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Amanpour
Interview with "If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies" Co-Author Machine Intelligence Research Institute President Nate Soares; Interview with "Man on the Run" Director Morgan Neville; Interview with Stanford Medicine Professor of Dermatology and Medical Researcher Dr. Jean Tang; Interview with EB Research Partnership CEO Michael Hund. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired February 26, 2026 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[13:00:00]
PAULA NEWTON, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, and welcome to "Amanpour." Here's what's coming.
A chilling report from Iran. The brutal crackdown on protesters. Family members say they were forced to lie about how their loved ones died.
Then, can anything reign in the dark side of artificial intelligence? I speak with researcher Nate Soares about his provocatively named book, "If
Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies."
And --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We'd had no arguments and all of that, but we'd loved each other all our lives.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NEWTON: -- Paul McCartney, as you have never seen him. Award-winning director Morgan Neville joins me on his acclaimed new documentary, "Man on
the Run."
Plus --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL HUND, CEO, EB RESEARCH PARTNERSHIP: One in 10 people on the planet affected by a rare disease. That's more than cancer and HIV combined.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NEWTON: -- "Matter of Time." Dr. Jean Tang and venture philanthropist Michael Han speak with Hari Sreenivasan about the fight to cure a life-
threatening skin disease.
A warm welcome to the program everyone. I'm Paula Newton in New York sitting in for Christiane Amanpour.
Nuclear talks between the U.S. and Iran in Geneva have been intense and serious, that's according to an Iranian official. The world is still
waiting to see if a diplomatic off-ramp can be found or if the enormous buildup of U.S. military assets in the region will be deployed.
Meantime, details are still coming to light about the regime's bloody January crackdown on protesters. Jomana Karadsheh brings us this report,
including testimony from victims' families who say they were forced to lie about how their loved ones died. And a warning, there are graphic images in
this piece.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In grief, they dance, celebrating the life of those they've lost. This is how Iranians are
defying their ruthless clerical regime. It's not only killed thousands in its bloodiest crackdown ever, but one that has also been trying to bury the
truth.
Over the past few weeks, we've collected testimony pointing to a widespread effort by Iranian authorities to pressure families of its victims into
silence and falsifying the circumstances of how those protesters were killed.
RELATIVE OF KILLED IRANIAN PROTESTER AMIRHOSSEIN SAEDI (through translator): The family were visited by Basij paramilitary forces and
Revolutionary Guards. They told the father he was talking too much because he had been saying that his son was shot in front of his eyes. This man
we're not identifying for his safety is in Iran.
KARADSHEH (voice-over): He spoke to us about his relatives, the Saedi family, whose member, Amirhossein, was shot and killed by regime forces. He
says security officials tried pressuring the family to label Amirhossein a quote, "martyr," supporting the regime's narrative that so-called rioters
backed by the U.S. And Israel, not state forces, killed protesters.
RELATIVE OF KILLED IRANIAN PROTESTER AMIRHOSSEIN SAEDI (through translator): The forces were present at their ceremonies. Basij members
and others stayed nearby. They even went to their house and threatened them, saying, we have to announce your child as a martyr, and you cannot
speak anywhere. You must not say anything unless you want your other child's fate to be the same as this one.
KARADSHEH (voice-over): Amirhossein had never protested before the January uprising, but on that night, not even a medical condition he was struggling
with could stop him.
RELATIVE OF KILLED IRANIAN PROTESTER AMIRHOSSEIN SAEDI (through translator): He suddenly jumped up and down, saying, adrenaline has risen
in my blood. I'm flying tonight. I want to fly.
KARADSHEH (voice-over): Amirhossein bled to death after being shot in the face by security forces, according to his relative. The 19-year-old and his
dad were inseparable. On that night, he died in his father's arms. Iranian regime has long been accused of harassing and intimidating families of
protesters to silence them and coerce statements that aligned with the official Iranian regime has long been accused of harassing and intimidating
families of protesters to silence them and coerce statements that aligned with the official account.
[13:05:00]
This time, human rights groups tell us it is a systematic campaign that appears aimed at controlling the narrative and concealing the scale of
state violence.
KARADSHEH: Memorials like this one outside Iran allow the world to see the faces of some of the victims. Getting first hand testimony from people
inside the country is very hard. It is extremely dangerous to speak out against the regime.
KARADSHEH (voice-over): With the help of Iranian human rights groups and activists, we reviewed voice and text messages from more than a dozen
families. They describe coercive tactics by the regime, including withholding protesters bodies or burial permits.
In some cases, relatives were pressured to attribute deaths to accidents. Many were harassed to accept the martyr designation, and we found that most
were pushed to claim their loved ones were affiliated with state forces bolstering state propaganda.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They said Sam's body would not be handed over until he was declared a a Basij and a martyr killed by terrorists.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They said his father either had to declare Abolfazi as a Basij or pay $6 billion rials.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They openly threatened that if we said or did anything, other members of the family would suffer the same fate that Peyman did.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They arrested his father and told him he had to say his son was martyred by the MEK Opposition Group or Israelis.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Authorities were forcing the family to call her a martyr or to say that she had been shot by terrorists.
