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Amanpour
Interview with Cato Institution Director of Immigration Studies David J. Bier; Interview with Yale Law School Professor, Former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy and The Budget Lab at Yale University President Natasha Sarin; Interview with The Wall Street Journal Chief Foreign-Affairs Correspondent and "Our Enemies Will Vanish" Author Yaroslav Trofimov; Interview with "The Yahoo Boys" Author Carlos Barragan. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired June 30, 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]
BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, and welcome to "Amanpour." Here's what's coming up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I think it's very bad for our nation. We're the only nation that does it. No other nation does that birthright
citizenship. No, not even close.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: The Supreme Court rules on birthright citizenship and campaign finance limits. Former government official Natasha Sarin and immigration
expert David Bier discussed the impact of these decisions on American democracy.
Then --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Russians standing in fuel lines across various regions of Russia can clearly see
that their so-called three-day war has now entered its fifth year.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: -- Moscow feels the pain of Putin's war in Ukraine. As Kyiv steps up its drone attacks, could this be a turning point? I asked Wall
Street Journal correspondent Yaroslav Trofimov.
Plus --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CARLOS BARRAGAN, AUTHOR. "THE YAHOO BOYS": A bunch of kids, maybe teenagers, who were just acting as freelancers with their phone, scamming
lonely Westerns.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: -- "The Yahoo Boys," how love scammers are making money off of the loneliness epidemic. Author Carlos Barragan joins Hari Sreenivasan.
Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Bianna Golodryga in New York, sitting in for Christiane Amanpour.
Two big wins and one big loss for President Trump today as the Supreme Court handed down some major rulings on the last day of its term. In a
stinging rebuke, the president's attempt to gut birthright citizenship for millions of Americans was struck down in a 6-to-3 vote, invalidated an
executive order he signed on his first day in office.
Still, the court upheld trans sports bans, allowing states to bar transgender women and girls from playing on female sports teams. And the
justices lifted a Watergate-era cap on campaign spending, effectively unleashing political donors to plow even more money directly into parties'
campaigns just before the midterms.
So, what can we make of these rulings? David Bier is the director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, and Natasha Sarin is a professor
at Yale Law School. They both join me now. Welcome, both of you.
David, let me start with you on this birthright ruling specifically. The president, as we've noted, has been fixated on this since his first term,
and he has spoken out since this decision, but this had been a ruling that I think most legal experts had been expecting from the court to rule down
this executive order. Were you expecting this decision?
DAVID J. BIER, DIRECTOR OF IMMIGRATION STUDIES, CATO INSTITUTION: I was, based on the oral argument. Look, the Supreme Court has made it clear they
want to give the president significant discretion on its immigration agenda, but there are limits, and he hit up against the limits here with
this birthright citizenship order, which itself just asserts the authority to limit birthright citizenship in this way and really didn't provide any
kind of legal basis for it in the order itself.
They had to kind of work to come up with a theory under which they could claim this power, and the Supreme Court just said no. This is a violation
of the Constitution, the plain text as well as the historical context would indicate that this is not what the founders and the framers of the 14th
Amendment would have understood is a limit on birthright citizenship.
And I must correct the president in your opening. We're not the only country in the world with birthright citizenship. Almost every country in
the Western Hemisphere has birthright citizenship of the same nature as the United States does.
GOLODRYGA: And, Natasha, in striking down this executive order, Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote for the majority, wrote that the
Constitution settled this question more than 150 years ago, writing, quote, "Citizenship was the right to have rights. We keep that promise today."
But in dissent, you heard from Justice Alito, who called this one of the most important decisions in the court's history and a serious mistake. What
do you make of his dissent here and the fact that we had three dissents?
[13:05:00]
And if you want to count what a fourth justice wrote as well, perhaps even four, though they didn't go as far as the three who dissented outright.
NATASHA SARIN, PROFESSOR, YALE LAW SCHOOL, FORMER U.S. DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR ECONOMIC POLICY AND PRESIDENT, THE BUDGET LAB AT YALE
UNIVERSITY: You know, it's so interesting because when you heard oral arguments and when you sort of started to understand as David was
describing the facts at play with respect to this executive order and the reality that there wasn't really a legal justification offered for
something that was very clearly a violation of the 14th amendment and the constitution, you were in a situation where you might've hoped for a 9-3
decision -- a 9-0 decision in this case and that unanimity wasn't there.
I will say though, that if you look at the nature of the dissents, in part Justice Gorsuch was actually dissenting from the idea of birthright
citizenship for temporary visitors to the United States and drawing a distinction there from those who are children of unauthorized immigrants.
And so, one way to read the ruling is that on at least a subset of the population that was at play in this case, you actually had a 7-2 majority.
Overall, I think the fact that there was a very clear majority in this case indicates to you that this was at least one area where the Supreme Court,
which has a massive conservative majority at the moment, was willing to provide a very clear rebuke to the president that here he had gone too far
with respect to his immigration activities.
