Return to Transcripts main page
CNN'S AMANPOUR
McCaskill Taking Friendly Fire From Her Own Left Wing Party and Heading Home to Missouri; Khashoggi Murder, What Will America Do?; Imposing More Sanctions on Saudi Arabia; Gender Politics, Half of the Seats in the House Won by Women; Ashley Judd Joins the Cast of "Berlin Station"; United Nations Population Fund; Child Poverty in Los Angeles. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired December 6, 2018 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[13:00:00] CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hello, everyone, and welcome to "Amanpour." Here's what's coming up.
As President Bush one is laid to rest, one of the Senate's true moderates heads home in defeat. Did compromise killed Claire McCaskill's Senate
campaign?
And Ashley Judd, award-winning actress and activist and #MeToo champion whose roles live up to her ideals.
Also, children trapped in poverty, are their parents to blame? "Los Angeles Times" journalist, Steve Lopez, on his extensive reporting and the
surprising Greta response.
Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London.
In saying farewell to George H.W. Bush, the American political world is not just mourning the man but to a large extent, the loss of a spirit of
moderate compromise that Bush exemplified. Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill was herself part of what seems to be a dying breed, moderates of
either party willing to do the horse trading, making policy and passing legislation for the people.
But seeking that middle ground may have cost her her job. McCaskill is a Democrat, she was defending her seat in a state where Donald Trump won by
almost 20 percent. She was the top target of conservative dark money and slammed in negative ads and Donald Trump himself campaigned heavily for her
opponent.
Meanwhile, McCaskill was taking friendly fire from the left wing of her own party for failing to meet so-called ideological purity test. Despite the
blue way, despite the surge of support for women candidates in these midterms, Claire McCaskill is now packing her things and heading home to
Missouri.
In her concession speech, she told her voters that she's not going away from public life and she definitely won't keep quiet on the sidelines. To
that end, Senator Claire McCaskill joins me now from Washington.
And welcome to our program, Senator.
SEN. CLAIRE MCCASKILL, D-MO: Thank you. It's great to be with you.
AMANPOUR: I mean this is sad? I feel a little awful, sort of, you know, writing arbitrary as we me speak and, you know, portraying you with your
bags packed on your tail between the legs and heading home.
MCCASKILL: Well, my tail is not between my legs. I hate losing let's just say that. I'm a very competitive person but I am really cheerful and in
fact, it's bugging all my colleagues. They go, "You're not supposed to be this happy." But this place is gotten really tough and I feel like there
are other things I can do to contribute. So, I feel very fortunate that I've been able to serve but I'm also excited about the next chapter.
AMANPOUR: Well, we did say you -- you said yourself you're not going to stay quietly on the sidelines. What is your next chapter? Will it be in
political life?
MCCASKILL: I do not believe I will ever run for office again. But there are other ways that I can let this mouth of mine, it's gotten me in trouble
many times, do its work. And now, I am not constrained by the discipline that I felt like I had to embrace in order to get things done. You can't
really engage in kind of hot rhetoric, political rhetoric, if you're still trying to find that common ground and accomplish things. I will not have
that responsibility.
So, now, I can be a little bit more unhinged, so to speak.
AMANPOUR: Well, we look forward to an unhinged Senator McCaskill or former Senator McCaskill. But let's just pick up what you just said, you can't be
totally frank if you're trying to be in the calm -- you know, the moderate, the middle, the common ground, which is necessary to actually pass
legislation and make policy.
I mean, how much of that was your undoing in this particular reelection campaign?
MCCASKILL: Well, honestly, we had record turnout of Democrats in Missouri. The problem really didn't turn out to be that my party didn't support me
because I wasn't pure enough. The problem really was the enthusiasm that really ran -- ramped up, after the Kavanagh hearings and after so many
visits by the president.
My opponent jumped on the back of Donald Trump, grabbed him around the neck really hard and did not let go and Donald Trump carried him across the
finish line by really hitting some buttons and, of course, the spectral go around the Kavanaugh confirmation and what he did by manipulating, I think,
the public impression about the caravan also contributed to a level of enthusiasm that was very high on the Republican side that frankly wasn't
there three or four months ago.
AMANPOUR: So, let's just talk about the Kavanaugh. You did vote against him. But when you were sort of campaigning, you didn't really bring up the
-- you know, the hot button social issues that seemed to, you know, really have America gripped by the -- by whatever one might say, abortion and the
others and what might happen under a Supreme Court with him now as an associate justice. You talked actually about campaign finance.
Was that wise? Do you think now in retrospect you should have highlighted the things many, many women are concerned about?
MCCASKILL: Well, my -- you know, frankly, the issue that really was more difficult was that I had been in office a long time and regardless of how
you felt, one way or the other, about Kavanaugh, it wasn't pretty. It was not the Senate at its finest moment. It was chaos and it was not dignified
and we certainly are not getting example of dignified from the Oval Office.
So, the fact that I have been in the public life for so long and the fact that people look upon Washington as really a place where nothing good
happens, that really was probably more damaging to me with outstate Missouri, the rural parts of my state and obviously, Trump's support for my
opponent in the -- the divide we have in our country is as much rural and urban as it is Democrat and Republican.
