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The Amanpour Hour

Interview With Political Scientist Robert Putnam; Interview with Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert; Interview With Former Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Nasser Al-Kidwa; Interview With "No Other Land" Co-Director Basel Adra; Interview With "No Other Land" Co-Director Yuval Abraham; Interview With Mother Of Slain Journalist James W. Foley, Diane Foley; Interview With "American Mother" Co- Author Colum McCann; Interview With "One Nation Under Guns" Author Dominic Erdozain. Aired 11a-12p ET

Aired November 30, 2024 - 11:00   ET

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

[10:59:46]

LARRY MADOWO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Its clearly painstaking work. You have to be gentle not to break the wing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

MADOWO: Collins thinks his most valuable butterfly is worth $8,000. Where is it?

STEVE COLLINS, LEPIDOPTERIST: I won't show you because, you know what? Of course, if somebody says that oh, well, that's worth $8,000, it disappears.

MADOWO: He still maintains he's just an enthusiastic hobbyist, despite the fact he's written eight books and publishes scientific papers once a month.

This looks like a full-time gig.

COLLINS: Well, it's got out of hand. You could say it's an obsession.

MADOWO: The future of this vast trove for scientific research hangs in the balance. Without a buyer, it could all go to waste.

Larry Madowo, CNN -- Nairobi.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: All right.

All a beautiful sight and hey, beautiful sight here. Don't let that blue sky fool you, though. It feels like just six degrees in Chicago right now. Millions of Americans are under winter weather alerts today.

We'll have a full forecast in just about an hour from now. I'm Fredricka Whitfield in Atlanta. I'll be back with more news at noon eastern time. THE AMANPOUR HOUR begins right now.

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

Here's where we're headed this Thanksgiving weekend.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: In an America more divided than ever. The roots of the crisis and the possible solutions.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: America doesn't have to be the kind of America that you've lived in your whole life. You could decide to change history.

AMANPOUR: with political scientist Robert Putnam, who has answers.

And the unlikely duo finding consensus on the Middle East war. Former Israeli and Palestinian leaders Ehud Olmert and Nasser al-Kidwa.

AMANPOUR: Then -- the courage it took to co-produce a new documentary exposing the forced evictions of Palestinians in the west bank. I'm joined by Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers Basel Adra and Yuval Abraham.

Also on the show, following the brutal murder of her son by ISIS, Diane Foley, on meeting her son's killer and rejecting hatred.

DIANE FOLEY, MOTHER OF SLAIN JOURNALIST JAMES FOLEY: If we just stay in our bubbles and hate one another, we get nowhere.

AMANPOUR: Plus, how many more families must be destroyed before an agreement can be found to end gun violence?

Dominic Erdozain tells me what Americas founders really meant when they wrote that Second Amendment.

DOMINIC ERDOZAIN, AUTHOR, "ONE NATION UNDER GUNS": The state is designed to protect people from the partiality and violence of men.

AMANPOUR: And finally, the immigrant experience everyone can relate to on set with "Kim's Convenience here in London.

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

As families come together across America this week on this Thanksgiving, a holiday that symbolizes gratitude, unity and community, the country is perhaps more far apart than ever.

But we've dedicated this week's holiday program to those who are finding common ground around solutions to some of the most dangerous divisions plaguing our entire world.

Following one of the most contentious elections in modern history divider-in-chief Donald Trump will reoccupy the U.S. presidency come January. Republicans took control of the White House, the Senate and the House and Democrats warn of the mounting threat to freedoms and democracy.

Now with the best will in the world, is it possible for a nation so fractured to come together again? If anyone has an answer, it's the renowned political scientist Robert Putnam.

In his landmark book "Bowling Alone", he warned of the collapse of American civic life. Before the election, I spoke to him about his latest work, the documentary film "Join or Die", where he explores what's driving people apart and what it might take to rebuild.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: It's really an incredibly timely discussion again of your theories and to see this film.

You talk about social capital, which means connection, I think is how you define it.

ROBERT PUTNAM, POLITICAL SCIENTIST: Yes. Yes.

AMANPOUR: And you're talking about the relative, you know, decrease in connections and the shifting kinds of connections. You talk about bridging social capital and bonding social capital.

