hello, everyone and welcome to "amanpour & co." here is what's coming up. harrowing testimony on capitol hill. a woman's right to be heard against the highest level of power at the height of the me too movement appeal it the court of public opinion. with me to discuss is the former clinton campaign manager patti solis doyle. and john avlon. plus, we get a reality check on president trump's jaw dropping press conference at the united

nations from bob kagan and our michelle martin speaks to sarah smarsh about her new memoir. uniworld is a proud sponsor of "amanpour & co." when bee tollman found a collection of boutique hotels, she had bigger dreams, and those dreams were on the water. a river, specifically. multiple rivers that would one day be home to uniworld river cruises and their floating boutique hotels. today that dream sets sail in europe, asia, india, egypt, and more. bookings available through your travel agent. for more information, visit uniworld.com. >> additional support has been provided by rosalind p. walter. bernard and irene schwartz. sue and edgar wachenheim iii. the cheryl and philip milstein family.

and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> welcome to the program everyone, i am christiane amanpour in new york. the me too movement and the woman's right to be heard has been put to the test like never before. delivering a powerful opening statement about the alleged abuse. her voice cracking and at times vichblably shaking. >> i am here today because i am believe it is my civic duty to tell you what happened to me while brett kavanaugh and i were in high school.

he groped me and tried to take off my clothes. i believe he was going to rape me. >> for about four hours she took mostly sympathetic questions from democratic senators. cri christine blasy ford said she was certain that brett ckavanauh attacked her. >> this whole two-week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit. fuelled with apparent pent up anger. fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial record,

revenge on behalf of the clintons and millions of dollars and money from outside left wing opposition groups. >> joining me now from washington to break all of this down two well placed guested, patti solis doyle who served as an advisor to hilly clinton. and john avlon chief speech write tore former new york mayor rudy giuliani. welcome to both of you. i guess really, i have to start by asking both of you how you think this played out. and then of course followed by a very combative and partisan brett kavanaugh. first to you, patti. >> thank you for having me. i think christine blasey ford

was a compelling witness. she was courageous. she did not want to be there. and she was very relatable. when she spoke about the indelible mark of the laughter at her expense, i don't think there was any woman watching including the women in the room and the women senators who didn't feel for her and if they had ever been attacked or assaulted or harassed, you know, didn't relate to that. so i thought she was very powerful. >> you refer to the laughter that she says she heard as the t two alleged attackers, brett kavanaugh being one of them. she managed to escape this, that is what she alleges. i want to ask from your

perspective, john, how do you think this went in the court of public opinion. for a while, it was almost as if christine was potentially on trial. and the democratic senators kept saying this is not a trial, this is a job interview for brett kavanaugh. >> that last line was how senator feinstein framed t thit. the republicans because they had the fundamental optical problem of being all men and never having a woman serve. as a result the democrats praised her and the expert witness was clinical. and dr. ford came across as warm, unassuming, honest and

obviously compelling. brett kavanaugh came in hot, angry and outraged. and the contrast between the two was stark. emotionally raw on both sides. >> i want to ask you both, because you do point out in sort of a political flavor that is clear in the brett kavanaugh opening statement, i mean, over and over again, he talked about a fully paid campaign by the opposition, he talked about left-wing highly paid campaign against him. and you heard the little bit that we just showed. he accused people of still being angry about president trump's election of concocting all of this against hem. i want to get from both of you, how political this has become even though it is meant to be an attempt to get to the truth. patti, how political is it going to be? >> this is obviously very

political. this is about an appointment to the highest court in the land and the republicans want to get this nomination through before the midterm elections. the problem that they are having however is the women's vote heading into november. the damage really actually has been done with the women's done, i would argue in that the way this process has been run, not giving the fbi, the ability to investigate this, these three credible you know allegations against judge kavanaugh. the calling the female prosecutor, a female assistant. not allowing the other two women to testify. so women are watching. right now, republicans need to get this nomination through to cater to their base to at least make them happy and to get

another conservative judge on the supreme court. however, i want to go back to j he said that -- was in contrast to christine fort who seemed compelling believable. and judge ckavanaugh came in ho. he was not only in contrast to christine ford, he was in contrast on fox news two days ago. on fox news he was quiet, he was a choir boy. all he did was focus on studies and sports and go to church and today he was angry and combative, yes, of course i had beer, i drank with my friends. it was sort of, as i said, not in keeping to the portrait that he painted two nights ago.

