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Amanpour
Interview with Archbishop of Chicago Cardinal Blase J. Cupich; Interview with "Into the Woodchipper" Author Nicholas Enrich; Interview with Journalist and "That's What She Said" Author Joanne Lipman; Interview with Ukrainian Journalist Alyona Synenko. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired April 16, 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)
POPE LEO XIV: Woe to those who manipulate religion in the very name of God for their own military, economic, or political gain.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Pope Leo ramps up his war of words against President Trump as he promotes peace around the world. I speak with the pontiff's close ally, the
Archbishop of Chicago, Cardinal Blase Cupich.
Then "Into the Woodchipper," a tell-all memoir about the shredding of U.S. aid and the grave human costs. Whistleblower Nicholas Enrich joins me.
Plus --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOANNE LIPMAN, JOURNALIST AND AUTHOR, "THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID": There's a fear of even mentioning the word women, female.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: -- are women being erased from the workplace? Journalist Joanne Lipman tells Michel Martin, yes, they are, due to White House rollbacks on
DEI policies.
Also, ahead, defying war with fashion. We hear about the Ukrainians keeping their spirits up with style.
Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London.
God does not bless any conflict, the unwavering position of Pope Leo, as he finds himself in an ongoing public dispute with the Trump administration
over the war on Iran, which they justify often in biblical terms. Today in Cameroon, midway through his 11-day visit to Africa, the pontiff's message
was quite clear.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
POPE LEO XIV: Woe to those who manipulate religion in the very name of God for their own military, economic or political gain, dragging that which is
sacred into darkness and filth. Billions of dollars are spent on killing, on devastation. The world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: The message is quite clear. It comes after President Trump lashed out at Leo, calling him weak, adding that he prefers Leo's MAGA-
supporting brother. The pope has been firmly pushing back throughout. Talking to journalists on the papal plane on Monday, he said, I have no
fear of the Trump administration or speaking out loudly the message of the gospel.
For more on all of this, I spoke to one of America's most influential cardinals and Pope Leo's staunch ally, the Archbishop of Chicago, Cardinal
Blase Cupich.
Cardinal Blase Cupich, welcome to our program.
CARDINAL BLASE J. CUPICH, Archbishop of Chicago: Thank you, Christiane. Good to be with you.
AMANPOUR: Cardinal, you've probably obviously heard what the pope said today from Cameroon, where again, he's laying down the gauntlet for peace,
but he talked about, you know, the opposite of that is being dragged into the filth. He used the word filth. He talked about tyrants and autocrats.
Tell me why this kind of escalation of words is happening.
CUPICH: Well, I think it's in keeping with his obligation and his sacred mission of sharing the gospel. And that I think is something that has
always been a part of the church's teaching that tyrants and those who wage wars really do harm to the common good. Those teachings go back many years.
And so, he's in keeping with that mission.
AMANPOUR: Do you think, Archbishop, that Trump is right or the others in the administration are right when they think that Pope Leo is addressing
him with these comments? And is he?
CUPICH: Well, I think that he's addressing the -- as he says, the zeal for war, where war is now in vogue. As Pope Francis said, it's being a world
war that's being fought piecemeal. And so, the Pope, again, is simply, you know, fulfilling his sacred mission of sharing the gospel. And I would also
say that comments that attack the Pope really are not about attacking one person, but attacking the church itself and its mission.
AMANPOUR: Well, the attacks are pretty strong. And I mean, honestly, I have covered, you know, the world for a long, long time. I've actually
never seen such an ad hominem attack from the United States towards a pontiff.
[13:05:00]
Clearly, there have been times when, let's say, in Reagan's era, there was, you know, John Paul II, there was the fall of communism in -- you know, in
Poland. And, you know, then there was Pope Francis. I guess what I'm trying to say is sometimes popes are viewed as more liberal, sometimes more
conservative, but I've never seen this kind of public spat. I don't even know whether that's the right word. What do you make of that?
CUPICH: Well, for me, it has all the appearance of an organized effort to discredit and marginalize the voice of the Catholic church in the public
square. And it would be really sad if this turns out to be a new chapter in the sad history of anti-Catholicism in this country.
AMANPOUR: You know, very interestingly, after Trump sort of went at the pope for calling him weak, et cetera, the chairman of the U.S. Catholic
bishops committee, doctrine committee said, for over a thousand years, the Catholic church has taught just war theory, and it is that long tradition
the Holy Father carefully references in his comments on war. It must be a defense against another who actively wages war, which is what the Holy
Father actually said. He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war. So, when Pope Leo XIV speaks as supreme pastor of the universal
church, he's not merely offering opinions on theology, he's preaching the gospel. So, I just want to first ask you about the concept of just war.
