From September 14, 2023, Walter Isaacson discusses his new biography that reveals the complicated and controversial life of Elon Musk. The “Free Future 2023” forum is currently taking place in New York, and joining the program are two of the speakers: Tarana Burke and Mariam Mangera. Susan Glasser discusses her latest article in the New Yorker, “The Twilight of Mitch McConnell and the Spectre of 2024.”
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00:00Hello, everyone, and welcome to Our Foreign Company. Here's what's coming up.
00:09And so I thought, OK, he's pushing things forward. But I also got to see that that can
00:14be kind of dark at times.
00:16Biographer Walter Isaacson on the controversial Elon Musk. Our conversation about his spiraling
00:22influence as a billionaire entrepreneur. Then...
00:26One in every three women around the world experience physical or sexual violence during
00:30her lifetime.
00:31The never-ending scourge of gender-based violence and ways to tackle it. Plus...
00:36Bottom line is Joe Biden is already the oldest president ever to be an American president.
00:42Of course, second oldest was Donald Trump.
00:44The New Yorker Susan Glasser on what she calls the dangerous reign of the octogenarians.
00:50Does age really affect the ability to lead?
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01:54Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in New York.
01:58Elon Musk needs no introduction.
02:01The world's richest person, he's a divisive figure, a villain to some and a genius to
02:05others.
02:06He's at the forefront of the electric car movement, space, travel, social media and
02:12now artificial intelligence.
02:14Along with other tech heavyweights, the Tesla boss joined a meeting with congressional leaders
02:19in Washington on Wednesday to discuss the risks and the opportunities of AI.
02:25Here's Musk leaving the meeting.
02:26I think something good will come of this. I think this meeting may go down in history
02:30as being very important for the future of civilization.
02:33The reason that I've been such an advocate for AI safety in advance of sort of anything
02:38terrible happening is that I think the consequences of AI going wrong are severe.
02:45So we have to be proactive rather than reactive.
02:47Like many powerful billionaires, Musk also finds himself willing and able to affect policy,
02:53even war.
02:54Our colleague, Walter Isaacson, spent two years shadowing him.
02:58And the result is a 670 page biography that is certainly making waves, as we discussed
03:04here in New York.
03:06Walter Isaacson, welcome to our program.
03:10So here you are authoring yet another genius biography.
03:13What is it about Elon Musk that really piqued your imagination for this?
03:18Well, when I first started, he was the only person able to get American astronauts into
03:22orbit ever since the space shuttle had been decommissioned.
03:26And he was doing more than anybody to bring us into the era of electric vehicles, to create
03:30batteries, to create solar roofs.
03:33So I thought he was doing these epic missions.
03:35Of course, in the middle, after a year or so of reporting, he decides to quietly start
03:40buying Twitter.
03:41So it became much more of a roller coaster ride.
03:43It also revealed both the drives that come in his head, but the demons that are sometimes
03:50dark and sometimes he can channel into drives.
03:53What did you go in thinking about him and what did you emerge?
03:57I thought at first that he was a technologist who had a really good feel for manufacturing,
04:04how to make factories.
04:05I thought that he was a risk taker.
04:07And man, in this country, in fact, in all of the West, we used to be more of a risk
04:11takers.
04:12You know, everybody who came to the United States came, whether the Mayflower or across
04:16the River Grand, taking some risks.
04:18But now we have more referees than we have risk takers.
04:21You know, we have more lawyers and regulators than we have innovators.
04:25And so I thought, OK, he's pushing things forward.
04:28But I also got to see that that can be kind of dark at times, that it can break things.
04:33It can blow up rockets.
04:35And then, of course, it can really disrupt Twitter.
04:38So it's about it's a story about somebody who's a tightly woven fabric of light and
04:43dark strength.
04:44And I wonder whether it's, you know, you talk about referees, but one of the critics of
04:48critiques of Musk is that he is such a powerful, private, wealthy individual that he can just
04:54walk around the world making policy, you know, replacing NASA, replacing the Internet, having
05:00a real role in an active war, like in, you know, our Internet generation in Ukraine.
05:05I need to ask you, because it's in the news.
05:07How do you explain this discrepancy regarding the Starlink and the activation over the Ukraine
05:14attempt to take the war to Crimea in the early days?
05:18You said one thing in your book that he turned it off, and he says another thing, and you've
05:23had to walk it back.
05:24How does that happen?
05:25Well, I've talked to him about that.
05:26That night, when it was happening in September, he said to me, hey, we've disabled it, we're
05:31not enabling this attack, because it could start World War III.
05:35He was very apocalyptic.
05:36He says, we're not going to let them use Starlink to do this sneak attack there.
05:41And I made the mistake of thinking he meant that night he turned it off.
05:44And later he said, no, it had already been disabled, but the Ukrainians, all the text
05:49messages are in the book, they're pretty amazing, were trying to get him to enable it, because
05:53they did not know he had it disabled.
05:57And so I made a mistake in thinking that the decision to disable it was made that night.
06:02It had been made before then.
06:04It's called geofencing.
06:06But still the main thing was, he got to decide that night, do the Ukrainians get to do this
06:11attack or not do this attack?
06:13So it doesn't affect that, and it doesn't even affect the larger question is, how come
06:18he got to decide?
06:19Why is a private citizen deciding whether or not the Ukrainians can do it?
06:23How is that even possible?
06:24Does that trouble you about somebody like Musk?
06:26Well, I think it even troubled Musk after a while, because he talks to General Mark
06:31Milley of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, talks to Jake Sullivan, the National Security Advisor,
06:35and they work out a deal where SpaceX, Musk's company, will sell some of these satellites
06:43to the U.S. military, and the U.S. military gets to decide.
06:47And that's really the way it should be.
06:49But there's a larger question here, which is, how come when the Russians attack Ukraine,
06:54all of the U.S. military satellites, Viasat, everybody else doing communications, gets
07:00knocked out, and the only person in the world who has a communication system that can work
07:06is Musk?
