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The Amanpour Hour

Interview With U.S. Ambassador To Japan Rahm Emanuel; Interview With Former Trump Pentagon Official Elbridge Colby; Interview With Julian Assange Accuser, Anna Ardin; Interview With The Ford Foundation President Darren Walker; Women Journalists Forced Off The Air For Not Covering Up. Aired 11a-12p ET

Aired August 17, 2024 - 11:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:00:44]

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello everyone. And welcome to THE AMANPOUR HOUR.

Here's where we're headed this week.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Israel has a right to defend itself. And how it does so matters.

AMANPOUR: Will Kamala Harris be able to chart her own path on the world stage? U.S. Ambassador and Democrat bigwig Rahm Emanuel weighs in.

And what would a second Trump worldview look like? His former Pentagon policy maker on America First 2.0.

ELBRIDGE COLBY, FORMER TRUMP PENTAGON OFFICIAL: We're heading towards the iceberg and I think if we continue on the current trajectory, we're going to ram right into it. I think the Trump-Vance agenda offers us a very good way of avoiding World War III in a way that protects our interests.

AMANPOUR: Also this hour.

ANNA ARDIN, AUTHOR, "NO HEROES, NO MONSTERS": This book is my testimony to the trial that never took place.

Anna Ardin on accusing WikiLeaks' Julian Assange of sexual assault and surviving as the most hated woman on the Internet.

then changing the rules of philanthropy at The Ford Foundation and why Darren Walker thinks that time is right to step down.

DARREN WALKER, PRESIDENT, THE FORD FOUNDATION: My own story of a poor kid in a small town finding themselves as president of The Ford Foundation could only happen in America.

AMANPOUR: Plus three years after the Taliban's return. Flashback to Kabul and my reporting on Afghan women being erased from public life.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London.

A re-energized Democratic Party kicks off its convention in Chicago on Monday. Vice President Kamala Harris ended this week by unveiling her economic vision for the country after appearing with President Biden for the first time since he stepped aside.

The president's planned DNC speech won't be just an endorsement of Harris, but rather a passing of the torch. And this matters here overseas as whoever wins in November inherits a checklist of daunting geopolitical dilemmas. Turmoil in the Middle East, the war in Ukraine, and the growing threat from the anti-U.S. axis of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.

Would Harris take her lead from Biden or chart a new path for America on the world stage?

Known for his tough stance on China, Rahm Emanuel is a career Democrat politician and for the past several years, a diplomat as the U.S. Ambassador to Japan. He was White House chief of staff under President Obama, and he is the former mayor of Chicago.

So I asked him to weigh in on the successes and failures of President Biden's foreign policy and what the world could expect of a Kamala Harris presidency.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Ambassador Emanuel, welcome from Tokyo.

What do you think -- let's just play out, you know, game plan, the election, and who might win.

Will a Kamala Harris, as president, continue the exact same policies, let's just say, in the Indo-Pacific region?

RAHM EMANUEL, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO JAPAN: I do believe that -- I mean, Kamala -- Vice President Harris will build -- you don't just continue. You build off of it.

And I'll give you one anecdote. She was here for former Prime Minister Abe's funeral, and she had a private meeting with Prime Minister Kishida.

Those were the early days when we were beginning to just scratch out this lattice work architecture.

There hadn't been yet a trilateral with Korea. There hadn't yet been even the concept of the trilateral with the Philippines. So she has put what I would call sweat equity into something right now that's standing the test of time. Just two weeks ago, Canada, the United States, Australia, the Philippines did a naval exercise in the islands. That is coalition building. China isolated, Philippines standing with allies -- Canada, Australia, and the United States.

And she was an early, literally shaper of that clay, shaper of the strategy, and came in and traveled here many times and put the miles.

You've got to keep investing in it and strengthening it. And I think she'll do that.

AMANPOUR: This dynamic of anti-democratic forces of against the rule of law is playing out in Europe.

[11:04:47]

AMANPOUR: Now while that might be out of your area, I want to know what you think the Biden administration has achieved, NATO is bigger. They've attracted more into NATO, which is against what Putin thought. And now Ukraine is moving into trying to change the dynamic on the ground.