GOLODRYGA: And David, what did you make then of Justice Thomas writing in his dissent that the majority, quote, "repurposed the 14th Amendment to
protect its own set of preferred rights"?
BIER: Yes, I don't understand it. You know, I read the dissents and they all come up with different ideas about what the limits are and what it
means and that it's because there isn't really a textual basis for this exception that they're coming up with these different lines.
And if you actually look at the reality in 1868, in 1868, there were some people who were deportable from the United States and they were illegally
trafficked slaves. The very people, he says, the Birthright Citizenship Amendment was intended to protect, those were the only people at the time
in 1868 who could be lawfully deported from this country under the law prohibiting the slave trade.
And so, the very act of adopting the 14th Amendment not only protected the illegal immigrants or deportable immigrants in the future, at the very time
it was adopted, it protected deportable immigrants who were illegally trafficked slaves. So, I don't understand it, it's not historical and, you
know, I'm glad that the majority rejected it.
GOLODRYGA: Yes, it was interesting then to even hear from Speaker Johnson who said that he was disappointed with this ruling and he says that
Birthright has been grossly abused. Nonetheless, he himself described the ruling as a textualist originalist view. So, then to hear these dissents,
it is interesting to hear where these other justices are coming from.
I do want to get, Natasha, your reaction to the president's response here. We know that we were expecting one from him. He attended the argument
himself and just a short time ago, he took to Truth Social and he's now urging Congress to take it upon itself to end Birthright citizenship. And
he's writing, the Supreme Court upheld Birthright citizenship which is too bad for our country, but we can easily make it up in Congress through
legislation.
How easy would that legislation be? He goes on to say with the support of the president that has now been determined during this process, no long and
unwieldy constitutional amendment is necessary. Congress should start today to work on ending expensive and unfair to our country, Birthright
citizenship. They will have my complete and total support.
So, they have his support, but how easy is it for Congress to change this law itself? And do you think there's a political appetite to do it right
now, Natasha?
SARIN: I do not, I would speculate that it is pretty difficult to sort of overturn or rebuke a constitutional amendment. I would also say that a bit,
this whole conversation around Birthright citizenship has felt from an economic perspective, like a solution in search of a problem. If you think
about the number of children that are born in the United States each year that are born under Birthright citizenship, that's something like 0.3
percent of children in this country today.
We're in a moment, by the way, from an economic perspective where we desperately need more immigrants, not fewer immigrants, because as our
population ages, we are going to need people in our labor force.
[13:10:00]
And so, all of it feels like kind of muddled and confused from an economic perspective. And frankly, it does not really seem like as you're looking
and watching Congress and the various priorities that they have to navigate through, that this should rise to the top with respect to their chosen
activities.
GOLODRYGA: You mentioned the economic implications here. I do want to get you both to weigh in to the fed's decision yesterday. I mean, the fed, the
Supreme Court's decision, which involved the Federal Reserve yesterday and the president's executive power and limits on it. The court cleared the way
for President Trump or any executive to remove officials at independent agencies.
Most of them, this is a significant expansion, we should note, of presidential control over the so-called fourth branch. But the fed was
spared this time. And this relates to Fed Governor Lisa Cook. The Fed said -- the Supreme Court said that the fed governor deserved her time in court
for now. But there were some on this bench who are concerned about this coming up again in the future about the fed's ultimate independence here.
How concerned are you, Natasha?
SARIN: I'm pretty concerned having watched this administration in a variety of ways relating not just to the potential removal of Governor Lisa
Cook, but also to what looked very clearly like sort of trumped-up concerns with respect to former Chair Powell and a renovation project that the
Federal Reserve was doing.
You have seen President Trump be pretty clear and articulate that what he would like to see is a Federal Reserve that particularly ahead of a midterm
election in November decides to cut interest rates. We know what the consequences are of allowing a Federal Reserve to become politicized and
focus not on sort of the long-term trajectory of inflation or of the labor market, but instead on short-term political exigencies.
And I think there's real cause for concern here. This isn't the last chapter with respect to the Lisa Cook case. In fact, the case was remanded
to lower courts on procedural grounds. But I do think it is heartening that you saw the Supreme Court articulate pretty clearly, both as a matter of
history and historical context and the tradition that they say is unique of the first and second national banks in this country, but also frankly, as a
matter of economic importance that not having to have the appearance, not just the fact of independence is supremely important for the Federal
Reserve, that they will continue to carve out this independent agency from the sort of political influence that the Trump administration is trying to
levy.
GOLODRYGA: So, thus far, shielded and held to a bit of a higher standard. Nonetheless, in her dissent of the decision, Justice Sotomayor said the
ruling creates a quote, "a president who emerges with far greater power than ever before."
David, let's also get you to weigh in to the decisions we heard from the Supreme Court last week as it relates to temporary protective status. The
court found that the courts themselves, lower courts, can't review DHS decisions, effectively letting Trump end the TPS program and send Haitians
and Syrians home for families that are currently living under TPS protection here in the United States. What does this mean for them?