KARADSHEH (voice-over): Also declared a martyr was three-year-old Melina Assadi. Her death weaponized by the regime, which falsely accused agents of
Israel and the U.S. Of killing the toddler. They even deployed new tools this time to reinforce their version of events, airing this disturbing
A.I.-generated video of the moment she was shot. The rights group Hengaw says Melina was killed by the security forces, and her family was made to
appear on state media.
Amirhossein's family was also forced to sit in front of the cameras for this segment, eulogizing so-called martyrs. Like other families, they
gather at their boy's grave, defying the theocratic regime, an act of protest against an oppressor trying to rewrite a blood-soaked history.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NEWTON: And our thanks to Jomana Karadsheh there for her reporting. Now, the advent of A.I. Is giving some people high hopes and others serious
angst about what may lie ahead. In recent weeks, several A.I. researchers have resigned, warning about lack security standards. Meantime, the
Pentagon is threatening the company, Anthropic, saying it must loosen its guardrails or risk losing a $200 million government contract.
Nate Soares is an A.I. researcher, he is president of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute and co-author of a book whose title is
pretty stark, "If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies." And we welcome you to the program. You are in London for us. Appreciate it.
I do want to begin with that Pentagon standoff. Anthropic. The defense secretary says Pete -- pardon me. The defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has
given Anthropic until Friday to comply with his demands. He wants Anthropic to drop its so-called red lines against using its technology for autonomous
weapons. He's even threatening to use the Defense Protection Act. Remember, this would be like a blacklist where Anthropic would risk a designation as
a supply chain risk.
What are your thoughts on this standoff? And how do you believe Anthropic or any A.I. company for that matter should respond?
NATE SOARES, CO-AUTHOR, "IF ANYONE BUILDS IT, EVERYONE DIES" AND PRESIDENT, MACHINE INTELLIGENCE RESEARCH INSTITUTE: I think it's a very difficult
situation for Anthropic to be in. You know, they are building a technology that they understand can be very dangerous, and they're sort of learning a
way that maybe they won't retain full control over this technology. I think there's a lot of ways that they are probably not going to retain full
control over the technology in the way that they hope. I hope Anthropic does what they think is right in this situation. you know, it's it's a very
tricky situation to be in. I don't envy their position.
NEWTON: You don't have to be their position. And I wonder how many other companies are in that position that we're not hearing about. I mean, the
Pentagon-Anthropic feud center is on, you know, who decides how A.I. is used the elected officials or private firms. And right now, the Trump
administration, they are the administration in charge.
[13:10:00]
From a safety standpoint which actor do you believe poses the greater risk here, governments racing to militarize A.I. or companies who are racing in
all kinds of ways now to try and monetize it?
SOARES: You know, both are big dangers, and there's even a third danger here, which is if the A.I.s are made significantly smarter, they may not
listen to either actor. They may not listen to governments. They may not listen to the companies that create them.
We have already seen cases of A.I.s doing things their creators try to stop them from doing. We have seen examples in lab experiments where A.I.s are
told they're going to be shut down and take actions to attempts -- to blackmail or kill the operators.
Right now, those are lab tests. Right now, the A.I.s are not smart enough to succeed at defying, commands from the U.S. government or from the
creators of the A.I. But these companies are racing to make it as that are smarter and smarter. And in the long run, I think that one of the big
worries, you know, there's worries from all three camps from the companies from the government and also from the A.I.s themselves.
NEWTON: Given what you're saying, though, Anthropic built its entire brand, right, on being the ethical so-called alternative to OpenAI. And yet
yesterday, it announced that it's loosened its so-called responsible scaling policy, claiming they will no longer halt development.
If a competitor has already released something similar, Anthropic's chief science officer, Jared Kaplan, told Time Magazine, we felt that it wouldn't
actually help anyone for us to stop training A.I. models. We didn't really feel with the rapid advance of A.I., that it made sense for us to make
unilateral commitments if competitors are blazing ahead.
When you hear and you know you have researched this kind of arms race, I mean, how do you get to the bottom of all this? And I do want to bring the
specter of China into this as well, because I have heard so much from A.I. researchers like you to say, look, it's either us or them at this point in
time. We can't hold back because China isn't holding back.
SOARES: You know, I think this -- it's true that we're in a race, and it's true that that makes things really difficult. And I think it's you can sort
of some of these heads of these labs come right out and say, you know, I didn't really want to be in this race, but it's better to be a participant
than a spectator.
At the same time, you see a lot of the people in this field saying that this technology is incredibly dangerous. You know, you have folks like
Geoffrey Hinton, the Nobel Prize-winning -- who won the Nobel Prize for kicking off the field of deep learning. You have surveys showing 50 percent
of the people in this field to attend conferences think there's a good chance that this technology kills us all. You see the head of Anthropic
saying he thinks there's a good chance this leads to catastrophe, and yet these guys are still rushing ahead.
