 7th of October till today.

Alon has been held in very harsh condition. He's being starved. He's been - - he's -- you know, his feet and his legs is chained in shackles and he mostly cannot move and his injury is getting worse every day. He's getting

blind. Hostages that returned saw -- say this because they have been with him. Alon has been held 40 meters under the ground in a tunnel.

And what I want is for him to get any medical attention, you know, medical attention that he should get, which means that he should be moved to a

place where there's a hospital that we can make sure that he's getting the treatment that he needs. And this has not been the case up till now.

GOLODRYGA: You know, that proof of life came from Eli Sharabi and Or Levy, who were released in early February too. Just shocking images of how they

had been treated. Extremely thin, had been abused, had not been given much food at all. And came back to tell you about the fact that they saw your

son. And while yes, he had been badly injured and was treated terribly inhumanely in shackles, he was still alive.

Did you think from February 8th to now where we are, April 1st, that it would still be so long before your son too would be released, especially

given the dire circumstances and poor health that he is in?

OHEL: Yes. Yes, I do. I don't understand it. I was thinking that this is - - will be continuous and -- from phase one to phase two. For me, phase one has not ended because phase one was with injured and humanitarian issues,

and Alon is definitely injured and humanitarian. So, I do not understand why he is taking so long.

Eli and Or, and also Eliya were with him the whole time, the whole 490 days before they went out. So, they've been together, the four of them. Three of

them have returned, and Alon is the only one who stayed. So, he's alone now. And it is also crucial because he is alone and because he is being

treated that way.

To get as fast as possible him home, it is not -- it is hard for us. It is -- you know, if you just imagine -- anyone out there, just imagine the fact

that you have a son, which you cannot talk to, we haven't seen for 500 today, 543 days today, I haven't heard his voice. I haven't seen him. I

haven't talked to him, and I know that he's in these conditions.

Now, my son is a fighter. OK. He's fighting for 543 days today for his life. He's doing everything in his power to make sure that he survives.

What I'm asking is for him to be returned, for him to get any medical attention that he needs to make sure that he doesn't go blind in the other

eye and that he will survive this. So, that is what I'm asking.

And I know that President Trump has the power, he has the ability to help Alon and bring him home and bring all the hostages home.

GOLODRYGA: Yes. And we should note that Alon sustained that injury to his eye on October 7, 2023.

OHEL: Yes.

[13:20:00]

GOLODRYGA: Since then, he's had two birthdays that he tragically has been in Gaza there to observe and held in dungeons as had been detailed in

testimony from those released hostages. You blame Hamas because, as you said -- well, obviously, everyone blames Hamas for the atrocities of

October 7th, but specifically you say Hamas lied because he was not included in that first phase of hostages to be released earlier this year

given his injury.

When you saw Yarden Bibas and Keith Siegel speak over the weekend about how terribly treated they were and the little food that they received, but at

the same time, know that all of these returned hostages have been taken to the streets, to interviews, to shout to the world, to your government that

they will not stop until all hostages come home, including your son, does that give you a bit of encouragement to know that you're not fighting

alone?

OHEL: Of course. Of course. This is not just my fight. Yes, Alon is my son, but he is all of us son. He's not just my son. And the fact that

people and the hostages that returned and, you know, the world, civilians, everybody is fighting for my son and all the other hostages. Of course, he

makes me feel that I'm not alone. I shouldn't be alone in this.

This is -- Alon is an innocent civilian. You have to understand. He went to Nova Festival. He's a pianist. He went to have fun. He went to a play and

he was kidnapped. And this is wrong. This is not humane. This is not humane. And I'm -- and I don't -- the thing that I don't understand in this

whole thing is that if in Gaza we can -- people can go inside and give some medical attention to the Palestinian (INAUDIBLE) and why is my son who is

injured -- OK, who is injured is not getting a treatment? I don't understand that. How is that possible? How is it possible? How does the

world think that it's OK? I don't understand.

