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Amanpour
Interview with Civil Rights Activist Martin Luther King III; Interview with American University Polarization and Extremism Research Innovation Lab Founding Director and "Man Up" Author Cynthia Miller-Idriss; Interview with Artist Jenny Saville; Interview with "Breakneck" Author Dan Wang. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired September 11, 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.
After the assassination of conservative youth activist and key Trump ally Charlie Kirk, I speak to Martin Luther King III and an expert on political
violence, Cynthia Miller Idris.
Then, the anatomy of painting celebrated British artist Jenny Saville tells me about what inspires her extraordinary work. And her better, late than
never, blockbuster London exhibition.
Plus, "Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future." Author Dan Wang tells Walter Isaacson about his best-selling book and how the U.S. can keep
up with its greatest competitor.
Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London.
America is reeling and the world is shocked after conservative youth activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated. The right-wing influencer was
fatally shot on Wednesday during an outdoor appearance at Utah Valley University. A manhunt is underway and the killer's motive is as yet
unknown.
Kirk was a longtime Trump ally. The White House has lowered its flags to half-staff. And President Trump calls this a dark moment for America.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: My administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political
violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it, as well as those who go after our judges, law enforcement officials, and everyone
else.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Acts of violence such as these are not isolated or unique to one side of the political aisle. Just a few months ago in Minnesota, two
Democratic state lawmakers and their spouses were targeted by a gunman. Two of them, Melissa and Mark Hortman, were killed in that attack. In 2022, the
former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's home was broken into and her husband was attacked almost fatally. And the president himself has faced two
assassination attempts.
So, with toxic rhetoric and partisan division on the rise in a country awash with powerful weapons, what can be done to rein this in? Martin
Luther King III has experienced this violence firsthand as the son of the civil rights leader who was assassinated in 1968, Dr. King. And he's
joining me now from Atlanta. Welcome to our program.
MARTIN LUTHER KING III, CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST: Thank you.
AMANPOUR: It's a very, very hard day. And you have direct personal experience with what has happened today. So, I want to ask you, what can
you tell me is your reaction to what's happened?
KING III: Well, my first reaction from my wife and I is to extend our condolences to the Kirk family, to Charlie Kirk's wife and two young
children. As you stated, I personally understand because I was so young when my father was killed. And the reality, we know this. We just have not
learned how to practice it yet. And what I mean by that is we as a nation have to always reject rhetoric and violence. Violence is never the answer.
We as a nation must grow past what is going on. This is -- it's -- number one, it's not sustainable.
Certainly, it's beyond -- it's morally incorrect because we can have civil disagreements and discuss, right? But all of our elected officials and all
of our leadership must call us to a higher account, to a much higher angels. This is so tragic that this has happened. And other violence that
is occurring, a school shooting as well, that is constantly occurring. There is something that we are not addressing. It's not just mental health.
That may be one of the issues, but there are significant issues.
[13:05:00]
You first have to create a climate. I mean, my dad and mom taught us how to disagree without being disagreeable. And we must find a way to teach that
to everyone.
AMANPOUR: Gosh, it seems so far, far away with all the stats and what we see in front of our own eyes with this kind of political violence rising.
We're told and we see it and also abroad, but certainly in the United States. We hear from The New York Times opinion editor that -- who's just
written violence is the enemy of liberal institutions. In a free society, people with diverse views should be able to argue their positions without
fear of violence, as you've -- you know, you've said yourself.
I thought one of the most important reactions from a leader in America was from George W. Bush, who essentially wrote, again, that, you know, today
this young man was murdered in cold blood for expressing his political views. It had happened on a campus. But he says -- he goes on to say,
members of other political parties are not our enemies. They are our fellow citizens. He says, may God bless Charlie Kirk and his family and may God
guide America towards civility.
So, those -- there are three points there that I wonder whether can happen. Can America be guided to civility and much of the world as well? Can
political parties, you know, just be -- just have political differences instead of treating the opposite numbers as enemies? It seems to be
happening right now.
KING III: Well, the question of can is certainly absolutely, I would say. The real question is, we have the ability, but do we have the will? How do
you dig deep into the will to actually, number one, treat people with civility, whether you agree or disagree? There are many positions I
disagree with, but that does not mean that we should go a further step and to try to silence someone. That is insane. And we keep doing the same thing
over and over again.
I remember in 1968, there were -- when my father was killed, 100 cities across America were actually -- where rioting occurred. The one city, a
major city that it didn't was in Indianapolis. And why? Because Robert Kennedy made a profound statement to encourage the community to think about
how they respond to this tragedy of dad being killed. And that city did not go up in flames.
So, my point is leadership on all sides must exhibit a different kind of tone than the rhetoric that we continue to embrace. My dad would say, and
I'm -- I still believe this, nonviolence. We must learn nonviolence or we may face nonexistence. And that it feels like we're close to trying to
embrace the nonexistence. We've got to demonstrate better than what we are at this particular moment.