BIER: Well, it really means that they're going to end up here without legal status. I mean, this administration has not only engaged in a policy
of stripping people of their legal status, attempting to strip away citizenship from people in order to gin up more deportations, he's also
blocking legal immigration pathways for people from Haiti and these other countries that are being targeted.
So, the alternative is not, well, immigrate legally. Well, those paths are entirely blocked by this administration's policies. And so, the decision is
ultimately whether to go home to a country that's in a disaster or to stay and try to wait it out in legal status, which unfortunately I think many
will choose that option.
GOLODRYGA: I want to play sound from Christiane Amanpour's interview in April. So, anticipating this decision coming down from the Supreme Court.
Haiti's prime minister says that it can't safely take these people back given the political strife and the economic strife that the country faces.
Here's what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Is it OK to send a million Haitians back to a country that you've described as, you know,
under a lot of gang violence and gang control? And could it complicate your job?
ALIX DIDIER FILS-AIME, HAITIAN PRIME MINISTER: It will definitely complicate the job, but I understand every country's right to have their
own immigration policy. The humanitarian outcome should be that those people are not allowed to come back to Haiti or forced to come back to
Haiti until we resolve the security issue.
[13:15:00]
Of course, they are Haitians. We will take back all of our citizens. And I don't believe that people left Haiti out of there because they wanted to
move to a country where it's cold. We have beautiful weather. You've been to Haiti, you know it. They leave because there is insecurity and they're
looking for economic opportunity.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: David, at the same time, this administration has granted asylum to white South Africans who are claiming that they are experiencing
genocide, although I don't know that there's that much concrete evidence to support that. So, what do you make of this apparent contradiction here from
this administration?
BIER: Yes. Look, this administration is the only group of immigrants who received a favorable outcome by this administration. Everyone else has been
closed off from refugee status and legal immigration has been slashed by almost 50 percent. He's actually cut legal immigration overall more than
he's cut illegal entries at the border.
And so, the shocking outcome here is that you end up with people who are going to be forced back out of legal status who are working and
contributing here back to a disaster zone while we're inviting people from a country happy to have them here.
I've got no, you know, opposition to South Africans being able to immigrate here, but it does show a contrast in policy that I think lacks a rational
basis. And I think that's what we're looking for, some sort of rational basis by which we move forward on immigration policy.
GOLODRYGA: And, Natasha, it's noteworthy that there are Republicans, including governors, including the governor of Ohio, Mike DeWine, who spoke
out against this decision. Here's what he said about the impact that it would have on some people in his own state.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. MIKE DEWINE (R-OH): It's Haitians who many times are taking care of your mom or your dad, who has Alzheimer's, taking care of family members
who might be in a nursing home. And to say we're going to pull all those out, it's just not in our own self-interest.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: And, Natasha, I don't have to go through the litany of comments, controversial, hateful comments, racist comments that the
president, that others that have supported this decision have made about these refugees, Haitians in particular. Just give us your take on what this
decision means. Does it support perhaps more of this type of rhetoric in this country, allowing for it?
SARIN: I worry that it supports more of this rhetoric. And I also worry that it sows the seeds of economic disruption, much like you were just
playing for me in that clip, Bianna, particularly in parts of the economy, the care sector, nursing homes.
What this order means is that hundreds of thousands of people who have been contributing to the economy on the order of magnitude of around $30 billion
to U.S. GDP each year, contributed by those with TPS status, are all of a sudden going to be in situations where they have the choice about whether
to continue to try and stay in this country without legal status or no longer be contributing to the economy in the way they are today.
At a moment when we need more nursing homes, not less, and more people to be staffing those and labor shortages are quite significant across the
board in those types of sectors. I really worry about the consequence here and frankly don't understand the rationale from a policy perspective to try
to institute this type of immigration policy without any concern for the cascading consequences.
GOLODRYGA: Let me -- since we have you and this is your field, Natasha, just the decision, if you find a rationale for it and perhaps the impact of
the court's decision, lifting the cap on how much a party can spend hand in hand with its own candidate in terms of campaign finance. In a sense,
endless amounts of money can now go into these campaigns.
SARIN: Yes. We are already a country where there are deep concerns about the nature of political corruption, the ways in which those at the top of
the distribution who have billions and hundreds of billions of dollars to be able to deploy on their preferred causes are able to shape policy
outcomes.
And into that context to actually rescind what few limits exist with respect to that type of contribution and that type of activity. I worry
it's not just like an economic issue that you're going to start to see even more dollars and unlimited dollars in these sorts of campaigns be deployed
when they could be deployed to other purposes that are sort of more value additive from an economic perspective.
[13:20:00]
But I also worry about like the corrosive nature of these types of activities for our democracy and for an economy where already many are
frustrated that it feels like there are two sets of rules, one for the very wealthy and one for everyone else.
