hello, everyone, and welcome to "amanpour & company." here's what's coming up. i'd like to begin by condemning the -- >> is the u.s. government under attack from within? and is what we don't imagine the most harmful to our health? that is the alarming message of "the fifth risk," the new book by the brilliant nonfiction writer michael lewis. from the united states to europe the rise of liberal democracy. the eu accuses hungary of targeting immigrants and the rule of law. i put this to hungarian foreign minister peter szijjarto. and one year after a heavily armed gunman massacred 58 music fans in las vegas, our michelle

martin talks to larry ward, a gun rights activist who wants to see more guns in more places.

welcome to the program. i'm christiane amanpour in london. today we're looking at how governments respond to crises whether it's in indonesia where the death toll from the devastating earthquake and tsunami is now above 1,400 and aid is only just starting to reach the hardest hit areas after six days. critics say the indonesian early warning system is woefully inadequate, underfunded and poorly maintained. this week reporters have been on the ground talking about how that made those poor civilians sitting ducks. they simply weren't warned about what was about to befall them. meanwhile, in the united states, the trump administration has embarked on dismantling some of the most critical government functions, according to a new book, "the fifth risk" by

best-selling writer michael lewis. it's a red flag warning us of the dangers of those uninterested in participating and being able to avoid a whole panoply of disasters. michael lewis joins me now from washington to talk about all of this. welcome to the program. >> well, thank you for having me. >> it couldn't be better timed, actually, because of what we see in the united states, but we also have a real disaster in independent knees yeah that points out what happens when government institutions are hollowed out. i know you look particularly to the united states but tell me what you mean by the fifth risk, how was that coined and what does it mean? >> i'll tell you how it was coined. i started by -- the story really starts with the trump administration not bothering to engage in a transition with the obama administration. they were meant to have hundreds of people flooding into the federal government the day after

the election to receive briefings that had been a year in the work and it was the best course ever created in how the federal government ran waiting for them, and they didn't show. didn't show to the point where they were like little finger sandwiches on the table that didn't get eaten and parking spots that didn't get filled. when i learned that this happened a couple of months after the election, i went and started wandering around the federal government, asking what were these briefings and could i have them? just to find out kind of what they didn't know. what emerges is a picture of a couple of things. one is you can think of a government -- there are a lot of ways to think of it, but the way i'm framing it, it's a portfolio of risks, many of them catastrophic. many of them long term in nature that are being managed. and the white house, to get to the title, the white house had prepared a tabletop exercise to be engaged in between the outgoing cabinet officers of the

obama administration and the incoming cabinet officers of the trump administration. and they planned -- what would happen in the following instances, we're going to scheme out how you react, a pandemic, a terrorist attack of some sort, a natural disaster of some sort and a cyber attack of some sort. and i was talking to the person who planned it. if there was a fifth, what would you have done? she went blank on me. that's the issue. the issue isn't the pandemic or the cyber attack or the terrorist attack, the things that are vivid in your mind and you're already kind of thinking about. there's a panoply of other risks the government manages that no one is paying any attention to and that can blow up in your face at any time. it's sort of like the thing you don't imagine is the thing that's going to come and bite you. they're not imagining. the trump administration is basically -- they're either actively dismantling the government in places or more commonly just the neglecting it.

>> there are stats and before i get to the stats abut what you call neglecting it, these transitions that you talked about, you mentioned between obama and trump, but are they traditional? doesn't every outgoing and incoming have those transitions? >> they do. no, no, i hope i didn't make this seem more normal than it is. not only have they had them in the past, laws have been passed in the last five or six years that require the outgoing president to prepare meticulously and require all of the candidates of the major parties, the two candidates of the major parties, i'm sorry, to receive the government. they will explain what is largely a technical matter. you go into the center for disease control and it's not an ideological conversation. there is, well, we had this

outbreak of the zika virus and this is how we dealt with it and why it didn't become a pandemic. you may disagree with what we did but you need to know what we did because you're going to be running this enterprise. trump had actually a transition effort in place because he was required to have it in place when he was elected. but the day after the election, he fired everybody. he fired hundreds of people. so they didn't have anybody to go in and learn about what they were going to manage. this is, i think, and this is the beginning of a lot of the problems they've experienced and that they will experience. >> i'm going to get to some of these -- who is running some of these departments in a moment, but just to back up what you're saying, there are government statistics. "the washington post" tracks key administration appointments and notes that of the 709 of them that require senate confirmation, 361 have been

confirmed by the senate, 194 have been nominated and 152 have no nominee at all. and then, of course, we do have these amazing pictures, for instance president trump about a year ago cutting red tape. i mean, this is kind of what he ran on, kind of what he does and what he's proud to do and what his voters apparently like. but i do want to ask you, to the point that you make of the neglect or disinterest, being unqualified, you remember very, very clearly, as everybody does, that famous moment in a debate in 2011 when rick perry couldn't remember the department of energy as one of the agencies that he actually would have wanted to eliminate. now, of course, he runs it. why is the department of energy so important? give us an idea what it actually, you know, determines. >> so, it manages the stockpile of nuclear weapons. among other things. that's the headline.

