Return to Transcripts main page
Amanpour
Interview with "Presidential Visions of Transitional Justice" Author and New York Law School Professor of Comparative Law Ruti Teitel; Interview with Liberation Ventures Co-Founder and CEO Aria Florant; Interview with "The Traitors Circle" Author Jonathan Freedland; Interview with University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School Professor Kate Shaw. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired December 12, 2025 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[13:00:00]
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, and welcome to "Amanpour." Here's what's coming up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RUTI TEITEL, AUTHOR, "PRESIDENTIAL VISIONS OF TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE" AND PROFESSOR OF COMPARATIVE LAW, NEW YORK LAW SCHOOL: Change can come from
the top and from civil societies.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: From Syria to the United States, reckoning with the past, a discussion about transitional justice and reparations.
Plus --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We do not need to bring in more every day.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: -- the new face of Britain's anti-immigration movement, a special report. Then, "The Traitor's Circle," the people who fought tyranny
in Nazi Germany. Journalist Jonathan Freedland joins me with the ultimate story of heroic resistance there.
And --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KATE SHAW, PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA CAREY LAW SCHOOL: The justices are being asked to overrule a 90-year-old precedent that allows
those agencies to exist with a degree of independence from the president.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: -- Trump vs. Slaughter, the case that could grant the president unprecedented power. What it means for the future of America.
Welcome to the program everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London.
Victory is only the start. The words of Syria's president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, as his country celebrated a year of freedom from Bashar al-Assad's brutal
regime.
In Doha, al-Sharaa told me, we went from being a country that exported crises to a country where we have an actual hope of delivering stability.
And yet, there are still many wounds to be healed. Just like other countries decimated by war and sectarianism, the work of transitional
justice must now take place. A process in which justice is adapted to societies transforming themselves after war and persecution.
It's something that links Syria to the United States, to South Africa, and many countries in between, with dark pasts which have to be reckoned with.
In America, some argue that reparations are the best way to repair the devastating harm inflicted by slavery and racial discrimination. But it's a
proposal that's faced so much opposition.
Let's get into all of this now. My first guest tonight has made transitional justice her life's work. Ruti Teitel is a professor of law at
New York Law School and the author of Presidential Visions of Transitional Justice. And Aria Florant is the co-founder and CEO of Liberation Ventures,
an organization advocating for slavery reparations in the United States. And they join me to discuss the tricky task of making amends.
Ruti Teitel, Aria Florant, welcome to the program. Let me start with you here in London, Ruti. So, what do we mean when we talk about reckoning with
the past? What do you mean?
RUTI TEITEL, AUTHOR, "PRESIDENTIAL VISIONS OF TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE" AND PROFESSOR OF COMPARATIVE LAW, NEW YORK LAW SCHOOL: So, I wrote and kind of
identified a term, transitional justice, which was the way societies deal with the past and radical change when they're in transition from an
illiberal past, dictatorship, repressive regime, and move to somewhat more liberal regimes.
So, that was the idea. A political transition, sometimes it's economic transition, but it's the conception of justice in periods of radical
political change.
AMANPOUR: So, give me sort of a one or two examples. Because right now I've been talking to the new Syrian president after 60 years of
dictatorship and tyranny, really, from the Assad's. And he has to deal with transitional justice for the crimes of the past, but also some of the
crimes that are being conducted, even in the year he's been there, to the minorities.
TEITEL: Yes. So, actually I'm also involved in the Syrian transition, working with Fadel Abdelghani, who's head of the Syrian Network for Human
Rights. And as you say, that's a current example of having to deal with a very extended repressive regime, but also people are concerned about
property loss. People are concerned about being victims of other, as you say, current human rights violations. So, it's not just Assad.
So, that's part of the work that civil society groups are doing, such as the work that Aria does in the United States. So, there's a lot to do.
There's the current regime that is a successor regime.
[13:05:00]
Some other examples that I take up in the book, and my first writing was post-South Africa, post-Argentina military, which is where, you know, it
was my home country and what really got me into the topics, all of Latin America coming out of military repressive rule.
AMANPOUR: Wow, another really relevant topic. I'll get back to you.
TEITEL: Yes.
AMANPOUR: So, Aria, obviously what we talk about mostly with Ruti is what she does in terms of transitional justice overseas, although we'll get to
her U.S. component, which dovetails with yours. You deal with internal United States repair work, so to speak, and obviously the legacy of slavery
post-Civil War. So, tell us, in general, what you stand for in terms of your organization and how you are trying to push that ball forward.
ARIA FLORANT, CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, LIBERATION VENTURES: Yes, our North Star is to see federal comprehensive reparations in the U.S. So, our goal is to
repair the harm of slavery and its legacies. And importantly, we think about reparations comprehensively, not just financial, but also non-
financial.
So, we define reparations really, in essence, as repair. And we think about it as a four-part framework of reckoning, acknowledgement, accountability,
and redress. And our goal is not just to see policy change, but also to see culture change, because we know that actually the policy change is only as
durable as the culture change that comes with it.
And so, that's why our approach is really about sort of bottom-up movement building. We resource organizations all across the country who are
accelerating this movement.
AMANPOUR: So, I'm really interested in the culture change part of this, because we've seen a lot of progressive policies that then get completely,
you know, backlashed against. Even a black president, there was a backlash against the first black president in the United States. And we've seen the
anti-DEI movement. Yes, and throughout history, there's been a lot of resistance under Democrats or Republicans to the notion of reparations for
what happened under slavery.
