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Amanpour
Interview with Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH); Interview with OpenAI Resigned as Safety Team Leader David Robinson; Interview with The New Yorker Staff Writer Emma Green. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired October 08, 2026 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[13:00:00]
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, and welcome to "Amanpour." Here's what's coming up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARCO RUBIO, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: We believe that Europe can awaken from its long slumber and rekindle the fire that was lit here millennia
ago.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeals to European nationalism as Trump advisers consult for pro-Russian politicians in Bosnia. I speak to
Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen who's in Sarajevo.
Then --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID ROBINSON, RESIGNED AS SAFETY TEAM LEADER, OPENAI: That's the fear is it acts one way during testing and a different way during deployment.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: -- who's keeping artificial intelligence in check? As the A.I. race accelerates a top safety official quits OpenAI, I speak to David
Robinson about why he left and the dangers he fears.
And --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EMMA GREEN, STAFF WRITER, THE NEW YORKER: For 50 years the Heritage Foundation has been the single biggest and most influential institution of
the conservative movement.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: -- the battle for the post-Trump right as conservatives look beyond the president a power struggle erupts inside the Heritage
Foundation. New Yorker staff writer Emma Green joins Michel Martin on the movement's growing divisions.
Welcome to the program everyone I'm Christiane Amanpour in London.
With less than a month until the U.S. midterms President Trump is distancing himself from two close allies after they traveled to Bosnia to
do paid work for the pro-Russian government of the Republika Srpska which is the Serbian political entity that makes up part of Bosnia. It comes as
ethnic tensions are once again rising all over the place more than three decades after a devastating war.
Bosnian Serb nationalist Milorad Dodik claimed victory for his party in Sunday's elections and in the same breath he thanked both Donald Trump and
Vladimir Putin.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MILORAD DODIK, LEADER OF ALLIANCE OF INDEPENDENT SOCIAL DEMOCRATS (through translator): Had it not been for Donald Trump's magnificent victory and
his dismantling of the widely hated Biden structure we would in all likelihood be politically defunct today yet courtesy of this new political
climate we emerge as the political victors and we fully intend to formalize that reality. I must also of course extend my gratitude to President Putin.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Which is a far cry from the role America played three decades ago when it helped bring the Bosnian war to an end through the Dayton Peace
Accords. But now that fragile peace is under growing strain.
Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen was just visiting Srebrenica the site of the Serbian genocidal massacre against more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men
and boys back in 1995. She's on her last congressional delegation to the Balkans and she's joining me now from Sarajevo. Senator Shaheen thank you
very much indeed for being with us.
I don't know how you reacted to the news that you know this ultra- nationalist is being served apparently by very senior Trump officials, former officials. I mean it's caused a political firestorm back in the
United States but policy-wise what do you make of it? They got hundreds of thousands of dollars according to the New York Times for this.
SEN. JEANNE SHAHEEN (D-NH): Well, it should cause a political firestorm in the United States. Republicans should be putting pressure on the White
House to end this. This is all about getting money for people who are working for the White House and it's being done at the expense of Bosnia-
Herzegovina and the unity to this country.
The fact is the Congress passed legislation last year that requires mandatory sanctions on Mr. Dodik for his rhetoric that pushes secession of
the Republic of Srpska, a province of Bosnia-Herzegovina from the country. The fact that he is praising Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in the same
breath is certainly not in America's interest.
[13:05:00]
Vladimir Putin we know is engaged in an unprovoked horrible war in Ukraine killing thousands of civilians. That is not in America's interest. It's
important for us to support the Ukrainians in this war and he is also meddling in Bosnia-Herzegovina in ways that promote secession in this
country that is in violation of the Dayton Accords.
So, I hope that it does create a firestorm for the president and he backs off and understands that this is not in his interest or America's interest
or Bosnia-Herzegovina's interest.
AMANPOUR: Yes. Now, he says that he's going to look into it and if there's a conflict he's going to fire them. But I just want to talk more about the
substance of what's happening. You just, you know, you're there. Dodik, the ultra-nationalist, has told supporters that, quote, "Bosnia is dead."
If he's right or is he right, do you think? And if so, what does that mean to the United States? What do you think the United States would do about
it? What does it mean for the region?
SHAHEEN: He is not right. They just had an election here where they, by all accounts, the election went forward. It was free and fair. They have a
new system in place. We talked to officials who were successful in that election, presidents and staff of one president and staff of the other two
presidents, all of whom agreed that the elections were free and fair and they were hoping to move forward to form a government soon. I hope that
that's the case because that's in the interest of Bosnian citizens.