AMANPOUR: And as you say, it begs the question of leadership and the will, the political will to engage in this kind of resolution, conflict
resolution and de-escalation. At this point, I would like to play a little bit of an interview I did with Charlie Kirk years ago. It was in 2018
before he became as famous as he is now, as he was. He spoke to me from CPAC, which is the conservative convention, as you know. And that was
shortly after the mass killing of students in in Florida at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
You know, at the time, he was willing to entertain some limits or controls on gun ownership. His views did shift in later years, but even then, he was
doing what he's known for and what he was doing on the Utah campus, engaging openly in debate on contentious political topics. So, here's a
little bit of what Charlie Kirk told me back in 2018.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHARLIE KIRK, POLITICAL ACTIVIST: Look, it's not an easy discussion. It's a highly personal issue. And for those of us that own weapons and those of
us that take this really personally, you have to understand that there is this fear that government's going to take our guns away. And that's not
going to happen, but it's a conversation worth having. And look, it transcends politics.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: So, a conversation was having, Martin Luther King, that transcends politics. Can we, though, even have those conversations now?
KING III: Well, at the end of the day, I don't know if it's a matter of can, it is more a matter of we must, because if we refuse to have these
conversations and this kind of behavior continues to exhibit itself and exist, as I say, human humankind will be no more.
[13:10:00]
And we have lost our humanity over these last few years, it feels to me. And I just believe in the existence of humanity in our nation and on our
planet. And yet, it doesn't feel like that exists. We got to -- how do we re-contain it? And it's really creating a climate. I think that's the
spirit of it.
My dad was stabbed back in the late '50s. And he came the next day and didn't say, well, violence goes for violence. I must respond in a way
that's disruptive. I'm going to continue to respond in a way of constructive bringing people together. I think we must create a climate
where people want to work together, even if they don't agree. There's something that all of us as human beings can agree on. And probably we have
to start at that one issue. What is the one issue that at least the majority of us can agree on? And then we have to build from there.
It does not ever mean we're going to agree on all issues. We're not a monolithic people. We're not a monolithic nation. We're not monolithic
ethnic groups. There's diversity in every ethnic group. And we must elevate that and continue to dialogue, continue to discuss. We can get past these
times, but it's not going to happen overnight and easily.
But it will -- it can happen if our political leadership, if our religious leadership, if our business leadership are collectively to join and say,
this is the way we should resolve conflict. This is the way that is sustainable, because it really is about how do we sustain human beings?
AMANPOUR: You know, I hate to do this because, you know, it's just a horrible time. But President Trump himself, while, you know, abhorring what
happened to his friend and ally, blamed immediately what he called the radical left and, you know, basically, you know, doubling down on what he
says a lot. And surely, it's going to take leaders, elected leaders from the president on down to do what you're saying needs to be done.
For instance, Gabby Giffords, who herself was a victim of political violence. I covered it when that happened to her. She was shot very
grievously. She just wrote, both parties have been targeted and both parties share a moral and patriotic duty to take meaningful action to stop
gun crime from claiming more lives.
I know that you agree with that. But is there a specific prescription that at least you could imagine as a start to that? Because even in -- on the
House floor last night, some kind of, you know, call for a moment of tribute or respect was a shouting match.
KING III: Well, it's really untenable to see what is happening in the political landscape. And, you know, I often wonder when an elected official
says a statement, is that something he or she really feels, or is that something that they think they're saying to convey an advantage? I cannot
see how certain language is advantageous.
There's a way to accomplish your goals and objectives without diminishing and integrating others, even if you disagree with them or they disagree
with you. Again, the only -- the example I had -- one of the examples I have is my dad and mom. They showed us over and over again how we can
disagree to disagree, but yet still move the ball forward. And it is about creating that climate. And it's not just one leader. It's leadership.
AMANPOUR: Yes.
KING III: And, you know, I certainly agree with Gabby Giffords and the statement she made and others have. And certainly, the statement that
President Bush made was quite powerful. I thought that was quite important. And I think that kind of tone, that kind of attitude has to come from all
of us.
AMANPOUR: Can you just remind us again, because I think it's so instructive of this moment for you to just elaborate, you know, when your
father, Dr. King, was assassinated in 1968, you mentioned presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy happened to be, I think you said, in
Indianapolis. And he came out --
KING III: Indianapolis.
AMANPOUR: Yes. And put his -- put himself on the line between angry people and the -- you know, the choice to try to calm them down. Just remind us
all of that moment of leadership.
[13:15:00]
KING III: Yes. So, the night my father was killed, April 4th of 1968, Robert Kennedy was campaigning for the Democratic nominee to become
president of the United States. And that particular group of folks that he was talking to in a city in America where at the same time or shortly after
in over 100 United States cities, rioting occurred. But Robert Kennedy set a tone in his message of what we must do to retain and sustain civility,
lifting us to our higher angels. And that is the kind of tone we need today in a real sense, because we're not operating -- we're operating on emotion.
We're operating on anxiety. We're operating on a lot of things that do not always yield the best results.
We must look to our higher angels, look to the stars, look to become better than we ever have if we're going to overcome these politically violent
activities, and violence just in general. That violence is never the way I was at Yale University just a couple of days ago. And I was dealing with
the topic of violence will never be the answer. And I believe that.
AMANPOUR: Yes.
KING III: But that climate has to be created. It doesn't happen on its own.
