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Amanpour
Interview with Former State Department Official and CSIS Global Security and Geostrategy Chair Jon Altman; Interview with Former Ukrainian Foreign Minister and Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center Senior Fellow Dmytro Kuleba; Interview with "There is No Place for Us" Author Brian Goldstone; Interview with "That Night" Director/Producer Hoda Sobhani. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired April 01, 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]
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, and welcome to "Amanpour." Here's what's coming up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I would say that within two weeks, maybe, two weeks, maybe three.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Ending his war on Iran, quitting NATO, the president mulls it all. But who will pay the price? Former State Department official Jon
Altman joins me on the hard choices.
Then --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: I see only benefits for Russia.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: -- a win for Putin as the war in the Middle East complicates Ukraine's fight for its survival. I speak to former foreign minister Dmytro
Kuleba.
Plus --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRIAN GOLDSTONE, AUTHOR, "THERE IS NO PLACE FOR US": The line separating housed from unhoused is much more porous than many of us would like to
acknowledge.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: -- working and homeless in America, how economic insecurity and housing instability are pushing some American families to the brink.
And --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): In the two hours the shooting took place, I think it's very unlikely that only four people died.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: -- surviving a fire at Evin Prison, what a new documentary tells us about the plight of Iran's political prisoners.
Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in New York.
President Trump prepares to address the nation about his war on Iran, the latest. He says the Iranian president is asking for a ceasefire. He claims
the nuclear threat from Iran has been dealt with. He's also telling allies it's up to them to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and he's suggested to a
British newspaper that he's considering leaving NATO.
Is it just another day of this Trump presidency where allies are treated not as friends but foes, and guessing the president's next move would be a
fool's errand? The American Pope Leo is just now weighing in as well.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
POPE LEO: I'm told that President Trump recently stated that he would like to end the war. Hopefully, he's looking for an off-ramp. Hopefully, he's
looking for a way to decrease the amount of violence, of bombing, which would be a significant contribution to removing the hatred that's being
created and that's increasing constantly in the Middle East and elsewhere.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: A rare and significant personal rebuke during Holy Week. It's become increasingly clear as this war grinds on that President Trump, in
his own words, relies on his feelings. And according to Axios, some Trump aides and allies say that he's mostly improvising rather than following any
clear plan. And yet, Iran hawks, like Senator Lindsey Graham, say that's the plan for you not to have a clue.
So, what would be next? Former State Department official Jon Altman is joining me from Washington. Welcome to the program. You know, in this
incredibly serious global state of affairs, committing your troops and committing essentially the world to war, what do you make of what I just
laid out, this improvisational approach to what seems to be going on?
JON ALTMAN, FORMER STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL AND CHAIR, GLOBAL SECURITY AND GEOSTRATEGY, CSIS: Well, I think that the president has a lot of
instincts. The president trusts his instincts. Whenever I talk to people in the White House, the phrase I keep hearing them use is preserving the
president's optionality. The president always seems to be looking for another advantage, another opening.
The challenge is that it becomes hard to staff him because you don't know exactly where he's trying to go. It keeps adversaries off base, but it also
keeps our allies off base because if you're a country in Europe, you're a country in East Asia, you want to help the United States. It's harder to do
because you're not sure what the goals are.
So, I think in some ways the president's really helping himself because it keeps the adversaries off balance. But the president's hurting himself
because it makes it harder for both his team and his allies to act in ways that ultimately will help him accomplish what he wants to accomplish.
[13:05:00]
AMANPOUR: So, the very latest is that Trump is claiming that the Iranian president is asking for a ceasefire, that he will consider that in his
postings when the Strait of Hormuz is open. Of course, the Wall Street Journal has been reporting that actually Trump has told aides that he's
willing to actually leave, end this, perhaps declare victory without even the Strait being opened and leaving that to the allies who he's been, you
know, essentially dumping on.
What do you think? Can you see any emerging strategy for declaring an end? And do you have any idea whether the Iranians are actually engaging in
asking for a ceasefire?
ALTMAN: I don't know if the Iranians are asking for a ceasefire. My guess is the Iranians are trying to explore what the options are. My guess also
is the president is likely to say, I intend to continue operating for a while, but there's an end to this. If the Iranians make a deal before this
ends, then good things can happen. If the Iranians don't make a deal before it ends, I will do something incredibly destructive on my way out the door.
To me, there are a whole series of questions about what happens next, not only in terms of reopening the Strait, but also in terms of whether if the
United States backs out of this war, does Israel back out of the war? The U.S. and Israel have been operating incredibly closely from before this war
started, planning together, targeting together, working intelligence, all those things.