AMANPOUR: So, let me just point out then and see whether you agree with what I suggested, which was that part of the outpouring in the press and in
the streets and on the ground and certainly in the cathedrals for President George H.W. Bush was a sort of maybe rosy misty eyed memory of a moment
when there were gentleman and gentlewomen in politics, mostly gentlemen, who hewed (ph) to the middle ground even in the Republican Party and were
civil, believed in civil discourse.
I mean, Bush is kind of gentle America, whether it happened or not, he uttered those words. Do you agree that that was what was being mourned as
much as the passing of a man, a president?
MCCASKILL: I do. And that's one of the reasons I want to be careful to not give the impression that I think I was defeated because I was a
moderate. I still believe there's a wide swath of voters in America that don't look through the lens of political party but look through the lens
of, "Well, what do you actually getting done," even though the noise is generated by the ends.
The elections are decided by those folks in the middle. And we had a moderate an Arizona, a Democrat win in a state that hasn't had a Democratic
senator for many years. I do believe that our next election cycle there will be more and more people that will go, "OK. We're worn out with all of
this. We're worn out with the tweets. We're worn out with the food fight between the Democrats and the Republicans. Let's try to get behind someone
who can knit this thing together and get back to the days where everyone realizes that compromise was actually part of our founding fathers most
important idea for this country."
AMANPOUR: And yet, it is blatantly and blaringly absent today and you have tweeted, in fact, just this week, just yesterday, you tweeted, "So sad that
our dinner to say good bye to senators who are leaving is not bipartisan. If we cannot be together to even recognize those who are leaving, what hope
is there for this place? Why didn't it happen? Two words, Mitch McConnell." I mean, that's pretty bizarre.
MCCASKILL: Yes, it is. And he made this decision when they took over the majority a few years ago said that we were no longer going to have this
dinner together. He certainly has the power to say, "You know, I made a mistake, let's bring everybody together and do this dinner together," and
he has not done that.
And I think it's a terrible commentary on what this place has come to that we can't even get together to wish -- I mean, you know, Bob Corker is a
good friend of mine, my Republican colleague who's retiring. Jeff Flake and I have worked together on many things. Orrin Hatch and I are buddies,
we don't agree on everything but we're buddies. And the notion that we can't all be together and wish each other well on an evening like that, the
American people ought to be mad about it and they ought to express that to Mitch McConnell in every way that they can.
AMANPOUR: Before you're mad about you got to understand why. I mean, why on earth would you ban a dinner? I actually don't get it. Let's say
you're in his shoes, why do you think he would do that? What's the point?
MCCASKILL: I -- you know, maybe he had just taken over as leader and he wanted to consolidate the members of his caucus around him and thought that
maybe not having to be bipartisan in that evening. I don't know. You'd have to ask him. I don't get it.
But he's a hyper political guy. He's very skilled. I mean, don't get me wrong, Mitch McConnell is hyper focused and very accomplished. I mean,
he's done some amazing things that frankly, it's hard to imagine they've gotten away with, like refusing to hold a hearing on a Supreme Court
justice nominated under the Constitution.
But he is very good at staying focused on what's most important to him and that's making sure that he stays majority floor leader.
AMANPOUR: So, I mean, you say, you know, hyper focused, very skilled and clearly the Senate stayed Republican. In fact, Republicans picked up
seats. Obviously, it was different in the House. I believe you Democrats flipped 41 seats.
What about 2020 though? You know, clearly, the president will run again and presumably unopposed on his side and nobody quite knows who's going to
step up into the spotlight on your side. Already today, we had the Deval Patrick has decided not to throw his hat in the ring and he cited, you
know, the cruelty of the process and you yourself just said it's become so tough here.
I mean, what hope then is this for, you know, a future of the kind of moderate civil politicians that you're calling for?
MCCASKILL: I think the American people will have an appetite for that kind of politician in 2020. And I'm confident that we have a lot of people that
have expressed interest in running for president and, you know, the field will widow (ph) down, the people that are inspirational and that can
convince America that they can change things and that maybe they can bring some stability and consistency back to the Oval Office and particularly, to
foreign policy. I think there will -- they will have success.
And we've got a different map in 2020. We have Republicans running in states that Donald Trump did not win. So, that's a reverse of what we had
in 2018. I think we'll have a very good year in 2020 and I hope that moderates know that we need them in Washington and that they are a national
treasure because that's how we actually get things done, is finding that sweet spot of compromise in the middle. We don't get much done if all we
do is sit on opposite sides of room and yell at each other.
AMANPOUR: And you did actually say on this issue that if moderates aren't allowed into the party, I mean, your party, that would be a recipe for
disaster and you did. I mean, we talked about this issue of ideological purity, you did say to NPR this demands of purity, this looking down your
nose at people who want to compromise again is a recipe for disaster. That's clearly happening in your party to an extent.
MCCASKILL: Well, it is but primarily by people who run in very blue places. And I just want everyone to take a deep breath and look at the
map, there is an Electoral College. We cannot win the presidency on the two coasts. We have to have Midwest states. And in the Midwest, they want
somebody who works hard, they want somebody who is going to tell the truth, they want somebody who wants to get things done.
And I hope that those values are embraced by our nominee because if not, they're going to have a hard time getting the electoral votes they need to
defeat Donald Trump.