>> of course his supporters would say that he had just sat through four hours of hearing the testimony against him and potentially came out very raw, certainly that seemed to be a really combative performance from him in the opening statement. can i ask you john, whether you think this me too moment is really at stake right now. and let us play a little bit of anita hill's it testimony back in 1991 during the clarence thomas hearing. >> telling the world is the most difficult experience of my life, but it is very close to having to live through the experience that occasion in meeting. it would have been more comfortable to remain silent. it took no initiative to inform anyone.

i took no initiative to inform anyone. but when i was asked by a representative of this committee to report my experience, i felt that i had to tell the truth. i could not keep silent. >> so john, from your perspective following all of this, you know, it is 27 years later and still, still the question of referring to something of historical, you know occurrence. and this idea that they didn't come forward earlier is being brought up regarding christine blasey ford. the time has changed but it looks like the politics and the feeling around it hasn't really. >> i think a great deal has changed but certainly are echoes between anita hill's testimony and her testimony the personal difficulty of coming forward but the sense have civic

responsibility she felt and what we heard today from dr. ford. there are great he cechoes and eternal aspects. what changed is that anita hill was ahead of her time. there was a major backlash that doubled the women in congress and tripled the number of women in the senate. the international conversation that brought about by the me too movement, clearly a rising tide in ways that are indelible. one key difference i would state is the allegations of clarence thomas was when both were adults. between two adults, one of whom was running the office and the

other working for him. and part of what has blindsided kavanaugh, when he felt his confirmation was assured and many people were treating him as, going back, that accounts for the anger he feels justifiably or not. that is a grave difference in the standards we applied. but anita hill was ahead of her time and whatever happens it is not going away. it is changing our culture as we watch. >> that is fascinating patti, changing our culture and this me too movement is not going away. to the specific question of historic abuse and allegations of such, the time, the memory and the recollection, why didn't you report it. and you just wrote an important article and i mentioned it and

the boys will be boys club. >> when i was young, in my early 20s, i was assaulted on the streets of chicago. i was attacked by a man on the street who said he was going rape me and if it were not for other people on the street, he would have done so. and i never told anybody that. i ran, i fleed and i got on my bus to go to work and i tried to forget tit. i didn't tell my husband, i didn't tell my children, i didn't tell my friends. i didn't want to. i was ashamed of it. i was afraid to. it didn't occur to me to tell police. when dr. ford spoke today, she very much spoke to me. and i think she spoke to millions and millions of women.

i think women of our age, i am 53 who have at one point in their time suffered something like that. and i think, i mean, this was the 1980s much like the incident that dr. ford went through with judge cav -- kavanaugh. it was a different time then. boys will be boys then. several pundits have said, even if it were true, is it disqualifying. yes, it is disqualifying. we need to tell our sons if they attack a woman, it is disqualifying and it will affect the rest of their livfe for the rest of their life.

>> these allegations, and he will never be able to shape them, i will never be able to coach kids basketball. let us play a sound bite, an exchange between senator leahy and christine blasey ford. >> what is the strongest memory you have. take whatever time you need. >> indelible in the hipaa campus is the laughter between the two and they are having fun at my expense. >> you never forgotten that laughter, never forgotten them

laughing at you. >> they were laughing with each other. >> and you were the object of the laughter? >> i was underneath one of them while the two laughed. two friends having a really good time with one another. >> i am innocent of this charge. i intend no illwill. my daughter, 10-years old, said to ashley, we should pray for the woman. a lot of wisdom. >> both anguished testimonial. and it is a he said/she said