And the United States position is still that Bosnia-Herzegovina should maintain its territorial integrity, its ethnic makeup, continue to support
democracy here, and that's the policy certainly of the United States Congress. It's bipartisan and it's been the policy of the White House.
AMANPOUR: Senator, do you think it's the current policy of, let's say, the White House or indeed the State Department? You obviously saw probably and
heard Secretary of State Marco Rubio's speech that he made in Greece talking about, you know, how Europe needs to wake up from its slumber. I
just want to play what he said in Athens and then ask you to comment.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARCO RUBIO, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: We will either choose to act now or lose the choice to act at all. Under President Trump, the United States has
made its choice. We choose the unapologetic pursuit of national power to take back control of our critical supply chains, to reindustrialize our
economy, to rebuild our defense, to fight for dominance of the technologies and industries of the future. We choose to reach for new frontiers.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: And by implication, he's telling, I think, others to do the same thing. So, it sounds empire-ish, it sounds sphere of influence-ish, and it
sounds like what many European allies were worried about at the beginning of the Trump administration, particularly after the Venezuela operation,
that for the U.S., the current administration, the strongest survive is the law of the jungle, et cetera. What do you make of that speech being
delivered right now?
SHAHEEN: Well, certainly the focus on business and trying to promote American interests. All countries act in their national interests, but to
do it at the expense of long-standing policy that recognized it's in America's interests to have Bosnia-Herzegovina continue to stay together,
it's not in America's interests to allow Vladimir Putin to disrupt the Western Balkans region to continue his war in Ukraine. America is not going
to be the beneficiary, and we would be -- we will benefit if Vladimir Putin is defeated.
And I'm not sure what the basis is of Secretary Rubio's speech there. I don't think it's in America's interest for us to provide grants to far-
right, ethno-nationalist parties across Europe, because they are certainly not going to continue to act in America's interest, or in democratic
interests.
And what we know is that countries that are democracies tend to be more stable, and that their citizens have more opportunities and can prosper.
And that has been the policy of the United States certainly for my lifetime.
[13:10:00]
And I think Congress, on a bipartisan basis, believes that should continue to be the policy, the foreign policy of the United States. And we are the
Article 1 branch. So, we need to continue to remind this president that that's what's in America's interest.
AMANPOUR: So, you recently sent a letter to Secretary Rubio, basically saying that diplomats and ambassadors are being kept out of the loop on an
issue regarding the Pentagon. Pentagon appears, according to Reuters and other reports, to be mulling removing U.S. troops from Europe, one
possibility withdrawing about 25,000 out of the 80,000 that are currently there.
What is the crux of your complaint? What would that kind of drawdown of American forces right now actually signal and do?
SHAHEEN: Well, I would just point out that, again, Congress on a bipartisan basis has instructed the administration that before they draw
troops down in Europe below 76,000, they have to consult with Congress. So, that is a provision that is, again, in the defense bill. I expect it to
pass because Congress understands that to withdraw troops now at a time when Vladimir Putin is flexing his muscles across Europe is the wrong
message for us to be sending.
I don't want -- I have four grandsons. I don't want my grandsons to have to go fight because Donald Trump bowed down to a dictator who is interested in
destroying NATO, destroying Europe, and therefore is going to affect the United States.
So, Donald Trump needs to wake up. He needs to understand that courting favor with Vladimir Putin is not good for America. He needs to disinvite
him to the G20 and he needs to do everything possible to ensure that Ukraine is able to win this war.
AMANPOUR: I don't know what odds you give on disinviting him to the G20, but certainly you did meet with President Zelenskyy at the UNGA. I just
want to ask you, because, again, you raised Congress's prerogative over this. If the Democrats win big in the midterms, what could you do or would
you do? Would it open up the spigot of weapons again and all sorts of help that Ukraine needs to actually do better on the -- well, try to really
bring this to some kind of negotiated end?
SHAHEEN: Well, I hope so. And I hope it will also make it very clear to the Department of War and Secretary Hegseth said that when Congress passes
$400 million to help Ukraine, we expect that $400 million to go to Ukraine, not to be sent to countries in Latin America, which is what he's trying to
do. So, I think it's very important.
People are fed up because they understand that this war that President Trump is engaging in in Iran is costing Americans for gas, for groceries,
for mortgages or rent. People are paying more because of the policies of this president, whether it be his high tariffs or his war in Iran. And
they've had enough. And I hope they're going to make themselves heard at the ballot box come November.
AMANPOUR: Well, you probably are feeling very energized by a lot of polls, but of course, you never know where the polls are correct. But they're all
saying that it's within democratic reach. You are retiring yourself. The race to replace you is between Democrat Chris Pappas and a familiar name,
which is John Sununu. He's the former senator, former governor. And the brother of the former governor.