CUPICH: Yes, so the concept of just war has always been defined by, you have to make sure that you have an objective that's clearly defined, that's
going to restore order and justice. We've seen so many comments about this particular war in which the objective is not clearly defined because it
jumps from one topic to the other.
But you also, I think in this modern era where you have weapons that can impact a wide range of innocent victims in a population, that we have to
make sure that we understand that when you wage that kind of war with these weapons, you have to look at what damage you're doing to a society, to
people who are innocent victims in a country. And so, there has to be a proportionality in the actions that are taken, but also very clearly
defined goals.
AMANPOUR: So, do you then, and the Pope then, does not believe this war is just as defined?
CUPICH: No, it is not just.
AMANPOUR: The other part of this statement that I read to you from your own conference of bishops basically refers to something that Vice President
Vance had said, who himself is a Catholic, a convert to Catholicism. He said the Pope should be more careful when talking about theology, and this
is what he said.
J.D. VANCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: On the one hand, again, I like that the Pope is an advocate for peace. I think that's certainly one of his roles.
On the other hand, how can you say that God is never on the side of those who wield the sword? Was God on the side of the Americans who liberated
France from the Nazis? Was God on the side of the Americans who liberated Holocaust camps and liberated those innocent people from those who had
survived the Holocaust? I certainly think the answer is yes.
In the same way that it's important for the vice president of the United States to be careful when I talk about matters of public policy, I think
it's very, very important for the Pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Your reaction to the Pope should be careful when talking about theology. I thought that was his job, frankly, but I don't know.
CUPICH: It is. It's right on target. It is his job. And to equate responding to the attacks against the United States that prompted the
Second World War intervention on our part to what's happening here with this war of choice is really falls short. And so, I think the logic just
unravels when you look more deeply at the argument that he's making.
AMANPOUR: And, you know, every single day, including today, Pete Hegseth, he calls himself the -- actually, he calls himself the secretary of war
instead of defense. And he quotes the Bible all the time. Today, he decided to lash out at the press, calling us the Pharisees for not supporting the
war, like the Pharisees who didn't support Jesus Christ when he came into the synagogue. This is a reading that he made from the podium. Let me just
play it for you.
[13:10:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETE HEGSETH, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: I'll close with scripture, drawing strength from Psalm 144. Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands
for war and my fingers for battle. He is my loving God and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield in whom I take refuge.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Can you pass all of that, Cardinal?
CUPICH: Well, it's quite difficult to do so because as the Holy Father said today, anyone who uses the scriptures and invokes God in a war that
harms so many people and undermines social order and world stability, I think begins to go down a path that can't really be supported. If he's
going to quote scripture, I think going back to the Beatitudes and hearing Jesus say, blessed are the peacemakers would be a good place to start.
AMANPOUR: Cardinal, can I ask you what you think is the bigger picture here? What is happening? Because now we hear a report that's been broken
by, I believe it's the Miami Herald, says the White House has abruptly canceled $11 million contract with Catholic charities to shelter and care
for migrant children who enter the U.S. alone. The archbishop there says the government has abruptly decided to end more than 60 years of a
relationship with Catholic charities in his archdiocese. What do you think is going on?
CUPICH: Well, that's why I said earlier that it really gives the appearance all of these actions and comments of an orchestrated effort, an
organized effort to marginalize the voice of the church in the public square. And I, again, hope that this is not the beginning of a new chapter
of the sad history of anti-Catholicism that we have experienced in this country before. And I think that it's time for people in the administration
and in Congress to step forward and tell us exactly where they are.
AMANPOUR: So, the government says it's because the number of kids coming over has dropped significantly. But I do want to ask you this because, you
know, the New York Times has gathered data and it sees that Catholic church converts have really expanded in the United States. Churches across America
are welcoming the highest number of new Catholics in recent years.
So, you're obviously a force and there has been a round condemnation by many of the Christian faiths, not just the Catholics, to a lot of what
Trump is saying about the Pope, you know, the depiction of Trump himself as Jesus. He says it wasn't. He said he was looking like a healer. But this is
-- and Trump was brought in by, to an extent, the Christian evangelicals. They used him as their vessel, they said.
CUPICH: Well, it's true. And on the other hand, a majority of Catholics voted for him as well. I'm hearing, however, from a lot of people that they
didn't vote for the indiscriminate mass deportation of people that we experienced here in Chicago and throughout the United States. And also,
that we would become involved in foreign wars.