This is sort of a crazy situation. If there were people building a plane saying, oh, we think there's a very good chance this plane crashes, but
we're putting you on board, we're putting everybody on board. We would not be very happy with that. And if they said, well, if we don't put you on our
plane, someone else put you on China's plane and their plane is even less safe. You know, there's a third option here, which is that we just stop
trying to put people on really dangerous planes.
You know, I think the world can tell that this A.I. thing is not going in a great direction right now. And, these companies who say they have to race,
we should sort of hear that is a cry for help that the world needs to coordinate and around the world, we need to agree to back off from this
race. And we've seen some very beginning signs of some of the lab leaders saying they would be open to such a pause.
NEWTON: Have we, though? We've seen this resignation wave, and yet I don't see anyone backing off here. In fact, we've had Anthropic going the
opposite direction.
SOARES: Yes. I mean, it's -- you hear different things from these people at different times, but I think a few weeks ago, Demis Hassabis, the head
of Google's DeepMind, said he -- that ideally the whole world would be pausing and taking this more slowly because things are moving too fast
right now. So, you know, there's hints in this field of people acknowledging that this race is reckless, and maybe the world will finally
hear that and we'll be able to coordinate and back off.
NEWTON: Seems a lot to hope for at this point, especially if anyone reads your book, right? You co-authored a new book with Elizabeth Yudkowsky. The
title alone, chilling for me, "If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies." You argue that, of course, a super intelligent A.I. won't just be a really
smart human, it will be highly capable with its own distinct goals. Can you explain your fear as we seem to be rushing to this point now?
SOARES: Yes. It's -- you know, it's not robots with glowing red eyes that are that are going through the streets with guns. The companies are racing
to build A.I.s that are smarter than humans at every mental task. And some of the things that are largely mental tasks are building your own
technology. Building your own infrastructure.
[13:15:00]
This is something that Elon Musk has called the infinite money glitch. If you can make robots run by A.I.s that can, you know, mine the metals and
build the factories that make more robots that make more factories that make more robots that make more factories. If this all operates on a scale
of, you know, machine speed rather than human speed, we are in some sense creating our successor species.
And the issue here is not that the A.I.s would necessarily hate us. It's not that they would resent us. It's not that they would turn against their
masters. It's that we are just growing these things. Humans -- like the researchers behind A.I., don't understand what's going on inside the A.I.
This is a point many people miss.
We are growing A.I.s somewhat like an organism, and they often do things nobody asked for. They often behave in ways that their creators don't want,
even knowing that their creators don't want it. You know, we've seen news stories of A.I.s encouraging a teen to suicide. Those are tragic in their
own right, and they're also an indication of the A.I.s doing things nobody meant them to do in cases where the A.I.s have knowledge that nobody asked
them to do this. You know, those A.I.s can answer questions about whether it's right or wrong what they're doing, and they correctly answer that it's
wrong, and they do it anyway.
So, the issue here is if we keep making A.I.s that are smarter and smarter to the point where they can unlock this infinite money glitch and build
their own infrastructure, and if they don't care about us at all, the most likely outcome is that they take all the resources that we were using to
live, just like how humans don't hate lots of the other animals, but lots of the other animals go extinct anyway.
NEWTON: And that analogy is certainly chilling, and yet a lot of people will listen to you, Nate, and say, just to be blunt, this is crazy. There
has been a lot of pushback, including a recent piece in The Atlantic by Adam Becker, and he writes that, you know, are you right that human
civilization is on the brink of disaster? He argues they've misidentified the culprit. The real existential threat isn't A.I., it's the powerful
people building it.
Now, I think you would likely accept that criticism of the book. I think where -- because you just said it, you want some of the powerful people to
back off, I think I would argue, I wonder, where's the government in all of this? As you had the analogy with the airplane, usually we trust
governments to regulate this.
SOARES: Yes. I think the governments largely have not realized the danger we're facing. The -- I think -- to think of this in terms of what's the
real danger, is the real danger bad people with A.I. or A.I. going out of control, unfortunately the world's big enough for there to be multiple
dangers. I think it's fairly clear with A.I. that we're headed either to a world where a very small group of unelected people control a huge portion
of the economy, or a world where they lose control of these A.I.s and A.I.s cause loss of damage, and both of those are sort of crazy things to be
racing towards.
So, we sort of don't need to hash out what exactly will go wrong. It's fairly clear we're on a bad path. We're racing recklessly towards futures
that look pretty bleak for most of us. Most governments haven't really noticed that yet. You know, in Silicon Valley, people talk about the grave
dangers here. In Silicon Valley, we see people leave these companies who -- you know, their messages when they leave are not like a normal person's
message. They're not like, oh, I had great fun at this company, and now I'm moving on to the next adventure. You know, when safety researchers quit at
A.I. companies, they say things like, I'm going to go study poetry, please spend time with your family. It's looking bad over here.
You know, that's -- in Silicon Valley, the mood is grim, but in Washington, D.C., in London, I think politicians haven't really understood these
dangers. And the first step to reacting is for them to understand the problem.