07:07And it's still the case.
07:08And part of the reason is, we don't build these things as well as we should.
07:13So that's a lesson for American technology and business and science.
07:16And NASA, the defense agencies, they should not have to depend on one company.
07:20Do you know that all communications, big, big communications satellite, even for our
07:25intelligence agencies that have to go into high Earth orbit, they're done by SpaceX?
07:31They launch it.
07:32Because NASA and Boeing have become somewhat sclerotic.
07:36And what about, even this week, as he meets with Kim Jong-un, President Putin praised
07:41Musk, a great American businessman, a great citizen of the world.
07:46Does that bother Musk, that this, you know, act of imperialistic aggression as it's being
07:52described?
07:53You know, he's talking to the aggressors and maybe getting a little bit of context for
07:59his Starlink availability from what the Russians say, this idea of starting World War III.
08:04Is that really a concern right now?
08:08Well, Musk had somewhat of an apocalyptic vision, as he often does, of what can happen.
08:13And he talked to the Russian ambassador.
08:15The thing, though, to remember is, when Russia invades Ukraine, that night, Ukraine has no
08:22way to communicate with its troops.
08:26FIOSAT's out, all the other satellites out.
08:28The only way to communicate would be Starlink.
08:31And Musk rushes hundreds and then thousands of Starlink terminals over there for free,
08:37as a donation.
08:38So, he's supporting the Ukrainians.
08:41But at a certain point, he says to me, how did I get into this war?
08:45You know, I didn't mean for this to be used for offensive purposes.
08:49Here's a comparison that you make between Musk and Jobs, and let me read it.
08:54Like Steve Jobs, he genuinely did not care if he offended or intimidated the people he
08:59worked with, as long as he drove them to accomplish feats they thought were impossible.
09:04It is not your job to make people on your team love you.
09:07He said at a SpaceX executive session years later.
09:10In fact, it's counterproductive.
09:12OK, so I get that.
09:14But the sort of companion question about that is, there was a discriminatory sort of working
09:22conditions at the Tesla factory, right, in Fremont.
09:25It went to court.
09:28If Elon says he knew so much about all the working conditions, wherever his factory floors
09:33were, how did he not know about the alleged racist language, behavior towards minorities?
09:40Is it fair to say his focus was only on that quote, like production, production, production,
09:45and not on the people and the quality of the working environment?
09:49Absolutely.
09:50I mean, Musk focuses so much on production, getting things done fast, and he doesn't focus
09:58on having a nurturing or careful or nice working environment.
10:02That was true at Tesla.
10:04That's why he gets sued.
10:05That was true at Twitter.
10:06When he takes it over, he says, everybody's talking about psychological safety and sweetness.
10:11I'm talking about hardcore, all-in intensity.
10:14So that lack of empathy we talked about, that extends to the fact that, no, I want a really
10:22tough workplace, and he's not all that sensitive, which he should be.
10:27I mean, this is one of the downsides.
10:29Are geniuses in your experience, those who you've written about, do they all have that
10:34bit of DNA?
10:36That's a really great question.
10:37I think not all of them, but it is true that when you look at any of the great disruptors
10:44or innovators, whether they be the ones I've written about, Steve Jobs or Elon Musk, or
10:49people like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, the ones you know, they can be disruptive, which
10:54means sometimes pushing way too hard.
10:57However, I've written about other people.
10:59Jennifer Doudna, who is one of the greatest innovators of our time.
11:03She creates CRISPR, the gene editing technology.
11:06She's nurturing.
11:07She's nice.
11:08She's wonderful.
11:09She's a woman.
11:11Ben Franklin, though.
11:12Nurturing, nice, wonderful, brings people together.
11:15Biographies aren't sort of how-to books that say, here's the way you're supposed to be.
11:20They tell you about a particular person.
11:22Ted Turner, who's the founder, obviously, of CNN, was a phenomenal and is a phenomenal
11:27But also had amazing empathy and do the right thing.
11:30So there are many people who do the right thing.
11:33Precisely.
11:34But you know, you and I both worked for Ted Turner.
11:36There was a craziness to him, too, right?
11:38Well, that's different than abusive.
11:40Right.
11:41Right.
11:42No.
11:43And it's, you know, definitely, he was never abusive.
11:45But there are certain drives and demons that sometimes very successful people have.
11:50And they channel those demons in different ways.
11:53So this gets to the heart of Musk's childhood, his chips on his shoulders, his demons, his
11:59dark.
12:00So Cara Swisher, of course, renowned tech journalist, interviewed you in March about
12:03this.
12:04And she wrote on Twitter, X, whatever that means, the review of the biography.
12:08She says, my mini review of the Musk bio.
12:11Sad and smart son slowly morphs into mentally abusive father he abhors, except with rockets,
12:17cars and more money.
12:18Often right, sometimes wrong, petty jerk always.
12:21He might be crazy in a good way, but also a bad way.
12:24Pile of babies.
12:26Not Steve Jobs.
12:27You're welcome.
12:28Your response?
12:29I love that.
12:30Accurate?
12:31Yeah.
12:32Yeah.
12:33I think almost all those things are accurate.
12:34You know, when I first started this book, Elon Musk's mother, May, says to me, the danger
12:41for Elon is that he becomes his father.
12:43And indeed, he had this psychologically rough father who would make Elon stand in front
12:49of him as he berated him for more than an hour, would go from light to dark moods.
12:53Well, that happens, too, with Elon Musk, and that's sometimes the way he treats people.
12:59You know, he gets stuff done, but that doesn't excuse the behavior sometimes.
13:03And he, you know, there's obviously in your book and elsewhere, he's talked about being
13:06terribly bullied as a kid growing up in South Africa.
13:10Is that separate from his father's bullying and abuse?
13:12Yes and no.
13:13I mean, he gets bullied on the playground at school in such a way that they beat him
13:19in the face so that he has to go to the hospital.
13:21He's almost unrecognizable.
