welcome to "amanpour." tonight we take you from the towns that dominate trumps american heart land to the streets of egypt. reflections from "new york times" david kirkpatrick. on the birth and death of the arab spring. also ahead. one married couple, one smael plane and 100,000 miles epic adventure. james and deborah fallows on their revealing journey into the heart of america. hello, everyone. i'm christiane amanpour. in london.

bringing democracy to the middle east has proved a thorn in the side of every american administration for the past 70 years. it finally looked like it would happen from the inside during the arab spring eruption of 2011. in a wave stretching in teefsh tunisia to egypt. regimes were and dictators fell like dominos. the united states unsure who to back. in the face off between the long tile ally and the people poir rising from the street. david kirkpatrick arrived in a sleepy, sweltering chi rote previous summer. dispatched as bureau chief for the "new york times" and being told by experts in washington that nothing much would happen on his beat. six months later he was reporting on the spark that i . ignited the arab spring. and the downfall of the president. his account of egyptian ref l s

roo revolution. and returned a general to power. i sat down with kirkpatrick recently to discuss 2011 seismic uprising. his origin. decent into chaos and lasting impact on the arab world. welcome to the program. how was it that you became the accidental arab spring correspondent? >> my first week on the job in cairo i heard a young man burned himself to death in tunisia. i'll travel there and write about the story of the psychology of suicide. the whole country had blown up and closed down the airport. wle what are we going to do. we have to send in someone more experienced. it was too late and they closed

the airport. that's how i got my start. >> that was the spark that lit the arab spring. >> into cairo and libya. >> did you have any idea the suicide setting himself alive was going to ignite something all over the region? >> none whatsoever. i heard there were copy cats and imagine i could write a story about people imitating the suicide. >> i was in cairo for the arab spring. as a precursor before you got there, president obama one of his first tripping if not the first trip of his presidency was a reach out to the arab and world. he chose cairo to make the famous speech. i'll play a bit of it. and we'll talk about it. >> i have come here to cairo to seek a new beginning. between the united states and muslims around the world. one based on mutual interest and mutual respect. and one based upon the truth that america and islam are not

exclusive. and need not be in competition. instead they over lap. and share common principle. principles of justice. and progress. tolerance and the dignity of all human beings. >> it was an extraordinary speech at the time. and now all these years later it's perhaps more extraordinary. what did you hi when you heard that? you weren't there yet. did you focus on ha speech? >> well, i was studying arabic at the time. here in washington d.c. and it was an amazing speech. he gives great speeches. one thing in retro spect there was little talk of democracy. he really soft peddled any idea of political reform. he was reaching out to recognize the people of the region but trying not to challenge the other rulers. >> what did you think when you were in the middle of it? >> i have to say i'm probably

the luckiest journalist alive today. in cairo before the uprising. if i didn't acknowledge it was thrilling. it was breathtaking. you were there you saw what was happening. >> i was the luckiest in the world. because none of us expected this. i finally got to the last one to see him. i'm proud of it. i want to play a clip. it was so amazing that moment. it was off camera. i talked to diane sawer. about the encounter. we'll chat. >> when i walked in i asked him how he was he said i feel strong. i'm not the kind of person to return and i will die on egyptian soil. i asked him whether he would step down now he said i would be in public service for 62 years and now i'm fed up and i want to retire. if i resign now, there will be chaos. and i'm afraid the muslim

brotherhood will take over. >> in some ways. >> which ways was it not? that's what happened. he didn't stay for an extra six months. the obama administration essentially pulled the rug from underneath their long time ally, right? >> i think there's a lot of nuance to the story. when you look closely at his final days the white house stuck with him until it was clear his body was on the stretcher. the white house didn't begin to break until it was already clear if you were paying attention that the generals in egypt had broken with him. he was a goner by the time obama gave him a nudge. as for his prediction, it's a glass half empty half full. in other ways egypt did okay. egypt managed to hold several free elections successfully during they brief 30 months of freedom. before here was another military take over. and so whether we'll call it

