Return to Transcripts main page

The Amanpour Hour

Interview With Connecticut Democratic Senator Chris Murphy; Interview With NATO Chief Jens Stoltenberg; Rare Access To Ukrainian Hospital Train; Interview With "Borderland" Director Pamela Yates; Interview With Activist Gabriela Castaneda; Archive: Interview With Hamid Karzai; Interview With Playwright Jeremy O. Harris. Aired 11a- 12p ET

Aired September 14, 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 is where we're headed this week.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: A barnstorming debate and an endorsement everyone's been chasing. But have Democrats historically missed a trick.

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): I think we've done a really bad job of delivering that kind of purpose and meaning to people.

AMANPOUR: Senator Chris Murphy thinks so and I asked him why.

Then --

JENS STOLTENBERG, NATO SECRETARY GENERAL: The withdrawal from Afghanistan, that was and remains painful.

AMANPOUR: After a decade leading the world's largest military alliance, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg talks big wins some regrets and his lighter side.

And Ukraine's death-defying hospital on rails, an exclusive look inside the country's medical train.

Plus from my archive. In the shadow of 9/11 how Afghanistan's first president Hamid Karzai tried to rebuild the country torn apart by war, Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

HAMID KARZAI, FORMER AFGHANISTAN PRESIDENT: I want an Afghan man, an Afghan woman and an Afghan child to live like people live in rest of the world.

Also ahead --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The infrastructure that was being prepared --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That was the end game.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- was being prepared for massive separations --

AMANPOUR: "Borderland", the new documentary, unveiling the secret system that could deport millions of people.

And finally America's theatrical export Jeremy O. Harris as his controversial "Slave Play" rocks London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

It's an overused, sometimes overwrought observation, but this week can only be described as a watershed for Kamala Harris.

While it was heavily billed as her introduction to America, it was also her introduction to the world. Overseas, from the press to the politicians, the verdict was that she showed strength and leadership.

No matter what happens next and how many swing voters she can convert, Harris was considered the winner of a must-win debate and by a longshot.

Commentators of all stripes saying the vice president effectively baited Trump into some bizarre and lurid falsehoods about rally size, reproductive rights, and immigrants eating household pets.

And yes, a tailor-made endorsement from a pop culture mega-star. Taylor Swift declaring herself for Harris' calm over chaos.

But with the election now less than two months away, are the Democrats ignoring some critical issues?

Well, my first guest certainly thinks so.

Democratic senator for Connecticut, Chris Murphy saying the challenges America faces are metaphysical and even spiritual. And that his party ignores them at their peril.

And Senator Murphy joins me from Washington.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Senator Chris Murphy, welcome to the program.

MURPHY: Yes. Thanks for having me.

AMANPOUR: I want to first start by asking you your review of the debate between the two presidential candidates. Obviously all the pundits, the polls, whether in the United States or even here abroad, have declared Kamala Harris the clear winner.

But I want to ask you, is it in the areas that she needs to win that the Democrats need to win the swing voters, the undecideds.

MURPHY: They certainly heard about her plans, you know, specific plan to fix the border, or specific plan to address the cost of living.

But maybe what is more important is that they got to see one president on stage and someone else who was in the middle of a two-hour meltdown.

Kamala Harris looked commanding. She was in charge of that stage. You watched her and you thought that's a president of the United States. And I do think that that's a question that a lot of voters had.

They know who she is, but they're not terribly familiar with her as a human being, as a person. And they saw somebody on that stage who is just ready to lead.

AMANPOUR: Ok.

MURPHY: That may make the difference for a small number of voters.

AMANPOUR: Ok, so that's one point that you all are grasping onto. But you just said another person in the midst of a two hour melt down on stage.

The issue for you, of course is that this person is at least equal in the total voters and very, very competitive in swing voters with your candidate.

[11:04:52]

AMANPOUR: So what is it about him? And I ask you because you've been doing a lot of thinking and a lot of writing about how Democrats need to meet the moment.

Sum up why it is that such a massive proportion of Americans view Donald Trump as a better leader.