So, explain those and how they're manifested today.

PUTNAM: Sure. Bonding social capital, my ties to other people just like me. So, my bonding social capital are my ties to other white, male, elderly, Jewish professors.

And my ties to people of a different generation or a different race or a different religion or a different political party, that's my bridging social capital.

And this is the final empirical finding of my work and a lot of other people's work, there's been a catastrophic decline in those kinds of ties.

[11:04:48]

PUTNAM: The ties that once upon a time would connect us to people of a different generation or a different class or a different, you know, whatever, especially given the political party, those have tended to wane even more rapidly than our ties to people just like us.

And that has set us up for polarization. It has set us up for demonization, because too many of us now are living in an echo chamber. That's just the language -- some people use the language of echo chamber, and I use the language of our social ties. Are they just people like us or are they the people other than us, people unlike us?

AMANPOUR: So, I'm going to play a little bit of the film, the documentary, which is called "Join or Die" on this issue and then I'm going to ask you how, if possible, to try to find those mentors and ties again.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PUTNAM: There's what's called specific reciprocity. That is, if you're nice to me, I'll be nice to you. But much more powerful is what evolves in a context with large numbers of people connecting with one another, is a norm of generalized reciprocity. That is, I'm going to be nice to you just because you're in this community and you're likely to be nice to me.

Well, that's a huge deal. If you can have generalized reciprocity in a community, that community can be enormously more productive because they don't have to be constantly checking up on one another.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: So, it's so interesting this.

What is happening now, which is acting against reciprocity and much more in sort of moving people to isolation and individualism. Exactly, the me, me, me.

Where are these people going? Where are these young people going? Who are they following? Who are they seeking inspiration from, if anybody?

PUTNAM: Well, honestly, I don't mean to be a total voice of doom and gloom regarding social media, but that's what a lot of them are doing. I mean -- and I'm -- I mean, I can cite you chapter and verse, but probably I don't need to.

So much of the time with young people now is focused entirely on the screen in front of them. And sometimes it's actually the television screen, but more often than not, it's the iPhone or the smartphone screen.

And they're not actually -- sometimes they're using those to connect with other real people, but often they're living in some fantasy world.

So, it isn't at all the equivalent of, let me say, the Boy Scouts, or the Girl Scouts, it's just -- or the team on which -- there's a coach. It's a very self-isolating kind of technology.

Now, there are (AUDIO GAP) -- I have to say, and reviewers can look at the movie on, you know, Netflix or someplace, and they can see the movie highlights a number of really important new initiatives being pursued across the country.

A religious group is reaching out to young kids who are interested in the environment, interested in -- you know, in gardening and so on, but are also wanting to connect with other people. Or a biking group in Atlanta, basically, a black biking group. So, there are things (AUDIO GAP) do.

AMANPOUR: Yes.

So, let me ask you then, because we're obviously clearly talking to you in the context of what's happening in this incredibly polarized and violent political era that we live.

How do you fit this into politics right now?

PUTNAM: Oh, it's directly related to politics. Indeed, my earliest work in this field showed that there's immediate (ph) connection between whether people are connected with one another, in all the ways we've talked about, in bowling (ph) leagues and in civic groups and so on, and how well the government works.

That's been shown around the world, really, that it's not so much what the constitution says on paper, it's whether people actually connect with one another and therefore, can give life to the constitution.

And we have had periods in our country, most of the time in our country, we've been a nation of joiners. And that's why our constitution, it's not just that the words on the paper are good, they are, but it's that they've been sustained by this living constitution among us.

And that's what, you know, 125 years ago, because of the Industrial Revolution, basically, had begun to collapse. We restored that. And now, we've got to restore it again.

And in the very short run I kind of fear that we're not going to move in the right direction, but I'm talking about the next decade or two. Can we -- I'm suggesting ways in which we can begin to reconnect across lines of politics and religion and race and so on. We've done it in the past.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Up next, as war in the Middle East continues to rage, Israelis and Palestinians alike need hope.

And that is the message from former leaders Ehud Olmert and Nasser al- Kidwa. Up next, I speak to this unlikely duo about their path to peace.

[11:09:39]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

1110

AMANPOUR: Welcome back.