situation right now. what more could happen to make this defining. john, what do you think? >> what many people have suggested is an fbi investigation which you know, judge kavanaugh said he welcomed but president trump has not green lit as george w. bush did in the hill/thomas case. we will see, this is still ongoing. but hard to hear both of them. two vastly different emotional truths at the very least. an incident that has haunted professor ford that judge kavanaugh may not remember and may not recognize in himself and it raises real questions it is a

precedent that we will apply going forward. and one that many senators may be uncomfortable with. it has been the ideals of the past, a vision. culpability for someone's ugliest worse moment. that is a large gap to bridge over that am ount of time. a different standard. this does not resemble the way i have lived my life as an adult. and the anger he is expressing is the anger. >> let me ask you, patti, why is it that background checks may not have brought this to light

before and what do you make of judge kavanaugh saying so many of the, even her friends were refuting what she said. there is a huge am ount of supporters for her, and for him. why do you think this hasn't come out before. >> as you know, when you go through an fbi check, they go through years and years. they want to know everywhere you lived, your landlords, your family members talk to people you worked with and they talk to a lot of people and they go through your entire life and i think something like this, a sexual assault at a party when you are in high school, first of all, other people don't remember it because it didn't happen to

them right. when i was assaulted, i was walking to a bus stop. i can recount exactly what my assaulter was wearing and what he said to me but i can't account every single walk i made to a bus stop, i just can account to you that one. if his classmates weren't the ones attacked, i doubt they will remember a party that they went to in high school and also, i don't think this is something that for instance mark judge who was a witness in the room during the assault allegedly, is something that this was, he would want to talk to or confess to obviously. so i think that's why it didn't come in that actual background check. >> go ahead. >> i was just going to say first of all, six background checks that judge kavanaugh has it

which is an unusually high number. i think the senate made a big mistake that they didn't call mark judge. this is a third party witness who has denied this has occurred. and judge kavanaugh has said, the individuals cited say they have no memory of it. the absence of corroborating evidence is troubling as part of a precedent that is being set. >> this is the reason why there should be an fbi investigation. so all of these witnesses, mark judge, the therapist, christine ford's husband, her friends, they could all speak privately to the fbi and then the fbi can present its results to the judiciary committee. and that wasn't done. and that is why this cloud is hanging over this nomination which unless there was an

investigation it will never be lifted. >> you led me to what i was trying to do and that is the nomination and what is going to happen. i want to play something from president trump. sort of looked like he was giving himself a little bit of an out at least in that moment as he said it despite his fierce support for judge kavanaugh, that he might reconsider, here is what he said. >> i can always be convinced. i have to hear it. >> it sounds like what you are saying is there is a situation, there is a scenario, that you would with withdraw your nomination. >> and if i felt he was guilty. i want to watch. i am meeting with a lot of countries tomorrow. but certainly in some form be able to watch. >> he is here in new york at the united nations referring to meeting with a lot of countries. this is front and center because this is his supreme court

nominee. what is your gut instinct what is going to happen? >> to me? >> first you patti, and then john. >> honestly, for president trump, it is all about theatrics and the reality show that is his presidency. i do believe him that he said he wanted to watch and how each witness perform. he saw dr. ford perform quite well and the stojudge is still as to whether he thought judge kavanaugh performed well. we do know he was unhappy with his performance on fox news and he wants to see him fight and defend himself more dramatically. judge kavanaugh did that today but i think in contrast to christine ford, it probably came off a little too hot and a little tone deaf. for president trump,

unfortunately, it is not about the substance of the testimony or even the qualification of the judge. it is about who performed better. and i guess we will find out tomorrow. >> well, i want to dig in a little bit -- sorry, go ahead, john, what do you think? was president trump laying the groundwork for his own potential withdraw of his nomination. >> he certainly left the door open. in some ways it was a clear contract to the fox interview. that it may have been speaking to that presidential desire for more passion and forcefulness. whether that is in contrast of judicial temp right aerament th the eye of the beholder. this will come down to the votes and their votes will be critical. kavanaugh made it clear, he is