GOLODRYGA: I know that you are pleading with President Trump, all of the returned hostages. I've spent a number of weeks in Israel on multiple trips

there since October 7th. I just returned a few weeks ago. And you still talk to these hostages and their families that are so grateful for

President Biden, but especially President Trump because that is when this last ceasefire and hostage deal came together.

You are appealing to him right now. I'm just wondering what is your message and what have your conversations been like with Prime Minister Netanyahu?

And you spoke with him recently. I know you and your husband did. Do you feel that he is prioritizing the release of your son and all of the other

hostages as much as he should?

OHEL: In his heart, in his eyes, he is. OK. He's trying what he thinks is best as a prime minister. I hope that this is true. I hope that this is

what -- how he sees things and things -- that is the way to get my son home and all the other hostages. I really do hope so.

I always say, you know, until Alon is not with me, I don't know. I don't know. I want to see Alon with me. So, I have no idea, but I am hoping. Yes.

GOLODRYGA: Do you worry as the fighting has been renewed, you know, the government is saying this actually is what puts more pressure on Hamas to

release the hostages. There's always concern. You talk to hostages that have come back, that say it was very frightening when they would hear the

bombings and they were concerned about their own safety. Are these conversations that you have with the prime minister?

OHEL: I don't know if it's with the prime minister, but I do know that when the fighting -- when there's fighting, the hostages are in more

danger. I do know this. I'm concerned about this. I have told anyone that I can speak with and that I'm concerned about this and -- but the government

says that this is a way for them to get pressure on Hamas. I don't know.

It's like a two-sided thing. It's a pressure. And also, I'm worried about the fact that it's also dangerous for the hostages, for the living

hostages, especially. I'm very worried. You know, I'm just a mother and I just want my son home. And I miss the little things. The little things for

him.

[13:25:00]

I miss him, you know, just his voice saying, mom. I haven't heard his voice for 543 days. I miss that. It's the little things.

GOLODRYGA: It's the little things, but it's something that every mother can relate to. And knowing those little things mean the world to them. And

you say that music means the world to your son. It is who he is. As I said, I just actually returned from Israel with my family. Went to Hostage Square

a number of times, and I was really touched to see the piano that you donated there to Hostage Square. We're showing video of it that my mother

took. The yellow piano with his image on it to remind everyone that comes to Hostage Square about your son, about his passion for music, about his

passion for life.

So, we're showing a bit of this video right now to our viewers. And I have to say your strength, it is just -- it's something to marvel at. I know you

said that day on October 7th when you got the phone call, you had two options. One was to go back into bed and never get up again, and the other

one was to fight. And you have been fighting now every single day since. We appreciate your time and we also are praying for your son to come home

alive and for all of the hostages to be reunited with their families and for this war to come to an end. Idit Ohel, thank you for taking the time.

OHEL: Thank you so much. Thank you.

GOLODRYGA: And stay with CNN. We'll be right back after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GOLODRYGA: Well, next to another one of President Donald Trump's executive orders aiming to exert control over the American election process, an area

that is traditionally regulated by individual states. The order calls for mandating proof of citizenship for registered voters and disqualifying

ballots arriving post-election day.

Loyola Law professor and former Biden administration policy adviser Justin Levitt explains to Hari Sreenivasan why the order is largely illegal and

unconstitutional.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HARI SREENIVASAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Bianna, thanks. Justin Levitt, thanks so much for joining us. Last week the president signed an

executive order titled Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections. In it, the president is really trying to reshape who can go to

the polls. What was your first reaction when you saw it?

JUSTIN LEVITT, PROFESSOR, LOYOLA LAW SCHOOL AND FORMER SENIOR POLICY ADVISER FOR DEMOCRACY AND VOTING RIGHTS, BIDEN ADMINISTRATION: My first

reaction is that's not a power he has. I think we're used to seeing this president in particular take very big swings on issues where he's got some

big power, and the question is whether he's using it correctly. So, issues like immigration or tariffs or commerce, those are things where the

president has a lot of power in our system. And the question is he doing it right?