chaos. it will be up for history to judge. >> would you agree the promise of a democratic revolution and the promise that the young people in the square believed in, once their leader stepped down. just hasn't come true? >> well there's no doubt this is a tragic story. the hope we saw in the square has been crushed. that is over. that's disappointment. there's no way sugar coat that. what happened after that is still an interesting story to me. and not as simple as the brothers were evil and they were ousted. there's an alternative course where the brothers might have been voted out of office. and events super seeded to make that impossible. and that's a complicated story. a story in which the american role is somewhat ambiguous. the white house was admitting mixed messages through that period. >> fast forward a year after morsi won.

you were in the area. where he came under attack by the military. >> you're talking about the massacre. august 14, 2013. five years ago. >> put an end to the brotherhood leadership. >> yes. and it put egypt firmly back on the course to a dictator ship. what's astonishing is it's a large massacre. bigger than the tianamen square. we don't remember it that way. it has to do with american attitudes towards the brotherhood. people are reluctant to believe that this was a mass shooting of largely unarmed, non-violent demonstrators. there was a thousand people killed that day. >> were you afraid? >> of course i was afraid. it's a terrifying thing. in the moment you don't focus on your own death so much. but it was certainly was a

scary, scary experience. i will never forget the amount of bloodshed i saw that day. it's a reason why i wanted to go back and write this book. >> this book is into the hand of the soldier. and that is what happened. that was the day democracy died in egypt. even me saying that, if any egyptian government hears that, they will be furious. because they believe that the brotherhood hijacked democracy. and they are the guardians of some kind of democracy for egypt today. >> yeah, it's a funny thing. they insist that they needed to depose the president and cast aside a newly. in order to. truth is they didn't have their hands around the government. they weren't in control of the government. >> the muslim brotherhood. >> morsi has been in office for only a year. and it's telling that after his removal, the defense minister kept his job and the interior

minister kept his job. the foreign minister on hasn't. his cabinet has been working against him. that tells him they were far from having implemented a tyranny. >> general cc who is the president. >> what went wrong? >> as you know the muslim brotherhood has been feared for oo long time. holding over the brotherhood as a goboogy man for decades. and clearly i'm not an advocate for the muslim brotherhood. i want no part of that. but by the same token they were also demonized. they were demonized by the countries in the gulf and many others who were hostel to this change in egypt and fearful frankly of the brotherhood call for election. if someone comes out and says

the kwu ran requires us to have elections. over time that became the mess and in egypt. and other places like tunisia. >> yeah, but tunisia seems to be the poster child for success. and the fact that the main then did this amazing about turn and renounced a religious identity and said it was going to be a political party. it's amazing. >> yeah tunisia is an interesting case. they reached a very similar impasse to the one that happened in egypt and got out of it with non-violence. they managed after a long stand off to push through a constitution. and the party left power and had a non-violent political transition. it's not impossible to imagine that could have happened in egypt. at least i think so. it's not impossible. >> what could the west have done better? >> they admitted mixed signals from the start.

the president was saying we're for democracy. it's the only road to lasting stability. we're with the people. at the same time they were saying not so fast. we have to bet on the generals. in egypt the case of egypt we want to stay friend with the military over the long term. no matter what happens. during the crucial final months before they removed morsi from power, that's part of what i have done in the book. you see a pattern of mixed messages that probably allowed the generals to feel confident they would suffer no consequence for removing egypt governor. in many ways looking back the events of the summer five years ago in egypt were almost a foreshadowing of the policy we see with the trump administration. where he has really firmly embraced the idea that all are a problem. and the only response to extremism is not change hearts and minds. the only response is brute force. that's the answer. that's precisely the answer they

advocate in the persian gulf states. >> let's not forget president trump loves cc. >> he feels warmly about trump as well. >> look at libya and syria. equal hopes in those countries that they would also have their arab spring and a hot bed of the worst kind of violence and terrorism. and. >> to my mind it's telling both countries really headed south after the coo in egypt. it really sent a message around the region that as you say your choices here are extremist or aauthoritarian. the possible of a third way of a democratic future that we both felt in the square was crushed that day. >> indeed some egyptians or many say we were better off under mu bar rack. >> they look at the last years as the glory days.