So, I think that it'll be interesting as time goes on to see what those numbers are today. But I do think that, you know, again, getting back to
what we're saying in the church here, is that this is not about politics. This is about the gospel. And we want to make sure that people have the
language to talk about and think about what's happening today, not just in terms of politics or national gains, but rather to the higher motivations
that we are called to as human beings to respect human dignity and the common good.
AMANPOUR: And Father -- Archbishop, it's not an accident that Pope Leo is the first American pope. He speaks, obviously, fluent English, American.
He's constantly talking to the press. This is unprecedented, really. No other pope did that. Every time he leaves his residence, there's a gaggle
there and he says something.
You know, one might almost think that he was elected because of the historical moment that he's in to sort of be the moral voice in this
situation right now. And maybe to actually, you know, speak from his platform against some of the Trump policies that he disagrees with.
CUPICH: Well, we really firmly believe that as we elected him in the conclave, that there was a presence of God's Holy Spirit that was moving us
in that direction. But Robert Prevost came with a whole host of talents and experiences that recommended him. He was a missionary. He speaks a number
of languages. He's traveled to over 40 countries. He knows what it means to be a pastor. He's one who has experience in administration.
So, I think his abilities, but also our attention to the movement of the Holy Spirit as we went ahead with the conclave, we're all responsible for
his election.
[13:15:00]
AMANPOUR: And I guess finally, because this is also a big deal in the United States, obviously this July 4th is the 250th anniversary of the
Bureau of America. The Pope has declined an invitation. Instead, he's going to minister to migrants, immigrants at Lampedusa in Italy. Do you support
that decision?
CUPICH: Well, of course, because it's clear that he's showing that his priority is to reach out to those who are poor, those who are marginalized,
who are forgotten. And the fact that these are migrants fleeing either poverty or war and distress is really in tune with our American legacy
that's inscribed on that tablet held by the Statue of Liberty. So, it's a very Catholic thing to do, but also a very American thing to do.
AMANPOUR: And maybe a very American thing to do. Finally, I want to ask you, I was struck by the words of Pope Leo when he said, I am not afraid.
And we exist, I think, many people feel that they're in an environment right now that if they speak the truth or speak their moral beliefs, they
might face consequences. Tell me about that, about the fear factor and sort of, you know, confronting fear.
CUPICH: Well, I think that he responded to that in terms of whether or not he's going to continue speaking and speaking boldly. And it's at that
moment that he said, I am going to do this. I'm not afraid to do this. And because it is my mission to preach the gospel. And so, I think that it's
not just a matter of not being afraid, but it's also a boldness of spirit to make sure that he's true to his mission and obligation as a successor of
Peter.
AMANPOUR: Well, it is something very fascinating to watch, and we really do appreciate you coming on to our show. So, Cardinal Blase Cupich, thank
you for joining us from Chicago.
CUPICH: Thank you, Christiane. Good luck to you.
AMANPOUR: And stay with CNN, we'll be right back after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: Now, as conflict and war spread around the world, humanitarian aid is simultaneously shrinking just when it's most needed. Many Western
countries are cutting back their international development funding, forced instead to focus on military spending and other national priorities. All
these cuts have real-world impacts, but none so grave as the destruction of USAID.
Nicholas Enrich spent decades working there and he's now written a tell-all memoir, "Into the Woodchipper," revealing the chaotic way the agency was
torn apart under the unelected Elon Musk. And he's joining me now from Washington. Nicholas Enrich, welcome to the program.
NICHOLAS ENRICH, AUTHOR, "INTO THE WOODCHIPPER": Thank you for having me.
AMANPOUR: You know, I wanted to start with what it took to actually tell this story and be a little bit of a whistleblower. I ended my conversation
with Cardinal Cupich asking about fear and how Pope Leo actually has rejected the notion of fear in speaking out against what he considers this
administration or any administration's unjust policies.
[13:20:00]
So, did you have to sort of gather your strength and be a bit careful when you wrote this? Were you worried about it?
ENRICH: I did. I was intimidated for a long time even though I told myself not to be. But ultimately, I found that I hit my breaking point. And once I
did, once I no longer felt like I could be silent as the agency that I had spent my career with and that was being torn apart, it actually became a
choice that I felt like I had no other option.
And so, at that point I decided that I needed to speak up and I needed to speak out and that's why I ended up writing memos to describe what was
happening at USAID, how Elon Musk and his minions were tearing the agency apart while lying about it publicly, and the damage that that was going to
cause all around the world for years to come.
AMANPOUR: Well, let's break that down a bit. When did the alarm bells first go off, i.e., yes, they threatened it verbally from the beginning,
but did you think at that time that it would lead to the shuttering of USAID?