When the United States decides it's over, is Israel in agreement with that? Does Israel continue operating? If Israel is continuing operating from an
Iranian perspective, then the war is still going on. And I would expect that the Iranians, if they can't get some sort of deal, are going to
continue some low-level harassment of traffic in the Strait and perhaps some of the neighbors.
So, the United States may say, we're done, but nobody else may feel that this is over, and that also creates some challenges because of a sense that
the United States started this and then is just walking away, in many cases, in the view of many, leaving everybody worse off than they were
beforehand.
AMANPOUR: Let me just -- I want to come back to the specifics about the Strait and how it would be opened and what would be a reason to leave. But
you did mention Israel and whether it would have the same goal as the United States. But you've also written about it, and essentially the title,
anyway, in the newspaper was America essentially following the Israeli war plan.
You've written, and this close alignment comes with costs that are not fully appreciated. The United States is aligned with Israeli war aims
without a clear strategy to accomplish them. What was once a win-win has the markings of a lose-lose. Future administrations may find themselves
spending years picking up the pieces of an alliance that they conclude grew too close.
So, just detail a little bit what type of costs you're talking about and how is the U.S. more aligned with Israeli tactics?
ALTMAN: So, the United States and Israel planned together for this war in a way the U.S. hasn't really planned with any allies since it worked with
the British in World War II. We were really operating hand in glove with each other.
The concern to my mind is that the Israelis have adopted a strategy in the Middle East that suggests they're always on a war footing, they always feel
they have to be fighting, and they will attack adversaries, degrade the adversaries' capabilities, and then a few years later when the adversaries
rebuild, the Israelis attack again. The Israelis have been calling this for several decades mowing the grass. They just come in, they attack again,
limited aims, the adversaries build up, they go in again.
That's not the way the U.S. has treated problems around the world. The U.S. is trying to pull out of the Middle East, and my concern was that as the
U.S. thought about dealing with Iran, the president may be pushing the United States into this position of mowing the grass on Iran, having a war
with Iran every few years, which I don't think is in the U.S. interest, and I don't think is the way the United States has approached problems in the
past.
That creates a whole set of insecurities in the Middle East in terms of transit through the Strait of Hormuz, which is so important not just for
energy, but a whole series of commodities around the world. I don't think that leaves the U.S. better off. I don't think it leaves the region better
off, and that was the concern I had in writing the piece, that in adopting this Israeli sense that maybe mowing the grass is OK, we may be falling
into a pattern.
[13:10:00]
Now, of course, the Israeli goal and the U.S. goal was maybe if we attack the entire leadership cadre that the government collapses and there's no
more Iran problem. I don't think that ever was likely to be the case.
I also think that on that line, the fact is we have never assassinated an entire leadership cadre of a government as an effort to attack Iran. That's
what we did in cooperation with the Israelis. Whether that turns out to be a good idea or a bad idea is yet to be seen. It doesn't strike me as a very
good precedent to be setting.
AMANPOUR: So, actually, President Trump has indicated that they would go back. You know, he could pull out now, declare victory, but if anything,
that he didn't like or the U.S. didn't like down the line, it could be dealt again in this same way. So, he's actually, from the presidential
mouth, so to speak, put that down on the table. So, I understand what you're saying about that.
Could you just in -- summarize for us how you would open the Strait of Hormuz? And if he says, I'm leaving, it's up to you, allies, how they would
open the Strait of Hormuz? Iran says it's under its full control. Pakistan is now thinking of securing transit through there by maybe re-flagging
tankers. Who controls it? Whose sovereignty is it under? And how would you open it up again?
ALTMAN: Well, the strange thing about closing the Strait of Hormuz is everybody always said, well, that's a sort of a last-ditch kind of effort,
it's so hard to do. And what this war has demonstrated is just how easy it is to do. I remember seeing full-page articles in The New York Times and
The Wall Street Journal detailing all the minds that the Iranians had if they really wanted to close the Strait. And the reality is all they have to
do to close the Strait is say, we're going to attack ships in the Strait. And nobody wants to put ships through, endangering the crews and the cargo.
And so, actually, what we've learned from this crisis is just how low the threshold is. The Iranians say, we will attack anything through the Strait.
The Strait is not only relatively narrow, the shipping channels in the Strait are narrower still.
There are lots of ways for the Iranians to attack them, either through mines or through drones, or putting things off small boats. You can
disguise fishing boats to attack. You can do limpet mines. There are any number of ways if the Iranians decide they want to threaten passage through
the Strait, they can threaten passage through the Strait.
And the problem now is not that there is actual mines or actual attacks going on, although there have been some, but the Iranians have announced
their intention to attack things working through the Strait. And so, people say, well, we won't put things through the Strait. It's a very low
threshold.
AMANPOUR: Again, about the war aims. This has been a constant worry about people who are watching it in terms of trying to figure out what they are
because they keep changing. Here is the latest from Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARCO RUBIO, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: I'll repeat them to you now because I hear a lot of talk about, we don't know what the clear objectives are.
