hello, everyone, welcome to "amanpour & co." here's what's coming up. president trump pulls out all the stops in the home stretch before the midterms. as division rips the country, we'll explore its affect on this critical election. then, it is hard to talk about elections without mentioning campaign financing. filmmaker kimberly reid talks to our hari sreenivasan about the influence of so-called dark money. plus, my conversation with the writer and comedian hassan minaj. his new netflix show "patriot act" weaves wit in and out of the most pressing cultural crises.

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, seton melvin, judy and josh weston, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. welcome to the program, everyone. i'm christiane amanpour in new york. as the midterm races entering the final furlong, president

trump plans to visit eight states to barnstorm for republican candidates while cranking up the tension with controversial and bombastic claims from deploying thousands of military forces to the southern border, he says to defend against a caravan from central america, to vowing a radical change to the u.s. constitution ending birthright citizenship. the rhetoric has resumed its polarizing and bitter nature despite the hate crimes across this nation. is that because trump's base demands this red meat? we are going do ask that very question and find out with the author of "wingnuts" and the former editor in chief of "the daily beast" and scott jennings, a former special assistant to president george w. bush. welcome to both of you. welcome to you, scott, and here, john. can i ask you then, scott, to answer what i posed as a question?

some of this hyper partisan and very sort of bombastic rhetoric as we see ratcheting up even as odd as that might sound, is that because the base demands it? or, is that just trump's dna? >> well, i think it's mostly his style. his rhetoric never muted no matter what he's talking about. he tends to speak extremely about a lot of topics and not just unique to president trump. i remember working with mitt romney, joe biden telling african-americans that mitt romney was going to, quote, put you all back in chains. i remember nancy pelosi last year saying the tax cuts were going to be armageddon or the apocalypse. it seems to me over the last few years we have seen a trend to extreme rhetoric in the politics. trump perfected it. he's ridden that wave, but i'm not sure he invented it. >> go ahead, john. >> i'm not sure perfection is the word to use there and you

can point to isolated incidents biden and pelosi, you would admit it's not one-offs. this is donald trump's brand. you can call it a disrupter, a divider but he's certainly not a uniter. what i think's fascinating is in the midterm the national republicans realizing that trump's play to the base style could really be a net negative for them in the crucial swing races. >> do you think so, scott? that's a question because everybody is literally on the edge of their seat trying to figure out which way many of these issues are going to play. how do you -- i mean, you have worked in this area for so, so long and you worked for karl rove, one of the first to say play to your base, play to your base. how do you think this is going to play out barely six days from now? >> well, i think two things. number one, midterm elections are base turnout elections. democrats need to turn out their hardest core supporters. republicans need to do the same.

for the republican party, there's no better motivator right now than donald trump. so it's absolutely true. both parties and especially donald trump are trying to get the u.s. house where the real battleground is in suburban america and among 25 districts that republicans currently hold that hillary clinton carried in 2016. so the rhetoric that trump uses on any given day usually helpful in the senate states and sometimes not as helpful in the suburban house districts and having one election but his impact could be positive in one front and negative on the other depending on which race you talk about. it is a bifurcation. of how people are reacting based on where they live and their personal characteristics such as educational attainment. >> would you then sort of agree? i sort of decode you to be

saying what's conventional wisdom right now that the democrats are very likely to win back the house. if you listen to the current minority leader, she thinks they will win back the house. nancy pelosi said that last night. and that the senate will remain in republican hands. do you as a republican operative believe that to be the truth? >> i do. i think the high probability is we're headed for divided government. i think republicans could hold the house, but it would be a long shot on election night given the number of retirements, open seats, the amount of money democrats raised. some of the districts that republicans are trying to hold are very unfriendly territory so i would be shocked if the democrats don't win the house. in the senate, not only do i this republicans will hold the senate and a great chance they may wind up at 52 or 53 seats so what does that portend for donald trump? headaches from the democratically held house and then confirming more judges with

mitch mcconnell running the u.s. senate. >> that's interesting. you have a load of new statistics and polling regarding this. >> yeah. follow the money. brand new report out looking at where the money's going in advertising spending and does say a lot about the state of the race. dramatic increase in negative ads. 61% over the last midterms we have seen perhaps reflecting the tone and tenor of donald trump doing. look at the issues. for democrats, it's health care. overwhelmingly. health care and health care. 60% of their ads in the senate and house spent on that. for democrats, tax reform. health care's down the list and trump's signature issues of public safety and immigration are well down the list, as well. so democrats really actually have a unified message on the ground in the ad spend despite the lack of a national message. trump's core issue playing up the base, not reflected by his own party's nominees in the districts. >> and the core issue being