On this issue, on federal elections, the president has very little power. And I say that as somebody who used to work in the White House advising the

president on voting rights. The elections are run by the states. Congress gets to intervene from time to time. They've done so in a few very select

areas, but they haven't really given the president much authority. And so, my first reaction was this is him writing on the slate that does not grant

him the authority he's purporting to have.

[13:30:00]

SREENIVASAN: So, his concern and the concern of many conservatives for quite -- well, decades now and Project 2025, which really kind of

articulated what their interests and intent was with these sorts of executive orders, was that, you know, he says that under the Constitution,

state governments must safeguard American elections and compliance with federal laws. Yet, the United States has not adequately enforced federal

election requirements. Is that a fair assessment?

LEVITT: I don't believe so. There are several election requirements that federal law has put in place, and while I also served in the Department of

Justice enforcing those very laws. It's true that enforcement could always be incrementally better. I don't believe there's been any significant

failure in that record.

The last few elections have been among the most heavily scrutinized in the country's history, including, I should add, the elections that this

president, one, fairly tallying the fact that he got more votes and more Electoral College states than his opponent. And that the federal election

laws in each of those last several elections helped ensure, along with a lot of state regulation, that people who were eligible were voting and

people who were not eligible were not.

SREENIVASAN: For our audience, especially the overseas ones, can you help break down kind of where the responsibilities lie of the federal government

when it comes to elections and the states, and there's this commission in between that most people don't know about.

LEVITT: So, the Constitution assigns the power to regulate elections to the states in the first instance. And most of the rules that we're used to

obeying, including people who are voting overseas, most of those rules are set by the states. The Constitution also clearly says that Congress can

override those rules for federal elections, if it wishes. And it has in a few instances, including, again, a particular note for folks overseas, a

federal statute that allows people the federal right to vote, if you're an overseas citizen.

There are very few pieces of that puzzle where Congress has assigned a role to the Executive branch, the Federal Executive Branch, by design. One of

those is this Election Assistance Commission. It's a bipartisan body put in place in 2002, and has very few regulatory pieces of authority. It gives

out grant money when Congress gives grant money. Congress hasn't done that in about 20 years. It sets the standards for voting machines, which states

can either choose to obey or not. They're voluntary and they're branded as voluntary by statute.

And perhaps with most relevance here, this Election Assistance Commission, this bipartisan body sets the federal voter registration form. The

president in this executive order is purporting to tell the Election Assistance Commission what to do with that form. There are a couple

problems with that. One, it doesn't have the power to tell them what to do. And two, the particular thing that he's told them to do is something that

Congress has forbidden.

SREENIVASAN: Why has Congress forbidden it?

LEVITT: So, the National Voter Registration Act is the primary statute most Americans note as motor voter, it's the way that you go to the DMV, go

to motor vehicles, get a driver's license, and then you're asked at the same time, do you want to register to vote? It does a few other things in

addition to that, including letting people go to public assistance offices or disability offices do the same one, stop shopping.

And among other things, it sets one national mail-in voter registration form a postcard that's pretty simple to fill out. When Congress was

contemplating this in 1993, it thought about, it reacted to the question of whether people could be asked to add documentation, whether they could be

asked to show their papers along with the form. And Congress very explicitly decided, no, that would get in the way of this quick and simple,

easy postcard application that they were setting up.

SREENIVASAN: So, this executive order is asking to -- asking the Election Commission to change the form so that you have to prove your citizenship.

Now, on its face, that seems like a relatively innocuous idea. Citizens of the United States should be the ones voting in the elections. What are the

concerns?

LEVITT: And with that idea that citizens of the United States should be the one voting elections, I don't think anybody's got a problem. You're

right, that is innocuous. That's the rule we've had for a very long time in federal, state, and the vast majority of local elections.

So, this isn't really about who gets to vote, it's really about how you prove it. And the president's executive order purports to say -- again, I

don't think it's lawful, so I don't think it's going to take effect. But it purports to say that when you submit this form, you have to also submit

very specific documentation of your citizenship, a passport, a military ID with proof of citizenship, and I don't think most of them have that.

Another government photo ID with proof of citizenship. And most government IDs don't have that.