Today after more than a year of brutal war in the Middle East, we wanted to bring you a rare moment of hope and consensus between Israeli and Palestinian leaders, both proposing a way forward out of this fiery cauldron.

Ehud Olmert is the former Israeli prime minister while Nasser al-Kidwa was foreign minister with the Palestinian Authority.

[11:14:47]

AMANPOUR: Together, they came to London to formulate an outline for peace and to sign a proposal for a two-state solution.

Here's what these unlikely new friends told me.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Gentlemen, welcome to the program.

I mean, I'd really like to start by acknowledging the extraordinary situation that we have with you two sitting here together -- an Israeli official, a Palestinian official - at a time when war is raging, and nobody seems to be able to talk to each other.

So, since you're here, Prime Minister, just give me -- before we get to the nitty gritty -- why have you decided this now?

EHUD OLMERT, FORMER ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: This is the best possible time. Had everyone agreed, had there not been a war, and we were living in a quiet atmosphere, everyone would say, why the rush? I mean, why do you hurry? What's going on?

Now, that there is war, there is pain, there is suffering, people are killed, both sides, in a terrible way, there must be something must be done in order to change it, and someone must try and offer a beacon of light, of hope, that can change the atmosphere.

And I'm so happy, and I'm so proud, that I have this partnership with Dr. Al-Kidwa.

NASSER AL-KIDWA, FORMER PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY FOREIGN MINISTER: You know, we agree -- I agree. We didn't invent the wheel (ph) -- I mean, the way forward is known. We need to stop the war in Gaza and we say how.

And we need to have an overall, solution -- political solution in the form of two states, Israel and Palestine living side by side on (INAUDIBLE) civil border with some swap of territory to solve big part of the problem of settlements.

And of course, there is the issue of Jerusalem and how it should be the capital of both and maybe special status for the old cities to ensure the freedom of worships for all believers in the world.

AMANPOUR: And Ehud Olmert, in July the Israeli parliament overwhelmingly voted for a resolution that rejected the establishment of a two-state solution. So, your parliament voted for that.

OLMERT: Yes, I know.

AMANPOUR: And they rejected what, I think at the time, Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, he might have been king, I'm not sure, I can't remember, but the Arab Peace Initiative, which answered all Israel's concerns, and it was rejected by Israel. So, where's your hope?

OLMERT: Had I told you in 2005, the beginning of the year, that at the end of the year, General Ariel Sharon, the then prime minister of Israel, would dismantle all of the settlements in Gaza, you will say to me, Mr. Olmert, you must be crazy. It will never happen.

It happened against all odds, against all predictions, against all understandings of people about what can be done and what can't be done.

So, I'm telling you today now, the day will come, that they will say, hey, Dr. Al-Kidwa and Ehud Olmert appeared on Christiane Amanpour program in London and they say that there will be an agreed solution on the basis of two states and on the basis of the '67 borders with annexation and with swaps of territories and a change in the status of the Arab side of Jerusalem, which will become the Palestinian capital, and on the change in the status of the old city where there will not be an exclusive political sovereignty, neither for Israel, nor for the Palestinians, because there will never be peace. There will be one flag there, either Israeli or Palestinian.

So, we have to move forward. It will happen. If we will not believe, if we will not think that it can be done, if we will not campaign forcefully in order to achieve it, it will not happen.

But if we will do, you will see how many will join us and we will break through, and that will happen.

AMANPOUR: Well, I see you nodding, Dr. Al-Kidwa, and I'm afraid we're out of time but this has been a really interesting discussion.

AL-KIDWA: No, I just want to say that I do agree, that's all.

AMANPOUR: Yes, well, good. Good, good, good. Because we don't hear this very much these days. In fact, we don't hear it at all, and it's very good to see two prominent politicians on each side actually deciding to come out and be public about this, whether or not it's possible in the short-term.

AL-KIDWA: Two fighters also. Two stubborn guys that work for the interests of their people, respectively.

OLMERT: That's right.

AMANPOUR: Good. Nasser Al-Kidwa, Ehud Olmert -- thank you both very much for coming in.

OLMERT: Thank you.

AMANPOUR: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And you can watch that full interview online at amanpour.com.