not going to resign. the democratic game at this point is in some ways about delay, that has been an accusation, perhaps calling for further investigation. behind this all is the politics, not just the more polarized court, but meric garland. the insult done to president trump nominee. >> i want to play another couple of sound bites from these hearings, first one questioning and is dianne feinstein going to the memory issue. and then kavanaugh's broadside about the nature of this process. >> so what you are telling us is this could not be a case of mistaken identity. >> absolutely not. >> this is a circus. the consequences will extend long past my nomination. the consequences will be with us

for decades. this grotesque and coordinated character assassination will dissuade competent and good people from serving our country and as we all know in the united states political system of the early 2,00000s what goes around comes around. >> what you think becomes of this country, and also these political appointments, nominations and this tribalism. patti? >> yeah. well, i think this, i do agree with judge kavanaugh that this has been a circus without an independent body look into all of these accusations, politics takes over.

it has to. so you have republicans versus democrats fighting it out on national television for all to see. i personally think that today's hearing however was a real teaching moment and i tweeted out today that i wish every high school in america had dumped the curriculum for the day and made this mandatory viewing for all of our high school boys and girls in this country. because it is about yes, it is about the me too movement, it is about our civic discourse. it is about the way we treat each other. and it is about these young people who are growing up in a different world than 27 years ago with anita hill. and the choices that they have to make every day when they get in a car, they go to a party. and i just, it has been a circus but also a teaching moment for

all of us. >> your final word. go ahead. >> it is certainly a teachable moment, but there is nothing murkier than adolescence and alcohol and the disadvantatancee and add on to this the tribalism and partisanship. and an early time when a president was attempted to be embarrassed out of office because of sexual real indiscretions that occurred in the oval office and kavanaugh was involved. but these themes keep getting dredged up. and the supreme court is supposed to be above partisan politics, it is no longer. the latest insult was the nonvote on merrick garland. maybe it will become some sort of rebalances. this is going to get uglier,

there is a teachable moment here, but the politics of personal destruction are alive. >> thank you so much for talking to us about this really incredible water shed moment. so the kavanaugh hearing was on front and center of president trump's mind. even as he was if conferences in the united nations. he gave us an unfiltered look. this was on a freewheeling press conference yesterday. again and again, seeming to praise adversaries and take swipes at allies. what did we learn from this peek into foreign policy. robert kagan, a conservative thinker and the author of "the jungle grows back," he is

joining me now from washington. thanks for joining me. >> thanks for having me. >> president trump is thinking both what is happening to his nominee on capitol hill and projecting his power on the world stage of the united nations. what first did you make of that extraordinary press conference. we haven't seen much like that in a long, long time where he spoke about everything and also kept mixing in the kavanaugh and other issues. >> there was a certain adhd quality about all of that. and i would say at least on the foreign policy front, an astonishing lack of depth on any particular issue. but, you know, my concern is foreign policies, i don't know what is going to happen on the kavanaugh case. but i do know the direction. that is my principle concern right now. >> you have written this

article, this book, talking about an imperilled world and some are saying that president trump is withdrawing u.s. leadership at a precipitous rate. and while others who say this is an activist, not a unilateral president in foreign affairs. >> well i guess the british foreign secretary is entitled to his own opinion, i don't think there is any question that trump has certainly re-defined america's role in the world. going from where the united states tried to support a liberal world order that benefitted americans but also benefitted many others to heading in the direction to what i would call rogue superpower. he is straightforward by saying it is about america first. and he even at the u.n. urged other countries that they should be doing the same thing which is pushing the world towards