AMANPOUR: So, what do you reckon the Democratic strategy should be going forward for the presidential of 2020? It was quite clear that under Nancy
Pelosi's leadership it was not about attack Trump, attack Trump, it was about health care for the people, it was about issues that people cared
about. Do you think that will change now that the House has leadership with all these committees? Do you think it will get much more
investigative, attacking personal? And how should the Democrats resist that if you think they should?
MCCASKILL: Well, I think they should. And not that -- I'm a big an oversight. In fact, I've done more oversight in the Senate than I've
really done of anything else. So, I certainly support the oversight and there needs to be oversight but they need to be very strategic about the
type of oversight they're doing, the prioritization of the right oversight because if it's all about going after Donald Trump and his administration,
then they become the foil and he loves a foil, he loves somebody to blame besides himself.
So, I think they need to focus first on integrity of the process here in Washington, they need to focus on health care, they need to focus on maybe
fixing some roads and bridges, they need to demonstrate that being in the majority is more than just criticizing the other side. If they do that,
then I think we're going to be well situated for a 2020 as a party.
AMANPOUR: So, can I just, you know, remind people of all the committees you served on, or currently do, the Homeland Security and Government
Affairs Committee, Services Committee, Committee on Finance. And in there is a little foreign policy and I guess is a long-winded way of coming to
the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia and especially in the wake of the Khashoggi murder and all the details that are coming out you.
You did say in the Senate debate, just a couple of months ago, if it is shown that the prince of Saudi Arabia was involved in ordering the murder
of the journalist in a brutal fashion as has been reported, then everything has to be on the table.
You know, more and more evidence seems to be coming out in that regard. Your own Senate colleagues, Republicans, Lindsey Graham, Bob Corker, after
briefings said that -- you know, said that they had no doubt that it was ordered by the crown prince.
If that does become irrefutable, what do you think United States should do, vis-a-vis, the person or the crown prince and the fact that it's an
important alliance at the same time?
MCCASKILL: Well, I -- listen, there is -- the alliance is one thing, the conduct of MBS is something else. We can send all kinds of signals that we
want to remain friends with the country of Saudi Arabia while we condemn this prince.
I was a courtroom prosecutor. Give me this file, let me get in a courtroom, I'll convict this guy. The evidence -- circumstantial evidence
is a cornerstone of criminal law in it -- when you have the rule of law, which obviously they don't in Saudi Arabia, or he would never think he
could get away with something like this on the world stage.
So, it is very dangerous that he was willing to do this. Think about what that means for the consequences of other decisions he might make if he gets
away with this without us ever full-throated saying, "We will not accept an ally that behaves this way."
So, I think we do need to be much more forceful in our response. And I'm hoping my Republican colleagues will of pick this up and do even more in
the next Congress as we are debating right now a resolution to impose more sanctions on Saudi Arabia as a result of this conduct.
AMANPOUR: So, let me now pivot to gender politics in the Senate, in public life. You know, we've seen this blue wave, we've seen of the 41 seats,
apparently, half of that 41 in the House were won by women. I mean, this is record numbers of women winning in American national elections like this
and we've seen that it's a year and more since the #MeToo movement took off.
But I want to just bring up something that is so extraordinary during your radio interview, again. just recently, you told an anecdote about when you
were a young legislator, you went to the state senator and it was really awful. Can you can you remind us what he said to you about how -- his
reaction to how you could pass legislation or get some policy approved?
MCCASKILL: Yes. When I was a freshman legislator in the Missouri House of Representatives, I asked the speaker of the house if he had any advice on
how I could get my bill out of committee, and this was on the diocese of the House of Representatives, and he looked at me and he said, "Well, did
you bring your knee pads?"
So, we have come a long way. And back in those days, I was the only woman attorney in the Missouri General Assembly when -- it wasn't that long ago,
there was a mere one or two women senators in the United States Senate. So, we are making progress and I am so proud of all the women that are
stepping up.
That doesn't mean that we need to ignore that there are real issues that apply to both genders and I think our party has to be careful that we can't
become just the party of women, we need to be the party of America and economic success and taking on pharmaceutical drug companies. But it is
great to see that women are empowered to see themselves as candidates and to succeed as candidates and I think we will see more and more of that in
the years to come. I think we finally broken through a barrier of sorts with the results we've had this year.
AMANPOUR: I'm ready flabbergasted by that comment. I mean, I just cannot even believe it. I don't know how you reacted --
MCCASKILL: Well, 1983.
AMANPOUR: Yes. I don't know whether you told him off there and then or whether you were just stunned.
MCCASKILL: I was as a young single woman in a very male dominated older legislative body. I decided that I would assume it was a joke and laugh it
off and that's why one of my best pieces of armor that I've used in my career is a sense of humor. I'm not sure I handle it correctly because I
was worried about the impact on my career if I was confrontational and I think that's one of the issues that women have had in these circumstances,
whether it's the workplace or in elective office.
And so, I'm glad that it is now no longer acceptable and I think men realize this and I think we've now got to move now towards a workplace and
a political environment where women are maybe said cruel things too but it's about their politics and not about their gender.
AMANPOUR: It's remarkable. Thank you so much, Senator McCaskill, for joining us.
MCCASKILL: Sure.
AMANPOUR: Thank you very much and good luck to you.
MCCASKILL: Thank you.
