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Isa Soares Tonight
Thousands Hold Friday Prayers For The First Time In Syria Since The Fall Of The Assad Regime; Antony Blinken Holds Talks With Arab Leaders In A Final Push For Stability Across The Region; Nancy Pelosi Hospitalized During A Congressional Visit To Luxembourg; IDF Preparing To Stay On Mount Hermon For Winter; DeepMind Chief Operating Officer Discusses Future Of A.I.; Author Taffy Brodesser-Akner On Her Latest Novel. Aired 2-3p ET
Aired December 13, 2024 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[14:00:00]
ISA SOARES, CNN INTERNATIONAL HOST: A very warm welcome to the show, everyone, I'm Isa Soares. Tonight, scenes of jubilation in Syria. Thousands
hold Friday prayers for the first time since the fall of the Assad regime. We're on the ground in Damascus for you. Then, high-paced and high stakes
diplomacy.
Antony Blinken holds talks with Arab leaders in a final push for stability across the region. And questions continue to surround the mysterious drone
spotted over New Jersey. What lawmakers are now demanding. Good evening. Tonight, Syria is entering a new phase of rebuilding as they celebrate the
collapse of their country's brutal dictatorship.
For the first time since the Assad government was overthrown, thousands you can see there, gathered across the country for Friday prayers. There is
much work to be done during this political transition, and rebel leader Mohammed al-Jolani is urging people to use caution by celebrating without
firing shots.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ABU MOHAMMAD AL-JOLANI, SYRIAN GENERAL COMMANDER (through translator): I would like to congratulate the great Syrian people on the victory of the
blessed revolution. I call upon them to take to the squares and express their joy over this achievement, but without firing bullets or causing fear
among the people. Afterwards, let us turn our efforts towards rebuilding this country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SOARES: Well, Jolani's message comes after a tragic moment in the northern city of Raqqa, when accidental gunfire caused deadly chaos. Witnesses tell
CNN, a man lost control of his machine gun and mistakenly opened fire on bystanders, killing at least one person. Our Clarissa Ward is in the Syrian
capital and filed this report from the celebrations a short time ago.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (on camera): People are flooding in to the central Umayyad Square from around Damascus. They're
flooding into squares across the entire country. This is the first Friday since Bashar al-Assad left the country.
And you can see, understandably, so many people here are celebrating what they see as the greatest victory of a life-time after 53 years of
totalitarian rule under Bashar al-Assad, after hundreds of thousands of dead and disappeared into Syrian prisons, finally, Syria, for these people
is free.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I say freedom!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Freedom!
WARD: This is what you hear over and over -- (SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE) Syria is free and the crowds are getting bigger and bigger here as people
really just absorbed the magnitude of this moment.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So, thank God, we're so grateful that we finally can speak freely. We can criticize, we can help -- we can feel like this
country is our country, you know.
WARD: What does this moment feel like in that?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's like a dream. It's like a dream at the end, I felt like I'm going to lose the hope that he's going to leave. And now, we
got back the hope. Honestly, it's like a dream came true.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now, it's a great feeling. We are in Umayyad Square. We are in the middle of Damascus, saving freedom, saving -- we are still --
want the same demands of democracy, of participation, of justice.
WARD: And everyone understands that there are a lot of question marks still about what comes next and what the new Syria will look like. And yet, you
see people from every --
(CROWD CHANTING)
WARD: There's still a lot of chants (INAUDIBLE) the uprising in 2011, people would risk their lives to take to the streets, engage in these kind
of chants. This is the flag of the Syrian revolution. And most of these people, they never imagined that they would be able to chant these chants
and wave that flag right here in Umayyad Square.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[14:05:00]
SOARES: Incredible moments there of celebration in Damascus with our Clarissa Ward. Of course, our thanks to Clarissa. And while Syrians are
celebrating right across the country and the international community is looking to limit really the regional fallout from the collapse of the Assad
government, and this map that we're showing you here just shows where top U.S. officials have been meeting with leaders right across the Middle East.
Just -- that's in the past few days, to give you a sense of the timing. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made an announced trip to Iraq, in
fact, today, before then traveling to Jordan over there. Blinken has said Syrians must choose their own path forward. Here he was speaking in Turkey
early.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANTONY BLINKEN, SECRETARY OF STATE, UNITED STATES: We're very focused on Syria, very focused on the opportunity that now is before us and before the
Syrian people to move from out from under, the shackles of Bashar al-Assad to a different and better future for the Syrian people, one that the Syrian
people decide for themselves.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SOARES: Let's get more from our Alex Marquardt. And Alex, as we just showed the viewers there in that map, Secretary Blinken has been to Turkey, Jordan
and announced a trip to Iraq, a tour, it seems devoted to the suddenly- changed Syria, right demanding stability, asking for stability. Just explain what he's trying to accomplish here?
ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Isa, as soon as Bashar al-Assad fell, the White House made it clear that they would be
sending U.S. diplomats out across the region to engage with regional counterparts as the conversations continue with different groups within
Syria.
So, the two biggest ones are, as you mentioned, Jake Sullivan, the National Security adviser who was in Israel yesterday and then today in Cairo and in
Doha, and Blinken making those three stops. There are other senior State Department officials, John Bass, Barbara Lee, who have also made stops in
the region.
And right now, in this moment, Isa, of course, you really have two main initiatives by the Biden administration in these waning days that they are
in office. The first is to help jump-start the process to get Syria on the right path to a representative Democratic government. U.S. officials, very
keen to say that this is a story for Syrians to write, that this is not a U.S. effort, but they certainly want to help guide the Syrian people along
with European allies, regional allies.
That's why you're seeing Blinken make these stops in Turkey, Iraq. And he has just arrived in Jordan, and tomorrow in Jordan, there is a ministerial
meeting of foreign ministers from across the region, from European countries as well, to get on the same page, really establish a unified
effort to help the Syrian people in this -- in this transition process.
At the same time, Isa, there is very much a push from the Biden administration to try to get a ceasefire deal across the line before they
leave office before Trump comes into office on January 20th. The Turks, of course, are very important in this process because many of the Hamas
leaders have gone to Turkey after Doha kicked them out.
At the same time, the Qataris and the Egyptians are still playing a big role in this. That's why you're seeing Jake Sullivan in those places as
well as Israel. So, you have these two very significant priorities here at the end of the year, at the end of the Biden administration. Isa?
SOARES: Let's focus and return to that first priority in Syria we're talking about. American diplomacy, Alex, very much engaged, like you just
highlighted there, and this huge moment of change in transition in Syria. But you know, you know the region well. So, just lay out -- lay this out
for our viewers. Not all of America's allies are united.
They have different agendas, different ideologies, and that's not even considering domestically the challenges inside Syria with the different
groups. So, speak to the challenges here as alongside America's allies.
MARQUARDT: Yes, and let's go country-by-country, if you will. I mean, Turkey --
SOARES: Yes --
MARQUARDT: Of course, perched on Syria's northern border. Turkey has a huge role because they back so many different groups inside of Syria because
they have this rivalry with the Kurds in northeastern Syria. And as we see these scenes of jubilation in Damascus and other Syrian cities, we do
continue to see fighting in the northern part of the country, particularly between the U.S.-backed Kurdish forces, the SDF and some of the Syrian
factions that are backed by the Turks.
So, that was a big part of the conversation between Antony Blinken and his Turkish counterpart to make sure that as this transition process goes as
peacefully as possible, that they -- that they undertake efforts, the Turks and the Americans, to make sure that, that fighting does not continue, does
not spiral out of control, because, of course, there is that very significant rivalry between the Turks and the Kurds.
And then, Isa, when it comes to Iraq, there were two goals there. One, to make sure that there is no ISIS resurgence both in Iraq and Syria, but also
the U.S. wants to enlist Iraqi help to block weapons from going Iran -- across Iraq into Syria to Shiite groups there.
[14:10:00]
So, you're absolutely right. There are a number of different priorities, that's why you're seeing all these different stops across the region by
these U.S. officials.
SOARES: And we really appreciate you putting all the pieces together for us, Alex, as always, thanks very much Alex Marquardt. And beyond the
celebrations that Clarissa was just showing you, thousands of Syrians are also grieving. Across the country, there is lingering trauma of death as
well as torture experienced by Syrians who were deemed enemies of the Assad regime.
Our Salma Abdelaziz reports on the story of one notable activist victimized by the regime's brutality and his faithful decision to return home. Have a
look at this.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE) --
SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is activist Mazen al- Hamada recounting all the ways in which he was tortured inside a regime prison. "They broke my ribs", he says. "He would jump up and come down on
me. I could feel my ribs snapping." He is then asked in this documentary how he feels about his tormentors.
"I will not rest until I take them to court and get justice", he says. This image, tears flowing from his haunted eyes made al-Hamada the face of
Syria's torture victims. An inspired drawings by U.S.-based artists and friend Mark Nelson(ph).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That just bore into my soul, his face, his expression.
