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Amanpour
Interview with Former U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel; Interview with Representative Mark Pocan (D-WI); Interview with Columbia University Columbia Climate School Professor Radley Horton; Interview with "The Revolutionary Center" Author Adrian Wooldridge. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired July 21, 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: Iran has been very badly damaged.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: Trump vows to make Tehran pay after American service members are killed in conflict. Where could the war go from here? I ask former
defense secretary, Chuck Hagel.
And cut off from fuel, cut off from power, how the U.S. blockade is crippling Cuba. I speak to a U.S. congressman who just returned from the
island.
Then, fire, smoke, and extreme weather wreak havoc across the world. Columbia University Professor Radley Horton joins me on the harsh realities
of climate change.
Plus --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ADRIAN WOOLDRIDGE, AUTHOR, "THE REVOLUTIONARY CENTER": The three essential things are tolerance, skepticism about power, and a commitment to
individualism.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: -- Adrian Wooldridge tells Walter Isaacson about his book, "The Revolutionary Center: The Lost Genius of Liberalism."
Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Bianna Golodryga in New York, sitting in for Christiane Amanpour.
Donald Trump is vowing revenge after American service members were killed by Iranian strikes. The U.S. president says that Tehran will pay, quote,
"many times over," as the Pentagon is acknowledging nearly 100 U.S. service members have suffered from some level of injury in the past two weeks, most
of them minor.
Meanwhile, in Iran, President Mahmoud Pezeshkian has told his people that they are engaged in a full-scale war, and the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen
are vowing to blockade a second critical shipping channel, further threatening global oil supplies.
Despite Trump's past predictions that the Iran war would soon be over, it continues on, and it's -- his administration is lobbying Congress for tens
of billions of dollars more to fund the fighting.
Chuck Hagel was U.S. defense secretary under President Obama, and he joins me now. Secretary Hagel, thanks so much for joining the program. Let's
start with those three casualties, those service members that were killed over the weekend. Of course, our thoughts are with their families right now
as their bodies are being transferred over to Dover Air Force Base.
Three Iranian missiles had hit that Jordanian base. In just 24 hours, they targeted and they hit a gym, a hangar, and then housing units where
soldiers slept. What does this pattern tell you about how exposed some 50,000 U.S. service members may be in the region right now?
CHUCK HAGEL, FORMER U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: Well, when you start a war with no strategy these kinds of things happen. And of course, casualties
always happen in wars, and you have to factor that in when you talk about taking a nation to war and committing our men and women to that kind of
combat and possibility of casualties.
What we've got to do here in this, this endless war that we got ourselves into three wars that we didn't have any strategy or connection to
understanding, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, we've got to start listening to the diplomatic corps. How do we get out of this? We've got to listen to
what's going on in the Middle East. This isn't just a war with Iran and the United States anymore, and Israel. This a war with the Middle East. It is
connected to the world, the economy. So, the whole world is involved in this in some way as a consequence of what we started.
GOLODRYGA: So, the enemy, as it says, as it goes, has a say here as well. And in terms of where Iran views things diplomatically they had an option,
an opportunity really that many thought was the best opportunity they could have, and perhaps a bad option that the United States laid out on the table
for itself, and that was the 60-day MOU. Sanctions would be lifted, the strait would be open, the war would end.
[13:05:00]
Iran, despite having all of those opportunities, chose to once again break that MOU and attack ships going through the Strait. So, what does that tell
you about where they are right now in terms of a diplomatic off-ramp?
HAGEL: Well, what we have produced in Iran today over the last more than four months is a regime much more difficult to deal with, much more
militant, less inclined to deal with us or to resolve these issues. And that's the reality and the consequence of the action that we started with
not thinking through this. Actions have consequences. Inactions have consequences.
And I don't know what's going on strategically inside, but when the president said he's going to continue to attack them and go to war on the
basis of retribution for them killing our soldiers, that's not the way to conduct a war. You've got to go deeper than that. And I don't know if
they're doing that. I don't know what they're doing diplomatically. That's the only way it's going to get resolved, or at least the beginning of
resolution here is through that process.
You've got two real estate people who are in charge of the diplomatic efforts. This not a real estate deal. This not a deal. And you can't
conduct anything like this on a retribution basis. If you hit us, we'll hit you more. And this goes on and on and on. Somebody's got to start thinking
a lot deeper and wider than what we're seeing now.
GOLODRYGA: Well, we're now in 10 days of back-and-forth strikes. The U.S. focus is on keeping the Strait of Hormuz open, and that's where a number
and the majority of these targets have been in attacking Iranian infrastructure. But we have seen attacks on critical civilian
infrastructure as well. U.S. strikes at Iranian water plants. Iran retaliated with strikes that damaged desalinization and power facilities in
Kuwait and Bahrain as well.
Does targeting basic water desalinization facilities, civilian facilities or at least facilities that function perhaps in both ways, civilian and
militarily, does that get the United States to a place where it has leverage here?
HAGEL: No. And if for no other reason than what we're doing here -- it's the same thing that Israel has been doing in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon,
is you're creating generations of new terrorists. You're creating generations of new anti-Americans.