anarchy and a struggle against all against all. it brings us back to an earlier darker period of our history. i am thinking about the two world wars of the first half of the 20th century. and i fear that we are heading back to it now. >> it is interesting you say that, because you have also said that one of your biggest concerns is not necessarily about far flung countries no matter how much of a challenge they are to the united states. but of something closer to home and that is europe. at the united nations at the president chairing the security counsel meeting practically the only person that pushed back was president macron. and i want to play for you what he had to say to president trump. >> translator: france shall remain there to ensure that the world did not forget that nationalism always leads to defeat. that if courage is lacking in

the defense of fundamental principals, international order becomes fragile. and this can lead as we have seen twice to global war. >> explain to me, do you think macron is being strong enough and the others in trying to keep the multilateral post war order in place and what happens in your worst nightmare if quote we lose europe? >> well, i think macron is exactly right and i must say i find with talking with europeans that of course that history is much more real and alive for them than it is for americans who i think don't even think about what may have happened in two world wars. what the europeans can do about it, at this point, there is no way to affect donald trump's behavior, he is not someone that you can befriend or someone that you can convince you are on his

side. he looks at things in a narrow perspective. what europe has to do is pull themselves together and support democratic values and wait for the united states to get out of this funk if the united states is going to get out of it. i wish i were more optimistic that europe could do that. just in a time when europe is moving in the opposite direction. it is a concerning situation. you know, i think that europe can unfortunately can slide back to an earlier period which would be devastating for the world order and for americans ultimately. >> do you mean this populist wave. the hungarian foreign minister says let's call it what it is.

push back very hard saying we are friends of the united states. we believe in this sovereignty and keeping our borders strong and being our own and having the right to our own sovereign policies. let me play what president trump said about sovereignty and we can talk about what in fact that means in today's world. >> it doesn't matter what world leaders are going to say about iran. iran is going to come back to me and i think they are going to make a good deal. but they are suffering greatly. having riots in every city. far greater than during the green period with president obama. when president obama stuck up for government and not the people. i am sticking up for the people. i am with the people of iran. >> so we are going to play the other sound bite in a second, but let's talk about iran and

that is the focus of intense allied conversation trying to save that iran nuclear deal. what do you make of that, they will come back to me. that style of relationships, you know, making very, very sort of extreme policies and then hoping that those are just negotiating and bargaining tactics. >> right. and that clearly is trump's style and just to, you know, as an example of that, that was his approach to kim jong-un. first he threatened him and called him names and then he decided that he could do business with him. i think he was wrong both times and i don't think he has made any progress with north korea. and i doubt that he will make progress with iran either. the united states has an awful lot of power and i think it has been good to the degree that united states has not always used that power especially against its own allies. but trump has the capacity to

push the world around a lot. and my concern is if he keeps going like this, he will destroy all sense of common community and everyone will start looking out for themselves and that again is the root back to the dark past that we have tried to get away from. >> before i get to north korea, because we have an extraordinary sound bite of what he claimed about north korea. but i want to ask you about he can push the world around. can he push china around without negative consequences to america. >> it is interesting, i think on the economic front, we don't know yet how this trade war is going to turn out. i think it is probably the case that the american market is of greater importance to china than the chinese market is to us. and that the united states has leverage. my concern about china is that they may make concessions on the economic front but they may

respond a symmetrically by making moves on the geo political and military front. i am for trying to get china behave better. but we also need to understand that china does have other options. and i don't think that donald trump thinks that way. >> so about north korea and to follow up on what you said, you said that i have made friends with kim jong-un, i like kim jong-un, he called him very, very courageous. but he also said something in the press conference which took a lot of people by surprise. and take a listen. >> if i wasn't elected you would be in a war. and president obama said the same thing, he was ready to go to war. you would have lost millions of people, now thousands. soul has millions of people