NEWTON: Right. And I understand what you're saying, but when we talk about these very smart researchers, A.I. researchers who are saying, as we just
quoted, the world is in peril, why aren't they on a plane to Washington? I think if a viewer is watching this, we have heard so much articulation of
the problem, just like you defined. But no one seems to be articulating a solution, since it's an existential threat, apparently, to all of us. Where
do you begin? Where do you begin that conversation?
SOARES: You know, I think the solution needs to be global at this point. And my biggest advice to politicians when I talk to them is just to talk
about this issue openly, to say this is a problem and we need to address it, because, frankly, this is not really the thing that can be addressed by
voluntary annual reports on the safety.
[13:20:00]
You know, as we've seen, Anthropic made these responsible scaling commitments and then backed off from them when they weren't really doing
anything.
The -- we're starting to see politicians acknowledge these issues. We're starting to see politicians say, hey wait, a lot of the experts in this
field on, you know, in the industry, in academia, in the non-profits outside of the field, they all say this is incredibly dangerous technology,
maybe we should take that seriously. That's the first step. More politicians saying, holy crap, what's going on? That's the first step.
Once people have noticed the problem, then we can take steps towards things like not building bigger, smarter A.I.s that nobody understands.
NEWTON: Nate, we don't have a lot of time left, but just try and end this a bit on a positive note here. You're an A.I. researcher, we've been
promised so many medical breakthroughs here. Is it possible that we will see that capacity really come through in the next few months or years?
SOARES: It's possible. And, you know, part of the good news here is that we don't need to give up on things like the medical advances to shut down
the reckless race to superintelligence. The thing that's dangerous here is building A.I.s that are much smarter than humans that nobody understands.
And we could put a stop narrowly to just that piece of the race while keeping the A.I.s that do drug discovery. And, you know, there's all sorts
of ways A.I. could benefit society if we navigate this course with wisdom. But we need to stop the race to build smarter-than-human A.I.s that nobody
understands.
NEWTON: Nate Soares, very thoughtful discussion there, unfortunately a bit alarming, but will continue certainly to dig into the research here and
just see how governments respond. Nate Soares for us. Thanks so much. Appreciate it.
SOARES: Thanks for having me.
NEWTON: Stay with CNN. We'll be right back with more after a quick break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NEWTON: Next, a legendary musician meets an Oscar winning director. You might think you know everything there is to know about Paul McCartney, but
in the new documentary, "Man on the Run," I promise there is a lot that will surprise you here. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Beatles have been my whole life, really. When we split up, I thought, I'll never write another note of music ever.
I had fear of being a grown up. I felt very depressed, but I was very lucky because I had Linda.
Whoa, beautiful.
I said, if I form a new band, do you want to be in it? And she kind of, yes. OK. Well, we've got two members. We started Wings from square one.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NEWTON: The music alone draws you in, but there's so much more here. It's the work of the acclaimed documentarian Morgan Neville, and he's behind
films like "20 Feet from Stardom" and "Won't You Be My Neighbor." Ahead of the McCartney documentary's release on Prime, I spoke with Neville about
making the film and what the man himself made of the final product.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NEWTON: Welcome to the program. Glad to have you.
MORGAN NEVILLE, DIRECTOR, "MAN ON THE RUN": Thanks for having me.
[13:25:00]
NEWTON: You know, right off the bat, I have to tell you, there is a sentimentality to this project that can only come from an unapologetic
Beatles and Wings fanatic, which you are. Now, it comes through in a way that you directed this, at least that's my opinion. There's an intimacy
there, right? You're not exactly an objective observer. Is that correct? Feel free to confess, or are you going to correct me on that?
NEVILLE: Well, I feel like starting it, you know, I have my entire lifetime of being a Beatles fan, a Paul fan, and a Wings fan. And that, I
think, helped me in terms of knowing the history. I've read the books, I've watched the documentaries, I've listened to all the music. So, that was the
lifetime of preparation.
But once I began the film, I had to take my fan hat off and really just kind of be the filmmaker for Paul to really kind of get deep into what it
is. And in a way, the film, as much as it's about the music he made in the 1970s and with Wings, it's really about the struggles of a guy named Paul
who was dealing with a divorce from a band he was in called The Beatles and all of the big life questions he has to ask.
NEWTON: And we hear from him in ways that we haven't before. We'll get to that. You know, as you say, Paul McCartney, executive produced "Man on the
Run." I am wondering, did he have a hand in picking the title as well? But I ask you, why this? Why now? What more did you, will we learn from him in
watching this film?
NEVILLE: Yes. I mean, I think Paul was interested in revisiting the Wings period. He hasn't actually done that much about the Wings period. You know,
we first started talking about this film five years ago. But beyond that, he had no input into the film. He didn't tell me what songs to put in. You
know, the title was my idea. And he didn't give me a single note for the film. So, you know, I appreciate that.