Look at what's happening with the Houthis in Yemen, threatening to close down that waterway coming out of the Red Sea. I mean, this what happens. If
you're not smart about this, where do you want to go and what do you want to accomplish? Five months ago, the Strait of Hormuz was open and we've
made it worse. And so, we've got to start thinking beyond just that.
I mean, we hear a new explanation every day of what this war was about. Well, it was supposedly first about Iranians not having nuclear capability
and capacity. I mean, the Obama administration answered this thing in 2015, had a very smart program, plan that everybody was abiding by. And in fact,
all the nations of the world, including Russia and China signed on to it. The United Nations signed on to it.
That's what we need to get back to resolve this. But I don't know if this president or this administration has capacity to do that. So, this going to
go on.
GOLODRYGA: Yes. And on the other side, there's nobody to say who in this Iranian, the current Iranian regime that would be able to negotiate a deal
at this point as well. And on that specific issue of Iran's nuclear program, the president today made a number of newsworthy comments.
One was that the next target perhaps would be Pickaxe Mountain. This after there had been reports that Israeli intelligence provided to the United
States showed that centrifuges had been moved to Pickaxe Mountain, which is considerably deeper than even Fordow. After the strikes last year, the 12-
day war between Israel, the United States and Iran, President Trump saying that would be the next target. And he said the only reason he's announcing
that is because there's nothing that Iran could do to stop it.
So, your reaction to the president saying there's nothing Iran could do, perhaps very optimistic that their defense systems have been decimated. And
also, would the United States, even with bunker buster bombs, be able to penetrate Pickaxe?
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HAGEL: Well, let's start with the fact a couple of months ago, the president said we have totally emasculated the Iranian capabilities of
their armed forces. Well, not quite right. I mean, if you if you want to do what he's talking about doing here, and you can -- with our capabilities,
you can bomb them, you can stray from you can do all of that, but you're going to have to put troops on the ground. If you really want to accomplish
what he says that he's going to accomplish and what he said we accomplished two months ago, or three months ago, that's where this going.
That's, again, going back to my original point, where is this going? We're just getting deeper and deeper into this hole. The Iranians are not going
to give up. I mean, you've got the entire, like I said, Middle East involved now. And you've got another war going on in Ukraine. And we've got
capability issues with our inventories of our weaponry. That's now becoming very clear. The Congress has got to get in this. I mean, where's the
Congress been? Absent on any policy here.
GOLODRYGA: On that point of Congress, Secretary Hegseth and chairman of the joint chiefs, General Caine will be testifying today before the Senate
asking for more funding for the war. It has been three months now -- it has -- it's been since May, since we last had a briefing from both the
secretary of defense and he would jointly stand there and brief the public and the media with the chairman of the joint chiefs. It's been May since
their last briefing.
The New York Times initially reported and then the Pentagon then followed up by announcing that some 100 service members have been injured over the
last few weeks, dozens. We haven't had a real update on how many have been wounded until now.
You've sat at that witness table as Secretary asking for more supplemental funding. Can Congress do more at this point in terms of the questions
you're asking right now? Where is this war going? Where is this money going?
HAGEL: Well, of course they can. They control the funding, the power of the purse. That's one of the constitutional requirements that the Congress
has. And only Congress can appropriate money. That's number one.
Also, where's the Congress been on any kind of a vote? Are we in favor of this? Are we not in favor? What's going on? What do we know? What do we
don't know? I mean, where the Congress has been, I mean, truly unbelievable to me. And it's let down the American public.
I mean, you know the numbers on this, the polling numbers. I think a lot of that is because there's no support for this war, because people are unsure.
Why did we start it? Where are we going? And the longer -- as I've said, the longer you go with this, the deeper you get into this. And the
Congress, again, is the one body that can stop it. And --
GOLODRYGA: Do they have the backbone to do that?
HAGEL: They've got -- they have not had the backbone. They've got a constitutional responsibility. But even more basic than that, the Congress
has responsibility to the people of this country who fund the taxes, who fund those wars and who have jurisdiction literally over decisions made
because we are a republic.
Nothing starts until there's an election. And the people of this country, we're a republic decide. When you send a senator or congressman to
Washington, you send them because they're going to protect your interests. What are we doing? Maybe it's a just war. Maybe everything we're doing is
just. What -- how do we know that?
GOLODRYGA: Yes.
HAGEL: There's been no transparency. Nobody from the administration. We hear the president every day. But everything he said is just basically not
true. And then he changes his approach the next day. So, the Congress has got a very, very significant responsibility here. But -- and they've not
fulfilled it.
GOLODRYGA: Yes. Maybe this a just war. But you're right, transparency is the name of the game here in terms of what Congress is owed the American
taxpayers and most importantly, those families of the 17 service members that have lost their lives since this war began.
HAGEL: That's exactly right. The people who fight the wars, and I was in one of those wars in Vietnam in 1968, no transparency there either.
GOLODRYGA: Yes.