GOLODRYGA: And we could see immediate impact now as we are just months away from a very consequential midterm election. Natasha Sarin, David Bier,
thank you as always for breaking this all down for us. Really appreciate it.
SARIN: Thanks for having us.
GOLODRYGA: And do stay with CNN, we'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GOLODRYGA: We turn now to South Africa, where a month's long ratcheting up of anti-immigrant sentiment is coming to a head. Large crowds have taken to
the streets in a nationwide protest against undocumented immigration. Organizers set a June 30th deadline for all undocumented migrants to leave
the country after accusing them without evidence of committing crimes and stealing jobs.
The government has rejected that deadline and has deployed additional police amid fears that the marches could turn violent. Larry Madowo has
this report from the streets of Johannesburg.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LARRY MADOWO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is what it looks like when South Africans march against illegal migration. Across the country today, this is
the deadline they had set for undocumented migrants to leave the country.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Our world is something else. It does not belong to South Africans anymore. So, that is why we are saying this is the end of
it. We are tired. Yes.
MADOWO: There's people who criticize these protests as being xenophobic. What do you -- how do you respond to that?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because of this march is a peaceful march. So, I am not taking it as being xenophobic. We cannot be xenophobic when we are
asking people to go back to their countries. Because we just want to have our time as South Africans. We want to deal with our world and want to deal
with everything that is happening here.
MADOWO: This march has developed to a few thousand people now. What's happened is there's been a few sporadic marches popping up across
Johannesburg and other parts of the country. Some of them unaffiliated with the official organizers of this June 30 deadline.
Why are you marching today?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why marching?
MADOWO: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We want to work. They must go. There's corruption. They are selling drugs.
MADOWO: The marches here in Johannesburg have been largely peaceful. But we did see some incidents of people throwing glasses at some buildings as
they drove past. Police did a good job of largely keeping them from doing more damage. And that's been the tension between their constitutional
rights to pickets and those who fear that it's more than picketing. It could degenerate into crime.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GOLODRYGA: Our thanks to Larry Madowo for that report from Johannesburg. We turn to Moscow now, where the cost of Putin's war has become impossible
to ignore. Dozens of Ukrainian drones swarmed the Russian capital overnight, reportedly striking one of the country's largest satellite
centers as Kyiv ramps up its campaign to drain the Kremlin's war economy.
The targeting of key energy infrastructures has caused fuel shortages, long queues at gas stations and power outages. It's pushed Russian-occupied
Crimea into a state of emergency.
So, how is Putin handling this increased pressure? Yaroslav Trofimov is The Wall Street Journal's chief foreign affairs correspondent, and he joins me
now. Yaroslav, it's good to see you back on the show again.
So, let's talk about this latest attack of Ukrainian drones on Moscow this week. Russia says that it downed more than 400.
[13:25:00]
We -- there are reports that a six-month-old baby was killed south of the capital. And Putin has answered to this latest attack by vowing the, quote,
"final liberation of Donbas and Novorossiya." This, however, is what he said about the fuel shortages that this has created.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): You are well aware that problems persist for both drivers and businesses. Queues at petrol
stations, unfortunately, also remain. It is not always possible to find the required grade of fuel at present. And of course, we understand the
difficulties faced by agricultural producers and farming enterprises during this period. Every effort must be made to ensure that seasonal fuel supply
schedules are fully observed for the agricultural sector. The harvest depends on it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: So, he's acknowledging this impact here as sort of a burden, but not critical. You have covered the Russian society for years now. Since
this war began, that has been one of Putin's primary goals, to shield average Russians, especially those in major cities, from this war. He has
even avoided just calling this a war. How hard is that at this point now? Can he truly shield Russians from what this war has created?
YAROSLAV TROFIMOV, CHIEF FOREIGN-AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL AND AUTHOR, "OUR ENEMIES WILL VANISH": That's a great question.
And the answer is no, because this is really the first time that every single Russian person is affected by the war in Ukraine.
You know, this was something that Russians used to watch on TV in the beginning of the war. Then there were occasional strikes. But now, you
know, everyone needs to drive or to take a bus or to buy things that are being delivered by trucks to their grocery store. And all of a sudden,
Russia is paralyzed now.
There are fuel shortages in pretty much every single city, including Moscow. There are lines of an hour somewhere in other areas overnight and
maybe two nights. And these are the scenes that haven't been seen by Russians in decades. It's also now the first time since the 1990s that
Russia, which the late Senator McCain used to call as a gas station, masquerading as a country, is actually having to import fuel from overseas.
The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said today that Russia is now considering importing gasoline from faraway destinations.
And so, that's really a huge shift. And that is the result of Ukraine's relentless drone campaign. What we have seen is that every night, several
hundred drones are flying towards Russia, striking those refineries, but one third of Russia's refining capacity is now offline, and striking other
targets, such as military installations, such as port facilities. And in recent days, also the military facilities that manufacture the Russian
missiles that Russia uses to strike Ukrainian cities.