Here they are. You should write them down. Number one, the destruction of their air force. Number two, the destruction of their navy. Number three,
the severe diminishing of their missile launching capability. And number four, the destruction of their factory so they can't make more missiles and
more drones to threaten us in the future. All of this so that they can never hide behind it to acquire a nuclear weapon.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: And nothing about the 400 grams -- or kilograms of enriched uranium. And it just -- I'm sorry, the air force was a nothing burger
anyway. Anybody knows that. The navy is OK. The missiles, but it was always about the nukes. And now --
ALTMAN: It was about the nukes and regime change, right?
AMANPOUR: Right.
ALTMAN: I mean, regime change was up there and that doesn't seem to make sense.
AMANPOUR: But this is a serious question. What if they pull out without some kind of possession or agreement on the 400 kilograms of highly
enriched uranium?
ALTMAN: So, I have two concerns. One is this has really demonstrated to everybody just how easy it is for Iran to trouble the neighborhood. And if
the U.S. pulls out, leaving Iran with the ability to trouble the neighborhood, to threaten neighbors, to do all those things, that's
dangerous. But it also increases the benefit to the Iranians of having a nuclear weapon because it would deter the United States and Israel from
attacking Iran again.
So, what you've done is you've not only not solved the problem, but you've increased the likelihood that Iran would decide to go ahead and develop a
nuclear capability that they don't currently have.
Now, your hope is that the intelligence that led to this attack, that led to the targeting of the leadership, all those things, is good enough that
the Iranians can actually develop a nuclear weapon. But that's a hope.
[13:15:00]
And the reality, when you talk to people in the intelligence business, they will all tell you intelligence is never as good as you wish it were, and
there's the real possibility that a determined Iran, if it really wanted to build a nuclear weapon, could do so.
And I think the fear is that this operation makes this more likely rather than less likely, given that perhaps an even more hardline group is now in
power, and they have seen that if they don't have a deterrent, this is what happens to them.
AMANPOUR: And in 15 seconds, so we could be back to a position that's worse than the negotiations, which everybody involved says were leading to
Iranian concessions about the nukes.
ALTMAN: We could be in a worse situation. The neighborhood certainly feels less secure, and there is no clarity that we're going to have any sort of
negotiations that will leave the Iranians wanting to behave any better than they have up to now.
AMANPOUR: Jonathan Altman, thank you very much indeed for your extensive knowledge and experience in this realm. And stay with CNN. We'll be right
back after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: There are no real winners in war, but Russia is certainly benefiting from the escalating war on Iran, with a temporary suspension of
oil sanctions against it and pressure on President Zelenskyy not to hit Russia's energy infrastructure. This week marks four years since the
massacre at Bucha, where the war crimes of Russia were laid bare for the whole world to see. It is a stark reminder of what Ukraine is fighting for.
Dmytro Kuleba was the country's foreign minister at that time, and he's joining me now from Kyiv. Welcome back to our program.
DMYTRO KULEBA, FORMER UKRAINIAN FOREIGN MINISTER AND BELFER CENTER SENIOR FELLOW, HARVARD KENNEDY SCHOOL: It's good to be with you again.
AMANPOUR: I guess there's so much going on that's taking the attention away from the survival and the fight that Ukraine is waging against Russia
that I wonder what you make of where you stand right now.
KULEBA: We are exactly in the same position as we were a month or two months ago before this war started in terms of the fighting. Regular air
attacks, front-line engagements, thousands, hundreds of them per day.
Two points have changed, and unfortunately both of them are crucial. The first one is access of Ukraine to Patriot interceptors has been, I would
say, suspended because of the war in Iran. And secondly, Russia is making money on selling its oil again. So, these two elements are detrimental. But
as for now, Ukraine is demonstrating resilience, strength, and we hold on.
AMANPOUR: Let me just ask you about what Russia is claiming, that it's taken, I think it says today, all of Luhansk. Apparently, it had 99 percent
or whatever. Has it taken, and what does that mean to you?
KULEBA: Well, we have to wait for the official announcement of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, but this is not a strategic military advancement.
It is rather a propaganda point, the point that Russia will communicate to the Trump administration and other audiences elsewhere in the world, making
the point that they are winning, there is no need to resist, they are getting what they want. I see more of PR than real politics in it.
[13:20:00]
AMANPOUR: I see, OK. Well, let me ask you then about the real sort of what Ukraine really wants, and you know this more than anything, on, A. not to
be forced to give up territory that it hasn't lost, and B, proper security guarantees.
So, you might have seen President Zelenskyy has just tweeted after a virtual conversations with the two American negotiators, Witkoff and
Kushner, along with Senator Lindsey Graham, and in fact, Senator -- or rather, secretary general of NATO, Mark Rutte standing by.