HAGEL: And we lost almost 57,000 men and women in that war because no one had the courage on the political front in the Congress and the presidency
to step forward and be honest about it.
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GOLODRYGA: Secretary Hagel, we really appreciate the time today. Thank you so much.
Well, later in the program, Cuba is in the grip of a deepening humanitarian crisis after months of a U.S. imposed oil blockade. After the break, I'll
speak to a U.S. congressman who just returned from the island.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GOLODRYGA: For six months, Cuba has been suffering under a U.S. imposed oil blockade, causing havoc and suffering that is only getting worse. Its
national grid has collapsed multiple times this month, with Cubans racing to charge their phones or pump water whenever the power comes on, even if
it's in the middle of the night.
And the Trump administration isn't letting the pressure up. This month, it leveled further sanctions on the country, this time targeting its tourism
industry.
In recent weeks, several Democratic lawmakers made the journey to the island have denounced the suffering that they saw. Among them was
Congressman Mark Pocan, who joins me now from Washington, D.C. Congressman, thank you. Welcome to the program.
Thanks for joining us. The State Department today calls Cuba the, quote, "Capital of 21st century communism, still exporting instability across the
region." You walked the streets of the island. What did you see?
REP. MARK POCAN (D-WI): Yes. So, I saw that report. I have a copy of it with me by the State Department. It just came out yesterday. To call it
fantastical would be probably the best definition.
Look, I saw what the U.S. blockade is doing. And it's not just an oil blockade, it's a blockade of food, goods, medicine. Even in war, we allow
medicines and medical devices to travel. It's a complete blockade. And it's really an involuntary global blockade, because any country that does will
face sanctions from the United States.
So, what we're doing is, for 65-plus years, we've had some sort of blockade, almost continuous, on the Cuban people. But right now, we've
intensified it to that it's really a boot on the neck of the Cuban people. You know, their electric grid has failed multiple times for long periods of
time. They can't get any medicine or parts for medical devices for their hospitals. They don't have food. They can't even have kids in school right
now because of the power situation.
And it's just something that we claim we're looking out for the Cuban people against the Cuban government. And instead, we're actually hurting
the Cuban people. And that's the real problem.
GOLODRYGA: What was the impetus for the trip? Have you been before? Did you decide to go following this blockade? And is this something that your
constituents have prioritized?
POCAN: Yes, we have a sister city, Madison, Wisconsin, with Camaguey, Cuba. So, it's something that people back home do care about. And I've been
there 30 years ago. I've been there three and a half years ago, and then just again last week.
And I can tell you the difference, as I saw it. You know, with no fuel, not only did they go 42 hours without power, we had an hour and a half of
power, and then it went back down again. But that means you also don't have garbage trucks to pick up garbage. It's literally piling up in the streets.
We don't have -- you know, they have one of the best medical systems, and they export doctors throughout Central and South America, and they can't do
that. In fact, they have to -- when the power goes out, surgeons use their phones' lights to finish a surgery. This all because of our blockade. And
it just doesn't make any sense. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.
[13:20:00]
Here we are doing this, when in reality, under Barack Obama, we opened up relations. Americans went to Cuba to vacation. They were thriving. And
quite honestly, they love America. And guess what, there was no ill towards our country by doing so.
But this report by the State Department, I think it's setting up a military action. We're already in a quagmire in Iran, but I think this is Marco
Rubio's personal South Florida pet project, and he wants us to go into Cuba in a way that I don't think the American people support.
GOLODRYGA: The doctors that you saw sort of improvising in the dark. Havana, and you briefly touched on this, has sent thousands of doctors
overseas to bring regime hard currency back home. Is this an embargo problem then, or is this the Cuban regime choosing to prioritize their
funding differently?
POCAN: Well, no. I mean, there's a lot of different funding. One of the things the U.S. government claims we want to see is private enterprise. And
we met with some people who had small businesses. One gentleman had bakeries. He had 400 employees. Now, he's got 12 because of the U.S.
blockade.
So, here we say we want private sector development. They just did 176 reforms that the small business owners told me will be good for having a
small business in Cuba, and yet, we don't recognize those because we are setting up a false narrative about how we're going to do that.
So, the bottom line is, you know, they want to have the U.S. invest. They want to have small businesses. They've told us that over and over, small
business owners, the government, people in the nonprofit sector, but we're not allowing any of it through having the most total blockade that any
country on the planet faces.
So, we've done this for 65 years. It hasn't worked. I just think it's time to maybe go back to what we had under Barack Obama and try to develop a
different relationship.
GOLODRYGA: And every administration that has imposed these sanctions say that they are sanctioning the regime, not the people. From what you've
seen, from what you've heard, does that distinction hold?
POCAN: No. I mean, again, it's fantastical. That's why if you -- you know, if want a good read, you can't sleep, read the State Department report,
it's pretty ridiculous. It's kind of like the excuse the dog ate my homework. It's about as credible, right? The dog doesn't eat everyone's
homework. And Cuba doesn't cause everything in the U.S.