And we have seen a shift also in recent weeks of not just drones, but missiles. So, Ukrainian manufacturers, there's Flamingo missiles, and they
have been used to hit a factory in the City of Volgograd that makes components for Russian missiles, and also another one in the City of
Voronezh. So, these are sort of pretty dangerous developments for the Russian military industry too.
GOLODRYGA: And I want to talk about how the Russian military has adapted, how they've created their own drone warfare as well, in many ways outpacing
other NATO countries. So, in Europe, it's Ukraine dominant, but then Russia's not that far behind in drone warfare production.
But as it relates to these specific longer-range strikes, which the United States, we should note, even under President Biden, had really urged
Ukraine not to engage in and not to pursue, President Zelenskyy calls them long-range sanctions. And in his view, he thinks this is what's going to
bring President Putin to the negotiating table in earnest.
Is that how you're interpreting it? Do you think that this will finally get him to settle down for peace talks, or is he only going to fight back
harder now?
TROFIMOV: Well, you know, President Putin is a very stubborn man, and he's a man who believes that he can win this war on the battlefield, you know,
in this speech in which he promised to take care of the fuel shortages. He also spoke at length about real and alleged Russian military victories in
the battlefield. And one must say that the information that he was citing is incorrect.
So, these are wildly optimistic assessments that do not correspond to the reality in the battlefield, where Russia has barely advanced in the last
six months. And so -- but the equation is very simple. You know, fuel can return to the Russian gas stations the moment Russia agrees to a ceasefire,
or at the very least to a ceasefire when it comes to long-range strikes.
[13:30:00]
President Putin on Sunday refused to do that. He said that Russia has an advantage in long-range firepower, so it's not in Russia's benefit to cease
a fire and to stop these long-range strikes. So, for now, this exchange will go on, and as Ukraine's capabilities grow, so will the pain that
Russia is suffering.
GOLODRYGA: Let's turn to this unbelievable blockade that is surrounding Crimea now. This week, the Russian-installed authorities there declared a
state of emergency across occupied Crimea, a reminder for our viewers that Russia illegally annexed Crimea in 2014. Since then, we've seen blackouts
now. The past few weeks, fuel has been banned to ordinary residents. We're seeing a mass exodus of those into Russia, not seeing much traffic at all
going the other way.
And your latest piece argues that Crimea, which was once a crown jewel for Vladimir Putin, has really turned into an albatross around his neck. What
is the greatest risk for him here in terms of all of the investments he's made in Crimea? This was a popular annexation, even for the majority of
Russians at the time.
We should note, given the state it's in right now, does he face more pressure at home politically, or is this more of a military challenge for
him?
TROFIMOV: Well, I think for now it's a military and logistical challenge. Obviously, one of the most popular things inside Russia was for President
Putin to annex Crimea in 2014. This was widely celebrated in Russia, and Crimea is a popular holiday destination. Hundreds of thousands of Russian
citizens have moved in illegally to settle there since then. And now, he has a problem because he cannot supply this peninsula.
Ukraine has now deployed these so-called mid-range strike drones that are patrolling the roads towards Crimea, that are guided, and so they are
striking fuel tanks, they're striking other vehicles that are providing logistics. They are also hitting power installations, refineries. They have
sunk a number of ferries that link Crimea to mainland Russia.
And so, all of a sudden, there are power shortages, there are food shortages, and there is definitely a shortage of fuel. On the black market
in Crimea today, fuel goes for upwards of $25 to $30 per gallon. And so, you know, it is a military asset if you can sustain it, but if you cannot
sustain it, then it becomes a military liability. And that's what Ukraine is counting on.
GOLODRYGA: As we noted before, Russia is also adapting quickly in terms of drone technology and production. Is Ukraine's lead in this field durable,
or do you think it's something that Moscow could close the gap in?
TROFIMOV: Well, you know, we've seen this yo-yo throughout the war. So, this kind of mouse game on one side gives advantage, and then the other
offsets it with this technology swings. So, right now, for the last, let's say, two or three months, Ukraine definitely has an advantage, in part
because it uses these drones that operate using Starlink, and Russia cannot use Starlink for now, in part because of the use of artificial intelligence
in target acquisition for these drones that are patrolling the roads. So, in that segment, Ukraine definitely has an advantage.
Now, we don't know what other things Russia can come up with in the coming weeks and months, and it's quite likely that we'll find some sort of
solution, and then we'll have another technological advance from Ukraine, possibly. So, that's -- this war is really a war of technologies that are
changing by the week and by the month, rendering all technologies obsolete very, very quickly.
GOLODRYGA: And these technological feats that Ukraine has amassed over the last year or so have definitely got noticed, and President Trump has even
weighed in on this as well at the G7. He reportedly said that he was hugely impressed by Ukraine's strikes deep inside Russia and agreed to tighter
sanctions. Ukrainian officials say that they are cautiously optimistic that perhaps Trump could be turning in their favor and warming to them.