Is that word out of use, out of fashion? Is it -- when I say out of use, is it not useful to use the word reparations?
FLORANT: I think it's very useful. You know, we see ourselves as in the lineage of transitional justice, and we know that reparation is a tool of
transitional justice. It has been used for communities all over the world. It's not a black-specific term. You know, descendants of Holocaust victims
are still receiving reparations to this day.
And so, I think it's actually important that we use the word because it is -- if we chose not to, it would be like we're denying, actually, the
dignity that black Americans really deserve.
AMANPOUR: Your original writing, you told me, one of the early pieces of writing you did was about reparations or repair after the Civil War. That,
coupled with the idea that Aria just reminded us, that Jewish victims of the Holocaust, their descendants, are still getting paid reparations and
done -- you know, the right thing is being done for them. Why is it OK for a certain society or community and apparently sends everybody bristling if
it's another different society?
TEITEL: Well, obviously, it's a very good point. There can be reparations that are punitive. Woodrow Wilson opposed the reparations that Europe
exacted on Germany, where they said that they should pay for the entire -- the damages of the entire war, total war guilt. So, those are punitive
reparations. So, I think we would agree that we're not for those.
And then there are, like, expiatory reparations, which is kind of what Germany thought they were doing. The German word was Wiedergutmachung,
making it good again. Well, it's funny because the Jewish community --
AMANPOUR: After World War II.
TEITEL: After World War II. And the Jewish community did not accept that. They accepted that whatever Germany would give, you know, to Israel and to
individual victims. But -- you know, so I think it's really the transformative purpose that we're talking about, right? Not the punitive,
not the expiatory. And then I think the question is, you know, is money the best approach, individual reparations, or as, you know -- and I think
Aria's organization promotes this, kind of an idea of in kind.
And actually, the Freedmen's Bureau, after the end of the Civil War, the Freedmen's Bureau promoted health care, education, housing. It ended after
a period of time because of opposition by Andrew Johnson, who unfortunately succeeded Lincoln after the assassination. And then the rest is history,
where, you know, it ended up being much more pro-Confederate and trying to return to business as usual.
[13:10:00]
But, you know, we had a period where some idea of that was necessary, of what would it take for social transformation. And I think that's really the
key to the work that Liberation Ventures is doing.
AMANPOUR: OK. So, that was, you know, at the end of the 19th century.
TEITEL: Yes, yes, yes.
AMANPOUR: And now, we're well into the 21st century, Aria, and there appears to be a complete backlash against even, you know, even now. I mean,
all these decades, centuries since the Civil War, it's happening again. So, what is it about the culture in the United States that has not been
conditioned or whatever? It hasn't been accepted yet. Why has there been no Truth and Reconciliation Commission, for instance, at the very least?
FLORANT: It's such a good question, you know, and I think on the topic of backlash, I actually think backlash is one of the best KPIs for progress.
If you look at this key performance indicator, you only see this kind of backlash when we are actually making progress. But, you know, to answer
your question, I think that the deepest root of this challenge is shame.
I think that we feel an immense amount of collective shame, moral injury around the history of this country, and we know from the research on shame
that the best way to process through shame is to really bring it to light. I mean, you cannot repair something if you can't face it. And I love what
Ruti is talking about when it comes to the sort of transformative potential of this work, because I think, actually, if we could face it and we could
repair it, we would actually live into the highest ideals of our country. We would actually build and be able to truly maintain a just multiracial
democracy for everyone.
TEITEL: Yes, for sure. And, you know, change can come from the top and from civil society. So, that's part of the -- my newest book is really
about leadership and the kind of --
AMANPOUR: Yes, yours is from the top down.
TEITEL: Exactly, political actors.
AMANPOUR: Yes, and Aria is from grassroots.
TEITEL: Exactly.
AMANPOUR: So, let me ask you about leadership, because your book opens with President Obama's travels to Argentina, which you mentioned, Cuba,
Japan, Laos, Vietnam, to acknowledge America's historical wrongdoings. But, of course, the opposition, the political right in America, dubbed it,
quote, "an apology tour." So, how do you get past that if half the country doesn't even think it's a valid concept?
TEITEL: Well, it's interesting. It's always a thin line. I don't call them apologies --
AMANPOUR: No, you don't, but the political right did.
TEITEL: Yes. No, no. I understand. It's a thin line. And I think Obama walked that thin line very well because he knew how much he needed to do to
reset foreign relations. If you think about bearing the Cold War, as he said, a reset in Latin America. He talked about the importance of
respectful dialogue in both the Americas and in Asia. He went to Vietnam.
You know, he went to places that were, you know, just sites, burial sites. Laos, the most bombed city in the world. Went to Hiroshima as a standing
president and stood side by side with the leaders there. And he said, you know, we need to acknowledge the past and we need to move forward.
He never said we shouldn't have, you know, he didn't fully say an apology for Hiroshima. So, he walked a thin line between reception abroad, our
foreign-facing reception, and the reception at home.
AMANPOUR: OK.
TEITEL: And it's interesting because even the surveys at the time of his Cuba trip showed that many Americans supported that, you know, having some
kind of normalization in the Americas and restoring relations throughout.