ENRICH: Originally, no. The first alarm bell was the day of Trump's inauguration when there was a freeze that went into effect on all foreign
aid. But I thought it must be a mistake because that -- if it meant the way it was written that would actually result in many people dying and I didn't
believe that that would be the case.
But two weeks into the Trump administration, Elon Musk tweeted that he just spent the weekend feeding USAID into the woodchipper. And I was the top
global health official at USAID at the time. So, I then watched in real time as pretty much exactly what he said happened, and the agency was
shredded in the most cruel and indifferent way that you could imagine.
And so, my book is my attempt to show what it felt like from inside of that woodchipper as our programs were destroyed and the incompetence and
ignorance of the Trump administration and the impossible choices that civil servants were forced into as our programs collapsed.
AMANPOUR: You know, because it was such a dramatic thing and it went against the grain of the United States and what it stands for, Secretary of
State Rubio obviously was challenged about it. I remember reading about it I think he was in Panama or something, Honduras or something, and the
embassy staff challenged him about this and then he issued a waiver and you sort of described in your book feeling a sense of relief after this waiver,
but it seems that the deluge just got worse after that.
What was the waiver? I mean, I know it was designed to save life-saving programs, let them stay. Did it work and how are you feeling about when he
made that waiver?
ENRICH: Yes. When Rubio first issued the waiver for life-saving humanitarian assistance, I was relieved. This was the exception that we
were expecting. Of course, the administration didn't mean to let millions of people die as it was tearing down our agency. At least they would keep
those key programs, but the reality turned out to be far from that.
We were stopped at every point along the way from the -- from tearing down our payment system to ensure that our partners in countries could not work
to eliminating our experts who worked there to be able to implement our programs to ultimately canceling all of the contracts that we needed to
implement life-saving work. We were stopped at every turn even as Elon Musk and Marco Rubio said that life-saving programs were continuing.
AMANPOUR: So, you would then say, conclude, that they were lying, they were lying when they said that they would continue?
ENRICH: They were lying when they said that it would continue. And in fact, Elon Musk stood at the White House and said that Ebola activities had
restarted or were continuing the same day that his DOGE minions were actually canceling the contract that was needed to implement the Ebola
program. And as I watched, that was one of the last straws for me that made me realize there is -- nobody knows what's really going on and however bad
people think that it is inside of this agency it's actually far, far worse.
AMANPOUR: Let me play this soundbite from Elon Musk, it goes to the heart of what you've just been talking about.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ELON MUSK, THEN-HEAD OF DOGE: So -- and we -- and I should say we also we will make mistakes we won't be perfect. But when we make a mistake, we'll
fix it very quickly. So, for example with USAID, one of the things we accidentally canceled, very briefly, was Ebola. Ebola prevention. I think
we all want Ebola prevention. So, we restored the Ebola prevention immediately, and there was no interruption.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[13:25:00]
AMANPOUR: Let's just say again, that was not the truth.
ENRICH: That statement was completely inaccurate and it was his team that was -- at the exact same time he was saying it, they were canceling the
contracts that we would have needed to do the Ebola activities that he was saying were restarting.
AMANPOUR: So, can I just ask you to, if I can, sort of tell me, you know, the sort of the ledger. What has this led to? It's led to deaths has it?
It's led to certainly treatments and things being stopped I know around the world. But if you were to sum up, what has happened to all these recipients
of aid in the year that it's been shredded?
ENRICH: Yes. Well, the impacts have been clear and devastating to date. Approximately 750,000 people most of those children have already died
according to conservative estimates. And unfortunately, I think the concern is that the worst is yet to come and that will that death and destruction
will spread over time. As a next generation grows up of children who did not receive immunizations that USAID used to provide of babies that are
born with HIV that over -- just a year ago were rates were near zero. And now, we're seeing rates in some clinics as high as 25 percent.
And so, I think the damage and destruction that we will see over the course of the next several years will actually end up being one of the most
impactful policy decisions that the Trump administration made.
AMANPOUR: You know, when you say 750,000 deaths it's just so shocking that it's hard to compute, but certainly, we've seen these figures and it is
really very shocking. Look, according to the -- you know, the statistics, USAID essentially cost an average of $24 a year per American. In other
words, it wasn't some massive part of GDP and some massive part of the budget. In fact, most Americans think the USAID was more and should be a
certain percentage and it's much, much less than that.
Can you explain why you think these people wanted to gut it? Was there a lot of, you know, waste, fraud, mismanagement all of that kind of stuff?
Was there another way to be able to deal with whatever they were complaining about?
