to "amanpour & co." here's what's coming up. as evidence mounts tying the disappearance of saudi journalist jamal khashoggi to that country's crown prince, will republican senators stand firm for a moral american policy? senator ben sasse joins me. then, from ankara, turkey, a former adviser to the prime minister joins me. and a prominent saudi dissident scholar madawi al rasheed here in london says she now feels threatened by the long arm of the regime. plus, in prison for 15 years for her boyfriend's crimes, cindy shank and her brother, the filmmaker rudy valdez, talk to our hari sreenivasan about the

compulsory sentence that tore their family apart. uniworld is a proud sponsor of "amanpour & co." when bea tollman founded 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'm christiane amanpour in london. turkish officials have now entered and searched the saudi consul's home. while "the new york times" is revealing details of a grisly audio tape that purports to confirm jamal khashoggi's brutal murder. secretary of state mike pompeo landed briefly in turkey today to consult on the khashoggi case. he met with the turkish president and foreign minister who later describe pompeo as simply conveying the saudi side of the story. they, of course, continue to deny all the allegations. as pompeo later made clear when he spoke to reporters. >> they say mr. khashoggi is alive or dead? >> i don't want to talk about any of the facts. they didn't want to, either. they want the opportunity to complete this investigation in a thorough way. and i think that's a reasonable thing to do to give them that opportunity, and then we'll all

get to judge, we'll all get to evaluate the work that they do. >> this comes as president trump bemoans the harsh verdict saudi arabia is receiving even as turkish intelligence sources reveal more grisly details of what they describe as khashoggi's murder inside the consulate in istanbul. and as "the new york times" reports suspects in the case have close ties to the saudi crown prince mohammed bin salman. republican senators, meanwhile, are lining up to hold saudi arabia accountable with lindsey graham threatening to, quote, sanction the hell out of the kingdom, and marco rubio telling cnn that the united states will lose its credibility on human rights if it fails to act. republican senator ben sasse says the saudis have a lot they need to explain. sasse is a frequent critic of president trump and he's just published a new book "them -- why we hate each other and how to heal." in it senator sasse wrestles with the anger kicked up by america's deeply divided

political scene. he's joining me now from washington. senator, welcome to the program. >> thank you for having me. >> your book comes at a very opportune time because this tribalism is sucking up all the oxygen, and it also comes at a time when some of that tribalism seems to be spilling out into this current case. i want to know first and foremost what you make of president trump's response to the khashoggi case, particularly since last night he sort of seemed to indicate that, here we go again, just like judge kavanaugh, the saudis are being held guilty until proven innocent. >> i think the president's comments to date have been a little bit perplexing. i hope he is listening deeply to the intelligence community in this country. obviously there are a number of things that are still gray for everybody in the world. but for the u.s. intel community as well. i've been in the skiff this morning, in the classified environment, where we read

classified materials. i can't touch on any of that, but as i've been saying the last couple of days and i think similar to the comments you just cited from senator rubio of florida, the saudis have a lot of explaining to do. we know the guy walked into the consulate, the journalist did, and he didn't leave alive, and there's just a number of things about this story that they're trying to sell now and they're leaking sort of potential different cover stories that just don't add up. so there's a big problem with the way the saudis are explaining this at present. >> you say you've been in the skiff which is where you get classified information. president trump just said he is asking the turkish authorities for this audio tape, and he added, if it exists. do you have any reason to doubt your nato allies and their close intelligence cooperation in general with the united states maybe aren't telling the truth about a tape? >> i don't have any shareable current information on that topic. i think we're going to need an

international investigation to get to the bottom of this. the american people and the people in the region need to have some understanding of facts that can be shared. so i hope that tape is handed over and, again, i have lots of confidence in the u.s. intelligence community, and i think they're building information that's very useful for the president to understand. and i hope he's listening to all that information, not just the arguments that are coming from saudi officials. >> well, this is what a leading -- one of your leading colleagues, senator lindsey graham, said about this situation, about all that he knows so far and how it makes him feel. >> this guy is a wrecking ball. he had this guy murdered in a consulate in turkey. and to expect me to ignore it, i feel used and abused. i was on the floor every time defending saudi arabia because they're a good ally. there's a difference between a country and an individual. the mbs figure is toxic, he can never be a world leader on the world stage. >> so he's obviously referring, as he said, mbs, the crown

prince. do you feel that way? this is fundamental to the the president's son-in-law, jared kushner, has had a very close relationship with mbs. he sort of brought the u.s./saudi relationship into, you know, very close at the moment. and a lot is riding on it. >> right. i don't want to get into particular facts at this moment. but in general, broad brush strokes, i agree with senator graham's comments that mbs has some problems here. policy has to flow from principle, and the u.s. government will need to evaluate what policy implications this has. but it flows from an upstream thing which is we need to have agreement about what we believe about human dignity, about freedom of speech, press, assembly, protest. the way we think about it in the u.s. and the saudis need to articulate some long-term north star about what they believe