MURPHY: Well, I don't know that I have the answer for that question. But I think we do have to acknowledge that we live in a world today where the economy is getting better, the unemployment rate is as low as it can be, crime is going down, GDP is rising.

And there's still a whole bunch of people in this country who report feeling more unhappy than ever before. They report feeling disconnected from their community. Levels of self-reported loneliness are through the roof.

There are a lot of Americans who are employed, but who feel like they don't have meaning and purpose every day when they wake up.

And I think we've got to have a broader conversation in this country about why that is. And help give Americans access to positive meaning and identity.

The MAGA movement is an identity. It is a source of connection and meaning for people. And when you don't have other more positive sources of identity, you retreat to negative sources of identity.

Demagogues who, you know, offer you a worldview in which they explain your troubles as being caused by people who look and sound different from you.

So this is a big conversation for the country to have. It's a big conversation for the Democratic Party to have. But I think sometimes we get lost by thinking that our only job is to try to increase the health of the economy.

Studies show that when it really comes down to it, happiness is not just your career or how much money you're making. Happiness is -- the question of how good are your relationships? Do you feel part of a community something bigger than yourself?

And I think we've done a really bad job of delivering that kind of purpose and meaning to people, even as we've done a better job of making sure that people have rising wages and have jobs that they can go to every day.

AMANPOUR: So I mean, you basically called it, given all the successes you talk about, you've called the disaffection a metaphysical problem, a spiritual crisis.

And you have suggested, if I can sum up a pro family, pro community kind of economic nationalism. What exactly do you mean? And isn't that very much like your opponents? That's what Republicans are always talking about pro family, pro community, you know, and a nationalism when it comes to the economy.

MURPHY: Well, the irony is that Republicans, in particular the MAGA movement, do talk in some of those terms but then when they're in power, they do the exact opposite.

I do think people are not satisfied being part of a global economy. They want to be part of a unique American economy.

Even more specifically they want to be part of a distinct, unique place. They don't like that our culture has become flattened. They don't like that our downtowns have become eviscerated and the only place that you can buy things from are transnational retail outlets, like Amazon or Google.

They want localness to matter. And Kamala Harris was on that stage the other night saying, I have a plan to breathe life back into small businesses. So your downtowns come back to life. So you can feel good about belonging to a place which is where a lot of people found meaning and identity for decades and decades.

So yes, the rhetoric, you know, is familiar because we hear it on the right, but the policy is actually being put into place right now by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

I just think they should talk more about what they're doing to break up consolidated power, to give power to families and communities because it's real. AMANPOUR: Can I ask you, do you think Democratic candidate have to

sound a little bit more like Republicans because you certainly are sounding a little bit Republican right now in terms of taking that mantra.

And as I said, they have become apparently the party of the working class, which the Democrats used to be.

MURPHY: Yes, but they haven't, right? And in fact, if you look at the polling low-income voters are still voting for Democrats way more often than they're voting for Republicans.

But yes, we need to expose Republicans for the frauds that they are. The only major domestic achievement of their four years in power when Donald Trump was in the White House, was a tax cut, 80 percent to 90 percent of the benefit went to the billionaires, corporations and millionaires.

And so they talk about standing up for regular working people. But they don't do a great job of it.

Here's the tough part for the Democratic Party. Listen, if we want to be the party of the working class then we've got to be the party of the working class.

[11:09:50]

MURPHY: That means expanding our tents. That means being willing to bring into our fold people who may not agree with us on every single cultural and social issue.

I care deeply about the issue of gun control. I care deeply about reproductive rights, but I am willing to bring people into our coalition who might not line up with me on all those issues because if they are willing to break up consolidated power, if they are willing to support a higher minimum wage, then having them inside the coalition gives me a better chance to convince them to join us on things like climate change or choice or guns.

That's a tough conversation for the Democratic Party, but I think it's a really important one.

AMANPOUR: Big, big issues, big thinking, big thoughts. Thank you so much, Senator Murphy.

