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Amanpour
Interview with Georgetown University in Qatar Professor of Government Mehran Kamrava; Interview with Former National Security Adviser to U.S. House Majority Leader and Capstone Managing Director Daniel Silverberg; Interview with A Place for Us All Co-Chair Rula Daood; Interview with A Place for Us All Co-Chair Alon-Lee Green; Interview with "National Treasure" Author Michael Auslin. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired June 24, 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)
MARCO RUBIO, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: I think there is a framework and an outline upon which we can make real progress.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Trump's top diplomat pitches the U.S.-Iran agreement to skeptical regional allies. We get the expert take.
Then, A Place for Us All, a new party in Israel, split evenly for the first time between Arab and Jewish Israelis. The co-founders join me to discuss
their daring wartime gambit, putting peaceful coexistence at the center of politics.
Also, ahead --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL AUSLIN, AUTHOR, "NATIONAL TREASURE": I think what it has become over our 250 years is the touchstone. It's not the document we argue over
like the Constitution, it's the document that tells us how we should want to live together.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: -- "National Treasure," the Declaration of Independence, and how it continues to shape America today. Walter Isaacson discusses this with
the author and historian, Michael Auslin.
Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is on a lightning tour of Persian Gulf allies, trying to shore up their support for the U.S.-Iran agreement. But,
as the negotiations plow on, there are differences about the MOU being expressed publicly by both the Iranian lead negotiators and President
Trump. Despite American claims, for instance, Iran says there are no plans for the U.N. nuclear inspections until the final negotiations take place.
Despite Iranian claims, Trump and Rubio say there is no way Iran will have any control of the Strait of Hormuz.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARCO RUBIO, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: When we mean open the Straits, we mean open the Straits free in international waterways. I know of no country
on the planet that supports tolling or a fee for the use of the Straits. That's not going to happen. The president has been abundantly clear.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: And at home, the president is angry at Senate Republicans who just voted with Democrats to stop him resuming the war with Iran, calling
the vote poorly timed, meaningless, and a comfort to the enemy.
So, where will this all settle? How do the Persian Gulf states view it all? Let's bring in two regional experts. Georgetown Professor Mehran Kamrava
joins me from Doha, Qatar, and the former U.S. National Security Adviser Daniel Silverberg from Washington, D.C. Welcome, both of you, to the
program.
Mehran Kamrava, if I can start with you because you're right there in Qatar. Now, the secretary of state hasn't visited Qatar, but he has gone to
the other Gulf states, certainly Kuwait. Where do you think this is going to land? How do you think the Gulf states are going to be reacting to this
MOU between Iran and the United States?
MEHRAN KAMRAVA, PROFESSOR OF GOVERNMENT, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY IN QATAR: Well, there's a collective sigh of relief. Of course, not all the Persian
Gulf states speak with one voice. Oman is openly discussing some sort of administrative apparatus for this, straight and foremost, with Iran. None
of the other states of the Gulf Cooperation Council are excited about that.
But I think, collectively, there's a desire to see hostilities end. And kind of this agreement finalized between Iran and the United States.
AMANPOUR: Right. Well, Daniel, let me ask you, and Daniel Silverman, when I said, you know, National Security Adviser, it was to the House Majority
Leader at the time, Silverberg, rather. Oh, gosh, I'm getting confused.
Can you tell me what you think? Is the United States, after all of this, going to stay in those bases which were attacked by Iran? Does it make
sense for the GCC to have the United States in those bases? Because they were not protected or were they protected during this war?
DANIEL SILVERBERG, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER TO U.S. HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER AND MANAGING DIRECTOR, CAPSTONE: Well, Christiane, thank you so
much for having me. And thank you for the promotion to get our conversation started.
Let me address two points here. One, I think Secretary Rubio very much has his work cut out for him in the Gulf.
[13:05:00]
I agree with Mehran that the Gulf states welcome stability here. They welcome the temperature coming down. They are terrified, though, about what
exactly was agreed to, which still is not clear. It has to be distinguished between what the two parties discussed in the MOU, and as you rightfully
mentioned, it's still not clear what is the agreement around the Strait of Hormuz, and then the ongoing nuclear negotiations.
Given the precariousness around these negotiations, given the clear challenges demonstrated so far about actually opening the Strait, only
about a third of the pre-war traffic is flowing right now, I believe our Gulf allies are deeply, deeply concerned about what this agreement and what
the negotiations mean for them.
I don't expect the U.S. to be questioning our military presence in the Gulf. I think that's actually going to be an avenue for reassurance in
coming days.
AMANPOUR: Can I just ask you, because I'll ask Mehran as well, do you actually think that these public disagreements about the very basics in the
MOU, and we haven't even got to the actual full negotiations, you know, deeply into that, do you think it can torpedo this process?