Coming up next, another moment of hope in that region, this time at the grassroots level. My conversation with the Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers who teamed up in their search for justice.

[11:19:41] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back.

Israelis and Palestinians could not be in a worse and more deadly crisis. And yet, courage and a willingness to hear the others' story is what it will take to end this.

The necessary act of working together is on full display in "No Other Land". It's a powerful new film that documents life in Masafer Yatta. That's a group of Palestinian villages in the Occupied West Bank, which settlers and the Israeli government have forced them out of for years.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're Basel?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You are Palestinian?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, I'm Jewish.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's a journalist.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're Israeli. Seriously?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have to raise our voices. Not being silent as if -- as if no human beings live here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[11:24:44]

AMANPOUR: Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers, Basel who is from Masafer Yatta, and Yuval Abraham, an Israeli journalist, came together to tell this story. Both of them joined me recently from Paris to discuss why.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Basel Adra and Yuval Abraham, welcome to the program.

YUVAL ABRAHAM, CO-DIRECTOR, "NO OTHER LAND": Thank you.

BASEL ADRA, CO-DIRECTOR, "NO OTHER LAND": Thank you.

AMANPOUR: Basel, when did you start filming your family and your village's experience?

ADRA: I grew up in a community where activism and the people who would like to oppose the occupation and confront the conditions that the occupation are trying to put us under it.

So, for example, the story of my mother with the school and how they build the school. My parents are not educated. They didn't have the chance to go to school because they -- it was forbidden.

But my mother and the community fight to build a school where I had the chance to be educated in it and I learned English and I could speak to you today in English.

And also, I learned -- the camera that's very important and almost the only tool we have beside our steadfastness in our land in front of the brutality and the occupation machine that try to uproot us from our homes.

AMANPOUR: And Yuval, one of the things that makes this so compelling is that we get to see ordinary villagers and their emotions, the men, the women, the children as the houses are being demolished. And this is the focus, as you said, the demolition of houses, which is a regular thing. I mean, we've seen this for years and years and years.

I just want to know when you saw that, if you did, how did you feel about that? You've said that you won't do things in your name, but when you actually write there.

ABRAHAM: You know, I remember the first time I met Basel, I came to interview him, and in five minutes, we had to run because there was a structure in his village that was being demolished.

And standing there and looking at the faces of like the family that's being pushed out of their house -- and I remember I heard my first stun grenade, like the military immediately threw stun grenades, the sense of dread that you go to sleep and you don't know if, you know, the next day your house will be demolished.

All of that is an emotional feeling and a truth that I feel journalism is often not able to convey, which really moved me. And I think it's part of what we tried to do in the film as a way to speak for the emotional impact of it all.

AMANPOUR: One of the extraordinary facts around you both collaborating to do this film is that you are both together doing this film. It's an area of cooperation between an Israeli and a Palestinian and it's an area of friendship, it's an area of understanding.

You know, it's what everybody would like to see, I think, in some kind of resolution for the future.

But Yuval, you have come under criticism for this work, from your own fellow citizens, and even when you presented this film at the Berlin Film Festival, where you won Best Documentary, your speech was immediately condemned by one or more German officials as being anti- Semitic. How do you account for that?

ABRAHAM: I was very outraged by that because, you know, I -- the word anti-Semitism carries a lot of weight for me. Like my grandmother was born in a concentration camp and most of my family was murdered in the Holocaust.

And today, like, sadly, anti-Semitism is on the rise. It's on the rise among the right-wing and it's also shamefully on the rise among the left.

And because of that, it's very important that this word will not be used to silence real and legitimate criticism of Israel's occupation or of Israel's, you know, horrendous policies all around the land.

And when people use this word not only to silence Palestinian critics but also Israelis like me who believe, you know, that what is going on is wrong, they are emptying it out of meaning.

And precisely because we should care about anti-Semitism, this is even more dangerous. And I think it's literally putting Jewish lives as well in danger.

AMANPOUR: And finally, to you, Basel, this film is called "No Other Land". You have no other land to live on. So, what is your future? What is the status of your village right now?

ADRA: The sense of our -- of my village and Masafer Yatta and so many Palestinian villages in what's so-called Area C, it's really under so much attacks and we're losing a community after another community. This is not stopping even with the very, very small sanctions that the U.S. and other like West governments are doing against this terrorist settlers.