a large part -- the bulk of the budget is in assembling, testing nuclear weapons and also cleaning up nuclear waste sites. which is an enormous expenditure. think about this for a minute, the level of ignorance required to make the statement he made in a debate, that he wants to cut -- he wants to eliminate entirely the department of energy. clearly doesn't know what it is. and he can't remember its name, but he was the governor of texas at the time. and the nuclear weapons that are being assembled under the department of energy aegis are assembled in the texas panhandle. it's amazing he doesn't know any of this. when he finally collides -- this is what happens over and over and this isn't just a trump phenomenon, these outsiders who don't know very much about the federal government claim it's wasteful and lazy and filled with slow bureaucrats. and the minute they get to it and realize what it's doing, oh, my god. we can't cut that. and that's what perry did.

now the problem is probably not here, the nuclear bomb is going to go off when it shouldn't go probably the physicists in the department have that under control. but there's this whole other wing which is essentially basic scientific research for the long-term future that most of the -- the entire solar power industry and the wind power industry has its start in research projects in the department of energy and that's being totally the neglected and trump's trying to cut it. >> you make a lot of interesting points and some you'll agree happens between administrations no matter how they are. they're neophytes, some are industry lob gists that get appointed to various department heads. you have loyalists to the president that get appointed. it's not that new although some are quite egregious. what you mentioned was this

growing rift between government and the citizens and the fact that in many parts of the country, for instance, one mayor basically said that when it comes to rural votes that they just don't want to be credited with government -- you know, the mayor just didn't want to be credited with some sort of lifesaving and important things that are coming from the government even though it really helps. >> so this is a point that's original with me, but it's a curious, curious feature of american society right now that the very people who are most dependent on the government have voted for a man who is most hostile to it. so rural america, one of the patterns in the last election was that the more rural the place, the fewer people there were, the more heavily it went for donald trump. and there is a department in the government, which i write about in the book, the department of agriculture that can be called the department of rural. you drive around america, you drive through a small town and there's a nice firehouse and a

nice school and water and power and all of that, almost all of that is coming right from the department of agriculture. that is not something they built themselves. what happens is the department of -- inside that department is a $200-something billion bank that makes these loans to the rural communities. and when the people go from the federal government with the million dollar loan to build x or y, the local politician will say, could you please take that big check that says united states treasury -- or from the federal government out of the frame because we don't want anybody -- our people will be hostile to the idea the government, the federal government being present here. there is this juncture between what the people expect from and get from the government and their feelings about the government and this is not peculiar to trump. this has been boiling in this country for a long time. >> exactly. there will be people in the trump camp and all of those people who want smaller government, and it's a big rallying cry in the united

states particularly in the conservative wing of the united states. there's some pushback. "the wall street journal" of your book said the following, isn't it likely that voters elected mr. trump precisely because he intended not to follow the obama administration's precedents but it -- to reverse them. didn't voters expect him to disrupt washington's business as usual ways. surely that is a more plausible reason that incompetence why the trump people didn't ask for briefings. and then they add, maybe you're overrating the risk because trump has been in office almost two years and the government functions. >> yeah, he's, you know, the government will function for a little while, no matter who is there because it's a vast civil service that's in place. however, is the government -- how well is the government functioning? and we have, whatever, 6,000 children in cages on the border with mexico in part because the government has lost track of

which parents belong to which child. the internal revenue service shut down on tax day because the computer system collapsed. i mean, you can see pockets. you can see problems emerging. now the idea this is some sort of systematic planned dismantling of the government that is going on, there is nothing systematic or organized about it. if there's a pattern to what the trump people have done and who he's put in and who he's nominated, it's narrow financial interests coming into the government to exploit it for narrow financial purposes. so across the government, for example, please explain to me "wall street journal" why this would be useful. they've been pulling down data from government websites especially related to climate change. that's the fossil fuels industry speaking. >> yep. >> the national weather service, which is a critical, a critical enterprise. it's like why we know hurricanes

are coming where they're coming. he's put in charge of that or tried to put in charge of that the ceo of a company called accuweather who has campaigned for the last 20 years to try to prevent the national weather service from communicating with the american people so accuweather can make money doing it. >> oh, wow. >> there is no -- there is no -- this is not -- i mean, this may be an oxymoron, an intelligent libertarian movement, but let's say there was such a thing was possible, that's not what this is. >> let me remind everyone of your previous work that raised all sorts of alarm bells, the big short around the financial crisis obviously and also reminding everybody that you used to be a trader. we have a lovely picture of you in your youth. i want to play the sound bite that's quite critical from the movie. let's just play that to end off with. >> there's going to be a bailout. >> well, they had to.