SILVERBERG: Absolutely. These negotiations are in a remarkably precarious place, and notwithstanding, I think, the positive statements that Vice
President Vance issued, there are extraordinarily complicated issues that took the Obama administration years to figure out.
This is not on a 60-day window. And I think the concern of the Gulf states is that they didn't want this war, but they could be left holding the bag.
If the Strait remains precariously open, meaning some days Iran lets traffic through, other days it doesn't, some days they could say, well,
only countries of this origin are allowed to go through, or not just tolls, they could do something like, there's a new environmental certification,
have you filled out this form?
Until there is clarity on those issues, I don't think the Gulf states are going to be reassured.
AMANPOUR: OK. Mehran Kamrava, do you think these outstanding issues just in the MOU and the differences over the Strait of Hormuz, over whether
there will or won't be any immediate U.N. nuclear inspectors, do you think it can torpedo the deal between the United States and Iran?
KAMRAVA: Possibly. Of course, the devil is in the details. But I think what we're seeing is a determined effort on both sides to come to some sort
of agreement, no matter how imperfect. And I think both the Iranians and the Americans are fully aware that the wild card here is Israel, and that
the Israelis can easily play the role of spoilers and torpedo any final agreement.
And so, although much hard work remains, as Daniel just mentioned, I think there's also a determined effort to come to some sort of agreement between
the two sides.
AMANPOUR: Yes. And, of course, conversations and negotiations between Israel and the state of Lebanon continue. But, of course, it's Hezbollah in
the middle of all of this that could trigger something, and Israel's reaction.
Now, I want to ask you both about the idea of missiles. You're there, Mehran Kamrava, and you've heard, and I'm going to, you know, listen to
what President Trump said about the issue of missiles, because up until now, they haven't been part of this MOU. They're not part of the final
agreement. They weren't part of the Obama-era JCPOA, and they still aren't. This is what President Trump said about this particular issue.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I said, well, what am I going to do? They're going to let Saudi Arabia have missiles, but they can't have them? Yes,
sir. It doesn't work that way, you know? It doesn't work that way. And missiles aren't the problem. Missiles are -- they hurt a little location,
but they don't blow up the planet.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: So, Rubio has sort of suggested that, in the end, missiles might be addressed in the final, you know, months-down-the-road situation. But
what do you think, Daniel? Do you think this is an issue, or is Trump right? And J.D. Vance, they've said every country has the right to self-
defense.
SILVERBERG: Christiane, I have to tell you, I think that there were heads spinning on Capitol Hill where I worked for 14 years from President Trump's
statement, both among Democrats and Republicans. Look, people like me spent years putting in place a highly rigorous sanctions regime.
[13:10:00]
We went product by product trying to go after every avenue by which this regime could fund its nuclear program, its missile program, and its proxy
program. To suddenly hear the president say, well, missiles aren't an issue, that was startling. And I have to tell you that I think a lot of
Republicans who are not going to publicly defy the president are pretty concerned about statements like that.
And in one light, the War Powers vote that happened last night, I would not read that much into it. Most of the Republicans who joined either are
longstanding critics of President Trump or are those who are retiring and have already made clear that they're not going to stand with the president.
However, behind closed doors, you have a number of hawks on Capitol Hill, on both sides of the aisle, who were uncomfortable with the JCPOA primarily
because it did not include missiles and who are now listening to the president's statements and looking at the breadth of sanctions relief that
the president provided on Monday through waiving sanctions on Iran's ability to sell oil, and in U.S. dollars, by the way, very significant
development. They're looking at that and saying, wait a second, what can we do to potentially reverse this?
AMANPOUR: So, that has always been their role. I mean, that's -- or rather their position. All the hawks have always believed that. And in fact, so
has Prime Minister Netanyahu, even after the Obama JCPOA comes to Congress, hosted by Republicans, and basically blasts the JCPOA, convinces Trump to
pull out of the JCPOA, and here we are all over again.
But, Mehran Kamrava, from your perspective and vantage point, do you think everything Daniel's just talked about, all the realities in the MOU that
Iran is being brought back essentially into the oil export business, into the financial world, using dollars and having access to dollars and this
and that, is the Gulf region, do you think, ready to reintegrate Iran into the global economy, the global security picture? Do they think that will be
better for their security?
KAMRAVA: Absolutely. Look, this war demonstrated that the Islamic Republic can withstand being literally beaten up and having its leadership
decapitated by two nuclear powers, the United States and Israel, and still survive.
And so, the states here in the GCC, and many even in the United States, are fully aware that the Islamic Republic isn't collapsing. It's not going
anywhere. And so, you might as well deal with it. And the issue of missiles, from Tehran's perspective, missile defense was the only thing
that Tehran had. And giving away or giving up missile defense or the missile program for them would be tantamount to capitulation, which the
government would never do.