Zelenskyy says, I'm grateful to everybody for their work in finding the right decisions, and Ukraine appreciates every effort America is making to
forge a dignified peace. We agreed that our teams will remain in close contact, and they say they are trying to strengthen the notion of the
security guarantees document between Ukraine and the United States, which is the only way, he says, to pave a reliable end to this war.
What do you know about the existing talk around security guarantees, and whether you think it will be strengthened on behalf of Ukraine?
KULEBA: I regret to say it, but I'm afraid you will be quoting many more tweets of this kind in the coming weeks and months. President Zelenskyy is
trying hard to keep everything together, to move towards peace, towards negotiated peace. The problem is that I think Russia has zero incentive to
make peace now.
The United States are not doing anything to change their approach to peace, which is, as they believe, if Ukraine gives the territory, the rest of
Donbas to Russia, Russia is going to stop. Ukraine has zero evidence that would make it believe in this assumption.
So, it doesn't matter how many more conversations there will be in video conferences, as long as there are no driving forces for peace on the
Russian side, and for the change of attitude on the American side, Ukraine will be -- you know, Ukraine's tweets will be falling on deaf ears.
AMANPOUR: And what about Kyiv's desire, and it might have been President Zelenskyy who raised this, but anyway, the government, for a potential
Easter ceasefire? Actually, it was Zelenskyy who told reporters this week that he will ask negotiators to try to pass that on to the Russian side,
and they've already dismissed it, their spokesperson has. But if there was a ceasefire, or a temporary ceasefire, how do you think that could help or
not negotiations?
KULEBA: You make a concession either when you have a motivation to do it, or you're forced to do it. Russia has neither. There is no motivation to
have a ceasefire, and no one is forcing them to agree to a ceasefire. This is why President Zelenskyy's proposal is, of course, a very good one, and
it makes perfect sense under the circumstances. It sends a clear message to President Trump that Ukraine wants peace, but I can draw only one
conclusion from Russia's refusal, that they are not interested in any ceasefires for the time being, because they believe that they are on a good
trajectory.
AMANPOUR: Tell me something, do you worry when you read President Trump's posts, like right now, he's, as you know, very angry with NATO allies,
believing that they should join the war of choice that he started in order to open the Strait of Hormuz, and he called NATO a paper tiger, threatened
to consider pulling out.
Given that you want Trump to put pressure on Putin, how does Trump's perpetual attacks and belittling of NATO affect Ukraine and affect the
balance of power in this war, in your war?
KULEBA: The biggest risk Ukraine is facing in relation to Trump's mood towards NATO is that if President Putin decides to grab the opportunity and
attack a NATO ally in Europe, Europe will be so focused on pulling itself together in order to repel that attack, that Ukraine will not be able to
receive substantial amounts, volumes of weapons from our European partners.
So, we are experiencing problems with the United States now. Our second largest source of weapons is Europe, and if that one is gone as well,
because they will have to keep -- to focus on their own war, we will be in trouble.
[13:25:00]
AMANPOUR: We started leading into you and introducing you by the fact that this is the fourth anniversary of the Bucha massacre, which essentially
showed the world exactly what you were fighting. You had a lot of E.U. leaders and politicians come to Ukraine over the weekend in the last couple
of days to continue to offer support, solidarity and material aid, I expect.
At the same time -- well, let me ask you first, are you getting enough? I know you've just said that the E.U. may be distracted and -- are you
getting enough help from the E.U., given that the U.S. is occupied elsewhere, including the reports that they are diverting weapons, as you
mentioned at the beginning, but maybe even eventually that being a long- term diversion because of needing to replenish their own cupboards of ammunition and weapons?
KULEBA: E.U. is doing a lot, but as long as the war brings on, they will never be enough. History is ruthless, it doesn't judge us by the effort, it
judges us by the outcome, and the outcome is something that we're discussing right now. It's the fourth year of the war, the year of
destruction and atrocities.
There is a long way for Europe to go. I do believe they're trying their best, but there are some issues they have to address immediately if they
really want to build up their deterrence muscle and survive without the backing of the United States.
AMANPOUR: Well, I'm going to ask you, what kind of muscle do they need to bring to the table? Because this is what the president actually said to
this issue. Let's take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: We do that all the time. We have tremendous amounts of ammunition. We have them in other countries, like in Germany and
all over Europe. We have -- you know, we're packed. And we take -- sometimes we take from one and we use for another.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: I mean, he sort of makes it sound as if it's, you know, not a big deal, but clearly, Europe is worried, you're worried. What does Europe
need to do to fill this gap?
KULEBA: Make weapons and begin to believe that if the war comes, it will have to fight without the United States.