immigration as you said? >> yeah. certainly trump has gone down and he's trying to inflame folks on the caravan. 1,000 miles away from the border that he characterizes as an invasion. >> i actually now want to put this to both of you, scott and john. we are trying to understand who is this base. because you know, you have said, scott, that, you know, donald trump didn't invent this heated rhetoric, that he's perfected it, and it's been going on for a long time but i think the general political atmosphere is so much more tense than it's been in anybody's recent memories that i want to ask you what you make of what john has been saying and some of these -- this rhetoric around the caravan. so, look. on monday, this week, trump tweeted the following. many gang members and some very bad people are mixed into the caravan heading to our southern border. please go back. you will not be admitted into the united states unless you go through the legal process. this is an invasion of our

country, and our military is waiting for you. now, i want to follow that up by what robert bowers, the alleged assassin at the pittsburgh synagogue shooting also posted. why, hello there, hias. you like to bring in hostile invaders to dwell amongst us? scott, what do you make of the word invasion used by this -- this person who is now being held in connection with 11 murders and the president of the united states and his cohorts? >> well, i don't think it's right to blame the president of the united states for the actions of deranged individuals. i do think that his description of the caravan as an invasion is normal for how the president would describe illegal immigration and it plays to what i think he's seeing on television. we are seeing these video footage of thousands and thousands of people. on the other hand, i think that republican candidates out there who are looking at polls would tell you in terms of intensity,

if you look at the issues that people say they care about, nothing drives republican intensity like immigration and why donald trump won the nomination in '16. people think it's why he's president of the united states today. that hasn't abated. so the more they talk about it, the more intensity they drive with their people, the more that they believe that republicans will continue to want to vote to try to solve a problem that's gone unsolved in the united states for a very long time. so, i think all of this -- >> scott? >> -- is tied not just to the current events of the caravan. this started the day donald trump started the presidential campaign. >> we want to get to the truth, scott. he may have said it and the nnection between rhetoric and r the base because many of the figures simply do not bear out any of this invasion talk. john, they have used it to their advantage, though. and well, successfully. >> certainly donald trump has used this issue very effectively to inflame the base as you say.

reality check this on a couple levels. southern border crossings on the decline since the year 2000. they're down around a third of what they used to be so this is not a crisis that demands invasion-type rhetoric. it is an irritant for people in donald trump's base. second of all, the language invasion, the fact that the president used it after the shooting and after it was known that the shooter who targeted the tree of life synagogue using that language repeatedly, that to me seems intentionally callous, cruel or both. that does not describe culpability for the shooting in any way, shape or form but why would you pick up that language again? that seems to be crossing a significant line. the caravan's 1,000 miles from the border. looking at the language of invasion and invaders in u.s. history it's always ugly. >> john, speak to what scott just said.

the i am imagines are not favorable for those who would like to take a rational look at this. overhead of what looks like a very, very massive group of people coming the united states. ightened about them. can get >> very effectively. the problem is perception versus reality. again, 1,000 miles from the border is not an invasion. >> and, scott, i want to ask you. because of course no one is blaming and accusing the president of whatever. direct inspiration or involvement in these things and he knows that the heated rhetoric that he uses is red meat and that his people like it. because right after the synagogue shooting he said the following at a rally and i'm going to play it. >> if you don't mind, i'm going to tone it down just a little bit. is that okay? no? i had a feeling you might say that. i know you well. i had a feeling you might say that. >> so, scott, i mean, look. this is kind of scary. he has an instinct to tone it

down after something as awful as what happened at the pittsburgh synagog synagogue. and then he goes out and said, rallies are meant to be fun and people are there to have a good time and why don't we just let them get on with it and then the language starts up again. >> yeah. the president i do think has sometimes instincts that then run into what he faces at the rally crowds and uses the rallies and i'd be interested in john's input as a massive test group. he road tests messages all the time at these rallies. the better reception then you start to hear it more and more not just at rallies but in other places. i also think the president knows this. the immigration issue, especially in the midwest, in the middle american states where a lot of these senate races are going on, it's not just playing well among republicans. i'm coming to you tonight from louisville. i sit in a media market that's getting all of the ad traffic for the indiana senate race. i'm seeing every single ad run by democrat incumbent joe donnelly and it's all about build the wall. build the wall.