right? the paper markets would have collapsed. >> they knew. >> cash would have stopped coming out of atms, they had to backstop this. >> they knew the taxpayers would bail them out. they weren't being stupid. they just didn't care. >> because they're crooks. at least we're going to see some of them go to jail, right? going to have to break up the banks. the party is over. >> i don't know. i don't know. i have a feeling that in a few years people are going to be doing what they always do when the economy tanks, they will be blaming immigrants and poor people. >> so we have 30 seconds left. that was your cassandra moment there. what do you take away from that related to today in "the fifth risk?" >> i think we're living with the

political consequences of the financial crisis. the way that it was internalized by not just the american people but across the globe that elites have essentially rigged the system. if you want to say -- if there was any kind of pithy summary of the trump movement, it's an attack on elites. >> all right. really, really fascinating tually. you took on the federal bureaucracy. who would have guess that had would make such an interesting book. michael lewis, thank you so much, author of "the fifth risk." now if government workers feel anxious and off balance, as we've just been saying, many people i've talked to in countries around the world are feeling much the same way. that's because of the rise of so-called illiberal democracy and president trump making no secret of his fondness of those strong men leaders. this phenomenon is especially and proudly prominent among the popular nationalist who won a

third landslide victory this past april and he, in fact, coined the term illiberal democracy and has locked horns with leaders over his draconian immigration policies and clamped down on democratic institutions. in fact, earlier this month in an unprecedented move, the eu parliament essential parliament censured the government and began a process that could suspend hungary's voting rights. now peter szijjarto is hungary's foreign minister. when i spoke to him in new york i asked him about his government's affinity for the trump administration and vice versa. foreign minister szijjarto, welcome to the program. >> thank you for the invitation. i'm honored. >> i want to ask you, you obviously have a close relationship with the trump administration, would you say? does your government support the trump administration? >> we are not american citizens so i don't think it matters if we support him or not. it doesn't make sense if -- if you ask me the question whether a political relationship

is better currently compared to the democrat administration, yes, it is better. >> president trump has an immigrant asylum and refugee program that seems a lot like yours. what do you make of the united states at historic lows in their admission of refugees to this country, like 30,000 they put limits on. of all the rhetoric that president trump uses towards whether it's immigrants south of the border, the separating of parents and children, obviously his rhetoric to muslim nations, to african nations. i don't need to repeat all the slurs. in general, how does your government assess that and evaluate it? >> what i can tell you is that we consider it as a matter of sovereignty how a country deals with the issue of migration. we absolutely respect if a country, if a nation would like to make the decisions about whom to allow to come to the territory of that given country and whom not.

we absolutely respect the rights of the nations to make a decision with whom they would like to live together and what kind of country they want to be created of their own country. so that's why we'll make our migration policy, for example, then we expect the same kind of approach towards us, to respect our decision, because we never judged countries with a different type of migration policy until there's no pressure on us to follow them. >> now the problem, of course, is your migration policy is under the microscope, certainly within the eu to which you belong and the eu has certain rules and regulations and policies of tolerance and asylum and acceptance, et cetera. you have said that hungary will never be a country of migrants and your prime minister has talked about, for instance, he said this. we don't see these people as muslim refugees. we see them as muslim invaders. he's talking obviously to the waves of syrian war refugees and

others who have come in fear for their lives. he sees them as invaders and has even alluded to an epidemic, a disease, they could bring a disease or be terrorists, all of them potential terrorists. this has caused a huge amount of controversy and negative reaction around europe and other parts of the world to your country. >> look, our country has a direct experience back from 2015 how these migratory flows looked like. so we don't speak about this issue as if we had seen it on television or as we had heard it from news. we have experienced it firsthand. there are 400,000 illegal migrants marching through our country, disrespecting our rules and regulations entirely, disrespecting the way we live, occupying open and public areas, demanding issues which are absolutely not covered by international law. these people came through at

least four or five safe countries until they reached hungary and then they violated our border. my question is -- my question is what is the legal or immoral ground for anyone to cross, to violate a border between two peaceful countries? these people came through serbia, croatia, macedonia, bulgaria, greece, turkey -- all peaceful and safe countries. so it's not a fundamental human right that you wake up in the morning, you pick a country you would like to live in like germany or sweden and in order to get there you violate a series of borders. this is not the way it should work out. >> let me first try to get your feeling about this. do you agree they are invaders? do you have any respect for the international right to asylum and refugee rights? >> no, we comply with -- >> first invaders, are they invaders? >> actually, you see them, they come, they violate our border. they disrespect any kinds of regulations.

