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The Amanpour Hour
Interview with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva; Interview with "Who Knew" Author and IAC Chairman Barry Diller; Why Hundreds of Irish Babies Were Buried in Secret Mass Grave; Interview with "The Mission" Author Tim Weiner; Astronauts Rise Above Earthly Conflicts. Aired 11a-12p ET
Aired July 19, 2025 - 11:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[11:00:41]
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello everyone, and welcome to THE AMANPOUR HOUR.
Here's where we're headed this week.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: My exclusive interview with President Lula of Brazil. He says he won't back down as President Trump hits him with score settling tariffs.
LUIZ INACIO "LULA" DA SILVA, BRAZILIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): When I read the letter, I thought it was fake news.
AMANPOUR: Then billionaire media mogul Barry Diller opens up about his dysfunctional childhood and the only woman in his life, fashion queen Diane von Furstenberg.
BARRY BILLER, MEDIA MOGUL: It was an explosion of passion.
AMANPOUR: Also ahead, a buried scandal that's haunted Ireland for decades, with excavations now underway for the remains of hundreds of babies at a home for unwed mothers.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All I know is that those children, friends of mine, they disappeared.
And Pulitzer prize winner and CIA chronicler Tim Weiner on his new book, "The Mission" and what intelligence will look like in the age of Trump.
TIM WEINER, AUTHOR, "THE MISSION": Blind loyalty to a president is not part of the job description of the CIA director.
AMANPOUR: Plus, from my archives, a team of rivals 250 miles high. How space travel made allies out of Moscow and Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE) AMANPOUR: Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London.
And first up today, my exclusive interview with the president of Brazil and his response to President Trump threatening his country with 50 percent tariffs. This week, Washington launched an investigation into, quote, "unfair trading practices". But the U.S. actually operates a trade surplus with Brazil, a massive one in fact.
Trump's case appears to be political score settling because he's focusing on what he calls a witch hunt against his friend, the former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, the so-called Trump of the Tropics, who now faces charges for his alleged role in an attempted coup against the current president trying to overturn his 2022 election victory.
But President Lula is no shrinking violet. He's a longtime heavyweight of global politics, and he told me he would not take this lying down.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Mr. President, welcome back to our program.
I want to ask you first, what does it feel like to be slapped with a 50 percent tariff by the United States, the world's biggest economy?
DA SILVA: Well, Christiane, for me it was a surprise, not only the value of that tariff, but also how it was announced, the way it was announced. I think we're lacking a little bit of multilateralism on President's Trump's mindset. And he knows that a problem of this sort, it is solved in a bargaining table, around the bargaining table.
So, what do we see? We were negotiating with the U.S. already for some months. My foreign affairs minister, the vice president of the Republic, which is also the minister for industry and development and commerce were negotiating. And since March, we've sent a proposal to the U.S. government.
After 10 meetings, we sent a proposal on May the 7th, 16 saying what we wanted and what was a (INAUDIBLE) to reach an agreement.
For our surprise, instead of a response to the letter that we sent, we received the news published in the President Trump's site. It was not a letter said officially by diplomatic means.
I think it was a mistake. A big mistake because the letter that President Trump is full of things that are not true.
First of all, the justice system of Brazil is independent. The president of the republic cannot interfere in the judicial branch of power.
Second, is that the trade deficit, that is not true. The United States in last 15 has a surplus of $410 billion vis-a-vis Brazil.
And thirdly, if we're going to charge -- tax of -- big tax in Brazil, that's a problem of the Brazilian government. If we charge a high tax and they don't agree, we can establish a negotiation with the government. This is how the world works with multilateralism. That's how the trade -- world trade works and how Brazil acts.
[11:04:49]
DA SILVA: What we cannot have is President Trump forgetting that he was elected to govern the U.S. He was elected not to be the emperor of the world. It would be much better to establish a negotiation first and then to reach the possible agreement.
Because we're two countries that we had very good meetings and we have good relations for 200 years. And so, he's breaking away from any protocol, any liturgy that should exist between the relations between two heads of state.