So, there's this awareness that you might as well deal with the Islamic Republic, engage with them conditionally, so that you reward good behavior
as opposed to either try and destroy them or kind of wish them away, which they have proven that they're not going to do.
AMANPOUR: Yes. And that's, of course, been the backbone of all Western and regional policy for the last 46 years since the Islamic Republic. Do you --
how do you read, then, apparently the Saudi initiative to -- they plan, apparently, to host separate reconciliation talks between Iran and the
Persian Gulf states.
Is this sort of a demonstration of an acceptance of a fait accompli? And how do you think that will go? Because let's face it, missiles and drones
really wreaked havoc on the Gulf Arab states, on the American bases there. So, Mehran, before I ask Daniel about it, what do you think of the Saudi
move?
KAMRAVA: The Iranians are keenly aware that they have a lot of damage control to do, that whatever diplomatic inroads they had made after 2020-
2021 and whatever goodwill they had accumulated or dissipated during this war, and they would certainly welcome that.
[13:15:00]
And I think Saudi Arabia is acting like the statesmen, that Qatar has been acting, and Oman, in terms of trying to foster good neighborly relations.
Because, again, there's this awareness that they're all cursed or blessed by geography to be neighbors, and none of them is going away. So, they
might as well learn to live with one another.
AMANPOUR: And, Daniel, how do you see that, then, the whole idea that, clearly, the Gulf states are now, OK, we're in a post-war situation, we
hope, and all of these decades of policy have, in one fell swoop, from their perspective, maybe even from the American perspective, has failed.
It's been a geostrategic failure. That's what the analysts are basically saying. And now, maybe it's time to try something else.
How will the United States cope, or will it lead a reintegration of Iran as a way to build more security from Iran?
SILVERBERG: Christiane, I think we are years away from that question of reintegrating Iran into anything. If you look back at precedents from 2016,
when we had clarity on what the way forward was, we had the JCPOA, even then Iran could not integrate itself into the global economic market,
primarily because of its own problems, a sclerotic financial system, corruption, IRGC government mismanagement of key parts of the economy.
So, there are internal factors here to Iran that make it almost irrelevant to be talking about its integration just yet. I might take a more jaundiced
view of how our Gulf partners are viewing the current situation. I think that they're a little bit frenetic of sorts the way that U.S. decision
makers are.
In one light, I agree with the premise they want to make peace with Iran. They want stability in the region. Simultaneously, they are deeply
concerned that we are in a place where the United States could allow Iran to have billions of dollars of funding at its disposal and the latitude to
move its own ships through the Strait of Hormuz while UAE, Qatar, and Saudi are unable to do so. That would be remarkably damaging to them.
So, what I'm hearing from friends in the region, from senior leaders, is we didn't want this war, but now that President Trump has put us in this
position, he better solve it. He better find a way to make sure we are not left holding the bag of this agreement. And I have to think Secretary of
State Rubio, that is the message that he's delivering, saying we have your back, we will take care of you here. And in my view, there's probably no
one better in the Trump administration to deliver that message.
AMANPOUR: Yes. But who's going to be holding the bag for the $300 billion reconstruction fund that is in the MOU?
SILVERBERG: I think that's to be determined. The MOU, again, was just a very basic page-and-a-half framework to get the Strait open, not much more
than that. And in one light, I think our Gulf partners, they might be willing to fund it because they don't want Iran lobbing missiles at them.
But simultaneously, to really put $300 billion in Iran's hands, they need to have reassurance, almost exclusively from the United States, that Iran
is not going to be using that money or its power to wreak havoc on their economies, to launch missiles and to threaten civilians in their territory.
AMANPOUR: Well, let's talk about the civilians with Mehran, because that is clearly not part of the MOU. I assume everybody would wish that the
Iranian regime would not, you know, crack down, you know, full-scale shootings and killings of thousands of people, as they did in January. But
that's not written there.
And it is apparent, and you tell me, but it seems the hard-liners in Iran have been empowered. They might not be doing the face-to-face negotiations,
but the IRGC has been very heavily empowered, very, you know, heavily consolidated in their positions. So, where do you think, Mehran, is going
to lead domestically? What will the power framework look like, and what will it mean for the Iranian people?
KAMRAVA: What we're witnessing and what we're hearing from political leaders in Tehran is there's emphasis, renewed emphasis on the economy.
And, yes, you're absolutely right that we have a new generation of political leaders who are much more security-oriented. They're far less
interested in the trappings of democracy that previous generations at least paid lip service to.
[13:20:00]
But they're also keenly aware that they need to deliver on the economy or they'll be in serious trouble. And so, what we're likely to see moving
forward is a generation of security oriented, repressive and intolerant technocrats and professionals who are determined to deliver on some of the
economic promises that the middle class expected that they deliver on.
But of course, in the process, I think the Iranian government will do away with any semblance of political openness or political participation that at
some point in the past it paid lip service to.