i buck my party to build the wall. while we talk about the president talking about immigration and using this rhetoric to inflame or motivate his base, there are democrats, incumbent u.s. senators running in middle america that picked up on it and know it's working not just to pick off republican votes but to pick off conservative democrats and independents, as well. >> john? >> so, scott, you make a -- you use the case of joe donnelly in indiana. obviously, a democrat running for re-election in vice president pence's home state and one of the reasons democrats have a tough time in the senate is simply the math. a lot of democrats running in states donald trump won handily. so can there be a blue wave big enough to keep them in? obviously they tack to the center, to the right. and look. a lot of workers in that upper midwest corridor, you know, over 200 districts flipped from obama to trump, a lot of them angry about economic dislocation they blame on immigration. the question is one of responsibility. if the president goes into a

rally and focus groups as you say because he is interested in what sells, does that red meat translate to the fundamental responsibilities of the office of the presidency and the obligation to have a fidelity to the facts? because when you talk about the president of the united states calling, you know, asylum seekers from honduras invaders, that's language about anti-immigration movements in this country some of our lowest moments, not our best. >> scott, what do you say to that? before i play back something from the 2016 campaign. it is quite an important point, this. >> i think the president would say the rhetoric is no different than what he ran on in 2016. he would say he has a zero tolerance policy for illegal immigration. that was true then and true now and he has not changed one bit on this and he won an election on it, and he's well within his rights to continue to talk about it in the way he does. i agree with you, john. these caravan members are 1,000 miles away and not on the border

and i think the president believes and a lot of supporters and people in the congress believe that we have not done yet on border security and this is the most recent visual example. why would these people be coming en masse to the united states without an expectation to get across the border? that's why you are seeing him use it because he thinks the argument worked before and not really been solved and therefore it would work again. >> scott, you know, i operate in the fact-based world. not politically campaigning and we haven't seen one brick in two years of president trump's being in office put into this so-called wall. he's had a pliant congress. he could have done it. the net outflow is much more significant than the net inflow across that border. but i want to pick up what you just said. a lot of his rhetoric has not changed since 2016 and that is actually quite troubling coming to issues of some accused of anti-semitic dog whistling and this and that and that violent act in pittsburgh.

let us play this clip. i would like to talk to you about it afterwards. >> the establishment has trillions of dollars at stake in this election. for those who control the levers of power in washington and for the global special interests, they partner with these people that don't have your good in mind. it's a global power structure that's responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities. >> so, i think we just need to point out and break down that clip there. global power structure. you know? for robbing the working class. this is read over pictures of very prominent jewish americans, george soros. janet yellen. lloyd blankfein, and criticized

and is still being criticized. when do we say enough is enough? particularly in this country. because that is dog whistle language and even in the kavanaugh hearings you remember president trump basically blamed soros money for encouraging protesters against kavanaugh. i mean, this is very unseemly. >> well, i think george soros to the republican party is what the koch brothers are to the democratic party. extremely wealthy people putting money into political operations and candidates and so when i hear republicans talking about soros-backed operations i think about when democrats talk about koch-backed operations. now taken on a different undertone because of current events but soros is active in democratic politics for a long time and vexed republicans for a long time because he's one of the principle donors to operations that led to successes. so i don't

see anti-semitism attacks on george soros but one party that doesn't like the financing of the opposition in the same way the opposite party doesn't like our financiers. >> i hear what you're saying and i can see you trying the parse that but you know what dog whistle means and, yes, democrats may not like the kochs but they don't play on their ethnicity or religion. i think that's what's worrying people. is that legitimate or do you see it just as a counterweight to the democrats and the kochs? >> i think what scott says is how he perceives that but looking at the language on the social media they hear the dog whistle loud and clear. that ad was produced by steve ban none in the closing weeks of the 2016 campaign and the language pushing that of a nationalist language really did talk about globalist versus nationalist as the president again embraced. secret meetings. undermining u.s. sovereign.

that's language replete in the history of anti-semitism in america and other places, and so the question is folks may say, look, this is our koch brothers. but what -- the way it's received by some folks is far different and that's not incidental to why george soros received the first pipe bomb sent out last week. in addition to democratic politicians and cnn. >> so i guess, scott and john, the question really is, what happens after these midterms? what happens when the votes are in and say it's divided government. is there a way to walk back from this brink? because as i say, many people see that this country is ripped apart in a way that hasn't been for the last 50 years. despite the periodic tensions that we've all been witness to. do you think, scott, that the trump republicans, because it is now the republican party of donald trump, could change a little bit of attack going forward or do you believe that it will continue if he loses the house?