ENRICH: Well, look any organization and any federal agency could be made more efficient, and USAID was no exception. But we actually are talking
about an organization that is known across the government as one of the most efficient of all the agencies. For less than 1 percent of the federal
budget. We saved over 92 million lives over the last two decades alone, which is just -- it's just an incredible number when you think about return
on investment.
However, even if there are ways to make the agency more effective and more efficient, that's not what this team came in to do. These were -- again,
these were uninformed, these were unqualified individuals that some of them were vindictive, others were just confused and had no idea what the agency
that they were trying to destroy even did.
AMANPOUR: And we all remember because we read about it and it's part of American history that it was President John F. Kennedy who set this in
motion as a way to expand America's influence and its soft power around the world. It was a crucial element of American foreign policy and national
security.
You obviously have written a lot about this, the personal impact on you as well, of essentially ending your civil service career and you've written
about the disbelief you and your colleagues experienced as this agency was unfurling. Do you have a passage that whether you want to read about that?
ENRICH: Sure. Yes, let me let me let me read just one paragraph --
AMANPOUR: Yes, just a paragraph.
ENRICH: -- on that very topic. Thank you. OK. Hustling back to my office, I passed through a hallway in upheaval. Friends who had worked together for
decades were crying and hugging, not knowing if or when they would see one another again. Professionals who had spent their entire adult lives trying
to make the world a healthier place stared blankly unsure of what they would be doing tomorrow or forever. Was this really happening? Were we
witnessing the complete disintegration of American foreign aid?
AMANPOUR: And as you're reading, we're seeing these really sad pictures of your colleagues hugging and on the last day of USAID. So, your career has
ended. Do you think it can be revived if another administration comes in that actually believes in in the promise of soft power and certainly the
moral imperative of helping people and humanitarian projection of power?
[13:30:00]
ENRICH: I hope so. I believe that we do need an independent Agency for International Development. Perhaps there are ways to improve it and we
could do it differently. But I do think that the agency needs to come back independently in the same way that we have a separate Department of State
from a Department of Defense because these are two separate pillars of foreign policy. So too is international development and I think we need a
way to embody American generosity because there's huge benefits for America and for the world.
AMANPOUR: And you know what, Nicholas Enrich, as I say goodbye and thank you, you've reminded me of a key quote from Trump's first defense secretary
general, Mattis, who said, if you don't fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition. I think there's -- you know, it's
summed up incredibly well. Thank you so much for being with us.
And we'll be right back after this short break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: Now, it's not just USAID and humanitarian aid that's been slashed but the Trump administration is also slashing DEI efforts. Our next
guest warns this could reverse decades of progress for gender equality at work. Joanne Lipman has spent decades reporting on workplace culture and
gender dynamics and she tells Michel Martin how some companies are ending or hiding their inclusion efforts and the chilling effect it's having on
women.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHEL MARTIN, CONTRIBUTOR: Thanks Christiane. Joanne Lipman, thank you so much for talking with us.
JOANNE LIPMAN, JOURNALIST AND AUTHOR, "THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID": Thanks for having me.
MARTIN: You've written about women and work, gender and work for years now. You wrote a recent essay in the New York Times where you argued that
we are entering a moment where even talking about women at work is becoming taboo. You open with the line, believe women' was the defining message of
the MeToo movement. Today there's a new one, erase women.
Obviously, there's a lot to talk about here, but what made you say that? Was there something in particular that caught your attention that made you
feel that?
LIPMAN: Sure, yes. So, Michel, I've been covering women in the workplace for more than 15 years and I've also been an editor and editor-in-chief of
several different publications and have assigned a lot of coverage of women in the workplace. And I noticed something different that's happening now,
and that is because I've been covering these issues my inbox is usually filled with companies that are talking about all these great initiatives
that they have and they want to boast about it. And suddenly, not only did they stop doing that, now they're afraid to talk about it.
MARTIN: You have an anecdote in your piece where you described asking a roomful of HR executives whether their companies were still supporting
diversity efforts and you said, every hand goes up and then when you asked who would talk about it publicly and you saw almost every hand go down,
which is kind of wild.
LIPMAN: Yes. And so, I talked to some of these people privately and I've talked to executives at some major companies that in the past have been
banging their chests about how great they are with diversity, and as one of these executives said to me, they said, you know, there's fear. It's fear
both because of all the anti-DEI measures that are coming down from Washington, but also fear of right-wing activists, fear of misogynistic
trolls.
[13:35:00]
And so, there's a fear of even, you know, raising your hand a little bit. There's a fear of even mentioning the word women, female. And so, people
don't want to talk about their efforts at all. And it's led to some absolutely insane kinds of evasions that we're seeing.