AMANPOUR: Well, this story is still being written. Mehran Kamrava and Daniel Silverberg, thank you both very much for joining me on this.
And stay with CNN. We'll be right back after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: Meantime, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects the Lebanon part of the Iran-U.S. MOU as negotiators from both those sides meet
for a fifth round of talks today to finally end the war that has ravaged Lebanon.
Lebanon is demanding a full IDF withdrawal. But with Israeli elections later this year and questions about Netanyahu's re-election prospects, a
new party is hoping to play a role in the future of the country. It's called A Place for All of Us. It's evenly split between Arab and Jewish
Israelis. And it's the brainchild of Alon-Lee Green and Rula Daood, who also co-founded Standing Together, a grassroots group that has spent years
working towards peaceful coexistence. And they're joining me now from Tel Aviv.
So, welcome to the program. We always like to talk to people from different sides who are, you know, who have a joint project of coexistence. So, this
is a very, very hard time to be a politician and to run for elections in Israel.
What do you think, both of you, your party can bring, you know, in terms of what? What do you think it can bring to this election? Can you really
unseat the party of Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition?
RULA DAOOD, CO-CHAIR, A PLACE FOR US ALL: Well, first of all, thank you for having us again. But this time running as a new party, a split and
equal party of both Jews and Arab citizens of Israel.
I think what we see, we understand that our lives, the politics inside of Israel is at a time where it needs brave people and brave politics,
especially after October the 7th. We need a party that understands and demands that our partnership will not be just in the field, but also in the
Knesset. And we need a party that understands that the future of the people living in here cannot be a future filled with more wars. We need a party
that demands an end to the occupation, Israeli-Palestinian peace, but also equality for the people living inside of Israel.
And this is our party, A Place for Us All is a party that brings that voice and it brings it from the field. We are people who have been demonstrating,
going out to the streets for the last 10 years on various struggles. And we hear our people and we see the hunger in the eyes of our people. And we
understand that it is time to challenge the old politics that we have, by politics of real partnership in the Knesset.
[13:25:00]
AMANPOUR: So, Alon-Lee, you've said that Jewish Arab -- yes, go ahead.
ALON-LEE GREEN, CO-CHAIR, A PLACE FOR US ALL: I do believe that this is actually the most strategic way to replace Netanyahu and to remove
Netanyahu, because some parties in opposition to Netanyahu today believe that only the Jewish citizens that resist Netanyahu can somehow have the
numbers to remove Netanyahu. They are wrong.
Of course, also the Palestinian minority in Israel, the 2 million citizens that are Arab, the Palestinian citizens, they cannot remove Netanyahu and
Ben-Gvir and Smotrich alone. So, we know that the only way to do it is by Jewish-Arab partnership, by mobilizing all the Jews and all the
Palestinians within the Israeli citizenship that have the interest to have a different kind of reality in Israel. After the bloodiest three years in
our history, where 20,000 children in Gaza have been killed, but also the Israeli people pay the price. Of course, if there are Palestinian Israelis,
but also if there are Jewish Israelis.
So, we believe we can find common interest of both Palestinian Israelis and Jewish Israelis to remove Netanyahu, but to do it from a shared home, which
is A Place for Us All, a joint party.
AMANPOUR: So, just to be clear, Standing Together is the grassroots group that you guys, you know, certainly Rula co-founded it, and you are sort of
suspending your participation in that for the moment while you become active politicians running for the Knesset. So, you're now a political
group.
What is it that you think you can do with this Jewish and Arab coalition to counter what appears to be the majority of the Israelis right now who
believe that these wars, for instance, need to continue?
DAOOD: Well, I think if you ask people in Israel on what they want and what they demand, they will tell you that they want peace. They want a
reality where there is no more wars. And it's becoming more clear for people, especially after the war with Iran.
And this is a reality that doesn't need to be and stay a fantasy. It's something that needs to be asked and done in the Knesset. We need Knesset
members who are willing and not afraid to demand and to put on the table another political idea, which is an idea, you know, of peace, of Israeli-
Palestinian peace. And this is what we will bring in.
Because when we look at the parties that we have right now, whether the Arab, Jewish party, especially, you know, what we have today as a left
center, we don't see any of them speaking about the future of the people living in here and what will become of it. Everybody speaks about, you
know, of ruling the other, of not dealing with the issues of occupation and what will happen to the West Bank, what will happen to Gaza. And by not
dealing with these issues, nothing will really change in our politics.
So, we are here to speak and to talk about the future and the alternative of people and to fight for it, not just in the streets, but also in the
Knesset. And this is a future of peace for two people and independence for two people.
AMANPOUR: So, Alon-Lee, let me ask you again some statistics, because certainly majorities of Israelis and to an extent Palestinians,
particularly those in the occupied territories and in Gaza, are losing, categorically losing hope in a two-state solution.