about human rights. and right now there are a number of things being called into question with saudi leadership in general and mbs in particular. >> your colleague across the aisle, chris murphy of connecticut, seems to think actually the united states needs to declare what it believes as its moral leadership. he says the white house seems to be saying that the trump doctrine is that the u.s. will ignore your human rights abuses, assassinations, or war crimes as long as you buy things from us. he has it totally and completely backwards. would you agree with that? >> i didn't hear the larger context of senator murphy's comments. he and i wrestle and differ on a lot of domestic policy issues, but the broad shape of what i hear in that quote i do agree with. there are sometimes about 2 million of the 320 million americans are nebraskans and so in our rural ag state there's a common sense way to speak about things. i think a lot of nebraskans believed alleged tension between

realism and idealism in foreign policy is usually overstated because in the long term the best thing for the u.s. is to be a nation that leads an alliance and global alliances of peoples that believe in similar things about human dignity. and we need to articulate those values and countries need to know those are not changeable principles for us based on short-term issues about one economic transaction. the u.s. is not a transactional nation. we're a values based nation that believes in big and long-term things and we want the saudis to align with us about those things over time, and right now we need to declare that clearly, and they need to do some serious soul-searching. >> 300 billion or so around the united states who the president thinks benefits directly from his economic relationship with saudi arabia. my question to you, you must know the facts and the figures,

you must know about the arms sales and the real money and american leverage and power. do you think that america has greater leverage over saudi arabia, or, as the president seems to indicate, saudi arabia has greater leverage over america in this case? >> yeah, i think it's always important to see arms sales as means to a larger end, not as the end in themselves. the u.s. is not selling arms because we're primarily interested in the economic consequences of those transactions. the u.s. uses arms sales as a tool of advancing u.s., and we believe global interests over time. but u.s. interests are advanced because we partner with people who want to share values and principles for the long term not because of one specific transaction. i think what we've learned over the last two decades since 9/11, we make an argument that goes back to world war ii and before, but since 9/11 one of the obvious things we've learned when there's chaos across the world, a lot of that chaos comes home to roost. we would like to see a stable

world. and in the middle east you have a bunch of sources of instability, iran chief among them, the way they sell discord among their neighbors. the saudis as well need to be articulating a long-term view of stability that's based on some shared principles. >> and just before i move on to your book, if the evidence points to where it's pointing right now, or lands where it's pointing right now, you presumably would vote for some kind of sanction, some kind of punishment? >> i believe there would have to be basically everything needs to be on the table. i've reached out to secretary of state pompeo. he's in transit right now. ambassador bolton as well at the white house. and obviously in our system the legislature makes the big, long-term policy decisions. in the short term in the national security space, we always rely on the executive branch to come with an initial proposal about what needs to be done. i think the saudis need to understand there is a big appetite in washington to put lots of stuff on the table. this is not a small matter that

will be swept under the rug. >> interestingly because it leads right into the theme of your book, there is a bipartisan appetite for that in this particular case in congress. so let us move to the title of your book because it's all about tribalism and the lack of bipartisanship. it's called "them: why we hate each other and how to heal." you're trying to promote some sort of civility. it's obviously really, really timely on the heels of several divisive issues and debates in the u.s., the latest of which was the appointment and the confirmation hearings of judge kavanaugh. describe to me how you internalize that and how deep a rift that has created in the united states and how you think there could be healing after that. >> yeah, thank you. so let's step up one level from the supreme court confirmation fight because then you're going to -- i think you're right, that is symptomatic of our larger problem.

the term tribalism, we're using the term as if it's always bad and political tribalism is a terrible thing. it's an us versus them where the assumption is people you don't agree with on every issue, you should go to war with them on every other issue. you can't ever find common ground. this bad kind of tribalism, precisely because many of the good forms of tribalism are being undermined by the moment we're at in technological history. there's a tension between rootedness. our technology is allowing us to be more rootless than we've ever been able to be before. the economic productivity that will flow from the digital revolution is going to be unparalleled in human history and yet at the same time we know social science literature on happiness tells us rootedness is one of the core reasons people are happy. do they have a nuclear family? do they have deep friendships? do they have shared vocation and meaningful work and co-workers? do they have local worship in communities? all of these things are textured, embodied local stuff because humans have bodies and we're meant to love people where