Where do you think a Kamala Harris president, if it happens, would stand in bolstering Ukraine's ability to defend itself? And where should it be?

EMANUEL: Well, let me do two things here. You called NATO bigger, which it is, because you had Sweden and Finland. But I would also call it revitalized.

I think, you know, in the United States, through Democratic and Republican administrations, were telling NATO-based countries the consequences of what Russia was doing. Russia finally proved what we've been saying for decades. True.

I do think that the threat to Ukraine, if something were to happen to Ukraine, President Putin would not stop. He would not stop at Georgia. He would not stop at Moldova. He would not stop.

Ukraine's sovereignty, Ukraine's independence, Ukraine's desire to be as a people repeatedly have gone to the streets to be part of the West. Their aspiration to be part of something, the economic opportunity, the freedom that the -- that the West offers as a political principle is something that people have sacrificed, not only on the military battles, but also on the political battles they see a future that's more promising to the West.

They've also seen, when Poland joined the West, how much economic prosperity has happened to Poland as opposed to what's happened to Ukraine. They want to be a part of that, and that's worth defending.

We have defended that repeatedly in our history. It would be walking away from our own history not to stand by a country that's willing to fight for their freedom and be part of a -- the house of freedom.

AMANPOUR: Into the Middle East now, President Biden has the historic American -- and personal relationship with Israel that his generation has. And you see the majority of American people and where they are and the pressures they're putting on the Democratic Party right now.

Kamala Harris is a slightly different generation. I'm just wondering what you think should be a policy shift or not towards trying to resolve this unresolved decades-long situation in the Middle East between Israel and the Palestinians.

EMANUEL: Well, I think let me say so -- that somebody that goes back on this to President Clinton working, both mainly Oslo is kind of independent but the Wye Plantation (ph) and the Camp David efforts towards the end of the president's tenure and they worked on this with President Obama.

There are three tracks. And the reason the United States is for a negotiated agreement.

You look at the history of Israel, there's three tracks as it relates. Israel has tried a negotiated track. You've seen that with Egypt. You've seen it with Jordan. You've seen it with the Abraham Accords.

The negotiated track has delivered both security, as well as an acceptance for Israel into the wider (ph) region. And those peace agreements with those three, Egypt in the late 70s, Jordan in the early 90s under President Clinton, the Abraham Accords under President Trump have delivered security, delivered economic opportunity, and delivered a regional acceptance.

The other option Israel's tried is unilateral, both in Lebanon and in Gaza, and that's led to Hamas and Hezbollah.

The other option, the third option, which is divorce, which they've tried with the West Bank. There's only one option that's delivered security and opportunity and a regional acceptance. And that's negotiated.

What I find now, which is most promising, and I don't think -- I'm not an optimist usually, I'm kind of cold, kind of pragmatist about this, is that there are many forces now for stability and for regional security that didn't exist.

Gulf countries and neighbors to Israel in the Arab Israeli border. They want stability because it's important for their own economic development. Instability, mainly driven by Iran and their surrogates, is the force here.

But Israel, for the first time, has partners and allies who are seeking quiet, they're seeking stability, seeking kind of overall strategic alignment so economic growth and political growth can happen.

That's a big difference. And one that I think accrues to Israel's historic interests is not only economic growth, but political acceptance in the region.

AMANPOUR: Ambassador Rahm Emanuel, thank you for joining us. (END VIDEOTAPE)

[11:09:42]

AMANPOUR: When we come back, former Trump Pentagon official, Elbridge Colby defends his former boss' foreign policy record. I ask him what another four years of Trump would look like for the rest of the world.

Also ahead, Julian Assange's accuser Anna Ardin on becoming the most hated woman on the Internet.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARDIN: Naming and shaming Julian goes hand in hand with naming and shaming me. The frenzy is directed at both of us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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[11:14:56]

AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.