It was very unpleasant. We are trying to talk with the people there, but we're also preparing ourselves to give an answer to that. What I've been saying publicly is that we will use all the words that exist in the dictionary in trying to negotiate.
If we don't manage to reach an agreement, you -- I can reassure you that we will go to the World Trade Organization or we can gather group of countries to respond or we can use the reciprocity law that was passed at this bill by the National Congress.
This is how it's going to work. I regret that two countries that have an historical relationship of 201 years prefer to be fighting through judicial means because one president does not respect the sovereignty of the other president.
AMANPOUR: Now, Mr. President, apparently President Trump is saying that he, you know, disagrees with Brazil's investigation and court case against your predecessor, President Bolsonaro.
This is what President Trump said. "This is nothing more or less than an attack on a political opponent, something I know much about. It happened to me 10 times."
What's your response to that?
DA SILVA: Well, my answer to that is that the judiciary branch of power in Brazil is independent. The president of the republic has no influence whatsoever with the Supreme Court and the justices. The justice are approved by the Senate. They took office and they have independence and they take care of our constitution.
Bolsonaro is on trial not because he's an opponent or political opposition, he -- I won three elections in this country. It's important to remember that here the -- every election that I won -- I lost three previous elections and won another. So, we participated in five elections and never before in this country someone would raise this issue to try to say -- or tries a coup d'etat attempt like Bolsonaro did.
He's not judged personally. He is being judged by the acts. He tried to organize a coup d'etat. He threatened secretly the death -- he planned the death of vice president, myself, and the chief justice. He could be on trial just for that.
And the general -- the attorney general denounced yesterday, he will be convicted of, and I believe in that.
Christiane, I like to say something to the American people. If Trump was Brazilian and if he did what was happening at the Capitol Hill, he'd also be on trial in Brazil and possibly, and he would've violated the constitution.
So, according to the justices, he could also be arrested if he had done that here in Brazil.
AMANPOUR: So, I want to ask you finally, what are you going to tell your people about the current crisis? It's been described as the worst crisis between the United States and Brazil in more than a decade. What are you going to say to your people?
DA SILVA: Well, I don't see a crisis yet. Sincerely, I think that in negotiation, that's how it works. Each one says what they want and each one listens what they -- have to listen.
But it's -- what is important is that the relationship between the two countries cannot go on like this. I don't consider myself an emperor to make a decision and publish on the newspaper. That's not how I'd work. That's impossible.
And now, President Trump to write a letter and putting as a condition -- a preconditional negotiation. No. And that's very discretionary. I can't even believe in that.
When I read the letter, I thought it was fake news when I saw the letter through the media. And then I thought it was a true letter that was signed by President Trump.
So, I can reassure you that Brazil, in the right moment, will give the right answer to President Trump's letter.
And in my address to the Brazilian people, I'm going to tell the Brazilian people what I'm thinking about all this. And sincerely, I can reassure you that Brazil does not enjoy troublemakers and trouble. Brazil likes to negotiate in peace. And that's how I act and I think that's how all presidents should act.
And this is -- I think about President Trump too, that Brazil is an historic ally of the U.S. Brazil praises the economic relations that Brazil has with the U.S.
[11:09:48]
DA SILVA: But Brazil will not accept anything imposed on it -- on the country. We accept negotiation and not imposition.
AMANPOUR: President Luiz Inacio da Silva of Brazil, thank you very much indeed for joining us. DA SILVA: Well, thank you, Christiane. And I hope -- sincerely, I hope, Christiane, that President Trump make a review and revise his opinion.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Lula has a huge amount to say, and you can watch that full interview online at Amanpour.com.
Coming up later on the show, is the CIA in disarray? I asked Pulitzer prize winning journalist Tim Weiner.
Up next, drawing back the curtain on decades of entertainment industry secrets. I speak to Barry Diller about his new tell-all memoir.
[11:10:34]
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AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.