MURPHY: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Coming up later on the show, an exclusive look inside Ukraine's hospital train, racing soldiers to treatment hundreds of miles away from the front.

And next, in his exit interview, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg talks success and regrets and what's next after ten years at the helm.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STOLTENBERG: Now, I really don't know what I'm going to do. That's a bit scary.

[11:11:05]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.

NATO was formed 75 years ago to defend against the Soviet Union but only since the fall of the Iron Curtain has it faced some of its greatest challenges from 9/11 to Russia's ten-year invasion, annexation and occupation project in Ukraine.

For the past decade, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has been at the helm, keeping calm and carrying on, even expertly navigating President Trump's notorious NATO disruption tactics.

Now, Stoltenberg's term is over, and he'll step down October 1. And I went to NATO headquarters in Brussels for his first exit interview. An exclusive, wide-ranging conversation on success, failure, and his lighter side.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: It's the end of an era, 10 years, perhaps the longest ever secretary general of NATO. I want to ask you first, what stands out as the biggest successes for you?

STOLTENBERG: The biggest achievement, not only for me, but for NATO has been that we will have been able to reinforce NATO's collective defense, make NATO stronger.

The world has become much more dangerous over these 10 years, but NATO is much stronger. More defense spending, higher readiness, and for the first time in our history, combat-ready troops in the eastern part of the alliance.

These are big achievements.

AMANPOUR: What would you say are the biggest disappointments, failures, catastrophes?

STOLTENBERG: The full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It started in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea, but then the full-scale invasion in 2022.

And then, of course, what happened -- the withdrawal from Afghanistan, that was and remains painful.

AMANPOUR: Well, I wasn't expecting you to say that. Tell me why.

STOLTENBERG: Afghanistan, that was -- that is and was painful because we tried something that we didn't achieve. We tried to build a democratic, free Afghanistan with equal rights for men and women. So, what started as a focused counterterrorism operation moved into a

big ambitious nation-building mission. And that mission creep was too much because the reality was that we didn't have the resources, the will to do that for decades.

AMANPOUR: But it brings me to President Trump because let's face it, the deal to pull out of Afghanistan was literally just surrender, essentially, hand it over to the Taliban. There was no discussion with the Afghan government, no discussion with Afghan women.

And so, I want to ask you then, you had to deal with President Trump, who has appeared to be very anti-NATO, very anti the alliance, very transactional. Do we know whether he'd ever agreed to Article 5?

What did you learn from how you dealt with him then and what happens if he's elected again for NATO?

STOLTENBERG: I focused on the issues. Of course, I am a Nordic -- Norwegian Social Democrat. And there are many differences between a conservative Republican from the United States and me. But -- on climate and on abortion or taxes.

But, as secretary general of NATO, I focused on the issue of NATO -- security. And, on those issues, it was possible to have a working relationship with the Trump administration, because the main message from the Trump administration as actually from the Obama administration and now the Biden administration was that European allies had to spend more.

Remember that in 2014, only three allies met the guideline of spending 2 percent of GDP on defense. This year, 23 allies will spend 2 percent or more. So, that's a huge difference.

And that was my message to President Trump, let's focus on the issues, and that actually helped.

AMANPOUR: Do you think that danger then is neutralized, the danger to NATO from a second Trump administration?

[11:19:47]

STOLTENBERG: Well, we don't have guarantees and certainty in politics. But I believe that regardless of the outcome of the U.S. elections, the U.S. will remain a loyal NATO ally.

Partly because it's very broad political support. If you look at the opinion polls, if you look at the U.S. Congress, it's overwhelming support to NATO.

Second, it is in the U.S. security interests (ph) to have a strong NATO.

And thirdly, the main criticism from Former President Trump and others has not actually been primarily against NATO. It has been against NATO allies not spending enough on NATO, and that is changing. AMANPOUR: Let's get back to Ukraine. You know, we know that you have all stepped up in an unprecedented way. We also know that it's not yet enough.

What do you think NATO and individual governments have to do in terms of the narrative going forward? What do they have to say publicly to make Putin understand your intent and to make Ukraine understand your intent?