So, for example there's a medical newsletter that actually advises people to not talk about their its readers to strip out the words female or women
from any of their research grants even those that have to do with women obviously. There was actually an example of a researcher who was looking at
maternal mortality who felt like they had to strip out references to women in order to get federal funding for that.
MARTIN: So, there are people who have made this point before but they're arguing that this is just kind of a brand pivot, that this isn't really
substantive, that this -- do you know what I'm saying? That some people say it's a rhetorical or a branding shift, but it's not a substantive rollback.
LIPMAN: Well, for sure there are people who are -- and organizations that are still committed to equity and to diversity that are rebranding their
programs. The issue is that because of the fear that is out there, we're also seeing literal rollbacks. We're seeing real impact because of that,
right? We're already seeing, you know, the wage gap has increased, the gender wage gap has increased for two years in a row. We're seeing women
disproportionately, particularly mothers of young children who are leaving the workforce.
And we're seeing some pretty alarming things that are coming actually from the administration. Like for example, the United Nations has, every year,
puts out this sort of statement about women and equality and 35 nations sign off on this thing every year. It's very anodyne it's basically we
believe in not having legislation against women, right? It's pretty basic. And for the first year -- first time ever the United States refused to sign
off on it calling it gender ideology.
MARTIN: You pointed a great exit of mothers of young children from the workforce that -- are you sure that this is due to this kind of sort of
atmosphere of erasure that you're talking about or could it be due to other factors like COVID for example? So, I'm curious like what evidence do you
have it is that as opposed to sort of other factors that aren't really driven by any one person or entity or point of view?
LIPMAN: Oh, absolutely. So, if -- let's like take a step back for a second. So, during COVID, women disproportionately left the workforce, then
when kids went back to school, people started working remotely, women poured into the workforce. And we actually had a historic high number of
women in the workforce that was propelled by mothers of young children who wanted to work, who could work, or who needed to work, who were able to
work in a way that they were not able to before because of the ability to work generally hybrid remote not fully remote, but hybrid remote was, you
know, a huge plus.
Now, what's happened is, in that case, you have the situation where one of the first executive orders to come out of this administration was that
everybody has to be back at work five days a week, and that gave the excuse to an awful lot of companies out there to say, OK, everybody has to be back
in the office. And that was -- that's the primary issue for mothers of young kids.
But I want to go back to this issue of erasure, because I think what we're seeing is something I have not seen before or we haven't seen it in many
years, which is there's an embarrassment to talk about and a fear of talking about women period because it makes you a target. So, we've seen --
you know, yes, we've seen this is top-down administration where you've seen Trump allies who blame women for everything, you know, they're blamed for
the California wildfires, they're blamed for the Potomac plane crash, you name it, women get blamed. Pete Hegseth has been firing female officers.
But what concerned me was actually less that and more of the bottom-up. What we're seeing is organizations that are afraid to even utter the word
women to talk at all about women for fear that they will be targeted. So, they're actually going further than they need to, further than what the
administration is asking them to do. There are organizations that are defunding things like these employee resource groups which are groups
centered on, you know, people who are, you know, women, people of color, LGBTQ people.
These groups are perfectly legal as long as anyone can join, which is the case for most of them. But people -- but they are getting defunded and even
closed down because companies are afraid that simply having them will make them a target. And I think that is what really concerned me.
[13:40:00]
What actually got me started on this was I was just interested in how women in the workplace were doing a year after the administration started
cracking down on DEI, on diversity, equity, and inclusion. And actually, at first, I thought we would find some positive results because there's a lot
of organizations that maybe did away with the scholarship or the training program that's only for women, but they opened up other programs that are
actually for everyone, but disproportionately help boost the fortunes of women and people of color.
Things like mentorship programs that are open to everyone, things like childcare, which actually helps men as much as it helps women, childcare
assistance. And there was a wonderful piece in Harvard Business Review by a couple of sociologists, and they wrote this piece naming several companies
and programs that they had put in place that were for everyone and had very positive outcomes for women and people of color. And they named a couple of
companies, including IBM, Walmart, The Gap, and I thought, this is really interesting. And so, I called all of those companies to say, hey, can you
elaborate on that? None of them wanted to talk about it.
MARTIN: But at least they're doing it, I guess, which leads me to my other question here, which is, is there a substantive result of not wanting to
talk about women or taking women as a sort of a subject of concern off the table?
LIPMAN: What we found so far is it's -- you know, it's early days, but what we're seeing so far is we're no longer reporting a lot of the numbers.
So, it's a little bit hard to tell. Major companies have stopped. They used to talk about workforce diversity data. The share of S&P 500 companies that
talks about how many discloses how many women are on their boards has fallen by about a third. The companies that used to share ethnic, racial,
and gender diversity of their workforces, and importantly, of their workforce divided by job level. So, you can see how many people are in
management, they've stopped reporting it. So, we're a little bit flying blind to see what's happening here.