He's the mogul responsible for changing media as we know it. Barry Diller invented the TV Movie of the Week and the miniseries with groundbreaking shows like "Roots".
He launched the Fox Network alongside Rupert Murdoch, made home shopping a habit for millions of households, and he put everything from "Grease" to "The Simpsons" on our screens before turning to the tech world to conquer an empire of online giants like Expedia and Tinder.
Now he's baring all in a new memoir, "Who Knew?" spilling the secrets behind his business success and uncovering personal truths that he had hidden for decades because of what he calls his big fear.
Here's our conversation.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Barry Diller, welcome back to our program.
BARRY DILLER, AUTHOR, "WHO KNEW" AND IAC CHAIRMAN: Nice to be with you.
AMANPOUR: I kind of know you, I'm going to declare an interest. I know you and your wife Diane Von Furstenberg.
But the details of your childhood, your upbringing were really, to me, surprising. You write, "The household I grew up in was perfectly dysfunctional." You talk about your parents who were disengaged, your brother who was a toxic bully, and you never even met one set of grandparents or most of your relatives, your -- you know, your aunts or uncles, cousins.
Where do you think -- or do you think that led to your drive and your ambition or not? DILLER: Well, first of all, I think most of it comes from biology. I mean, I just have this motor ticking around that is almost unstoppable. But I also think that all the things that happened to me and all of the circumstances of this dysfunctional family in odd ways, a lot -- gave me -- maybe I wouldn't -- I don't know about saying, wanted those weapons, call them weapons, but those abilities.
But the fact that I had one big fear, which was sexual confusion. That big fear allowed me essentially -- if you have one big fear, one anvil over your head, then other fears disappear.
So, I was able to take all sorts of risks that other people might not take, excuse me, because I had this one big fear.
And I because -- because I wanted so much to, I guess, please, my mother it gave me kind of the ability to please older people in the earliest stages of my career in ways that other people weren't prepared to do.
So, that was an advantage.
AMANPOUR: And as you say, you are also consumed with this one big fear as an adolescence, and that would've been in the 1950s. You recognize that your sexuality wasn't of the conventional model back then.
And to understand what you were feeling, I mean, I think this is incredible. You rode your bike to the Beverly Hills Public Library to find books about homosexuality. What did you learn in your research about yourself?
DILLER: Oh, I mean, again, I have -- I do have lots of these snapshots that will -- you can't get rid of them, which is, I remember, first of all, browsing that thing for books on homosexuality, and there were like, I don't know, three, four, five, and I took each one down and read like horrifyingly that this was just -- not just, this was a clear mental disease.
And every book and everything I read in the probable hour I was there was about how this was a sick thing. That there was no mental health hope for someone so afflicted.
And I got back on my bike and I rode back to my house and I thought, I really did think woe is me.
AMANPOUR: Well, you wrote, "To my confused adolescent brain being exposed as a homosexual meant the end of life as I knew it." Well, that's heartbreaking.
But then, I assume you take all of this and you just pour it into being independent, getting ahead.
You took a job as an assistant at ABC after your mail room university. And in really short order, given your youth and inexperience, you launched ABC's famous "Movies of the Week".
DILLER: Well, I lived through it, so I can tell you. I mean it happened, really, because everybody thought it would fail. No one had ever made original movies for television before.
[11:19:46]
DILLER: And so, I'm -- maybe I'm 25 by then, and I had this idea that we should do this.
And because ABC was the third network, they would try anything. And also, there -- it was a kind of candy store operation where if you want a responsibility, you could just take it and try to learn those tasks which to me was the best way to learn to become a manager.
And within -- actually, after the first year, it was so successful, they ordered a second night. So, we were up to 50 a year. And then, that year, it was so successful, we did a third night. And so, in the third year, we were making 75 movies a year in this operation that had started with me, this one person, and had grown to probably a couple of thousand.
AMANPOUR: So listen, so then you went on and on to scale ever higher heights. You took over Paramount Studios.