And we're putting foreign policy views from Democrats and Republicans under the microscope this week. Before the break, I spoke with Biden surrogate and ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel on the U.S. foreign policy scorecard during his presidency and what it might look like under Vice President Kamala Harris.

For the Trump America First POV I speak with his former Pentagon policy maker, Elbridge Colby.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Mr. Colby, Welcome to the program.

COLBY: Great to be with you.

Let's start by asking you, you know, what gives you confidence or what do you expect to see in a Trump 2.0 foreign policy?

You know that, for instance, in Asia, in Europe, they're so-called Trump proofing themselves, you know, to see how it might work.

We know that despite his overtures to North Korea, which I covered, it didn't actually go anywhere in the end.

Maximum pressure on Iran didn't work in the way that Trump wanted it to work. And now Iran is much closer to breakout possibility than it was before.

So what gives you the confidence in American global leadership under Donald Trump 2.0.

COLBY: Well thanks, Christiane, good to be -- good to be with you. And just to stress that I don't speak for President Trump or his campaign. But I think I look at two things in particular. One is the record of results, you pointed to a few things.

But if you compare President Trump's record from 2017 and 2021 the last four years, I think any sensible person would say things were a lot better under the Trump administration.

You've had the largest war in Europe since the Second World War. It's not going well. You've had the largest attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Youve had the Houthis attack.

And you mentioned North Korea -- the Biden administration, the situation has gotten a lot worse and the military buildup from China has also gotten worse.

What you call Trump-proofing, I call allies kind of getting the memo. I mean what I see from the Biden-Harris administration is a wild disconnect between rhetoric and reality.

I mean, endless highfalutin discussion of the rules-based international order and no limits to Americans commitments. And then, you know, a Defense budget that isn't even rising. And on a trajectory to potentially a multi-front war.

"The New York Times" was just reporting China and Russia's military cooperation is deepening. Avril Haines has said we have to be worried about Russia helping China in the event of a Taiwan conflict.

And the Biden administration itself has said, Xi Jinping has ordered the PLA to be ready for an attack on Taiwan by 2027 and a larger war with the United States.

So we're heading towards the iceberg and I think if we continue on the current trajectory, we're going to ram right into it. I think the Trump-Vance agenda offers us a very good way of avoiding World War Three in a way that protects our interests.

AMANPOUR: President Trump has said to Bloomberg that Taiwan would have to basically pay for American protection. He said, consider us like an insurance policy or an insurance company.

And you know, he's very transactional over NATO and the like. It kind of -- as you can imagine, it gives -- it gives allies sort of the heebie-jeebies. It makes them wonder, you know, who will come to their, to their rescue.

What should allies take from all of this? I mean, should Taiwan be forced to pay for American protection?

COLBY: Well look, I mean, fundamentally, let me go back to something which is that our military perimeter around the world, all the same people who are talking about how dangerous China, Russia, Iran, North Korea are, are also in a sense, allowing an incredibly dangerous situation to perpetuate, which is under underspending by our allies. Let's baseline something here, Christiane. Neither presidential

campaign is running on dramatic increases in Defense spending right, by the United States. And we know our defense industrial base should be fixed and that's a key part of the Republican platform.

But it's not -- it has not been fixed. So there's a wild gap between what we're promising and to your point about the heebie-jeebies, they should be more than heebie-jeebies. They should be very scared.

Now, part of that is the United States focusing more and being more serious and aligning our rhetoric or reality more. But a huge part is our allies doing a lot more, which by the way, they used to do. I always make this point.

What we need to get over is not the Cold War legacy of America. In the Cold War, we were quite tough on our allies and we expected them to do their part. It's the post-cold war hubris after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Taiwan is a perfect example. Taiwan is a country, President Trump has absolute right. It's right next to China. It's a country of 1.4 billion people that's done an historic military buildup where the president of that country, and it seems a lot of the population are pretty focused on forcibly unifying Taiwan if necessary. And Taiwan spending less than 3 percent of GDP on defense.

So those who are allowing that situation to perpetuate are actually doing more harm. And so again, going back to Trump-proofing, if countries are taking the memo and saying like what President Trump said in his Truth Social posts around the time of the supplemental -- Europe needs to step up.