AMANPOUR: So, the other side of that question is, I just want to know from you, I think I know the answer, but what has this acknowledgement of past
wrongdoings done for those, what would you say to those who believe in America first and the best for America and that kind of renormalization of
relationships that include acknowledging past wrongs? Like, is America stronger for having a better relationship with Vietnam, with Cuba, with
Laos, all those others that you're talking about?
TEITEL: For sure. And we see that -- you know, even if Trump said, you know, tried to denounce the apology tour and ran against Obama, you know,
as you say, racial issues, and against soft power, soft power matters and justice matters if you want to have an enduring peace.
And, you know, what's very interesting about the trip to Asia is we realigned with Vietnam, with the Koreas, South Korea at least, and vis-a-
vis China. And that carried through in the Biden administration, it's carried through to Trump. So, he is building a realignment and a re-
regionalization of Asia that -- you know, that builds on Obama, that builds on those prior work. Yes.
AMANPOUR: Well, it's a little dicey right now because he's actually doing a lot of tariffs and alienating his allies.
TEITEL: Yes, yes, yes.
AMANPOUR: But I get your point-ish, if it can be redressed. But, Aria, regarding U.S. repair and reparations, a few weeks ago, the governor of
California, Gavin Newsom, signed legislation that would create -- I mean, I see you nodding.
[13:15:00]
Obviously, you know better than me. A state agency to determine who actually qualifies as a descendant of slavery. Progress is, you know, quite
slow on all of this. Tell me, what do you think of that legislation? Is that going to help?
FLORANT: You know, I commend Governor Newsom for the bills that he has passed. I want him to do more, as our partners in California also want him
to do more. I look forward to the governor's race in California. But, you know, I think something that we've learned from reparations efforts all
over the globe is that this work is iterative. This work takes time. And that's why it is not only policy-change work but culture-change work.
And I think Ritu would know as well, you know, I think this work needs to build on itself. And I think that's what we're seeing at the city and state
level across the country. And that's why our approach is bottom-up, because you can actually learn from the policies that you see implemented at the
local level, use them to inform other places, and then ultimately use them all to inform what's possible at the national level.
AMANPOUR: Aria, I mean, a very disappointing pew, or maybe it's not disappointing, maybe it's a normal, you know, percentage. 2021 Research
Center poll says 68 percent of Americans say the descendants of enslaved people in the United States should not be repaid. So, that's one thing.
My other question on that is, isn't storytelling one of the most important ways of getting, you know, culture to change? Has enough storytelling been
done?
FLORANT: It's a great question. So, our latest public opinion polling shows that 36 percent of people support reparations. Comprehensive
reparations. And that's actually 10 percentage points higher than support was for marriage equality when that movement got started.
So, I think it's actually really important to put those numbers into perspective. We see the way that public opinion can change over time when
you do exactly that, when you tell stories, and when you really show people the need for this work. And so, that's why an entire pillar of our work is
actually narrative change work, because we want to actually tell a new story to the country about what reparations are and who they're for and why
they matter, and in particular, why this is not just about black Americans, this is about all Americans.
This is about a really, truly collective approach to actually repairing the harm of slavery that hurts all of us, and therefore repairing it would
benefit all of us.
AMANPOUR: That's amazing, that percentage you were talking about with marriage equality just shows how stories can develop momentum if they're
told in a relevant way.
Ruti, lastly to you, we talked a little bit -- we just mentioned South Africa. Well, obviously the truth and reconciliation, it wasn't perfect,
but it was good, and it set the country on a different path. What about Syria right now? It's been a year since al-Sharaa took over from Assad.
What does he have to do and what are they doing?
TEITEL: So, I think it's very important to have an inclusive process where victims and other representatives of different groups feel represented in
the process, and not to rush. And my concern is that he seems to be rushing to have a transitional justice plan, like, you know, tomorrow. And, you
know, I'm working with people in -- you know, that have been working on Syrian victimhood and on the various kinds of violations. Very important to
document property loss, not just victims -- you know, not just casualties, because we need to plan for the future in Syria.
And there has been a theft, there's been, you know, exploitation, and so forth. So, I think that it's very important to have an inclusive process.
That's what I think is most important for transitional justice, and not to rush.
You know, we've seen, unfortunately -- and, you know, Barack Obama's Cairo speech 2009, two years later, talk about storytelling and about, you know,
acknowledgements, having something of a role. You know, you had the Arab Spring after that visit to Cairo. And yet, very few of the transitional
justice programs that were -- you know, that were created right after have -- you know, have borne out, you know, successfully. So, including Tunisia.
So, it's disappointing, but, you know, as Aria has mentioned, there are cycles, and this moves step by step. So, the idea that this has to be
perfect, you know, right after a successor regime takes over, given the violence that still exists right now in Syria, I think that would -- you
know, that's problematic.
AMANPOUR: Well, this is a conversation to be continued, because it's a real live issue, obviously. Ruti Teitel, Aria Florant, thank you so much
indeed for joining us.
TEITEL: Thank you.
FLORANT: Thank you so much for having me.
[13:20:00]
AMANPOUR: Coming up, with tensions flaring over migration policies in many Western countries, the new phase of anti-migrant protests here in the U.K.
That's after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: From the United States to France to the U.K., there's no denying this is a time of rising tensions over the issue of immigration. And here
in England, one anti-migrant group seems to be building a base. It's called the Pink Ladies. But behind the cheerful branding is a much harsher
message. Correspondent Jomana Karadsheh went to one of their rallies. And here's her report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Meet the Pink Ladies, a new face of Britain's growing anti-immigration movement.
