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Amanpour
Interview with "Crisis of the Common Good" Author Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT); Interview with Candidate for U.N. Secretary-General and Former Vice President of Costa Rica Rebeca Grynspan; Interview with The New Yorker Staff Writer and "We the People" Author Jill Lepore. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired May 28, 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: We can make a good deal right now, but maybe not a great deal. And if it's not a great deal, what are we making?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: A peace agreement hangs in the balance as the United States and Iran exchange fire again. I asked Democratic Senator Chris Murphy about how
best to exit this stalemate. And we discuss his new book, "Crisis of the Common Good."
Then --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANTONIO GUTERRES, SECRETARY-GENERAL, UNITED NATIONS: We are witnessing a dangerous erosion of respect for international law.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: -- the United Nations faces financial collapse and irrelevancy. Could a new leader revive the institution? The election for the next U.N.
secretary-general is ahead, and I speak to one of the contenders, Rebeca Grynspan, former Costa Rican vice president.
Also, ahead --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JILL LEPORE, STAFF WRITER, THE NEW YORKER AND AUTHOR, "WE THE PEOPLE": We have a very hyper-polarized politics, and we have a hyper-polarized sense
of the American past.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: -- a divided America turns 250. Historian Jill Lepore joins Walter Isaacson to discuss whether the nation can celebrate as one.
Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London.
After a lot of diplomatic whiplash this week, there are now new signs that Washington and Tehran may be edging towards a diplomatic breakthrough. U.S.
and Iranian negotiators have reportedly reached a draft memorandum of understanding that would extend the ceasefire for 60 days and launch direct
talks over Iran's nuclear program. The proposed deal would include Iranian commitments on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and future nuclear
negotiations, along with the U.S. agreements to discuss sanctions relief. But President Trump has not yet signed off, telling his team he wants a few
days to think about it.
And the risks are growing. The United States and Iran exchanged fire on Thursday, raising fears that the shaky ceasefire could collapse entirely.
Iran continues to assert control over the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most critical energy choke points, while Trump is escalating his
rhetoric, even threatening Oman, a key U.S. partner and mediator, in these talks.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: We'll watch over it, but nobody's going to control it. That's part of the negotiation that we have. They would like to
control it. Nobody's going to control it. It's international waters, and Oman will behave just like everybody else, or we'll have to blow them up.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: That same scorched-earth approach is now defining Trump's presidency. At home, the president faces mounting accusations that he's
using the machinery of government to target political opponents and personal enemies alike, including E. Jean Carroll, who won two civil suits
against Trump for sexual assault and defamation.
In his new book called "Crisis of the Common Good," Democratic Senator Chris Murphy argues that Trump is not the root cause, but the product of a
much deeper crisis in American democracy. And he is joining me now from Chicago.
Senator, welcome back to the program. And can I start by talking about the latest international news? So, all of this back and forth, as I outlined,
over some kind of an agreement to get out of the war on Iran. I know that you want a cease-fire, but you're not thrilled with the outlines of what
seems to be on the table. Where do you stand right now?
SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT), AUTHOR, "CRISIS OF THE COMMON GOOD": Well, first of all, we have no idea whether there is a deal pending. I mean, this has
been the news essentially for the last 30 days, Trump signaling that there may be an agreement.
I want the war to end on practically any terms because every single day this war goes on, America is humiliated. American consumers are being
hammered. People's lives are being ruined in the United States. Thousands are dying needlessly in the Middle East. And Iran is getting stronger.
This war has been perhaps the most incompetent-run war in the modern history of the United States, and that's saying a lot. What is this deal
apparently about? Essentially, just going back to where we were before the war began.
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So, we end our blockade, they end their blockade and then we have the opportunity to sit and talk about sanctions relief for nuclear commitments.
Well, that's exactly where we were before the war began.
The problem is Iran is now stronger. They have more leverage at the nuclear negotiating table today than they did because they have taken America's
best shot and they have survived. The doddering 80-year-old ayatollah is gone and a more menacing regime likely is in its place and now they know
that they have this leverage that they have shown to the world, the ability to close and control the Strait of Hormuz, that they can hold over us like
the Sword of Damocles in these negotiations.
So, he has made negotiations much harder. He has damaged the global economy and the American economy. And it's just sad that we had to go through all
of this just to talk about a diplomatic agreement that brings us back to exactly where we were but lowers our leverage at the negotiating table.
AMANPOUR: Senator, there are others who will say, well, actually, hang on. In the last couple of months, the U.S. and Israel have severely degraded
Iran's military capability that its economy is on its knees with this blockade. And you know, it is weakened, although, as you rightly say,
because that's all the information coming out of Iran, it has strengthened the hand of the hardliners, particularly the military, the IRGC.