But at that time, then you sort of found your family. You met, as I said, the iconic fashion designer, Diane von Furstenberg, and you write, "While there have been a good many men in my life, since the age of 16, there's only ever been one woman. And she didn't come into my life until I was 33 years old."
DILLER: I mean, it was a coup de foudre (ph). I mean, she -- we -- the moment we started talking to each other, some -- you know, this does happen. I mean, the moment it was just a complete -- it was a rush in ways, different ways, I suppose, for both of us.
But for me, I hadn't certainly expected it. And it was an explosion of passion. And it surprised -- certainly it surprised me, but I didn't question it.
We were separated for about 10 years and then we came back together and our lives have been -- well, there was kind of years of wilderness, but our lives have been intertwined ever since.
AMANPOUR: As you write, "Who Knew", that's the title of your book.
Barry Diller, thank you so much.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: And there's a lot more to know in that book. You can see the whole conversation with Barry Diller online at Amanpour.com.
Up next, unearthing long-kept secrets and horrific trauma in Ireland and why hundreds of babies were buried in a mass grave.
CNN's Donie O'Sullivan reports on this horrible and painful story.
[11:22:15]
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AMANPOUR: Welcome back. We now turn to Ireland, where a long-standing national trauma is once again in the spotlight.
Excavations began earlier this week at the site of one of the country's most notorious mother-and-baby homes, also known as Magdalene Laundries, institutions that were mandated by the Catholic Church, where unwed mothers were hidden away in shame.
Thousands of women, and the children they gave birth to, died at these sites and countless babies were stolen and sent abroad to be adopted in countries like the United States.
The horrors of these places haunted Ireland for years, inspiring books and films and a national reckoning.
Now in the small Irish town of Tuam, nearly 800 babies disappeared. Their remains hidden in a septic tank beneath a housing estate. Decades later, their families are still searching for answers.
CNN's Donie O'Sullivan has the latest about this terrible tragedy.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: In the middle of this housing estate lies one of Ireland's darkest secrets.
There was knowledge that something was here.
CATHERINE CORLESS, LOCAL HISTORIAN: Yes, the (INAUDIBLE) was here.
O'SULLIVAN: Yes.
CORLESS: It was just hidden between the lot of them.
O'SULLIVAN: Now we're here in the town of Tuam. It's on the west of Ireland and this housing estate was once the site of a so-called mother-and-baby home.
Between the 1920s and 1990s, tens of thousands of Irish women who became pregnant outside of marriage were sent to homes run by nuns.
CORLESS: Every inch of that now is going to be excavated.
O'SULLIVAN: Contraception was illegal in Ireland until the 1980s and abortion was illegal here until 2018.
JOHN RODGERS, TUAM MOTHER-AND-BABY HOME SURVIVOR: The Church and the state, they had this thing about unmarried mothers being evil. They looked on them as dangerous because they were dangerous to men.
O'SULLIVAN: John Rodgers was born in the mother-and-baby home here in Tuam.
RODGERS: A lock of hair, my mother kept that for 40 years and gave it back to me the day that we were reunited. O'SULLIVAN: John was taken away from his mother, Bridie Rogers, when he was only one-year-old.
RODGERS: Because she swore the day that she took that, that no church or state would ever be able to claim me as their own. I belong to Bridie Rogers.
CATHERINE CORLESS, LOCAL HISTORIAN: So I think there's somewhere about the bounds (ph), of course.
O'SULLIVAN: Local historian and grandmother Catherine Corless began researching the Tuam baby home from her kitchen table.
CORLESS: That is the home itself now.
O'SULLIVAN: That's what I'm --
CORLESS: That's what it looks like.
O'SULLIVAN: That's what on the housing estate.
CORLESS: Yes, yes. That's it.
[11:29:46]
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): She made a shocking discovery.
You discovered 796 babies had died in this home.
CORLESS: Yes.
O'SULLIVAN: There's no records --
CORLESS: Yes.
O'SULLIVAN: -- of them being buried anywhere else.