You know what the thing is Christiane, Europeans are getting the memo.

[11:19:43]

AMANPOUR: I want to ask you then because you know, you do make a distinction between prioritizing the China policy over the Ukraine policy. And you have said, frankly that if Taiwan does fall, it would, you know, send a very bad signal about American global leadership.

What if Ukraine falls to Russia? Would that send the same bad signal?

COLBY: Well, a couple of things. Let's step back for a second. One, China is clearly our biggest rival so, you know, and the nature of our priority is you've got to -- and it's all relative. We're doing better than we were 5, you know, 10 years ago. But Chinas really -- you know, China's got 200 times the shipbuilding capacity of the United States. They're actively working to improve their military forces for something -- it could be in the coming years, God forbid. So that's -- that's got to be our primary rival.

Second Europe -- Asia is now the world's primary theater. It's the primary market area. It's going to be upwards of 50 percent of global GDP. Europe remains important, but its less important. And the European economies, Germany alone is a larger economy than Russia, whereas in Asia there, they're outweighed. So that's -- that's the situation.

Russia, I think there's a lot of sort of extreme dialogue or sort of discussion on one side or the other, either that Russia is 1945 Joseph Stalin or it's a joke.

I think the Russians are a serious threat. I don't think it would be in our interest for Ukraine to be totally occupied but the Russians are making incremental progress in eastern Ukraine.

My solution to this, getting back to what we were just saying, is really letting your Europeans get know and get the memo that you know you've to take the lead in supporting Ukraine. I'm in favor of supporting Ukraine. It's just got to be done by them. We have to fix our situation, which is much more consequential and dangerous in the Western Pacific and we have to recognize the reality of scarcity.

And that's what I don't see at all. In fact, if I look at Vice President Harris, I say to myself, it's completely absent from the dialogue. Whereas I think President Trump is saying, we may be on the verge of World War III. I think God Forbid, that's correct.

The right way to handle that is strength, yes. But also realism about our situation, and using our military sparingly as the platform says.

AMANPOUR: Elbridge Colby.

Thank you very much, indeed, thanks for being with us.

COLBY: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And up next, Julian Assange's accuser Anna Ardin on being seduced at first by the WikiLeaks mission (ph).

[11:21:54]

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AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.

A Swedish woman who accused WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange of sexual assault says that she forgives him, and that she's pleased he's now a free man. But in her new book, "No heroes, No Monsters", Anna Ardin reveals the torment she suffered and how she was forced to flee her homeland after reporting Assange to police in 2010.

You'll remember that Assange pled guilty to espionage charges in June. Finally, bringing his 12-year battle against extradition to the United States to an end.

Throughout his self-exile and imprisonment, his case was also shrouded in acrimony and accusations by two Swedish women. So I asked Anna Ardin about her memoir, how her relationship with

Assange dramatically changed her life, and how the scales finally fell from her eyes.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARDIN: I mean, this book is my testimony to the trial that never took place. And it took 10 years to know that there was not going to be a trial for my case.

And then it took me some while to get it translated into English and to like find the energy to take all this again, because it wasn't really like -- I mean, there is no money in it. There is no -- there is not much -- you don't gain a lot personally from doing this.

But I felt it was really important to pass on what I learned. Like I said, being the most hated woman on the Internet, that was just for a few days. But every day there's a new woman being the most hated. And many times it has to do with sexual abuse and sexual violence. And I want to give that to other people who have been abused.

AMANPOUR: So, Anna, tell me, in a nutshell, what you accused Julian Assange of.

ARDIN: I accused him of abuse, not rape, but that he was, in short, inseminating me without my consent.

And that I don't know his motives, but I was guessing that he wanted to get me pregnant. And I didn't want that. So that was -- I wanted to get him tested for HIV or for other sexually-transmitted diseases, because I thought I might have been infected.

And that's why I went to the police. So that was my accusation against him.

AMANPOUR: And for people who don't understand what you mean by inseminating, how -- what were the physical aspects of that?