AMANPOUR: Exactly. Martin Luther King III, thank you so much for your wisdom and historic experience personally and firsthand. Thank you very
much.
And overseas, from the U.K. to Europe and Japan, there have been multiple political assassinations in recent years. Expert Cynthia Miller-Idris is
joining me now from Washington, D.C. Thank you for being with us.
You've been, you know, seeing what happened. You've been listening and watching the fallout you just heard from somebody who really knows, you
know, what this all means and what's happened to the Kirk family. Where do you see an immediate effort to tamp the fear and the anger and maybe some
kind of initial leadership coming from now?
CYNTHIA MILLER-IDRISS, FOUNDING DIRECTOR, POLARIZATION AND EXTREMISM RESEARCH INNOVATION LAB, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY AND AUTHOR, "MAN UP": Yes.
Well, thanks for having me, Christiane. I mean, we have seen this before, as Dr. King's son just said, you know, we're not even at the worst of the
sort of historical moments when we've seen these sorts of escalations happen, when there were 100 cities burning after Martin Luther King's
assassination in 1968.
And this is the moment to see the kind of de-escalation of rhetoric, the calling of people together and to remind people that violence is not a
solution to political disagreement. And we are seeing some of that come. I mean, a lot of that come from across the political spectrum in meaningful
ways. I'm not seeing it as much as I would like on social media, though. And in in a kind of more youth-oriented population where you're really
seeing rhetorics, you know, ramping up, both calling for civil war and also celebrating the assassination.
AMANPOUR: I mean, it's grotesque. Honestly, it is grotesque. So, let me just ask you, because there are actual facts and data polls on this issue.
So, they're consistently showing a rising tendency among American voters to support the use of force against political opponents. A recent survey by
the Chicago Project on Security and Threats, that's at the University of Chicago, finds that about 40 percent of Democrats would support forcefully
removing Trump from the presidency and 25 percent of Republicans support using the military to stop anti-Trump protests.
You know, this is a really worrying trend, aided and abetted, as you say, by the anonymity and the exponential amplification of social media.
MILLER-IDRIS: Yes, it's a really worrisome trend. It's a trend that's been in play for many years now. Rising support for willing -- for political
violence and willingness to engage in it. Growing up across the political spectrum, along with, inevitably almost, is where it feels like rising acts
of political violence, including assassinations.
And I'm really struck by the fact that I was sitting in this same chair about a year ago talking to you about the assassination attempt on
President Trump. And hearing -- you know, and said something like it was it was only a matter of time before we got to political assassinations. That's
what it felt like a year ago. And here we are. And since then, we've had several acts of political violence or assassinations against elected
officials. The arson attempt on Governor Shapiro's home, the Minnesota shootings of elected officials, and now this.
And so, you know, it's a question of whether the boulder is so quickly rolling down the hill now that there's no way to off ramp it. I don't
believe that. I think we can still prevent further escalations, but it's a really critical moment to stop that tinderbox from exploding.
[13:20:00]
AMANPOUR: And in my last interview with Dr. King's son, I played a little bit of a of an interview I'd done with Charlie Kirk after a mass killing at
that Florida high school. And even at Utah, just before he died, as he was talking, he was engaging in a debate on a provocative topic, no doubt,
about gun control.
They're very permissive gun laws in the United States. This campus was an open carry campus. It allowed people to carry guns. Is this the moment also
to talk about that? Is that the issue or is it a bigger issue now? We passed gun control and onto something even more difficult.
MILLER-IDRIS: Well, gun control is one of the most intractable issues in the US, as you know. It's incredibly difficult to see that the gun laws
that we have do not reflect the majority of Americans' desires for safer communities or for stricter gun control. So, you know, we're in a situation
where it seems intractable. It's very difficult to change.
And I think we also see that even in this case, more guns, more security doesn't make us safer in in every case. And, you know, so he had a private
security team, he had law enforcement locally, he had campus security. And, you know, there has to be an additional way for us not just to kind of
barricade and arm our ways into safer communities, but also invest in prevention so that people know where to report warning signs.
Most mass shooters leak their intentions at some point. We don't know if this person did, but most do. And a lot of times communities don't know
where to go with that information, how to report it, or we don't have the structures in place. Those are things that are changeable. You just need
the political will and the resources to do it.
AMANPOUR: And what about the fuel? I mean, the political will is something incredibly important. What about the fuel and the fuel of, let's say, these
culture wars? Even Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker himself, no stranger to political polarization. He's said to The New York Times about
there obviously being a culture war underway and there are, quote, "profound differences about the very basics of life between the right and
the left."
MILLER-IDRIS: Yes.
AMANPOUR: That has to be part of this, right?
MILLER-IDRIS: It's absolutely part of that. I mean, it's -- in a way it's the motivation for so many of the recent attacks that we've seen are really
attacks rooted in culture wars because we've come to a place where there's so much of a deep belief in an us versus them mentality that positions the
other as an existential threat to my own community's well-being, safety, security, and future.
And once you get to that point where people believe there's an existential threat, it's a short leap to actually using violence. And so, we see, you
know, college students increasingly were hearing things like there is no political solution, whether it's about climate change or about immigration
on both sides. That's a call to violence as a solution. That has to be -- you know, we have to intervene immediately when you hear that kind of thing
across the dinner table or on the soccer team, right? There have to be ways to intervene in interpersonal ways and training for teachers, for parents,
for caregivers to know how to do that, because we're not going to save ourselves here with just better security.