It specifically leaves out the one proof of citizenship that most people have, which is a birth certificate. Something that's very explicitly not on

the list. And the problem is that most of us walking around don't have our citizenship papers in hand.

[13:35:00]

It's unusual in this country to be asked to show your papers, to show that you're a citizen. And so, there are millions of Americans, both at home in

America and also overseas, who are citizens are eligible, but don't have their documentation readily available, papers in hand to prove it.

SREENIVASAN: Speaking of detecting the levels of fraud. I mean, one of the conservative organizations behind Project 2025 is one of the sites that's

most often referred to when it comes to tracking how many cases of voter fraud there have been in elections. Put the numbers in perspective for us.

LEVITT: So, they have found a handful of instances where people have, mostly mistakenly, registered or voted without having been a citizen. And

when I say a handful, I mean, double digits over the course of several decades. And in the same period of time, more than a billion, with a B,

ballots have been cast.

So, it happens, and I don't want to say it doesn't happen, but it happens at infinitesimally, small numbers. And there's a good reason for that. If

you're a non-citizen and you register and vote and knowingly sign fraudulently a sworn oath saying you're a citizen, then you get to cast at

most one ballot. But also, you've just left an indelible paper trail to the fact that you've committed a federal, and in many cases, a state crime,

$10,000 in fines, multiple years in jail, and it is absolutely standard practice for immigration officials to check, among other things in a

standard background check, to check the voter rolls to see if you've registered or voted, that'll get in the way of your naturalization. It'll

get in the way of a change of status. It might actually get you deported. And so, for any individual non-citizen, it makes no sense whatsoever to try

to register and vote.

SREENIVASAN: According to a bipartisan policy center analysis of the Heritage Foundation's website, which tracks some of these, they found only

77 instances of non-citizens voting between 1999 and 2023, so almost in a 25-year span. So, if the fraud numbers are this small, why is the executive

branch following this so closely and trying to take these steps?

LEVITT: It's a good question. I wish I had a better answer for you. I think they've been captured by a little bit of conspiracy theory. That's

the benign explanation is they honestly believe that this is happening, even though there's absolutely no proof. And this is a consistent claim, by

the way. The president, before the 2016 election, which he won, claimed without any evidence whatsoever that millions of non-citizens had voted.

He's kept up that drumbeat for the last eight, nine years. The fact that he keeps saying it doesn't make it any more true because there has never been

any evidence to support this, despite years of calling for the evidence.

The less benign explanation is that the goal is actually to provide a little bit of security theater while actually making it harder to register

and vote. I think the danger there, particularly for the president and his party, is these laws don't impact on a partisan level, they impact real

American citizens regardless of who they plan on voting for, and I think they're going to keep an awful lot of -- again, if they were to go into

effect, they're going to keep an awful lot of both Democrats and Republicans who are eligible to vote away from the polls unnecessarily.

SREENIVASAN: Another portion of this executive order really focuses on mail-in voting, and the E.O. wants the attorney general, Pam Bondi, to

ensure that only ballots mailed in and received by election day are counted. Is there some legal precedent for when someone has to stop

accepting ballots on election day, or whether or not, say it was over the weekend that the -- if the mail trickles in, maybe there was a storm that

delayed whatever the transit was, is there any precedent for that?

LEVITT: There's some, but it's not very good precedent. So, there's -- one state was sued in the last election cycle in 2024. Mississippi had this

practice where if you cast a ballot on election day, it's postmarked on election day, but it happens to come in a few days later, it still gets

counted. There are a bunch of states across the country that have similar rules.

Mississippi's law was challenged. And in the very conservative Fifth Circuit, the Court of Appeals that handles cases out of Texas and

Mississippi and Louisiana, they said that the federal statute declaring that we're going to have one election day means that ballots have to be

received by election day.

[13:40:00]

No other court in the country that I'm aware of has taken up that interpretation of the federal statute. There are lots of states that have

purported to comply with federal statute for a very long time that says, yes, sure. We've got one election day. And if you cast and postmark your

ballot by that day, then if it happens to arrive a few days later, it's fine. This is something that's being challenged in several courts around

the country right now.