Do you think, despite your misgivings, that actually it's militarily weakened and maybe more, I don't know, amenable to further nuclear
concessions than even Obama got?
MURPHY: No, absolutely not. We are going to get a worse deal because we have given them all we've got. They, I think, always knew we weren't going
to launch a ground invasion, but there was definitely the chance that major air operations could do significant damage. But all the assessments that
have been made public show that Iran still has 70 percent of their missiles, has 70 percent of their drones.
Meanwhile, it's taken an enormous toll on America's security. We have significantly depleted our missile stocks, our interceptors. We have
exposed ourselves militarily because of all of the weaponry we have had to use here.
Iran is more powerful today. They just are. They are more connected to China than they were before the war. They are more menacing in the region.
They have more leverage than they did at the beginning of this conflict at the negotiating table. We have less. And that is why every president has
been told, don't go to war with Iran. You are going to end up weaker at the end of it. And every president prior to Donald Trump, Republicans and
Democrats, paid attention and followed that counsel.
AMANPOUR: So, what about the congressional ability to vote on war, the War Powers Act, et cetera, the War Powers Resolution? Now, you have been trying
to get that through for a while. And just recently, in fact, the Senate did approve it. A couple of Republicans came over, including Senator Bill
Cassidy, who then was primary. He lost his position. And he, you know, flipped to a yes vote.
Then you were going to try to take it to the House, as the procedure demands, but the house speaker didn't call a vote. Where do you think that
now stands? And do you think more Republicans are becoming more willing to try to stop this war?
MURPHY: Yes. So, since the war began, when it became clear that the Republicans who control Congress weren't going to do their constitutional
duty, which is to bring a war vote before Congress, a war is not supposed to happen like this without prior congressional consent. When we found out
Republicans weren't going to do that, a few of U.S., Senator Booker, Senator Kaine and myself, got together and said, OK, we're going to bring
up resolutions that under the rules require a vote in the Senate every single week. And we've done that. We lost those resolutions to end the war
for the first several weeks.
But we just got 50 votes for the first time on a procedural motion last week. And we think it's going to pass the Senate shortly. It probably has
the votes to pass the House. Now, the president can veto it. So, we would ultimately need veto proof majorities.
But what we're showing is that as time goes on, more and more Republicans are turning against the president. Why? Because this war is wildly
unpopular, except for his very hard base that lives in this pro-Trump media ecosystem. Everybody in this nation thinks this is a disaster because
they're paying $6 for gas. And the only reason they're paying $6 for gas is because of this war.
So, pressure is going to mount on Republicans to join us on these resolutions. And we will continue to bring them every single week until we
have enough votes to pass them or hopefully to override his veto.
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AMANPOUR: Let me ask you, because obviously this is not just the United States, it's Israel and the United States, a joint operation against Iran.
And I want to know how much you consider the prime minister of Israel to be, you know, I don't know what the right word is, but to have convinced
the president of the United States to still want the president of the United States to continue.
He's openly said, and so have his people and so have his, you know, his allies and his ministers and things, that we don't want this war to end
because we don't think the threat is over.
MURPHY: Yes. Obviously, there's been a lot of reporting about why the U.S. got dragged into the war. And it does appear that it's pretty simple that
Netanyahu and a handful of other hawks surrounding the president convinced him that if he launched airstrikes, Iran's government would fall and it
would be replaced immediately by a pro-U.S., pro-Israel government.
Now, whether that was a democracy or just a different dictator, it's unclear, but Netanyahu was wrong and he's largely been wrong over and over
again about the impact of military activity in the region. And now, we're left with an absolute mess because they didn't apparently have a plan B.
They thought if we launched a couple days of airstrikes, the regime would fall, a pro-U.S. government would take its place and everything would be
great. When that didn't plan out, they were scrambling, and they've been scrambling incompetently, panicking ever since.
AMANPOUR: So, let me ask you then, because I want to know whether you agree with your colleague Senator Chris Van Hollen and his op-ed just
recently this week, when he basically talked about how the United States must re-evaluate the terms of its relationship with Israel, you know, stay
big friends, but condition certainly military assistance and weaponry on the same, you know, standards that you do to other countries who receive
military aid.
He said, the hard truth my party needs to face, he's actually talking about Democrats right now, blaming Democrats for, quote, "reflexive and
unconditional support, undermined American values," calls out the Biden administration, he says, repeatedly failed to use U.S. leverage as Israel
imposed devastating collective punishment on the people of Gaza.
Do you agree, do you think the next Democratic president should recognize a Palestinian State and, as I said, enforce conditions, the very same
conditions that it asks of other countries in receipt of aid and military assistance?
MURPHY: Well, I have not gotten the chance to read his whole piece, so I can't tell you whether I agree with the whole case, but I have long
believed that we should treat Israel as we do other nations in this respect. We should only give aid to countries that are obeying and abiding
by international human rights laws and the generally acceptable laws of war.