AMANPOUR: And finally, do you think what happened could have an even worse chilling effect? In other words, the reaction to what happened could cause,
you know, a whole load of crackdowns on the American people? I mean, I was quite taken by, you know, the last bit of President Trump's soundbite that
we played at the beginning of the program. He went on to say that, you know, we will track these people down, but also those who criticize our
judges and who do this, that and the other. Do you think this -- what do you think is going to happen?
MILLER-IDRIS: Well, there's absolutely the risk of suppression of more anti-democratic actions happening as a reaction to this, to restrictions on
freedoms that people have. We've seen that already in the call to prevent transgender people from having guns, right? So, removing, you know, sort of
from a previous attack in Minnesota. So, that kind of rhetoric that reduces, that suppresses, that further backslides our Democratic freedoms
is a risk here. And I think we have to be alert to that and fight back against that with words, not with violence.
And I think we also have to look at the kind of the through lines here around the motivating factors like gender, as I often talk about, you know,
how we are really cultivating such resistance to an anger around both reproductive rights, transgender rights and -- you know, and feminism. Like
there's many of the controversial issues that Kirk talked about that we have to find ways to have conversations about that are not amplifying that
us versus them rhetoric. And we're really struggling to do that, I think, right now in ways that show dialogue.
AMANPOUR: Yes, yes. You have to understand that there are political differences, but that doesn't mean to say that there should be enmity to
this extent for sure.
MILLER-IDRIS: Exactly.
[13:25:00]
AMANPOUR: Cynthia Miller-Idriss, thank you very much indeed. Still to come, the anatomy of painting. I speak to the renowned British artist Jenny
Saville about her hit exhibition at London's National Portrait Gallery.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: Now, our next guest is one of Britain's most celebrated contemporary artists working today. Jenny Saville is best known for her
large-scale oil paintings of nude women. She has an unmistakable style with intimate work that exposes her subjects in extraordinary ways. Her recent
exhibition at London's National Portrait Gallery has been hailed by critics. The Anatomy of Painting was her first major museum exhibition
here, in her home country. And soon it will be at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in Texas. She's joining me now in the studio. Welcome to the
studio.
I don't know where to start. It was a remarkable, remarkable exhibition. It took over the whole of that floor, the ground floor, I think, of the
National Portrait Gallery.
JENNY SAVILLE, ARTIST: Right.
AMANPOUR: I'm surprised that it was the first major gallery exhibition for you, or have I got that wrong? I mean, here in the U.K.
SAVILLE: I've done another one in Scotland.
AMANPOUR: In Scotland.
SAVILLE: Not as many paintings or as comprehensive. But this is my first sort of what you'd call a retrospective.
AMANPOUR: Yes. I read in some of the research that a very famous critic was stunned by the exhibition. And at one point said, I didn't even know
women could be painters. Do you know who I mean? Anyway.
SAVILLE: No.
AMANPOUR: He did. David. Did you find -- has it been difficult?
SAVILLE: I think hopefully that's changed now.
AMANPOUR: Yes, yes. He's amazed by this current exhibition.
SAVILLE: Oh, because --
AMANPOUR: Was it difficult as a woman, do you think?
SAVILLE: What? Coming up through the art world?
AMANPOUR: Yes. Or was it not?
SAVILLE: There were not as many women when I first started showing. But now, the art world's full of women, you know, in every area of the art
world. From collectors, to painters, to sculptors, people working in museums. So, I don't find --
AMANPOUR: Much better now.
SAVILLE: Yes, it's definitely an improved scenario.
AMANPOUR: Yes. So, let's ask about a few of them. We have some slides that have been provided. And one of them is Reverse. Tell me about Reverse.
SAVILLE: Well, it's one of my iconic works, I guess. I made it for a show called Migrants in New York in 2003. It's a self-portrait. And, you know,
at that period, it was my second show in New York. I'd done a show called Territories. And then, this was the one called Migrants. It was the first
piece I finished for that show.
I don't know. At that time, I really liked making heads that had a sort of bolder type shape. And I put my head on the floor with a mirror. And it's
got three eyes, a reflected eye. And I tried to make the mouth very sensual.
AMANPOUR: It's very, very -- I mean, when you walk up to it and you see it, I mean, it is -- I mean, we know it's a painting, but it really does
feel like looking at another person live. I mean, it's got a --
SAVILLE: I'm glad --
AMANPOUR: -- connection.
SAVILLE: And also, just, I don't know, there's little bits across the painting. Like up at the ear, there's this part of the ear here. I made
this little white shape that looked like a mountain. And so, hopefully, as you sort of traverse your eye around the painting, there's sort of moments
that your eye gets more caught in.
And, you know, I like painting the gums. And I really remember, like, you know, getting the light reflected in the eye and the scale of the eyeballs.
And I'm fond of that painting.
[13:30:00]
AMANPOUR: It's really amazing. And another one struck me. I hope I'm getting the pronunciation right. Again, it's a head, Chissat. Tell me who
that is and why you picked that portrait. Is that a name? Is that the subject's name?