STOLTENBERG: I think we need to be even stronger partly in what we do as we provide more military support, on top of the unprecedent support, which is -- which has already been delivered.

But as important actually that we communicate a long-term commitment. Because --

(CROSSTALKING)

AMANPOUR: So, loud and clear?

STOLTENBERG: Loud and clear for long-term.

AMANPOUR: And what is Ukraine's ultimate security guarantee?

STOLTENBERG: It's partly to arm them, to make them able to deter further Russian aggression. But of course, at the end of the day, it's Article 5, its NATO membership that is the ultimate security guarantee for Ukraine. And we are working for Ukraine to join NATO.

AMANPOUR: And finally, I want to do a rapid-fire round, ok. One or two words.

STOLTENBERG: Yes, I'll try.

AMANPOUR: What's your favorite food?

STOLTENBERG: That's Norwegian salmon, fresh, uncooked like sashimi.

AMANPOUR: Ok.

STOLTENBERG: So, it's a kind of mixture of Norwegian and Japanese, actually.

AMANPOUR: What's your favorite music?

STOLTENBERG: That's kind of things I listened to in the 70s. That's Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan and that kind of --

AMANPOUR: Talk about Leonard Cohen, because there's a relationship between your mother and Leonard Cohen.

STOLTENBERG: My mother was married to a Canadian for three years. She studied at McGill University. And this Canadian, Ian Clark, was a friend of Leonard Cohen. And Leonard Cohen, later on, that's not my mother, got a Norwegian girlfriend, they moved to a Greek island.

So, Leonard had a very close relationship to Norway.

AMANPOUR: Do you like his music?

STOLTENBERG: Yes.

AMANPOUR: What's the latest book you read? What are you reading now?

STOLTENBERG: The latest book is very boring. It's about NATO. It's about deterring aggressions about NATO. But I read some Norwegian authors. I have some friends, a guy called Roy Jacobsen, who writes very beautifully about Norway.

So, that's one of the authors I like.

AMANPOUR: And can we ask what you're going to do next?

STOLTENBERG: You can ask, but you will not get an answer. Partly -- mainly because I really don't know.

AMANPOUR: Yes.

STOLTENBERG: And it's a bit -- it's a privilege to have served at NATO for 10 years. I've been prime minister for 10 years. Now, I really don't know what I'm going to do.

That's a bit scary, but it's also a feeling of freedom and that new opportunities will be there.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Coming up, as Russia's offensive against Ukraine reaches a critical phase, we get exclusive access to a railway hospital, speeding through the country savings soldiers' lives.

[11:23:11]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back.

On the Ukrainian front lines every day, Russia inflicts life-changing and life-threatening injuries. As hospitals fill up in the east, Ukraine is going to extraordinary lengths to find beds elsewhere.

The National Railway Service has been transporting the wounded hundreds of miles away from the front for further treatment. And we've got the first ever exclusive access to this massive logistical operation which is also a closely-guarded military secret.

Therefore, CNN is not revealing its route or identifying people by their full names.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: On a hot, late, summer morning departure time is fast approaching at this railway station in Ukraine. But this is no ordinary train. It's a hospital on wheels evacuating dozens of wounded military personnel away from the eastern front as Russia's brutal offensive grinds on.

Paramedics carefully loading patient after patient, many of them unconscious on to repurposed carriages. It's a highly organized special operation and it's never been seen before.

CNN gained unprecedented and exclusive access to what so far has remained a closely-guarded military secret.

Before the train moves off.

I meet thirty-five-year-old Oleksandr (ph) wounded by a drone strike, which has caused him to go deaf in one ear. His call sign is "Positive", but he doesn't feel it.

OLEKSANDR, UKRAINIAN SOLDIER: Very tired. But hard times. And we must keep fighting no matter how hard it is.

AMANPOUR: Do you feel that you have enough people, enough weapons to defend.

[11:29:51]

OLEKSANDR: No.

AMANPOUR: You don't have enough.