And while I've always believed that Israel has a right to defend itself, a duty to defend itself, and did in the wake of the October 7th attacks,
there is just no doubt that they have not used our weapons in accordance with generally accepted human rights laws. It is not allowable under
international law to essentially eradicate entire towns and cities as they did in Gaza, as they are doing right now in Lebanon. You have to engage in
targeted campaigns against your true enemies rather than visiting enormous pain on civilians, as has been happening in both of these theaters.
So, yes, I have been voting against arms sales to Israel for the better part of the last year, not because I want to permanently end our
partnership with Israel, but because I don't think we can continue it until they start operating differently and causing less humanitarian pain in
these conflicts.
AMANPOUR: So, let's get to your book, because all of this is somewhat related. You talk about the common good and the assault on the common good.
Let's talk about corruption. You talk a lot about that, and there's a huge amount of criticism, even by normal Trump allies, over this $1.8 billion
that's being, you know, termed a slush fund.
Tell me how that fits into the paradigm of what you say Americans are getting fed up and there's a malaise over the, you know, declining common
good.
MURPHY: Yes, listen, I think everybody in America knows that there was something wrong, something rotten in this country before Trump, that people
were feeling more lonely than ever before. They felt like these technologies were spiraling us into lives of isolation, that our work
lacked dignity, as profit was the only thing that mattered, everything not nailed down was becoming a commodity. You know, today you can place a bet
and win money over whether famine happens on the other side of the world. It all feels kind of soulless.
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And I think that that's the story of the normalization of corruption as well. We live in a corrupt economy today where a handful of really powerful
people who run these big companies essentially just grab everything they can for themselves. We're talking about Elon Musk soon being a
trillionaire, leaving scraps for everybody else.
I think people have begun to think that that's normal in our politics as well, that Donald Trump wins politically and he's able to use any means
necessary to grab whatever he can for himself, including insider trading, including scooping $1.8 trillion billion out of the Treasury for his
political slush fund.
We've just gotten normalized to this idea that if you win in the economy, you win in government, you can take whatever you want. Greed used to be
something that we shamed. We wanted shared prosperity. Today it is something we lionize. And I think that's part of the reason that America
seems to be kind of falling apart a bit spiritually and is attracted more than ever before to demagogues like Trump.
AMANPOUR: Well, before I ask you for a solution, I just want to point out that you begin your book, this book, with an anecdote that is not set in
Washington in the corridors of power. It's on, you know, the hockey, the rink when you're watching your son playing hockey. Tell us about the
anecdote.
MURPHY: Yes. My book opens with a personal story that will sound familiar to people. My son's a hockey player. He's not going to play in the NHL, but
he's playing a 60-game season, which is just a lot of hockey games because his league is owned by a private equity backed investment company. And I've
come to find out that there are some pretty bizarre rules in this league. For instance, parents can't live stream the games so that a grandparent can
watch at home. Why? Because this private equity backed company has installed a camera system, a streaming system that they charge you for.
And what's happening is that even the most sacred things in our life, like our kids' youth sports, is being purchased and then sold back to us. And
that is part of what is driving. I think this great anxiety in this country is that everything is for sale, including our kids' youth sports. We want
some things in our world to just be run for the common good. Our elementary schools, parts of our health care system, our kids' youth sports teams.
And when everything becomes a commodity, when we construct an economy in which the only thing that matters is profit, that a company is judged to be
successful, even if it pillages the community in which it lives in, it treats its workers miserably, but it makes a profit. It just feels like
something's wrong.
And so, this book argues that we have got to rebuild a sense of the common good. We've got to build an economy that serves everybody, not just the
people at the top. We've got to rebuild our democracy so that everybody's voices matter. And that if you do that, once again, people will be less
willing to kind of normalize the kind of scapegoating that you see from Donald Trump.
AMANPOUR: So, let me ask you, because you talk about the youth, and of course young people are now graduating from university, want to get into
the job market. A huge amount of despair about what faces them, particularly in this A.I. world. And you've called out the cult of
technology. Let me just play you a series of quite extraordinary booing of commencement speakers when they mentioned A.I. at graduation speeches this
year.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ERIC SCHMIDT, FORMER CEO, GOOGLE: It was the architects of artificial intelligence. Interesting.
TIFFANY HERNANDEZ, PRESIDENT, GLENDALE COMMUNITY COLLEGE: We're using a new A.I. system as our reader.
GLORIA CAULFIELD, VICE PRESIDENT OF STRATEGIC ALLIANCES, TAVISTOCK DEVELOPMENT CO.: The rise of artificial intelligence is the next
industrial revolution.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: I mean, it almost looks like a meme, but it's happening. That was Arizona, California, Florida. This is really big, particularly for our
youth, particularly in what you're calling about, you know, the crisis of the common good. How is that going to be reversed?