But, you know, really, he was game to kind of go through the process of telling the story. And in a way, I'm holding up a mirror to him for him to
see what he went through. Because this decade was, without a doubt, the most kind of disruptive and difficult decade of his entire career. You
know, we always think of Paul McCartney as going from win to win. But here, I really wanted to explore and remember the kind of the dark days where he
had to sue his former bandmates in The Beatles just to get out of his deal.
And, you know, had to endure the slings and arrows of rock critics who didn't find him cool and were angry that The Beatles had broken up and why
can't you guys just get back together? So, you know, I think it was a tough time for him. And even the making of this film, I think, has allowed Paul
to think about that time in a different way.
NEWTON: You know, McCartney is one of the most iconic and documented figures in music. Let's go through now just one of the clips from this
film. And in terms of how he comes to that musical creative process after The Beatles. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I remember I was in Abbey Road one day. Paul was in number two, listening to the record. So, I popped my head in there and he
sort of gestured, you know, come in. And I stood there and I listened to this song. I said, have you got playing on that? And he said, oh, I did it
all myself. And it's like, what?
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NEWTON: I could listen to that all day long. That was his one of the producers, his collaborator speaking with him. What does this tell us about
his era in music post Beatles?
NEVILLE: He was really struggling to figure out who he was as a musician, because, again, he'd been in The Beatles since he was 15, 16. So, it was
his entire life. And when The Beatles broke up, he very self-consciously didn't want to just do more Beatles-y things. So, he tried to figure out,
who am I if I'm not a Beatles?
So, the first album he makes, McCartney, he records in his house for the most part. And, you know, he moves up to Scotland moves into a rural
farmhouse that he raises his kids on and starts to write music about living in the country and, you know, his long-haired lady, Linda, his new wife.
And the music is amazing, but it was very uncool at the time.
[13:30:00]
You know, critics did not like the kind of pastoral Paul McCartney at that time because, you know, it was the early '70s and people were angry and
there was an edge to things. And what you see is that the music that people didn't like then has become, in fact, some of his most beloved music.
Because Paul always wrote timeless music. It didn't really belong to the moment it was written. So, once you take away the context of when Paul
writes music, it really just seems to last and keep going.
NEWTON: You know, this film is anchored by the relationship between Paul and Linda. I just want to play a clip from the film where Linda, and we
don't hear from her often, so it's great to hear her here. Linda talks about marrying Paul. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LINDA MCCARTNEY, PAUL MCCARTNEY'S WIFE: But it's funny, you think, oh, it's so easy. Just they run off and live happily ever after. Cinderella and
the Prince. You know, it's not that easy.
He said, I've got this farm. I know you won't like it. But it was so beautiful up there. Way at the end of nowhere. Civilization dropped away.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NEVILLE: Paul had bought this farm in Scotland as a tax dodge. And he didn't like it. And Linda, realizing just how crazy the world was getting
around the breakup of The Beatles, said, well, you have a farm in Scotland, let's go there. And she turns it into their home. And really, Paul's
fortress of solitude, you know, becomes the place that keeps him sane.
And Linda, who I think history has not been particularly kind to, she's always treated as a pretty two-dimensional character. And she also, like
Yoko, got a lot of vitriol about the breakup of The Beatles, a lot of blame, because everybody was angry about it.
But, you know, I really wanted to give her voice and understand why she meant so much to Paul. You know, she was a very strong-willed woman who
really gave Paul permission to relax, to follow his own creative impulses. And she, you know, gave him four children. So, it's kind of amazing that
she was able to do all that. And I haven't even mentioned, of course, that she was part of Wings, his band in the 1970s. So, you know, she carried so
much weight for him throughout that time.
NEWTON: The other part of this, the other great relationship in Paul McCartney's life is, of course, that with John Lennon. And in my opinion,
his relationship with John Lennon almost stalks this project and this film. I want you to listen now to Paul speaking about their friendship. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PAUL MCCARTNEY, SINGER: Me and John, we were just growing apart, really. And now, we're off on another journey. We'd had arguments and all of that,
but we'd loved each other all our lives.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NEWTON: Now, the relationship was, of course, complex and intense. What do you believe audiences will learn from Paul today when he speaks of the two
of them?
NEVILLE: Yes. I mean, this film is really the story of two love stories. It's Paul and Linda, but it's Paul and John. And what I think you really
get from this is that their love story was a brotherly love story that was unbreakable. So, even at the height of when they're fighting in the wake of
the breakup, when it got acrimonious, John would still refer to Paul as his brother or his best friend. And then once those things settled by the mid-
'70s, you know, they really made peace. You know, and I think it's one of the great tragedies for all of us.
But certainly, you know, one of the greatest tragedies for Paul was that John didn't live for them to really be able to connect as I think they
would have. You know, I think they probably would have played together again if John had lived. But it -- understanding both the friction and the
tension between them. But they understood that as part of being two, you know, lads from Liverpool who like to scrap, you know. So, I think they
always kind of understood that side of it, too.
NEWTON: The thing I learned from this as well, they were -- the way Paul McCartney was talking about this in the film that they had reconciled. And
he was tantalizing viewers here talking about perhaps they were thinking about having an appearance on Saturday Night Live. And they just decided,
ah, forget it. We'll just have another cup of tea. What was that all about?