I think the U.S., as the main player on this, should stop this from going on and should stop and put limits and red lines for the Israeli government to stop these actions and these attacks against Palestinian communities, against the war that they are doing in Gaza, which is so horrible.

And I mean, we don't -- we are, as Palestinians today, very, very powerless and very worried and afraid for our future with what we are facing today as -- from all this brutality and massacres and killing.

[11:29:51]

ADRA: And the international community should stand for its responsibility and should defend the international law and should, like, stop this from going on.

AMANPOUR: And what about your own relationship? How would you describe it?

ABRAHAM: I mean, we're friends and we're allies. We're doing a form of co-existence (ph). I mean, we have shared values. And we -- as I said, I mean, we think that the current situation of occupation is wrong and Palestinians deserve to be free.

And we believe in a future where both people, the Palestinians and the Israelis, have individual and political rights in accordance with international law.

And yes, this is -- I mean -- but I don't know, Basel, how would you describe it?

ADRA: Yes, I agree. Yes. ABRAHAM: Yes.

AMANPOUR: Basel Adra and Yuval Abraham, thank you so much.

ADRA: Thank you.

ABRAHAM: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Now this critically-acclaimed documentary, which has won prizes at international film festivals, remains without a U.S. distributor. Until then you can watch the rest of my interview with the filmmakers online.

Up next, American mother Diane Foley's son James was brutally killed by ISIS while reporting on the civil war in Syria. Why she's rejecting hate despite her own personal tragedy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FOLEY: That's what hatred begets. It just begets lots of suffering.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[11:31:10]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back.

This Thanksgiving, as many reflect on what they're most grateful for, one freedom often taken for granted is under threat and that is freedom of the press. Activist groups warn that Donald Trump's second term further endangers this essential right. Globally, the stakes are even higher.

In conflict zones telling the truth often cost journalists their lives and Diane Foley knows this all too well. Her son James, was kidnaped and murdered by ISIS a decade ago while reporting on the Syria civil war.

Now an advocate for press freedom Diane shares her powerful journey in her new memoir "American Mother".

While I was reporting the war in Ukraine earlier this year, she joined me alongside co-author Colum McCann to discuss loss, resilience and rejecting hatred.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Welcome to you both.

Diane, let us talk about how you opened the book.

What on earth made you want to meet the killer, one of the so-called Beatles? This is a British citizen. And they had captured and kidnapped Jim, and he was the killer. Tell us about how you went to see him and why.

FOLEY: Alexanda -- both Alexanda and his colleague, El Shafee El Sheikh, were extradited to Virginia in 2020, two years after being captured abroad.

And Alexanda pleaded guilty to all eight counts. He said he did not need a trial and instead, he pleaded guilty and was willing to speak to victims.

So, I knew Jim would have wanted to speak to him and he would have not wanted me to be afraid to speak with him. It was just obvious to me, except that my family wanted no part of it.

So, when Colum was generous enough and curious enough to accompany me, we did. We both went to speak with him. I wanted to hear him and also to tell him about who Jim really was.

AMANPOUR: Wow. Colum, I mean, what were you thinking, and I'm going to ask you to read a passage about that meeting and about what went through it.

But what were you thinking when a bereaved mother thought that she could reach into the soul or the conscience of a killer who had killed her son?

COLUM MCCANN, CO-AUTHOR, "AMERICAN MOTHER": It was one of the most extraordinary moments of my life. We walked into a room in a Virginia courthouse, a big windowless room.

There were a lot of people there. There were prosecutors, there were defense, there were FBI agents, and there were security guards.

And then, Diane walked in, and then suddenly, Alexanda Kotey is sitting there. He's in his prison jumpsuit. He's got shackles on his ankles.

And Diane goes and sits not four feet from her son's killer. And she says "hello".

There's a little section just -- when Diane leaves the room.

AMANPOUR: Yes.

MCCANN: When she leaves the room, Kotey sits down slowly, a little stunned, as if he has just flown into the windowpane of his life.

Another silence has descended all around. He is asked what it meant to shake her hand. He nods and creases his own hands together.