AMANPOUR: And we are going to be taking that up with our next strong woman, Ashley Judd has a big television role to showcase now. She has
joined the cast of "Berlin Station." She plays the CIA agent in charge of the agency's Berlin office. It's another in a series of smart and tough
women roles for Judd. Art imitating life for the actress or does life imitating art? She is also an activist and a #MeToo icon.
Judd was brave enough to go on the record with her accusations of sexual abuse against her producer, Harvey Weinstein. It earned her a spot as a
silence breaker, one of "Time Magazine's" Persons of the Year in 2017.
And as ambassador for the United Nations Population Fund, Judd travels the world with a simple but eloquent message, and that is, "being a girl is not
a crime."
Ashley Judd, welcome to the program.
ASHLEY JUDD, ACTRESS AND ACTIVIST: Thank you so much for having me. It's lovely to see you again.
AMANPOUR: And you too. And I wonder whether you heard the last things that Senator McCaskill was just talking to me, about how she was -- I mean,
it was just so rude and sexist and misogynistic and vulgar what she was told as a young first time only woman legislature at that time. How do you
reflect on that, especially today, when we've had a massive wave of women who've achieved elected office in these midterms?
JUDD: Well, unfortunately, the remark that was made to Senator McCaskill is not extraordinary. In fact, the other night I was the speaker at the
National Sexual Assault Center fundraiser and a gentleman who was seated next to me and happens to be one of the largest contributors to this
flagship nationally renowned sexual assault center made a reference to oral sex with me and my pubic hair.
AMANPOUR: No, you've got to be kidding me.
JUDD: Unfortunately, I am not kidding. And I was in that position where I immediately went into fight, flight or freeze, which is I think some of
what #MeToo is about is helping understand that just as we acknowledged today that fight, flight and freeze and post-traumatic stress are normal
for veterans and we understand the brain chemistry and the neurobiology of that, we're starting to give survivors the grace and the mercy to
understand that that's also the response and reaction that we have and that that's all valid inappropriate because our brains are brilliant.
I fortunately had a table full of strong female friends nearby and I said, "Excuse me. I see my friends," and I ran over to them I validated with
them that what I had been -- what was said to me was so grossly inappropriate. And then I had the opportunity to process my choices, do I
threaten the funding stream for this sexual assault center by saying something to him directly in the moment or do I take some time to reflect
on it and circle back later and say, you know, how inappropriate this is and in so many ways.
And, you know, I'm Ashley Judd and people are still saying stuff like that to me. This is the water in which we swim and it's a microaggression and
it's so exciting that #MeToo is not a moment but it's a movement in which we can all come to understand the roles that we play and perpetuating
misogyny and chauvinism and inequality.
And, you know, one of the things I hope we have an opportunity to talk about is what the world is going to look like when we achieve equality. I
think that, you know, when we talk about the backlash and some people are afraid of what they're losing as a result of, you know, smashing the
patriarchy, what we need to articulate is the vision of what we're gaining, which is healing for our society.
And it's not about replacing patriarchy with matriarchy, it's about having an egalitarian society where boys and girls and women and men share power,
share responsibility, share opportunity and I think it's a vision of healing and that's part of the message that I hope I can carry.
AMANPOUR: Well, let's just discuss that. I mean, now is the time to discuss this vision of the future. But you put it in a way that sounds
completely and utterly logical and most women -- most -- many women would agree with you. However, I was at a dinner last night where you'd think
that women would be proudly talking about feminism and the rest but no, still feminism is an unknown and scary word even amongst many women.
And what is it about the narrative and about the moment that needs to change? I mean, we're one year plus past the #MeToo movement and still
women -- forget some men, women refuse to call themselves feminists and say, "This is all too much and we want to be flirted with and we want to do
this is that and, you know, God forbid, our boys are targeted," which was the whole narrative around the Kavanaugh approval process.
JUDD: Well, as God knows, women have been targeted for a very long time. And I understand that we're recalibrating our society and that means change
and change can be threatening, it's definitely uncertain and chaotic and we just have to learn how to be comfortable being uncomfortable for a period
of time.
And, you know, if we end impunity for men who behave badly, we also need to have the opportunity to put forward men who behave well and who model what
a healthy inclusive masculinity looks, sounds and feels like. I mean, Tarana Burke articulated #MeToo 12 years ago when she was lying on a
mattress, on the floor in her apartment and said, you know, "I've also been a victim of sexual assault and I'm also a survivor," and she developed this
action plan which became the #MeToo movement when the hash tag was launched a year ago.
So, who is going to be her corollary? Who is going to be the guy who comes forward, who's humble and contrite and accountable and shows us what
restorative justice looks like? That's what I'm excited about. I try not to get caught up in all of the, you know, oh, my gosh. "Baby, It's Cold
Outside" isn't being played on the radio anymore, what has the world come to? Let's talk about what the world can and should be.
AMANPOUR: You mentioned Tarana Burke and, obviously, her fundamental role in all of this. But just recently, she has said that she feels numb after
the course of the past year and what's happened to the #MeToo movement. She said, "Survivors of sexual violence are all at once being heard and
then vilified." So, she's really -- you know, I mean, she's worried about this backlash.
JUDD: Yes. And she uses some really key words and her wonderful TED Talk about erasure in the media and then us being vilified by people who still
hold on to power asymmetrically. And it really is about power control and dominance. You know, sexual assault and rape are not about sex, they're
about power, violence, control and dominance.