They literally are trying to blame Cuba for Black Lives Matter, for ICE protests, you name it. This a small country that's very impoverished, that
can barely do anything right now, given the blockade, and yet somehow, they're still the mastermind. To me, that smells of a rat, right? This
doesn't pass the smell test.
I think this really being set up to do something. What we saw in Venezuela was partially, directly related to Cuba. And I just think that the American
government, unfortunately, is lying to the American people about Cuba. So, not many visuals come out of Cuba, as you well know.
So, I think part of what we're trying to do when we go to a delegation like this, come back, speak the truth, and just make sure that we don't wind up
in another potentially disastrous military intervention like we're right now in the middle of in Iran.
GOLODRYGA: So, as you know, the administration, the State Department in particular, has accused Cuba of housing both Russian and Chinese
intelligence operations. And the counter to everything you've just laid out is that Cuba's economy has been mismanaged to the ground by a state that
controls everything, and has for decades, and has crushed private business and enterprise.
So, isn't blaming the embargo itself sort of taking away any agency that the regime has, and how much they own of the current situation there?
POCAN: Look, they have a very different government structure. I can point out things that we raise with them that we have concerns about.
GOLODRYGA: What? What did you --
POCAN: Respect for people's civil liberties.
GOLODRYGA: Yes. What did you raise with them?
POCAN: Some of the people that have been in prison five years ago for speaking out. But again, we have people who speak out in the United States
as well, but we think you have a right to do that. However, it's very clear that if you don't allow medical parts from the U.S., that's not the Cuban
government's problem. That's our problem. It's our blockade. And we even allow that, again, in the situations of real war.
So, it is our total blockade that's really causing this, and it's ultimately felt by the people of Cuba. That's when you talk to folks. You
know, if they happen to get power during these rolling blackouts at 2:00 a.m., they go to their windows and bang on pots and pans to wake everyone
up, because that's the only time you can take a shower. One woman with us hadn't had any water for eight days. That's when they cook their food for
the day, but of course they can't use the refrigerator because they have no power. That's not mismanagement. That's directly because we don't allow you
to bring any oil in from another country, and if you do, we'll sanction you.
So, again, it goes back to U.S. policy and the fact that they do have, over my visits to Cuba, far more of a private sector trying to grow. But again,
they can't grow because we won't allow anything through because of the blockade. So, everything I see really comes back to this total blockade is
not working at least how we claim it's supposed to, and I think that's where the focus has to be.
[13:25:00]
GOLODRYGA: You mentioned the lack of freedom of political expression. So, many locked away in prisons there, not because the power is out, but
because the regime doesn't allow for dissent. There are continued concerns over that very issue. Prominent dissident, Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara, has
just arrived in Cuba. He's in the United States after years in prison, and here's what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LUIS MANUEL OTERO ALCANTARA, CUBAN DISSIDENT ARTIST (through translator): For me, Cuba's future is the result of the work of many people over a long
period of time. The fact that the U.S. government is supporting us right now is good, but it also remains in the hands of Cubans who have to rebuild
and build everything that's needed. Cuba's future depends on us, the Cuban people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: Is Washington doing enough for dissidents like this man was and that are currently being jailed in Cuba?
POCAN: Yes. So, they have released a lot of the prisoners. They say they're going to release some more as part of the conversations that we had
because it is of concern and should be. But, of course, we know there are scores of countries that we also have concerns with on this front, but we
don't blockade them as a nation. We don't stop medicine from coming in. We don't make it so that their CT scanners and their MRI machines don't work
because they can't get parts from the United States.
So, I think whatever we're doing is we're handling the blockade as more than a hammer to the Cuban people. The way we support the Cuban people is
allow the access of trade. If we believe in our system of government, which I do, then allow the free flow like we did under Barack Obama, and you'll
see not only the U.S. be able to take advantage of a neighbor 90 miles off our shore by vacationing and enjoying aspects of the country, you're going
to see the country thrive and improve the relations.
But, you know, nothing happened bad to the United States during that period because so much of this old Cold War arguments. In fact, about two-thirds
of this report is about the '60s and '70s, and all of a sudden, they jump to today and say Cuba did it. It's so -- it's probably the dumbest report
I've read in my 14 years of being here. And whoever wrote it should be embarrassed.
POCAN: What are your colleagues there in the Senate, what are they -- in Congress, what do they say about this? Is there an appetite for a different
Cuban policy, or is this sort of a lonely position that you and a handful of other of your colleagues have at this point?
POCAN: Jim McGovern, who wasn't part of our group, has some legislation to help lift the blockade. I believe Ms. Velazquez from New York has a bill
about a war powers resolution in case we're trying to come in and do any kind of intervention. So, there's a lot of people that aren't part of the
group.
I think the main thing is you don't get visuals out of Cuba. There's just not enough coming that people can see what we saw. And having been there
three times, I can tell you this has been absolutely the worst it's ever been, and it's more directly related to what the United States is doing
than anything else. And given that, it is my responsibility, not just as having a sister city from Madison, Wisconsin, and Cuba, but also as someone
who serves on the Foreign Affairs Committee to care about this. And I'll be raising some of these issues tomorrow with the U.S. ambassador in a
committee.