MURPHY: So, you know, this book really talks about the spiritual crisis in the country. How are we feeling and how do we craft policies that make us
happier? I mean, that's actually what government is supposed to be in the business of doing, is making people happier. And right now, people are less
happy than ever before.
I think we need to talk about A.I. not just as a job killer, and that's a big deal for these kids, but what happens to us spiritually, what happens
to us as human beings when all of a sudden machines are doing the things that made us human?
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We're going to machines for friendship, for creativity, for composition, for critical thinking. What's left of humanity if the machines are doing
all of that?
And so, the reason that I think we have to jump in right now and protect people from A.I., in particular protect young people from A.I., is that
it's not just about jobs, it's ultimately about a crisis of humanity. And there is a way to get the good from A.I. without getting that spiritual
disintegration.
I gave a very different commencement speech this year. I spoke in Connecticut at Wesleyan University and I gave a speech in defense of
inefficiency, talking about why we shouldn't give in to a cult of efficiency and we should just take, we should be OK with slowing down in
our lives. We should be OK with the inefficiency of democracy, that we shouldn't be speeding forward to live a life that is constantly maximized.
That in the end makes you feel like you are just a cog in a machine rather than having true agency, true meaning and purpose in your lives.
So, yes, Congress has to step forward and create some clear rules, like keeping kids off of these friendship chatbots, like turning off the
algorithms for young children. We need to do that immediately as a spiritual matter and as an economic matter.
AMANPOUR: And the Pope has weighed in as well, of course, this week with his first encyclical on this matter. Senator Murphy, thank you very much
indeed.
MURPHY: Thank you.
AMANPOUR: Now, stay with CNN because we will be right back after a break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: Now, the United Nations is facing a moment of crisis. The organization was originally created from the ruins of World War II to
prevent conflict and to uphold international law. Today, the U.N. is facing a massive financial crisis with billions of dollars in unpaid U.S. dues and
other such things, even as wars and humanitarian crises rage from Sudan to Gaza to Ukraine and elsewhere.
And now, another major escalation. Israel has frozen ties with Secretary- General Antonio Guterres himself after reportedly being considered for a U.N. blacklist of perpetrators accused of conflict-related sexual violence,
which Israel denies.
So, at a moment when the U.N.'s authority is under growing attack, who would want to lead it? Well, one contender is Rebeca Grynspan, the current
head of U.N. trade and development and the former vice president of Costa Rica, who's joining me now from here in London. Welcome to the program,
Rebeca Grynspan.
I know you've been here with some other contestants and contenders to put out your views and visions for your sort of campaign pitches, if you like.
So, what is your campaign pitch after I've described I don't know. Do you agree a failing organization or one in deep crisis right now?
REBECA GRYNSPAN, CANDIDATE FOR U.N. SECRETARY-GENERAL AND FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF COSTA RICA: Thank you, Christiane. Thank you for inviting me.
And let me start by saying that I believe in the principles of the charter. And I still believe that the U.N. is a key organization for stability in a
more peaceful world.
Now, I am not defending the U.N. as it is. I am defending the principles of the U.N. and the need to reform and to put the U.N. fit for purpose in
2026.
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We were created 80 years ago. So, there are things that we have to improve. There are representation that we have to enhance. And there are many things
that we have to do in the U.N. also to be better, more useful, more flexible, more agile to the conflict of today.
AMANPOUR: What would you think is -- I mean, you say that reform many, many U.N. leaders and contenders have insisted that there needs to be
reform only to be pushed back and it just doesn't happen. But on the immediate crisis of underfunding and the potential financial collapse, what
do you think needs to happen immediately, either before the election or after the election? What would you do?
For instance, your biggest backer is the United States, and it is withholding quite a lot of dues and has a lot of demands, including cutting
back peacekeeping, human rights work, et cetera, development work. Where do you meet that in the middle?
GRYNSPAN: Yes. First of all, obviously, we have to start by the call on all the membership to comply with their obligations. But let's agree that
the financial crisis is also related to the political crisis. So, we will have to engage with the U.S., but with all the membership to be able to
solve this problem and call on the reform and the ability of the U.N. to deliver as the U.S. has agreed with us in the humanitarian field.
Yes, in the humanitarian, they've realized that the only ones that can bring humanitarian aid at scale is the U.N. And so, they started to fund
again the humanitarian work. So, we need to engage on the other areas and also ask for the membership to give the U.N. the space in the financial
rules to be able to find a solution and to have a stable budget for the future. And we need some time to do that, some benefit of the doubt to do
that.