And so, that's why I love the bonobos, for example, who are our closest living relatives, this fabulous species of ape of whom no one has ever
heard because they are codominant, they are egalitarian. A female is always alpha and males get their status through their mothers, so mama's
boy is a compliment and assures procreative capacity, but they share power and there's no sexual coercion and there's no sexual violence.
We don't have to look that far to see a model for -- and I think it's so funny because that's my Christmas card and I'm like a Jesus person, right,
I'm a Protestant and I go to church every Sunday. I love my family social justice preacher who is probably watching right now. But a bonobo was on
my Christmas card because I think that's to what we need to aspire.
AMANPOUR: Well, OK. So, I really -- I'm really fundamentally interested in how you bring the men on side and how you don't further alienate them.
Because there are two issues, one, many men are saying that there's too much conflation, that the arc of the crimes is so wide and broad that
everyone is being targeted by the same brush, whether they're for real crimes or infractions and their livelihoods and their lives being
destroyed.
So, first and foremost, how do we shade these different shades of what's going on? How do we come up with a code of conduct and accountability the
proportionate to what actually has been alleged or taken place?
JUDD: It's a very good question and I have -- just as the question encompasses a spectrum of behavior, I have a spectrum of responses. I
think, first and foremost, Christiane, we need to start young, we need to talk with our young people about consent and we need to talk about micro
aggressions and standards of behavior such as, if it doesn't feel good, it's not good, if it doesn't feel right, it's wrong.
I recently spoke at the International School in an eastern German town and the young people spent two hours with their hands raised. I had to leave
so they could go to lunch. I couldn't satisfy all of their inquiry about #MeToo and time's up and how do I give a girl a compliment and do I have to
get consent every step of the way. And it's important to go back to Professor Catharine MacKinnon's articulation of the law of sexual
harassment, it is unwanted sexual attention, it is sexual joking, it is anything that happens in the workplace that's based on gender and sex.
And we also, I think, need to have a variety of responses. So, when I'm Heathrow Airport and the guy at security calls me sweetheart, I have the
right to say back to him, "I'm a traveler. I'm not your sweetheart." And when he touches me, I have the right to go to his boss and say, "That was
inappropriate and I felt violated." He corrected the guy, end of story. I got death threats for doing that.
So, what is out of proportion here? You know, I think that girls and women -- I mean, I still earn $0.80 on every dollar that a White colleague makes.
An African-American woman makes $0.63 for the dollar made by a White man. And for Latino women, it's $0.54.
[13:30:00] So we need to constantly bring it back to the reality of the discrimination with which girls and women live so that boys and men can
understand. There's a cemetery that has been intractable and systemic. Yes, it's a course correction and yes, people are going to feel lost.
Especially, as I said earlier, well we don't have these positive healthy male role models. This is a generation in transition and organizations
like a call to men and mentoring violence prevention. They do trainings in schools. They come to corporations. They talk to religious groups.
We are making it up as we go and that's a beautiful opportunity. When has a culture in a society had this sort of chance to say who do we really want
to be? And I firmly believe that this is our calling to transformation and healing.
AMANPOUR: Let's get down to the nitty-gritty of the big tent on gorillas who've been felled in this Me Too movement. And the first one was Harvey
Weinstein, right.
JUDD: Right.
AMANPOUR: And he is now, we read, his legal team is lashing out women who've been accusing him. Already one has been discredited and a case of
one has been dropped. You have a legal case against him which is set I understand for 2020 in court. Are you still confident as you pursue that?
Do you feel targeted right now? How is that going to the legal pursuit of your case against him?
JUDD: Well, I also want to tweak the language because the vocabulary we assign to these situations is really important. And, you know, I didn't
fell Harvey. His own behavior and criminal predation have imploded his life. So the responsibility lies with him.
And I'm really comfortable with our case because defamation is a legal interference with economic opportunities, a legal sexual harassment is
illegal. And, you know, our hope is that we can apply existing law or strengthen laws where they may not necessarily exist yet so that girls and
women can have safe, dignified, and fair workplaces.
And, you know, over 50 percent of all women say they experience sexual harassment in the workplace. And of women under 34, 74 percent have never
reported it. So I hope, you know, in some small way to be of service to people who are experiencing sexual harassment in the workplace because it
does interfere with their economic opportunity.
And that's money in their pocketbooks. That's money for health care at home. That's money for education. It's, you know, money for vacations
when families can bond and make memories. This is about economic opportunity. And I think that the economic argument is one that should
appeal to our, you know, capitalist American society.
And, you know, I want to point out that what Harvey has done is classic DARVO with this e-mail that has been leaked. It's denying, attacking, and
reversing the victim-offender order. It's a strategy that perpetrators use. And I think when we can have that metanalysis we can go. A
perpetrator is just doing what a perpetrator does.
AMANPOUR: Let's just point out what the e-mail is.
JUDD: And again --
AMANPOUR: He said, "I've had one hell of a year, the worst nightmare of my life." So as you say, that's the sort of customary tactic that's --
JUDD: Absolutely.
AMANPOUR: -- that being used. Can I just ask you, just to go back? I mean I know it's painful but you obviously were assaulted by him or
approached in a way that you fled from. And you say and you're sure that your career was affected because of it. But before that, when you were a
little girl, you were also abused.