13:23But when he comes home from the hospital, his father makes him stand there.
13:27And his father takes the side of the person who beat him up and berates Elon Musk.
13:31Takes the side of the person who beat him up?
13:33Beat up Elon and said...
13:35His own son?
13:36Yeah.
13:37Over his own son and said, you're stupid.
13:40And you know, this leaves scars that are psychological.
13:43You did tell New York Magazine that he has an epic superhero savior complex.
13:49Ever since he was a kid, he read the comic books and he says, it's weird.
13:52These comic book heroes, they're all trying to save the planet and they're wearing their
13:56underpants on the outside.
13:57They look ridiculous, but they are trying to save the planet.
14:01And he is a child.
14:02He'd sit there in the corner of the bookstore for hours reading these comics.
14:07And he's developed a role, which is if Ukraine gets invaded by Russia, I'm going to send
14:11stuff in.
14:12I'm going to come help.
14:13And there's, you know, a cave in Thailand has kids stuck in.
14:17I'm going to send in a submarine to help.
14:19He likes this notion of helping humanity.
14:23In fact, he has more empathy for humanity in general than he often has for the 20 people
14:28around him.
14:29And even the PILO babies, as Kara Swisher points it, he has a lot of kids.
14:35Does he own them all in terms of, you know, acknowledge them all?
14:39Where does this come from?
14:40Well, he believes...
14:42In fact, 10 or so, right?
14:43Yeah.
14:44With several different women?
14:45Yes.
14:46I will give you the grand thoughts that he has about it, which is, you know, human consciousness,
14:53human civilization is a great thing.
14:56And in order to keep it alive, we all have to have lots of children.
14:59He actually believes that.
15:01Well, that's weird in this world, isn't it?
15:03With the climate crisis, with the existential crisis, with the overpopulation.
15:08Well, I think he would say, no, the declining birth rates are the problem.
15:13So, okay.
15:14So, as we talk, it's very clear that your mandate as a biographer is more of an explainer,
15:22a fly on the wall, you know, the people who you've covered have given you incredible access
15:27and we get an amazing insight because of it.
15:30Pushback has been that you don't make judgments.
15:32You may not push back against them enough, or as others do, you may not do the sort of
15:39deep dive that a Robert Caro has done for years, decades, producing the very deep biographies
15:45of like Lyndon Johnson.
15:48What do you say to that?
15:49Well, I'll plead guilty, which is I'm a storyteller.
15:52I'm there reporting it.
15:54I'm giving you the facts.
15:55I'm giving you a narrative.
15:57I think I'm giving you a pretty rollicking tale, too.
15:59But I think every anecdote in that book is revelatory.
16:04Everything tells you something about how much work, good and for bad.
16:08And I will cop a plea that I try to tell the stories and let the reader come to some of
16:13the deep judgments because I think where I grew up, they used to say there are two types
16:17of people, preachers and storytellers.
16:19I think the world's got a few too many preachers these days and maybe just telling the story
16:25honestly straight, sometimes you'll be appalled by the story.
16:28Sometimes you'll be amazed by it.
16:30But you get to watch that trajectory with me telling you the story as I saw it as objectively
16:35as possible.
16:37So let's talk about Twitter, which you alluded to at the beginning, you know, this massive
16:40global town square that he, you know, then bought and, you know, beset by controversy
16:47and personal dynamic from the beginning.
16:49I mean, for whatever reason, he's changed it to X, I can't even fathom, but do you understand
16:54that?
16:55And coupled with that, the critique is that he has morphed Twitter from a more communal
17:02space to a space where hate speech is unregulated, where the conflicts and the divisions and
17:08the discords and the lack of reigning that in that the previous owners, I guess, tried
17:14and were forced to do is now, you know, just full blown.
17:18How can that be good?
17:19I think 20 years ago, he had an idea, what he called X.com, that becomes PayPal, which
17:25he thought would be bigger.
17:28It would be a financial services app and social media together where people could post content,
17:33make a, you know, money by creating things.
17:36And now he's trying to recreate that with what was Twitter.
17:40And that's why he's changed the name to X.
17:42And in doing so, just as you said, he turned it from being a pleasant place where people
17:49like you and me get anointed with blue check marks and have sweet little conversations
17:54among the media elite, which I kind of love.
17:56Or cancel conversations, yeah.
17:58And he wants it to be more hardcore, just like he wants all of his work environments.
18:03So he wants a broader range of speech there.
18:06And sometimes when you do that, you get some pretty fringe characters.
18:11And what's even worse is when those fringe characters get amplified a bit, when he engages
18:17with them and things.
18:18So it's become a much more contentious place, but it's also a place a lot more people are
18:24using it too.
18:25I mean, it's not just this sweet playground that it was back when you and I enjoyed it.
18:31Is it financially viable for him?
18:33And do you think he'll keep it?
18:35I think that eventually he will be able to have subscriptions and payments and transfers
18:41of money that will be the main source of revenue, because it will not be financially viable,
18:47I don't think.
18:48As an advertising medium, because it's just so, as you said, controversial for advertisers.
18:55And so this is important, obviously, as it always is, the attack on the Anti-Defamation
18:59League.
19:00A number of notorious anti-Semitic accounts posted under the hashtag ban the ADL.
19:05And you know, Musk blamed, you know, ADL for most of Twitter X's loss in revenue and called
19:12the ADL the biggest generator of anti-Semitism on X, threatened to sue it, et cetera.
19:17And David French of The New York Times says his claims of the ADL's immense power tapped
19:21into classic anti-Semitic tropes.
19:24A, did you bring that up with him?
19:26And B, does he, is he, is that who he is?
19:29Yeah, I think he's totally wrong.
19:32I think the problems that X is having now is not because of the ADL trying to stop things.
19:38It's because it's an environment that's so controversial and so messy that advertising
19:43brands don't feel comfortable being on it.
19:46It's just that.
19:47If you talk to Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL, he'll say, Musk is not anti-Semitic.