Look, fewer than one in five Israelis think that it's even possible, according to a recent Pew poll. How are you going to emerge, Alon-Lee, as a
party from that kind of feeling and that kind of isolation of the peace camp?
GREEN: We believe strongly that the leadership is lacking, because if you as a voter, if you are an Israeli voter and you listen to your leaders,
even in the opposition, what you hear is that this is not the time to speak about peace, that maybe after a few years, we'll start solving the
occupation or we will talk about what to do with the Palestinians.
And if the leadership cannot bring these ideas of solutions to the table, then people themselves do not hear it. And then they become very used to
the idea that there is no solution and there is no issue even. And we need to wake up and we need to speak with every possible Israeli to say there is
an issue. And the issue is occupation. The issue is millions of people that are being ruled by our army without being the citizens of Israel.
The issue is that the Israelis themselves are also afraid. The issue is having missiles flying above our heads and killing Israeli citizens. The
issue is sending our soldiers to Lebanon again to kill 3,000 Lebanese and to come back in a coffin if you're a soldier. 36 soldiers have died in the
last few months. These are issues.
[13:30:00]
And if our political leaderships will not speak about these issues, then the public will never know that this is an issue that can be solved. It
will be like the weather for them.
So, we're here to say that this is not the weather. Occupation is not something that is from God. The occupation is man-made and we can end the
occupation and we can achieve peace. And for that, we need a party that speaks about peace and speaks about the occupation and is not afraid from
its own shadow, you know, because it's possible. It's possible to fight against occupation. It's possible to fight for peace.
AMANPOUR: Let me ask you about more domestic issues. I know this is obviously a big domestic issue, peace, but internal sort of Israeli
politics, as we've been watching it, certainly before October 7th, you had those and you yourself, you were part of the protest movement against
Netanyahu's attempt at what he called judicial reforms. Basically, you know, it was a take back democracy movement.
Where does that stand right now? Are protesters still in the streets? Is that domestic issue still something that is really important to people?
DAOOD: Yes. Well, if you look right now in each and every weekend, there is still demonstration. You hear other voices right now within the Israeli
public, whether you're a Jewish or a Palestinian citizen of Israel, that speaks about the fact that we cannot live, you know, another election where
Bibi will be the prime minister. Especially I think for minorities, for a Palestinian, the 20 percent Palestinian in here, when having Ben-Gvir and
Smotrich and Netanyahu, the policy towards us is a very different policy.
But what we demand, what we want, what we see that needs to be happening and we will bring to them as a party is not just, you know, to put Bibi
Netanyahu outside of the Knesset and Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, but also to bring different politics. A politics that stands against the right-wing,
the right-wing that we have in this government.
And if the question -- you know, when we look at it right now at different parties and what kind of parties also do you see in the next -- you know,
after these next elections, I think what the main purpose for all of us, most of us is to really outthrow Bibi Netanyahu, but also to understand
that new politics of real partnership of Arab citizens being in the Knesset is very much needed in order to have real change within Israeli politics.
AMANPOUR: And just let me ask you, Alon-Lee, because now you're a political party and you're to the left, right? And you can see that there
are certain criticisms, for instance, Haaretz has said, you know, standing together party is the last thing the Israeli left needs. They're basically
arguing that the division of the left could empower and play into Netanyahu's advantage that if you don't meet an electoral threshold of 3
percent, if you fail to enter the Knesset, then your votes are wasted, et cetera.
Let me just read this from Kumi Israel, another pro-democracy group. Lately, we're witnessing a disturbing phenomenon of the establishment of
small parties and fragments of parties, most of which have no real chance of passing the electoral threshold. Important to state the obvious, in such
fateful elections, there is no room for political adventures. This is a matter of irresponsibility.
What do you say to that, Alon-Lee?
GREEN: We've addressed very seriously, in Arabic and in Hebrew, the question of wasting votes and not meeting the threshold. We've already
declared that we will be a responsible force that will not waste any vote.
But to answer the question, I think it will be irresponsible not to bring voters around the question of peace. It will be irresponsible not to create
Jewish partnership after October 7th. It will be irresponsible to let these first elections after October 7th to be just about the question Netanyahu
or not Netanyahu and not about occupation, Palestinians, Israelis and our future in this land.
AMANPOUR: All right. Listen, thank you both very much indeed for telling us about your new party. Alon-Lee and Rula, thanks so much.
And we'll be right back after this short break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[13:35:00]
AMANPOUR: Let's turn and check in now with what's happening in Cuba, where its once robust tourism industry has been gutted by U.S. sanctions and an
oil blockade, as the Trump administration tries pressuring the Cuban government. The sharp decline in visitors has wiped out a key source of
revenue for Cuba's hospitality workers. Now, many residents fear even harder times ahead. Here's correspondent Patrick Oppmann in Havana.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PATRICK OPPMANN, CNN HAVANA BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): You can look for tourists in Cuba, but good luck finding any these days. The colonial
streets and plazas in Old Havana, one of the island's main attractions for foreign visitors, are strikingly empty.