POCAN: Have you spoken -- final question, have you spoken with the secretary of state directly about this?
POCAN: No, but that's part of what we want to do. This report literally is 100 pages. I read it yesterday. Most people don't even know it's out. I'm
trying to get people to look at it because this nothing more than a blueprint for an invasion. And we just can't have another quagmire in the
top of Iran in the Middle East.
GOLODRYGA: Well, keep us posted, Congressman, on your conversations there. We appreciate your time.
POCAN: Absolutely.
GOLODRYGA: We appreciate the effort.
POCAN: Thank you.
GOLODRYGA: Well, across the globe, extreme heat is getting worse as the realities of climate change make themselves unmistakably felt. In Spain,
the largest wildfire of the year is still burning, even as another heat wave begins. London is bracing for a six-day heat wave, having already
endured a record-breaking June. And records are also being shattered this summer in the United States, with wildfires from Canada creating a brew of
toxic air being felt across multiple states.
For more on this, let's bring in Radley Horton, a professor of climate at Columbia University. Radley, it's good to have you back on the program.
It's not a summer without a conversation with you, sadly, on extreme weather. And here we are again.
Let's talk about what we've been dealing with here in the United States, in large portions of the Northeast and the Midwest here, and that is the
Canadian wildfires. Canada is reporting more than 840 active fires, over 180 of them currently out of control. Put this season into context for us.
How unusual is this fire activity in Canada?
RADLEY HORTON, PROFESSOR, COLUMBIA CLIMATE SCHOOL, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY: Yes. So, thus far, it's too early to say whether 2026 is going to prove to
be a top year in terms of the area burned. What we can say is that there are very strong upward trends in terms of the area burned by fire in
Canada.
[13:30:00]
We have records, satellite records that go back 50 years or so, and we have other records that go back longer. And we can see, for example, that 2023
was twice as bad as any prior year. 2025 was the second worst year ever. And as you intimated, this year is off to a really rough start with so many
fires burning out of control. The numbers aren't huge yet in terms of total area burned, but it's part of this strong upward trend that's directly
connected to higher temperatures and global warming.
GOLODRYGA: And affecting a huge portion of the population, not just in Canada, but as noted here in the United States as well. Fire expert,
Michael Flannigan, says that the area burned by Canadian wildfires has nearly quadrupled since the 1970s and attributes that largely to human-
caused climate change. Do you back up his theory there?
HORTON: Generally speaking, I do. What we can say for sure is that air temperatures going up is the most direct effect of climate change and the
human burning of fossil fuels. And we've seen that summer fire season in Canada warm by almost 4 degrees Fahrenheit, more than 2 degrees Celsius
over the last several decades.
Now, what that means is for each single degree Celsius of warming, there's 7 percent more moisture that's basically going to get sucked out of all the
trees, sucked out of all the vegetation, simply because a hotter atmosphere demands more water, if you will. So, this a very direct effect. As we see
those higher temperatures, you would have needed a lot more rainfall just to sort of maintain the balances of the past.
And then we're also seeing more of these individual weather events like this all-time highest pressure associated with very hot, hot temperatures
over individual days. That is the fuel that takes you from just overall drying and tinderboxes that forests are becoming towards fire weather
conditions on individual days that let these things explode.
The north shore of Lake Superior, Thunder Bay area, not somewhere we think of as getting incredibly hot, was close to 40 degrees Celsius, 103
Fahrenheit Monday when those fires started to explode. Areas further north, 107 Fahrenheit. These are really, really extreme temperatures.
And while a number of factors can contribute to fire, we can attribute those higher temperatures due to global warming being a critical factor,
making them so much worse. We're also seeing more lightning strikes, it seems, which cause a lot of these fires as the planet warms, too, due to
human activities.
GOLODRYGA: And the pace at which these fires are growing is quite stunning. The community of Collins First Nation was first told that there
was no immediate danger to that community. Hours later, residents were fleeing by boat as flames reached the shoreline there. Are warning systems
equipped for these types of fires? Is there anything that needs to be done to update them?
HORTON: Absolutely. Things need to be done. It's incredibly challenging, but that's all the more reason why we have to try to do more. So, as we can
anticipate these extreme fire weather conditions, we see these heat waves coming. We need more precautions. Some communities are going to need to
remove some of that vegetation nearby. Some of that forest cover that can help these fires jump. But when we get this really catastrophic fire
weather, things can happen so quickly. It's such a dynamic environment where you see the fires jumping across the canopy over big distances. So,
it is a huge challenge.
But, yes, there's so much more that we need to do in terms of warnings, in terms of being ready to evacuate, in terms of having multiple outlet
pathways, multiple roads out of communities, and then long-term in terms of changing policy.
But the single biggest long-term thing that we can do is to profoundly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. That's the way to lower the
temperatures and take a big step towards making these events so much less likely and so much less deadly.
GOLODRYGA: Before we get to the broader issue of Trump administration's views on climate change, as it relates to the Canadian fires, as you know,
President Trump has accused Canada of poor forest management and has threatened tariffs over smoke crossing over the border. He has said that
Carney is poisoning U.S. air.