SAVILLE: It's not.
AMANPOUR: No?
SAVILLE: Often, I don't use the names of the actual sitters, partly to protect the anonymity of the sitter, so they can choose if they want to
kind of, you know, be known as the sitter or not. And she was an ecology student, actually, an ecologist. And I don't know. I love the -- meeting
her and the look she had in her eyes. She had these beautiful eyes and sensual lips. So, it's just one of the paintings I really loved to make.
AMANPOUR: One of your -- I think I'm going to get this right, but a colleague in the art world who works closely with you at Gagosium was
telling me -- I mean, it takes a lot of effort to paint those massive scales that you do. I mean, almost like a workout.
SAVILLE: I don't know.
AMANPOUR: Do you have to get into training?
SAVILLE: No, but I was lucky that I was kind of -- you know, I've always been reasonably fit. So, just the scale -- people talk to me about the
scale, probably because I'm quite small in scale. I've never really felt like it's something I couldn't manage or I just -- I like working on a
large scale. It gives me the possibility to play with paint a lot. And I just -- it's just a natural scale that I've worked in, you know?
AMANPOUR: You -- I mean, your training was mostly at Glasgow University, yes?
SAVILLE: Yes.
AMANPOUR: And you emerged from there already, you know, having taken the art world by storm, at least art galleries like people like Charles
Saatchi, who really sort of, I think -- did he give you your first big push?
SAVILLE: My graduation show had some -- a couple of paintings that are still kind of kept a kind of -- they're sort of known works, which Charles
Saatchi did end up purchasing and then commissioning a body of work. So -- and I just had a run of very fortunate -- it was a fortunate platform that
I had. Certain things came together in my graduation show and I put on what was a reasonably mature group of paintings, I think. And then I got a
commission and worked hard towards that, the Saatchi collection. And then I met my dealer in New York, Larry. And --
AMANPOUR: Larry Gagosian?
SAVILLE: Yes.
AMANPOUR: Yes.
SAVILLE: And I did a few shows in New York and, you know, one thing after another. I love showing in New York. It was such a great moment to go from
showing with Charles in this beautiful space in Boundary Road and making that body of work to them making a body of paintings for New York.
AMANPOUR: And the next exhibit -- I mean, this is moving to Texas, to the Fort Worth Tate Gallery there, right? Tate Museum.
SAVILLE: It's not Tate.
AMANPOUR: It's not.
SAVILLE: It's called Fort Worth Modern.
AMANPOUR: Modern.
SAVILLE: So, it's a beautiful Tadao Ando building.
AMANPOUR: Yes.
SAVILLE: The architect, Tadao Ando.
AMANPOUR: Yes. I mean, you know, I've been to some of the museums there. It's incredible what they have. It's a great art loving, you know,
community, unbelievable philanthropy around the arts. Do you -- I mean, it is -- you are going there at a moment when museums are somewhat under
stress, if I could put it that way, from the Trump administration, when there's just a whole sort of, you know, a culture war going on about
everything in the U.S. How do you think you will be received? Does that concern you at all?
SAVILLE: I don't know. I don't know.
AMANPOUR: No?
SAVILLE: I mean, my paintings are my paintings.
AMANPOUR: Yes. Are you going there as well? I mean, you'll be there for the launch --
SAVILLE: Yes. I mean -- yes.
AMANPOUR: Do you go there with any trepidation?
SAVILLE: Not really. I mean, you know, the landscape in the world changes every day at the moment. Things are difficult everywhere. So, it's an
exhibition that's been in the planning for a long time. So, hopefully it's going to be fine.
AMANPOUR: Hopefully it will be fine. And it's amazing. So, you -- there's -- I've read some -- you know, you take some inspiration from old masters,
Rembrandt.
SAVILLE: Yes, a lot.
AMANPOUR: Tell me about Rembrandt and his influence.
SAVILLE: I like everything he did. I like his pen and ink drawings. I like his etchings, incredible, and especially his late self-portraits. I find he
builds up a sort of surface that has a deep humanity within it. So, I've just always looked to him, really. A range of different painters. At
different periods in your life, certain painters kind of rise up and are more important than others or it might be because there's exhibitions one
of those artists and you get sort of -- you know, you can kind of see things within there that you think, oh, that's a very interesting way that
that hand was painted or using stains in a certain way or, you know, like painting wet on wet. You know, those techniques you sort of develop and
they rise up in you when you see things.
AMANPOUR: And you've remained pretty faithful, like Rembrandt, to oil painting.
SAVILLE: I love painting in oil paint.
AMANPOUR: Is that unusual these days, or not?
[13:35:00]
SAVILLE: I don't know. I think it's all -- I sometimes use acrylic. I often start paintings with acrylic. But acrylic doesn't have the same depth
that oil paint has. I love the depth of the pigment that oil paint has. And just from years of working with it, the dexterity that I've got has built
up.
AMANPOUR: This is amazing. What is that one called?
SAVILLE: It's called Rosetta.
AMANPOUR: Rosetta. OK. And, I mean, when I saw that, the eye looks blind.
SAVILLE: She was a blind model, yes.