>> well, i think you are going do see extreme rhetoric and even higher levels coming out of both sides and i'll tell you why. two things. number one, if the democrats take the house and launch numerous investigations and/or impeachment proceedings against the president he will be wound up about that. and number two, the democratic primary for president is going to begin, may have already begun in iowa and new hampshire and other places around the country. i think the demand by liberal activists of candidates to use extreme rhetoric in the opposition to trump is extremely high. that's going to get the president wound up. i think we are going to be plunged into an immediate heated extreme war of words generated by the divided government situation in washington and the presidential primary almost immediately when the dust settles on this. it is not necessarily what i would hope for america but i think we should plan for it because i think it's almost a certainty. >> well, i'm just going to give the last 45 seconds to john because i started by saying potentially the 14th amendment,

the birth right automatic citizenship might be the next target. do you think that's possible? >> that's nonsense. paul ryan said it's nonsense. the president can't unilaterally rewrite the constitution. that's about playing to the base. going forward, all the signs speak to greater division, hyper partisanship. if the president deals with democrats on infrastructure, that would be a positive sign. but all the pressures are to greater extremes and bad for the country. >> on that, i think you two agree. >> yeah. >> we end there. john and scott, thank you both very much, indeed. now, these races may still be up in the air but let's plunge now below the surface to look at the dark money. invisible and influential. it is a way of funding political campaigns like the ones happening right now but anonymously. the filmmaker kimberly reid is bringing it all to the surface now with her new documentary called "dark money" following the dollars and cents in her home state of montana and here's a clip.

>> let big money use dark money in this curtain of secrecy to basically buy legislature or buy a state or eventually ultimately, you know, control public policy in this country. i just can't see that happening. it won't be by the people for the people. it'll be something else. you know? >> now, the filmmaker kimberly reid told our hari sreenivasan all about this and how montana is trying to fight it. >> kimberly, thank you for joining us. let's start with a basic understanding. what is dark money? >> any money that comes in to an election or a policy debate where we're not sure where it's coming from. we don't know who's behind that money and that's really important because we can't tell why people are trying to operate in politics.

we can't tell what their motivations are, vested interest, what their profit motive is. if we don't know who it is. >> what was a citizens united case? how important was it? >> so the citizens united case came down in 2010. a lot of people abbreviate it and remember it as saying corporations are people and money is speech. it really turned on the first amendment and if you assume that corporations have rights of from speaking in elections. you know? they can't be kept from spending money in elections. >> their money is their voice? >> their money is their voice. when citizens united first passed a lot of people were immediately up in arms that we were going to have unlimited money in political campaigns and

that has certainly had an enormous impact. what people didn't really anticipate is that money would also become anonymous. and when you have anonymous and unlimited money being spent in elections, it really distorts our democracy. >> you spent at least six years looking at this topic in montana. why montana? >> it's a very good case study. i think it's the best case study. it's small enough that we could sort of tell a story that takes place in this microcosm so that people can really wrap their heads around this story. a lot of times -- i mean, we are talking about an issue where people are intentionally trying to hide money and the influence of money. so, it helps to have a microcosm to connect the dots and show how it all works and i'm from there. i think i also thought like a montanan thinks. i went to school learning about

the influence of a couple copper barons who ran the state about 100 years ago and i think having that skepticism towards the role of money in politics was an essential thing for me to, you know, good place to come from to understand the issue and to maybe see how the drama was going to develop over that long period of time. >> you know, there's a clip that we want to play out where this is an investigative reporter who has been doing a lot of groundwork in the state you follow in the documentary and literally at a whiteboard explaining how the cycle works. let's take a look. >> this corporation wants to influence our politics. but they don't want the public to know that they're trying to influence our politics because that could hurt their bottom line perhaps so they give money to a dark money group so they send out all of the mud slinging and the postcards and the things that people hate receiving flooding their mailboxes.

this corporation is not affiliated with all of the dark money spending because they have essentially laundered it through this. and all of this supports a candidate. when that candidate gets elected, they support the agenda of the corporation. that's the feedback loop for dark money. corporation, funnels money to a pac, the pac sends out postcards attacking the opponent of the candidate who they want to get elected. when that candidate gets elected they support the agenda of the corporation. or individual. i mean, this could be done with individual money. it's really, really scary when you think about it. >> give me an idea of the scale that we're talking about here. how prevalent is dark money? i mean, when i hear dark, i think dark matter in the universe. it's out there. we don't know how much. how prevalent is dark money in politics today? >> we don't know how much.