ABDELAZIZ: When an uprising against the Assad dynasty erupted in 2011, al- Hamada was among the first to join demonstrations. It made him a target of the regime. In 2012, he was detained by security forces after smuggling
baby formula into a besieged suburb of Damascus. For nearly two years, he endured medieval torture techniques, rape, beatings and psychological
abuse.
After his release, he fled to Europe and vowed to tell the world his story. He spoke to journalists, met White House officials, appealed to U.S.
lawmakers, but nothing changed. Mazen felt defeated and home-sick. His friend and a fellow prison survivor told us.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When he got out and lived in this world, he's seeing that the world doesn't care, and that's the only hope he had to live for,
that the world would care enough to go and save the cellmates that he left behind.
ABDELAZIZ: He flew back to Damascus in February of 2020 and was almost immediately forcibly disappeared. Again, Nelson(ph) began to draw.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the only way I think I can think of as an art person, to keep his memory as every week, every other day, every month,
draw him.
ABDELAZIZ: His fate unknown until rebels took control of Damascus and burst open Syria's prisons. Images of al-Hamada's body surfaced online, too
gruesome for us to show. He was killed inside the notorious Saydnaya Prison and his body dumped at a nearby hospital, his family says. Just one week
before his dream of a free Syria was realized. But his testimony against tyranny is everlasting.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: His story will all be -- always be used as an evidence and a testimony against this regime that need to be prosecuted.
ABDELAZIZ: One of the first to stand up to Assad was one of the last of his victims. Now, Syria's new rulers say justice for him and countless others
is their mission. Salma Abdelaziz, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SOARES: Well, Israel's Defense Minister is ordering his military to prepare to stay for Winter on territory it recently captured from Syria. Israeli
troops occupied Mount Hermon on the edge of the Golan Heights last week after dictator Bashar al-Assad fled the country. The Israeli government
describes the move as temporary.
Israel seized most of the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 war. The territory is considered occupied Syrian land under international law. And
one of the last remaining medical facilities functioning in northern Gaza has once again come under heavy Israeli bombardment. The director of Kamal
Adwan Hospital described the overnight barrage as catastrophic, and said the scale and ferocity blew off doors as well as windows.
The Israeli military says Hamas uses hospitals for its military operations. Palestinian officials meanwhile say nearly 45,000 people have been killed
in Gaza since the October the 7th attack on Israel, most of them women and children. Still to come on the show tonight, lawmakers demand answers about
weeks of unexplained drone sightings in New Jersey.
People in the New York area also reporting sightings -- now, we will bring you the very latest. Plus, Georgia is bracing for even more political
unrest ahead as the ruling party prepares to name a far-right loyalist as its next President. We'll bring you both those stories after this short
break. You are watching CNN.
[14:15:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SOARES: Ukraine is once again dealing with widespread power outages after a massive series of Russian strikes on its energy infrastructure that
targeted multiple regions. Many people are taking shelter in places like metro stations amid a warning from Ukraine's Air Force that Russia could
potentially target parts of the country with ballistic and cruise missiles, where Ukrainians are desperate, of course, for peace.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NATALIA POLKOZAK, KYIV RESIDENT (through translator): This issue has to be resolved somehow. The war is going on for the third year, and it has
dragged on for so long that we can't stand it. This has to be resolved on the highest level so people won't suffer and can go back to their normal
lives, so that the war will be over and we'll have peace.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SOARES: There's been 11 waves of Russian attacks on Ukraine's energy system just this year alone. Now to Europe, French President Emmanuel Macron has
picked a new Prime Minister, centrist Francois Bayrou is replacing Michel Barnier. The 73-year-old Bayrou is the founder of the Democratic Movement
Political Party.
And his appointment comes after Barnier lost a no-confidence vote, if you remember, was forced to submit his resignation. Bayrou spoke about the
importance of his appointment for the future of France.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FRANCOIS BAYROU, INCOMING FRENCH PRIME MINISTER (through translator): I think everyone understands the difficulty of the task. I think everyone is
also thinking that there is a path to be found, which will unify people instead of dividing them. And this is good timing because today is the
birthday of Henry IV, who I wrote about a lot, and I wrote a lot because I think that reconciliation is needed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SOARES: So, will Bayrou be a unifier? Our Melissa Bell has more for you from Paris.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MELISSA BELL, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (on camera): A centrist French politician, he now becomes the fourth Prime Minister this year to
take over at a particularly difficult time. But he is considered a politician who can federate as many of those disparate French political
forces as possible. It's unclear whether it will actually work in the long term, and his government can hold longer than Michel Barnier's did, which
had a historic low -- a historic record rather, for brevity, which was just three months long.
Whether Francois Bayrou can stay longer, much depends, of course, now on what happens in parliament.