So, we are calling also in the membership to give us some leeway in some of the financial rules so we can respond and we can bring back the countries
and the countries to comply with the obligations that they have responsibility to.
And look --
AMANPOUR: You know, I --
GRYNSPAN: If I may say, Christiane, here, you know, I've been in the Minister of Finance of my country when we were negotiating the debt and
where we were under financial restraint. I know numbers. The first thing, obviously, I will do if I am elected is to ask for the actual numbers. But
we need the benefit of the doubt, the space from the membership to be able to be back on our feet. We cannot really operate and make an organization
that will be useful for its purpose if we don't have a stable budget and horizon for that to happen.
AMANPOUR: On the issue, though, of what is the power of the secretary- general? I mean, you know, one could say that there's a lot of power, the power of -- the moral power, the bully pulpit, even though you pretty much
are sort of beholden certainly to the five permanent members and all the other members of the United Nations. This is what I asked the current
secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, a few years ago about what he thinks his authority is. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANTONIO GUTERRES, SECRETARY-GENERAL, UNITED NATIONS: The secretary of the United Nations has no power and there's no money. What we have is a voice
and that voice can be loud. And I have the obligation to make it loud. And at the same time, we have some convening powers.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: So, I mean, that was pretty frank. And I just wondered, do you agree, no money, no power, but we do have a voice and convening power? I
mean, my first question is, why would you want this job at this time?
GRYNSPAN: Look, Christiane, I am the daughter of peace. My parents were refugees of the Second World War. I know exactly what war takes away from
you and what peace allows you to be. And so, I really believe that the courage that it took -- as you said when you introduced me, the courage
that it took to agree on the U.N. Charter is the courage that we need today to stand by the principles of the U.N. Charter.
[13:30:00]
And I know that the world will be more stable and more peaceful if we comply with that objective, with that aspiration. And the U.N. has the
power of the voice and the power of the convening, but also it has the good offices of the secretary-general. We have the power of preventive
diplomacy, of mediation, of being at the table.
And when I go around and I ask about it, most of the people tell me -- they ask me, where is the U.N.? And that's part of what we need to recover. We
need to recover being at the table, being there. You know, assume and accept, you know, the cost of rejection, of failing.
The only thing we cannot assume is not trying. The only failure we have to fear is not trying. We have become too risk-averse and we have to change
that.
AMANPOUR: That's really interesting, because you hark back to an earlier era. I was speaking to Thant Myint-U, who is the grandson of the U.N.
Secretary-general, the second one, U Thant, and he was reminding us with his new book, as well, that at that time, U Thant played a very, very
pivotal role in mediating between the Soviet Union and the United States around the Cuban Missile Crisis and helped to defuse what could have been
an end-of-times catastrophe.
So -- and only because he had that convening power, that platform, that moral authority, he didn't have any, you know, divisions or regiments. Can
you see in today's world, all these decades since, and all these different wars and all these different, you know, stakeholders, and essentially a
little bit of a collapse of the functioning of the Security Council, do you think you can get back to a world where there's a U Thant-style ability to
-- you know, to use that unique power?
GRYNSPAN: Yes. But, Christiane, you know, when -- if the Security Council is blocked, that's the starting of your work, not the end of your work.
Your work, part of your work is precisely to open up the spaces for convergence. We don't have to agree on everything to agree on things that
are important for the world and for millions of people around the world.
So, that's why I say, you know, the good offices of the secretary-general have to be the center. Peace and security have to be the center of the
office of the secretary-general, you know, in terms of preventive diplomacy, mediation, the good offices of the secretary-general to de-
escalate before conflicts escalate. And today, the office of the secretary- general is not structured to do that.
We need to do that again, precisely learning from the past, but also looking at the kinds of cooperation that we will need for the future. And
that is possible to do because it requires leadership, it requires determination, and it requires competence. And I think that I can provide
that to the U.N. And I'm confident that we can be of use to the conflicts of today.
AMANPOUR: And what would you propose to try to straighten out relations, for instance, between, you know, the U.N. and Israel? The UNRWA, which is
the, you know, relief and works agency, which basically is charged with all the humanitarian education and medical needs of the Palestinians, whether
in Gaza or in the occupied West Bank, as you know, the headquarters in Israel has been flattened, and there's a rupture between the government of
Israel and UNRWA. So, it's bad, the relationship between Israel and the U.N. They believe the U.N. is stacked against them.
How do you propose to straighten that out, given that it's such a vital necessity and that the U.N. does vital work that the government there is
not doing for the Palestinians, for instance? That's what it was tasked to do.
GRYNSPAN: Yes, first of all, let's agree that UNRWA is also very important in other parts. UNRWA has vital also work to do in Jordan, in Syria, in the
West Bank, in Lebanon. And so, UNRWA is a very important organization for the Palestinians and for the refugees, the Palestinian refugees.