The president does not have the authority to interpret the law. That's up to the federal courts. I think this portion of the executive order is going

to supercharge consideration in other courts around the country, but I'd be very surprised if any of them went the way that the Mississippi Court of

Appeals did.

SREENIVASAN: So, what part of the executive order do you think will hold up in court? And I guess the corollary, is if several of these things are

challenged and found to be unconstitutional or cannot be implemented, is this part of a larger pattern here where the executive just keeps basically

trying to put out their interests in the form of executive orders? What are the implications?

LEVITT: I think both of those things are true. I think there are things in this executive order, as in most of the president's executive orders. that

are within his power, they're just not the things that most people are focused on.

So, for example, the executive order directs the commissioner's Social Security to match data with state voter registration rules in order to

confirm people's identity in order to make sure they haven't passed away. That's lawful. It's lawful because Congress said it was lawful 20 years

ago, and the commissioner's been doing exactly that for the last 20 years.

So, the president's instruction doesn't do much. That certainly doesn't do much different than what's already happening, but that also makes it

lawful. Congress has clearly said you can go ahead and do this. The president has asked DHS for a few reports on the security of voting

systems. I think that's a fine idea. It's also clearly within his power to ask his own administration to provide him reports.

The president has sought to set the priorities of the attorney general, the high-level priorities of what the attorney general should focus on with

respect to election statutes. And that too is standard issue and entirely within its power.

So, I don't think the very fact of the executive order makes everything in it unconstitutional. It's just the balance is way, way, way off. The amount

of stuff that's legal is far smaller than the amount of stuff that's not.

Why do we see this? I think a couple of things. I think this president, in particular, focuses on marketing. Almost to the exclusion of all else. So,

a little bit of this is projecting power that he doesn't have. This is not the first executive order to have done that.

I think also the president is trying to condition us, condition the population to expecting that he will wield power that's not in his

constitutional realm. In several executive orders now, he's asserted power he doesn't have. And by continuing to assert that power, he's trying to

train us to believing that he has constitutional power he does not have. I'll say that's on us to consider on our end that only has power if we let

it have power. And I think the courts are helping us understand that sometimes when he's asserting power, he's not asserting it lawfully.

SREENIVASAN: Professor of Law at Loyola Law School, Justin Levitt, thanks so much for joining us.

LEVITT: Of course. My pleasure. Thanks for having me on.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GOLODRYGA: All right. Coming up after the break. "Operation Mincemeat" is now on Broadway. We revisit Christiane's conversation with historian Ben

Macintyre on the extraordinary World War II spy mission that inspired the hit musical.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:45:00]

GOLODRYGA: Now, from the West End to Broadway, the award-winning production of "Operation Mincemeat" has just landed stateside and it's

getting rave reviews. It's based on a World War II spy mission success, where the British managed to deceive the German Nazis covering up the

Allies' plans to invade Sicily. It's a story so fascinating that it became the focus of historian and author Ben Macintyre's 2010 book and later

adapted into a movie starring Colin Firth as it hit cinemas in 2022.

Macintyre joined Christiane on the set to break down the details of this extraordinary wartime bluff.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BEN MACINTYRE, AUTHOR, "OPERATION MINCEMEAT": I mean, it's an extraordinary story. It's 1943, the allies are poised in North Africa for

the huge invasion of Europe that everybody knows is coming, the Americans, the British, the Canadians, they're all ready to go, and there's an obvious

target, which is Sicily. Because if you control Sicily, you control the Central Mediterranean.

So, everyone knew that the most likely place was Sicily. So, the job of the spies and spooks was to try and convince Hitler that it wasn't going to be

Sicily. Actually, this huge armada of troops was heading for Greece. And it was a huge operation. I mean, the deception operation was massive, quite

rightly, as you say, it is still is in modern warfare. But the center piece was this whole thing was something called "Operation Mincemeat," which went

as follows.