AMANPOUR: What about -- you know, you've talked about putting pressure on Russia. Now, you know that they're considering letting some Russian
lawmakers come into the United States. This is what Secretary of State Rubio said when asked by a journalist about this move.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We need to increase in Russia's support for Iran in this war, and why was now an appropriate time for sanctioned Russian
lawmakers to come to the U.S.?
RUBIO: Russia is still a powerful country with nuclear weapons, and it is important for nuclear powers to have some engagement at the governmental
level, just like we do at the diplomatic level. I don't think that was a major concession in any way, shape or form.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: So, it was actually last week that they came in, but what do you make of that?
KULEBA: Well, if President Trump rolled the red carpet in front of President Putin on the U.S. soil, why should not U.S. congressmen roll out
the red carpet for Russian members of parliament? I mean, it makes perfect sense from that perspective.
AMANPOUR: But from your perspective, surely, it chips away at this idea of putting pressure on Russia, unless you think they put pressure on these
lawmakers.
KULEBA: Listen, I'm more concerned with the non-delivery of Patriot interceptors and lifting sanctions from Russian -- from the ships carrying
Russian oil. This is something that makes a real difference in war. Of course, it's painful to see how these guys who support the aggression,
support the crimes committed against civilians in Ukraine, in Bucha in particular, they enter the Congress, they go to the Hill and they're
welcomed. It is painful.
But, you know, to -- not -- to avoid seeing such things, you have to be strong and you have to be in a strong position. So, no one dares to do
these things anymore.
AMANPOUR: OK. So, you're sounding probably more pessimistic than I've heard you in a long time. And I want to know, therefore, in the last 30
seconds that we have, do you like a lot of people are now looking to China to help, including President Zelenskyy? Is that a goer, do you think?
KULEBA: I do strongly believe that Ukraine has to engage with China. And it is no secret that President Trump, for example, also believes that China
has to be on board when it comes to making peace in Ukraine. But I don't see why China would be interested in in that in that effort under these
circumstances.
AMANPOUR: Dmytro Kuleba, thank you for being with us and we'll check in with you again. Thank you so much. We'll be right back after this short
break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[13:30:00]
AMANPOUR: Now, the economic pain at home and abroad from this war risks driving millions of Americans to financial breaking point. Not only the
massive spike in gas prices and food prices, but this follows years of housing scarcity and employment volatility.
In his new book, "There is No Place for Us," Brian Goldstone follows five working families in Atlanta. Together they tell the story of the changing
face of homelessness. And he's joining Hari Sreenivasan to discuss why working hard no longer buys you the American dream.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HARI SREENIVASAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Christiane, thanks. Brian Goldstone, thanks so much for joining us. Your book is titled "There
is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America." You write in there that the working homeless, the term seems counterintuitive and oxymoron. In
a country where hard work and determination are supposed to lead to success, or at least stability, there is something scandalous about the
very concept. What kind of myth does this phrase kind of break apart?
BRIAN GOLDSTONE, AUTHOR, "THERE IS NO PLACE FOR US": Yes, I think when we hear the term working homeless, the myth of, first of all, the American
dream that if you just work hard enough, if you just clock enough hours, OK, you might not make it rich, you might not be able to buy a mansion, but
you'll at least have your most basic material needs met. The term working homeless says that that myth or that promise has just spectacularly failed.
It's been devastating to see how it's failed.
It also tells us that the line separating housed from unhoused is much more porous than many of us would like to acknowledge. What it says is that, you
know, many, many people, many workers in this country are one missed paycheck, one lapsed month of childcare, one rent hike away from losing
their home.
So, I think the term working homeless, that's part of why it is so scandalous, not just oxymoronic or contradictory, but really scandalous,
because it says that so much of what we take for granted as Americans, this idea that hard work is the key to success, really no longer holds.
SREENIVASAN: You know, according to HUD, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the U.S. homeless population in 2024 was 771,480 people.
That's the ones who were counted. And that is up from 2023, up 18 percent. That's the largest single-year increase. What percentage of unhoused people
have some kind of employment?
GOLDSTONE: Well, a lot of the data that we have on this comes only on homeless individuals who are counted as officially homeless, according to
HUD's definition. So, people who are in shelters or on the street. And a study from the University of Chicago, together with Yale and other
researchers, showed that the number of people just in those situations who have formal employment, I believe, was about 40 percent.
[13:35:00]
So, already a really striking number of people who are just officially counted. We don't have data on the invisible homeless in America who are
employed, but I can tell you that, you know, these extended stay hotels -- that families who are doubled up, they are, by necessity, they are
overwhelmingly part of the labor force.