we live. and right now that rootedness is being undermined by the rootlessness potential of our technology. i think political tribalism is ramping mainly because it's filling a void in the decline of the good tribes, the local things that usually give people happiness and meaning. >> so, you know, a part of the solution you say politics is about the use of power, how it's acquired and who wields it. obviously politics matters, but civics matters more. civics is about who we are as a people, a nation requires a framework of shared values, is set of core commitments. yeah. but it seems to me, and everybody around the world is looking at an america being torn apart and there's no such thing as shared and core values anymore, or at least right now. and, in fact, it's considered, you know, wrong if you don't all band together with your side against the other side. how do you get over that? >> yeah, well said. the first thing we have to

properly diagnose it, right. many people who look at political tribalism in washington or on cable television assume that all of this is new because of the 2016 election. that's not true. donald trump didn't cause this. donald trump can't solve this. politics didn't cause this. politics can't solve this. we're a couple decades into a digital revolution that's probably going to last for another 50 years. so one of the first things we need to recognize we have massively declining public trust in almost all of our institutions, communal and associational and neighborly. and that decline of trust is partly because we have things happening like we have half as many friendships per american now as 27 years ago. in 1990 when i graduated high school, the data shows the average american had 3.2 deep friendships. the average american has 1.8 friendships. 40% of americans have either no confidants at all or only one. it turns out if you're lonely,

then you look for things in politics that politics can't fulfill. politics is never going to comfort you in your old age. it should be a place to debate how to get a cost effective infrastructure bill to revitalize bridges that are collapsing in the u.s.? you can only do that if you have some shared assumptions the people who might differ with you on an infrastructure bill are not necessarily evil, they just have different policy priorities. right now what we see happening in the political space is a tripling of the number of people who consider the other political party evil. 14% of americans 25 years ago said the other party was evil. today it's 41%. you can't do anything well. you can't build a community, civil society or do run of the mill politics well. we need to address some of these upstream challenges, and that's why i called it them, because this othering, this anti-tribalism we're building are tribes that are mainly against things in politics instead of mainly for things that are locally. half of the book is about constructive ways you rebuild associational community and

neighborly america. >> obviously this, again, couldn't come at a better time. you say it predates president trump but everybody believes that president trump has exacerbated this situation because things flow down wards from the top. he is the leader of the united states, the leader of the free world, and the example often flows from the top down. so i guess people want to know from people like you who are obviously not pundits, you occupy a position of elected power in a legislative branch that has constitutional power and authority. and you are a regular sort of disagreer with president trump. you criticize him a lot on trade, on immigration, on other things. but the question people ask is, why don't you take action then if you can and if you think a lot of this stuff is divisive? you vote with him 87% of the time or more. i mean, honestly, people want to know why people like yourself or senator flake or others --

senator corker, people who are not running -- i don't know about you, but they're not running for re-election. why not stand up then and use the power that is yours? >> yes, let's distinguish among three different issues. the first is there are a number of places where donald trump has adopted on kind of run of the mill legislative policy issues, adopted more conservative positions tan he held over the course of his adult life, and i'm glad he did. i'm the second or third most conservative voter in the u.s. senate. i was a conservative well before donald trump was on the stage, and i'll be a conservative after president trump's term is over. i'm glad he's adopted conservative policy positions on a number of issues. and yet some of the big ones, like why is there so much disruption in our work, it's not primarily because of trade. i think i'm the most free trade -- pro-free trade senator in the u.s. senate, but most of the disruption in our workforce isn't because of trade and it isn't because of immigration, it's because of automation. we need to tell the american people the truth about that.

we're going to need to build policies that handle job retraining for 40, 45, and 50-year-olds who get disrupted out of jobs and firms and whole industries and skill sets because of new technology. most of those kinds of issues are not really right versus left. they're past versus future. right now we don't do a lot of future focused policy in the u.s. congress. most fundamentally, the stuff we're talking about in them, this collapse of local community, this undermining of traditional good, normal tribes, where people engage in their neighborhood and their local community whether it's family or friendship or worship in communities, you can't legislate any of those solutions because we're dealing with souls. this is about persuasion, about volunteerism. this is about love. this is about rebuilding and getting to know your neighbor. statistically if you go from 200 to 500 social media friends or 500 to 1,000, you don't get any happier. if you know the person who lives two doors away from you in your neighborhood, statistically you're much more likely to be happy. there's no washington, d.c.,

solution to that, but we do need 320 million americans to be focused on the right things, and that doesn't start by deciding who are you most angry against in politics. >> i couldn't agree with you more and i can attest to the neighbor versus the facebook friends and many people are coming to understand that. i want to ask you this then. we seem to be in a moment where this kind of divisiveness and nonneighborly behavior has been somehow permitted, sanctioned, by the environment to the point that your own colleague, who i quoted earlier, senator lindsey graham, said the following about a major group, an immigrant group, that occupies a place in the united states. listen to what he said. >> i'm taking it and the results will be revealed here. this is my trump moment. >> we'll find out who you really are. >> i'll probably be iranian and be terrible. >> oops.