We went to one of their Pink protests just outside London to try and understand what this is all about.
ORIA MINIHANE, ORGANIZER, THE PINK LADIES: We've got our own scumbags, our own predators and our own sex pests. We do not need to bring in more every
day. Men from cultures that do not think like we do. Who treat women like third class citizens. And who think it's acceptable to marry eight- and
nine-year-old girls.
KARADSHEH (voice-over): This is not racism, they say. And they're not the far-right. But a lot of what we heard sounded an awful lot like the far-
right's narrative.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They need to get their army involved. We're being invaded.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's bloody terrible. It's all over Europe. You know, being invaded.
KARADSHEH: By?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: By illegal migrants.
KARADSHEH (voice-over): Advocacy groups say exploiting the issue of violence against women and genuine safety concerns is a common far-right
tactic.
The Pink Ladies say they're grassroots. Women concerned about mass migration and what it means for their safety and the future of their
country.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
Putting out catchy tunes like this one that market their agenda. This so far small group emerged a few months ago. At a time of rising tensions over
migration with the far-right seizing on that.
KARADSHEH: A lot of people looking at what's happening in the U.K. from the outside. They might say that a lot of the things that you are saying
are the talking points of the far-right.
MINIHANE: What is far-right? Far-right is extremists. Far-left is extremism. How am I extremist? I'm just a mom who's worked her whole life.
Who's bringing up three children. Who lives in suburbia. I don't want my daughter to be sexually assaulted by men that have come over to this
country that we've got no background checks on. If that makes me a far- right, then there's something very concerning with the rhetoric, right?
KARADSHEH (voice-over): That's Orla Minihane. She's a local candidate for the right-wing populist party Reform U.K.
Amid this show of pink solidarity. And what was mostly a jovial and at times surreal atmosphere we heard from women worried about their safety and
that of their daughters.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Women are scared to walk anywhere. And, you know, we live in a small town.
MINIHANE: This is the seriousness of what we're dealing with.
KARADSHEH (voice-over): The government doesn't publish detailed figures on crimes committed by asylum seekers, but there have been some high-profile
cases that have put women and girls on edge. On top of that, there are the twisted facts that go unchecked.
[13:25:00]
MINIHANE: These five women have died. Have been murdered at the hands of an illegal migrant catastrophe that this government is letting happen --
KARADSHEH (voice-over): Except two of the suspects in these five horrific murder cases are British nationals. But for Laura and others what they
heard here was enough for them to make up their minds.
KARADSHEH: What is it that is making you feel unsafe?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, it's all the rapes, murders. You know what they've been talking about today.
KARADSHEH (voice-over): Jomana Karadsheh, CNN, Chelmsford, England.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: How far would you go to stand up to tyranny? Could you risk your life for freedom? In his new book, "The Traitor Circle," Journalist
Jonathan Freedland examines those questions. And an extraordinary story of heroic resistance. It follows a group of well-connected privileged Germans
who secretly stood up against Hitler's regime until a shocking betrayal from within. And Jonathan Freedland joined me here in the studio to
discuss.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: I want to start with what you've taken on as a bit of a mission, I think. Because I think you've said that, you know, there are many stories
of resistors but almost no stories of internal German, maybe even members of the Nazi party I don't know, but German resistance to Hitler's regime.
Tell me about that.
JONATHAN FREEDLAND, AUTHOR, "THE TRAITORS CIRCLE": Yes, it's true I think we have an image of resistance often associated with the French resistance.
Putting bombs on railway lines and on bridges and so on. In Germany I think people know about the von Stauffenberg plot. July the 20th, "Valkyrie," the
movie with a slightly miscast Tom Cruise. People know about that, or they know about the White Rose movement Sophie Scholl. And that's really it --
they think after that all the other Germans pretty well lined up behind Adolf Hitler.
And look that is mainly true. 95 percent according to an estimate by an allied liberator, a war crimes investigator in 1945 fell in line. But it
means about 3 million Germans which is not nothing.
AMANPOUR: That's not nothing.
FREEDLAND: Were jailed, were arrested, were detained for crimes of dissent. Sometimes no more than a critical remark. And about half a million
of those were killed.
AMANPOUR: I mean that's really important to hear. Because I remember for me Daniel Goldhagen's book, you know, "Hitler's Willing Executioners," is
what I have in my mind. And to hear this is very rare.
FREEDLAND: And I grew up with that narrative quite directly. My mother imposed a full boycott of German goods in our house. No VW car, no Siemens
dishwasher. Because her own mother had been killed by the last rocket of the blitz to fall on London. The last V2 killed her mother when my mother
was just eight years old. And after that she was left with a kind of -- a feeling that there were no good Germans. Every last one of them was
implicated very particularly in the crime of the Holocaust.
The bomb that killed my mother's mother took out a building in London's East End. Killed 133 people. 120 of them were Jews. Just a coincidence, but
it meant, as I put in the book, my mother was not a Holocaust survivor. But she felt the breath of the Shoah on her neck. And it meant she felt that
there were irredeemable -- there was an irredeemable guilt about the Germans, every last one of them.
I then came across this story and thought, it's true that most fell in line but some did not, and that makes the heroism all the more extraordinary.
AMANPOUR: Your book begins -- I mean it's a thriller as well. At an afternoon tea party in Berlin as we said in September '43. So, the party
group -- partygoers are a group that could come from maybe an Agatha Christie novel. Members of the German aristocracy as you say, of the
diplomatic corps, high placed government officials.