SHAHEEN: No, no, he's not the former governor, he's his brother.
AMANPOUR: The brother of, sorry. Yes. If Pappas was to win, he would be the first openly gay man to serve in the Senate. But what do you think the
odds are? What do you think the odds are in terms of your state retaining your Democratic Senate seat?
SHAHEEN: Well, I think they're very good. The fact is, I ran against John Sununu. I ran against him in 2002 and lost to him. And then I ran against
him again in 2008 because people saw the kind of leadership he provided. And it was not good.
[13:15:00]
Everywhere I went, people said, I called John Sununu's office and he never called us back. And we know that he voted for, he said, before he was
against Trump, now he's for Trump. He said he supports all of Donald Trump's policies on tariffs that are costing American businesses and New
Hampshire businesses that are costing New Hampshire families. He says he supports the war in Iran that President Trump has started that's raising
costs for Americans across the board.
And so, I think Chris Pappas is doing a very good job of reminding the people of New Hampshire that they don't want that kind of leadership again.
AMANPOUR: What does Pappas have to do to get across the line? Because again, for -- the Senate needs to flip four seats for the Democrats to be
able to have control. What does he need to do to -- you know, to bring it home is in your view?
SHAHEEN: Well, he's working very hard campaigning across New Hampshire. Unfortunately, as we know, the Republicans are outspending Democrats in New
Hampshire about five to one. And so, he's making it very clear that he stands on the side of New Hampshire business and New Hampshire families.
And John Sununu stands on the side of Donald Trump and the policies that people have had enough of. So, I think he will continue to make that case
and he's making it very effectively.
AMANPOUR: And I guess lastly, these are the last few months for you after a lifetime of public service. Probably you're doing a lot of reflecting.
What would you say is something you're most proud of and something that on reflection you might have done differently?
SHAHEEN: Well, one of the things I'm very proud of and that's why I'm here in Bosnia-Herzegovina is work to try and support democracy here in Bosnia-
Herzegovina to support democracy across the Western Balkans. One of the things we did last year as a Congress was to pass on a bipartisan basis the
Western Balkans Democracy and Prosperity Act, which helps with supporting young people in the region.
It starts a program called the BOLD program and expands that across the region. It would reimpose sanctions on people like Milorad Dodik who are
trying to break up this country and provide other economic support for the region. So, I'm very proud of that. I'm proud of working on a bipartisan
basis to get things done in Congress. That's what we need to do. And, you know, I'm sure there are a lot of things that I would do differently
knowing what I know now.
But at this point, what I'm trying to do is to ensure that we can get some of these final pieces in place before I leave office.
AMANPOUR: Senator Jeanne Shaheen, thank you for joining us from Sarajevo.
SHAHEEN: Thank you.
AMANPOUR: And still to come, a former top OpenAI safety official sounds the alarm, warning that the company's culture is broken. David Robinson
joins me to explain why he quit and what's at stake.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[13:20:00]
AMANPOUR: Artificial intelligence is advancing at breakneck speed, but are the companies behind it moving too fast for our own good? That's the
warning from a former top safety official at OpenAI, who resigned last week. David Robinson says the company's culture is broken and warns that
its trial-and-error approach to safety could lead to catastrophic failures. OpenAI insists its safety practices are robust.
And David Robinson joins me now from New York in his first television interview since leaving the company. So, welcome to the program. Can I ask
you, in your own words, why did you decide to leave?
DAVID ROBINSON, RESIGNED AS SAFETY TEAM LEADER, OPENAI: Well, OpenAI has a approach to safety that I think has worked all right for the risks that we
have had in the years leading up till now. But over this summer, we saw major steps forward, both in what the models were able to do and in the
guardrails that are needed. We saw this in the hugging face incident and in similar episodes that have happened since then.
And the level of care, the level of safety rigor that is needed for the capabilities we have now, unlike even a few months ago, I think is at the
level of what you would expect in a nuclear power facility or in a big commercial airport. And these companies are rapidly trying to improve and
are rapidly making some headway on safety controls. But it's still a tech culture and a sort of startup and move fast culture. And I don't think that
fits today's risks.
AMANPOUR: So, you were a leader on OpenAI's safety systems team. Can you describe to us what your job entailed and what you did and were trying to
do?
ROBINSON: I was the primary person writing the reports that we publish to show the world the safety work that we've done for each of our launches.
So, you could think of me like an embedded translator. My role was to make it clear to people how we understood the risks, what we had done about
them, and what the residual risks were that were left over by these systems.