tarring hundreds of people who came to this week that's about tribalism good and bad against the backdrop of senator warren and president trump fighting about native american ancestry and tribalism. and dna tests. i'm against identity politics. i think there are a whole bunch of ways people try to divide us that just aren't very interesting or useful. and the way we consume media is a huge part of the problem, right? there's nothing about elizabeth warren's dna test that should be a top 30 issue in the country right now. it's not anything that i care about for my kids or your viewers' kids and yet it works really well as titillating short-term television soundbites. this kind of media circus that is swallowing our politics is not good for anybody. it's like cotton candy. you want to ultimately eat some protein and nebraska beef and some vegetables.

cotton candy feels good for a second but it's the wrong choice. >> yeah, maybe the elected leaders should be told that, too. thank you for having me. as the senate waits for the facts on the disappearance of the saudi journalist jamal khashoggi, the trump administration so far seems to be standing beside or rather behind saudi arabia. we heard earlier the turkish government sees it that way. taha ozhan was an adviser to the former turkish prime minister considered khashoggi a friend and joins me now from ankara. also madawi al rasheed is a visiting professor at the london school of economics, and she is a prominent dissident. she was stripped of her saudi citizenship in 2005 and joins me right here in the studio. welcome to both of you. can i first start in turkey because the details of the investigation are being leaked fast and furious. so, mr. ozahn, can you tell me

what you know and what you can tell me about all the things being leaked by saudi intelligence and security and government officials about this grisly case, the latest being the horrendous details of the severing and dismembering as reported by "the new york times" on this audio tape. >> hello. actually this entire episode, the last ten-plus days could be finished instead of claiming he left the consulate. our humble friend went in and never came out. we know he was killed, and we know right now through the media and through the sources almost every single detail of how it happened. in fact, there is no journalistic questions not known. some are known secrets. the only remaining question is

who ordered this killing, actually, and this is a nonsecret. from the first day, as i said, saudis instead of cooperating with turkish authorities chose to deny what happened inside and every single detail came out through the media channels. and, unfortunately, we learned every detail of that murder and the crime. >> of course i misspoke. i said saudi intelligence. i meant turkish intelligence leaks, obviously. why do you think your government and the associated ministries are leaking and not saying anything publicly and officially? what is the strategy behind that? >> i mean, as i said, the first is saudi denial. to answer specifically your question, the main reason is attorney general is right now investigating and that will reach some results. i am expecting in a couple of

days they are reaching results and they need to clarify how they ended their investigation and we will start seeing accusations and how the file will continue. at this stage turkish responsibility is mainly -- mainly sits on jamal khashoggi never went out. saudi consulate is under turkish responsibility. first on friday bin salman said in an interview turkish authorities can come inside as all of you follow. that took almost ten days to get inside. and after getting inside yesterday we started to hear confirmation actually that they are finding evidence inside the consulate. today the consul's residence was supposed to be searched. they prevent it had again.

at the end of the day they went inside and turkish authorities and the sources are telling us and telling everybody that they are very confident they are going to prove he was killed inside the saudi consulate. >> it's a gruesome story. let me turn to you, professor madawi al rasheed. you are a dissident, and you have been stripped of your saudi citizenship, and here you are in london. are you afraid now in the wake of what's just happened? could you ever imagine this could have happened to somebody like jamal khashoggi who didn't call himself a dissident? >> first of all, i see myself as an academic who writes a critical history and commentary on social issues and political issues. in that respect, this is defined as a dissident in the saudi context. and i think through my knowledge of saudi arabia the killing of jamal khashoggi would not have

happened. i did not imagine that the saudi regime would actually do this in a consulate. they may cause trouble for dissidents and also there had been historical cases when they actually kidnapped dissidents such as, for example, in 1979 there was a famous saudi dissident who was kidnapped from lebanon and the person who assisted was the saudi ambassador at the time. and now it is an open secret. the man disappeared and we don't know anything about him. his children are still alive. his wife, they don't know where he is. but to go and do a crime like this with the horrific details that we are hearing inside an embassy is unbelievable. things have gone too far. >> we have to keep saying that the saudis deny it, and you heard what president trump and secretary of state pompeo have said. they seem to say, well, you know, president trump was angry at the so-called guilty until

proven innocent, the opposite of what most law cases are about, and pompeo seemed to convey just the saudi side of the story. i just want to quickly ask you, because you're sitting there in turkey and you're so close to the government, is turkey satisfied with the u.s. involvement in this and the u.s. behind the investigation? what is turkey's view on the u.s. deportment in all of this? >> i mean, i'm not official but what i see is the expectation and actually there is a fluctuation in washington's position. every two days it is changing. this rogue state, elements came up. today another statement came up through trump. and this is creating here a kind of not exactly seeing what washington is going to do.