19:52And you know, he defends him in some ways.
19:54But what you have is an environment where a lot of French players are getting amplified
20:00and advertisers don't want to be there, understandably.
20:04Walter Isaacson, thank you very much.
20:09And next, we turn to the persistent plague of gender-based violence.
20:13The numbers are devastating.
20:15Every day in Mexico, at least 10 women are killed.
20:19And here in the United States, femicide has increased by almost 25 percent over the past
20:24eight years.
20:25Today, the Ford Foundation is bringing together some of the world's leading experts on this
20:30subject to discuss the urgent need for solutions.
20:33The Free Future 2023 Forum is taking place here in New York.
20:39And I'm joined now by two of the speakers, Tarana Burke, founder of the MeToo movement,
20:44and Maria Manguera, who is a project coordinator at the National Shelter Movement in South
20:49Africa.
20:50Ladies, welcome to the program.
20:54Can I start with you, Tarana Burke, because MeToo sort of exploded into our consciousness
21:00almost exactly six years ago.
21:04And I'm wondering why you think it's still, you know, not done enough to quell this side
21:11of the gender equation.
21:14Well, first, thank you for having us.
21:18And I think it's because we don't see sexual violence as a social justice issue.
21:24I think largely people still associate MeToo in pop culture as a gender war, as he said,
21:32she said.
21:33And we don't really look, even though the statistics show that sexual violence happens
21:37every 68 seconds, that one in 10 children will be affected by sexual violence before
21:43they turn 18.
21:45We do not see this as a public health crisis or a social justice issue.
21:50And as long as we don't take it seriously in that regard, we will still continue to
21:54see the problem grow the way it is, exponentially.
21:59And I just want to ask you to please explain to me this, I mean, horrendous figure of 25
22:04percent higher of femicide in the United States.
22:08Do you know, do you accept that figure?
22:12And is it because it's happening more?
22:14Is it because more people are reporting who might not have done before?
22:20I think it's a combination of both.
22:22You have to also realize that we have seen a rise over the last decade in toxic masculinity
22:31and in, you know, things like the president that we just had.
22:37We've seen a rise in the change in conversations on the Internet.
22:45We've seen all of the mass shootings that we've had across the United States, something
22:50like 60 or 70 percent of the mass shootings have the shooters have had a history of domestic
22:56or sexual violence.
22:57Those things are all connected.
23:00And so when we don't talk about sexual violence in connection to things like gun violence
23:04and violence in general, we lose sight of the fact that things like femicide are growing.
23:10And that's lost in these conversations because we never talk about sexual violence as a social
23:14justice issue.
23:15And I wonder if I could turn to you, Maria Manghera, because is it a social justice issue
23:20in your country where we've reported many, many times on the on the terrible epidemic
23:26of sexual violence against women?
23:28I mean, I interviewed, for instance, Graca Machal, the first lady of South Africa, her
23:33daughter, Justina, in 2015, where she described.
23:38And of course, it's well known to you all how she had been beaten up multiple times
23:42in the head by a former partner, to the extent that she lost sight in one of her eyes.
23:48This is what she told me back then.
23:51Thousands of women wake up every day as if they were soldiers.
23:54We never know how many of us will be beaten, how many will be raped, how many would be
24:00killed.
24:01I mean, it's really stark the way she puts it out.
24:03Is there any improvement in South Africa since that time?
24:10Good afternoon, Christiane.
24:11Thank you for having me.
24:13So the stats have actually been going down over the last quarter.
24:18However, over the past few years, they have been rising.
24:21I think the reason that the stats reduced over the last quarter is because of non-reporting.
24:28If we look at the way sexual violence has been reported over the last five years alone,
24:34you know, the South African Police Department had said that in 2016, we were looking at
24:41only 1 in 23 cases being reported.
24:44But now we're looking at 1 in 36 only being reported.
24:49And the problem is that 40 percent of all sexual violence that is reported is girls
24:54under the age of 18.
24:56And 15 percent are actually girls under the age of 12.
25:00So the problem is getting worse.
25:03But it's a cultural mindset that actually prevents reporting.
25:08And so we don't actually have a very clear picture.
25:11And if we look at the 1 in 36 being reported, we are actually looking at over 2 million
25:17cases of rape not actually being reported.
25:19Wow.
25:20I mean, that's just staggering figures.
25:22And so I want to ask you about the reporting phenomenon, both of you, actually.
25:25But first, staying with you, Miriam, those who do report, are they then taken seriously?
25:33Accountability happens, investigation happens.
25:36But as we hear too often, are they then re-victimized a second time?
25:41Yes.
25:42So that is a very big problem.
25:45Victims of sexual violence or any sort of violence are actually re-victimized in our
25:50justice system.
25:51We have a very, very big problem where we have people working in the justice cluster
25:55that haven't actually been trained on how to actually approach victims of sexual violence.
26:03Whether it's the prosecutors in shaming clients, whether it's the police in taking statements,
26:10social workers in victim blaming on what a victim was wearing.
26:15But even as recent as 2016, we had a judge in South Africa that had been on Twitter talking
26:23about black men raping for fun or finding pleasure in it.
26:30So the old racist apartheid mindset is still being carried through even into the justice
26:39system and that is hindering access for women of color and black women in particular.
26:45And Tarana Burke, in the United States, is that the same?
26:48First, the idea of anybody reporting it being taken seriously or otherwise?
26:56Absolutely.
26:58It's always been an issue with reporting in the United States, with survivors generally.
27:03I think because there's so much shame associated with sexual violence and it's always been
27:09an issue with reporting, particularly in communities of color.
27:13There is a stigma attached to talking about it and in the black community in particular,
27:19there is a notion of protecting our men because of the way that sexual violence has been weaponized
27:26against black men historically.
27:28Black women are inclined to want to protect black men.
27:32So there is a history of not reporting inside of the black community with black women.
27:41In other communities of color also, for instance, in immigrant communities, there's a history
27:46of not reporting because they don't want to have interactions with law enforcement that
27:50might lead to their families maybe being deported.