30 miles and 40 miles from this dangerous border. if i wasn't elected you would have had a war. >> have you heard that before, that president obama was close allegedly to that? >> not only have i not heard it, i am fairly confident it is not true. but interesting that donald trump makes that point. he is walking an interesting line when it comes to his base and the american people in general. on the one hand he wants to look like a tough guy that can get the world to do what wants. on the other hand he wants to make it clear that he is not going to use economic force. and other countries are going to figure it out. other countries that are adversaries of the united states and have military capabilities. this is what is worrying about trump. he wants to push countries very hard but at the same time he is

not prepared to deal with the possible consequences of that. if it does lead to military confrontation. >> and again about the sovereignty issue, and he seems to be conflating alliances with somehow being against the notion of sovereignty, i don't know whether you think that as well, there is some sort of exclusivity that he seems to be claiming there. insofar as your book and what you have been talking about, the jungle grows back. the america and our imperilled world. what do you mean the jungle grows back. >> i don't mean that as sovereignty. he is playing to this olds american fear. i think when you are the strongest power in the world, it is a silly kind of fear.

when i talk about the jungle, what i am talking about is you know, if you think about the liberal world order that was created after world war ii, it has been a remarkable period. we know what has gone wrong and we can all list the failures of it, including the failures of american policy, it has been a period of unprecedented prosperity and also a spread of democracy like we have never seen in history. this is a precious but fragile kind of an order. there are a lot of natural forces working against it. the international system tends towards anarchy and conflict. we have been able to avoid that at least to the level of great powers. and the human spirit yerns for individual democracy.

it also yearns for strong order. it is not enough to say we want democracy. the human spirit is always at war with itself. and what we are seeing today, what you see are the natural forces, the weeds and the vines growing back and what we need to do is constantly fight against these basics and unending tendencies in both the international system and in human nature. >> it is really fascinating. we really are at a water shed moment and living through that right now. bob kagan, thanks for joining us. >> thank you. >> now, washington can seem a world away from the every day americans, journalist sarah smarsh grew up on a white working class farm. she says she escaped, her greatest achievement was graduating from high school.

her new book "heartland," tackles shame and class. and our michelle martin sat down with her. and she reflected on what poverty did to the women if her own family. >> thank you so much for speaking with us. >> thanks for having me. >> when did you realize that your story was a story? >> i really sensed as a kid, a budding writer even at a very young age that i was surrounded by a cast of wild characters. so i felt drawn to writing about my own family. it wasn't until i was older and went to college, did some work as a journalist that i understood the ways in which my family's private story might be worth telling for public reasons. >> one of the things about your book that stands out is that you highlight the stories of women

and their particular struggles and hopes to the degree that they articulated their hopes. describe each one for me. >> dorothy is my maternal great grand mother. no longer living. worked in the airplane factories in wichita. and at that time, she was living a hard life. she had a daughter named betty who ended up being one of my primary care takers. and foowed in her mother and father's footsteps as a member of the poor. she lived a chaotic life. >> she was married a bunch of times. >> eight if anyone is counting. and so betty, my maternal grandmother was this chaos of

her life had everything to do in some ways with her gender. talking about the importance of female stories within the tales we tell about poverty. one of the reasons she married so many times is she had fled an abusive husband for her own survival and my father's survival and her second child was kept from her by a small time guy who knew the cops. she was told if she ever wanted to get her son back, she needed to be married. so divorced young woman with a kid. and so she would take that advice and marry unsavrry characters for the immediate purpose of trying to get her son back. through that hardship that is documented in the book. her humor, dignity and raw power

was something i was in awe of even as a little kid. and people focus i think on the downsides of poverty and often within that experience there was beauty and she was one piece of that. >> and your mom? jeannie got pregnant with me when she was 17. and betty also got pregnant early. and for that reason perhaps my mom, was extremely frustrated and had a hard time as a young mother out in a rural area. geographic isolation on top of the economic struggles that she was facing as the wife of a construction worker and farmer. she worked all along too when she could. she had her kids in 1980, and 1984. and so whatever job she had when she needed to go have a baby, she lost.