As a scientist, does bad management actually hold up here as perhaps an argument as to why these fires have impacted such large portions of the
United States?
HORTON: Yes. Ironically, it's really over the western U.S. when we see the fires there, which we've also been seeing a strong upward trend in, those
are the ones that have a stronger link to forest management because the western U.S. has much more of a percentage of forest area that has been
managed in the past.
[13:35:00]
Much of Canada has no history of forest management. A lot of the more northern regions where some of these fires are too vast, too remote for any
kind of forest management or extraction really to be possible. So, that's sort of an irony behind these statements. But forest management in some
places and even in some parts of Canada is maybe part of the story. But the part that's really due to human activities is this increase in air
temperatures.
So, you know, if you're living right near a major city in an area that's had a lot of forest management, air temperature trends that I've talked
about are going to be a big factor. But you're also going to need to think about trends in ignition. Are more fires getting started by people
intentionally or usually not intentionally?
And then also that that history of forest management have trees built up, including dead trees in ways that lead to bigger fires. That generally
speaking is not the primary story in Canada. This really a story more about higher temperatures, making fires that will happen naturally be that much
more extreme when they happen.
Now, there are broader ironies, of course, as well. Not just because Canada isn't able to manage a lot of these remote fires, doesn't have a history of
any kind of mismanagement. Not only because the U.S. has been a source of a lot of smoke and a lot of downstream fire damage. But also, of course,
because if you want to take that attribution argument one step further and think about responsibility longer-term. The U.S., of course, through such a
big role in emitting greenhouse gases, is actually a major player, a major driver globally in the fact that we're seeing more extreme, more intense,
more damaging fires.
GOLODRYGA: That's interesting. So, you say given the frequency of U.S. fires, specifically in certain parts of this country, that management
should be better than it currently is. And it's more rare to see these types of fires in Canada.
I'd like to get to some statistics here. 61 percent of American voters say they believe extreme weather is getting more frequent, included among them
nearly half of Republicans. Yet the World Risk Report finds that out of 10 countries, the U.S. has the second largest gap between how many people
believe climate change is a serious threat versus how many of their fellow citizens they believed are concerned about them. Making themselves sort of
isolated minorities.
What do you think can be done to change that? Because there seems to be a disconnect between how people at home privately are viewing climate change
versus how they perceive their neighbors to be viewing it.
HORTON: Yes, that's an interesting question. I think there's a lot of components there. Some of it has to do with human psychology, but some of
it, I think, needs to acknowledge that there has been a large disinformation campaign, especially focused on the U.S. That it's going on
to this day, continuing to undermine these very basic, well-understood scientific principles that go back over 100 years now.
Human activities and the burning of fossil fuels are increasing air temperatures. They are causing more extreme events of various types,
whether it's really heavy rain events, whether it's exceptional heat waves, whether it's more fires in many areas, for example. These are having these
huge impacts. So, part of it is that disinformation campaign.
GOLODRYGA: Yes. All right. Radley Horton, thank you so much. Great to have you on. We'll stay in touch with you as the summer continues. Really
appreciate it.
HORTON: Thank you.
GOLODRYGA: And coming up for us after the break, author Adrian Wooldridge joins Walter Isaacson to explain why liberalism has become the most
misunderstood term in politics.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[13:40:00]
GOLODRYGA: The word liberal is everywhere in politics. And our next guest argues that liberalism is one of the most misunderstood terms in our
political vocabulary. Author and Bloomberg columnist, Adrian Wooldridge, joins Walter Isaacson to dissect what the term truly means.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WALTER ISAACSON, CO-HOST, AMANPOUR AND CO.: Thank you, Bianna. And, Adrian Wooldridge, welcome to the show.
ADRIAN WOOLDRIDGE, AUTHOR, "THE REVOLUTIONARY CENTER": Thank you.
ISAACSON: Your book, "The Revolutionary Center," is a defense of liberalism. Liberalism, though, has two meanings here in the United States.
It's generally like classical liberalism based on the rights of the individual, stemming from John Locke and others, I'd say. And then there's
liberalism in a political sense, which tends to imply big state, big government, spending programs. Tell me what you mean by liberalism and why
do we have two different definitions of it?
WOOLDRIDGE: I would say that the core meaning of liberalism is three things. One is individualism. It's a political philosophy that starts with
the individual and works upwards and outwards. You're always as a liberal concerned with the rights, duties and self-development of the individual.
Secondly, it's a belief that starts with the notion of tolerance. We must be tolerant of other people's opinions. And the only way to come to the
truth or to eliminate error, at the very least, is through open debate. And tolerance assumes also a society with plural values, pluralism, different
people living in different ways.
And the third thing is skepticism about power, saying that power corrupts absolute power, corrupts absolutely. And because it's this dangerous drug,
you need to divide it and limit it and to enumerate rights and things like that. Those are the three essential things about liberalism.
The issue of whether you have a big state or a small state are secondary things. You can be a liberal and support a big state. You can be a liberal
and support a small state. Keynes was a liberal, wanted a bigger state. Hayek was a liberal, wanted a smaller state. Those are secondary things.