27:53So there are different reasons why there's not reporting in communities of color, but
27:58either way, not reporting is rampant with survivors of sexual violence and it's a problem.
28:08In South Africa, Mariam, of course, the black majority, they are the majority, and I'm wondering
28:14whether there is an intersectionality.
28:17Does race play a part in this crisis?
28:20You touched on it a little bit, but does it specifically play a part in this crisis?
28:28So when we're talking about violence and gender-based violence, obviously it's intersectional.
28:35Violence is faced by all women and historically, black women and women of color did not have
28:40access to justice systems.
28:45And when we speak about rape, it was white women that were raped by black men that actually
28:51found access to justice.
28:53However, the laws itself back then did not treat women equally because as horrendous
28:59as apartheid was in terms of racial inequalities, there was also gender inequality.
29:07Women didn't have rights under apartheid.
29:10We didn't even have a Domestic Violence Act until 1998, which was four years after the
29:15end of apartheid.
29:17But today, because the population of South Africa is 90% black, we tend to see the stats
29:24showing that more black women are affected.
29:26However, there is no difference in who is affected.
29:32Everybody is affected at the same rate.
29:34It's just that because of the geographical and the racial demographics of the country
29:43that we actually see more black women reporting.
29:47Can I turn to solutions because the forum that you're attending and speaking at is designed
29:52not just to look at the past, but to go forward.
29:55So Toronto Berg, you know, in the United States, for instance, are there solutions?
30:00Have you identified further what is driving this epidemic and what are the most important
30:07solutions to it that you could list?
30:10Well, first of all, when we talk about solutions, there's no single solution to the problem
30:18of sexual violence.
30:19It's going to take multiple interventions.
30:22When we look at how we've solved other issues in this country, it's always taken multiple
30:27interventions.
30:28So it's going to take legal interventions, political interventions, medical interventions,
30:33narrative interventions.
30:35Part of what has to happen, a major thing that has to happen is a culture shift in this
30:39country.
30:40It's against the law in all 50 states to commit acts of sexual violence.
30:45But the problem happens when people commit those acts.
30:48What does law enforcement do?
30:50We already know that carceral solutions don't work, right, especially when sexual violence
30:55is happening inside of law enforcement.
30:58We don't look at the kind of the egregious acts of sexual violence that happens inside
31:02of our prison system.
31:04Sexual violence is the second most reported act against police and law enforcement in
31:08this country.
31:09So we know that carceral solutions are not the way.
31:14So we have to look collectively at multiple interventions, starting with narrative.
31:19We have to shift the way people think about sexual violence in this country.
31:23We have to shift the way people talk about it.
31:26And part of that is, again, looking at this as not an individual act, right, that's between
31:33the two people, just the person who committed the act and the person who is surviving the
31:37act.
31:38But it is about safety.
31:40We have to reimagine what safety looks like.
31:42So if one person in your community has dealt with sexual violence, nobody in that community
31:49is safe.
31:51Just like when gun violence happens in your community.
31:53If one person survives gun violence in your community, everybody in that community wants
31:58to think about how we can keep everybody safe.
32:01So we have to shift how we think about sexual violence in this country before anything else
32:06can happen.
32:07That's one of the solutions.
32:08It's a major solution.
32:09We need more research.
32:11We need more medical research, political.
32:13All of those things have to happen collectively at the same time.
32:17There's no singular solution.
32:19And resources as well, because we read that gender-based violence, for instance, the stats
32:25show that according to a report in 2019, funding for these programs amount to only 12 percent
32:32of a country's humanitarian aid.
32:35And it's not just about how much, but who gets it.
32:42Let me just say this.
32:44Sexual violence is one of the most under-resourced issues in the world.
32:50And that's everywhere.
32:51It's under-resourced for non-profit organizations.
32:54It's under-resourced in law enforcement.
32:56It is under-resourced everywhere.
32:59People think that money moved to the issue of sexual violence after MeToo went viral,
33:05and it did not.
33:07We are severely under-resourced globally, and I'm sure you can speak to that.
33:13Well, Miriam, I'm sure that is the case, as Tarana says, everywhere, including South Africa,
33:18is it?
33:19Absolutely.
33:20You know, in 2019, the president did announce that he was reallocating 1.6 billion rands
33:30towards gender-based violence emergency response.
33:32But, you know, at the time, we didn't even find out where the money was being spent.
33:38If it was being spent, we worked on an emergency response plan to actually tell government
33:43where the money should go in order to assist, but we don't even have that kind of input
33:49any longer.
33:50So I think that the biggest issue around resourcing is not just lip service.
33:54It's actually accountability that goes with it.
33:57We can say that we're giving $100 million towards GBV, but at the end of the day, who
34:04is the one that actually holds government accountable?
34:06Who is the one that holds foreign donors accountable?
34:10Because a lot of the time, what happens is funding that comes from overseas, especially
34:15into South Africa, the donor says to you where it is that you need to spend, how to spend,
34:22and we don't actually have the autonomy to actually address gender-based violence in
34:26the way that we see it needing resourcing because we are so reliant on external funding.
34:35And can I ask you both, because stats seem to be showing that transgender people are
34:40far likelier to be victims of violence, of this kind of violence, than cisgender people.
34:48Is this reaching an emergency situation?
34:51Has it always been like that or not?
34:54We're just sort of, you know, seeing it now?
34:58Absolutely.
35:01Sexual violence is a public health crisis, full stop.
35:04In the transgender and gender-expansive community, we're now seeing it for what it is because
35:10they're now starting to collect data and put out data, but it has always been at a fever
35:15pitch in that community.
35:18And I'm glad that we now have numbers to attach so that people can actually see what's going
35:23on inside of the gender-expansive community.
35:27But yes, it has always been that way.
35:29They are endangered around when it comes to sexual violence, both inside in the world
35:34and inside when they're incarcerated.