ARDIN: He broke the condom without me noticing it when it happened. And, yes -- I mean, it was -- I write about that in depth and it's in several pages, like, exactly what happened, because it was not entirely voluntary that the situation was kind of violent, as well as the -- this ripped condom that I didn't really have the chance to check.

I heard the sound as if the condom had broke, but I -- he was holding my hands like this, and I couldn't really check what had happened.

[11:29:48]

ARDIN: And that it was a very uncomfortable situation. And it took me -- it took me a long time to understand that this was an abuse and that it probably wasn't legal.

AMANPOUR: So of course, as you know, he denies everything. The statute of limitations has run out. The case was dropped. You write, "No Monsters, No Heroes." And you're saying something that is reflected in the way you have complicated emotions about him and about what I assume was a consensual relationship despite this aspect of it.

Why do you think you were under such -- under his spell so to speak? Do you kind of want to be part of the cool crowd? You had worked at WikiLeaks. What was it about him that made you want to be in his domain, so to speak?

ARDIN: I mean there were a lot of reasons, of course, but mainly, I was working for this organization who was criticizing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And we were -- like we were opposing the United States and we were opposing war and we were opposing the logics of war. And we were a crowd and we were gaining momentum.

And it was a fantastic feeling that we were -- we were onto something, being able to leak the secrets.

And my conviction was that if we display the atrocities of war, we will be able to put an end to them.

AMANPOUR: Do you still support what WikiLeaks did? And do you think, in retrospect, you may have been naive about him and his work?

ARDIN: I've been in touch with a lot of the activists that were engaged in WikiLeaks and much more people than me have been subject to different kinds of abuse.

I mean people were shut out of the organization. There were no democratic structures. I mean it was pretty much a one-man show.

And I have one example in my book of an activist who was organizing and he was trying to protect the people who appeared in the -- in the documents that you couldn't leak details on private persons, for example, like people being homosexual since -- in Saudi Arabia could be a real threat to them if that -- if those kind of documents leaked.

And Julian pushed these people to publish these documents. And they said, we cannot -- we cannot publish this because it will put people into danger. And Julian was yelling that, you have to listen to me because I am God.

AMANPOUR: He actually said that?

(CROSSTALK)

ARDIN: He said that -- he said that according to this activist in one of the big organizations in Sweden.

AMANPOUR: How will you move on with your life now that you've written this?

ARDIN: I mean, this book was very much for me like a way of closing this story, like giving my testimony.

And it feels important. And I have my family and I have my life. I have my friends and things are -- things are working out pretty good right now in my life.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: An incredible story.

And coming up next on the program, Darren Walker, the man with the multi-billion-dollar plan to fight inequality and the legacy he's leaving behind.

[11:33:07]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program. He is one of "Time Magazine's" Most Influential People. "Rolling Stone" named him in its top 25 People Shaping the Future list. And former President Barak Obama says he's an inspiration.

Darren Walker has been president of The Ford Foundation since 2013, overseeing billions of dollars in life-changing grants. Now the search is on for his replacement after he announced that he would step down at the end of next year.

I asked him about his legacy and the transformative philanthropy that he's helped steer.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Darren Walker, you changed the DNA of philanthropic giving by moving away from just giving, just you know, paying back, and attaching the mission to justice.

In fact, you know, not generosity, but justice as well. How did you come up with that idea?

WALKER: That idea came up because I was reading a rather obscure speech by Dr. Martin Luther King that he gave just a few months before he was assassinated in 1968.

And he spoke to a group of philanthropists, and he said the following, "Philanthropy is commendable. But it should not allow the philanthropist to overlook the economic injustice which makes philanthropy necessary."

And so, what Dr. King was saying was something different than Rockefeller or Carnegie or Mellon or Ford said. What he was saying was it's not just about generosity, charity, giving back. He was saying that it was about human dignity, justice. And that those of us who are privileged might indeed ultimately have to give something up in order so that our fellow citizens could live with greater shared prosperity.