and she was a brilliant woman and a just a talented artist and was great. she and i have a lot in common in disposition and maybe professional inclinations. her life played out differently in some ways because of the early pregnancies. >> one of the things that you talk about in the book that i found really moving was that about the emotional toll of being poor. you said i was the proverbial teen pregnancy. my very existence of the mark of poverty. i was the poor girl's lining like a penny in a purse. not worth much. but kept in production. heartbreaking. how early was it that you made the connection that your

existence changed your mom's life. >> i think i was tapped into my mother's frustration at an early age. i understood that she didn't intend to have me. while there was immense love within her, these relates and forces that were at work in her life meant that the children that she ended up raising were you know, had everything to do with the woes of her economic station. what i understand now is that what i perceived as a private experience was actually the result of public policies and realities and forces that she as an individual could hardly contend with knowing the life that she herself survived, it is kind of a miracle that she kept going and kept us fed. >> all of the women if your family had babies young and that really set the course of their lives and you determined at a

young age that you weren't going and i wonder how you figured that out. >> the best i can answer that is i was always a, i was just a hypervigilant child which could be a psychological feature of any kid who is in a chaotic or abusive environment. a lot of substances going around in my family, a lot of alcohol and these things. and what i understood is that there were these patterns that were the same about so many people in my family, the teenage pregnancy, the not finishing high school. and the addiction. and all i could figure while i want these folks and i want to carry their strengths of them. if i want the outcomes in my life to look different, maybe i should do another thing. >> i get the sense that wanting to tell their stories is part of what drove you, is that right? >> i think it probably, at the

most personal sense and that's, you know, the passion that would drive such a project comes from. was a sense that i know who these people are, and yet when i see, and i know who i am. and yet when i see our place, or our demographic, our piece of the united states represented in movies or books or even the news media that i am proud to be a part of so rarely gets it right. and in fact, often gets it wrong with insult by which i mean caricatures, stereotypes, even perhaps by well-intentioned story tells and filling that gulf between integrity and dignity and complexity of the people i knew and the stories that i knew about us. that is the one that became so important to me is provide a

corrective. >> you talk about the shame, in the united states the shaming of the form is a unique form of bigotry, it is not necessarily about who or what you are. it is about what your actions have failed to accomplish. financial success within capitalism and the related implications of your work. you say that poor whiteness is a peculiar offense. and society views whiteness with power. how did that occur to you? >> it is a fact that whiteness is a privilege, in many ways including economic in this country and because of that, sometimes when i was that first generation kid on a college campus, people who saw me perhaps heard their ideas about what poverty meant, my own advantage was invisible to them.

>> did you feel poor? >> when i was a kid, i never would use that word. and i didn't feel it. usually you got enough to eat, roof over the head, no complaints. college is where i started brushing up against kids from different backgrounds. like damn r, i really had to wo harder to get her, and nobody bought me a car for high school graduation and i have three jobs to pay the bills. they are having a time of their life and it felt like these were the hardest of mine. >> did you feel like you made it? >> the day i graduated from high school, being the first person in my farmhouse to do this. i am not pregnant, i graduated from high school, i made it. >> what do you want to happen as a result of your book?

>> what i hope is kind of two fold i guess. on one side of the coin, the people who feel like someone hasn't told their story will read the book and be able to say like, that flat land and that wheat field and that female body, that's where i'm from. and then on the other side of that coin, the people for whom the class and place and experience that i tried to document might feel utterly foreign that that reader could perhaps both have her eyes opened to some reality that she hadn't previously known and i won't sell my younger self short by saying i didn't work darn hard because i did. but you know what i am here to say is not i made it, then why can't you, you should too. it is to say, i made it, so what i am here to say, is most people will not because it is almost impossible and it shouldn't be

and it doesn't have to be. as the subtitle of my book says, the richest country on earth. >> thanks for talking to me. >> before we go, do tune in tomorrow for my interview the legendary actor anthony hopkins. why playing king leer at 80-years old feels like his best role yet. that's it for our show tonight. thanks for watching "amanpour & co." on pbs and join us tomorrow. ♪ >> uniworld is a proud sponsor of "amanpour & co." when bee tollman found a

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