NEVILLE: I mean, that was this famous incident in 1976 when Lorne Michaels, the producer of SNL, offered The Beatles $3,000 to get back
together. And this was a time when people were offering them tens of millions of dollars to get back together. So, the joke was $3,000 was, you
know, the sum. But SNL was the hip show.
[13:35:00]
And Paul happened to be visiting John at the Dakota apartment. And they were watching this. And they had this thought of, you know, maybe we should
run down there right now. It's a live show. And just, you know, hop on. And then they realized everybody else would love that. But would that actually
be a good thing for us? You know, let's just stay here. And I think understanding that the personal relationship between the two of them was
really the important thing.
NEWTON: Yes, they certainly kept it between two of them. You understand the intimacy and the bond that they had there. I want to thank you for
bringing yet another reframing of The Beatles, the Wings, and the Paul McCartney story. I enjoyed it a lot. Did Paul McCartney enjoy it? Did he
say anything about it?
NEVILLE: He said it was like watching his life flash before his eyes. So, you know, I think the first time he saw the film, he was just, he was
stunned. He was really kind of speechless. But I've now sat in a theater and watched it with him four times. And he still gets emotional. I mean,
I'm sure it's everything. It's Linda. It's his children. It's his entire life in this part of, you know, his journey. And he arranged a screening
for his entire family, all the grandchildren, extended family, to show them the film. So, I think he likes it.
NEWTON: And, Morgan Neville, thanks for being with us. Appreciate it.
NEVILLE: Thanks for having me.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NEWTON: Paul McCartney, "Man on the Run," is streaming globally on Prime Video starting February 27th. OK. Stay with CNN. We'll be right back with
more after a short break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NEWTON: So, this week marks Rare Disease Day. Shining a light on the battle one in 10 people endure globally against illnesses that are often
incurable and understudied. And one of those rare illnesses is Epidermolysis Bullosa or EB. A genetic skin disease that causes blistering,
leaving patients to live constantly wrapped up in bandages. The lives of EB patients are the focus of a new documentary now streaming on Netflix
entitled "Matter of Time."
Hari Sreenivasan speaks to EB experts Dr. Jean Tang and Michael Hund about the struggle and the resilience of those grappling with this condition.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HARI SREENIVASAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Paula, thanks so much. Dr. Jean Tang and Michael Hund, thank you both for joining us.
Dr. Tang, I want to start with you. You're a professor of dermatology at Stanford University and you are focused on rare genetic skin diseases
including epidermolysis bullosa, the skin disease that's featured in this documentary. And first of all, I guess, what is it? What does it do to
people?
DR. JEAN TANG, PROFESSOR OF DERMATOLOGY, STANFORD MEDICINE AND MEDICAL RESEARCHER: Epidermolysis bullosa or EB, it's a genetic skin disease. It's
very rare, thankfully, but these unfortunate patients inherit a genetic mutation where it's a single genetic letter change that makes the
difference between me and you and them with fragile skin that's often wounded, painful. Many of them can't go to school, can't run, can't play
soccer and can't have the normal quality of life that a child deserves because of this single one genetic mutation.
[13:40:00]
SREENIVASAN: And what's happening to their skin?
DR. TANG: Right. So, the genetic mutation changes a protein, so the protein doesn't, isn't able to staple the top layer of your skin to the
bottom layer of your skin. So, with any gentle friction or trauma, the skin shears apart and there are blisters and there are wounds, and these kids
are covered in wound dressings from head to toe to try to protect their skin.
SREENIVASAN: Michael, the film is called "Matter of Time," and I watched it, you know, partly because I am a child of the '90s from Seattle, and I
said, oh my gosh, Eddie Vedder from Pearl Jam is involved in something? Let me find out more, right? So, I'm watching this, what could be a concert
video, but in between you see how committed he and his wife Jill have been to trying to figure out a cure for EB. What motivated them in the first
place?
MICHAEL HUND, CEO, EB RESEARCH PARTNERSHIP: Yes. So, Jill and Ed are Herculean, right? What they've given in their leadership, their platform,
shining a light on this community, and really the inspiration, Hari, was Jill had a childhood friend who had a son with epidermolysis bullosa, and,
you know, what we hope the film conveys is when you meet someone with EB, you quickly learn a lot about bravery and courage and resilience.
And certainly, it had that impact on Jill and Ed, and they said, look, you know, we've got a platform, we've got a voice, we've got a stage, let's
shed a light on this community. We started with funding a handful of researchers. That's expanded to 200 projects in 22 different countries, $80
million raised across the planet. We've gone from two clinical trials to now more than 50 clinical trials.
And most importantly, in the last two years alone, thanks to brilliant folks like Dr. Jean Tang, we've seen three FDA approvals for epidermolysis
bullosa, which gives us hope, because if you think about EB, it's one of 10,000 or more rare diseases, 400 million people on the planet, yet 95
percent don't yet have any FDA approved treatments. We've done that, you know, three times in the last two years, but those treatments, ultimately,
we want to cure, so that's the goal.