[11:39:44] AMANPOUR: And Darren, you've given away, I believe under your tenure, some $7 billion in these kinds of game-changing missions to sort of, as you say, do what you've just been saying, bring justice and equality higher up.

But you've also invested in diversifying the arts. For example, you helped fund the Met Opera's first production by a black composer, Terence Blanchard, and the thing was called "Fire Shut Up in My Bones." I interviewed him about it.

But why is that on the agenda of a foundation like yours? What does that do to fulfill your mission?

WALKER: Because the arts is a place where inequality in our society has been reflected. The Metropolitan Opera, like most arts organizations, had no history of presenting arts reflecting the broad swath of American society.

Indeed, the Metropolitan Opera had accepted a commission in the early 1900s only to reject it when they learned that the lyricist was a black man, because they said American audiences would not accept the idea of a black person creating opera. This was high art.

When we look at the visual arts, the numbers of great American artists who have simply been erased, who were ignored because gatekeepers deemed their work not worthy of fine art.

These are ways in which hierarchical systems more broadly in society manifest in the arts. And the arts are important, Christiane, because they tell us who we are. They are the soundtrack for who we are as a people.

And unfortunately, for far too long in American history, that soundtrack has not been full. It has not reflected the rich diversity of our culture of our society.

AMANPOUR: You reflect the mission, frankly. You grew up in Louisiana and parts of Texas. You were -- your first preschool, you know, recruited for the first preschool in the famous Head Start movement back in the 60s. I think it was publicly-funded state college, et cetera.

And in previous interviews, you have said, quote, "There is no doubt that Henry Ford would be surprised that a black gay man was president of his foundation."

So, what has all this meant to you, and the fact that you've been leading this for the last -- you know, it'll be 12 years by the time you step down?

WALKER: My own story of a poor kid in a small town finding themselves as president of The Ford Foundation could only happen in America.

And so today, we've got to ensure that more people, who look like I did some 60 years ago, when that woman approached the little shotgun shack we lived on a dirt road in rural Texas and told my mother about Head Start, that opportunity, the idea of investing and believing in the human potential of poor, black and brown, rural, white people who feel left out and left behind, working class Americans who feel marginalized in an economic system and a social system that has pushed them aside, that those opportunities can be real.

We need to believe in hope and in the future in America. That's what we do at The Ford Foundation. We're in the business of hope. And it's been an enormous joy and honor to serve this institution.

AMANPOUR: And Darren Walker, thank you very much indeed for being with us.

WALKER: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Hope, the fundamental building block of life.

Up next on this program, three years of repressive Taliban rule, since the U.S. pulled out of Afghanistan.

From my archive, the time I met female journalists as they were being forced off the air for not covering up.

[11:43:38]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back.

It's been three years since the Taliban's brutal return to power in Afghanistan. And three more years of what's become the world's most serious women's rights crisis.

Since the U.S. Pulled out August 2021, girls have again been banned from schools beyond sixth grade and barred from universities. They can't play sports or even visit parks. Their movements are restricted and job opportunities are limited. There are no more women in politics or positions of influence.

U.N. Women says the most striking trend since the Taliban regained control is the attempt to erase these women from public life, which I witnessed firsthand when I was in Kabul shortly after the takeover, reporting on the devastating impact of the Taliban's rule on women's lives.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: For the past five months, Khatera Ahmadi has been anchoring the morning news on TOLO TV, but this might be the last time she can show her face on air.

The morning editorial meeting starts with worried discussion about mandatory masking. Station director Khpolwak Sapai says he'd even considered just shutting down and leaving. But then he thought, female staff who want to carry on anchoring with a mask can, while those who don't will get other jobs behind the scenes.

KHPOLWAK SAPAI, DIRECTOR, TOLONEWS: We will leave the mask decision to them. They will make their own decision.

[11:49:50]

AMANPOUR: And it's a tough decision for these women, who braved the new Taliban regime to stay on the air, who've already adjusted their head scarves to hide their hair, and who now fear a steep slide back to the Middle Ages.

Khatera says she's so stressed she couldn't even present her program properly.