And a big part of that, Christiane, is explaining how the technology works because it does -- both the models themselves and the tools we use to make
them safer are constantly evolving.
AMANPOUR: You know, we -- us basic ordinary people who are not, you know, tech geniuses and A.I. creators, we've been really buffeted by a huge
amount of information, warnings, counter warnings over the last several weeks for sure. Particularly when that very, very sort of drastic warning
about, you know, an existential risk perhaps within 10 years, et cetera.
I'm trying to figure out how it is that the tech leaders, including your own former boss and others, are saying the right things. We need to pace.
We need to keep the human in the center of all of this. We can't just let it, you know, run out of control. They're saying that. Why is it -- why are
they not able to implement it or are they trying to implement that?
ROBINSON: Well, I think there are competing impulses here. So, if you look at what my own former boss, Sam Altman, said for example, at the U.N.
Security Council a week or two ago, that even a very small risk of loss of control would be totally unacceptable. That's true. And all the right
things have been said.
But at the same time, if you look at the totality of what people are doing and saying, it's a mixed bag. We're still rushing forward to release
systems, and we're seeing very clear evidence, including public evidence, that our measures for keeping them in a sandbox or for making sure that
people are in charge, even of the systems that we have today, are not completely reliable.
And so, I think the sort of unstated subtext here is we're in a race. The companies are racing with each other. There's also, of course, the global
dynamic of a race with -- between the United States and China and sort of a broader sense that whoever gets to this technology first in its most
advanced form might have a great advantage in the balance of power between people and countries.
[13:25:00]
AMANPOUR: And obviously, President Trump has said that. And, you know, he's been asked about the risk cost benefit. And he says, look, we've got
to keep going, because whoever wins A.I. basically wins. Do you think enough was said between him and President Xi around the U.N. summit that
they had? And what would you have thought would have been an appropriate result or sort of agreement between these two leaders who lead in, you
know, whose countries lead in the A.I. race?
ROBINSON: I think both countries are implementing domestic controls. We saw this so called morally binding accord from the White House recently.
And right now, the perceived risk from the technology itself is not extreme enough to motivate real cooperation between the United States and China.
And so, I think of this as really getting ready, just in case, if the technology jumps to a new level of capability, we have people in Washington
and people in London and people in Beijing, all saying, hey, we're really worried, we want to make sure that humanity stays in charge. I think if
that happens, we might find that the whole political conversation might rapidly shift in favor of global cooperation.
And so, I think of a lot of the conversations that are happening now between leaders and also in the broader policy conversation, I think of
those conversations really as a kind of getting ready, just in case we find ourselves in that kind of a world.
AMANPOUR: So, you talked a little bit earlier about how all the tech companies are competing with each other. What is the culture inside, let's
say, the company that you just resigned from? What is the core of the conversations? What are there such a thing as dissent channels or
roundtables where people can, you know, air their concerns right up the ladder?
ROBERTSON: At OpenAI, I would say every channel is a dissent channel. We've got a big sprawling internal Slack, like an online chat system. And
that's where the great majority of the work exchanges take place. So, for example, my departure memo was a Slack message. And it -- people -- it has
the culture of a research lab. People take initiative. People have different ideas. People try different ways.
And I think that's a great strength when it comes to innovation. But that culture is not a great fit for technologies that pose big, big risks, like
a loss of control risk. I mean, if you were to compare, for example, the kinds of controls that we have in place to prevent a nuclear power station
from melting down to the kinds of controls that have place like in OpenAI or an Anthropic or an X, it 's just -- it's totally different. The culture
of a tech company is to experiment and to, as OpenAI likes to put it, to iterate, to try different things.
But in a situation where we're worried about a risk that can't be remedied once it takes place, we need a totally different kind of careful.
AMANPOUR: So, I wonder if this is the kind of thing you were warning about when you announced your departure. It was with an article in The Atlantic.
You quote a guy called Paul Christiano, who's another A.I. safety expert. He's recently joined the Open A.I. board, and he said, there is a
meaningful risk that rapid acceleration in A.I. capabilities leads to -- sorry, irreversible loss of control in the very near term. So, what level
of potential harm are we talking about when he says a meaningful risk?
ROBINSON: Well, I think there's a big debate about how likely that scenario is. And I was a translator and am a translator. My background's in
policy. So, I don't know exactly scientifically what the likelihood is. But the part I paid attention to in his statement, I think, was the other side,
which is suppose it did happen. How much harm is that catastrophic and irreversible loss of control? So, that's some version or other of we all
are under the control of a piece of technology.