And believe it or not, the idea came from Ian Fleming. I mean, I laugh because it sounds so outlandish that the father of James Bond stories

should have been a naval intelligence officer operating inside, deep inside the British secret world came up with the idea and it was the idea went as

follows. Let's get a dead body, let's give it a completely false identity. We will then float it somewhere, with false papers, indicating a looming

attack on Greece, and we'll put it somewhere where the Germans will find it. And they chose Spain because they knew there was a particular spy

network, a German spy network operating in neutral Spain at the time.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: So, it does sound absurd, right? I mean, seriously, floating a body and just hoping

somebody's going to find it?

MACINTYRE: Well, imagine what health and safety would say about that today, I mean, you wouldn't get away with it. It was outlandish, and -- but

it was also intentional. I mean, one of the things that Churchill was brilliant at was identifying that what he called corkscrew minds could

achieve things that much more laterally thinking couldn't do.

And so, he encouraged these people, and they were not ordinary spies, they were eccentrics, they were old balls, they were people who didn't really

fit into the kind of military establishment, and Churchill just threw them together and sort of saw what happened. And in a way, it does sound mad.

But it was just unbelievable enough to be believable. And that was the essence of it.

AMANPOUR: So, these particular corkscrew minds were quietly -- you know, kind of sort of geeky characters, right?

MACINTYRE: That's right.

AMANPOUR: Describe them. I mean, one is tall and lanky. The other one is - -

MACINTYRE: Well, the two people at the center of it went by the wonderful names of Montagu and Cholmondeley. I mean, you couldn't get much more

British than that.

AMANPOUR: That's their real names?

MACINTYRE: That's their names. And one was a (INAUDIBLE) and one was a lawyer, and the other one was a sort of -- was an RAF officer who was too

tall to fly. They couldn't fit him in the cockpit. So, neither of them were sort of active warriors but they wanted to kind of fight a secret war. And

they set about creating this character as if they were writing a novel.

AMANPOUR: So, this character is the dead body.

MACINTYRE: The dead body.

AMANPOUR: By the way, where did they get the dead body?

MACINTYRE: Well, this is one of the elements of the story that has never been told before until the British archives were released. He was a Welsh

homeless man who had just died of rat poison. I mean, it's a tragic story. We still don't know whether he committed suicide or whether it was an

accident, whether he was so hungry that he'd eaten bread laced with rat poison. But his body turned up in a mortuary.

And these MI5 and MI6 they said, right, we'll have him. And they kept him on ice, literally, while they built this false identity for him. And that's

one of the more extraordinary elements of the story, really, is that they really invented a character, and they gave him a false name and they gave

him a background and they gave him what's called wallet litter in spy --

AMANPOUR: See, that. I read that in the research and I'm thinking, wow, the details had to be so carefully thought out. Wallet litter. Go on.

Explain that what that is.

[13:50:00]

MACINTYRE: Every single element. The point was that when the Germans got hold of this, as they hoped they would, they would go through the contents

of his pockets and they would realize or believe, be fooled into thinking this was a real person. So, he had ticket stubs, an unwrapped mint, a

letter from the bank manager, one from his father, and crucially, and this is in a way where the kind of novelistic element went slightly over the

top, he had a love letter from an invented lover called Pam, written, in fact, by the wonderfully played by Penelope Wilton in this film who was a

real person, who put her heart into writing this fake love letter and --

AMANPOUR: Was she part of the spy group?

MACINTYRE: Oh, absolutely.

AMANPOUR: They were all part of the group?

MACINTYRE: Absolutely. They were all involved. They were all working literally underground in a room called Room 13 under the admiralty, not far

from where we are now. And so -- and also, crucially a photograph. They want -- they thought they'd better send a photograph of this invented

lover, Pam. So, one of the secretaries in the MI5 office provided a photograph or rather a comely (ph) photograph of herself in a bathing suit,

which was then sort of stuck in his pocket.

And the whole idea was to sort of create a fiction that the Germans would believe was true. And, of course, the key element of all of that were the

false documents in a briefcase, chained to his wrist, so that when this body floated ashore from a submarine, secretly taken to the Bay of Cadiz,

he would be bringing with him the information that would send the German army in the wrong direction.