So, what made this -- we're now talking about the story of your book which is a true story. What made this tea party special? And how does it play
into your story?
FREEDLAND: Well, here might be a time for me to just read this little excerpt. Just these couple of paragraphs. Because it says, they were drawn
from the upper reaches of German high society, from the world of grand townhouses and country estates of knights at the opera and embassy balls.
They had titles and jewels and impeccable contacts. They were the last people to be subject to an arrest at dawn. And they were not a random
collection of individuals coincidentally picked up on the same January day, they were a group made up of people who had secretly opposed the Nazi
regime for the best part of a decade. Meeting and operating in the shadows. Spreading the word. Combining their unique talents. Saving lives. But now,
they stood accused of the crime regarded as the gravest possible offence in Hitler's Germany, treason. They were branded traitors to the Third Reich.
AMANPOUR: And what brought them together? How did they decide to form this group? What -- yes.
FREEDLAND: The grouping was in a way informal. There were all these overlapping social circles in the Germany of that time. And one of the key
issues when more than two people met was trust. Could you trust this other person you were speaking to?
[13:30:00]
Here, the bonds of class played an important part. These were really posh people here. There wasn't just one countess in this group, there were two.
There was a form of topmandering (ph) from the Ministry of Finance. Those were people with landed estates and so on. So, there was a sense that we
know each other.
You know, there were two people there. One, her father had served in Bismarck's cabinet. The other, his uncle. They knew each other. That was
good enough. So, what they had in common was this defiance or resistance of Adolf Hitler and they felt they could come together with kindred spirits,
trading information and gossip even, but also know-how on how to do what they were doing. What they did not know is that someone sitting around that
table, who they thought was one of their own, thought was a kindred spirit, was about to betray all the rest of the government.
AMANPOUR: And had infiltrated specifically?
FREEDLAND: That's right. I mean, we -- I -- you know, because it's a whodunit, I don't want to give away too much.
AMANPOUR: Yes, yes, yes. Don't tell me.
FREEDLAND: I don't want to give away too much. I want readers to be reading this thinking, is it the former model? Is it the doctor? Is it the
headmistress? Who is it?
AMANPOUR: But the anecdote that we are allowed to talk about is about one of these, I think she's a countess named Maria von Maltzan. She had a
Jewish lover named Hans Hirschel. Now, when the Gestapo came to investigate a tip that she was hiding Jews in her apartment, Maria took a potentially
fatal gamble to save her lover's life. Tell us what happened. It is extraordinary that part.
FREEDLAND: It is an extraordinary story. So, there were Jews in hiding in Berlin. That's an incredible idea. While they're killing millions in the
Holocaust, there are about 1,500 hidden Jews. They were known as submarines. They had to be silent, hidden and below the surface. Among
those, you know, Maria turned her home into an unofficial refuge. She would have like 20 on any one night hiding in this tiny apartment, among them her
own secret Jewish lover.
They devised this plan that if ever the Gestapo came, he would hide in this kind of cavity, this box under a sofa, under the sofa bed. Inside there
would be a glass of water, a couple of tablets of codeine to suppress his cough. And she'd set this system of bolts in there so he could lock himself
from the inside.
Sure enough, the Gestapo came to call, pounded on the door, they searched the apartment. He's in there, in that box. At one point she's sitting on
the box, denying there are any Jews in the building. He's inches below her. They finally are about to pry open the thing. They're wrestling with it.
And she says, look, if you're so certain there's a Jew here, take out your gun and shoot through the couch right now. And there is this standoff, this
moment of silence. Hans, her lover, is waiting there in the box thinking, she's about to ensure that I'm shot, killed now.
And she says, just as they're reaching for their holsters, she says, but if you do it, I demand a credit note promising to pay for the repair of the
sofa, repairing the upholstery in advance and in writing. And she knew the Nazi bureaucrats so well, she knew their mind, that of course they wouldn't
want to fill in an expenses form and get permission and they put the guns back.
AMANPOUR: Honestly, that's incredible. And that's true.
FREEDLAND: That's a true story, documented. Everything in here comes from documents, letters, diaries, testimonies, court transcripts, word for word.
Even the dialogue of that incredible scene is there in the documents.
AMANPOUR: I mean, that presence of mind and that willingness to take that gamble is --
FREEDLAND: And the confidence of her class to face them down.
AMANPOUR: And the confidence. OK.
FREEDLAND: I think her class -- with all of them, I think that plays a big part, that they felt these were the -- they felt they were the true
Germans, that they were the representatives of a better Germany that had existed in the past and would exist again in the future.
AMANPOUR: And formally, wasn't everybody forced to join the Nazi party? What was that? I mean, those people who gathered?
FREEDLAND: So, of those people who gathered, there was, it's quite true. One of them had quite late, 1937, finally under pressure, joined the Nazi
party, was convinced that there was no way he was going to have any role, any leverage or power, unless he was inside the party. And made that age-
old decision, which was, I'm more use from within than just protesting on the outside.
There were dilemmas these people went through that will resonate, I think, down the decades. Are you more effective keeping your head down, keeping
silent, or making a big loud noise even if that court lands you in trouble? Should you make common cause with other people? Should you wait a bit, see
how it plays out? Those were the things they wrestled with, and those are the dilemmas people who've lived in authoritarian societies will be
familiar with down the decades in many other places.