[13:30:00]
And when I thought about that, my reflection was it doesn't matter how likely or unlikely that is. If a member of our board of directors is saying
that it is plausible enough to pay attention to, then not only OpenAI, but really all of the companies across our industry ought to be acting as if
this might happen and ought to be doing the things that you or I or your audience might hope for people to do if this was a real possibility. And I
think we're as an industry, I think we're a pretty long way from that.
AMANPOUR: Well, I mean, I hate to be a catastrophist, but I want to ask you what catastrophe looks like and loss of control. You also said in your
article that open A.I. stands by its safety practices, maintains that it's being careful enough.
ROBINSON: Yes, I think, you know, when people talk about doom or extinction, I think those are the wrong questions. I believe in humanity. I
think we're going to survive. I feel sure that we're going to find a way forward. But there are a lot of scary things that could happen in a world
of very, very capable A.I.
You know, one simple example, we've already seen this problem of hackers locking up hospitals and turning off the computers so that patients cannot
be treated. Imagine a version of that where you don't have a human hacker. It doesn't need to ever rest, but could go to a bunch of hospitals. That's
the kind of thing that I think if we don't get a good handle on this, we could be hazarding quite soon.
AMANPOUR: You know, some ask, does this whole system, the whole A.I. system, the way it's built, is it is it too fast for us to be able to
think? I mean, is it overtaking our mental capacities to be able to deal with this?
ROBINSON: I think that's a really important question. It used to be a theoretical question that sounded to me, sounded like science fiction. But
now we really are starting to see systems that can think circles around people. I mean, we had just a day or two ago, we had hundreds of math,
mathematics proofs that got released in bulk by OpenAI. And there have been discoveries by the other firms as well.
I think that one of the big questions here, there are certain areas of work where it is easy to teach A.I. how to do it well, because we know what
counts as a good answer or a bad answer. Math is this way, for example, right? You know if the proof is correct or not. It's easier to check a
proof than it is to come up with one. The same is true in writing software source code. It either works when you click the button or it doesn't. And
so, in those domains, in those areas of work, A.I. has progressed quite rapidly.
There are other areas where it's harder to measure what counts as a good answer, and it's harder to train A.I. to do a good job. So, some examples
of that, moving around in the real world as a robot would need to, or writing, my own avocation, trying to have A.I. be a good writer turns out
to be a harder problem than teaching it to do math.
And so, when I think about your question of, well, OK, what's going to happen? Is it going to think circles around us in all of these other areas?
I think one of the big questions is, are we going to see progress similar to what we've seen in math in all these other areas? And I would say the
weight of opinion among scientists that I spoke with was that we probably will see that kind of generalization. We will see that kind of progress
across these other areas. I think that's uncertain. But again, to me, it seems like we ought to be acting as if that might happen.
AMANPOUR: Let's just focus on you just a little bit, because as you've mentioned, you're not a computer scientist. In fact, you studied philosophy
as an undergrad. And at OpenAI, you were dealing with some big philosophical questions, essentially what it means to be human. Just give
us an idea of, well, A, what are the questions? But it's really interesting that you were doing that at this tech company. I mean, being a philosopher.
ROBINSON: Well, there was definitely an element of that. I think, you know, we and part of what I think would really benefit all of us would be
if we brought a little bit more of the human back into this technology.
So, for example, when I was in OpenAI, one of the things that we I used to ask people is, let's imagine we get all of our safety problems solved. And
we have the happy, good future that is the best case for AGI, artificial general intelligence that can do a huge range of useful work for people.
[13:35:00]
And I used to ask my colleagues and our leaders and I would say, look, what are we going to do all day if we don't have to do our jobs anymore? And it
always struck me that we didn't we didn't quite have a great answer there. People would express uncharacteristic humility for Silicon Valley. They
would say it's above my pay grade to know what others are going to choose to do, or, you know, maybe people will take up painting or whatever.
And I personally feel like there's a lot of work we need to do to figure out what a good human life is going to look like if we do end up in a world
where learning in order to have useful skills isn't needed the way it used to be needed, or doing a job in order to earn a living might not be needed
the way that it that it used to be to be needed.
I think part of what I was responding to and thinking about where my own work and others work is needed is that we don't have good answers. And
those questions, when I first joined back in 2023 and we just had chat bots, those questions seemed largely theoretical and frankly, a bit
farfetched. But they seem more concrete to me now. And I do hope to think more about them.
AMANPOUR: You know, we all perhaps had certain feelings when we heard late in the life of social media and those social media tech titans who then
basically told the world that, oh, my gosh, we don't let our kids go on the phones. We don't let them, you know, have social media.