[13:35:00]
Now, in Gaza, now there is a resolution of the Security Council, Resolution 2803, that established 20 points for ceasefire that has to be maintained
and has been broken many times during this time for unimpeded access of humanitarian aid to Gaza, but also on the reconstruction of Gaza with the
board peace for Gaza. And I think that we need to make that plan succeed. And the U.N. can be a very important force.
As I said before, we have learned very clearly there is nobody that can provide humanitarian aid at the scale needed if it's not the U.N. At the
same time, we know and we agree that humanitarian aid should not be politicized, and that credibility has to be maintained all the time on the
ground.
AMANPOUR: And the Global South obviously has risen to a much bigger prominence over the decades since the U.N. was first formed. And one of
your rivals or competitors for this job is Macky Sall, the president of Senegal. And he is openly demanding reform and expansion of the Security
Council, that it's enough already with just the five permanent members and that developing nations should have permanent seats. Would you consider
that?
GRYNSPAN: You know that it definitely you know that that's a decision of the Security Council, but I have no doubt and I will agree with Macky Sall
that there is a wide consensus that Africa is underrepresented in the United Nations. Most of them were not independent countries when the United
Nations was formed.
When the charter was signed, there were 51 countries signing the charter. Today we are 193. That means that 142 countries were not present at that
moment, and that will require reforms. And the Security Council, no doubt, will have more weight and legitimacy if it will represent the world of
today. And you know, I think that the wider consensus that you can find today is for the representation of Africa. In the structures of the U.N.
and in the Security Council.
AMANPOUR: And lastly, there is obviously yourself and a couple of other women running. It would be a first if one of you was elected. Do you think
this is the year?
GRYNSPAN: Well, you know, I have said that we don't need special treatment, Christiane. What we need is equal treatment. If we will have
equal treatment, I think this will be the year.
AMANPOUR: OK. All right. Perfect answer. Thank you so much, Rebeca Grynspan, former vice president of Costa Rica. And we'll be right back
after this short break.
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AMANPOUR: America is turning 250, a quarter of a millennium is quite the milestone. But as we heard from Senator Murphy, not everyone is feeling
joyous about this chapter of the American story. The birthday arrives amid a war with Iran, as we've been talking about, soaring prices and a
firestorm of political polarization. As the country looks inward at its history and its future, is a unified celebration possible?
[13:40:00]
Jill Lepore is an American historian and author of "We the People." She joins Walter Isaacson to discuss that and to look back at American history,
the good and the ugly.
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WALTER ISAACSON, CO-HOST, AMANPOUR AND CO.: Thank you, Christiane. And, Jill Lepore, welcome back to the show.
JILL LEPORE, STAFF WRITER, THE NEW YORKER AND AUTHOR, "WE THE PEOPLE": Thanks.
ISAACSON: In a month, we're going to be celebrating our 250th. But boy, we seem like we're in no mood for a celebration. How difficult is it to
celebrate at a time like this politically?
LEPORE: It really is a kind of perfect storm. There's just so much going on in the country, really, from town to town, city neighborhood to city
neighborhood, where people are asking basic questions about the nature of the American experiment, the meaning of our heritage, the direction of the
nation's future. I mean, between the 250th, the kind of ongoing, rolling, intense debates that the Trump administration spurs.
And we're also in the midst of this, you know, A.I. backlash moment, this tech clash moment. So, I think there's going to be a lot of bicycle races
and basketball games and a lot of regular old standard 4th of July celebration. But I think the larger kind of epic moment will elude us.
ISAACSON: Well, you know, 50 years ago, we were going through a period that was very similar to what you just talked about, in the sense that we
were very torn apart about Vietnam, about the assassinations of Kennedys and King, the urban riots, Watergate, the resignation of a president. And
by the way, landing on the moon and letting the internet become more public. And yet, we rang the Liberty Bell and we had the bicentennial and
there was a healing process. Why is that not happening now?
LEPORE: You know, I sometimes wonder how much of a healing process it was. I don't know about you. I was a little kid for the bicentennial. And I
remember mainly just being a blast, like we had to sew our own colonial dresses. And we're all ships came up. Yes. The Girl Scouts, we went out and
we painted the fire hydrants red, white and blue. So, I have a kind of kid's eye view of it.
But I did spend a lot of time researching what the bicentennial meant for a piece that I wrote in The New Yorker. And one of the things I came across
that was so wonderful, the National Park Service made a documentary in 1974, '75, where they went and just interviewed people at national parks
like National Historic Parks, too, right.