CORLESS: Anywhere else. Yes.
O'SULLIVAN: But there is this septic tank.
CORLESS: Yes.
O'SULLIVAN: What did you think?
CORLESS: Well, I was horrified. Absolutely horrified. But first of all, I had to absolutely prove it and keep talking and keep saying they're there.
O'SULLIVAN: Catherine kept talking, even though some people in Tuam and in the Irish Catholic Church wanted her to stop.
CORLESS: First of all, I felt the resistance. I wasn't expecting that.
I just thought they said they'd look at my research and say, my God. I thought they take it over from me and do something. I mean, between the archbishop, the nuns, the whole lot. But no.
O'SULLIVAN: Her discovery shocked Ireland.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The tomb is not just a burial ground. It's a social and cultural sepulcher. It seemed as if in Ireland our women had the amazing capacity to self-impregnate. And for their trouble, we took their babies and we gifted them, or we sold them, or we trafficked them or we starved them, or we neglected them, or we denied them to the point of their disappearance.
O'SULLIVAN: Now forensic archaeologists are beginning the delicate process of exhuming and identifying the baby's remains.
RODGERS: This baby's that are in a septic tank maybe they were my playmates. I'll never know. All I know is that those children, friends of mine, they disappeared.
O'SULLIVAN: In homes like this across Ireland, many babies disappeared because they died. Others disappeared sometimes after allegedly being illegally adopted or trafficked to America.
ANNA CORRIGAN, LOST BROTHER AT TUAM: I'm here. I've spent 10 years looking to find him.
O'SULLIVAN: Two of Anna Corrigan's brothers were born in the Tuam home. She believes one of them was sent to America and could still be alive.
CORRIGAN: If somebody is watching this and if you know anything about a William Joseph Dolan who was born in the Tuam home in 1950 and would have been eight months old when he was moved to either America or Canada, please reach out.
O'SULLIVAN: Her other brother, John, died as a baby and is on Catherine Corless' list of 796 names. His body may be in the septic tank.
CORRIGAN: For the children that are lying up there, they've been crying for a long time. They've been crying to be heard. They didn't have dignity in life. They didn't have dignity in death. And we're hoping now that they will be identified, they will be moved to a dignified burial.
O'SULLIVAN: The Republic of Ireland has been an independent country for a hundred years now after a proud history of fighting British colonial oppression.
But for much of the last century, the Irish Catholic Church and the Irish government colluded to create a form of oppression of their own, one that specifically targeted women. What's happening here in Tuam is a reckoning.
As a younger Irish person, I just find it very hard to reconcile how people put up with this. I understand it was probably fear.
RODGERS: It was fear. It was fear. I think it was because the church, the Catholic Church had such a grip on people and they were trying to dictate morally and they were trying to introduce, I suppose, a (INAUDIBLE) society.
CORRIGAN: They wanted to show we're not like those and no disrespect to anybody watching on their religion, we're not like those Protestants. We're good, wholesome Catholics, right? And we have comely maidens dancing at the crossroads. And we don't have any of that carry on that goes on in other countries. But we do because we're human beings.
O'SULLIVAN: Donie O'Sullivan, CNN -- Tuam, Ireland.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: That complex dig is expected to last two years and hopefully to provide some closure to those who've been bereaved by this cruel chapter in Ireland's history.
Coming up, how the CIA is reimagining its core mission, intelligence in the 21st century. Pulitzer prize winning journalist Tim Weiner discusses why America is especially threatened now in his new book, "The Mission" when we come back.
[11:34:13]
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AMANPOUR: Welcome back.
Now, intelligence can determine the course of wars, diplomacy, and the lives of millions from the failures of 9/11 to the false claims of WMD in Iraq, which led to the U.S. invasion of 2003.
Now the agency is facing a new challenge from within the White House, with many analysts warning that it's being ever more politicized.