OLEKSANDR: Not enough. No, no, no.

There aren't enough people and there definitely aren't enough weapons.

AMANPOUR: As the train rolls on, we make our way to the intensive care unit where several soldiers are on life support. Bed after bed of broken and battered bodies, lives shattered in an instant. 90 percent of the wounds being treated here are from shrapnel.

And yet many of these patients know they'll be patched up just to be sent back to the front as soon as possible. This train and its cargo sum up Ukraine's state of military affairs, mostly ordinary citizens who've answered the call, outmanned outgunned by Russia and yet still putting up a hell of a fight.

Nurse Yulia makes this journey twice a week.

How do you feel in here with these very badly wounded soldiers? How does it make you feel empathy?

"I'm an empathetic person, so it's difficult," She tells me. But you have to switch off your feelings at the moment of work. And later, you can reflect.

And the story of frontline morale is on display here too. If electrician Oleksandr was feeling down after 18 months fighting this brutal war, Stanislav who signed up in March is still full of patriotic fervor. He can still summon a smile even though he has shrapnel in his body and damage to his lungs.

STANISLAV, UKRAINIAN SOLDIER: Certainly, I was ready for it. I was ready to trade the shower stall, the good sheets and the bed, the good conditions that I had at home for a foxhole. I knew where I was going and what I was doing.

OLEKSANDR: The most difficult part is evacuation from the front lines. Combat medics who work on the front are dying, just like soldiers.

AMANPOUR: As these carriages rumble on through fields of gold think for a moment of history repeating itself in Europe, when thousands of ambulance trains evacuated casualties from World War I's trenches more than a million to the U.K. alone.

Tonight darkness descends as we arrive at the destination and suddenly there's activity everywhere again as ambulances lineup collecting and dispatching to hospitals across the country.

On the platform, the railway chief describes his pride and his sorrow.

OLEKSANDR PERTSOVSKYI, CEO, PASSENGER OPERATIKONS AT UKRAINIAN RAILWAYS: I see these kids who are saying goodbye to their desk work heading towards the frontlines. And seeing those same guys coming back effectively unconscious or with amputations, it feels like the price of the war is incredible.

AMANPOUR: Like a conveyor belt industrial scale conversion of healthy young men and women into this. And yet as one of them told us, Ukraine is strong and motivated.

While Russia has quantity, we have quality and we will win.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: A truly extraordinary operation.

Coming up --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Eyes everywhere. The border's everywhere.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: The new documentary tracing America's hidden border infrastructure that could lay the groundwork for deporting millions of people.

[11:33:42]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back.

Now six minutes into this past Tuesday's debate, former President Trump wasted no time claiming that Vice President Harris' immigration policies would turn the U.S. into quote Venezuela on steroids. As Trump and his vice-presidential pick J.D. Vance, push surreal and lurid conspiracies like about Haitian immigrants in Ohio eating people's pets. It's easy to lose sight of the real lives at stake.

In a revealing documentary, "Borderland: The Line Within", director Pamela Yates shifts the focus because to the people risking everything through the stories of asylum seeker Kaxh Mur'al and activist Gabriela Castaneda, Yates exposes the U.S. system, turning immigrants suffering into corporate profit.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What does the removal of five (ph) million look like.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want to believe that the judge is going to allow me to stay here in the country, but he doesn't allow me.

He has to know that I'm going to fight. I'm going to fight hard.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The system is geared towards like the old cowboy movies. There were trials and there were hanging.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Put the camera down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Give them due process and then will deport them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: And this week, I spoke with Yates and immigration rights advocate Gabriela Castaneda. Here's our conversation.

[11:39:48]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Pamela, Gabriela -- welcome to the program.

Let me start by asking you, Pamela Yates, what made you -- what was the trigger to create and produce this film "Borderland"?

PAMELA YATES, DIRECTOR, "BORDERLAND": I was really disturbed by family separation at the border. People coming into the United States and children being ripped from the arms of their parents.