So, Philadelphia and San Francisco as much as Yellowstone and in the Grand Canyon and ask people what the bicentennial meant to them. And the answers
are remarkably candid and wide ranging. And there is a lot of cynicism. We forget how much cynicism there was about the real commercialism of the
bicentennial, it was mocked as the bicentennial, the BUI centennial, like everything was sold the bicentennial theme. You know, you bought sanitary
napkins. They were red, white and blue that year, like just everything. Toilet paper, anything that you bought at any restaurant came with a quote
by Paul Revere on it, you know.
So, it was it was tacky and cheesy in all kinds of ways. Although for kids, I think that was fun. I remember thinking those were fun things to collect.
But there was a lot of cynicism about the nature of what did the country have to celebrate, you know, after Watergate in Vietnam and the Pentagon
Papers?
What really happened, though, with the bicentennial that has not happened this time around is that it was saved by the recognition in the years
before 1976 that the planning wasn't working, that the planning had become hyper partisan. So, Lyndon Johnson had a bicentennial commission that he
had set up in 1965 really early on. And Richard Nixon, when he took office in '69, got rid of that whole commission, appointed a bunch of Republicans,
was using it really almost like a slush fund and to promote the GOP agenda. Then there was a kind of big expose about that. The Washington Post, after
publishing the Pentagon Papers, published the less well-remembered bicentennial papers that revealed kind of the corruption of the commission.
And then the commission was basically disbanded. And the guy that was brought in, John Warner, who continued into the Ford administration, he had
this really good idea, which was just to say, you know what, this isn't really a project of the federal government. This is something for
communities to figure out on their own. We'll fund anything and we'll announce anything and we'll promote anything. They published a newspaper
called the Bicentennial Times listing things that were going on all over the country. They kept a calendar, which was a really kind of complicated
thing to do in that day and age.
And they funded really, I think, something like between a half and two thirds of every historic site in the country received funding from the
federal government during that era. So, little historic houses in your neighborhood or oral history projects in your city, these things, most of
them were funded by the federal government for the bicentennial without a specific agenda of what the story of America ought to be. That was for your
community to decide.
[13:45:00]
ISAACSON: As we talk about celebrating anniversaries of the declaration, it seems to go all the way back to John Adams. I'll read you something he
wrote to his wife, Abigail, on July 3, 1776. He said he hoped that the Americans would celebrate every year with pomp and parade, with shows,
games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from one end of the continent to the other.
First, let's take the fact that that was written on July 3rd. Kind of quirky. He thought, I think, that July 2nd, when he was the one who got the
resolution passed to break away from England, he thought we'd be celebrating July 2nd. What happened?
LEPORE: Americans decided to celebrate July 4th.
ISAACSON: Is that because the declaration is such an important founding document?
LEPORE: I think that it was received with great pomp and circumstance at the time. There were a lot of public readings of the declaration. You know,
in Boston, people climbed up to the balcony of what was known as the old statehouse that had been the governor's balcony and read it out loud to
great applause and cheers. It was very much part of the effort to convince Americans that independence was, in fact, the right decision and that the
war was going to be worthwhile and that the war could be won. Adams was instrumental in insisting that the document ought to be celebrated in that
way.
It really doesn't take off the 4th of July as a big public celebration until the 1790s, but then it is actually quite important at building up a
sense of national character and a sense of shared experience as a nation, that the country had been through the war, had been through the elaborate
and contentious and very close call of ratifying the Constitution by 1789. So, it's really not until the 1790s that the really big celebrations begin.
And it's, in a way part, of the larger project of constitutionalizing the Declaration of Independence because, of course, they're two very different
documents separated by 11 years.
And it's -- but it's the preamble to the Declaration of Independence that I think Americans care about the most and often think is in the Constitution,
but in a way it gets written into the Constitution by the way we celebrate it on the 4th of July. We don't really celebrate Constitution Day, which is
September 17th and wasn't a holiday until the 20th century.
ISAACSON: Well, you wrote a great book about the Constitution. Tell me what you mean when you just said constitutionalizing the Declaration.
LEPORE: The Declaration of Independence, you know, Jefferson, who was its chief author, although this always pissed off John Adams, Jefferson always
said, you know, there wasn't an original idea in it. It was just an attempt to write down what is contained in the American mind, and that was true.
There had been -- many of the states had declared independence. Towns had written Declaration of Independence. Virginia had written its Declaration
of Rights.
A lot of state constitutions that were written in the early months of 1776 had language in them that found its way into the Declaration of
Independence. It wasn't like something that dropped out of the sky. It was a document that was produced by the American people, and Jefferson just
essentially wrote it down like a scribe. That's how he would have talked about it.
So, these ideas were constitutional ideas because they're in the state constitution. So, Massachusetts Constitution from 1780 insisted all men are
born equal. How that becomes constitutionalized federally is partly because of people seeking emancipation from slavery. It's largely because of people
seeking emancipation from slavery, even in the 1780s.