[14:20:00]
He's going to have to name a new government that the three very different blocs in parliament can agree upon, or at least that none can vote down.
But he is considered a centrist. He's well respected in French politics. He's been further to the right at times under certain Presidents, closer to
the left at others, forming his own middle party, the MoDem many years ago.
And so, he is considered both to have the stature and the center position that might allow, if anyone can do it, Prime Minister, to take time, to
take control at this very divided time in French politics.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SOARES: That was Melissa Bell reporting there. Now, Georgia remains in the grips of a deepening political crisis weeks after violent protests erupted
there. Protesters were once again out in the streets of the capital, Tbilisi, on Friday. Critics are angry over the government's decision to
delay Georgia's bid to join the EU, one they believe is influenced by Russia, also fueling the anger.
The nomination of a far-right loyalist to become the next President with a deeper look at the country's political divide. Here's our Sebastian Shukla.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SEBASTIAN SHUKLA, CNN REPORTER (voice-over): Three weeks ago, on the streets of Tbilisi, protesters clashing with the authorities, furious at
what they perceive as their stolen future. These chaotic scenes have now calmed, but the number of protesters and their demands shows no sign of
decline.
GIORGI CHAGELISHVLLI, GEORGIAN PROTESTER (through translator): We must not give up. We should remain here until this illegitimate government makes the
only right decision, holding fresh elections.
SHUKLA: The call center around the governing party Georgian Dream backtracking on a constitutional commitment to join the European Union, and
fears they are pulling Georgia back into Russia's sphere of influence.
MARIAM TSKITISHVILI, GEORGIAN PROTESTER: My country deserves to be free from the Russian regime that has haunted us for many centuries, and I
believe that we need to get into Europe. It's truly what we've wanted for many centuries.
SHUKLA: The government denies those accusations, but the crackdown and messaging does look Kremlin-esque.
IRAKLI KOBAKHIDZE, PRIME MINISTER, GEORGIA (through translator): In recent days, the Ministry of Internal Affairs has successfully averted the Maidan
attempt in our country within just five days.
SHUKLA: A reference to Ukrainian independence protests in 2014, which Kremlin propaganda cast as western orchestrated. The government is poised
to elect a new president. Their nominee is Mikhail Kavelashvili(ph); a former Premier League footballer, he's staunchly anti-western and well
known for being a firebrand.
He initiated a controversial foreign agents law passed earlier this year with echoes of a similarly repressive Russian bill, and sent Georgians
spilling into the streets. With opposition parties boycotting parliament, the next flashpoint could be around the transition at the end of the month.
Current President Salome Zourabichvili has vowed to remain in her post regardless of the outcome.
SALOME ZOURABICHVILI, PRESIDENT, GEORGIA (through translator): An illegitimate parliament cannot elect a new president. Thus, no inauguration
can take place and my mandate continues until a legitimately-elected parliament is formed.
SHUKLA: A stance that has support on the streets.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): We must thank Zourabichvili for standing by us in this process. It is clear that these elections will be
followed by protests, which will continue and will bring even more people than we see in the streets today.
SHUKLA: Sebastian Shukla, CNN, Berlin.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SOARES: And we'll stay, of course, across the story as we have been doing for weeks now. Now, the governor of New Jersey is now escalating concerns
over a mysterious drone spotted over parts of his state. He's now formally requesting additional resources from the Biden administration.
Federal agencies are facing huge pressure to reveal what they know about the sightings that even people in the New York area are now reporting.
Unexplained sightings have been reported near homes, the military research facility and even President-elect Donald Trump's golf club in New Jersey.
Our Polo Sandoval has the very latest for you.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): DHS and the FBI saying that thus far they have not been able to corroborate any drone sightings with
electronic detention -- detection, I should say. So, we did some digging into what that actually looks like and how that can actually happen.
I had an opportunity to speak to a representative of D-Drone(ph), which is a private airspace security company that basically helps their clients
prevent and detect any unauthorized drone flights. That representative telling me that there are at least four ways that you can actually detect
some of these flights.
The first, using radio frequency, you can actually pick up some of that chatter, some of that -- some of the signals that are sent to dispatch
between the drone and the remote control on the ground. There's certainly cameras.
[14:25:00]
A simple surveillance camera often does the trick, though, with more advanced cases, more advanced technology is needed. Radar, we all know how
that works. And then finally, acoustics. You can quite literally use equipment to listen for some of these drones. So, that representative told
me that, that is becoming less reliable since drone technology has evolved.