they are not ready to cooperate with your local authorities. they attack your police. they cause injuries to your police people, and the second part of your question, if i may because i think it's a very important question, whether we comply with international regulations. yes, we do. absolutely and entirely. >> many of these people, as you correctly point out, were trying to get to our countries. hungary was a transit place. they didn't really want to stay in your country. >> no. >> one of the big problems is europe and members of the eu refused some sort of quota system, refused, including your country -- >> absolutely. >> -- to take their fair burden sharing responsibility. >> i don't agree with this part of the sentence. >> which part, fair? >> yes. we took part -- we have been taking part in the solidarity as we have been spending 1 billion euros in the last short period of time of protecting the border of the european union and, yes, we do not agree with the quota system because quota system, number one, violating sovereignty of countries because it is you who has to make a decision who comes to your

country. number two, quota system is an invitation and an encouragement for further migratory waves, and this is something that we reject. >> as i try to pursue what your government is trying to be, your prime minister, prime minister orban, has repeatedly said his main aim is to preserve christian hungary and you've said we don't accept that multiculturalism is a value by itself. less than 2% of hungarians were born outside the country. it's weird that kind of language. it's very out of step -- >> no, it's honest. >> it's honest, okay, from your perspective. but what are you saying, that anything other than white christians into your country are not accepted? >> no one said that. >> yeah, excuse me, your prime minister did say it. a christian hungary, preserve a christian hungary. >> we have been a christian country for a millennium. and i don't really understand why it is bad news that we don't want to change that and i don't understand why is it bad or why is it unacceptable that we would

like to stick to our history, to our culture, to our heritage, to our religion. in this case i can tell you that we never judged other countries which had different kind of policies. we never judged countries who say multiculturalism is more valuable than homogenous society, for example. but, please, let's leave it to the certain countries, let's leave it to us to make a decision whether we think multiculturalism is more value than a homogenious society. i respect that you have a different position, and i'm not going to judge you on that. i'll find you a very sympathetic person independent from this. i will never judge you. but i expect the same that we think this way. let's leave it to the sovereign decision of a nation, how it would like to continue its life in its own country. so, yes, we think that a country sticking to its heritage, its culture, its religion is as valuable as another one which thinks that multiculturalism is better than that. >> i fully understand what your prime minister and your government thinks.

i'm just trying to get to the bottom of it and the underlying facts. >> mmm-hmm. >> you claim to have an immigration problem, or you don't want these invaders, sorry -- let's put it a different way. you don't want the invaders. >> illegal migrants. >> your prime minister called them invaders. >> i agree. >> yet, you don't actually have an immigration problem. you don't have an asylum problem. less than 4,000 refugees or people seeking to migrate and some seeking asylum. you don't actually have a numbers problem and you haven't declared a massive crime problem or a terrorism problem. so i guess my question is, again, why? what is the basis? is it just cultural? is it just fortress hungary? >> because if it did not resist or reject, then we would have these problems. >> so essentially you, hungary, are trying to be the firewall. is that what you are saying? >> oh, actually, we are protecting our border. we are complying with our obligations. we are member of the schengen area.

we are a member of the schengen area. if you are a country located at the external border, like we are, then you have to comply with the following obligations. number one, you have to make sure that your border is only crossed through the border crossing points. number two, only with proper documentation. and, number three, only during opening hours. we have to comply with that and we do. >> but there are other eu rules that the eu believes you are in violation of which go to all sorts of issues like rule of law, tolerance and all sorts of things. the eu is currently proceeding with article 7 which could invoke disciplinary action and the suspension of some eu membership rights. i mean, how does hungary feel being sanctioned by the eu itself? >> we are not. >> well, they're talking about it. you know the process is ongoing. >> i have -- of course i do. >> what if you were then? how would you feel if you were? >> i'm among the few who read that report. it has 69 points putting allegations on hungary.

out of each 13 points are agreed upon by the european commission and the hungarian government. agreed. period. 19 are under discussion. and 37 are just lies. now the government of the czech republic and the government of poland made it clear immediately -- >> well, they're all like-minded. >> they would veto sanctions against hungary and it requires a unanimous decision and you know the same kind of procedure is going on against poland currently and we will veto any kind of sanctions against the polish. >> i'm going to get to that in a moment because you're all fairly like-minded in your policies. >> except for europe. >> i want to ask you a question first about this immigration before i go on. we were all somewhat shocked and we reported it when in june of this year your country passed legislation which criminalizes lawyers and activists who even seek to help asylum seekers, anyone charged can face up to a year in prison and, of course, that legislation was condemned by the eu and the united nations.