SREENIVASAN: You chose to focus in on Atlanta, and you introduced us to different characters and kind of different plights of their life. And one
of the things that was interesting to me when I said, well, Atlanta's kind of a thriving city, I don't know why he would pick this, right? And you
actually go out of your way to say that this is a product of thriving cities, not necessarily just failing ones. Explain that.
GOLDSTONE: Yes. Well, first of all, I based the book in Atlanta because so much of the coverage and reporting on the housing and homelessness crisis
tends to be centered in kind of the predictable coastal areas like New York City, L.A., San Francisco. So, it was important to show that this crisis is
by no means confined or reducible to those areas, that it truly is a national disaster, a national crisis.
I argue that this is a crisis, not of poverty, but a crisis of a very particular kind of prosperity, one that has seen the wealthy get richer and
richer and richer, and not just the poor and working class, but vast swaths of the middle class as well, struggling not only to remain in the
neighborhoods they grew up in as our cities revitalize, as they undergo this transformation where what used to be the inner city becomes a kind of
playground for those wealthy enough to enjoy all the new green space and amenities.
It's not just the poor and working class, and as I say, middle class people are being priced out of the neighborhoods they grew up in and forced to go
elsewhere. They're increasingly being pushed out of housing altogether.
SREENIVASAN: To that point, you said that there is not right now a single state, metropolitan area, or county in the United States where a full-time
worker earning a local minimum wage can afford a two-bedroom apartment. So, is this a problem about wages? Because we have different high minimum wages
in different cities, right, or is this a problem with housing availability?
GOLDSTONE: The single greatest predictor in whether a particular region or city will see a spike in homelessness, the single greatest predictor is the
growing chasm between what people are bringing in in their incomes, not just in their wages, but also fixed income, like Social Security or
disability payments, on the one hand, and what it costs to have a place to live on the other. The bigger that gap grows, the more homelessness goes
up. It's very simple.
It's also important to say that it's not just wages, it's the nature of work itself. Work itself has become ever more volatile and insecure, where
you might get a raise where you're now making $12 an hour instead of $8 an hour, but you're only given 29 hours a week at your job, because at 30, you
would be eligible for basic benefits, like sick leave or health insurance. And that's exactly what Cass, a mother in my book, experiences when she
works at the Atlanta airport, the pride and joy of Atlanta's economy, and she is given 29 hours a week.
You know, for many workers today, the greatest fear isn't that they will lose their job. It's that their job will never pay enough, never provide
enough security and stability to keep them and their children housed.
SREENIVASAN: Most people, when they think about homeless, they literally think of the sort of end case where somebody is on the street and they're
begging for money. And just this very notion of what this book is providing to people is that, look, that's not the case. But give me an idea of some
of the people that you talk to who aren't in the census numbers officially as homeless.
GOLDSTONE: Yes. You know, I was astonished to find in the course of reporting this book that what we see on the street, you know, the tents,
the encampments, people asking for money on the street is really just the tip of the iceberg.
So, all -- the five families in my book and not the hundreds of thousands, but I argue millions of men, women and children like them, they literally
don't count. They are in hotels and motels. They are in their cars. They are living in the overcrowded apartments of others, doubled up, tripled up
in these apartments. All of these people, they're not just written out of the statistics and the newspaper headlines saying this is what
homelessness, you know, is at this year. They are also, I argue, written out of the very story we tell about homelessness in this country.
And, you know, one person in the book, Celeste, she experiences this firsthand when she goes to Gateway Center, which is every city in America
has its own version of Gateway, which is where people go to sort of receive homeless services, where they try to get assistance into housing.
[13:40:00]
And Celeste, because she and her children are living in an extended-stay hotel, paying more than double for this squalid studio-sized room than they
were paying for the apartment that they were formerly living in, but because her credit score has fallen below a certain threshold, she's
effectively locked out of the formal housing market. She can't rent a place, and she, like scores of other families, are forced to pay these
exorbitant fees at these hotels.
When she goes to get help, she is told that basically she's not homeless in the right way. She doesn't qualify for assistance, and she's told that if
she was on the street or in a shelter, she could get help. She leaves Gateway Center empty-handed because she doesn't fit this kind of cruel and
arbitrary definition of homelessness.
SREENIVASAN: You know, you also profile a different woman, Brit, who takes the path that most of us assume people who are struggling take, which is
apply for, you know, Section 8 housing or vouchers, where you pay a smaller fraction of what the rent is owed. What happened in Brit's case?
GOLDSTONE: Yes, Brit, you know, her roots in Atlanta go back five generations, and Brit was actually born in public housing. She was born at
a place called Eastlake Meadows, which eventually was demolished to make way for new development. She and her mother were displaced, and by the time
she was an adult with her own children, she realized that the key to remaining housed, the key to having a future in the city of her birth was
really to win a voucher lottery, to win the Section 8 voucher lottery.