OPPMANN: Cuba's tourism sector is enduring the worst moment in years, if not decades. We've come to an area that should be absolutely full of
tourists to see how bad it's gotten.
OPPMANN (voice-over): Rolando is trying to promote the restaurant where he works, but there's hardly anyone to make his pitch to. You don't see any
tourists.
ROLANDO, TOURISM WORKER: Maybe in this moment, 10 persons. Ten persons, tourists in -- in this square. That is the best square, is Plaza Vieja and
the other square in Havana. Maybe 10 persons. It's nothing.
OPPMANN (voice-over): The oil blockade placed by the Trump administration on Cuba earlier this year has contributed to rolling blackouts and a
scarcity of jet fuel for airlines carrying tourists from Europe or Canada, which have canceled flights.
Threats of increased U.S. economic sanctions on international hotel chains is forcing many companies to abandon the island and remove the brands off
hotels they used to manage for the Cuban government.
According to official statistics, only 360,000 tourists visited the island in the first five months of 2026, a more than 58 percent drop from the
previous year.
The Trump administration says it is pressuring the island's communist rulers to open the tightly controlled economy and political system.
But people like Elio and Andres (ph), who have been playing traditional Cuban music on the street corner for nearly 30 years, are among those
feeling the squeeze.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
OPPMANN (voice-over): When we meet them, the guitar duo had earned less than a dollar in tips that day. They told me the economy has never been
this bad, even during the pandemic.
There are no tourists, Elio says. Maybe they are at home. One comes by only every half hour or hour.
Even the famed Hemingway trail, the bars where the American writer drank his way across Havana has gone cold.
OPPMANN: This is one of the most famous bars in Havana. You can see Hemingway's signature there on the wall. This is one of the many places he
drank. He said he came here for his mojito. I've never been able to come here without there being just a crush of tourists. We're the first
customers of the day. It's a tourist trap without any tourists.
OPPMANN (voice-over): For the first time, Cuban officials say they may allow Cuban exiles or Cubans still living on the island to manage hotels.
But full ownership, so far, at least, is still not permitted. The collapse of the tourism economy is a disaster for a government that spent years
pouring scant resources into building hotels.
OPPMANN: This is not only Cuba's largest hotel, it's the tallest building on this island. This is one of the most expensive things this government
here has ever built. Architects who worked on this project told me it cost more than $200 million to build this hotel, which is now empty and closed.
OPPMANN (voice-over): Still, construction continues on even more hotels that are unlikely to see paying customers anytime soon. Cubans who work in
tourism are trying anything to make ends meet.
[13:40:00]
Alexander tells us he lowered prices to take a carriage ride with his horse, Napoleon, so that Cubans could afford a city tour. He still barely
makes enough money to pay for his government license to work as a guide. More reforms urgently need to take place, he says.
ALEXANDER, TOURISM WORKER: If we don't change our system, if we don't change our economic model, we'll never survive like a human being. Because
every day, daily, there are problems and problems and problems. And if we don't solve, if we don't change those things, you will never have a real
future.
OPPMANN (voice-over): Cuba's tourism industry has already collapsed under increased U.S. pressure. Now, the fear is the rest of the island's
teetering economy could soon follow.
Patrick Oppmann, CNN, Havana.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: It is really eerie to see that. Now, we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. Maybe this time of year they
would say all people. These are some of the best-known words in American history, and our next guest argues that the Declaration of Independence
remains a unifying touchstone. Michael Auslin is the author of National Treasure and a fellow at the Hoover Institution, and he joins Walter
Isaacson to explain.
WALTER ISAACSON, CO-HOST, AMANPOUR AND CO.: Thank you, Christiane. And, Michael Auslin. Welcome to the show.
MICHAEL AUSLIN, AUTHOR, "NATIONAL TREASURE": Thank you for having me, Walter.
ISAACSON: You have this great book, "National Treasure," which traces the Declaration of Independence, even the parchment copy of it, and I want to
quote a line that you say, which is, "Our founding document remains a powerful statement of unity, as much today as 250 years ago."
Hey, we're about to celebrate our 250th. We're not very united. How can this document help us reunite?
AUSLIN: Well, I think that is the greatness of the Declaration over our history is that at multiple moments where we seemed deeply divided and
often were deeply divided, people kept returning to it. They returned to it for a couple of reasons. One is that it gave this vision of the type of
future, the type of country that they wanted to live in.
Second, they would look back at times of division to what seemed to be a time of more unity, meaning 1776, when patriots across these very, very
different and often divided colonies came together, and they tried to recapture that.