you're here at the united nations right now. i mean, it is kind of shocking, on a basic human level, to punish ordinary activists, civilians, lawyers, who want to help some of these poor people who are fleeing in danger of their lives and security. >> you know, the problem is i'm pretty sure those who have written this statement on your paper have never read this law. that's a problem. >> so what is the law then? do you not criminalize it? >> no, no, and people who criticize hungary on such kind of issues, i always ask the question, man, have you read what you're speaking about because do you know what's in this law? in this law it is said that if you promote -- if you promote violation of the border of hungary, if you promote illegal ways to come to hungary, if you promote opportunities regarding asylum which are against the law, which are without a legal basis, then you face consequences because it's a national security issue. >> fine. let's say somebody arrived in

your country -- >> and i wonder what would happen here in the united states if i or anyone else, anyone would promote the way of illegal entrance into the united states. is that a crime here? yes, it is. yes, it is. >> you've seen what happens at the border here and there's a huge backlash and the president has had to retract his zero tolerance policy which was incredibly draconian. but i want to come back to something. >> but if i come back to the source -- >> so this is the overall problem with the allegations on hungary that you put forward such kind of statements. >> i'm going to let you have your say in a second. >> and the problem is this is not in the law. >> i'm going to let you -- i'm going to play a sound bite of what you said on this issue to the united nations. >> okay. >> it is obvious that the u.n. officials spreading these lies about hungary are biased, pro-migration officials. but i have to tell you hungary will never be -- never be -- a country of migrants. we will always protect the security of the hungarian people. we will never allow one single illegal migrant to enter the

territory of our country, and we will always protect our own border. >> so in that regard, you've addressed what you consider the problem with those who oppose you. i guess the reason why we're really interested in having you on you're emblematic of what's happening in part of europe right now. you've just mentioned this sort of alliance between the governments of poland and the czech republic -- >> and slovakia as well. >> so i'm half right, even though i misspoke. there is this growing phenomenon of illiberal democracy which is what your prime minister coined that term. that sends chills through the hearts of many people who believed there's either democracy or autocracy. tell us what illiberal democracy is as you see it, because the press, as far as we can see, are victims of illiberal democracy. they get -- they get -- in many parts, they get pushback. what is illiberal democracy and why is it a good thing?

>> thank you very much for asking because i can explain what he said because it was pretty much mischaracterized and has been mischaracterized. so what he said was that we are faced with a phenomenon that when it is not the liberals to win annex then it is immediately considered as not a democracy. i'll give you one example. we won the latest elections in april for the third time with a constitutional majority. 49.6% of all the votes went on us with a record turnout and a record support. hundreds of thousands of votes, we have more than all other parties in parliament together. so what was the reaction of european union, for example? many ministers and institutions and institutions, that the hungarian people are not smart enough to make a decision about their own future. that is what we call illiberal. immediately after, it's not the mainstream liberals or anyone, to win then it's considered not a democracy.

and my question is why we have to say words in front of democracy? what do we say about christian democracy, for example? is that worse than illiberal democracy? >> what is it? >> that's what i said -- >> what is it -- how do you explain? >> it is a democracy when it is not the liberal party's to win. >> but you do act as if the opposition is somehow illegitimate. >> no, i don't say that. i say that you have to be balanced and you have to listen to the government as well not only to opposition when you dislike the government. >> one of the more serious charges, and i'm afraid it is a very serious charge, is anti-semitism. as you know, your prime minister has been accused of stoking anti-semitism through the way he's dealing with george soros and his praise of the world war ii leader, a hitler ally. after meeting benjamin netanyahu this year, though, prime minister orban pledged zero tolerance on anti-semitism in hungary. do you accept the criticism and

are you going to enact zero tolerance on anti-semitism? >> we have announced zero tolerance on anti-semitism years ago. and we practiced it. >> do you feel the need to promise it again to the prime minister of israel? >> i tell you, we are proud on our track record regarding anti-semitism. we are a country -- we are a country which has the biggest jewish community in budapest in central europe. we are a country where the jewish community has a renaissance in its cultural life. we are a country where the biggest synagogue of europe and one of the biggest catholic cathedrals of europe are within walking distance. we are a country that will hold the games next year. >> just to be sure what they are, they are the israeli and jewish olympics. >> yes, right, basically. we are the country -- >> that's why people are concerned about it. >> we are the country which put

into the penal code that denial of holocaust must be punished. and putting such kind of allegations to us is much more than unacceptable. >> well, they are serious allegations. do you regret then the government's attacks and slurs against george soros which look very much like they were using traditional -- what's it called, dog whistle anti-semitic terminology or was that just political and because -- >> i reject that. >> okay. >> i reject that. >> was he being political because he was supporting the opposition? >> we have a serious debate for george soros. a very serious one. this debate has nothing to do with his religion. this debate has to do with the contradiction about the visions of the future of europe. his vision about the future of europe is totally different than ours. he would like to see a europe in a post-national, a post-christian phase where borders don't count. their migrants are being