AMANPOUR: Yes. She was actually a blind model.
SAVILLE: Yes.
AMANPOUR: Yes.
SAVILLE: Yes. I mean, I don't know. It's a painting that I've always loved. I love making it. I love the creaminess of the way her flesh was.
And I still -- whenever I see it, I think, yes, it's OK. It still holds up.
AMANPOUR: Yes, it really does. I mean, it is extraordinary. And just to say, the exhibition is not all new paintings.
SAVILLE: No.
AMANPOUR: You've collected a lot from -- over the years --
SAVILLE: It goes --
AMANPOUR: -- that you've done.
SAVILLE: I think the earliest one is 1992, and the last one was a couple of years ago.
AMANPOUR: So, you have, obviously, you know, a profound interest in anatomy. There's some paintings that we can't show because we're, you know,
on television in the United States, et cetera. But one of them is a self- portrait of yourself propped up on a stool, and it's very fleshy. It's very abundant. It shows everything. And some people, you might not like this, I
don't know. Tell me. You know, say, oh, that's her Lucian Freud period, or whatever it is. It's nonetheless very, very intimate. Tell me about that.
SAVILLE: That painting in particular?
AMANPOUR: Yes, that painting and whether you agree with the -- you know.
SAVILLE: Well, you know, I think that I, you know, was growing up as a painter when Freud was a big painter in the U.K., along with Bacon and
Auerbach, and there was a sort of group of the London school.
AMANPOUR: Yes.
SAVILLE: And so, painting the body, you inevitably looked at Freud anyway. And he gave -- you know, definitely gave me a root. Like I was in that
context, if you like. And then you develop, and you see other painters you like, and you develop your own skills, and you sort of curiously learn
about different colors and the ways things -- you know, ways I can manage paint and move it around. And so, my work -- hopefully, I develop my own
sort of identity of painting after that.
AMANPOUR: Yes. I wish we could put that one up, because it is -- I mean, it's one of the first paintings we see as we go in, and it's really very,
very arresting.
SAVILLE: Well, it was one of the ones that was in my graduation show.
AMANPOUR: OK.
SAVILLE: So, it was --
AMANPOUR: Oh, so that's from --
SAVILLE: From '92. Yes.
AMANPOUR: Yes.
SAVILLE: So, it was -- I still think it's one of my most succinct paintings. Like composition, it works quite well, and it still has a sort
of power of this body sitting on a stool.
AMANPOUR: And we've talked about your future exhibit. I just wondered about, do you, like many artists and others, even us, worry about
technology, A.I., or is it something you think that it's going to be a positive thing to harness in your specific work?
SAVILLE: I don't know. I think artists are quite a good job to have relative to other jobs that A.I. might take. You know, you could be a
plumber or you could be an artist. Jobs like that seem to be OK. So, my line of work seems all right.
AMANPOUR: OK.
SAVILLE: But I think it's -- you know, it's revolutionary. It's going to change the world, isn't it? And it's going to be for good and bad.
AMANPOUR: Yes.
SAVILLE: You know, we just don't know, you know. It --
AMANPOUR: Well, we know that this was a wonderful exhibition. Congratulations.
SAVILLE: Thank you.
AMANPOUR: And coming up after the break, a new theory on China's rise to the top. Tech analyst Dan Wang on why he believes America could lose that
race.
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[13:40:00]
AMANPOUR: Next, the U.S.-China rivalry. While President Trump pushes traditional allies away and cuts crucial tech and science funding to
American universities, China is poised to make hay, even perhaps take over America's superpower status one day. But our next guest believes there is a
way to stop that. It's all in his new book, "Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future." Technology analyst Dan Wang joins Walter Isaacson to
discuss his new framework for understanding Beijing.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WALTER ISAACSON, CO-HOST, AMANPOUR AND CO.: Thank you, Christiane. And Dan Wang, welcome to the show.
DAN WANG, AUTHOR, "BREAKNECK": Thank you, Walter.
ISAACSON: I was reading your book, "Breakneck," last night, and there's a sentence at the very beginning that I think sets up the theme. Let me read
it to you. You're talking about the contrast between America and China. You say, there's an American elite made up mostly of lawyers excelling at
obstruction versus a Chinese technocratic class made up mostly of engineers that excels at construction. Tell me how that sets up your book and what
you're arguing.
WANG: Walter, the central idea of my book is that China is a country that I call an engineering state because, at various points, the entirety of the
most senior members of the Communist Party have had degrees in engineering. What do engineers like to do? Well, build a lot of stuff, whether that is
roads or bridges or hyperscalers or coal plants, whatever it is, homes especially, China is always trying to build another big project.
The unfortunate fact of China is that they're not only physical engineers, they're also social engineers. And so, they often treat society as if it
were just another building material to be remolded and torn down as they wish. And I contrast that with the United States, which I call the lawyerly
society, part because so many presidents have gone to law school. There are now 47 U.S. senators with law degrees. Only one has studied anything in
STEM. And the issue with lawyers is that they're really good at saying no rather than building stuff. And so, we don't have really terrible ideas
like the one-child policy in the United States, but we also don't have functional infrastructure, I would say, almost anywhere.