he sent his ministry to riyadh. erdogan stated at least two times they are going to investigate until the end. that means no cover-up will be acceptable by turkish government and just to say it, the genie is out of the bottle. after all those leaks, all the information all over the international media, i don't see any way of covering it up including this rogue state element and other things. >> sorry. i don't mean to interrupt you. we said evidence seems to be mounting. "the new york times" has brought out pictures of somebody who is pictured in many of these images alongside crown prince mohammed bin salman, and he apparently is a suspect in the investigation. so, you know, the question to

you from what you know, professor al rasheed, are you surprised by the reporting of all these names who flew into turkey on this plane on that day, then flew out, and had to have high-level carte-blanche or permission to get through the airspace from the airport to the consulate and out? >> yes. this is a premeditated murder. it cannot be regarded as anything else. you do not get 15 people to go to the embassy just before jamal khashoggi was going to visit, then leave the country. those people are employees of the saudi regime, whether they're in the police security forces, forensics, you name it. they are working within the regime. they are not a rogue element that happened to be traveling on an airplane arriving at the consulate murdering someone and then leaving the country. we cannot actually see that

there is almost a glimpse of innocence that we can attribute to the saudi regime. it is involved in this incident and also it happened on the territory of the saudi consulate. so this is very difficult to see that there are rogue elements floating around this regime in saudi arabia that they could get on a plane and murder someone and come back. >> the point here is despite the evidence of a really grisly crime who was jamal khashoggi that he was such a big threat? we all know who he was. we've known him for decades. was he really that big a threat? was he really a full-blown dissident who could have so harmed the regime -- >> he never described himself as a dissident or an opposition figure. in fact, he was so loyal to the regime, but i think, my guess, is jamal khashoggi fell within that period that there is a change of the guard in saudi arabia. he was a spokesperson.

all the details are now known. >> he was a former intelligence minister. >> he was too close to power. he must have known a lot. and the fact he suddenly appeared in d.c. where the saudis want to keep that city free from any dissident voice simply because they know exactly how congressmen, how people in d.c. will react to any kind of credible voice especially if it is coming from within the system. there had been opposition figures all over the world. in london we have several of them but they've never been targeted. khashoggi chose to write in "the washington post". he had a platform to influence politics in the u.s. where mohammed bin salman had millions to lobby, to spread propaganda, and we see it in the media. 18 months ago bin salman was the great reformer. he was the young prince who was

going to rebuild saudi arabia, to fight terrorism, to create moderate islam. suddenly the mood changed in d.c., and jamal khashoggi was writing critical pieces. and, therefore, the saudi regime worried about jamal going too far. >> well, let me ask you, mr. ozhan, you knew jamal well. you've written an op-ed. you say in about two weeks' time, or a week now, you would have been on a panel together. what will happen given that people did look at prince mohammed bin salman as a reformer and maybe they still do? what will happen to turkish/saudi relations or saudi/u.s. relations if it is laid at the saudis' door? >> yeah, you're write. >> yeah, you're right. i was supposed to be with him two weeks from now, actually, just one week from now as of today. he was a humble guy. i should say something about

him. he was not only humble, he was not a threat to the saudi regime at any extent. he was critical but he worked for that country for years. he has experience working with the saudi regime and he knew the limits. and i believe he was not imagining such a thing happening. and do not forget he has extensive experience of working in the embassy in washington, so he knew what could be done in embassies and what cannot. unfortunately, he was even not imagining such a "pulp fiction" crime done by mohammed bin salman. regarding turkish/saudi relationship, i mean, this is not only jamal khashoggi's actual murder, it's already at an unimaginable level.

also the rest of the world. i don't see any room. the saudis will have a credible relationship with the rest of the world except as we heard today with mr. trump because right now more or less all saudi diplomatic areas in the world could be a crime scene. we don't know that. that only proves this and khashoggi's killing was unfortunate for the u.s. mainly, but right now it's a big burden and liability for western world, too. >> very quickly i want to ask you why you think jamal khashoggi, who knew that he was being warned by the saudis and he was told to be silent, why would he have come to the consulate in istanbul? he had been in london here. he was in washington as a resident. why did he have to get his papers from istanbul? >> because he was getting

married in istanbul and first visited the consulate, he asked about those documents, and they said they're going to prepare it. everything was in line. and he wasn't suspicious about it. and i talked to friends who saw him just the day before, and they were saying it was fine with him because he had, as i said, experience of knowing how consulates and embassies work. he, himself, worked in an embassy for years. and i give him credit. how could he possibly imagine such a "pulp fiction" mafia-style crime? >> let me ask professor al rasheed, would you have gone into a saudi consulate given the kind of criticism that even jamal khashoggi said? >> well, i would never set foot in a saudi embassy on two grounds. as a woman, before the incident of khashoggi, a saudi woman doesn't actually go to embassies to demand any documents. they have to send their guardian.