allowed at least 1 million a year. he called my prime minister a maniac. he called our country a mafia state. my question is if he attacks us like that with money, with media, with funding opposition or at least ngos in the country, why shouldn't we have the right to react and say that, no, no, we have a totally different concept and we want our concept to win and not yours, mr. soros. and it has nothing to do with his religion. nothing. >> do you regret the terminology used then directly from the government or -- >> by whom? i can be responsible for what we as a government have said. we don't care about his religion. >> hungary is a beautiful country. budapest is a fabulous capital. >> thank you. >> you have world-renowned food, world renowned culture, music, it's a great little jewel. and it also stood up in a way

that taught the rest of europe, you know, against the soviets and it was crushed at one point. it just seems things are getting way too authoritarian and people can't figure out why this is happening in hungary of all places, which should know better. >> okay, i can tell you one thing. i really hope you will make some time in the very near future and come. >> i have been. >> i will host you. you will look around and you will see this country is really developing. this country loves the guests. this is the reason the number of tourists increased in a very rapid way. it's a politically stable country. we have leadership. we have a strong leader definitely, which i look at as a value. why do you consider it authoritarian? it is democratic. we have a very strong mandate based on the bill of the people. imagine we have won free continuous elections with constitutional majority.

it's on the will of the people and, please, don't look at the hungarian people as if they are not smart enough to make a decision. >> did i say that? >> no, no, generally speaking. not you personally. how it comes that we spent eight years in office and then we won another landslide victory with the most votes ever. that might have a reason. the reason might be the people are satisfied and the people want us to continue. >> so given all of that, what you've just said, would you then agree with the description by the eu's foreign policy chief when i just sort of asked her about the rise of populism and nationalism across europe and i was kind of including your country and others. i didn't mention your country, but this is what she said to me -- >> i wouldn't call it a populous movement. we have to call things with their name. it's a far-right, extreme right political movement. parties, traditional parties, that have very little conventional and very extreme right positions. not only europe but elsewhere in the world as well. >> would you agree? >> no, i absolutely disagree. she is a far-left politician, so i'm not surprised at her saying such kind of things.

you know, we are a very true christian democratic party in hungary with a very wide support, and i have to reject such kinds of statements because they basically are against the people. with this statement she portrays people as not being smart and mature enough -- >> no, she doesn't say anything about not smart. >> i know her very well. >> she says what they choose. >> i know her very well. i have to tell you she is far-left so i'm not surprised what she said. i'm not surprised. >> one thing we can agree with, i think, is that publics have moved from the center and there are the streams on both sides. and it's, you know, the question is how is that going to evolve ? >> well, what i can tell you is the following that hypocrisy and political correctness have been around for too long of a time. people have a hunger for honest

and straightforward speech. this is what i see in europe. so if you're put into consideration the last four national elections in europe, for example, italy, austria, slovenia, hungary, you see that those parties gained the most support who were credible in what they said, who were credible in their track record and who got rid of this hypocrisy and political correctness and named things as they are. >> foreign minister szijjarto, thank you very much for joining us. >> i appreciate the invitation. >> on that note we go back to the united states where this week a year is marked since the shooting in las vegas that killed 59 people. then, of course, there was the parkland massacre in february which led to mass protests led by the surviving students. our next guest belongs to the camp that thinks the solution to gun violence is more guns. that's larry ward, the chief marketing officer of gun

dynamics, a crowd funded gun advocate. he sat down with our michel martin. larry ward, thank you so much for joining us. >> thanks for having me. >> let's start with gun dynamics. you're raising money to do what? >> we're helping gun inventors and manufacturers raise money to bring products to market, new inventions in the gun space. >> like what? >> one we just closed it a trigger for the st-1911. it's an adjustable trigger. it helps keep the -- >> you have a gun and different people can fire it and be comfortable firing it. >> just like adjustable trigger lengths. our founder took this to a crowd funding platform and got kicked off. and then he went to our platform and got kicked off. eventually came to us and said we need to build a crowd funding platform. >> to do your own thing. the goal, it seems to me, is to make more guns available to more people. is that right? >> well, it's to -- this is actually to help bring gun technology and, you know, bring technology from an accuracy perspective, from a scope, from

hunting, from -- there are lots of different products and, quite frankly, the inventors don't have access to capital to bring these to market. >> the reason i'm curious why you say that, there are some 300 million guns already in circulation in the united states. it doesn't seem there's any shortage of guns here. >> no, but there's not a shortage of knifes either. occasionally you want to buy a new set of steak knifes. there's not a shortage of cars but you buy a new car occasionally. people are turning 18, 19, 20, who want to arm themselves. there's always a need for having new inventive intelligent guns. >> most industries try to meet multiple demands of the market, particularly something like the auto industry, right? the auto industry is trying to come up with ways to make driving more fun, sexy and exciting. but they also try to meet the demand for safety. i don't see your company doing that. i don't see the industry doing that. >> that's not true at all. >> tell me.