it was the apex of freedom in egypt and prosperity. there's no way to sugar coat it. it's heartbreaking. >> david kirkpatrick. thank you. >> pleasure. >> now from the middle east to europe to asia. my next guests have covered it all. james and deborah fallows spent their married life chasing a world in constant motion. james a journalist and deborah a linguist. their careers enable them to dig deep and they tiurn their attention to hope in the united states. flying around in a single engine plane gathering information on fly over state. before the rise of donald trump. they spent five years collecting stories that we seldom hear. their new book, our towns. a 100,000 mile journey into the heart of america. they join me from one of their case studies. west virginia. to talk about what they learned. >> james and deborah fallows

welcome to the program. >> thanks so much. >> you have made something like a 100,000 mile journey around the united states. deliberately avoiding the elite coast. and you have been in the what maybe called the fly over states. what made you do it? james i know you have been doing the flying. let me ask you what made you do it? >> we started five years ago. we had come back from living in china for years and thought what if we try to apply the same approach in china of getting away from the big cities to our own homeland and what would be the texture and mood and temperature of the country if we didn't ask people about national politics instead said here in fresno and northern mississippi, here in charleston, west virginia. what are people hopeful about and concerned about. that's what we have been doing. >> what do you think?

if there's a conclusion, what can you conclude? >> there is a main message which we have -- we came to gradually. and the place we heard about at length we stay for two weeks or so. the main message was a disconnect between the tone of national politics that we are also very well familiar with. that tone being polarize, devicive and angry. very little get accomplished. if i win you lose. everything we know in national politics to be the case. that city by city around the united states there seems to be a much different attitude that people have range of problems from economic dislocation. to opioid and all sorts of other things which are well familiar on the u.s. scene. most places feel that in the parts of the u.s. they can experience firsthand, their making progress. they're having innovative

schools and finding ways to engage people without partisan division. dealing with experimental ways to cope with drug addiction. finding ways to train for new jobs. the portrayal we're offering of what's out there in america is very different from the one after the election of suggesting people maybe missing how much experimentation and collaboration, how much avoid dance of the partisan fight is going on city by city across the country. >> listen, it brings me to the next question which you identify and wrote about. after you sort of asked people their name and there's a second question. and in each place that second question is different. what were the second questions that came up? >> the second questions are so interesting they really reflect the current si of the town. in green ville, south carolina and texas. it's what church do you go to?

in st. louis, missouri it's always where'd you go to high school? in washington d.c. and new york you can guess it's where do you work? or where do you live. which divides people. in los angeles the question is how'd you get here. i took the 405 to the 10. in places like atlanta and seattle where there are lots of people moving for a new business and companies and industry. it's where are you from? in alaska you never ask where are you from. because people go there to get away from something in their past life. >> that is really fascinating. i would have been lost if somebody asked me that question in l.a. the 405 or the 10. that's double dutch to me. let me drill down a bit. some are finding it hard to square the heart land the voted for donald trump. who speaks about carnage and

speaks about division and fosters division. how do you square the people who voted for that, with the optimistic can do, you know, people who you describe? >> that's a of course a fundamental and crucial question. i'll fwif give you a bit of data and a possible theory. really, almost every place we went and we'd offer this as a test to viewers to try in places they don't know about. if you didn't ask people about national politics and asked them what's happening in the schools here. what's happening in the downtown or start ups. most places we went even as troubled as san bern, california. or mississippi. or coastal georgia. most said we feel we're getting traction. my bit of data would be consistently over the last 15 or 20 years almost all polls show that fewer and fewer americans think that the country is on the

right path. it's down to the low 20% of people feeling the country is on the right path. in the high 70s to 80% people say their communities they feel are on the right path. that the doesn't mean they have no problems. detroit has big trouble. so did other places. they feel the path is correct. i guess my theory is that something has happened to national politics and the way we discuss it in the united states. that it just is unat the timered from the stuff of real life. we describe in the book western kansas. which has become a majority of latin o area. because of the beef packing industry. where the anglo people are voting school bonds to educate the school children. they are really glad to have a city manager. who is here on a daca waiver in dodge city. that is his parents brought him when he was a undocumented.