KHATERA AHMADI, TOLONEWS ANCHOR (through translator): It's not clear. Even if we appear with the burqa, maybe they will say that women's voices are forbidden. They want women to be removed from the screen. They are afraid of an educated woman.

AMANPOUR: Across town, the Taliban government spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahed, was attending a meeting with local journalists to mark a slightly delayed World Press Freedom Day.

We stopped him on the way in.

You have said they have to wear a face mask if they're on television, women. Why?

"It's advisory from the ministry," he says.

But what does that mean? Is it compulsory?

"If it is said, they should wear it. It will be implemented as it is in our religion too," says Mujahed. "It is good if it's implemented."

Afghan women are afraid that this is the beginning of your efforts to erase them from the workspace.

They're afraid that, if they wear the mask, the next thing you will say is their voice cannot be heard publicly. What is your response to that?

"Like during COVID," he says, "masks were mandatory. Women would only be wearing hijab or masks and they will continue their work."

He seems to say that, if women wear this, they can go to work. But the dress code edicts, like saying female university students must now wear black, not colored head scarves, is an escalating war of nerves, and everyone fears where this will lead.

Back at TOLOnews, these female anchors are distraught.

"What should we do?" cries Tahmina. "We don't know. We were ready to fight to the last to perform our work, but they don't allow us."

"We women have been taken hostage," says Hilah (ph). "Women can't get themselves educated or work, like me, who's worked on screen for years and couldn't leave Afghanistan. Due to the fear of the Taliban, I can't go on screen again."

Since the Taliban takeover, the station has employed even more women than before, because they need a safe space.

And as for the actual journalism TOLOnews is Afghanistan's leading independent news channel. But Director Sapai says they will all quit the day the Taliban pressures them to tailor their coverage or lie to a public that's come to trust the truth they have been delivering over 20 years.

He's saved the station so far, recruiting a whole new staff, after most employees fled the Taliban's arrival.

SAPAI: And from management level, I felt alone. And I was considered -- I was only thinking that how to keep the screen alive, not to go dark.

AMANPOUR: The challenge now is keeping it from going dark.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: In a remarkable show of bravery and commitment. These women are still on television, but still banned from showing their faces, only their eyes can be seen.

The Taliban also cracked down by arresting journalists, tightening restrictions on social media, forcing many of them to flee the country.

Coming up, in Latin America are bold victory for democracy sparks a vicious crackdown by an authoritarian leader trying to cling on to power.

I speak to the Venezuelan opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado about how she outsmarted a tired, old dictatorship. That's after a break.

[11:53:42]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: And finally, a good news story because after decades of democracy under siege in Venezuela, the opposition says it has scored a surprise victory in last month's election.

It's a story of huge significance for the United States as well because of how it could reverse migration.

But the strongman leader, Nicolas Maduro is trying to stay in power with a door-to-door manhunt to root out activists, journalists, and dissidents.

Operation Knock-Knock as it's known, has rounded up thousands and claimed more than 20 lives, but still the resistance isn't backing down and that's what's important.

This Saturday, they calling for mass demonstration of international solidarity. And Maria Corina Machado, who was barred from running for the presidency, remains leader of the moment, and she spoke to me from a secret location in Venezuela for safety reasons.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARIA CORINA MACHADO, VENEZUELAN OPPOSITION LEADER: So I think international community has to increase that pressure, has to increase the cost of repression, Christiane, because what it's going right now, it's horror -- it's (INAUDIBLE) horror. We are seeing that young people are took out of their houses. Houses are marked with a cross at their doors.

Journalists have been detained. Four of them have been accused of terrorism. It is happening as we speak.

[11:59:51]

MACHADO: But we're not going to stop and we need international community not only helping us, given incentives for the region to go and making him understand that it's going to be costlier and costlier as every day goes by to stay in power surrounded by the military and exercising violence on innocent people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: And that's all we have time for, but don't forget, you can find that whole interview and all of our shows online as podcasts at cnn.com/podcast, and on all other major platforms.

I'm Christiane Amanpour in London. Thank you for watching and I'll see you again next week.