I'm saying that the three essential things are tolerance, skepticism about power and a commitment to individualism.
And I think in the in the 1990s, we became obsessed with arguments about the size of the state. And you've got people who wanted big states saying
the other people were reactionaries and people who wanted small states saying the other people were false liberals. And that was a bit of a
deception about what was going on.
And I think we were able to have that deception, that confusion in the 1990s because we were all basically liberals. Everybody agreed about the
three big things that I was talking about. That was the era of liberal triumphalism and an era in which we could become --
ISAACSON: Well, let me put a pin on that. Do you think that President Reagan, Prime Minister Thatcher were liberals in that sense, just as Tony
Blair and Bill Clinton were?
WOOLDRIDGE: Absolutely.
ISAACSON: Explain that. Yes.
WOOLDRIDGE: Yes, absolutely. George W. Bush. But, you know, there was a big argument about the size of the state. Thatcher was on one side. To some
extent, Clinton and Blair were on the other side. But they all basically agreed in liberal values.
Now, we're in a different world. We're in a world in which you have autocrats on the march who don't believe in individualism, who don't
believe in in separating powers, who don't believe in tolerance. Putin's Xi and the rest of it. The biggest economy in the world, by some measures, is
an autocratic power.
You have Trump in the White House, who I think doesn't agree with a lot of things that George W. Bush or George H.W. Bush would have thought were
absolutely essential. So, I think we have to stop focusing on the secondary debate about the size of the state. And all of us as liberals, whether
we're big state liberals or small state liberals, have to agree there are certain fundamental values that we have to agree to defend. And those
values are under attack more now than they have been at any point since the 1930s.
ISAACSON: Well, you say it's a secondary issue, whether you have a really big state or a small state. But that seems connected to liberalism. A very
big state with doing a whole lot, taxing a whole lot, would in some ways seem to be counter to basic liberalism. Is that right?
[13:45:00]
WOOLDRIDGE: No, I don't think so. I think that you can have the argument for the big states. It can be a liberal argument. If you say you need a
bigger state in order to give people the quality of opportunity, in order to give them the conditions in which they can develop their individual
characters, personalities, in which you intervene when people need pensions or need social assistance. If you're doing that to give them the quality of
opportunity, to give them the capacity to develop themselves as individuals, I don't think that's necessarily illiberal.
Now, there are people who believe in the big states who are illiberal because they want to have collectivist values imposed on society, because
they want society to march together as a single disciplined unit. I mean, Xi believes in the big states. He's anti-liberal. Putin believes in the big
states. He's anti-liberal.
But I think, you know, Lyndon Johnson was perfectly reasonable and liberal. Bill Clinton, you know, was a liberal. Barack Obama was a liberal because
they were doing these things to emancipate the individual and to allow the individual to achieve their destiny. So --
ISAACSON: What about the democratic socialists that are arising in the Democratic Party?
WOOLDRIDGE: Absolutely not liberals, I think, in my mind. I think there is - there are two big threats to liberalism at the moment. One comes from the
right, which believes in power and believes in putting people into certain categories. But the other comes from the left. And that is because there
are people on the left who are obsessed with racial, gender, biological categories, who say that you were born into a certain role in life because
of who you are and that you cannot transcend that through self-help, self- development, and the rest of it.
So, I think in some ways there are similarities between the threats on the left and threats on the right, because they're both in the fundamental
conception of society and the responsibilities of the state, anti- individualist rather than individualist.
ISAACSON: And you say that in the book. You say that the progressive left is as illiberal as the Trumpian right. But look, it seems like a bit of a
false equivalence, but push back if I'm wrong. I mean, are overzealous college professors who kind of push back a bit on speech, are they the same
as a president who is refusing to accept the results of an election?
WOOLDRIDGE: Well, I think you have a very good point there. I wrote this before the current Trump administration. I should have taken a look at more
the results of the election, I think. In the first Trump term, we had a president who was in some way constrained until the very end when he tried
to overturn the results of an election.
In the second Trump term, we have a much more aggressive, self-confident, full Trump sort of Trump. And I think that he has overstepped the mark on
more and more and more occasions. So, I do think there is a bigger threat from the right than from overzealous college professors.
However, I do think if you're a college professor or a college student, if you're in that sort of environment, you should be doubly sensitive to the
importance of debate, tolerance, a free exchange of views. And to shout people down in a learning environment is extremely destructive and
dangerous. And that's only the beginning. If those people get power, they're more likely, if they start off from a position of intolerance, to
become yet more intolerant if they have power.
So, the logical conclusion of an identitarian left is almost the same as the logical conclusion of an identitarian right. But, you know, Trump's
never pretended to be a liberal. I mean, these people would claim to be liberals and they're acting in a liberal fashion.