So, you know, in 1783, there's a famous case in Massachusetts where a woman in western Massachusetts who's held as a slave files for her freedom, and
she says, our constitution says all men are free and born free, so we therefore are, and therefore I cannot be a slave, and she wins her case.
And that's a means of constitutionalizing the ideas that are in the Declaration of Independence. Many of them are also in the state
constitutions.
How that enters the federal constitution really isn't until what's known as the Jubilee in 1826, which is the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of
Independence. It's also on July 4th of that year, really spookily, both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson die that day, the two most important
figures in writing the Declaration of Independence.
But in the 1820s, and especially around the Jubilee, Black abolitionists insist that the spirit of the Declaration of Independence is contained
within the Constitution, and they do that constitutionalizing. In a way, it doesn't really happen until the Civil War. Lincoln is, of course,
instrumental in this. He writes about the Declaration of Independence as part of the Constitution, and that's what the 14th Amendment does, which is
ratified after the Civil War.
[13:50:00]
ISAACSON: Well, speaking of slavery and the Declaration, let's address the complexity of Thomas Jefferson, especially in the early drafts that get
edited out, his denunciation of slavery, even as he enslaved, I think, more than 400 people at that time.
LEPORE: Yes, this is a hard one for Americans to wrestle with, has been a hard one for Americans to wrestle with even when Jefferson was alive.
Northerners campaigned against Jefferson on the basis of not only his status as a slave owner, but what was kind of a fairly well-known public
secret at the time, that he had had children with Sally Hemings, who was the half-sister of his deceased wife. Jefferson's relationship to slavery
was a scandal in his lifetime, and it remains so across time in ways that are really worth re-examining.
And it's one of the projects of Monticello, Jefferson's Virginia home, to lead a conversation for the nation around the multiple meanings of
Jefferson's plea for equality and liberty and universal rights, and our need as a country to face the history of slavery and its many descendants
and legacies.
So, I think that it's worth looking at how odd it is that Jefferson, as an owner of human beings, denounced slavery as an institution in his draft of
the Declaration of Independence, denounced the slave trade, and then weirdly blamed it on the king. And Congress deleted this paragraph. It was
the last and final and longest paragraph in the Declaration of Independence, most of which is a list of grievances against --
ISAACSON: Yes. The ultimate indictment of the king, right?
LEPORE: The ultimate and then --
ISAACSON: That's what he meant it to be.
LEPORE: -- the worst thing the king has done is -- because there had been some efforts to close the slave trade, and he's blaming the king for having
made those not happen. So, I mean, it's a very complicated story.
But in any event, Congress looked at this draft, the Continental Congress, and said, yes, we're not going to -- no, we're going to just take that out
in its entirety. Remember, this is a time at which people in England who were not supportive of the American independence movement liked to point
out the hypocrisy of Americans who were crying for liberty while holding millions of human beings in a state of slavery, and that it would call more
attention to that hypocrisy to put this language in the Declaration of Independence. This is one of the arguments against it.
ISAACSON: You've written in one of your books about how we each try, each side sometimes tries to capture our history, and that sometimes, especially
when we're looking at our founding, we make it -- either we demonize it or we totally sugarcoat it. Is that happening worse right now?
LEPORE: I don't know that I think it's worse. I think it's dangerous. It's always dangerous when your view of the past maps on conveniently to your
political preferences. And I think for viewers, if that seems familiar to you, you should be a little bit concerned, right?
We have a very hyperpolarized politics, and we have a hyperpolarized sense of the American past, and I think that's not worse maybe than it has been
in other moments, but more dangerous because of the appetite for political violence on both sides of the political aisle that's really been
increasingly documented in public opinion research.
So, when you have a view of the past, the present, and the future that is irreconcilable with the views of time held by people with whom you disagree
politically, and you also think maybe there's no possibility that you might be a little bit wrong, and you maybe even entertain the possibility that
you are so right that violence might be a proper means to advance your version of these events, that's an insurrectionary political culture.
ISAACSON: Jill Lepore, thank you so much for joining us.
LEPORE: Thanks a lot, Walter.
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AMANPOUR: And finally, as we near the birthday bash we just heard about, Donald Trump has cause for joy, though not the man you're thinking of. A
rare albino buffalo nicknamed Donald Trump, given their shared distinctive blonde quiff, was said to be sacrificed on the Moslem festival of Eid. It
went viral, and in a last-minute turn of fortune, the Bangladeshi government spared him.
They moved the buffalo to the National Zoo, where he now roams.
[13:55:00]
Meanwhile, just outside of Rome, Trump's sometime nemesis Pope Leo got behind the wheel of Ferrari's new electric car. Following a disappointing
response to the model's reveal, perhaps some divine intervention could boost its fortunes. Electric horsepower and 700 kilos of buffalo power,
there must be some connection there.
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 London.
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