35:38But yes, transgender folks are definitely in danger when it comes to sexual violence.
35:44Can I ask you both finally, and all forms of violence, absolutely, what you hope to
35:50persuade men to do to help this situation, and particularly whether that is also about
35:56what you identify, Tarana, as, I think, empathy theory?
36:01Well, it's empowerment through empathy.
36:05But let me say first that men's first role in this movement is as survivors.
36:11And I don't want to separate them as just the solution to sexual violence.
36:15We have to acknowledge that this is a movement for survivors, not just for women.
36:19Well, thank you both for telling us, you know, updating us on this and taking part in this
36:24important forum. Tarana Berg, Mariam Mangera, thank you very much indeed.
36:28Age has become a big issue for the 2024 election, not just for presidential candidates, but
36:34also in Congress.
36:35Republican Senator Mitt Romney, who's 76, announced that he won't be seeking reelection
36:40in 24 to make way for a new generation.
36:43He also strongly urged both President Biden and former President Trump to step aside.
36:49The times we're living in really demand the next generation to step up and express their
36:55point of view and to make the decisions that will shape American politics over the coming
36:59century. And just having a bunch of guys who were around, the baby boomers, who were around
37:05in the postwar era, we're not the right ones to be making the decisions for tomorrow.
37:08Well, Susan Glass's latest article for The New Yorker is called The Twilight of Mitch
37:14McConnell and the Specter of 2024.
37:17And she talks about that with Michelle Martin.
37:20Thanks, Christiane. Susan Glasser, thanks so much for joining us once again.
37:24Great to be with you.
37:26So a couple of incidents that have just really gotten the public's attention, some of it
37:31stoked, some of it not.
37:33There was President Biden was concluding his press conference when he was overseas earlier
37:38this week. He kind of ended it rather abruptly, saying, I got to go to bed.
37:42Of course, the conservative media was thrilled to talk about this, saying it was
37:46bizarre and it showed, you know, the obvious implication that he isn't isn't quite up to
37:51it. But then, you know, twice now, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has frozen
37:57up during press conferences, wasn't being asked particularly challenging questions,
38:03and that's raised questions about his health.
38:07So so you recently wrote a piece for The New Yorker about what you call America's fragile
38:12gerontocracy. How is the age of these leaders, not just these two, but others kind of
38:18playing into our current politics?
38:21Well, you're right. It's an inescapable, unfortunately, frame to a lot of our politics.
38:27And I would throw a third actor in there, by the way.
38:30Donald Trump at age 77 is not exactly exempt from these questions, except that there's
38:36just so many more questions perhaps about him.
38:39And so you have this sort of national debate that I think is a legitimate national debate.
38:45But of course, it's playing out in the framework of our extraordinarily polarized and in a
38:51way paralyzed politics.
38:53And so, you know, Biden could wake up in the morning, nothing eventful happens.
38:57And for parts of the country, that would be evidence that he's too old to serve.
39:03Donald Trump can fail to even muster a single coherent sentence with a noun and a verb in a
39:08period. But somehow that's not evidence of it.
39:11So, you know, partially we're having a national debate about an important issue without real
39:16evidence. You know, where is age actually affecting the ability of our leaders to lead?
39:22And where is it part of the sort of optics of this media saturated world we live in?
39:28That's really hard.
39:29But the bottom line is Joe Biden is already the oldest president ever to be an American
39:35president. Of course, second oldest was Donald Trump.
39:38And if Biden is reelected, he would be 86 years old at the end of his second term.
39:44So I think it is a legitimate conversation for us to be happening.
39:47I just wish we had a better framework and more understanding of what matters in this
39:52case and what doesn't.
39:54Why is it that Democrats are concerned about President Biden's age in a way that
40:00Republicans don't seem to be about Donald Trump?
40:04As you pointed out, Democrats are also concerned about President Biden's age.
40:10It's one of those things that seems to come up in focus groups, and it's one of those
40:13things that you don't have to scratch very far into the surface to get people to express
40:17concerns about it. So why do you think it's a concern for Democrats when it isn't a
40:21concern for Republicans?
40:23Well, here's one word for you, electability.
40:26And the bottom line is that right now, as you pointed out, it's Democrats and
40:30independents, as well as Republicans who have these concerns about Biden's age.
40:35And for many Democrats, I think part of the issue would well be some of it is a question
40:40of governance. Is he up to the job when he's going to be 86 years old at the end of his
40:44term? But some of it is about this question of can he win because Republicans have
40:49fixated on this issue.
40:50Donald Trump, remember, started calling Biden by the name Sleepy Joe way back in the
40:562020 election.
40:57Interestingly, polls back then had a very different story on the age issue.
41:02People forget this, but actually Trump's age was seen as a liability.
41:06And he actually lost on that question in many polls late in the 2020 election in a
41:12head-to-head versus Biden.
41:14It's actually Biden who came out on the positive end of that.
41:18Remember, Biden, to some people, certainly in 2020, he's healthier, clearly, than
41:23Donald Trump. He is exercising, he's bike riding.
41:27Donald Trump, not doing much exercising unless you count getting in and out of the
41:33mechanical golf cart to be exercising.
41:36And so, you know, vigor is in sort of the subjectivity of the narrative, first of all,
41:42right? Like how much of this is really about the objective truth?
41:45Not very much.
41:46I do think it's a lot about Democrats very worried, as they should be.
41:51It's a risk factor in our politics and in our national governance.
41:55When Mitch McConnell had that second freeze up the other day, I'm sure I wasn't the
42:00only American who thought, imagine what could happen in our presidential election when
42:06the stakes are so high.
42:08If Joe Biden has a Mitch McConnell moment in the middle of a debate in October of
42:142024, the stakes are Donald Trump possibly coming back into the White House.
42:20So I think that at a minimum, it raises the risks in our system at a time when there's
42:27already a lot of concerns about the fragility of American democracy.
42:32One person that Republicans do seem to be concerned about, though, is the Senate
42:35minority leader, Mitch McConnell.