AMANPOUR: Can I ask you a question? You know, you've written this about these people, Germans who, like your mother, wanted to believe that
everybody was guilty, et cetera. Given the real politicization and the terrible feelings that there are all over the place right now, and
everything is weaponized, do you get any backlash for this? Are there people who say to you, how can you, you know, a member of the Jewish
community actually tell these stories?
[13:35:00]
FREEDLAND: A few people have wondered about it, saying, what would my mother think about this? They haven't said it necessarily in a hostile way,
but I think my -- but they have asked it, and I think that there is -- I hope, that there is something sort of healing about somebody who -- you
know, a Jew like me, who was raised on those stories, in no way exonerating the German nation.
I mean, that fact I mentioned before, 3 million dissenters is a big figure, but so is the 95 percent who stayed in line and raised their right hand in
a Hitler salute. Both are true, but I think we don't do any service to history if we exclude and just pretend those people who were brave and
defiant, who took enormous risks, where the only possibility was downside for them, they had nothing to gain.
These people were of such established position, they would have been left alone, they would have been fine if they'd just kept their heads down. That
makes their heroism all the more admirable.
AMANPOUR: It's really fascinating. And now, one of the through lines is -- of this group, religion.
FREEDLAND: Yes.
AMANPOUR: Many of these Germans were devout Christians, believers on authority higher than the regime. What role did religion play in this
particular group?
FREEDLAND: Well, I think you've put your finger on it. I think the connecting thread in this group, and people always ask themselves when they
look back at this, what would I have done? And they ask that meaning, what does it take to be the sort of person who resists? They want to know, is
there a type, personality type? The connecting thread with this group is they believed in an authority higher than Adolf Hitler.
For some, it was their class, it was the aristocracy. We'll be here long after this horrible little man has gone. For others, it was Jesus Christ,
it was God. They believed that when the Gestapo knocked on the door, yes, that's frightening to be called to account by the SAS or the Gestapo, but
ultimately, they're going to be held to account by Jesus, by God, is how they saw it. And they needed to be able to, as it were, look their maker in
the eye and feel they did the right thing.
Once they had made that decision, that gave them the confidence to face down the authorities and to engage, even in the small gestures. Just one
story I always particularly like because I think people should have a broader definition of resistance. Yes, some of these people were involved
even in a plot to kill Hitler, one of them, but there's another who made it her habit. She's one of the two countesses.
AMANPOUR: And women played a big part.
FREEDLAND: Six of the nine or 10 people in that group were women. That's itself fascinating, and we'll come on to something about them. But this one
young woman, she was very fearful. She wasn't sort of gung-ho. She made a point of always walking around the streets of Germany, of Berlin, with two
bags of heavy shopping. Why? Because if she ran into someone who greeted her with a Hitler salute, she would not be able to reciprocate. They would
raise their right arm, and she would go, sorry, my hands are full. It's a tiny thing. It's just a gesture.
AMANPOUR: No, but it's big.
FREEDLAND: It's big because she understood instinctively, if everyone did what she did, eventually there would have been no Hitler salute. It's just
that one individual doing one gesture, one striking out for resistance that can make all the difference. And there were several women in here, in this
story, and they too have something fascinating in common.
AMANPOUR: Well, I want to know much more, but our time is up for this time. And really, really an edge-of-your-seat tale, and important. And,
Jonathan Freedland, thank you so much.
FREEDLAND: Thanks so much.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Coming up, is the Supreme Court about to give Trump even more power? A discussion on a case with vast implications for the future of the
United States after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[13:40:00]
AMANPOUR: Now, President Trump could be about to amass even more power. The Supreme Court is hearing arguments in a case that will decide whether
the president can fire the heads of virtually all independent agencies. This would be a major transfer of power from Congress to the White House.
And it's just the latest case testing the limits of presidential power. From tariffs to birthright citizenship, our next guest believes the court
is dismantling guardrails that have protected democratic rights for decades. Kate Shaw is a professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania,
and she's here now discussing all of this with Michel Martin.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHEL MARTIN, CONTRIBUTOR: Professor Kate Shaw, thank you so much for joining us.
KATE SHAW, PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA CAREY LAW SCHOOL: Thank you so much for having me.
MARTIN: You're a constitutional scholar, you're a law professor. Back in April, you wrote an opinion piece for The New York Times where you opened
with for weeks, Americans have been debating whether we're facing a constitutional crisis. My answer, for the record, is that we are. And why
did you say that?
SHAW: Well, I think for a couple of reasons. I think we have and have had since January a president who is pushing the bounds of executive authority
in ways we just haven't seen before. And that in and of itself is not, to my mind, enough to constitute a real constitutional crisis. But I think the
crisis comes in in the failure to meaningfully push back on those outsized assertions of presidential power.
And I mean to push back both by Congress and by the Supreme Court. So, I think when you have the separation of powers as out of whack as we have had
really for the last year, that is a genuine constitutional crisis. And if anything, I think it has gotten more serious since I wrote that op-ed back
in April.
MARTIN: So, let's fast forward to the present moment, starting with the big case in front of the justices this week, Trump v. Slaughter, which asks
whether the president can fire the heads of independent federal agencies at will. And that's exactly the kind of question that engages a scholar like
you, but that a lot of people kind of just living their lives might be thinking, well, why is that such a big deal? Why is that such a big deal?