Here's what he said about this with NATO Chief Mark Rutte at the White House last week.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Look, no matter how you look at it, he's doing pretty well. He's holding his own, a lot of people dying on both
sides, but I think he's doing pretty well. Look, you have to say he's courageous. He's got great equipment, but he's got great men. He's got
fighters.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: Now, he's praised Ukrainian soldiers and the Ukrainian people in the past. I don't recall many times that he's actually praised President
Zelenskyy himself. Do you see a significant turn in change in the President's attitude towards Ukraine, or do you think these changes once
again when Vladimir Putin gets him on the phone?
[13:35:00]
TROFIMOV: Well, I mean, there is a fact about President Trump. He likes winners, and he is now -- it looks like that he's believing that Ukraine
has turned out of the war and is enjoying this winning strike, being able to hit the heart of Moscow, being able to disable much of Russia's economy
through its fuel shortages, being able to impose a blockade on Crimea.
So, that's a far cry from the battlefield picture when President Trump came into office in the beginning of last year, when he came to tell President
Zelenskyy that you have no cards. So, Ukraine has shown that it has cards, and President Trump is honest.
GOLODRYGA: And even if the balance has shifted in Ukraine's favor, no one should doubt the threat that Russia still poses to the region, even to NATO
allies, especially since there's a real question being asked as to how the United States will act if one of those allies is in fact attacked. Will it
honor Article 5?
And since that is in play, the question then rises about how much NATO countries can defend themselves without the help of the U.S. You have
studied this as well. You've done some wargaming. Where would they stand, especially as it relates to drone technology?
TROFIMOV: Well, that's a very good question. And, you know, when people are saying that the Ukrainians are so brave in drone warfare and how, you
know, a few dozen Ukrainian soldiers can defeat a NATO battalion, well, unfortunately, the same applies to a few dozen Russian soldiers. And as
President Putin is looking at the stalemate on the battlefield in Ukraine and is looking at the mounting casualties, he has a choice to make, to try
to find a solution or to escalate.
And one possible avenue of this escalation could be part of the NATO countries, could be the Baltic states, could be Finland, could be Poland.
We don't know exactly, you know, where he would find the weak spot or a perceived weak spot. But, you know, President Putin has always had European
nations in disdain. He doesn't believe that they will be able to defend themselves. And if he counts on the U.S. staying out of the fight, there is
a high risk that he can misjudge his capabilities and start another war elsewhere.
And, you know, it's not the first time because as we see from his spending in Ukraine, he has also misjudged his capabilities in Ukraine in 2022.
GOLODRYGA: Yaroslav Trofimov, five years now into the war, we always appreciate your analysis and reporting. Thank you for joining the show.
TROFIMOV: Thank you.
GOLODRYGA: And we'll be right back after break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GOLODRYGA: Nearly $1 billion, that's the sum extracted out of the U.S. last year from online catfish scams preying on lonely Americans. Using fake
dating site profiles and promising relationships, young men based in Nigeria are persuading individuals to send them thousands of dollars.
Journalist and author Carlos Barragan's new book looks at the effectiveness of these scams, which hit close to home after his mother became a victim.
He joins Hari Sreenivasan to discuss what this issue reveals about cultural failures in both the United States and Nigeria.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HARI SREENIVASAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Bianna, thanks. Carlos Barragan, thanks so much for joining us.
[13:40:00]
Your recent book is called "The Yahoo Boys: Love, Deception, and the Real Lives of Nigeria's Romance Scammers." What provoked you to go into this
story? What was the trigger?
CARLOS BARRAGAN, AUTHOR. "THE YAHOO BOYS": Thank you so much for having me here, Hari.
A long time ago, around 10 years ago, my mom met a wonderful American man on a dating app. And, you know, she's a single mom. She was taking care of
me and my two brothers. She was so excited after meeting this man called Brian that we thought, OK, why not?
But then the relationship was very weird from the beginning. They were exchanging emails. The guy said he was based in Syria as an American
soldier. After a month, the guy said that he was going to ship some gold bars to our apartment. Of course, my mom didn't care about the gold bars,
but it was the idea of starting a new life together.
And I knew that it was a scam. So, I traced the IP email address. The guy, Brian, was not in Syria, but actually, he was in Lagos, Nigeria. So, after
a few years of me watching my mom struggling with loneliness, I was very curious. I wanted to know who was the guy behind this scam. So, I went to
Nigeria.
SREENIVASAN: As any good reporter would, right? And you quit your job. You traveled to this place. I mean, what was your first impression? Were you
looking for something? Were you looking for a big, organized crime ring and, you know, huge machines that were powering all of this? And then, what
did you actually find?
BARRAGAN: So, it's important to note that, exactly, Nigeria has this bad rep about scammers, but there are scammers everywhere. It might change the
kind of scams they do, but right now, we have a lot of scams in Southeast Asia. And these people are well-organized mafias who enslaved people to act
as scammers.