>> there are gun manufacturers go -- as a matter of fact, if you know any, you know, gun owner or people who manufacture guns or sell guns, safety is always on -- >> safety for whom though? safety for the shooter or safety for the people around who are affected by their product? >> safety for the shooter, safety for the person around them. part of the problem is you have a lot of people with good ideas coming up with different ways to bring products and services to market whether it be recreational, hunting, whether it be safety, right? the banks and the financial institutions particularly, the bigger banks that have very liberal boardrooms, are not giving them access to take these inventions to market. >> give me a sense, though, of what sense of responsibility you feel to the rest of the public? >> sure. >> you've got a lot of people in this country with lots of different points of views about guns, right? and you have some people who feel very strongly about their

guns and feel that they're a very important part of their sense of self, their citizenship, and there are others who are desperately afraid and really feel that something has changed in the society where kids aren't even able to go to school without having to have active shooter drills and being afraid of being shot. do you feel any responsibility to meet those citizens somewhere? >> i would suggest anybody who is afraid -- >> talk to them -- >> -- afraid of guns should go out to a range, should learn how to fire a gun, should realize that it's not as scary as it looks. and that it can be held responsibly. it can be held lawfully and it can be used to protect yourselves and your loved ones. >> we don't take that approach to other things that harm people, even if used correctly or incorrectly. like opioids, for example. opioids have had tremendous benefit to society, but they also kill people, so we don't just say, you know what, this is a good thing. we're going to trust you to use it. we regulate those things. we regulate all kinds of things

that are a benefit to society that can always harm them. why shouldn't this be the case with guns? >> we don't have a constitutional amendment that says opioid use shall not be infringed. we have a -- we have a -- we have a second amendment that is there for a very, very good reason that most people don't truly understand. >> the accesecond amendment. we can recite it. a well-regulate malitia -- >> what's it's saying is we need a military -- we need a militia to protect from an invasion. it's necessary for a free state. the second part is that's why we need citizens to have guns because it's not just for, you know, for the military and for the state to have the guns, for the government to have the guns, it's for the citizens to keep the government in check. you know, and for -- if we all

of a sudden elect a tyrant, you know, and the tyrant goes out and starts acting tyrannical and taking away our other rights and jailing people for political purposes or whatever it is, we have the right to remove that person by force. we can't do that if we don't have the -- an armed society. >> is there any -- i don't know what word to use here. i'll just use the word restriction. on ownership or access to guns that you would be prepared to accept? >> well, there are restrictions, you know? there are restrictions on automatic weapons. there have been restrictions on those for, you know, 100 years. i'm advocating that we overturn that. i believe that any gun that the -- that the government engages its citizens with, any weapon

that the government engages citizens with, the citizens have a right to own and to possess. to this date, the american government has not engaged us with automatic weapons so i see no need for us to have automatic weapons, but i was walking out here in new york city and a police officer carrying ar-15s and there is nothing wrong with the american people using an ar-15, a semiautomatic weapon. >> i was looking at your website, as i said, as your newsletter, as it were. >> sure. >> these are the recent headlines -- "corporations are diving into leftist politics." "heavily armed illegals cross the border." "man arrested in his own backyard." most of the gofundme sites that i look at, hey, let's put on this record. this is very much they're out to get me. who is out to get you? >> well, of course they are. the corporations are engaging in leftist publics. citi bank recently released a policy that they won't allow gun purchases without a background check. try to advertise for a gun or on

google, on facebook, on any kind of a social media or internet platform, 99% of them don't let you advertise for guns or gun parts -- >> yet somehow there are still 300 million guns in this country. >> because there are still gun stores and people know where to exactly. >> right. but that doesn't mean -- that's an unfair business practice, right? there are lots of coffee shops, but if only starbucks gets to advertise, is that unfair? that's unfair. you can advertise gun control on google. you can advertise gun control on facebook and twitter no problem. you can't advertise for gun rights. you can't advertise for gun parts or ammunition or anything else. these businesses need to get their message out to the people and that's why guns -- >> and they are. talk to me about yourself, if you would. you're from new york. >> born and raised. on long island. >> did you grow up with a gun in the house? >> i did not. i grew up -- long island, new york, is not a big gun culture