SHAW: Well, so Congress and the president working together have passed laws creating agencies, right? Agencies that often work in invisible ways,
but that impact all of our lives. So, they do things like regulate the safety of ordinary household products or the cribs that we put our kids in.
They issue regulations around things like air that we breathe and water that we drink. They protect consumers, both their privacy and their right
not to have companies engage in monopolistic behavior. So, there's just an enormous array of work that agencies do. And some of the agencies that do
that work,
Congress has decided for over a century should kind of operate with a degree of independence from the president and the political winds. And that
kind of agency is traditionally known as an independent agency. And agencies, whatever their structure, do respond to the president. The
president has lots of ways to influence every agency in the government. But the idea of these independent agencies is the president cannot just fire at
will the people who sit at the heads of those agencies. So, that includes bodies like the Federal Reserve, the Federal Trade Commission, the
Securities and Exchange Commission, a lot of regulatory bodies that there might be good reason to insulate from politics.
And for almost 100 years, the Supreme Court has said the president can't just fire at will the heads of those kinds of bodies, including the Federal
Trade Commission. And the question of whether the Supreme Court will continue to adhere to that longstanding rule that limits presidential power
is the one before the court in the Slaughter case where the justices are being asked to overrule a 90-year-old precedent that allows those agencies
to exist with a degree of independence from the president.
MARTIN: As briefly as you can, just remind us of the facts of this case. Why -- how did it come before the court?
SHAW: This is -- there's a case where the president fired a Democratic commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission and didn't say he was firing
her because she'd engaged in any kind of, you know, malfeasance or misconduct just because he disagreed with the direction that she wanted to
take the agency in, which was one, that in her own words, so Slaughter, the commissioner has basically said the FTC should be aggressively regulating a
lot of companies, including companies that are very close to the president. The heads of some of the companies the FTC is currently suing were the ones
flanking the president at his inauguration. But that's kind of what independence means.
And I think it's pretty clear that President Trump did not want agencies like the FTC to exercise that degree of independence. And so, he fired this
commissioner. She filed a lawsuit basically saying my firing was unlawful. And that's the question that the court is addressing.
[13:45:00]
MARTIN: You have written that granting the president at will removal power would be, quote, "a vast transfer of power from Congress to the president,
even though, as you put it, the Constitution does not explicitly grant the president any such power." We don't know how the court is going to rule
here, but just the commentary from their questions, the precedents that they've set so far seems to be that they are very -- at least the
conservative supermajority on the court seems very ready to give the president sort of maximum discretion. Why do you think they're so willing
to do that?
SHAW: And you're right. We don't yet know how the justices will rule, but I would be willing to place a very large wager on the likely outcome in
this case based on the tenor of the questions, and that is that President Trump will win and this old president will be overruled.
But, you know, to your deeper question, why are they so enthusiastic about presidential authority and skeptical of restraints on that authority? I
mean, I think that a majority or a supermajority of the court is under the sway of this unitary executive theory, this theory that's really a product
of the 1980s and the Reagan administration that says the president has to have complete control over essentially everyone in the executive branch,
including the heads of independent agencies, anyone who executes the law, and that means he can fire at will essentially any high-level official in
the executive branch. We don't yet know whether that reasoning will extend to, you know, civil servants in the federal government, but it well could.
And to my mind, it's a theory that is inconsistent with the text of the Constitution, which doesn't give the president the power to fire anyone.
And it's inconsistent with history. You know, there's a lot of kind of cross currents in our history.
But I think it's pretty clear that at the very least, the framers disagreed about certain aspects of presidential power. There was no strong consensus.
The president should be able to fire at will everyone in the executive branch. And I think the better reading of the history is that the framers
would have wanted Congress to be able to place some constraints on the president's authority in the way these laws do.
MARTIN: Well, tell us about the birthright citizenship case and tell us why you think it's possible that the Trump administration might not prevail
as it has in so many other cases before this court.
SHAW: Yes. So, this is one of the first acts that President Trump took when he was inaugurated for the second time as president, which was to
issue an executive order purporting to end birthright citizenship. The principle that individuals born on U.S. shores are citizens, full stop,
regardless of the citizenship status of their parents.
This principle traces back very clearly to the first sentence of the 14th Amendment, which conferred citizenship on newly freed, formerly enslaved
persons and also all persons born in the United States right on its shores. Congress has passed multiple statutes reaffirming the principle of
birthright citizenship. The Supreme Court has confirmed that the text means what it says. And yet, in the face of all of that settled consensus, the
Trump administration issued an executive order basically saying, we are unilaterally ending birthright citizenship.
And I think that what I just said about how clear the consensus across all the branches of government and essentially across 150 years has been that
this is a constitutional principle the president cannot undo. I think that all of that will make it very, very difficult for the Supreme Court to
uphold this executive order. Every lower court to have looked at the executive order has found it clearly unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court encountered a case last spring involving not the constitutionality of this executive order, but essentially the power of
courts to issue what are known as nationwide injunctions. So, rulings that bind even non-parties to the case. The Supreme Court basically said lower
courts don't have that power.
But another case that kind of gets around some of the procedural kind of limitations the court announced in that case is now back before the court.
It will be argued in the spring and the court can't avoid answering the substantive question of whether this executive order is lawful. And I just
don't see a very significant likelihood that the court will uphold it.