ISAACSON: Well, you're talking about the one-child policy, and I assume you mean in China. That was a social engineering thing. So, they -- what
you're saying is they can build high-speed rail really great, but then when they start doing social engineering like one-child policy, that messes up.
WANG: That's right. So, I think the unfortunate fact of China is that they cannot restrain themselves from being only physical engineers. I think for
the most part, physical engineering, though it has a lot of costs, is pretty good. I think it is pretty good to have an expanding high-speed rail
network, expanding subway systems, more homes than people can buy, such that they have falling home prices now.
And I think there's plenty of problems around debt. There's plenty of problems around demographics. Sometimes there's human displacement
involved, especially if they build a really big dam. But I think for the most part, that is good.
The unfortunate thing is that sometimes they treat many of their ethno- religious minorities, like the folks living in Tibet or in Xinjiang, as just another building material. I spend a lot of time thinking about the
one-child policy, as well as zero COVID, which I lived through for -- during its entirety in China, in which the number is right there in the
name. There's very little ambiguity about what these policies could possibly mean.
ISAACSON: There seems to be a mindset in the United States that's not just lawyerly, it's not in my backyard, stopping things. And you mentioned high-
speed rail often you put in your book. In 2008, they approved a high-speed rail, I think, from Los Angeles to San Francisco. They also, in China,
approved in 2008 one from Beijing to Shanghai. Tell me why it is that the U.S. one could never get built.
WANG: Three years after 2008, in 2011, the Shanghai-Beijing high-speed rail line started operating. It moves really quickly. It transports a lot
of people. And over the course of the first decade, according to Chinese state media, the high-speed rail system moved something like 1.4 billion
passenger trips over the course of the next decade.
How many people have actually been able to ride on the California high- speed rail system? That answer is very simple, it is zero, because almost none of it has actually been built. The first segment that would be built
is supposed to open its lines in something between 2030 to 2033, connecting the towns of Bakersfield and Merced, which is not really close to San
Francisco and Los Angeles.
[13:45:00]
And this is one of these quite disappointing things about the United States, that the California high-speed rail has not built on time. It's
basically built very little at all. And yet, people aren't super disappointed. People aren't out on the streets saying, what's going on with
our tax dollars? Right now, this whole system is supposed to cost something like $128 billion. And so, that is kind of a strange thing to me.
ISAACSON: Well, wait, wait, let's get at the reason there. I mean, you say it's lawyers, but, you know, we've always -- our founders were lawyers.
Most of the people who signed the Declaration, we used to be able to build things. What's gone wrong?
WANG: The lawyers have always been present in the U.S., but I think the character of the lawyers has changed quite substantially, essentially, in
the last 50, 60 years. In my book, I trace out that the U.S. has a heritage of being an engineering state. The U.S. certainly built a lot of stuff,
much as the Chinese have. Between the -- around the 1850s to around the 1950s America built these awesome infrastructure projects, things like
canal systems, transcontinental railroad, skyscrapers in Manhattan, as well as Chicago. We had the Manhattan Project. We had the Apollo missions. We
had the interstate highway system. And I think that's in part because the technocratic engineering elites in America, sometimes represented by the
military-industrial complex, had been in power a little bit more.
And there was also the case that the lawyers were slightly different as well. If we take a look at lawyers about 100 years ago, they were much more
often creative dealmakers. So, we had people like Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was kind of a Wall Street lawyer, who packed his cabinet in the new
deal with other lawyers. And they were very effective and creative in thinking about how to structure new deals in order to get things done.
Something really shifted in the 1960s and the 1970s when people had gotten really tired of all of these big engineering projects that the U.S. had
been managing. Things like the high-speed rail system, in which urban planners like Robert Moses rammed through too many highways through New
York City. People were really exhausted by the war. People were really exhausted by DDT and other pesticides. And the lawyers themselves turned
away from dealmakers into much more regulators as well as litigators.
And I think that is what we're living with the remnants of, lawyers that are much more eager to stop things rather than build things.
ISAACSON: You were born in Yunnan Province, I think in southwest China. And when you were young, you moved to Canada. But then you moved back to
Shanghai during the -- and happened to be there when COVID struck. Tell me what you learned by being there during COVID.
WANG: I was in China from 2017 to 2023, in which I experienced the first trade war that President Trump launched. I saw how that morphed into much
greater geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and China. My centerpiece for living in China was experiencing the entirety of zero COVID from 2020
to the end of 2022.
And zero COVID started out in a kind of a political disaster in which people had gotten really upset that a respiratory virus had been spilling
out of Wuhan in the start of 2020, in which people were reminded that only two decades before the start of COVID that China had a different
respiratory virus, namely SARS, in 2003, in which the government suppressed a lot of news and then suppressed a lot of whistleblowers. And then the
virus was allowed to spread because people weren't really allowed to know about it. And people had gotten quite angry.
But then there was the next stage of COVID's development in which China implemented all of these World Health Organization guidelines to really try
to stop the transmission of the virus, sometimes through fairly coercive means. But what that did achieve was a level of transmissions that was
almost nonexistent, that was absolutely minuscule, and the ability to restart life in a pretty compelling way.