He has not intentionally touched the hand of a woman in a long time, he says. Not since years ago when he touched the hand of his wife. And he suspects he will never touch the hand of a woman again.

[11:39:46] MCCANN: And why then, he is asked, did he take Diane's hand? He ponders a moment, and he says, she's like a mother to us all.

AMANPOUR: Gosh, Diane, it is an incredible thing. You know, tell me what you felt after you shook his hand.

FOLEY: My biggest feeling was deep sadness for everyone. I mean, we had lost our beloved Jim. And you know, he's lost his freedom forever. He'll never see his family or go back to his home country again.

So, that's what hatred begets. It just begets lots of suffering.

AMANPOUR: You know, Diane, I know that you have a deep faith. And I know that that has gotten you, you know, through a lot. And that, you know, maybe you look at certain things that others wouldn't be able to look at because -- you know, because of your faith.

And I just wonder, you know that people said, oh, yes, you know, Alexanda Kotey, was just grandstanding and trying to get good marks, you know, for being nice and polite with you and trying to make people think he was a decent -- well, he was a repentant human being.

It brings back to me the image of Mrs. Lifshitz, the elderly lady who was released very, very early on by Hamas, and who turned around and either shook his hand or said shalom something, and there was such a hubbub about it.

And yet, her daughter said she was just being a human being in the situation in which she found herself.

So, I just wonder if, Diane, you can just talk about that a little bit.

FOLEY: I feel building those human channels is essential. I mean, look at the suffering in Ukraine, the suffering in Gaza right now.

I mean, we need to at least try to talk to one another and try to find ways to build -- begin to understand.

If we just stay in our bubbles and hate one another we get nowhere, really. It just -- we get the suffering we're enduring and you're witnessing right now in Ukraine. So yes, I feel it's essential that we try.

And Jim felt that way. Jim was - - that was one of the reasons he was in Syria. Because he wanted those of us in the West to understand, to begin to understand their yearning for freedom that sometimes we take for granted. They were willing to lay down their lives for to be free.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And Diane and Colum's book "American Mother" is out now.

Coming up, how to make progress on the thorniest of thorny issues in American politics -- gun violence. Dominic Erdozain walks us through the history of the Second Amendment and why he hopes the country can move beyond the epidemic of shootings.

[11:42:43]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back.

And as we focus on efforts to bring people together, it's important to focus on an issue that has torn too many people apart. And that is gun violence.

This Saturday marks 31 years since the Brady Law mandated federally- licensed gun dealers to run background checks on their customers. Yet despite those checks, gun deaths and mass shootings continue apace in America.

Despite the overwhelming majority of Americans approving of common- sense gun safety laws, lawmakers remain paralyzed, often in hock to the powerful gun lobby.

In a critically acclaimed book called "One Nation Under Guns", British historian Dominic Erdozain argues that America's founding fathers never intended for the Second Amendment on the right to bear arms to override every other right.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Now, if the founding fathers had known, what do you think they would have made it, and that's a question as to intent and the Second Amendment.

ERDOZAIN: They'd first of all be horrified. I mean, one of the things that I've tried to do is approach the Second Amendment, not just through the legal angle, but to understand how it fits into a vision of democracy.

And you know, you go back to people like John Locke and the architects of the liberal tradition and they'll say that the state is designed to protect people from the partiality and violence of men, that curtailing interpersonal violence is the very origin of the modern political process.

So on that basic level, they'd be horrified.

But the distortion around the Second Amendment is a lot of issues, but you know, a well-regulated militia involves the principle of consent and collaboration and accountability, and that's exactly what we now lack.

You know, individuals buying assault weapons for their own use are not part of a well-regulated militia. So, we've drifted very far from those moorings.

And although, the numbers of gun owners are down, I think the numbers of guns in circulation has increased dramatically in the last 10, 15 years. AMANPOUR: It just seems that almost every week, if not more, there are mass shooting events in the United States -- in schools, in many, many, many different places, places of worship, and it's become baked into American life.

[11:49:50]

AMANPOUR: I mean, people overseas, as you know, look at it and just cannot believe it. And yet, politicians still play and run on this topic.