community. >> so how did you get introduced to guns? >> well, you know what? i'm not an outdoorsman. i'm not a hunter. but what got me interested in guns was the constitution, you know? i started looking at, well, why is the secd amendment here? it makes a lot of sense. we have to protect ourselves from an out of control government. we have to protect ourselves from invaders. we have to protect ourselves from people who would want to do us harm. and, you know, guns are a tool. >> how old were you when you got your first gun? >> in my 30s. >> in your 30s? >> yeah. moved down to virginia. >> how come? >> why did i buy my first gun? >> yeah. >> to protect my family. >> as i understand it, you are a person, in fact, think you claim credit for arming the teachers, at least as a phrase, right? as i understand in the wake of the shooting in newtown, connecticut, there was a -- >> correct. there was a protest coming from

my -- my office was in between the nra lobby office and the rnc and they were coming down the street screaming shame the nra two days after newtown. i lifted up my window. i have children, right? i don't see school safety the way they do. they're screaming shame the nra like you have signs with me -- you have blood on your hands and stuff like that. i don't see it that way. i lifted up the window and i screamed "arm the teachers." because the only way to prevent a school shooting is to have armed guards or armed teachers or armed principals, people who are not -- not everybody, you know? not mandating people but having people who want to be armed and are ready to defend their students to be able to do that. not a gun-free zone. to be able to defend and shoot -- that principal in newtown who bravely confronted the shooter and was killed. if she had bravely confronted the shooter and shot him, it would have been a different story. >> so then, forgive me, because this is such an awful

construction in a situation like that, where there is so much loss of life. i'm going to apologize in advance for my language. whose fault was that? >> it's the shooter's fault. that's the only person's fault it is. you know, i'm not going to go as far to say the politicians who made it a gun-free zone. it's not their fault. it's the shooter's fault. it's not a policy fault. it's not -- it's not a tools fault. it's the shooter's fault. >> you know, people make mistakes, too, but we don't say, you know what? there is nothing i can do about that. >> right. >> an airplane crashes, we don't say -- >> there's lots we can do. >> how can this be safer? >> let's make school safer. let's reinforce the doors. let's have better security on staff. let's have armed guards. let's have places where, you know, the school doors where they close and maybe it's locked and reinforced with steel. there is lots of things we can do to help protect kids in the future from this happening again. >> so the bottom line is for you, larry, you're not willing

to change anything about your lifestyle and your access to guns, not just you personally but others who agree with you, you're not willing to do anything? all the change needs to be elsewhere, outside of you? i'm asking you as a citizen in this country. >> right. >> as a person -- other people have a stake in the society, too. >> i say that gun control causes more deaths than gun -- than actually gun rights, and having the ability to defend one's self and one's family. and that's, you know, proven. in the areas that have the stricte strictest gun control, we have elevated gun violence. chicago is a war zone. but regular, you know, good, responsible citizens can't get guns. >> so, larry, one of those kids who saw their friends get shot in parkland, florida, right? whether or not they've ever shot a gun before because some of those kids have.

>> right. >> a lot of their parents have guns for whatever reason. and saw their friends get shot. are you really prepared to tell them that that is not -- that the level of mass shootings in this country is acceptable? >> well, it's a personal -- it's a personal story. i'm not crass. i'm not going to make somebody feel bad but there are gun rights folks that came out of parkland that are still talking about the right to defend themselves and talking about arming teachers and talking about common sense gun rights legislation. and other ways to protect kids in the schools. and there are -- there are -- there are plenty of families from these incidents who see things our way. they don't get their story told inthe same -- at the same level. so if -- i'm not going to tell a david hogg or any of his friends, you know, that their pain isn't real because it is real, and their emotions are real and i -- i stand by their

right to fight for what they believe in. but i -- what i will say to them is, you know, open your minds and if you really truly are interested in saving more lives, look at the other opportunity. look at the ability to have an armed guard on campus and look at the -- at some other ways that we can keep our schools safe. >> and what about you? have you ever considered that they might be right? have you ever allowed yourself -- >> of course. >> -- to consider that they might be right? >> of course. i listen to both sides of the argument. i've had this conversation. i've been thoughtful of the other side. the problem is the logic doesn't pan out. >> what does society look like five years from now? >> what i see now, the fight that is going to continue five years from now is in the free market. i believe that the only way to battle the free market is with the free market, and that brings us back to companies like gun dynamics. not just going to be gun dynamics, there will be other

companies that are going to be out there to offer solutions to go around these big corporate monsters and, you know, make sure that they can provide their goods and services and their products and their inventions, bring them to the marketplace. >> larry, thanks so much for joining us. >> thank you. >> appreciate it. >> thank you for coming. >> interesting views to listen to. as for what society will look like five years from now, perhaps our guest tomorrow is perfectly positioned to continue that conversation. the massively successful best-selling author about what he calls our species' dangerous evolution from man the tool maker to man the digital native. for now, though, that is it for our program. thank you for watching "amanpour & company" on pbs' and join us again tomorrow night. the baja peninsularrates:

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