And that worked pretty well up until the spring of 2022, when we had the much more transmissible Omicron variant of the virus, in which the Chinese
state tried to use these same methods to try to contain a much more transmissible virus and was not successful.
So, we had the Shanghai lockdown, which took place in the spring of 2022, in which I say that the state attempted probably the most ambitious
lockdown in the history of humanity, in which China's largest city, Shanghai, 25 million people, were unable to leave their apartment compounds
over the course of 8, 9, 10 weeks.
And so, I think one of the messages I want to convey with the engineering state is that the line between rationality and irrationality is pretty
thin. It could look like China is achieving these spectacular successes up until it goes too far and holds on for too long, in which case it veers
into disaster. And so, that is one of these strange paradoxes that we see with China and the engineering state.
[13:50:00]
ISAACSON: One of the things you did when you were back living in China is you took a bicycle trip. I think it was through Guizhou province, and it's
a somewhat poor province, and yet, you saw a lot of things that I think informed the rest of your book.
WANG: It's a very poor province. It's far deep in China's southwest, where it is highly mountainous, a lot of jungles, and previously, a lot of
diseases that arose from malaria. So, by way of context, Guizhou is very distant from the much more prosperous coasts of China, which are much
richer because they are able to export a lot of goods. Because Guizhou is so distant and so mountainous, it just hasn't been able to get much
industry started.
So, this is China's fourth poorest province, and yet, when I took that bicycle trip in the summer of 2021, I saw astounding levels of
infrastructure. Guizhou has about 11 airports, with four more under construction. Guizhou has excellent integration into the high-speed rail
network. Its cities have very good subway lines. Guizhou also has about 45 of the world's tallest bridges. Not China's tallest bridges, but the
world's tallest bridges.
And so, I was really struck that when I was traveling through America's equivalent of, let's say, West Virginia or maybe South Dakota, not the most
wealthy place, that it has much better levels of infrastructure than --
ISAACSON: Well, wait. Let me stop right there. How do they afford that? Are they taking on too much debt to do that?
WANG: They are taking a lot of debt to be able to do that, and they're barely able to afford that. Perhaps they're not able to afford it, because
we can see that Guizhou is one of the most indebted provinces in China. A lot of these local governments are unable to pay back the interest on their
bonds that they use to build these big bridges that are not terribly economical.
And I think that is definitely one of these big problems of the engineering state, that they don't care enough about profitability. They pile on a lot
of debt. But when I was cycling through Guizhou and chatting to some of these folks who are living in these villages, for the most part, they are
really proud of everything that they see around them, that previously, it took them hours to get to their neighboring village, but now with this new
bridge, it takes them a matter of minutes, perhaps, in order to drive across this bridge.
They feel really good that they have the high-speed rail lines in which they're able to go to much bigger cities like Shanghai or Beijing, perhaps,
to work. And so, that is something that I think the engineering state is -- has been really good at, that a lot of what it builds is perhaps
economically questionable. But what that has also achieved is a degree of political resilience.
And I think building a lot of infrastructure inspires genuine pride with a lot of Chinese, and I think that goes some length to explaining why the
Communist Party has been robust and has been as stable as it is, because people are really happy to get better cities, better parks, more subway
lines, better integration, and they are very genuinely proud of these big monumental projects.
ISAACSON: Do you see similarities between President Xi of China and President Trump of the United States?
WANG: I certainly see that President Trump is learning a lot from President Xi. It is very often the case that Trump is saying all sorts of
nice things about his buddy, Xi Jinping. I've heard him praise Xi's great head of hair. I think that is a really remarkable thing to say about
another world leader.
And part of my concern is that rather than learning all of the good things that China has been doing well, I worry that the United States is learning
a lot of really bad things. I think that Trump is learning to be like China, to be visiting a lot of misfortune upon the downtrodden upon some of
the most unfortunate among us. There's now much greater questions around data probity, which is an issue among the statistical agencies now in both
the U.S. as well as in China, in which I think the top leader demands a lot of fealty, and every problem is caused by either foreigners or traitors. I
think these are all things that Trump has been learning from Xi.
And I really hope that Trump can learn some of the good stuff, because right now, I think it feels to me like we have authoritarianism without the
good stuff. The good stuff of functioning cities, functioning logistical systems, public order, as well as very extensive infrastructure buildouts
that we need very much. And so, rather than learning the good stuff, I think it's unfortunate that Trump is learning mostly the bad stuff.
ISAACSON: Dan Wang, thank you so much for joining us.
WANG: Thank you, Walter.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: And talking of authoritarian states, good stuff, bad stuff, finally tonight, are female motorcyclists the driving force for change in
Iran? That's probably a stretch. More and more women, though are riding motorbikes despite being barred from getting a license. Women's
applications are frequently denied by authorities, citing a religious basis. The Islamic Republic insists such rides violate its code of modesty.
But many women continue to defy them.
[13:55:00]
As the third anniversary of Mahsa Amini's death approaches, she died at the hands of the so-called Morality Police, who claimed she was not covering
her head properly. But her supporters continue to show their Woman, Life, Freedom movement will not die.
That's it for now. Remember, you can always catch us online, on our website, and all-over social media. Thank you for watching, and goodbye
from London.
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END