And often times, these drones are much quieter. But overall, these are the kinds of resources that authorities on the ground in New Jersey, at the
state and local level, are asking the federal government to provide. In fact, on Friday, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy sending a letter to
President Biden.
And in it, not only does he express growing concern about these drone sightings, but also is asking for more federal resources to be sent to New
Jersey to help them try to get to the bottom of this. The governor also adding that the residents in his state deserve more information. That it's
not enough to simply be told that this is not a matter of any sort of public security or public safety.
They want to find out what's behind these drone sightings. And finally, the governor is saying -- expressing concern about conspiracy theories that we
have seen and heard for the last several days. It was just a few days ago that there was an official that was publicly speaking out about this,
saying that it was his theory that it was likely an Iranian mother ship off the east coast that was sending these drones in. Of course, the Pentagon
quickly denying that claim. Back to you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SOARES: Thanks very much. Now, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is in the hospital because of an injury during an official visit to Luxembourg.
According to her office, the California congresswoman is receiving treatment and will not attend the rest of her official engagements. Three
sources have in the last few minutes told CNN that she went to the hospital as a result of a fall on the stairs.
Pelosi is in Luxembourg to mark the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge. Still to come tonight, Israel prepares to stay on Mount Hermon,
which overlooks the Syrian capital. I'll discuss Israel's possible intentions with "Haaretz" journalist Amir Tibon, that's coming up next. And
building a new future for the world of technology.
We'll hear from the first CEO of the A.I. company Google Deepmind in -- after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:30:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SOARES: Welcome back, everyone. And this just into CNN. New satellite images from Maxar show Russia may be preparing aircraft to leave at Syria's
-- military bases in Syria. The images show at least two transport aircraft, as you can see there, a helicopter and a missile system being
packed up in an airbase in Latakia. Russia also has a naval base in Tartus but images from that base showed the situation largely unchanged.
The Kremlin was major backer as you all know of the Assad family for decades. Russia says it's in contact with a new leadership in Damascus, but
at least one analyst says this looks like a withdrawal. We'll stay across that story, of course, for you.
Now, the fall of Bashar Assad's brutal regime carries weight not only in Syria but also across a wider region. Israel's defense minister has told
his country's military to prepare to remain in control of Mount Hermon. That's right here on Syrian territory Israel seized this week, just this
week, earlier this week. And it comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the military to take control, his words, of the buffer
zone that separates the Israeli, occupied area of the Golan Heights from the rest of Syria. So, you're looking at this chunk here of land.
For context, Israel captured the Golan Heights during -- from Syria during the 1967 war. And that territory is considered occupied Syrian land under
international law. All this against the backdrop of Israeli strikes on stockpiles of weapons as well as naval facilities in Syria amid rising
concerns about its security.
We're join now by Israeli journalist Amir Tibon in Haifa, Israel. He's a diplomatic correspondent for Haaretz and author of the book The Gates of
Gaza: A Story of Betrayal, Survival, and Hope in Israel's Borderlands. And it was written after surviving the horrors of the October the 7th Hamas
attacks on his home.
Amir, great to have you on the show. What we've just laid out very briefly for our viewers there gives a sense of what Israel's moves have been in
what relates to Syria in the last week or so. Just explain from your perspective and what -- from what you're hearing what Israel's intentions
are, what its goals are here.
AMIR TIBON, ISRAELI JOURNALIST: So, what we are seeing right now is an attempt by the Israeli military not to allow Syria under any kind of future
government -- and we don't know yet what will emerge out of the dramatic events there -- but not to allow Syria to become a threat to Israel under
any new constellation.
And that you can see through the two main actions you described. First of all, Israel seizing some land, and according to the official line we are
hearing from the government from the military, this is a temporary step, not some kind of an attempt to create a long-term reality. We'll see about
that. It's complicated. Sometimes in the Middle East, the temporary becomes the permanent.
SOARES: Yes.
TIBON: But that's at least the stated intention, basically to take these areas, you know, the former buffer zone, the militarized zone, and the area
of Mount Hermon, in order to create some kind of a security, you know, mechanism that would push further away any potential hostile forces from
Israeli communities on the Golan Heights.
And the second step is again taking away all of these capabilities including the chemical weapons and air force that could under the hands
perhaps of Jihadi extremist elements become very dangerous to Israel and also to others in the region. That's the big picture these two steps.
SOARES: And Prime Minister Netanyahu on your point that you know temporary times become -- or sometimes can become uh permanent. Netanyahu said this
early in December, and I'm going to quote it, this is temporary defensive position until a suitable arrangement is found. And he was talking about
the buffer zone that separates of course, the Israeli occupied Goen Heights, from the rest of Syria.