Third, because I still believe, Walter, and I want to believe that the vast majority of Americans really are still united, that we have very powerful
and strong and often angry voices on both the right and the left, but the vast majority of us still like our neighbors, talk to our neighbors, go
about our daily business, and when they do that, the document is one that often appeals to them as being this constant in their lives.
So, I think that, you know, we can certainly talk about how the signers wrote the Declaration to stress unity, but I think what it has become over
our 250 years is the touchstone. It's not the document we argue over like the Constitution. It's the document that tells us how we should want to
live together.
ISAACSON: You talk about it being an aspirational document because all men were not considered created equal in the original colonies and the new
nation, and yet it becomes a forcing mechanism. Lincoln, fourscore and seven years later, invokes it as he's burying 7,058 people at Gettysburg
for making the sentence more true, and the women at Seneca Falls Declaration invoke this sentence.
So, is that part of what makes this document important is that it becomes our mission statement?
AUSLIN: Absolutely, and I think it is the greatness of the Declaration that allows it to fill those 18th-century silences later on. It's why David
Walker, the great black abolitionist, can appeal to the Declaration saying, you and your fathers have not lived up to it. It's why Frederick Douglass
can appeal to it in his famous "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July," where he says, but I do not despair because of the Declaration.
As you mentioned, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony and, by the way, millions upon millions of immigrants from non-Western -- what we would
consider Western, non-liberal nations, non-democratic nations who embrace this document and translate it for themselves, which I try to show in the
book, to make it their new birth certificate.
The document appeals to all of these people, again, to this point of unity. They're not asking for special treatment. They're asking for regular
treatment. They want to be fully part of the country and not to carve off enclaves of any kind. They want to be treated fully as Americans, like
every other American. They want to be fully part of the country and not to carve off enclaves of any kind.
[13:45:00]
That's why I think it is the great unity document. They understood that. That's why they appealed to it. They could have just appealed to the
Constitution and said, well, you know, this is illegal. But, no, they appealed to the spirit within the declaration to say, we want to be fully
American like the rest of you. That's why I think it has carried through so strongly through the 19th and 20th centuries, through the Civil Rights
Movement, up to today.
ISAACSON: It's carried through very strongly, but originally it wasn't considered that big of a deal. In fact, of course, famously, John Adams
sings July 2nd will be our birthday. That's when we voted for independence. They -- other than George Washington having his lieutenants read it in
Battery Park to his troops, it's not celebrated across the colonies. How did it become such an important and celebrated document?
AUSLIN: Well, it is right in the very first readings. Of course, July 4th, John Dunlap is given an order to print up broadsides. There's only 26 of
those left. John Hancock then sends them around the colonies, now the states. And we do have records of it being read. Of course, Philadelphia,
July 8th, as you mentioned, George Washington, General Washington, reads it to the troops on July 9th. It's read in Boston. It's read up in New
Hampshire. It makes its way down, takes a while, obviously, to get all the way through the colonies. Savannah doesn't get it until middle of August.
And then they -- you know, then they finally can hear that they're a new nation.
And we have these accounts. Abigail Adams writes John of what happens in Boston where everyone gets so excited, they throw down the arms of the king
on the old statehouse and trample it into the dust and burn it.
But you're right. After that, it's done its job. And, you know, it's printed. It's printed in broadsides. It's printed in the newspapers. You
don't have to keep telling people they're independent. They know. And so, there's other stuff to do. You have to win the war. You have to figure out
how you're going to live together as a nation.
So, the Declaration does actually get forgotten for decades. And while Americans celebrate independence, they don't really often reference the
Declaration. And interestingly, because of that, Thomas Jefferson actually isn't trying to claim credit for the authorship. John Adams isn't disputing
with him who's more important to independence because the issue only develops later.
And really where the Declaration takes off is after the War of 1812, after the British burn Washington and the Parchment Declaration, which almost no
Americans knew existed because it was a paper of state kept rolled up.
And, you know, among the other papers of state, the story gets out that by the skin of its teeth, this document is spirited out of Washington, carried
into the Virginia countryside, and saved when the White House and the Capitol and the State Department are burned. And Americans say, that's
great. And they go, what was saved? They didn't know it existed. So, now they want to see it.
And so, a number of things happen right at this moment. First of all, a couple of very entrepreneurial calligraphers, essentially, and artists
create what we consider artistic reproductions of the Declaration. And for the first time, they very carefully and faithfully trace the signatures.
This fascinates Americans. They'd never seen the signatures.
So, suddenly you're seeing John Hancock and Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. And these things sell very well. They're sold by subscriptions.
You have John Trumbull come out with his famous portrait in the Capitol, which is not the signing of the Declaration. It's not July 4th. It's the
presentation of the draft to Congress. But Americans embrace this as the moment of birth. And they sell thousands and thousands of copies.
John Quincy Adams, secretary of state, has a faithful facsimile, the one you see over my shoulder in the middle there, reproduced. It's called the
stone engraving to make it the iconic image so that Americans, even as the document itself is fading, can see it in all of its glory.