The problem is if you're not seeing it and you're not talking about it, it's very, very easy for that progress to reverse. And I noticed, for
example, McKinsey and Lean In, every year they put out a report on women in the workforce. And first of all, I noticed this year the number of
participants fell by more than half, even though the participants' companies are anonymous, it still fell by more than half. The Corporate
Equality Index, same thing. Participants fell more than in half.
And the -- and even so, the Lean In McKinsey report found that women felt like they had less support and fewer career opportunities. So, again, I
think what I would say on the positive side is there are lots of programs that corporations can embrace that are perfectly legal, that are out there
for everyone, that actually have a really positive impact. So, we don't have to have a decline in the opportunities for women and for people of
color. But, you know, if you don't count it, if you don't talk about it, it's really easy to backslide.
MARTIN: The irony, of course, of all this is that, you know, President Trump, on one hand, he's given women a number of important, really critical
roles in his administration. But they were also the first people he fired when he was, I don't know, it's just it's kind of interesting to
contemplate.
LIPMAN: The conversation at the top is one thing, but the fear that is that is really leading to this backlash against anything having to do with
women is really concerning. I mean, you see universities that no longer will talk about the Women's Center on their -- they'll talk about cultural
centers, maybe, but they're taking out words like women. You know, look at all the organizations that used to support, used to see all the ads for
Women's History Month.
You would be forgiven if you didn't even know we just finished Women's History Month because it was so quiet. There were -- I think it was Ohio
University that had every single year this big, you know, celebrating women event and they canceled it at the last minute. So, you know, we're seeing
what we're seeing is, I think, very concerning for what might happen.
MARTIN: Playing devil's advocate here.
LIPMAN: Yes.
[13:45:00]
MARTIN: Is it really wrong for publicly facing organizations, publicly traded organizations to be responsive to the political environment? Because
this administration has made it very clear that they will seek retribution against entities that they don't like.
LIPMAN: So, there's a difference between companies that are continuing to do the work of diversity, not talking about it, versus those who are going
further than what is being asked of them, right? Companies that are doing things that are perfectly legal people, researchers, medical researchers
who are doing things that are perfectly legal and yet are feeling that they can't even talk about things that are legal. In other words, they are going
further than what is being asked of them.
I will also say that we saw a tremendous amount of performative nonsense out of companies and that has definitely gone away. So, you know, one of
the interesting issues is that particularly after the 2020 murder of George Floyd, where companies came out, they committed billions of dollars. They
made big, grand, sweeping statements.
And they were many of these companies were really it was performative. They were over their skis and promising things they were not going to deliver.
They were pouring money into things that really had zero impact. And a lot of that has gone away. And that's all for the good. I think the
organizations that are still committed to diversity are still doing it. They're still committed. They're just doing it quietly.
MARTIN: Before you go, Joanne, make the -- as a person who's sort of covered the business environment for years, what's your argument to
companies about why this isn't their best interest to do? Not just to resist, but not -- but to just to do what they actually say they were doing
before, which is to, you know, open the doors and make sure that the best people have an opportunity to thrive and contribute.
LIPMAN: First of all, can I just emphasize exactly what you said? The best people, you want the best people. And every piece of research shows you
that diverse organizations outperform homogeneous organizations. There's been like years and years of research on this at this point. Return on
equity, profitability, employee retention, creativity, innovation. Every single one of those things improves with diverse workforces. There was even
a piece of research that found that a diverse group will more accurately solve a murder mystery, a murder case than a homogeneous group.
So, we know. I mean, I really believe that every CEO, every CFO, chief financial officer, it is in their interest and they should be held to
account because we know that the diverse organizations perform better.
MARTIN: Joanne Lipman, thank you so much for talking with us.
LIPMAN: Thanks for having me.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Just a thought, Iceland 50 years ago had all women go on strike. They didn't call it strike, but on the home front and on the work front,
women down tools. Ever since, Iceland has had a correction in place that's made them one of the most equal and productive societies in the world. Just
a thought.
And finally, for Ukrainians, an endless rain of death and destruction that never lets up. Just last night, Russia launched one of its largest attacks
this year, killing at least 18 people and wounding more than 100 across major cities, including Kyiv, Kharkiv and Odessa. But everyone does what
they can to try to survive and even thrive. Some older residents in Odessa are channeling their defiance through their outfits.