And the fact that we even use the word lottery in relation to this essential public good, this essential thing, housing, I think is itself
damning, that we've allowed such scarcity to proliferate in that way. But she applies for the voucher lottery, she wins, and two years later, when
the book opens, she's finally gotten off the waiting list and is given a voucher. Fast forward, after receiving the voucher, she ends up losing it
because she can't find a single landlord who will accept it. The voucher expires, even after she gets an extension to get more time for her search.
And, you know, when I first saw that, I thought, surely this is some kind of bizarre anomaly. But come to find out that the year that Brit received
her voucher, about 1,800 families in Atlanta received a housing voucher that year, and more than 1,100 expired before they could be used. Because
the fact is, in gentrifying cities like Atlanta, where the rental market is, quote/unquote, "hot," landlords have very little financial incentive to
accept these vouchers.
And again, that is by no means unique to Atlanta. That is a trend we are seeing in cities across the country. And that, again, proves the argument
about this being a crisis not of poverty, but of prosperity, that it's a thriving economy that is leading all of these families to experience this
kind of precarity.
SREENIVASAN: You know, there's been a political dimension, I don't know if it's always been there, but it certainly has been injected into the
conversation recently. The president has called affordability a, you know, a hoax, a Democrat con job. Is there any evidence to say that this is
something that has a political nature to it?
GOLDSTONE: The official statistics say about 700,000 people are homeless. And by cobbling together different data sources, I show it's closer to 4
million, so roughly six times greater than the official figure. When we look at those numbers, we have to remind ourselves that this did not always
exist in America, that this is a relatively recent emergence, a relatively recent phenomenon.
Mass homelessness erupted in the 1980s, and it was the result of very specific policy choices. It was the result of the decimation of the social
safety net. It was the result of the withdrawal of the government, the federal government, from low-income housing and housing assistance.
And as more and more people were pushed out of their homes, onto the street, or as was often the case, out of sight in these other spaces, a
narrative emerged, a narrative emerged that said that if you are homeless, it's your own fault. It's the result of some pathology, like addiction or
mental illness, or you're just lazy, you're not working hard enough.
And that narrative was very much part of a concerted effort on the part of the administration at that time to shape public perception, because there
was a, I think, justified fear that if people connected the dots between policy and the suffering that people were experiencing, they would be
outraged about those policies, and they might vote differently.
[13:45:00]
But homelessness was detached from policy. It became the object of charity, at best, or vilification and criminalization at worst.
SREENIVASAN: You know, the Senate recently passed this bipartisan effort. It's called the 21st Century Road to Housing Act. It is supposed to expand
rental assistance. It's supposed to promise zoning reforms and curb big investors. Did it go far enough?
GOLDSTONE: It's important to say, I think, that we need everything on the table. This legislation, if it goes through the House, and if President
Trump signs this legislation, would be the most significant housing bill in decades. And I don't want to diminish its importance. It is important. We
need more supply. This is largely a supply-side bill. It cuts a lot of, as you mentioned, a lot of red tape around building more housing. It allows
for more manufactured housing. It allows for more innovation. And these things are all important.
But, you know, it occurred to me that this is only as significant as it's being billed as because of our diminished expectations for, you know, what
our government, what the federal government will do where housing is concerned.
Right now, there are between 4 and 7 million affordable housing units that we lack as a country. And this bill will not come close to meeting that
scale anytime soon. It won't do anything to address the immediate needs of the 12.1 million renter households right now who are categorized as
severely cost-burdened, meaning they're paying more than 50 percent of their monthly income on rent alone. It won't do anything immediately to
prevent rents from going higher and higher and higher. It won't provide direct rental assistance.
So, I think we need to just be clear about the fact that while this is important bipartisan legislation, the true scale and severity of this
crisis demands a much more not only comprehensive but visionary and courageous approach.
SREENIVASAN: Author Brian Goldstone, thanks so much for your time.
GOLDSTONE: Thank you for having me.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: And finally, tonight, for civilians inside Iran, this is a particularly terrifying moment, caught between American and Israeli bombs
and their own brutal regime. And for Iran's political prisoners, it's even worse.
Now, according to her supporters, Nobel laureate Narges Mohammadi has suffered a suspected heart attack in Zanjan Prison and is being denied
medical care. A recent short animated documentary drives home the vulnerability of these prisoners. It focuses on a fire that broke out in
Evin Prison before this war. Here's a clip.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): For about two hours the shooting persisted. Then a guard told us there had been a fire and that four people
died. In the two hours the shooting took place, I think it's very unlikely that only four people died.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Now, Hoda Sobhani directed the documentary and she's joining me now. Welcome to the program. And we wanted to focus on this because it
tells us a little bit about the risks for prisoners today. What was it about the fire and whose story were you telling that made you want to tell
it like this?