I mean, do you believe that this is only temporary? What are the risks here, Amir, of this becoming permanent?
TIBON: Well, that's the billion-dollar question if you will that is impossible to answer. I do believe that under certain circumstances if
there is diplomatic movement towards some kind of an agreement between Israel and a future government in Syria that is not hostile to Israel, you
could see an Israeli withdrawal from these territories that Israel just took over.
[14:35:23]
We're not talking here about the Golan Heights themselves that Israel officially annexed in the 1980s, and then the United States under President
Trump recognized as part of Israel, and this was never reversed by the Biden Administration. That's a done deal.
But regarding the buffer zone and the higher peak of the Hermon Mountain that Israel just now had taken, I could see in the future a movement in
that direction of Israel saying OK, we have some kind of an arrangement with a new government, but it could take a lot of time.
And I do want to point out that while Netanyahu said in English that this is a temporary arrangement, he did not repeat those words in Hebrew when he
published a statement to the Israeli public and especially to his base of supporters. So, I guess it's a question of which Netanyahu do you believe,
the English speaking or Hebrew speaking version of him.
SOARES: Very interesting context. Very important that you added that that wasn't included in the Hebrew. And what we have seen since, Amir, is there
some European voices and we had some -- the German foreign minister this week really are voicing their concerns -- the Germans, the French, I think
the Spanish too, about this about -- Germany in particular saying that Israel should not be jeopardizing the formation of a new Syrian government.
Are those concerns to be listened to? Is this being discussed across in your newspaper paper across Israeli TV?
TIBON: I think what we're seeing from Israel's allies here is a nuance and a mixed response. Nobody is sad or contesting the need for Israel to take
out the chemical weapons. I think actually this is something most world countries would bless Israel for doing because nobody wants any of these
chemical weapons to fall into the wrong hands now.
I think there's also a level of understanding towards some of the other military moves Israel has taken including by the way sending military
forces to the Hermon, but there is a concern about two aspects. One aspect that we're hearing from some of these European governments again is the
question of is this temporary step based only on security considerations or some kind of a new permanent arrangement that would sour the relationship
with whoever takes over in Syria. And the second concern again has to do with the fact that there's a lot of terror right now.
SOARES: Yes.
TIBON: There is uncertainty. And could this feed into the hands of the more extreme forces involved in the Syrian revolution. Those are the two main
concerns that I'm hearing. And again, it's complicated because at the same time there is a level of understanding that some of these moves really do
serve security purposes and not just for Israel itself.
SOARES: Amir, as always, great to have your insight and analysis. Thank you, Amir. Amir Tibon there.
TIBON: Thank you for having me.
SOARES: Now an update to news we have been following for you. We've learned from Syria's take -- caretaker government I should say, that they have
handed over an American man found in in Syria to the American side. Those are the words were given to us. 29-year-old Travis Timmerman said he was
imprisoned by Bashar al-Assad's regime for months after entering the country without permission. That just coming in to us as being handed over
to the American side. We'll stay across this story you but some good news.
Still to come tonight, our book club. You've been waiting for it. It's back. Stick around for my conversation with Taffy Brodesser-Akner on her
new novel, Long Island Compromise. That is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:41:23]
SOARES: Well, this week we've been spotlighting pioneers of business, sports, and tech as part of CNN's new series "VISIONARIES." Today, our Anna
Stewart is introducing us someone at the forefront of our future in technology, Lila Ibrahim the first COO of an A.I. company Google DeepMind.
And here's part of their conversation.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LILA IBRAHIM, FIRST COO, GOOGLE DEEPMIND: One thing I have really learned is I'm not very good at predicting the future but I'm very good at building
it.
ANNA STEWART, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It seems fair to say becoming COO of a prominent A.I. company is not a life Lila Ibrahim had ever
pictured for herself.
IBRAHIM: Growing up as a child of immigrants in the midwestern part of the United States and with English as my second language, I was like the
darkhaired kid in my school growing up.
STEWART: You always felt like an outsider.
IBRAHIM: I always felt like an outsider.
STEWART (voice-over): From the American Midwest to rural Japan as an exchange student, and then back to the U.S. to study electrical engineering
at a university where she felt like an outsider once again.
IBRAHIM: There weren't that many women by the time I was in my early 20s, I was so used to just be -- had to get comfortable with bringing a different
perspective into everything.
STEWART: You have an engineering background. I wonder how that experience, that knowledge influences how you make decisions in the corporate world.