42:37Do we know what's going on with him?
42:39You know, it's a good question. Transparency, I think, is one of the issues around
42:43health that really matters to people.
42:45And actually, McConnell did move pretty aggressively, at least to try to assuage some of
42:50the concerns of his own members.
42:51He serves at the pleasure of his Senate Republican conference.
42:54He has to answer to them. He had the Capitol attending physician put out a note when that
42:58wasn't good enough for some people because basically it said, take my word for it.
43:04And it dismissed McConnell's episodes as momentary lightheadedness.
43:09I don't think people were really buying that.
43:11Then the Capitol physician actually did an examination with McConnell.
43:16That seems to at least temporarily quieted concerns inside McConnell's Republican
43:20conference. But my observation is slightly different, which is, look, look at how quickly
43:27and visibly McConnell's decline has happened.
43:30We have all had a parent, a grandparent, a loved one who seems to be healthy and vigorous
43:37age 80. And then something happens, a fall.
43:40That's exactly what happened to Mitch McConnell.
43:43He fell down and got a concussion while going to a fundraiser a few months ago.
43:48And, you know, his decline has been there for everyone to see.
43:52He just looks like he's aged not six months, but, you know, several years.
43:57And he seems to be struggling in ways that remind people, again, of the risk factor of
44:03having leaders of this advanced age.
44:06And by the way, advanced age, it's not my term, it's not a pejorative.
44:10I think that's just the medical definition of anyone who's been lucky enough to make
44:15it to a healthy and vigorous 80 in the case of Joe Biden and 81 in the case of Mitch
44:19McConnell. So political reports that Senate Republicans are consulting about whether to
44:26call an emergency meeting on McConnell's leadership when the Senate is back in session.
44:30So I want to ask you sort of two questions here.
44:33You know, you know, McConnell is an interesting figure in the party right now.
44:36I mean, it's not a secret that Donald Trump loathes him.
44:39I mean, loathes him because he acknowledged that the 2020 presidential election was fairly
44:47run, that it was not stolen.
44:50So what's the dynamic in the Republican Party around Mitch McConnell's health right now
44:55from your reporting? And then secondly, I want to ask, like, the stakes for the country
45:00around Mitch McConnell's health. So Republican Party first.
45:03Yeah, I mean, first of all, it's a clear reminder of just how much the Republican Party has
45:08shifted in recent years. I'm sure if you asked Barack Obama, he wouldn't think, wow,
45:13just a few years later, you know, Mitch McConnell is what passes for the sort of relatively
45:19sane Republican establishment.
45:21He's been willing, for example, to work with Joe Biden's White House to pass several
45:26bipartisan bills in the last couple of years, although obviously remains a fierce partisan.
45:31He has been what passes for the opposition to Donald Trump within his own party.
45:37It's a rearguard action, clearly.
45:40But, you know, Mitch McConnell not only recognized Biden's legitimate victory in 2020, he
45:45was very clear in attributing the blame for the crisis in American democracy on Donald
45:51Trump. But to your point about the consequences for the country right now, it actually
45:57matters who's the Senate Republican leader, because look at the House Republicans, look
46:02at Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
46:04Just before our conversation, Kevin McCarthy unilaterally announced that he's opening up
46:10an impeachment inquiry of Joe Biden.
46:13Has new evidence been produced?
46:14No. You know, has there been any specific bill of indictment?
46:18No. Is Kevin McCarthy able to even put a measure on the House floor to formally open an
46:25impeachment inquiry? No, he doesn't have the votes to do it.
46:27And yet, nonetheless, he's proceeding.
46:29He has become, in effect, a hostage of this very narrow majority he has in the House of
46:35Representatives. Right now in September, we are looking at a major confrontation over
46:40government funding between McCarthy and his House Republicans and the Biden White House.
46:45They look to be hurtling toward once again a government shutdown.
46:49Potentially the only thing that would stop this from happening would be a deal in which
46:54McConnell and his Senate Republicans would work to keep the government open and funded.
46:59Same thing on the additional emergency funding for things like disaster relief and
47:05Ukraine aid.
47:07Right now, the administration has asked for $24 billion in additional funding to help
47:12support Ukraine against the Russian invaders.
47:15And right now, if that passes, it's going to be because of Mitch McConnell and his Senate
47:21Republicans.
47:22You know, we've been focusing on President Biden, Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority
47:27Leader Mitch McConnell and, of course, you know, Donald Trump.
47:30But they aren't the only older political leaders of consequence.
47:35I mean, in July, Senator Dianne Feinstein, she'd been in frail health, seemed to be
47:40confused during a committee vote.
47:43She's not the only one, though.
47:44The median age in the Senate is 65, which is a record high.
47:48And you've got Senator Grassley, who's a Republican of Iowa.
47:50He's 89.
47:52Grace Napolitano, she's a Democrat from California.
47:54Now, she's retiring. She's 86.
47:56But just the median age, so how did we how did we get to this point?
48:01Well, look, I mean, partially, of course, you know, life expectancy over the decades
48:05has gone up. People have had longer and longer careers.
48:09They're reluctant. Also, we have more of a celebrity based politics where name recognition
48:14really matters. It's very hard in our fragmented media moment, you know, to acquire the
48:19ability to run statewide in a state like California, where Dianne Feinstein is from.
48:23That's a really hard thing to do.
48:25And she's a household name.
48:26So part of it is the politics of that.
48:28But I do think it does say something interesting about a nation that had long had this
48:34sort of self-identity as a kind of the vigorous nation of the future, that the nation,
48:39not just of young John F.
48:41Kennedy, Bill Clinton, you know, was one of our youngest presidents in your and my
48:45lifetime in his early 40s.
48:47And yet I always find this to be really telling.
48:50There have actually been three American presidents, including Bill Clinton, who were
48:53born in the exact same year in 1946.