ISAACSON: You say part of the liberal revolution of the 1990s was allowing more open borders and free immigration, which seems to be a tenet in some
ways. Free movement of people should be a tenet of liberalism. And there was something in your book, I'm going to read it to you because it was so
tough, in which you say Sweden suffers from the highest rate of death by shooting in Europe thanks to the proliferation of immigrant gangs. The
British northern cities that powered the Industrial Revolution are plagued in their ethnic enclave by cousin-marriage, honor punishment and glooming
gangs.
And that was the result of all these immigration policies, you say. Don't liberal immigration policies, isn't that at the heart of tolerance or
diversity that a liberal should believe in?
WOOLDRIDGE: Well, what I argue in my book is that liberalism should be capable of inventing itself and changing itself when the world changes. As
Keynes says, you know, when it starts raining, I put up my umbrella.
[13:50:00]
And I think that in the 1990s, the 2000s, there was a common consensus amongst liberals. And I was certainly one of those people who said that
immigration could only be good, good economically because you've got more labor, but good culturally because it led to more and more pluralism of
values, lifestyles and things like that. And also, it was a liberal thing to do.
And I think that what's happening now is that the biggest threat to liberalism is coming from the public reaction to very high levels of
immigration. And those high levels of immigration have sometimes led to very good things, but not always led to very good things. We have a problem
of assimilation in the United Kingdom. In Sweden, they have a massive problem of gang violence, which is mainly from ethnic minority communities.
And what you get if you get a sense that society is spinning out of control by over-liberal policies, over-progressive policies, is that you get
Trumpism or you get Farajism or you get in Sweden, you know, the Sweden Democrats, who were originally a neo-Nazi party, are part of governments.
So, there's a practical argument that we need to have firmer control of our borders in order to prevent the bad guys from getting in. But there's also
a bigger argument than that, and that is that society isn't just the collection of atomized individuals pursuing their interests, so it's
illogical to have immigration controls. It is also that we need to have certain common values to organize around.
So, I think that liberalism went a bit too far in one particular free market, free morals direction, and we need to save liberalism by moving it
a bit more towards more restraint on the market, and particularly with tech, and also more sense of responsibility, not just individuals doing
their own thing.
ISAACSON: Let me take you back in history, because more than 100 years ago, we were in a period very much like this one, with huge technological
change, probably greater than the tech change we have now, meaning we got electricity and light bulbs and automobiles and radio and telephones, and
it led to disparities of great wealth, it led to robber barons, it also led liberalism to reinvent itself. Tell me how liberalism reinvented itself in
the early 1900s, and what lessons there are for today.
WOOLDRIDGE: Yes, this absolutely central to the argument of my book, because I think we're living through, in many ways, a similar period now.
In the middle and late 19th century, liberalism was a belief essentially in the free market, in the supremacy of the individual, in market
transactions, and something that was very skeptical about the state. The state intervention was something that was basically regarded as very bad.
And you've got a lot of liberals in both Britain and the United States, Cleveland or Gladstone towards the end of his career, who cleaved very
strongly to that idea, they hated the notion of state intervention. But other liberals say, well, if we're going to cleave to this doctrine, we may
well be on the wrong side of history, because what we're getting is the rise of democracy. America had a democracy that period, slightly limited,
but democracy in Britain, Britain really didn't. What we're seeing is we're getting the rise of great, big, massive industries.
So, it's not just a free market transaction, these corporations are huge entities. And we have all the problems of industrialization in terms of
sewage and lack of chaotic infrastructure in the streets. So, they said in order to save capitalism, but also in order to save liberalism, a society
based on the individual, we need a more active state.
Roosevelt was very -- I mean, Teddy Roosevelt was very interesting here because he said that in order to save the individual, particularly upper-
class individuals from corruption, you need to stop them being so inheriting vast fortunes. You need to make sure that they're fit for the
battle of the battle of life, as he saw it. But he also said more fundamentally that if you get giant corporations that control the economy,
you haven't really got free markets. You haven't really got open competition. So, he was a supporter of antitrust and one of the first
people to embrace antitrust in that way.
You had in Britain the invention of the prototype of the welfare state, free education in schools, free milk, some sort of pension provision, a
more active role for the states with a group of people called the New Liberals in Great Britain. And all of this was predicated on the idea that
the only way that individuals could flourish in a mass society dominated by big corporations was for the state to make a more to take a more active
role.
[13:55:00]
And I think a lot of those problems are being represented to us by the current digital revolution. And a lot of the solutions also require us to
be more active in relation to the state.
ISAACSON: Adrian Wooldridge, thank you so much for joining us.
WOOLDRIDGE: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GOLODRYGA: And finally, a mom in Brisbane, Australia, has just given birth to identical quadruplets. No fertility treatment was involved. Such a
pregnancy is incredibly rare, and a hospital specialist put the odds at one in 15 million. She believes it's the first case of its kind in Australia.
The family found it equally surprising. They already had four children and hadn't planned on another, let alone four more. All four girls are doing
well. We're wishing Emily, Harriet, Alexa and Catherine a very, very warm welcome to the world, perhaps making history. And we're also wishing mom
and dad just a little bit of sleep because they're going to need it.
All right. That is it for now. Thank you so much for watching, and goodbye from New York.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:00:00]
END