So, I was expecting something like that, you know. Very well-organized, syndicated in Nigeria. Very dangerous. Very reckless. But what I found,
actually, was a bunch of kids, maybe teenagers, who were just acting as freelancers with their phone, scamming lonely Westerners. And they were
learning how to do that by talking to their older brothers, older friends, passing scripts where they could get information on how to talk to lonely
people. So, there was no syndicated. It was just a bunch of kids with phones.
SREENIVASAN: Wow. So, what was the environment like? Where were they doing this? What was their kind of day-to-day life like?
BARRAGAN: I focused the book on Ikotun, which is a poor neighborhood in Lagos. Lagos is a massive city. And in Ikotun, most of the boys I talked
to, you know, this is a community where most of the people there -- or some of the people there, struggle to eat sometimes, especially since the
pandemic, when inflation hit hard.
And these boys spend most of the nights, quote/unquote, "working," as they would call it, because they are talking to Americans online. And because of
the time zone, they have to spend their nights awake talking to men and women on the other side of the ocean. So, they spend their morning
sleeping. And then, they -- sometimes they smoke drugs to keep awake. And obviously, they also spend the money they scam -- they get from these
victims.
SREENIVASAN: And when you say they spent the money they scammed, how much money are we talking about? I mean, you can talk about individual cases and
then abstract how big of a problem this is.
BARRAGAN: So, for example, one of the characters I follow, his name is Aziz. He's a 14-year-old boy who came from the village. His mom sells food
on the street. She makes $2 a day. Of course, she -- this little boy doesn't really know about the atomization of the so-called -- the so-called
atomization of the Western world, but he learns from other people how to talk to, for example, a truck driver in California.
And he struggles a lot in getting money from these victims because he doesn't know how to talk to them. But the first $5 he gets, he goes to a
restaurant with air conditioning for the first time in his life, and he buys a bowl of rice and chicken, which is 10 times more expensive than what
his mom had given him that morning.
Now, that is the one case that shows how poor some of these young boys are. But other cases, when they get more money, because there are victims who
might send hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, they go to clubs, they go to hotels, and they splurge the money to tell the community, I made it. So,
in a way, it's also very connected to status.
SREENIVASAN: You know, so tell me about how society deals with this, right? It must not be a secret on how this 14-year-old or 18-year-old are
making so much money that they can buy huge bottle service in a club. What do the parents think? What does society think? Because there's also an
economic ripple effect of those dollars.
[13:45:00]
BARRAGAN: Yes. It creates a lot of tension. You just have to mention the word yahoo to a Nigerian, and I feel like 50 percent of the people are
completely against it, and the other 50 have their reservations because, you know, they might mention colonialism or they might mention slavery,
some of the causes that, in a way, created the current Nigeria as it is.
And at the same time, this money, as you said, has ripple effects because these scammers who are 18, 20, 25, they get the money, and around them,
there's a whole community trying to get their share of the pie as well.
And you have boutique stores, hotel owners, even police officers, all sorts of people trying to get that money from that boy who just wants to share it
or at least wants to brag about his illicit games. And I think that it creates this sort of tension where the community in the short term is
receiving money that in a way might end up in like being paid school fees or food for young people. But in the long-term, it is detrimental for the
community because these young people end up without learning any trade.
SREENIVASAN: What are the customers overseas from the United States, England, whatever, what do they need? Why are they willing to engage in
these false relationships in the first place?
BARRAGAN: So, whenever I talk to the Yahoo boys, Biggie, for example, he's a 30-year-old man in Ikotun, he would mention all the time the same word,
attention, you have to give the clients -- because they call their victims clients, you have to give them attention.
And by after a lot of hours talking to these scammers, you know, I talked to more than 50 of them, you realize that these are not very sophisticated
cameras or masterminds. Actually, they are just there all the time. They know that sometimes saying, how was your day? What do you have for
breakfast? What are you going to do today? It's more powerful than sending this very beautiful message.
And many think -- you know, I think that is the key point of the book, how lonely some people are in the Western world, that this 14-year-old boy who
has never left Lagos in his life is able to get some money from this victim. And I'm not trying to put the blame on the individual, on the
victim, but society around the victim.
SREENIVASAN: You know, it's interesting that a child at the age of 14 is able to tap in to what in America we consider a loneliness epidemic. I
mean, there's numbers here that an estimated 52 million adults experience loneliness at least once a week. What's happening to us? How are we so
compartmentalized? How are we not able to see each other on the other as human beings in the society that we're in? And here we are using the
internet to find this connection somewhere else.
BARRAGAN: I have one Nigerian man who told me, you Americans, even though I'm a Spaniard, but he meant, you Westerners have all the money in the
world, but have no shoulder to cry on. While here in Nigeria, we have everyone around us, but we have no money. And I think it is the central
paradox of the book that it is quite sad that these people who are providing something to each other have to lie to the other person to give
that.
And I think that we are not really aware of how lonely some of the people around us are because some of the victims were being scammed, actually,
they were in relationships. When we talk about loneliness, it's not only about isolation. I think that it probably is connected to the golden cage
the tech companies have built to make an enormous profit and also to keep us engaged.