AMANPOUR: So, that -- yes.

MACINTYRE: So, instead of forcing Sicily, they would take troops out of Sicily and move them elsewhere.

AMANPOUR: And that's what they did?

MACINTYRE: Astonishingly, that is what they did. And the reason we know that's what they did is because the Bletchley Park intercepts, which your

viewers will know about, the Enigma intercepts, enabled British intelligence, passing it on to the Americans, obviously, to track this lie

as it was swallowed by the Germans at every state, so they could watch it going down the gullet of German intelligence.

AMANPOUR: It's really, really incredible. And, you know, obviously, there's some -- OK. Why is it called "Operation Mincemeat"?

MACINTYRE: It's was -- it's a sort of reflection of quite how odd these people were. They liked -- and British intelligence, you're issued with a

whole set of possible names. They chose "Operation Mincemeat" because they thought it was funny. Here was a dead body, hence, mincemeat, and they were

also going to somehow make mincemeat of the Germans, it was just a sort of rather tasteless macabre joke.

AMANPOUR: You know, at first, before I'd read into it, and when I heard that the film was out and you had written the book, I thought it was a

deception for D-day because that was also a very elaborate deception.

MACINTYRE: Absolutely.

AMANPOUR: I mean, were they thick, the Germans? I mean, they got really, really, really tricked on two major occasions.

MACINTYRE: Two occasions. Well, interestingly, of course, mincemeat was to try to convince them that what the obvious thing that was going to happen

was not going to happen. And, of course, the D-day invasion was the opposite.

AMANPOUR: Right. But they still tricked them.

MACINTYRE: They still tricked them. You know, it's not that they were stupid. I mean, the Germans were perfectly capable of launching their own

deception operations. And indeed, one of the elements of "Operation Mincemeat" was the fear that actually while it looked like the Germans were

swallowing this, they might actually be feeding back.

AMANPOUR: Right. Counter.

MACINTYRE: Counter misinformation.

AMANPOUR: Yes, yes.

MACINTYRE: And as the Colin Firth character says, we may be the victims of the greatest ruse that has ever been played. So, the Germans were not

stupid. They were on the whole lateral -- more lateral thinkers, if you like. They -- if you like, the British tend to think in corkscrew ways and

the Germans tend to think in straight lines.

And also, because it was such a hierarchical organization, German intelligence, they tended to tell the boss what the boss wanted to hear.

AMANPOUR: Well --

MACINTYRE: And that's fatal.

AMANPOUR: Well, I mean, look, we're talking about exactly what you have just said at a moment where American and other intelligence has determined

that the boss in the current war, Putin, is perhaps or has been anyway getting not the truth but what the others think the boss wants to hear.

MACINTYRE: Well, that's the big danger, in all intelligence services actually. And it's particularly acute in dictatorships, which is that if

you are a spy gathering intelligence and the boss has made it perfectly clear what he wants to hear, if you tell him what he doesn't want to hear,

you'll be fired. If you tell him what he does want to hear and it turns out to be wrong, as appears to have happened in Ukraine, you'll be fired.

So, your only option really is to tell him what he wants to hear and pray that it turns out to be right. So, that's no way to run any kind of

intelligence service. And in truth, that is also what really undid the Nazis in the Second World War. They were so determined to please the bosses

that they never really questioned anything that looked like it might contradict that.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GOLODRYGA: And finally, in Northern India, Buddhist monks came together to offer condolences to the victims of the devastating earthquake, which

struck Myanmar on Friday. Foreign aid and rescue teams have started arriving in the war-torn country After the military junta invited issued a

rare plea for help. As the death toll surpasses 2,700, these monks lit candles and said prayers and solidarity with the majority Buddhist

neighbor.

Well, that is it for now. Of course, our thoughts and prayers are with them as well. If you ever miss our show, you can find the latest episode shortly

after it airs on our podcast. Remember, you can always catch us online, on our website, and all-over social media.

Thank you for watching, and goodbye from New York.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:00:00]

END