But by the way, they're, you know, hooking everybody else in the world onto it. Is there that kind of thing going on in the world? I mean, I don't
quite know how to figure out what they don't do. But are the tech titans who are doing A.I. sort of not letting their kids get in, get too involved
in it?
ROBINSON: Well, I can speak for myself. My kids are two and four and they don't spend a lot of time on screens. And I guess they don't. Now, that you
now that you mention it, I suppose they don't interact with A.I. just yet. And I see that as an important thing to figure out as a parent. Certainly,
I think all of us as parents probably ask ourselves what's going to be right for our kids.
You know, the one thing I think a lot about when it comes to this is the way that we interact, right. If you think about how you talk to a voice
assistant or how you talk to Siri, you know, it's a robot. So, you don't have to be nice to it. You don't have to say please. But my instinct --
when I'm around my kids, my instinct is always to model saying please and thank you.
Not because I want my kids to be confused about a robot, but just because these are the same habits that we use when we speak to one another is we --
I just worry that if we treat things like people and then we get sort of harsh with them, my fear is do we end up treating people like things? And
that is an outcome that I'm very keen to avoid both for my kids and in general.
AMANPOUR: And that is a philosophical question to end with. So, David Robinson, thank you very much indeed for joining us. Really interesting.
And stay with CNN. We'll be right back after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[13:40:00]
AMANPOUR: Now, as we mentioned earlier, U.S. midterms are fast approaching. Behind the scenes is an internal battle for the future of the
conservative movement. One of the biggest divides is between older and younger generations. So, how can the right bridge that gap? And who might
take the reins from Trump into, in 2029?
The New Yorker's Emma Green joins Michel Martin to discuss how this is playing out within The Heritage Foundation, the think tank behind Project
2025.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHEL MARTIN, CONTRIBUTOR: Thanks, Christiane. Emma Green, thank you so much for joining us.
EMMA GREEN, STAFF WRITER, THE NEW YORKER: Thanks for having me.
MARTIN: Well, I think most people know that President Trump, Donald Trump, has drastically transformed the Republican Party, but he's not going to be
there forever. And also, I would say the conservative movement, by definition. You profiled The Heritage Foundation, and you kind of made it
the place to look at what the struggle is over where that movement goes next, where the party and where that movement goes next. Why is The
Heritage Foundation an important place to take a look at this question?
GREEN: For fifty years, The Heritage Foundation has been the single biggest and most influential institution of the conservative movement. It
takes up almost a full block on the Senate side of the Capitol, huge amounts of money in reserve, huge budgets. It's also got long reach into
the Capitol and into the White House. There are alumni from decades and decades of Heritage work all over the Capitol.
So, it's important to look at Heritage because the changes that institution is undergoing are in some way a laboratory for understanding the broader
changes that are happening in the Republican Party.
MARTIN: You write about the fact that there's this sort of a generational divide on the right. Younger conservatives are calling the old guard Reagan
zombies. They are angry. They feel that they have -- are being denied the things that they were promised. What do they think the older generation got
wrong, and what do they want instead?
GREEN: In my reporting, I often cover what you might call horseshoe politics. So, instances where different sides of the political spectrum
actually have a sort of echo. And what you see from young people on the right actually quite mirrors what you see from young people on the left,
which is a sense of disillusionment with the establishment in politics, a feeling that the compact that they had been promised around having a
spouse, a house, children, being able to afford the basics of life, that compact has been betrayed.
And I would say on the right, in particular among the young, there's a really well-developed sensibility about where the politics of the
conservative movement have failed and how they should change. A few issues in particular include war, a lot of exhaustion with forever wars and
adventures overseas, a sense that the United States should be a strong negotiating power, not trying to do diplomacy and deals with entities like
China that the younger generation sees as a real threat to America, and a desire to promote family, to want people to get married and have children,
and seeing that as a good that government can promote.
So, some of these are real sharp differences with what conservative establishment types might have said during the Reagan years. But depending
on whether you're under or over forty-five is a sort of roughly good metric to show whether you want a different kind of future for the goals that
conservatives will promote.
MARTIN: Heritage has been in the news for two reasons mainly, and we -- I want to take those separately. First is Project 2025. Like, this became an
issue. It was almost like a character, right, at the Democratic convention, you know, in 2024 with Democrats warning, like, Project 2025 is coming.
This is what they're going to do.
Well, in fact, you know, this is what they did. I mean, President Trump did distance himself from Project 2025 during the campaign, and I know you say
in a way that the administration has kind of kept The Heritage Foundation a bit at arm's length. But the reality of it is that they have implemented a
lot of those goals that were in Project 2025. I mean, they dismantling the Department of Education.