HODA SOBHANI, DIRECTOR/PRODUCER, "THAT NIGHT": Hi, Christiane. Thank you for so much for having me. This is a story of my friend, longtime friend,
Neda Nagez (ph), who was an activist and who is an activist who is outside of Iran now, but she was inside of Iran and inside of Evin Prison during
Woman, Life, Freedom movement on October 15 when the fire happened inside of the Evin Prison. And it's her narrative of what happened to her and her
cellmates and how they survived and what was their strategy to survive that night.
AMANPOUR: And given what happens to what happened to them there, and there's all sorts of disputed accounts of how that fire started, as you can
imagine. What do you think about what's happening to the prisoners inside right now, given what your friend must have told you about how they were
treated? Like Siamak Namazi, as you know, the prisoner who was the longest, the American Iranian prisoner held the longest, says they are the easiest
to grab punching bag right now in the hands of a rogue regime. Do you -- what do you -- what do you make of that?
[13:50:00]
SOBHANI: Yes. I would say like the film that night was just a story of one person, one night of fear, darkness, and uncertainty, and how -- what
happened to them and how -- like what they went through. And now, it's been more than almost a month that the prisoners inside of the prison, not only
like hearing bombs around their environment and like the fear and uncertainty, but also, they don't have the like enough connections to
outside and they cannot talk to their loved ones. And this uncertainty is like there for like more than a month. And I cannot imagine what they are
going through.
And whenever I talked to Neda (ph), my friend who was inside of the prison, she's like, even that one night was enough for me to think about it like
for more than three years now. And I still have the trauma of that night. And I don't -- I can't imagine what they are going through it right now.
AMANPOUR: I know. And I want to show another quite moving clip because the film was really interesting, all done in animation, obviously with
subtitles. So, this next clip we're going to show is of a bus ride out. The women are holding hands. It's a time when the women were standing up
together, having been thrown in prison, as you mentioned, it was during the Woman, Life, Freedom crackdown.
What did it reveal to you? Let's just let's just play this -- let's play this clip.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): We were taken to the courthouse blindfolded. It was just me, another woman, and a group of men. The two of
us were the only women. We held each other's hands. I didn't know who she was, and she didn't know me. But we took care of each other. You were with
people you didn't know, but you knew that they were trustworthy. And you send a deep love for them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: You know, despite the horror, it's a very beautiful representation of women and their solidarity. What did your friend tell you
about how women particularly stick together and have to survive in these terrible conditions?
SOBHANI: Thank you. Yes. Neda (ph) always was like this -- she was inside of prison, Evin, like back in 2019. And this was her second imprisonment.
And she mentioned this specifically that this time was very different with the first time for -- her first time being in prison, because this time
there was like all the cells were like freed and so many more arrested.
And many of them, they didn't have like the intention of being political, you know, just they were like asking for their basic rights. And they were
there. But they very like very quickly they learned to adjust themselves into this new environment.
And just this adjustment happened just with the support -- of like having the support of each other and holding hands and saying and telling them,
for example, Neda (ph) was there for the second time, telling each time after the integration that, don't worry, like this is the process that they
are doing to like to break you down, but then -- don't let them do that and be strong. And then, for example, when someone wanted to cry, they would go
to the bathroom because they wanted to keep everyone like, you know, happy and safe and mentally stable.
So, all of these details of how people in a very hard situation try to keep the safety and the support more and more than usual, it was very inspiring
to me.
AMANPOUR: And there's another occasion in the film where you're talking about her release eventually, and she was told on no account must you tell
this story, don't talk about the fire. But of course, she did. And she told you. So, they're not being they're not being cowed by the threats against
them.
SOBHANI: Yes, of course. It's like she was -- after she got released, also, she was like -- she was integrated a few more times. And honestly,
she was -- at some point, she was very, very tired of this, like regular integration. Even after she got released, she was like, you know, but I'm
living because I cannot live through this, like going through this every few weeks and talking to the integrators about what I'm doing and my daily
life. And demanding the freedom is more important to them.
AMANPOUR: Yes. All right.
SOBHANI: Than being a violent person.
[13:55:00]
AMANPOUR: Well, it's really powerful, even though it's about a different situation, it's really reflective today. "That Night," Hoda Sobhani, thank
you very much indeed for being with us.
SOBHANI: Thank you so much for having me.
AMANPOUR: And we want to finish on a joyful note, congratulations from us at "Amanpour" to Bosnia and Herzegovina, beating the odds against Italy to
qualify for this year's World Cup. Soccer World Cup. It was a nail-biting playoff final, the second time in five days that Bosnia and Herzegovina
held their nerve to win on penalties. So, good luck in the U.S., Mexico and Canada this summer.
That's 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 New York.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:00:00]
END