there's really no way that we're ever going to know because a lot of it is just not claimed by the groups who are spending it. but a group called issue 1 recently since our film came out issue 1 came out with a study where they stated that since 2010 when citizens united came out, they're kind of measuring the affects of citizens united, that over $600 million has been spent just by the top 15 groups spending that. so the answer unfortunately is we don't know. i think it's important to notice that we aren't able to tell what the affect of that spending is until well after the elections that it was operating in. right? i mean, that money is being spent and it's getting people elected, laws are being made, laws are being repealed. our government is being changed. and even if we find out now after the fact some eight years

after citizens united has been passed what the ultimate impact of that money is, i think it just kind of underlines how important this issue is. we don't know where this money is coming from at the time during an election or a policy debate or a judicial nomination. when we should know where that money is coming from. >> judicial nomination, just recently the brett kavanaugh hearings and almost turned into a campaign where it was who could spend more, who can get the message out whether to support or not. >> yep. >> a specific nominee. >> and that campaign i think you can call it a campaign was being run primarily by 501 c dark money groups. >> supporters of brett kavanaugh? >> supporters of brett kavanaugh. >> tell your senator confirm kavanaugh. >> before that, they were supporters of neil gorsuch and his nomination.

>> i have to say i'm 100% comfortable with judge gorsuch becoming the next supreme court justice. >> before that, they were posing the nomination of merritt garland to that same seat. >> he could tip the balance to create the most liberal supreme court in 50 years. >> it doesn't just happen on the right. in this case there was a lot more money that came from the political right wing. one disturbing trend that i saw with the kavanaugh nomination was that groups from the left sprang up. they didn't spend nearly as much money. they spent about a tenth. >> enough is enough. >> doesn't bode well that a judicial supreme court nomination turns into a campaign where we have two dark money groups shouting it out. doesn't bode well for our elections when we just have a billionaire on the right and a billionaire on the left kind of shouting at each other. i mean, the real problem with this issue is that it pulls democratic power away from the

individual voter and putts it back into the hands of a couple billionaires to buy all the ads up. >> in the case of montana, we saw -- we have a clip where the very fundamental thing that you expect to know which is who is the person writing the check is just something that escapes anyone in the state. >> dark money is the advertising. where you don't know who's paying for the ads. simply got to hold these up and say who's paying for this? does anybody know anybody in these groups? who's paying for this? what are they attempting to buy? >> i'm a huge advocate of free speech. the right to be able to freely speak. these groups were abusing that. they were speaking from the darkness. >> i don't know who they are. i don't know how to fight them. i don't know how to argue with can't pick up the phone and say, hey, what is your interest

in candidate x because i don't know who they are. we'll never know. >> when somebody has a profit motive and they're operating in politics and they're taking over the political dialogue from a lot of individual citizens whose voices get drowned out, i think that that's where the real travesty of this anonymous politics comes to play. >> you mentioned earlier that the left is springing up and sometimes as you point out in this documentary it's the right attacking different parts of the right, that even within the party that there can be campaigns to either support you or tear you down and support your competitor. let's look at a clip. >> the way they want you to vote in the legislature they target you at the next primary. even if you're a conservative republican. if you don't vote the way they want you to vote they send out the mailings. they exaggerate.

their voting records. they don't care if they lie. >> these things all came in at the last minute. this election my wife and i probably got six, seven, eight of these every day the last month of the campaign. boom. here's one on taxes. here's one on health care. sex ad. guns. and a lot of these groups no one knows who they are. you know? they call them dark money groups and that's what they are. >> how did montana stop this? >> montana stopped it i think because a couple people they happen to be republicans who were attacked by other republicans they got really upset that this was unfair. that folks weren't playing by the rules. and that they were being ambushed. kind of a western, you know, response to this, this being ambushed. but the group of republicans got together with the democratic governor.

it took a couple sessions to really push a bill through but they ended up passing what was called the disclose act which called for a bunch of different ways to understand where money is coming from in politics and for these groups who are spending it to report it immediately and make it available online. so this sort of transparency in elections i think has really helped clean up the elections in montana a lot. >> what's the role on a federal level for the u.s. government to figure out any semblance of a check or a balance? we have a federal election commission. we have members of each party that sit there and supposed to write the rules of how elections are run. >> fec to do that. as we talk right now, it only has four of six members. one of the themes we follow in

the film is the inefficacy how the fec is ham strung and unable to enforce campaign finance law. >> when i first got there, to the fec, i thought that we would be able to work together on issues such as disclosure. and transparency. but it didn't take long to realize that wasn't going to happen. >> at the federal level, there's the fec and then each state there's an agency that regulates money in state politics. >> in montana, the commissioner of political practices is housed in this little house really. it's a tiny, litting office. i doubt if there's a smaller office in state government. the very legislators that are investigated by the office determine its funding so it's