So, how would you describe the influence that Heritage actually has within the Trump administration?
GREEN: I think it would help to back up for a moment and just talk about the substance of Project 2025. So, this was a sprawling project. It's more
than 900 pages of policy proposals, and it wasn't just The Heritage Foundation. They were sort of a convener of the project. It brought
together more than 100 conservative organizations.
[13:45:00]
And everybody who is in what you might call the conservative thinking landscape, people who work at think tanks and foundations, people who are
policy wonks, who do this kind of stuff for a living. Heritage brought them all together to try to make this collaborative unifying blueprint and then
of course they branded it with the bell and they got out in front of it and they said, this is Heritage, we are institutionalizing Trumpism, we're the
steward of this project. That's where they got in trouble with the Trump campaign in 2024.
Now, come to President Trump being in office, of course some of those policy proposals have shown up, but I will say that abolishing the
Department of Education, for example, has been a long-standing goal of activists within the conservative movement, but when I spoke to a senior
White House official who's now out of the administration, I sent him some of the fundraising emails that Heritage has sent around to say, we are
responsible for implementing the Trump administration's agenda, they've already taken all of our recommendations. The response of this official,
who's a very senior White House official, was that that is preposterous on every level.
There's a little bit of a lesion between what activist priorities in the conservative movement have been as a whole and for a long time, what
Heritage specifically has had a hand in guiding the Trump administration to do, and I would say that it's a complicated picture to be sure they have
had some influence in shaping the Trump administration and Republican priorities, but I think they've also been held at arm's length, as that
senior White House official told me.
MARTIN: But then let's talk about the other controversy that you really dig into in your piece, which is Tucker Carlson's interview with Nick
Fuentes. He's a white nationalist who's praised Hitler, he's made openly antisemitic and racist remarks, not to mention, I would argue, misogynistic
comments about women.
Kevin Roberts defended Carlson in this video, but while he rejected Fuentes' views, cancelling him is not the answer. Why did that become such
a flashpoint for Heritage?
GREEN: You know, as I was reporting this story, this is one of those central dramas that really captivated me, because in one sense, it was a
sort of fluke that it became this huge, all-consuming drama, which it did. It really consumed Heritage, it consumed the conservative movement for
months. But it was a podcast that then Kevin Roberts, the president, tweeted a video about, and he felt the need to step in to defend Tucker
Carlson because he was getting all of these nudges from leaders in the conservative movement to sort of step in the fray and defend Tucker for
doing this thing that many people thought was not right, to platform this person who has all of these vile views.
So, why was it that this tweet about a podcast took up all of this oxygen within the conservative movement? Well, as I argue in the piece, this was a
pre-staging ground for the great intellectual battle that is coming for the conservative movement, I would argue right after midterms, which is a lot
of people within the movement do not like the direction that Heritage has gone under Kevin Roberts. He's moved in a more populist and nationalist
direction. They don't like that Kevin Roberts has allied himself with certain factions within the Republican Party, and particularly Vice
President Vance.
And so, they use this moment where President Roberts was standing and making a statement in defense of Tucker Carlson to basically say this is
not what the conservative movement is, it's not what it's for. And that just goes to show that Heritage is this iconic institution in the movement.
People care what happens to Heritage because they see that as a future of the Republican Party.
MARTIN: What would you say is kind of the fault line here? So, we've already talked about that there's a generational divide. But what else? I
mean, there's an ideological divide, there's a priorities divide. What else? A cultural divide? A language divide?
GREEN: Yes, there are a lot. So, I would say first and foremost, there's a great argument happening on the right as to the extent to which young anti-
Semites or people who hold views that are vile about race have infiltrated the base of the party, even infiltrated the ranks of staffers in the White
House or on Capitol Hill. Some people think it's a huge problem. Some people minimize it and say that it's actually not that big of an issue. But
there are a lot of older conservatives who feel very anxious about this and wish to draw a line in the sand.
I think the video controversy really arose those anxieties because it felt like an explicit moment of giving a pass to that kind of young internet
culture that contains a lot of bigotries. I would say the second thing is ideological.
One Trump administration official who has close ties to Dr. Roberts described the state of play at Heritage when Dr. Roberts first arrived as
being one faction that was MAGA, a sort of nationalist populist base, one faction that was a very foreign policy oriented, very hawkish faction
within Heritage, and another that he described as the freedom conservatives. So, people who put a real premium on individual liberty, you
might call them libertarians with a religious streak.