so i wouldn't have gone on the grounds of being a woman. on the second ground, as somebody who has no reason to visit the embassy after they withdrew my nationality in 2005, i do not trust the saudi embassy to set foot in it. basically jamal khashoggi should not have gone to the embassy. if he wanted to marry, he needed these documents. these documents can only be issued in saudi arabia, approved by the embassy, and presented to the turkish authority to marry. but it is unusual. if he was a resident in washington, why didn't he get the documents in washington? there had been talks about a certain kind of negotiation going on with the saudi ambassador in washington who advised him to go to turkey. so basically it is very, very unclear. we will never actually know the real story. we may find out who killed jamal, but we may not find out about the intrigues, about the

build-up toward this dreadful visit to the consulate on the 2nd of october. >> are you worried this is becoming sort of a putin/skripal kind of mold? are you concerned about certain leaders around the world who simply are reaching out to silence or would like to silence those who they disagree with? >> and get away with it. the problem is for a saudi regime dependent on the west for its own security the royal household is sitting there in riyadh because of american and british support. and as long as these two sources continue to support the saudi regime and offer it unconditional support, it can get away with murder. however, i find that with mbs and his rise to power, he has won trump and lost the rest of the world. and if this continues, he may

continue in his erratic behavior. as long as washington does not pressurize the saudi regime to behave like a respectable member of the international community, we're not going to see a change. let's not forget there are 1,500 people detained in saudi arabia since november 2017 according to mbs himself in his interview with bloomberg and, therefore, the situation in saudi arabia is treacherous. people are living under fear, and it is becoming like the kingdom of terror. >> dear, oh, dear. professor al rasheed, mr. ozhan in turkey, thank you for joining us tonight. we really must keep emphasizing we continue every day to ask for a response, high-level interviews from both the saudi and turkish governments. both have declined to join us so far. so now we turn to a crime in the united states. it's one family's story that is highlighting an injustice in america's courts.

cindy shank was married with three children when the federal government came to her door in 2008, charged with a crime in connection to her ex-boyfriend who was dealing drugs. she got mandatory minimum sentencing under the laws which meant she was given 15 years in prison. luckily for cindy, she only served eight, but those were eight long years after she was ama.ted clemency by president now over the course of her imprisonment, her brother rudy picked up the camera and started film. the result is a new documentary "the sentence" which had its premiere on hbo this week. filmmaker rudy valdez and cindy herself spoke with our hari sreenivasan about what it was like to live through all of this. >> rudy valdez, cindy shank, thank you for joining us. cindy, let me start with you. for someone who has not watched this documentary, set this up for us. in the late '90s you were in a

relationship with someone who was dealing drugs, and then what happened? >> i was charged with conspiracy. i was also given three separate charges of possession with intent to distribute cocaine, crack, and marijuana. but these were all estimations that somehow turned into actual weight. >> this is because the person you were involved with at the time, he was dealing drugs and conspiracy meaning you knew about it? >> correct. >> you didn't have to be doing it but you get his charges anyway? >> yeah. he was deceased so they had nobody to charge. i was the only one left, so they charged me with it. i was indicted in 2002, and my case was dismissed. i went ahead and moved on with my life, got married, had kids, and six years later the federal government came and indicted me, and i was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison. >> so this was literally a knock on the door? >> absolutely literally a knock on the door. >> let's take a look. here is a clip of that. >> almost six years after all this happened with alex, cindy was finally settling into a life she always wanted.

and then came a knock on the door. >> it was just the eeriest knock. i mean, it woke me up out of a dead sleep. cindy jumped up. and later she told me she heard that door knock.inute she who would be knocking on the door at 6:30, 6:45 in the morning, 7:00. i can't quite remember exactly. and she didn't say a word. she got up, grabbed the girls, you know, and went in our room and was hugging them. unbeknownst to me, i wasn't really paying attention. i went into the living room and opened the front door, and they said they had a warrant for her arrest. when i saw her hugging the kids, that was tough. that was tough because she knew already. >> rudy, we hear you as the narrator. you're also the filmmaker and you become up sister's advocate. what was your sister indicted for and how can you be indicted twice for the same thing? >> there was a lot of confusion at the beginning of all of this