48:55Bill Clinton, we think of him as a young guy, professionally young, because that's when
48:59he was elected. The other two presidents who were born in the summer of 1946 were George
49:05W. Bush and Donald J.
49:07Trump. Why don't the Democrats point out the deficiencies on the Republican side?
49:12I mean, because of the kind of the coverage of it, or at least the public utterances
49:16around this are much more sympathetic to Mitch McConnell, much more, you know,
49:22expressions of concern than they are, you know, of ridicule and contempt that you see
49:27directed, you know, at President Biden.
49:29And of course, President Biden has said publicly, whether this is true privately, he
49:33considers Mitch McConnell a friend.
49:34But I'm just curious, like, why don't the Democrats kind of hammer on their age in the
49:40way that the Republicans do on President Biden?
49:42Well, first of all, because I think there's a genuine fear and I think a realistic fear
49:46that that could backfire and simply serve to call more attention to the overall issue of
49:51age right now at a moment when Biden is perceived to be vulnerable on this point.
49:55So that's number one. I think number two is that Mitch McConnell, for Donald Trump and
50:01his supporters, they're happy to throw Mitch McConnell under the bus.
50:05And in fact, that's exactly what you saw in the aftermath of McConnell's sort of second
50:10freeze up moment. You had Trump allies like Marjorie Taylor Greene immediately leaping
50:17into the fray publicly and saying, yes, Mitch McConnell is unfit to serve and he should
50:22go, too. So I don't think there's any, you know, love lost between the Trumpists and
50:27McConnell. And so if it's a question of losing their age issue against Joe Biden versus
50:32sticking up for McConnell or getting rid of McConnell or, you know, just simply
50:38sacrificing him politically, they're happy to sacrifice Mitch McConnell.
50:41They might see that as an advantage.
50:44There's a Republican presidential candidate, the former South Carolina governor, former
50:48United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, has said that she thinks there should be tests
50:55for older politicians.
50:56I just wonder just how do we even talk about that?
51:00I mean, I know that there are people who who would find this conversation, you know,
51:05inappropriate. I mean, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who's also 80, I believe, has
51:10said that he thinks some of this conversation is ageist.
51:14He doesn't seem to show any signs of sort of impairment.
51:16So he seems to have, you know, a very good case.
51:18But I'm just I'm just sort of interested in your take on it of what's the what are the
51:24ethics of this?
51:25Yeah, I mean, look, first of all, in our politics, big, important issues can't be off
51:29limits. I think we got to stipulate to that.
51:31And I think that Democrats looking to police, you know, what we can or should talk
51:37about and what the voters are on their mind, that's that's not going to work anyway.
51:42So let's let's let's be real about that.
51:44And we're talking about a situation where it's many Democrats as well as Republicans who
51:48are, in my view, legitimately concerned about this.
51:51Does that mean that everyone ages like absolutely not?
51:54In fact, that's one of the big problems that we're struggling with.
51:56I don't think we have enough real information.
52:00I think that we live in an optical world in which, you know, the things that we think of
52:04as leadership are essentially projections on a TV screen, first and foremost.
52:11And, you know, Donald Trump is nothing if not obsessed with a certain kind of very facile
52:15image making. You talk about tests for our leaders.
52:20Remember that it's Donald Trump is the guy who memorably gave us person, woman, man,
52:25camera, TV back in the 2020 election.
52:29You know, you can't look at a video of Donald Trump from 2016 or go further back, look at
52:35his interviews, say, in the late 90s or early 90s with Larry King.
52:41This is a different man.
52:42He's been transformed.
52:43He has visibly aged in front of our eyes.
52:46His coherence has almost evaporated.
52:50His vocabulary has dissipated to an extreme degree.
52:54His ability to formulate clear cut sentences is almost nil in his public remarks these
53:00days. And yet we have this narrative around Biden's age.
53:04So I do think it's important to talk about, you know, the age issue could just as well
53:09crop up as a major liability for Donald Trump by the time the actual election rolls
53:15around. He's certainly not immune to it either.
53:19One area in which one can see the leading figures becoming visibly younger is on the
53:25nation's high court and on the nation's highest court.
53:28But I'm just curious if the conservative movement can be so intentional about attracting
53:35and putting in place the next generation of leaders.
53:38Why don't progressives do that?
53:41You know, it's a good question.
53:43I think you're right that there are some major structural differences.
53:47Not only do they want someone young to serve for a lifetime appointment on the Supreme
53:52Court, but a younger nominee also tends to have less of a record to wade through and to
53:57pick through. And I think Democrats have have have known that theory of the case, too.
54:02But, you know, look, every generation has to renew its commitment to American democracy.
54:10We are in a crisis moment, not because we have two very old standard bearers in the
54:18Republican Party and the Democratic Party today, but because we are at loggerheads over
54:22basic questions.
54:24And neither Donald Trump nor Joe Biden is going to be a long term leader for the country
54:30at this point. Right. And so I think part of our anxiety and part of why you're asking
54:34that question is because we don't know what's the path forward for the country right now.
54:40And we don't have either party with a clear cut set of new standard bearers and a new
54:45direction that is taking the country.
54:47And so I think it adds to the uncertainty at a very volatile moment.
54:51Susan Glasser, thanks so much for talking with us once again.
54:54Great to be with you. Thank you.
54:56And finally tonight, Adaptive Apparel.
54:59As part of New York Fashion Week, models with disabilities took to the runway wearing
55:04clothes designed to meet their needs.
55:07More than 70 paraded and twirled down the catwalk.
55:11The show was organized by the Runway of Dreams Foundation.
55:14It's a charity that works with retailers to design the right fashion for people with
55:19disabilities. Alongside some of the biggest brands, Victoria's Secret showed its first
55:25ever adaptive collection of lingerie.
55:27A wonderful way to raise awareness and, of course, inclusivity.
55:31And that is it for our program tonight.
55:33If you want to find out what's coming up on the show every night, sign up for our
55:36newsletter at PBS.org slash Amanpour.
55:40Thanks for watching and goodbye from New York.