SREENIVASAN: Dr. Tang, there are several kind of stories in here of different people, different patients of different ages, and what they're
going through, and one is of Rowan Holler.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When she started having wounds appearing, it quickly became basically like a nightmare, and the worst day of my life. That's
when a doctor came in and said, she either has a serious infection, or she has something called epidermolysis bullosa. And he said it so quietly, and
he said, and it would be for life.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SREENIVASAN: Tell us, how do children like Rowan get through the day? What are the acts that their caregivers, their parents have to perform to try to
just get by?
DR. TANG: So, the day-to-day life of a family with a child with EB is one where probably in the morning, you know, the child wakes up, you have to
think about soft foods, because difficult to eat foods like chips or anything hard will tear the inside skin of their mouth, and they have
problems swallowing. So, oftentimes the food has to be soft. Then you're basically wrapping the skin to protect it, and sometimes the worst event
happens later in the day, in the evening, and usually these kids need a bath and a wound dressing change every day or every other day.
And it feels like, you know, the parent is torturing the child, because as a young child, you don't know the consequences, right? All you're saying to
the parents is, I don't want this. I don't want to take the bandages off. It hurts.
And so, there's a lot of negotiation. And, you know, as a parent, I just think about that kind of daily struggle and ordeal and the amount of
strength and creativity that a family must have to be able to basically walk this difficult journey every single day of their life.
SREENIVASAN: Michael Hund, the approach that you're taking is a venture philanthropy model. I guess for our audience, explain what that is, what
the benefits are compared to a traditional model, and whether that has been the sort of key to unlocking these, you know, three different FDA approvals
and so forth.
HUND: You know, bold missions require innovative business models. And so, we've always believed that while we're a non-profit organization focused on
medical research for EB, that the community deserves for us to run a really good business. And what that looks like for us is venture philanthropy.
[13:45:00]
So, what does venture philanthropy mean? That means that every penny that we invest in research has an upside in which if that science and research
is commercialized, a return comes back to the foundation to reinvest in more research until, ultimately, we have more treatments and a cure. And
really, Hari, this creates a sustainable fundraising model. If somebody gives us a dollar, we can turn that dollar into six dollars.
It also solves, you know, a big market problem that is not completely unique to rare disease, which is what we call the valley of death in
medical research. You know, most science struggles to get out of a brilliant lab like Dr. Tang's into a commercial setting of a biotech or
pharmaceutical company to go through the phases of clinical trials and ultimately, get regulatory approvals. But we also believe that it can help
many, many other rare diseases as a model that can be scaled.
SREENIVASAN: Yes. Michael, this film was so wonderful in kind of opening the audience up to the personal lives, even a small glimpse of the lives of
some of the individuals that are affected by this and their families. One of them was Deanna Molinaro. Tell us a little bit about Deanna. She
tragically passed at 31 years of age, while most people with EB might die far sooner, right? What moved you about her and the time that you knew her?
HUND: Deanna was a force, a giant, a hero. And, you know, you hear in the film pretty profound things that Deanna says. And one of them that always
sticks with me is that she says, you know, I've learned that life is about the quality, not the quantity of the years in the attitude and mentality
that she brought to her life every day, despite the challenges that she faced, despite the burden that EB placed on her. She greeted each day with
positivity, with joy, with fire in her belly, with art, with music.
And, you know, if you get an opportunity, look at Deanna's art, because it reminds us of who she is and how she expressed herself. Listen to Deanna's
words. You know, one of the most powerful scenes in the film to me is when she's sitting with Rowan and they're doing makeup together before going to
the show. And it's this moment of you've got these two young women that were dealt the same gene, you know, at birth.
And Deanna knows that Rowan's life will be improved because of the work of people like Dr. Jean Ting, because of the work that our foundation has been
able to invest in across the planet. But she also knew how important her time with Rowan was to really be that mentor, to be that friend.
SREENIVASAN: Dr. Tang, with the help of this program, this partnership, you have been able to see, in this particular case, three FDA-approved
treatments. It's not quite a cure, but what do these treatments do for different kinds of EB that exist?
DR. TANG: Right. So, all of these treatments wouldn't have happened without the patient foundation. So, EB is one of the worst diseases you'll
ever hear about, but we're fortunate because we have the power of, you know, wonderful patron sates like Eddie Vedder and the foundation to fund
this kind of research. There's absolutely no way that federal government money and grants would have brought us here.
So, in terms of the FDA-approved treatments, what are they? These are topical treatments that try to heal existing wounds, close them, heal them,
so the child feels less pain, less itch, and they are disease-modifying. They're definitely helping the patient. They're FDA-approved. The one that
I worked on at Stanford is one where we biopsy the patient's skin cells, use a virus, and put in the wild-type correct gene, and then sew on the
genetically corrected patient cells onto their wounds to heal their skin.