Pulitzer prize winning journalist Tim Weiner has spent decades chronicling the turbulent history of the CIA. Now he's taking on the fateful years after 9/11. "The Mission: the CIA in the 21st Century" is full of insider testimony about intelligence, which should be its core mission, and the dangers when it gets politicized.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: Tim Weiner, welcome back to our program.
WEINER: Thank you so much.
[11:39:44]
AMANPOUR: Let me just ask you first about the Iran situation.
So, in June, President Trump comes out and says that we've, quote, "obliterated" Iran's key nuclear enrichment sites. You apparently think it's an example of a problem with the current CIA. Why so? WEINER: The intelligence, both American intelligence and Israeli intelligence, said that the Iranian nuclear program was set back but not obliterated.
And when a reporter asked the president about this, he said, I don't care what the intelligence says.
And this is a big problem. If you are an ideologue, as our president is, your mind is made up. You don't want to be confused with facts. You don't care what the intelligence says. This can lead to great dangers.
AMANPOUR: So, give us an example. I mean, we all know essentially the George W. Bush Iraq scenario.
We know that he didn't believe or he was persuaded or maybe he just faked it to get along, but the idea that somehow Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11.
There was a huge amount of mixing of ideology, political belief, and mixing up intelligence around that whole 9/11 Iraq war paradigm.
WEINER: There were several disasters that followed the 9/11 attacks. One was that the CIA director, George Tenet, who was a good person, but over his head, said, "Oh, Lord, well, we didn't connect the dots before 9/11, and now we're going to give the president all the dots."
Every morning at 8:00 a.m. for months on end after 9/11, the CIA director would come to the White House with a long list of uncorroborated threats. He had told every friendly foreign intelligence service in the world, give us everything you have no matter how farfetched. This drove the White House mad. It really did. This is where we lost our perspective.
After 9/11 for 15 years, counter-terrorism took over. And that didn't change until the Russians ran one of the most successful covert operations in history, penetrating the American democracy and monkeywrenching the 2016 election in favor of Donald Trump.
And the aftermath four years later, was that the CIA penetrated the Kremlin and stole Vladimir Putin's war plans for Ukraine. And that marked the return of espionage to its proper place of dominance at the CIA.
And stealing that secret, no mean feat. Even more audacious, the CIA told the world about it.
AMANPOUR: Well, you know, a lot of people said that John Ratcliffe is -- you know, is a pretty decent professional when it comes to this kind of stuff. But, you know, he did just make a criminal referral of the former CIA Director Brennan, accusing him of lying to Congress and about Trump and Russia.
And now, it looks like it's heading down to a low point again, of mixing politics and ideology with -- you know, with the figures who are meant to not do that. So, where do you think that's going to lead? WEINER: Nowhere good, I'm afraid. John Ratcliffe is a political animal. He has a track record going back to the first Trump administration of twisting and distorting intelligence to please Trump. He has asked the most senior and experienced officers and analysts at CIA to find another line of work.
He has fired everybody the CIA hired in 2023 and '24 at the behest of Trump and Elon Musk. He has started ideological purity tests for officers seeking promotions. And he has eliminated the CIA's diversity policies.
Diversity is a spy service's superpower. It's how you don't get caught. It is not good tradecraft to send middle-aged white guys out to spy in China or the Sudan or countries where white people are decidedly minorities. You want people with the cultural background, with the language skills to blend into the population.
Terrible decision, all done in the name of political fealty to Donald Trump. Fealty, blind loyalty to a president is not part of the job description of the CIA director.
[11:44:50]
AMANPOUR: Really amazing. So much there.
Thank you so much. Thank you, Tim Weiner, for your book, "Mission" and for being with us.
WEINER: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: When we come back --
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Liftoff. We have a liftoff 32 minutes past the hour.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: "To the moon, Alice", as the famous TV comedy "The Honeymooners" said. This week, the world marked crucial breakthroughs in mankind's journey to the stars.
From my archive, how space travel has made teams out of some of the world's most bitter rivals.
That's next.
[11:45:20]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: Welcome back.