happening when her ex was murdered. we were led to believe that the state had dropped it and then the federal government picked it up and they had dropped it. there was a lot of -- it wasn't a very transparent process, so we believed this was behind her and we encouraged her to take full advantage of that and get your life back together. so she did. as you see in the film, she met a wonderful man and got married and had two kids and was actually pregnant with her third one when they came and knocked on her door for the first time and was sentenced to 15 years after that. so i don't know that she was indicted more than once. i think it was just they waited to indict her until much later. there were other people they were putting away prior to this. >> that was the first time i'd ever even been in trouble. i've never even had a speeding ticket. so the prosecutor actually asked for 89 years for me. i was given the lowest that the judge could possibly go which was 15 years because of mandatory minimum sentencing. >> and you also say in the film

missing my daughters growing up, that's what i was sentenced to. that's pretty powerful. how did you realize that that was the serious cost of this? >> well, when i first went away, my daughters were so young. they were 4, 2, and 6 weeks old and i was literally being ripped away from them. my heart was being ripped out of me. when i got into the system and i realized what was actually happening, i wasn't being rehabilitated. there weren't programs. there weren't a lot of things. you're just being held. you're told you can't go back to your life. anything that i did while i was in there to better myself, that was something that i did, a choice that i made. so the only thing that kept coming up to me was you're missing everything. you're missing your girls. you're missing everything. and that was everything. my life was my daughters. where's mommy's heart? >> in ours.

>> where are your hearts? >> in mommy's heart. >> i hope we can be together soon. >> we love you, too, mommy. >> you've kept the last name but this also cost you a marriage. how stressful was that period leading up to the decision to part ways? >> it was very hard. it was probably after -- well, it was after i moved to florida. i was actually moved, the prison i was at closed and i was moved to coleman, florida, which was very far away. so it went from me seeing my girls and my then husband every six weeks and kind of having that regular routine to not seeing them at all. and then i think that compounded just the separation of what was already how separated we already were. and i think it was just too much for adam. and he asked for a divorce, and i completely understood. it was hard on the whole family and hard on him, and i knew he had a chance to actually have a life, and i wanted that for him and the girls. it was hard on me. it was very devastating, but i

had to get through it. i had to separate myself from that and close that relationship and move forward, but i still had my daughters and i had to focus on that. >> rudy, you were not a filmmaker when you started picking up the camera. you were kind of making home videos for her to see. >> yeah. so this started with me at the beginning, again, we were very naive about this entire process. i started to do research. the day she went away i was googling what is a mandatory minimum. i was trying to figure out because i literally thought there was an error, a clerical error. well, we're going to figure this out, but until she comes home, i don't want her to miss her daughters living. we were going to be able to give her pictures and she was going to be able to talk to them on the phone, but i wanted her to watch them grow and run and laugh and do all the things kids do that she was going to miss, and it sort of just organically turned into this documentary. i had flown back to michigan to

film her oldest daughter autumn's dance recital, something i know cindy wanted to go to so badly. i was filming her getting ready and completely unexpectedly cindy calls. and i remember the time thinking should i turn off the camera? i didn't know if this was something i wanted to capture, but i kept rolling, and she says that line to autumn. she says, do you know what mommy's going to do when you go to dance? i'm going to lay down on my bed, i'm going to close my eyes, and i'm going to think about you. and that was the moment that i became a filmmaker. that was the moment this became a film because i realized that i had an opportunity to tell a story that you don't get to see, a story about the children left behind, a story about the families left behind and the true ramifications of these sentences. i thought it was about rehabilitation. i thought it was about preparing people to come back on our streets and be contributing members of society. cindy had already proven that

she could do that, that she was that. and now all of a sudden she is separated from her family for 15 years. her kids now have to grow up their entire childhood without their mother, and i thought to myself, who is benefiting from this? and why aren't people completely up in arms about it? because what i was also figuring out at that time was that cindy's case is not unique. there are thousands and thousands of other people with cases just like hers, people who are just as deserving to get out of cindy, maybe more, and you multiply that by the amount of children left behind and the communities. it's unbelievable. >> the film does quite a good job of showing how the entire family is affected by this. we have another clip that i want to play. >> i open these blinds and the moon comes in, the moonlight, and sometimes i can see the moon through the tree branches and i'm close to my cindy. i know she looks at the moon every night.