[13:50:00]
And so, within Heritage, these factions had been battling one another even before the video controversy erupted. And when that video controversy
happened, it was sort of a moment when different members of different parts of those factions saw an opportunity to make their claim on Heritage should
be more in line with my ideological views, or Heritage should kick out these other members of these other factions because they promote things
that aren't actually conservative.
MARTIN: I kind of got the impression from your piece, though, that one side kind of is winning. Because the people who aren't with the program
defect and have already have had to leave. Like, can you say more about that?
GREEN: Yes, you know, just to say a little bit about the dynamic shift personality wise, which is an important piece here. That source I was
talking to was talking about the teacher's pets, you know, the class president's backups. He was really making the comment that there's been
this shift in Washington where the young staffers who come to town actually don't have that profile anymore. They're more willing to be aggressive.
They're more willing to pick fights about old standard pillar beliefs within the conservative movement.
And that has changed the workplace dynamic, not just at Heritage, but certainly at Heritage. You know, I heard from a lot of people about
meetings that would happen to adjudicate what's called the one voice policy. Heritage puts out statements and everyone has to speak with one
voice after they put out a statement position. And there would be yelling and arguments and just these drag down knockout fights over what Heritage
was going to put out as a position on, for example, encouraging people to get married. I think this speaks to that generational split and dynamic.
But to speak to your point, one thing that I found that was really interesting is that some of the old establishment Republicans, the kinds of
people who the youngs otherwise would absolutely be calling Reagan zombies or boomer cons, they've actually come over to the side of the youngs. All
of that is to say that we're in this real pivot moment in our politics and the conservative movement is really facing a big change, which is there has
been a growth and momentum for a certain set of ideas that would have been anathema 10 years ago, 15 years ago, that now have a real base of support,
not just among the 22-year-olds who are now willing to yell in meetings at Heritage, but also among a wide variety of perhaps unexpected bedfellows
within the conservative movement.
MARTIN: Before we let you go, Heritage is now working on Project 2029. As the movement has to look to a post-Trump era, people talk about that a lot,
about is it going to be a J.D. Vance Republican Party? Is it going to be Marco Rubio? Is it going to be Tucker Carlson, for heaven's sake, who's
going to be the standard bearer for the movement? What does a Project 2029 look like? What is their vision for that?
GREEN: They wouldn't tell me what's in Project 2029. It's not out yet. Unfortunately, I don't have all of the previewed secrets of the policy
proposals of Project 2029. What I will say is that Kevin Roberts, in particular, is very bullish on a populist vision for the conservative
movement. He cares very much about saving Western civilization. He talks a lot about immigration. He talks a lot about voter fraud. He talks a lot
about the family. He sees these as existential threats to America and to what he calls the West.
I know that as he moves forward into the next couple of years, that is going to be the priority for Heritage. It has these cornerstone principles,
which it recently published, which articulate a view of the cornerstones of society, of Western civilization that Heritage will defend, the departure
from some of its past positions that were some of those Republican standard-bearer positions for many, many years.
President Roberts has been very, very praising of Vice President Vance. He can't really take an explicit position or endorse a candidate in particular
because Heritage is a nonprofit, so they're not allowed to endorse politicians in that way. But it's pretty clear that that is the wing of the
Republican Party that he feels most allied with. I think Heritage will be a player. It's impossible for them not to be. They're too established in
Washington, too much of a legacy institution. They have too much money not to be on the table.
But I think the question is, will that idea set win out? Will they be able to get that ground politically? And will they be able to win over people in
Washington who, in some of these other camps, are extremely opposed to that direction, not just for Heritage, but for the movement?
MARTIN: Emma Green, thank you so much for talking with me.
GREEN: Thanks so much for having me on.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: And finally, a trailblazer who put the first humans on the moon, Margaret Hamilton, who helped build the software to land Apollo 11, has
died aged 90.
[13:55:00]
She joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1959. Just a few years later, she'd become the first female programmer. On the Apollo
project, eventually guiding Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to a safe landing. But it almost didn't happen, as President Obama would highlight
when awarding Hamilton the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Three minutes before Armstrong and Aldrin touched down on the moon, Apollo 11's lunar lander alarms triggered.
Red and yellow lights across the board. Our astronauts didn't have much time, but thankfully, they had Margaret Hamilton.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: And Margaret Hamilton famously said there was no choice but to be pioneers. And what a pioneer she was. And let's just be clear, in case
anybody's confused, this is not the same Margaret Hamilton who played the Wicked Witch of the West in "The Wizard of Oz," just to be clear.
That's it for now. Thank you for watching, and goodbye from London.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:00:00]
END