but when they talk about national politics it's something different. it's a religious or triable. >> those who are desperate to understand the heart land that you spent so much time in, say precisely what you're telling me now. they find it a bit sort of on the. the wall street journal says such sobering issues along the topic of national politics stay on the peripheral. you have said given the places we were traveling i imagine many people we interviewed with your trump supporters but it didn't come up. the journal said perhaps so the authors elude to national politics so many times a lack of local narrative makes it feel incomplete. sometimes feel like a village ready to tip over. do you think there's some merit in the criticism?

>> as you can imagine i took it different view of things from that review. i would invite that author and anybody else to go out and see some of the places. and so it is again we were we think there's an a news arbitrage here. people are aware of things that have happened in a bad way over the last generation. industrial dislocation or gun violence. or whether it's opioid or any of the things which are genuine problems and there's an under awareness of the ways in which people are sort of trying to deal with the things. there's a picture in my view from the media of the interior of the country as a two dimensional place that things happen to. opposed to a three dimensional place where people are trying to bond. i don't know how much that reviewer has been on the road. i invite her to be on the road

more. >> these good people who you describe as innovative and concerned and looking for solution. and trying to avoid the poisonous national politics that we are immersed in. what do they say when they are cited? these very people are excited as the reason for protectionism for instance. and tariff. and the reason for all sorts of foreign policy things that the president is doing. or the war or all the things. the good people of the heart land. and now we hear that it's actually some of the policies are hurting the people of the heart land. particularly the tariff. >> i'll give you illustrations. we were in wyoming. the day after the election. wyoming gave donald trump his second biggest majority during the election. second to the state we are at this moment. west virginia. west virginia was first. wyoming second and utah third. at the same time they said of course we hope that the nafta

isn't disrupted. that's the economy. we hope we rely on immigration for the farm. and so again there was a disconnect. and it's again you can call this cogtive or whatever. something strange divorced the national political emotions from all the complexity of the other things including economic. >> that's so interesting. trying to get a grib on the disconnect. it looks like james from the picture was your pilot for the trip. i wonder whether there were scary moments or whether this was sort of bonding between the two of you? and how was it spending 100,000 miles as a couple together? >> well, he's a great pilot and conservative. and we had some basic rules of only flying safe conditions. when you're in a small airplane up there in the sky, weather happens. when air tra traffic controllers

say weather they mean bad weather. or surprises. birds and drones. other planes in the sky. sudden thunderstorms. it's a wonderful experience being flying at low altitude over country. where you can see the little rock well scenes of yellow school buses pulling up to white picket fences. or see the display of the country across the mighty mississippi. and the approaching rocky mountains or the plains. or the forests of the deep south. >> deb and i met on a blind date. and got married age 21. we have been together since then. it was a wonderful adventure. he's a wonderful guide and companion. ground control. and i'm emphasize that the privilege of seeing a continent as diverse of north america from

2,000 feet up is beautiful. most of the time. and it is you sense sort of the the logic of history. when you see where the towns are. and what it was like to cross the mountains. we felt lucky to do this and hope to continue to see more of the interior of the country. >> that's wonderful. you have a great wunder lust and you spent your honeymoon in ghana. so this comes naturally to you. james and deborah fallows. author of our town. thank you. >> thank you, christiane. >> around the world in 30 minutes. that is it for our program tonight. thanks for watching "amanpour." join us again next time.

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