she thinks about the family, and i think about her. >> this is your family. you're not a fly on the wall watching something clinically. how did you deal with the emotional consequences of covering your family in this grief or dealing with all the stuff that they had to deal with? >> it was extremely difficult. i knew what i had from the beginning was intimacy and trust and the ability for my family to let me be in these rooms and film like you're saying, not as a fly on the wall, not as somebody standing on the outside watching a family. >> you're uncle rudy. >> the lens was always the son, the brother, the uncle. you were the conversation. you were in the conversation. i'll never forget the first time i'm filming my father, and he breaks down crying. it was such a learning

experience in a lot of ways. i remember something in me saying put down the camera, turn off the camera, go and hug him, go and tell him it's going to be okay. do it. be a good son, you know, and something else started fighting in me and it said hold your shot, rudy. this is for the greater good. >> cindy, you got out earlier than the end of your sentence thanks to a commutation from the president. as we find out near the end of the film it's almost a lottery ticket. you are a very select group of 1,600, 1,700 people in the term of his presidency begin these versus the thousands, somewhere around 30,000 or above. do you remember the moment you got the call that you were given clemency by president obama? >> yeah, i remember that very clearly. when i received the call, i didn't know who was calling me. you don't get calls in prison. when they tell you you have a

phone call, it's quite, okay, it could be good. most times it's bad. so when i heard my attorney's voice on the line, i held my breath because i knew this was yes or no. i knew this was that moment, and all she got out was congratulations, and i just screamed, and everything came out of me. i literally fell to my knees and just started thanking her, thanking god, just being so thankful. >> what's the readjustment process been like? >> it's got its ups and downs. it has a lot of things i didn't know. i didn't know what to expect. i didn't know what things would .ngs i would have to adjust >> what's been harder? >> i guess knowing the little intimacies of my daughters. i know them. they're my daughters. i knew them and we were close. but just little things, oh, yeah, eva doesn't like cheese. i forgot -- i joke with rudy but i literally forgot to feed them the next day, the first day i

came home. you know -- i forgot to feed you. but they're like we're just in this whirlwind of being together and holding each other and all i wanted to do was hug them and kiss them and tell them that i love them but i did forget -- they did have lunch. maybe not breakfast. >> rudy, there's something -- i don't know if i'm projecting or anything, but when you watch the film autumn, the oldest daughter, as you watch her grow up, it's almost like you can see there's a weight that she's been carrying. her eyes, something about her eyes change when she was that little girl preparing for the recital and the young woman waiting for her mom to come home. >> yeah, yeah, definitely. what i wanted to show in this film was time and what time does to somebody. and to this day one of the toughest things for me to watch

in this film is towards the end when autumn looks up at the camera and she says, hi, i'm autumn shank and i'm 13 years old, because you just see the weight of the world on her shoulders, the wear and tear on her as a 13-year-old, what she's had to go through. and i would always ask myself, who is this benefiting? and then i get enraged again because who it's benefiting are the people who are profiting off of the prison industrial complex, the people who are profiting off of the backs of disenfranchised communities, mostly brown and black people, and that enraged me so much because it was pointless. >> rudy, you had a bipartisan screening in washington, d.c. tell us about that. >> i wanted to make something that transcended politics in a way. it's a hearts and minds thing that i wanted you to feel with this, and because of that, like you said, i think i'm affecting people in a different way. they're not feeling preached at. they're allowed to take this journey with the family and

understand where they stand as a person not as a politician or as somebody who alliance themselves with the right or left or whatever, two days after we premiered at sundance he was contacted by a republican senator from utah, senator mike lee. and he said thank you for making this film. i believe in sentence reform. this is such a great story emblematic of why we need true sentence reform. and together they bought it in a bipartisan effort, why we want sentence reform. >> this is a whirlwind from a film festival to interviews and all of that, what happens when this all dies down? are you prepared for what could be difficult repercussions of what your children have had to live through? >> i guess as best as i can prepare myself, i take things one day at a time.

i try to be the best person i can be, always be honest and live my life that way. i don't think any repercussions can come from that. whatever happens, happens. i know if i speak my truth and i love my children and do the best that i can and work hard then everything will be okay. >> cindy shank, rudy valdez, thank you both. >> thank you so much. >> thank you for having us. >> it's a tragic story but bipartisan action in the senate as we heard. that is it for our program. tomorrow we'll continue to follow the disappearance of jamal khashoggi and i'll be joined by tom friedman, the influential "new york times" columnist who initially welcomed saudi's crown prince mohammed bin salman as a reformer before warning of his creeping authoritarian streak. that's it for our program tonight. thanks for watching "amanpour & co." on pbs and join us again tomorrow night. uniworld is a proud sponsor of "amanpour & co." when bea tollman founded 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.

business report with sue herera appear bill griffeth. new worries. stocks get slammed as global issues from europe to china to the middle east get pushed to the front burner. we'll tell what you investors need to know. fighting back, how facebook is calling for all hands on deck to combat any potential manipulation during the midterm elections. and rising risks as torrential downpoursed flood more and more areas we show you how and why cities and companies are not looking for answers on the ground. they are turning to the cloud. all that and more tonight on nightly business report for this thursday, october the 18th. and good evening, everybody