SREENIVASAN: On the supply side, we seem to have this loneliness epidemic, right, that might lead people. And then on the kind of demand side over on
the Nigerian front, you have incredible inequality and poverty. And it feels like you would do anything to put food on your table. And when you
see what your mother might do for a living and how little money you get and how little bread, so to speak, you get this alternative seems like, ah,
this is almost a victimless crime. I'm not actually, you know, murdering anybody. I'm not engaging in gang violence. And I just have to spend some
time on my phone and stay up all night.
[13:50:00]
BARRAGAN: I think this is a problem of globalization and extreme inequality. When in the past you were living in a city that was -- that had
a lot of inequality, in the long run, either it was going to lead to social instability or to authoritarianism to control that instability.
What happened with the internet is that suddenly these people in Nigeria, but it could also happen in other parts of the world, they had a window
into our reaches. And that social instability, maybe they are not burning bridges because they can't get to America, but they are talking to lonely
people and they are scamming them.
Certainly, there's also the aftershocks of colonialism and slavery and the British Empire creating a country out of nowhere. So, in the book, for
example, you have this character who is Biggie's grandfather, who had to dress up as a woman during the Civil War that in a way was also impacted by
the British misrule in West Africa. So, it was quite a paradox that Biggie's grandfather had to dress up as a woman to survive as an evil in
the Civil War. And 60 years later, his grandson is also dressing up as a woman online to survive.
SREENIVASAN: For a lot of people in my age, you know, the Nigerian prince emails, that's the stuff that came around the 1990s. But in your book, you
go back into the history of scamming Nigeria and you go way further. What is that?
BARRAGAN: Well, for me, it was very important to trace back the origin of impersonation scams in West Africa, of course, highlighting the point that
there is nothing particularly Nigerian about these scams. But of course, the socioeconomic and the historical conditions that led to this scam are
important.
And, you know, you have West Africans so terrified by the British men in the early 20th century when they got there and they fooled some of the
locals with fake arrangements to get their land, that some of the locals would dress up as the white man with their clothes, pretending to be
someone who's been sent by the British Empire. And they would steal cattle. They would steal grain. They would steal all sorts of things to other
communities, not to their own community, but to other communities.
So, in a way, it's quite paradoxical that the first time they did this kind of ruse, it was a result of colonialism. You know, we shouldn't forget that
colonialism has also this kind of weird aftershocks. And in a way, this is also the result of what we did 100 years ago, 200 years ago.
And I'm not saying that this is just one-dimensional like cause, but the same way that we look at, for example, American shooters, and we try to
understand all the socioeconomic conditions that drive them to do such a horrific act, I think we deserve the same level of empathy to other people.
SREENIVASAN: In 2025, there were more than 23,000 complaints of different kinds of confidence and romance crimes that were filed in the U.S. And the
estimate is that these crimes cost, you know, people lost almost a billion dollars. Why do you think these crimes have become so prevalent and so
widespread?
BARRAGAN: It's a difficult question, but I do think that the main reason is that, you know, going back to the Yahoo voice answers, because for me,
it was very important to understand their perspective. You know, I couldn't understand why my mom had fallen for this scam. So, maybe these young boys
who are getting the money can explain to me why suddenly thousands, if not of tens of thousands of Westerners are sending the money to people who've
never met in their real lives. And I think it goes back to the idea of attention.
You know, I would throw them the word loneliness, and they would throw me back the word of attention. And we are -- all of us, we are spending so
much time on our devices, on our phones. And these tech companies are competing for our attention the same way that Yahoo boys are competing for
the victims' attentions.
So, I do think that when I look at my mom, when I look at the people I love, sometimes I feel I don't have enough time for them, and I wonder
where is that time going? So, especially after the pandemic, a lot of people, I think they do feel completely disconnected from society. And they
are just, by talking to these people online, they are trying to fill a void that we've decided that we were not going to fill as partners, brothers and
sisters, or children.
SREENIVASAN: Carlos Barragan, the author of the book called "The Yahoo Boys," thanks so much for your time.
BARRAGAN: Thank you so much. It was a pleasure.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GOLODRYGA: And finally, June brings its signature burst of color as cities around the world celebrate Pride Month.
[13:55:00]
In Budapest, thousands of people joined the city's parade, marking a new era of openness for Hungary's LGBTQ community. Former far-right leader
Viktor Orban, who tried to ban the parade last year, was voted out of office in April, allowing freedom of expression at this year's festivities.
And thousands of miles away in India, communities came together in a vibrant protest to demand increased inclusivity. So, whether it's
celebrating with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on the streets of Toronto, or marching through New York City honoring the legacy of the 1969
Stonewall riots, Pride has been front and center for millions of people across the globe. Happy Pride Month all.
All right. That is it for now. Thank you so much for watching, and goodbye from New York.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:00:00]
END