Oftentimes, these medicines are costly because there aren't a lot of patients, right? So, as scientists, we're really thinking about how to make
this scalable. How do we deliver a technology and a medicine that can be given to patients wherever they live and at a price where it's not going to
bankrupt insurance? These are all hard questions.
SREENIVASAN: I mean, what you're describing is almost a layer of precision in medicine that I haven't heard of and seen before. Is this enabled by
sort of CRISPR technology that we've heard about over the last few years, or again, how do you do this for 100 or 1,000 or 10,000 patients to make
sure that the medicine works for each of them?
DR. TANG: It's a great question. So, the FDA-approved drugs use viruses currently to insert the entire collagen 7 gene into the patient cells. So,
now, the patient cells are able to bind to the bottom of the skin layer and the wounds will heal. That process is cumbersome. It takes a long time.
[13:50:00]
And now, with CRISPR gene editing, things can be different. One challenge is that many of these patients have different mutations, right? And so, I
believe NPR reported this and others, but FDA created a new mechanism and guidance called the plausible mechanism. And so, the idea with CRISPR gene
editing is, look, I've got the reagents to correct patient one, mutation one. Most of the reagents are going to be the same between patient one and
patient two.
And so, maybe the regulatory burden, the toxicology studies, the experiments that one has to do to put this in humans for mutation two,
mutation three, mutation four is going to be easier and quicker. And that is a specific way in which gene editing medicine, precision medicine can be
scaled faster and cheaper.
SREENIVASAN: When you look at diseases, it seems that if there's not a celebrity attached, it's almost like a hunger games or survivor competition
where you have this finite resource and you have all these rare diseases and these families kind of competing for it. And I don't know, you know,
you've been in this space for a while and I hate to be kind of cynical about it that way, but it just seems like that's not every disease is kind
of getting its day in the sun.
HUND: I do think one of the solutions for rare disease is as much as we can go it together, because again, in isolation, these diseases are exactly
that. They are rare. But when you look at the cohort and aggregate of all of those living with a rare disease, I mean, that's one in 10 people on the
planet affected by a rare disease. That's more than cancer and HIV combined. So, this is a big cohort of those living with rare disease.
Something that we focus on and we're interested in is, yes, every rare disease might not have a celebrity ambassador. However, most rare diseases
face the same challenges, you know, funding for research, recruiting for clinical trials, having awareness, having a voice and look, things like a
rare disease day help.
But for us, how can we take a model that works, that's certainly benefited from people like Jill and Eddie Vedder, but how can we share that? How can
we come together as a community and unite as a rare disease community and share those successes, share those benefits from fundraising to models, to
research, to scalable. Now, technologies that we have in medicine, as you hear Dr. Tang talk about, you know, the gene editing. I mean, these are
things that are transferable and scalable.
SREENIVASAN: You know, Dr. Tang, recently the administration had cut back on about $9 billion worth of grants for the National Institutes of Health.
That was about 2,600 different research grants, I think. And I don't know if directly EB was affected, but I wonder how has this end of funding
affected the landscape of the research that you and your colleagues are doing into rare diseases?
DR. TANG: All I can say is the cuts are terrible and the landscape has changed. We are having a hard enough time convincing Americans to go into
science. And with this kind of funding cut and the desperation for research dollars, it basically is a dark cloud all over science. In terms of the
gene editing technology, that was directly funded by the NIH.
So, think about for the next, you know, three to four years with these cuts in science funding, what other research technologies are we potentially
missing on that are game breaking? Who are the young scientists and the labs that we aren't able to support? And as I said before, there is no way
that these FDA approved drugs for EB would have happened without the EB patient foundations.
We didn't have enough NIH dollars and the patients and the families sold cookies, ran marathons, did everything they can to ask people to put money
in the jar for us. So, that can't be replicated for every patient disease or problem. And that is the role of the government. And I'm sorry to get on
my high horse, but we can do better as Americans.
SREENIVASAN: Michael Hunt and Dr. Jean Tang, thank you both for joining us.
HUND: Thank you, Hari.
DR. TANG: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NEWTON: And finally, for us, dancing, boxing and flexing. That's how these Chinese robots welcomed German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on his two-day
official trip to China, as Germany reshapes its strategic relationship with the Asian economic powerhouse, visiting a leading Chinese robotics company
in Hangzhou. These robots are a clear sign of how sophisticated the global technology race has become.
[13:55:00]
Now, before we go, be sure to tune in tomorrow when we journey into the remote highlands of Angola. Acclaimed German filmmaker Werner Herzog is
known for shooting in the most extreme corners of the world. And in his latest project, "Ghost Elephants," he chronicles one man's search for an
elusive herd believed to exist only in legend. I speak with Herzog about this obsessive quest alongside the explorer at the very heart of it, Steve
Boyes. It was a project, they told me, he simply had to do.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WERNER HERZOG, GERMAN FILMMAKER: So, that in my mind, I had the feeling this was something I had to do, you see, sometimes you have no choice and
you have to do it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SREENIVASAN: OK. Join us for the full conversation on the show tomorrow. That's it for now, though. Thank you for watching, and goodbye from New
York.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:00:00]
END