JUDD: Yes.
AMANPOUR: And you didn't know which way to turn and what to do and how to get the adults in your life to step up. Tell us a little bit about how
difficult this is.
JUDD: You know I'm just -- I am one of many, one in four girls who will be sexually assaulted before they turn 18 and one in six boys will be. And,
of course, those numbers are catastrophically higher for girls and women of color, for the disabled, for folks of different socioeconomic backgrounds.
It's very intersectional.
I was molested the first time that I remember when I was 7-years-old and I did what I do. I immediately told. I went to some grown-up story and
Jeff. I said this is what happened. And this is so much of what has changed with Me Too and Time's Up because they weren't prepared or equipped
to respond to me in a way that was healthy and appropriate and that would address my traumas. They literally said to me, "He's a nice old man.
That's not what he meant."
So I tried to tell my uncle and my uncle was my safe guy. We played in the dirt together. I had so much fun. And, you know, I started to lose my
voice at that moment but I still had that resilience. I still had that knowledge in my body that something was wrong. And he was listening to an
LP record and had on stereo headphones and I sat sort of behind him where he could kind of see me but not really. I was practicing saying out loud
what had happened but I couldn't make the words connect.
But here I am all these years later. You know I told the story about Harvey in Variety Magazine in 2015 in extraordinary detail but [13:35:00]
no one was ready to listen yet. And that's what's so beautiful about this opportunity because, you know, as rich -- as Professor Kagan at Harvard Ed
says, "When we really listen to each other and we witness each other's reality, we are recruited to each other's welfare." That's what so much of
what Me Too is about, getting that empathy onboard so we can soften our hearts and open our minds.
AMANPOUR: So just to wrap up a little bit on this issue. At the beginning, and certainly the beginning of this year, you talked about the
joy you felt at the Me Too movement. And I wonder whether that joy is still there for you nearly a year later or more than a year later. And are
there still structural issues that have to be addressed? You know Bill Cosby is in jail. Harvey Weinstein is under court proceedings, you know.
And others have paid penalties, lost their jobs, may even lose their golden handshakes and their payouts, et cetera. But is there enough of the
structural change or do you think you're looking for more of that?
JUDD: Of course, I'm looking for a more structural change. I'm looking for more middle and upper-class white women to get on board with
intersectional feminism. I'm looking, as you mentioned earlier, for us to destigmatize. The word feminist which really just means social, cultural,
economic equality for boys and men, that we're all special and we've got this DNA blueprint from God inside of us that makes us precious and unique.
And I'm very joyful and hopeful. I actually might even cry a little bit. Yes, it's a struggle but that's the nature and definition of struggle.
It's hard work but I think we're doing God's work.
AMANPOUR: Well, you have been at the forefront of this struggle. And many, many people thank you for it. Ashley Judd, thank you for being with
us.
So a little girl once said that there is no place like home. But for many children, clicking your heels three times like Dorothy did is no remedy for
homelessness. Steve Lopez is a columnist for "The L.A. Times" who recently published a four-part series on child poverty in Los Angeles, focusing on
the stories from Telfair Elementary School where nearly a quarter of the student body is homeless. Many living in motels and garages, little to
eat, no way to do homework, victims of rising housing costs. Lopez told our Hari Sreenivasan the school is an oasis for these children.
HARI SREENIVASAN, CONTRIBUTOR: Steve Lopez, you did a four-part series on child poverty in Los Angeles. You spent months looking at one school.
Why?
STEVE LOPEZ, COLUMNIST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES: I was curious about how it could be that California could have the fifth largest economy in the world,
not in the nation but in the world, and yet about 20 percent of the population living in poverty. And when you break those numbers down, it
means there are about 2 million children in California living in poverty.
And one day, I bumped into the superintendent of Los Angeles Unified School District. And he was new on the job and I asked how it was going. And he
mentioned that the challenges are many and asked if I was aware that there are a couple of schools where nearly a quarter of the student body was
homeless. So I decided to check that out. And one of those schools is Telfair Elementary. So I spent several weeks hanging around there talking
to teachers, to the principal, and to families.
SREENIVASAN: So what does it look like if a quarter of the school population is homeless? How do they -- we're not talking about people
panhandling on the streets. It's a different kind of homelessness.
LOPEZ: It is a different kind of homelessness. We're not talking about students, camps in tents outside the front office of the school. What
happens is that families each year in Los Angeles Unified are asked to fill out a residency questionnaire. And you have to check these boxes, do you
live in a motel? Do you live in a vehicle? Do you live in a shared apartment or home? Or do you live in a place of your own?
And a shocking number of students in Los Angeles Unified a couple years ago, it was 17,000 checked one of those boxes and last year 15,000 plus.
And little Telfair Elementary School which only had about 750 or 60 students had more than anybody. They had about 180 of their students who
had checked one of those boxes and a third of those were living in garages in the neighborhood.
SREENIVASAN: You mean the garages that are attached to homes just where we would normally park our cars?
LOPEZ: Where you would keep your lawn mower and your motor oil, yes. No, there is a -- it's actually become quite an industry in Los Angeles. It's
not entirely new. It's just that in this economy, the housing costs are still rising way faster than wages are rising. So people are, you know,
stretched to the limits [13:40:00] and there are all of these creative living arrangements.