always been grossly underfunded. they never have enough people. they never have enough equipment. it's sort of a forgotten stepchild of montana state government. >> the tendency is to polarize all of the voting issues, all of the republican members vote in a bloc and the whole enforcement agency is really, really been stymied. that's important because it has really let dark money get out of control. the efforts to create specific rules on how dark money has to be disclosed in federal races has been stymied. but that's also extremely important for just because of a couple of trends that have happened in the last couple of election cycles. one is all of this campaigning is moving online. it's moving to facebook ads. it's moving to twitter ads. it's moving to a form of

campaigning that is much harder to track and requires a lot of immediate attention. as soon as possible. the second issue is the role of foreign money in our elections. we have heard a little bit about that with the mueller investigation and there's -- there have been hints of the role of russian oligarch money and we don't -- we can't really state anything clearly about that but i think it's a question what the role of foreign money in our elections is and where it's coming from. and if we don't have the ability to track that, in a perfect vehicle to avoid tracking, is a dark money group. if we don't have that, i think our democracy is really imperilled. >> all right. thanks so much. >> thank you. so now that we know more about the darkness of that dark money and the complexity of

trying to open up the oxygen to it, let us check in my last guest who is using his razor wit and outside/inside status to fire up debate around some of these pressing issues. hassan minaj cut his comedy teeth on "the daily show" self identifying as an indian american muslim in these fractious times. last year he made waves headlining for the white house correspondents' dinner taking on the media's role in the age of trump. here's a little bit of that speech. >> you guys have to be more perfect now more than ever. because you are how the president gets his news. not from advisers. not from experts. not from intelligence agencies. you guys. so that's what you've got to be on your "a" game. you got to be twice as good. you can't make any mistakes. because when one of you messes up, he blames your entire group. and now you know what it feels like to be a minority.

>> so, maybe they'll be getting the news from hassan soon. in his netflix series it sharpens these themes in a stand-up format. the series dropped this week and i asked him how he'll stand out in a somewhat crowded field. and what he's trying to say for our times. welcome to the program. >> thanks for having me. >> first and foremost, patriot act. >> yes. >> why? >> the title? >> yes! >> okay, okay. >> because that has some quite risky connotation. >> yes. >> it was the post-9/11 george w. bush essentially surveillance net. >> yes, yes. well, for me, what i thought was really interesting about it is two reasons. i thought one it's an interesting throwback. if you know you know. obviously certain people know it. you brought that to netflix? but then what's really, really interesting was currently i think not only in america but in

the world there is this claiming of what it means to be a patriotic citizen of your respective country and i thought it would be interesting for me who's an indian american muslim, all of those things all at once, and reclaiming that title. i thought it would be interesting. >> it is. and the fact you talk about the hyphens and you live between the hyphens. an indian-american-muslim. >> yeah. >> which one has precedence? >> all of them are important to me. that's sort of a thing i bring to each headline piece is my perspective given those things and so i sometimes a lot of the stories are complicated for me. >> two of the episodes have dropped already on netflix. >> correct, correct. >> you have a 32-episode commitment. >> right. >> and you took on something that is really counter intuitive. and you focus on the crown ry. prince mbs who's now known all over the world thanks to what? the brutal murder of one of our colleagues jamal khashoggi.

>> yes. >> why did you choose that? >> for me, it was one of those things where again our relationship with saudi arabia and i mean that both as an indian -- as an american and a muslim, has always been extremely complicated and it's unfortunate the death of a journalist, this brutal murder, was the thing that brought it to the light. because just so you know. we have had this complicated, we have been taking saudi arabia to sword prom since fdr. >> to sword prom. i love that. >> yeah. >> it seems to be like everybody says to us, well, we don't know to sanction them. thread the needle. >> sure. >> you talked about the murder in excruciating detail. >> yes. >> and you put out some sort of sound about prince mbs' reaction to that chi'm going to play. >> here's the crazy part. mbs was shocked by all of the anger over the killing of one journalist. according to "wall street journal" on a phone call with

jared kushner, mbs asked, why the outrage? and, frankly, mbs' confusion is completely understandable. he's been getting away with [ bleep ] like this. with no belowback. >> this is comedy. this is the brutal murder of a colleague. >> yes. >> and you're trying to thread the needle. right? >> yes. >> between what's really out there. >> yes. >> and doing it with a comic tone. >> yes. >> it's tough. >> it can be. yes. it can be very tough. you have to pick and choose your spots and you have to say, okay, where can i be sort of funny or interesting? look. i think being funny is just the conduit to say what really is happening. some of my favorite comedians of all time, the richard pryors, dave chappelles, will have these incredibly serious monologues in their specials and i wanted to bring that to the political satire space. >> since i just interviewed dave chappelle, i want to know what you take on him.