And as I was on the border working with humanitarian aid workers, I met people at the Border Network for Human Rights and they had a way of organizing among immigrants, and immigrant Families to claim their rights, to understand their constitutional rights as people in the United States, and to organize and strengthen their communities for better lives.

And that was really the origin and that was how I met Gabriela Castaneda as well.

AMANPOUR: So Gabriela, you yourself are separated from your husband, right? Because your children were born in the United States, they are American citizens, they're documented but not your husband?

GABRIELA CASTANEDA, ACTIVIST: Yes.

We got separated back in 2007. My husband was stopped by the sheriff for going five miles over the speed limit. And when he was asked to produce a state identification and he could not produce it because he was undocumented, the sheriff called the immigration authorities.

And what happened is that my husband was sent to prison for almost six years. And back then, I was undocumented and became a single mom, left to fend for myself and our three U.S. citizen children.

It was a very, very tough situation. And I decided that I no longer wanted to be a victim, that I know longer wanted to continue crying for my situation.

But I needed to do something about it and change the course of my life. And so I became a human rights promoter and spread the information with other families that were going through the same situation as me.

AMANPOUR: So that's -- it's really interesting of course, because it's Pamela this film was done from a slightly different angle. I mean, this particularly concerns basically examining ICE and all its hubs not just to the border, but around the country. ICE is the Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation.

Pamela, tell me what that means the fact that it's everywhere, does what?

YATES: What it means is that anyone who is in this country without documents is afraid 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And that fear immobilizes them.

But what the Border Network for Human Rights and the movement for immigrant leaders in Pennsylvania, MILPA do is try to mitigate that fear. Try to teach people what their rights are and they're trying to build a movement in the shadow of what we call the border industrial complex, of which ICE is the center of.

It means that you can walk down your street and pass your nail parlor and get a cup of coffee at Dunkin' Donuts and right next to that is an ICE detention center. And you might not even know it. And they're all over the country.

So at any moment, if you don't have documents in the United States, you're an undocumented immigrant. You can be captured, incarcerated, and deported. And that fear is everywhere.

CASTANEDA: I want to echo on what Pamela just said. The laws that are applied at the border affect us all. When we support legislation against immigrants who are just recently crossing the border, we need to understand that we're worst supporting legislation against the millions of immigrants who have already lived in this country for decades and who have not been able to regularize their immigration status. So we might be supporting laws that affect our neighbors or friends or

family members. And very often I hear the phrase that the immigration system is broken. I'd come to the realization that the immigrant -- immigration system was designed to work just like that because it allows the border industrial complex, which is the large companies, to benefit from the suffering of immigrants.

AMANPOUR: So Pamela, finally, you know, it's -- perhaps it's an accident or maybe not, it's coming out. It's taken five years to do this film. It's coming out right ahead of this election.

Where's the hope in your mind for a different approach to immigration.

YATES: In the town that I live in, in the small community that I live in there are a lot of places that are shut down because there's nobody to work in them. And that's true all over the country.

We now know that immigrants and essential workers have been the lifeblood of our economy. And really kept our economy afloat during the pandemic. And that's what we'd like the film two question, to address, and to gather people around.

I mean, I think that when you meet -- when you meet Gabriela in "Borderland" in the film you'll understand even more in-depth what I mean.

[11:44:48]

YATES: She's an incredible leader. She's a local leader, she is a national leader, and there are other protagonists in the film that are engaging and have ideas about who immigrants are and what immigrants can do and will do and contribute to this country.

AMANPOUR: Well, it couldn't be more timely and more vital. So Pamela Yates and Gabriela Castaneda, thank you so much.

YATES: Thank you, Christiane.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And "Borderland: The Line Within" is playing this week at the Firehouse Cinema in New York City. And it will play in 25 cities across the U.S. leading up to the presidential election in November.

Coming up, this week marked 23 years since 9/11 and we go into my archives for the first ever interview with Afghan leader Hamid Karzai, just after he had rallied his nation to overthrow the Taliban.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KARZAI: The Afghans want dignity and honor.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[11:45:43]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.