And then, I think very importantly, on July 4, 1821, the 45th anniversary of independence, John Quincy Adams brings the original parchment to the
Capitol, reads it in front of a crowd of thousands, and then he gives his famous, we go not abroad in search of monsters to destroy speech. But the
other part of the speech that people don't pay attention to is that for the first time at a truly, you know, senior level, a high level, he links the
declaration to our constitutional order.
What had been forgotten, what had been seen simply as a legal document, an instrument announcing our independence, now becomes the wellspring of our
self-understanding as a nation that had, first of all, triumphed against Britain for the second time in a generation, and now was dramatically
growing and expanding across the West. This is where I think it begins to take on that new life, that life that ultimately, as you mentioned before,
reaches its apotheosis with Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War.
[13:50:00]
ISAACSON: You talk about the 45th anniversary, John Quincy Adams, making this sort of a national document. And what really amuses me, perhaps
shouldn't, is that suddenly there becomes a tension between John Quincy Adams' father, John Adams, who's still alive, and Thomas Jefferson. They
both end up dying the same day, the 50th anniversary, and yet they're disputing between them who was more important and Adams diminishing what
Jefferson had done.
AUSLIN: Absolutely, and I think that is precisely, reveals how important the Declaration had become to the American people by the fourth, fifth
decade of our existence. That what had, again, been seen as something that did its job on one day in July of 1776 now defined us as a people, and that
that greatest sentence was beginning to gain purchase, not everywhere in the nation, but in many of the quarters, to say this is who we are.
ISAACSON: The museum and center of former President Barack Obama opened in Chicago in the past week, and the exhibit begins with the Declaration of
Independence. What do you make of that?
AUSLIN: I haven't been there yet since it just opened, and I think it's perfectly appropriate, and I think it should in many ways. In fact, I think
it's actually surprising that no president until President Trump put a copy of the Declaration in the Oval Office.
It is that birthright that I think every president, they swear to uphold the Constitution and defend the Constitution, but what they're really doing
is defending the spirit of the Declaration because it's the spirit of the Declaration that infuses the Constitution and, of course, the Bill of
Rights, and I think, you know, was very well understood at the time.
ISAACSON: You have a theory in your book that I love, which is that the importance of the Declaration rises over time partly because of immigration
and that in some ways the fact that we become a nation of diverse immigrants as opposed to a nation of blood and soil and heritage of the
land makes us a nation based on a creed, which makes this Declaration more important.
Nowadays at our 250th, we're kind of having this debate over whether we're a nation based on a creed that we all accept or are we a nation based on
land and heritage? How do you see the Declaration playing into that?
AUSLIN: Absolutely. It is our creed, but I would say the creed is now our heritage, and that, I think, is the wonderful thing. The immigrant part of
the book and possibly my favorite part of the book was to show how the Declaration, translations of the Declaration, ideas of civics, it wasn't
imposed top down, let's say, by the Mayflower community. It was embraced by the immigrants themselves. They are translating it into Swedish, into
Greek, into Italian, into Yiddish, into Polish, into Russian. They are the ones doing the translations for their own communities to say, you are now
here. You are now new.
And this is where Thomas Paine was right. They were creating the world new for themselves. You are Americans. This is your birthright, and you have
your responsibilities.
So, during World War I, you had this wonderful gathering of, basically it was immigrants from the different nations created a group to support
America in the war, pledging themselves as loyal Americans, saying this is now our country, though this country is engaged in a war in the old world
which we just left.
We, the representatives of the old nations, are now Americans, and we have our rights and we have our responsibilities to uphold this creed, to defend
democracy, defend the idea that in the old country, yes, you were separated by who you were and where you were born and the little town or village that
you came from. Not here. That here you are part of this great mainstream, what Adams -- James Truslow Adams, would call that American dream in 1931.
You know, in this period where the country had dramatically changed through immigration, at least 20 million coming in the 40 years from 1880 to 1920,
and the foreign-born population being at least 15 percent, but in some places like Cincinnati, it's upwards of 60 percent are German immigrants
and other immigrants from Central Europe.
[13:55:00]
They are embracing, translating these copies of the Declaration, putting it up on their walls. There's a Hungarian traveler who goes through the United
States in the 1830s and he said, I never went to an inn, a motel, an inn inside of America where I didn't see a copy of the Declaration on the wall.
It was always there next to the Bible.
This became the defining statement of who we were in a civic polity and the immigrants adopted it as much, if not more, than what some would today call
the heritage Americans. But that creed has become our heritage and I think that is exactly right and that's why each of us still, I feel, you know,
should pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor in this community. We live here together.
ISAACSON: Michael Auslin, thank you so much for joining us.
AUSLIN: Thank you, Walter.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Well, that's it for now. Thanks for watching, and goodbye from London.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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