And I spoke to one real estate agent who recently sold a four-bedroom house to somebody who was going to live in a back shanty and rent three of the
bedrooms for $700 a month each. And the one bedroom that had a bathroom was going to go for about $950. So you have families living in situations
like that all around Telfair Elementary School.
SREENIVASAN: These are not low prices. Why do people agree to pay some of these prices? Or you also mention that they're living in motels. That's
not an economic option.
LOPEZ: No, there are no economic options in Los Angeles right now. We've had, because of a housing shortage, a skyrocketing of rents of every kind.
So it's not uncommon to find somebody living in a garage paying $1500 a month. Now, these are garages that, you know, they've been converted.
Some of them have bathrooms. There's running water. Some of them have kitchens.
So it's kind of like, in many cases, maybe a studio apartment or a one- bedroom. So they're not necessarily horrible living conditions. But when you have families and you have children in school and there's no quiet
place to do the homework and there's no yard to go outside and play in because the owners' family is out there, it puts all of these burdens on
these families.
And then those burdens transfer over to the schools because teachers will tell you about students who show up who maybe didn't have a nutritional hot
meal or they didn't get their homework done because they didn't have a quiet place to do it. They're not focused on the lesson plan that day
because maybe somebody next door was noisy and they didn't get any sleep. So all of these burdens walk into these classrooms every day at Telfair.
SREENIVASAN: You're focused in -- for one of the stories, there is a video of a family that you meet who is living in a motel. And just the act of
getting the children to school on a daily basis is an uncertainty.
LOPEZ: That's right. Two months into the current school year, the family had lived in three or four different places. They were in a motel, moved
into an apartment that was a two-bedroom, one-bath that 17 people were living in. That wasn't working out so moved back to a motel. But the
cheapest motel was six miles from school and the mother doesn't have a car. So it was either public transportation or call a relative or a friend and
hope somebody would take the kids to school. And sometimes they showed up and sometimes they didn't.
And in that motel room, this is one-room. It's a small room. There are two beds. There is no kitchen. There is no desk, no place to do your
homework. The place is kind of noisy. There are some nefarious activities going on in that motel and all the surrounding motels. And this is how
thousands of children are growing up in Los Angeles.
SREENIVASAN: One of the things that strike me about that video is the mother is concerned about malnutrition that she is not able to feed her
children regularly.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yesterday, (INAUDIBLE), you know. But sometimes it just -- it hurts me to see them hungry.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LOPEZ: You know, when I was in the motel room, I saw a 7/11 pizza box. And this was early in the morning so I assumed it was from the night before
which I guess it was. And when the ride was not showing up to take the three kids to school, one of the kids, the little girl who was 5-years-old
was getting hungry. So she walked over, opened up that 7/11 pizza box and put a piece of pepperoni pizza into the microwave and that was breakfast.
I mean the one thing these kids look forward to is the school is kind of an oasis. It's safe. They serve you hot meals. But if you don't get to
school, you don't get to take advantage of those.
SREENIVASAN: So what happens to this children? What are the ripple effects? What are the forces that are weighing on them by the time they
get to class?
LOPEZ: Well, you know, teachers talk about how they're a little unfocused. Maybe they're tired. Maybe they didn't do their homework. Maybe they ate
something but it wasn't the best food to prepare you for a day in school. So there are those things. And then it becomes a little more serious.
They find irritability. They find mood disorders, high rates of depression even among elementary school students.
And the thing that's of even greater concern is all of this recent research about adverse childhood experiences and the more of these that you're
exposed to, including unstable housing situations, and broken families, and not [13:45:00] enough of an income to get you to school regularly or to put
food on the table, you have not just physical and mental challenges and ailments as a child.
But they're finding, researchers are, that these are lasting into adulthood. Something like twice the normal rate of heart disease if you're
exposed to four or more of these adverse childhood experiences. So this is not just a problem in K through 5 for these kids. This is something that
may be with them for a lifetime.
SREENIVASAN: It also sounds like the teachers here are the front lines for not just teaching but everything else. I mean you're describing a social
worker or a team of social workers that would have to grapple with any of these specific challenges individually. But really the only person that's
going to have to face this for 15 or 20 kids in her or his classroom is that teacher.
LOPEZ: You know we've looked at some of the test scores of schools like Telfair and we sit back in judgment, "Oh, that school is failing." What I
saw was inspirational. And you're right, teachers are social workers, sometimes they're parents. They've got -- they wear a lot of different
hats. And they're dealing with problems that come in with these kids because of the conditions they're living in.
And I should tell you that if you drive just a few miles from Telfair Elementary, you can see where the Lockheed Martin plant closed. You can
see where the G.M. Auto Manufacturing plant closed, where the Price Pfister Kitchen Faucet plant closed. And all of those jobs were, which were
middle-income jobs, were replaced by service economy jobs.
So a lot of these families I'm talking about that are living in motels, some of them in vehicles, some of them in garages, they're not sitting
around all day. These are working families. But we have an economy that is serving just a few people at the top and those in the middle, at the
bottom are struggling.
So the Telfair story is not just about child poverty. It's about this economy. It's about something broken in California. How can you have the
state that has such incredible staggering wealth, hundreds of billionaires, the fifth largest economy in the world, and thousands, actually millions of
children living in poverty? Something is broken. And I have not yet met anybody who has any ideas on how to really address that.