9/11 happened 23 years ago this week, an event that did actually change the world and turned the so-called war on terror into an enduring global policy.

In 23 years an entire generation has grown up in the shadow of that tragic day when nearly 3,000 lives were lost in the United States.

A month after those attacks, America and its allies invaded Afghanistan, toppling the Taliban regime for refusing to hand over Osama bin Laden the 9/11 mastermind.

And that brought a sliver of light and hope that out of this darkness, a new Afghanistan could be borne. And so we go back to the archive and my 2001 interview with Hamid Karzai, the man poised to lead a liberated nation.

Sitting in a gaslit heart in Kandahar as the Taliban and bin Laden were on the run, Karzai spoke of the promise and the perils ahead if Afghanistan was left weak and exploitable.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Mr. Karzai, here we are sitting in Kandahar, surrounded by tribal elders and leaders. In about a week's time, you're going to take the helm of a new government for Afghanistan, an interim government. The future is about to begin. What is going through your head right you now?

KARZAI: It's an exciting time. It's a new beginning for Afghanistan after many years of disasters and bloodshed and suffering for our people. We have a new opportunity, a new opportunity that the Afghan people must grasp, must take, a new opportunity that the world must use to help us.

I think Afghanistan will be peaceful, will be stable. And it will be peaceful and stable because the people want it, the Afghans want it. And it will be peaceful and stable because the international community is helping.

AMANPOUR: You made a decision, a risky decision during the U.S. bombing to come into Afghanistan, to rally support against the Taliban.

Did you think you would survive?

KARZAI: When I was beginning my journey from the Pakistan border into Afghanistan, we were four people on two motorbikes. We gave ourselves a 60 percent death chance and 40 percent chance to live. And the 40 percent won.

AMANPOUR: And when you came in, what did you have other than a desire to make this work? You didn't have an army. You didn't have arms. You didn't have the equipment. What did you have? KARZAI: The population. The people. The knowledge that the people are against what's going on in Afghanistan because the Afghans want dignity and honor, because the Afghans want the terrorists to go, because the Afghans want the terrorists to finish, to be eliminated, that the Afghans do not the Taliban, do not want the oppression. I knew that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Fap

AMANPOUR: But then Karzai also had a warning that has now come full circle with the Taliban back in control following Americas chaotic withdrawal in 2021.

Afghanistan has once again been left vulnerable and probably the most dangerous and depressing place in the whole world for women and girls with the deeply misogynistic policies and gender apartheid that have been reimposed by the Taliban.

Talking of gender, sexuality, and race, when we come back a conversation with the bright young face of theater today, Jeremy O. Harris, an American in London.

[11:54:10]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: And finally this hour, some words of wisdom from one of America's hottest young writers, Jeremy O. Harris, burst onto the scene when his witty, sharp, and daring take on race in "Slave Play" electrified Broadway in 2019.

Since then, he's adapted a string of tweets into a movie called "Zola", starred in the Netflix megahit "Emily in Paris" and continues to push the ethical boundaries.

He joined me in London where "Slave Play" is receiving rapturous reviews on the West End. Ahead of a new fall season of Broadway shows, he told me why making theater more affordable is crucial to him and to the industry.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEREMY O. HARRIS, PLAYWRIGHT: We've had radical invitations to everyone that we've wanted to come see the play by doing wild ticket schemes, like the one we're doing here where everyone Wednesday at -- I forget what time it is -- you can go online and do a pay-what-you- can and get a ticket for a pound.

[11:59:50]

HARRIS: That for me has always been a cornerstone of my process to the -- to the chagrin of many investors around the West End and Broadway who want to make sure that people will still pay $300 for their -- for their shows, $400 for their shows. In my mind, I think that like I would rather see a play run for a long

time in a lot of different cities and a lot of different countries for before an average ticket price of 50 to $75, than have one play run for six months at like a $400 ticket price.

Because for me that is unsustainable to create a new generation of theatergoers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: And that is all we have time for this week.

Don't forget, you can find all of our shows online as podcast at CNN.com and on all other major platforms.

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