In a recent essay for The New York Times, writer and aid worker Alyona Synenko profiles these stylish civilians. And she's joining me now from
Odessa to discuss finding joy in a time of war. Alyona, welcome back to our program. We've spoken before when we were both in Kyiv. And it's really --
I want to ask you first, because the pictures of what happened last night, you were living it. How are you after the terrible barrage?
ALYONA SYNENKO, UKRAINIAN JOURNALIST: It was a terrible night for everybody here and other places. And we did manage to sleep. But
unfortunately, this night, it was just one among many others. This has become a routine. And just jumping out of bed in the middle of the night
and running to hide between the two walls or in a shelter is just what everybody does here.
So, our expectations are getting lower every day. If you wake up in the morning and your building is still standing, then that is we still consider
it a good night.
[13:50:00]
AMANPOUR: Yes. Alyona, it's really -- you know, it's really incredible to hear you say that. And that's why I was so blown away by the essay and the
photos you displayed of many residents of Odessa, particularly elderly ones, really trying to have a good day under this terrible condition. And
they are just joyful pictures that we're going to show of people dressing up in their best, best outfits.
How did you come across it? Did you suddenly notice everybody getting dressed up or what made you focus on it?
SYNENKO: The photographer who took pictures, Olga Engibarova, she has been investigating and following the subject of this peculiar style of Odessa
for many years. And she has a blog that calls Odessa style. But besides the clothes, the clothes is part of the culture and identity. Odessa is a port.
It's a southern city. It's a place where traditionally there's been a lot of mix of different cultures, different languages. And this diversity and
this southern sun and the sea produced this very peculiar culture and the visual identity as well.
AMANPOUR: You -- the piece you wrote, To Dress Up is To Live." So, let's talk about one of the elderly ladies, Violeta Agiva (ph). She is 94 years
old. You interviewed her and you described her as one of the best dressed people you've ever seen. Tell us what she told you about why she does it.
SYNENKO: The answer was very simple. First, she is not just one of the best dressed people I've ever seen. She's one of the most incredible people
I've ever seen. This woman is such an inspiration and brings so much joy. And I'm so privileged and lucky to have met her. She survived the Holocaust
in Odessa. She still remembers the city and the horrors that happened under Romanian occupation during the Second World War. She told me stories about
how she learned to sew and how as a very young child, she cut her mother's dress, her mother's only good dress, to make herself a dress.
And from that time on, her mother told her that, OK, well, now you will just have to make your own clothes. And she's been making her own clothes
all her life. She's an engineer. She has lived an incredible life. And just seeing this spirit, this style, this elegance, it's a privilege. And
honestly, I take a lot of inspiration from her.
AMANPOUR: Yes, it really is incredible. And it's not just the women, it's the men as well. You profiled 74-year-old Anatoliy Paduka. He hardly leaves
his house, you said, except to walk his dog. But when he does, it's quite a presence.
SYNENKO: Yes, Anatoly is a personality. He used to be an actor and he's known in the city. A lot of my friends known him, a lot of generations of
people from Odessa know him. And again, it is a lot of inspiration to see these people, because when you see them, they just brighten up your day.
And we haven't had a lot of things happening around here to lift our spirits lately.
So, seeing them, I think we can learn a lot from them, but also hearing them. Because when you sit down and talk to them, some of the things that
they say about their experiences and about how they see things. Again, it is very -- like it inspires me a lot.
AMANPOUR: I was going to ask you, you said a little bit about how it inspires you. But how do the general public, when they see these incredibly
well-dressed, dignified people, I mean, essentially reclaiming their humanity in the midst of this war, how does it affect them? And do they
tell you how they survived the previous wars? Can they help you like that?
SYNENKO: For me personally, they certainly have, because, I mean, we've had a terrible night, but we've also had a terrible winter without
electricity, without heating in sub-zero temperatures. So, for me, sometimes there's just no hope. There are no any meaningful peace
negotiations, no diplomatic efforts.
[13:55:00]
And every day is just getting worse and worse and worse. And sometimes there's just, you're saying, how am I going to get through another day? But
then when I met Violeta (ph) and she told me about how she saw people hanged in the middle of the street during the Second World War, how she
spent several years hiding with her mother in the cellar. And then I was like, I look at her and I think, well, this woman survived and she had an
amazing life. And who am I to sit here and just whine about how difficult our life is because we are not experiencing a fraction of what they have
lived through.
AMANPOUR: Amazing. It's an amazing story. Thank you for bringing that to us. Thank you so much, Alyona Synenko.
And that is it for now. If you ever miss our show, you can find the latest episode shortly after it airs on our podcast. And remember, you can always
catch us online, on our website, and all-over social media. Thank you for watching, and goodbye from London.
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[14:00:00]
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