This weekend marks the 56th anniversary of Apollo 11's magnificent trip to put a man on the moon.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NEIL ARMSTRONG, APOLLO 11 ASTRONAUT: That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Who doesn't love those words? An awe-inspiring moment when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first people to step onto the lunar surface.
Here's what the mission's third man, Michael Collins, told me about seeing the earth from above.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL COLLINS, APOLLO 11 ASTRONAUT: I felt an overriding quality of fragility about the earth as I looked at it.
I can remember somewhere along the line I said, hey, Houston, I've got the world in my window. And I'm very conscious of that. And I think that's a feeling, the world in your window -- your window, Christiane, everyone's window.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: And what a window. I also asked him whether he didn't feel sad that he hadn't been able to step out onto the moon. And he said no, because he was Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's ride home. He had to be in charge of the module. So that was his special mission.
But this week also seen some historic firsts as well. Returning from orbit, the first ever astronauts to visit the International Space Station from India, Poland and Hungary. A reminder of the incredible teamwork that goes on high above while we are squabbling mortals down below.
Given the terrible Russian aggression on Ukraine, ostracized by the West now, it is important also to imagine that time 50 years ago, when the U.S. and Russia took part in the first international-crewed space mission. It was called the Apollo-Soyuz.
Not only a key scientific partnership during the Cold War, but one that continues despite today's hot war.
So from the archives this week, my conversation with the International Space Station ten years ago. Here's American astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko on working together despite it all.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SCOTT KELLY, ASTRONAUT: You know what's most important to, you know, Misha and I and our, you know, Russian colleagues and them with us is that we have to rely on each other literally for our lives. And, you know, not only are we great friends, but we are completely reliant on each other.
You know, if there's an emergency up here, you know, we have to take care of one another. And that's for us the most, you know, important thing.
And, you know, we understand that there can be conflict at times between nations. And, you know, I think one of the great things about the space station is we have demonstrated that, you know, two cultures that are, you know, somewhat different and then somewhat sometimes can be at odds with one another over certain things have demonstrated that they can work together in a very cooperative way at something very, very difficult for a long period of time.
AMANPOUR: And, Mikhail, your view?
MIKHAIL KORNIENKO, RUSSIAN COSMONAUT (through translator): I can only join in and say that the International Station is free of any politics. We are very polite and always very considerate of each other in such discussions.
Furthermore, I would say that our work here and our cooperation on board the ISS is a great example for all politicians because if they spend at least one month on board together, it would have probably resolved most of their problems and discussions on the ground.
AMANPOUR: Well, you've given me and the whole world now a whole great program. Maybe we should send them all up to space and they can solve all the world's problems up there.
Well, Scott Kelly, Mikhail Kornienko, thank you so much for joining us from space today. It's a big one for me today.
KELLY: Our pleasure, Christiane. Thanks for allowing us to be on your program.
AMANPOUR: Thank you for joining us.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Station, this is Houston ACR, that concludes the event. Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
AMANPOUR: And how about those zero gravity somersaults?
Coming up, one of the world's major peacemakers, Nelson Mandela. As the world marks his birthday, what we can learn from his legacy.
[11:54:24]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: And finally, remembering a champion of democracy, freedom, justice and a master of the art of reconciliation. This week, the world is celebrating the life and legacy of Nelson Mandela on what would have been his 107th birthday. From freedom fighter to political prisoner to South Africa's first
democratically-elected president, Mandela freed the nation from apartheid, becoming an international emblem of dignity and resilience.
After nearly three decades suffering immeasurable cruelty behind bars, punished by the minority white government, he emerged to build the Rainbow Nation.
[11:59:46]
AMANPOUR: So this year, in his honor, people are encouraged and asked to spend 67 minutes giving back to their own communities. One minute for every year that Mandela devoted to public service.
This year's theme is "It is still in our hands to combat poverty and inequality", a fitting tribute to the man who understood that ordinary people willing to stand up for what's right can spark real change.
That's all we have time for. And don't forget, you can find all of 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.