IBRAHIM: I became a engineer because I thought it was a combination of math, art, and science. And along the way, I actually really enjoy working
with people. And what I've enjoyed about my engineering career is the ability to bring all of that together. And being an engineer has taught me
to ask the question of why and what are we trying to achieve so that if you can really understand a problem, you can figure out what the right solution
is rather than just throw a bunch of solutions at an undefined problem.
STEWART (voice-over): Lila would build her career from computer processing company Intel, to a venture capitalist firm, and then as the first
president and COO for online learning platform Coursera, before hearing of an opportunity unlike any other.
STEWART: Google DeepMind came calling in 2018 four years after Google's acquisition. Do you remember what you thought when this first passed your
desk?
IBRAHIM: When you have a chance to work on such a transformative technology as A.I. and in a role as I'm in which is the first COO, first chief
operating officer, of Google DeepMind, how do you say no? So, I actually engaged in the conversations but very slowly and intentional. I wanted to
understand what were the founder's vision for what A.I. could make possible and what were the risks.
And you know, I'd go home and I'd think -- I'd tuck my daughters in at night saying what kind of legacy will I leave in the world? Can I bring my
30 years of Technology experience and social impact into this moment in A.I. And at the end of the day, after 50 hours of interviewing, I felt that
there was no better place to build A.I. responsibly than DeepMind.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SOARES: And you can see more from Anna's interview with Lila Ibrahim on "VISIONARIES." It premieres this weekend right here on CNN.
And still to come tonight --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TAFFY BRODESSER-AKNER, AUTHOR, LONG ISLAND COMPROMISE: I have always thought that no matter how much money you get, if you grew up worried about
your survival, there's no amount of money that makes it so that you feel safe.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SOARES: Author Taffy Brodesser-Akner gets candid about a subject that most of us are scared, and that's money. That's in my book club, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:47:16]
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SOARES: Joining us today on the book club is Taffy Brodesser-Akner with this fascinating book Long Island Compromise. Thank you very much for
joining us, Taffy.
BRODESSER-AKNER: Thank you so much for having me.
SOARES: Welcome to the book club.
BRODESSER-AKNER: Pleasure to be here.
SOARES: Let's talk about this fantastic book. It is riveting it is also anxiety-inducing. I don't know if you heard that.
BRODESSER-AKNER: I've heard that. I have heard it is an anxious read.
SOARES: But it's fantastic.
BRODESSER-AKNER: Thank you.
SOARES: It's a fantastic read as you would all know from your previous -- your debut novel only expect this sort of quality of writing. For readers
and listeners who may not know what the book's about ,just give us a little synopsis.
BRODESSER-AKNER: In 1980, a man is kidnapped on Long Island out of his driveway. He's returned a week later. He is wealthy. The money that put him
in danger in the first place saved him via ransom. And we pick up 40 years later to find that as -- that though the family felt lucky and they felt
they could move on, the children are really dealing with the consequences of the inherited trauma in addition to their inherited wealth.
SOARES: What was so important to you in terms of focusing on the wealth? Does it hinder you? Does it help you? Because we see different examples of
that.
BRODESSER-AKNER: You know, like you, I'm a journalist and I grew up without a lot of money. And then I went into a career that also didn't make a lot
of money. And I think a question I have especially since I spend so much time with people with money is would I have been better off -- would I have
been happier if I had grown up with money and had less of a survival skill than I -- than I've had to earn through making my own path in the world?
And I constantly want to know that does money doom you or does it save you? Is it better to be someone who has those survival skills or is it better to
be somebody who never had to think about their survival? Those are the essential questions to me.
SOARES: And growing up -- and you've been very honest about this talking very upfront about wealth. Was this an anxiety that you felt growing up? I
mean, how do you -- is some of that trauma reflected you think?
BRODESSER-AKNER: I think all of it is reflected .This -- the -- I have always thought that no matter how much money you get, if you grew up
worried about your survival, there's no amount of money that makes it so that you feel safe. Whereas, if you grow up with a certain amount of money,
there's no amount of precarity that actually makes you feel endangered. And that to me -- that to me is the rub, right?
[14:50:01]
SOARES: Yes. And this is a theme. So, wealth is critical. But there's another aspect of this that, you know, my team and I kept in our
discussion, our own private book club having our discussion about, and that is the aspect of trauma coming back to that. How much of kind of the trauma
that we see is the family? How much of it is the fact that they just didn't talk about their problems? They kept pulling things under the rug, right?
How much of that is the lack of conversation of opening up compared to wealth? How would you -- how would you see that?
BRODESSER-AKNER: I think that they did the best that they could. On the day that Carl Fletcher, the man who was kidnapped, was returned home, his
mother -- and this is in 1980 -- his mother said to him, keep it together. This didn't happen to you. It happened to your body. And that is the ethos
he tries to keep in his head.