So, here's Donald Trump who was at a -- you know, at the NRA event. And they -- you know, as you know, many people who believe in the individual right to bear arms is it's all about the good guy having it versus the bad guy. So, everybody should be armed.

Here's their proposition.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: If Joe Biden is reelected, your gun rights will be gone. They'll be totally gone.

You know, the sad part of that is the bad guys aren't giving up their guns. The bad guys aren't, but the good people aren't giving up their guns either because there's never going to be anybody that's going to be asking for your gun.

And when I'm reelected, every single Biden attack on gun owners and manufacturers will be terminated, my very first week back in office, perhaps my first day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: You know, the facts, as you state, law-abiding citizens, i.e., I guess, the good guys, are actually responsible for much of America's murder rate. Most gun deaths are the result of altercations within known groups, family or friends.

So, how is that still being, you know, totted out -- or trotted out as a legitimate defense?

ERDOZAIN: I think a lot of it is fear that transcends the facts and is larger in people's minds than the empirical realities of what guns do.

But I think, you know, the Trump excerpt shows that this is, you know, a culture war issue, that I didn't know whether his heart was ever really in it.

You know, in his first book where he was thinking of running as an Independent, I think, in 2000, you know, he chastised the Republican Party for its sort of slavish fidelity to the National Rifle Association. And he seemed perfectly willing, at that stage, to think in terms of gun control.

The same after recent shootings, and then he sort of talked (ph) back. I feel that so much of this is confected. You know, there was a big piece in "The Washington Post" on the AR-15 where conservative pundits were saying, well, no one really needed one, but it was a good way of, you know, turning our noses up to the left.

So, a lot of this is confected. And that's one of the things that gives me hope that a younger generation could see through it, could see through the artifice of many of these arguments.

AMANPOUR: Your full title of your book is "One Nation Under Guns: How Gun Culture Distorts Our History and Threatens Our Democracy." How does it threaten our democracy?

ERDOZAIN: Well, this where I kind of try to go beyond some of the many brilliant scholars who have talked about the Second Amendment and individual rights is to understand democracy really as a way of life, a vision of freedom.

You know, democracy is more than how we elect our leaders or try to, it's about living without fear of violence. It's about freedom to interact with one another in trust, you know, political scientists talk about social capital.

One of my favorite sources in the book is Edward Kennedy who lost two brothers to assassin's bullets. And he says, it's not just the pool of death that guns have created, it's the appalling specter of fear that guns have cast over our communities.

And that is precisely the language of the founders. It's the language of the architects of this democratic tradition. And that is what guns are destroying on a daily basis.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And finding common ground on ending gun deaths has never felt more urgent.

And full disclosure Erdozain is married to a senior CNN executive.

When we come back, the Canadian play that became a worldwide television sensation and showed us just how alike we all are no matter where we hail from.

Some words of wisdom from the creator of "Kim's Convenience". That's next.

[11:53:53]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: And finally, hostility towards migrants just seems to reach higher and higher heights around the world. And if Trump stays true to his word, America is in for mass deportations over the next four years.

So we wanted to end our Thanksgiving edition on ways immigrant families have been made to feel seen and understood. What better way than through the arts.

"Kim's Convenience", Canada's first Asian-led sitcom about a Korean immigrant family became a five-season TV sensation and launched the Marvel star Simu Liu.

When the play came to London earlier this year. I sat down on set with creator Ins Choi and some cast members to talk about building bridges between communities. And he told me how he's discovered that we are in fact, more alike than we might think.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

INS CHOI, CREATOR, "KIM'S CONVENIENCE": When I first wrote it, I knew that Korean -- second-generation Koreans like my sisters and my cousins would love it, because kind of like making fun of appa and eomma, like, you know, a little bit.

And then I knew the parents would love it. And I knew that Asians would love it. But then it just kept -- like, black families would come, Asian families, South Asia, Southeast Asian families would, even white families would be like, that's like my dad.

[11:59:49]

CHOI: You know, this is like a Romanian family or a Jewish family. And they'd be like, that's just like my mom and I had that exact conversation with her but you know, in a different language.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Such a good note to end on this, this Thanksgiving.

And don't forget, you can find all our shows online as podcasts at CNN.com/audio and on all other major platforms.

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