he has the voice of american black community. >> correct. >> are you that underrepresented? is it important for him to be his voice for the community? >> yes. >> you be your voice for the community? >> absolutely. i think it's one of those things -- and you can see it in the audience whenever you watch my shows live or if you're in attendance at the tapings. the most gratifying thing that i felt is when people say, thank you. yes. i felt that way. but i've never been able to distill it in a funny, potent way. that's the beauty of comedy. you know? the world is very complicated and nuanced. what we do is actually reductive. we boil the world down into philosophical espresso that's funny. that's our job. >> what do you think you bring that makes you stand out in a field of comedians offered positions and then had them axed? a chief colleague said you want to get away from doing the daily trump. >> yes. yes. i think what's happening right

now in america, trump is just a symptom of a larger problem and i think talking about the larger issues that are at stake, the first episode's on affirmative action but that's something that's present in america but a lot of countries around the world have these programs or initiatives and it is a larger conversation. who gets what and why? that to me is so potent of the now and it's going to last a year from now or two years from now and even if people disagree or don't believe what i'm saying, i'm saying, hey, look, we took all this evidence, here it is. in 23 minutes. and it's really funny. take it. you can make your choice on it. >> you started, i believe you started on "the daily show." >> yes. >> right? a pretty high bar. >> that was my break. you had halal things considered. >> yeah, yeah, why. >> brown corner? >> brown and town. >> there you go. >> yeah, yeah. >> you started being very self-deprecating. >> yeah.

when you were there, were you the only muslim comedian? >> at the time, he was transitioning out and i sort of came in. i have always tried to say what's beautiful about comedy is an art form. it is your perspective that's the most powerful thing. if you can add that, that's amazing. >> it is not easy being muslim in america. although weirdly of all the -- >> why do you say that, christiane? >> because i know. >> it's not easy? >> no. look. it's not easy but weirdly of all the western nations, muslims are most integrated in this country. >> yes. >> where i come from, europe and other places, they're siloed and for some reason there's a much bigger tolerance and yet there's spikes of hatred and hate crimes and we are now talking in the wake of really dramatic hate crimes, the pipe bombs sent to political opponents, members of the press, the slaughter of

innocents in a synagogue in pittsburgh -- >> correct. >> the killing of two american, african-americans in a kroger store, all in the last week alone -- >> yes. >> you have your own experience with that. tell me what it was like for you and your family in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. >> right. you know, for my family coming out of september 11th it really was one of those life changing moments for me where you go from you're an american. maybe you're not understood. people don't understand your identity or the shade you are. i'm indifferent to you and then september 12th sort of being public enemy number one of the united states. that really, really was complicated my relationship with america. >> have you even been actively a muslim before that? >> sure. i have grown up as a muslim, yes. practicing and proud to be

muslim, but it's one of those things where it really sort of solidified my understanding of, oh, you're an insider but you're also an outsider. and i didn't know until later that that could be my, you know, marvel superpower. >> in one of your acts home coming king you talk about something that you saw right after 9/11. we're going to play that. >> i hear -- outside. me and dad, we run outside and all the cameras on the camry are smashed in. i look at the middle of the street. my dad's in the middle of the road sweeping glass out of the road like he works at like a hate crime barbershop. we got customers. we got to clean this up. then! brown mr. miagi, i run up to him. why aren't you saying something? say something! he looks at me and he goes, hassan -- [ speaking in a foreign language ]

these things happen and these things will continue to happen. that's the price we pay for being here. >> you describe it as your american dream tax. >> yes. >> what is that? >> yes. the american dream tax is something that i think a lot of immigrants feel. that it's -- especially if you're first generation or child of first generation immigrants and coming to a new place. you pay the american dream tax for being there. that's the cost of entry. and if you endure racism, this is part of the game. as long as you don't die that, hey, it is okay. that's the tax you pay for being here. and for me, that part of my show is really the cognitive framework i bring to what i do in my art is the difference of pragmatism and optimism. >> are you speaking to your community or are you speaking to the general american population? >> i'm speaking to both. you know? i think the thing that is really powerful about comedy is being able to speak to something that people experience and then to