MARTIN: In another opinion piece published in The Times this week, you wrote that the court is quote, "overturning the 20th century." And when you
look across cases about presidential power, voting rights, immigration, agency authority, civil rights remedies and the court's own procedures, do
you think that they see it that way?
SHAW: I think they believe they are restoring correct legal understandings. I think that in some ways we are still in this kind of
backlash court. So, the conservative legal movement's birth in the Reagan administration in the 1980s was largely a reaction to the Warren court from
the 1950s and 1960s, which broadly construed the Constitution's guarantees, the equal protection of the laws, the right to liberty and the right not to
be deprived of liberty without due process of law.
These are these core provisions of the 14th Amendment that the Warren court really expansively interpreted. And I think the conservative legal movement
very self-consciously wanted to roll back both some of those specific decisions, but also the method of constitutional interpretation that those
decisions reflected.
[13:50:00]
And so, I think this is still part of that larger project of kind of fundamentally changing the way we understand the Constitution and a lot of
its provisions. And I think that has -- certainly, we've seen that with respect to voting rights, which the court has really curtailed in the
Shelby County case involving Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act and likely in the case Louisiana versus Callais, the court will decide likely very
soon regarding the last big remaining pillar of the Voting Rights Act.
The court has allowed partisan gerrymandering, which didn't overturn a precedent, but certainly inaugurated an era in which partisan
gerrymandering is happening without any kind of limitation under federal law, disempowering agencies while empowering the president. I mean, these
are fundamental changes to the way we live and the kind of government that we live under.
The court has asserted a great deal of power for itself. It has really limited many of the actions that Congress has taken, including things like
passing the Voting Rights Act and repassing it with close to unanimous support in Congress signed into law, authorized and reauthorized by
Democratic and Republican presidents alike. And yet, the court has unilaterally decided that the Voting Rights Act essentially went too far
and is inconsistent with the proper understanding of the Constitution.
And so, I do think that they if you put together the pieces, I think that there is a very strong case. They are fundamentally overhauling much of
kind of settled law and governance. And I'm not sure they would totally disagree with that, although I think they have pursued it in, you know,
this kind of discrete domains.
MARTIN: Part of your original point here is this is an incredible aggregation of power toward the president, but also away from Congress. So,
where is Congress in all this? Who is standing up for their institutional imperatives as outlined in the Constitution the way we all learned it in
middle school?
SHAW: Yes.
MARTIN: Three branches.
SHAW: A huge part of the problem and the kind of constitutional crisis that we started off talking about is that Congress has been either asleep
at the wheel or affirmatively pleased with what it has seen in terms of executive authority in the last year. And I do think it's quite shocking
because regardless of the fact that Congress is controlled by the president's co-partisans, right, they're Republican controlled, both houses
of Congress, the institutional prerogatives of Congress, you would think would matter at least to a degree to the extent that standing up against
the president's ability to do things like completely ignore congressional decisions about funding. And yet, we have seen essentially none of that.
Now, I do think that there has been a little bit of a shift in some of these targeted killings and congressional responses, including responses by
some of the members of the president's party, suggesting that perhaps Congress is again finding the will to assert its institutional prerogatives
and demand explanations for, you know, processless executions of individuals on the president's say-so that these are individuals engaged in
drug smuggling. Perhaps that is a bridge too far for even a Congress that is largely supportive of this president's policy agenda. And I'm sure the
fact that the president's approval ratings are lower than they have been is, you know, emboldening Congress to push back.
MARTIN: You know, there was some talk earlier that the chief justice, John Roberts, was concerned about the refutation of the court, the court being
seen as legitimate. Do you think that really is a concern? And if it is a concern, if the court is not seen as a legitimate judicial body, but
rather, as some do see it as the sort of an extension of the partisan interests of the party in power, what then? What difference does it make?
SHAW: Well, so to the extent that the court, when it is properly functioning, is an important check on overreach by the president and by
Congress, by other actors, by states and localities as well, it's enormously problematic for the public to lose faith and confidence in the
judgments of the Supreme Court and the independence and impartiality of the Supreme Court because, you know, the court's legitimacy and perceived
legitimacy is really the only reason that government actors, private individuals, other branches of government listen to the court, heed its
rulings.
And sometimes it's really important that the court's rulings be heeded, right? It is obviously handed down in other eras, enormously important
decisions, doing things like concluding that segregated public education is unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment and that separate but equal is a
principle that cannot be reconciled with the equal protection of the laws, right?
So, to take one example, obviously, Brown versus Board of Education, it was critically important that the country accept the court's ruling. There was
a lot of resistance. The president, you know, at the time actually used the federal military to enforce the court's edict that school desegregation was
mandatory and that Brown versus Board of Education was the law of the land.
[13:55:00]
So, it's not impossible to imagine, again, a court that does side with civil rights, equality, liberty. And it's just really important that even
when it does that, that it have the institutional capital to actually command respect for its judgments against those who would want to resist
it.
And so, I think those are the reasons that getting back to a court that actually serves its function, which is protecting rights and facilitating
democracy and largely otherwise kind of stays out of the way of democracy, that is critically important, I think, to a healthy system of separated
powers. But I think what we have right now is something very, very far from that.
MARTIN: Professor Kate Shaw, thank you so much for talking with us.
SHAW: Thank you so much for having me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: And that is it for now. If you ever miss our show, you can find the latest episode shortly after it airs on our podcast. And remember, you
can always catch us online, on our website, and all-over social media. Thank you for watching, and goodbye from London.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:00:00]
END