SREENIVASAN: You're pointing to something systemic. You're pointing to something also generational when some of these children grow up in these
situations, they're almost trapped.
LOPEZ: The odds are really against them and that was another thing that really inspired me about this school Telfair. The teachers believe in
them. The teachers believe that each of them can make it under the right circumstances. And they know that they come from, you know, living
conditions that can be pretty depressing. And they want the school to be an uplifting, safe, comfortable place.
And the person who sets the tone for that is the principal, Jose Razzo. Jose Razzo grew up just a few blocks from Telfair Elementary. And when he
was a boy, lived with his mother and his siblings for a while in a garage. And Jose tells the story about that garage not having a bathroom. And if
you needed to use the restroom, you had to walk outside the garage, go around, go up knock on the front door of the owner, the owner's house, and
ask permission to use the bathroom.
This is a guy who had faith. He had his mother behind him saying your faith and education is going to get you through it. He did well in school.
he played in the band in high school. He joined the United States Marine Corps. He came back. He started as a teacher's aide and then became a
teacher and then wanted to run a school.
And he runs this school with banners. College university banners are hanging from the hallways, from the auditorium, from the first day. It's
not, "Are you going to college kids? Which one are you going to go to?" On Fridays, you don't have to wear your uniform to school if you wear a
university t-shirt or a sweater. So this is a really sad story. It's tragic but I found great inspiration in the attitudes, on the hard work,
and the ethics of the principal and his teachers.
SREENIVASAN: You know one of the things that your stories also point out is that if we just looked at the test scores, we'd miss the nuance that
you're describing here. We wouldn't see the inspiration. We just essentially -- and I think one of the people in the story had said the test
scores really are much more of a measure of poverty. Not necessarily of their potential.
LOPEZ: Yes. I think that it's a measure of poverty rather than a promise. These are smart kids. And when they have access to the right things, I
think there's no limit on what they can accomplish. But let's take a look at Telfair and what do they have [13:50:00] or what do they not have.
Given all of this trauma, you'd think they would have a psychiatric social worker. They do not. You'd think they'd have a nurse. The nurses there
are only a couple days a week. You'd think you'd want to expose them to reading and to, you know, the power of words, the library is usually
closed. These are the problems we're seeing at a school, in a district, in a state.
That when I was in public school, this is a few years ago in California, California was a model for the nation. Schools were well funded. The
resources were there. And those schools helped drive what became this great, powerful economic engine in California. We short trip our kids
today. How can you have a situation like that in this economy, with this level of poverty, and not have the tools that the students need to succeed?
That part of this is tragic and very discouraging.
SREENIVASAN: One of the statistics that leaped out to me and other people when we read on a story, you said 80 percent of the students at the L.A.
Unified School District qualify for a free or reduced lunch. That's a stagger -- that's 480,000 kids out of the 600,000 that go to the school
district.
LOPEZ: I mean imagine that. Imagine that. And yet we have these conversations about, "Gee, what's wrong with the schools?" Do we need more
charters? Is the teacher's union running things? And do we need to crack down on that? Let's have another politicized school board election.
What I think I discovered in working on the series was that the schools are not the problem, society is. Everything else is, we're the problem. We
are expecting the schools to address the shortcomings in this economy and they're doing their best. Many of them, sure, they could improve, sure we
need to find new ways to support the schools and help them do better. But we've got much bigger problems than what's going on in the schools.
SREENIVASAN: As you look at this problem, what have you seen? Have you seen anybody tackle this in a successful way?
LOPEZ: You often hear people say that let's not throw more money at this problem. And those tend to be people whose children are not at those
schools. I mean when you don't have a nurse and you don't have a library that you can keep open, yes, money would help. Some recent studies have
determined that one problem in California more so than in other states, maybe it's because of the large poor community and large immigrant
population, is that once students in California begin school, they do as well as students in other states but they begin further behind.
And so there is talk about a new focus in California on pre-school intervention, on very early childhood education, on a better system of
coordinating all of those kinds of services, more parent coaching. I'd like to see school campuses become community centers.
This is an idea I got many years ago from New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley who was running for president. And I was out on the campaign trail and he
asked -- when he made his campaign stops in many neighborhoods in America, he said a public school campus is the only safe oasis and it's a place
where you may have the only library and the only gymnasium and the only place with all of these resources, why do we lock the doors at 3 p.m.? Why
don't we keep those open and make them community centers where people with a trade can come and talk about how they got into that business, where the
kids have access to the books in the library.
I think we need to rethink what can be done with school campuses and also what can be done to get kids better equipped before kindergarten so that
they're ready for school.
SREENIVASAN: All right. Steve Lopez, the four-part series is at the "L.A. Times". Thanks so much.
LOPEZ: Thank you.
AMANPOUR: Oh, that is an extraordinary report about the pockets of deep poverty even in Tinseltown, even in the most developed country of the
developed world. And just a note about how difficult it is to actually do those kinds of reports, do that kind of journalism. Local reporting is
under increasing stress across the United States because the money is just not there. We need to support them.
That is it for us now. Remember, you can listen to a podcast at any time. See us online at amanpour.com and follow me on Facebook and Twitter.
Thanks for watching and goodbye from London.
END