Of course, that doesn't work because what's the difference between you and your body? But in 1980, we barely had a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress
disorder. We had people coming back from Vietnam who felt insane and didn't really understand why. Now, we have all of these different ways of dealing
with trauma. And we have a generation of people who use the word trauma freely. But back then it was something that was -- that was shameful, it
was terrifying people, didn't take medication. There were no medications.
And what happens is he is just trying to move on. So, they don't talk about it. They treat him like a bomb that could go off at any point. And his
children go out in the world and what the book is, is the story of his three children, the oldest one, a land use lawyer who is so terrified of
everything that could go wrong that he keep -- that he thinks he sees kidnappers in his rear view mirror.
The second son is a screenwriter with a bright future behind him whose only successful weekly activity is reenacting his father's kidnapping in various
hotel rooms with people he has hired for the occasion. And then the third child who is so disgusted by the money and so sure that the trauma her
family endured and their money has stunted her so much that she just gives away her money and works at a university in their union and actually comes
to define the family ethos instead of running away from it. So, it's about how do you figure out how to survive the circumstances you were -- you were
brought into.
SOARES: And there's another trauma that we see throughout this book and it's kind of intergenerational and that is the Holocaust.
BRODESSER-AKNER: The Holocaust sitting there at the end of every Jewish story.
SOARES: Yes. Just explain to us -- I mean, you're a Jewish-American author.
BRODESSER-AKNER: Yes.
SOARES: So, explain whether it's -- you're still hearing, you're still seeing these stories and this trauma in the United States among friends,
how you perceive it.
BRODESSER-AKNER: I was very well educated about the Holocaust.
SOARES: Yes.
BRODESSER-AKNER: But even those who weren't, everybody I know was the recent descendant of somebody who either survived the Holocaust, who have
survived the Holocaust, who avoided the -- there was no -- there was no neutral experience of the Holocaust for a Jew. I think that we're seeing
all over the place that we are examining in so many different ways the ways that trauma ripples throughout generations no matter how hard we try.
SOARES: And I wonder -- of course, you were a journalist in New York Time - - New York Times.
BRODESSER-AKNER: I'm still a journalist for the New York Times, yes.
SOARES: And I wonder whether you saw some of those complexities from that - - from your profiling of some -- of these big names. How much did you take away -- how much did you take away that journalism, that the job that you
did and just observing the interviewee and employ that when -- with your storytelling because your characters are incredibly detailed and they just
come alive.
BRODESSER-AKNER: What I learned through journalism was that the reader has a tremendous capacity for contradiction, for someone who makes no sense,
for someone who is absurd in a way that I did not believe. I was taught that a character had to remain consistent throughout. And then I would
write about these real people, and they were not consistent throughout. They were -- they were vain but they were altruistic. They were greedy but
they were generous.
And when you publish that into the world, especially at a place like the New York Times or GQ where I did it before, and so many people read it, and
they appreciate those things and they can tolerate it, you realize that actually what you were doing was underestimating the reader before. The
reader is capable and appreciates the wide variety of the truth.
[14:55:02]
SOARES: Taffy, really a pleasure.
BRODESSER-AKNER: Such a pleasure.
SOARES: I'm going to ask you do you the honor of signing our book.
BRODESSER-AKNER: My pleasure. Thank you so much.
SOARES: Fantastic. I'll pass you the book. There you go. I'll give you the pen.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SOARES: And all thanks to Taffy. It's an excellent read. If you haven't read it, go and get one or gift it to one of the family. Now, make sure you
join us again next week for another edition of our book club. We'll have my conversation with author and illustrator Oliver Jeffers. Here's a taste of
what's to come.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OLIVER JEFFERS, AUTHOR: You just have to start putting pen or pencil to paper and see what happens. And no one single project or story that I ever
made has turned out exactly the way that I thought it would when I first had that feeling. All you can do is try to stay true to the intention of
that feeling and then react to what you see.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SOARES: You want to -- you want to hear that full interview coming next week. And in the meantime, let's check in with what one of our
correspondents, Larry Madowo, to see what he's been reading.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LARRY MADOWO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Issa's Book Club! I'm a few years late but I just started reading the debut novel by the Nigerian author Jowhor
Ile. It's called And After Many Days. I love the title. I spent a lot of time in Nigeria and so I'm always fascinated by how different authors
tackle society loss, pain, and this and all that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SOARES: And that does it for us. Do stay right here. "NEWSROOM" with Jim Sciutto is up next. Have a wonderful weekend.
END