have people who may have not experienced that go, oh, i've never thought about it that way before. but i think the underlying feeling is the same. we have all felt like outsiders at some point or not accepted. >> did you imagine or is it just -- you know, a par for the u know, the 12th of september n, >> sure. >> -- 2001 you would have seen this again let's say in 2017 when president trump was inaugurated and then the muslim ban and what did you think about that? how did your family internalize it? you had a personal experience. your mom was caught out. >> she was traveling at the time. it's one of those things where, look, these unfortunate events flare up and it really does affect you. where you think to yourself, have we made progress? i thought we were able to work past this sometimes. i guess not. comedy's the only way i have been able to talk about it.

>> how did you sort of kick into gear when this muslim ban was announced? you had to get your mom home, right? >> right. she was in india and one of those things where, you know, i really thought to myself, we can't guarantee that she's going to be able to come back. of course, she was able to come back. but can you imagine had she been visiting my grandmother in, say, syria or iraq or one of many countries part of that ban? >> she might not have been able to get back. >> iran, totally. >> what you do is the intersection of comedy, journalism, politics, the lot. >> yes. >> what gets your goat the most right now about the political atmosphere we're living in? right now this minute. >> i think two things. i think the disagreement on what objective reality is really, really hard. it is really hard to have a conversation. look. i grew up. i was a -- in high school, a speech and debate kid. forensics kid and when you're debating there is objective

reality that you agree upon and then you're on one side of the issue, i'm on the other. if we can't agree on objective reality, no debate is possible. and then i think the second is just the death of nuance. that's really hard -- you know, something can be awful and amazing all at once. >> there's a lot of debate in every walk of life now about where the me too movement is and within not just female circles but obviously men, you know, looking at this. >> right. >> some people think there's a backlash going on that people are angry about the me too movement and wondering, you know, what this means going forward. so if it's louis ck who did what he did, unconsensually exhibited himself sexually to these women and he comes back, how should he -- i mean, i don't believe that necessarily one should be banished for life or punished for life or have a life sentence. >> right.

>> but when he came back, he didn't really acknowledge it. he didn't really apologize. >> right. >> and so his first outing was a negative one in terms of the broader community's understanding. >> sure. >> apparently not in the comedy club because he got a standing ovation. >> right. stand-up comedy is one of the rawest, purest art forms so i would hope that it gets addressed in some capacity. that the artist addresses -- this is the ultimate platform to have that discussion. and so i would certainly hope that they address it through their art. someone told me this. one of our writers on the show, i remember asking -- we were just having this debate and i was -- we were sort of riffing back and forth about this philosophical debate. how do we engage with people of questionable decisions in the past and publicly adjudicate these things. she said something that stuck with me for a long time. she said, why do they deserve a second chance and women haven't been given a first?

i'm more interested in playing offense and goes back to what my dad taught me. to be pragmatic about the american dream. what about the other dreams to co-sign? give me the go fund me link. i will draw up the paper for it. that's far more interesting than taking up our mental and twitter space on where do we fall on them? are they cancelled? are they not? where's the other pilots to green light? give me the hyper link so i can send money and get those pilots on air. that's far more interesting to me. wouldn't you agree? i don't know. >> yeah. mean, clearly we are living ind a moment where certainly this suspect in the pittsburgh synagogue slaughter is believed to have been radicalized by just being on social media to a great extent and said the initial findings. this technology, this freedom of speech leveller that we all thought was such a great outlet for everybody --

>> yes. >> -- where do you come down on that? there is again a mounting backlash. it's an abuse of the use of this technology, even the great techno ceos and founders are having a real hard time trying to rein back in the monster they have created. >> cynicism is popular on the internet. i do think -- i have gotten some advice of other comedians. this is something that i got from a mentor of mine who i really appreciate. he said there's a lot of heat that's being generated right now. a lot of noise. there's this many scripted shows on television. there's this many tweets per minute. so many hours of content uploaded every day on youtube. every minute. every second. a lot of heat. not a lot of light. and when people see light, truth, like really powerful stuff, a beautiful song, or a poem, or a joke that brings out truth, light, it really is beautiful. and that's my job. i aspire to do that for the rest of my career.

>> hasan on netflix, thank you so much. >> thank you so much. sometimes, as they say, comedy is the best remedy in these troubled times and climate of division. tune in tomorrow when i'll be joined by the democratic senator from virginia, mark warner. he serves as vice chair of the senate intelligence committee and we'll get his thoughts on next week's midterm elections and will talk to a former trump official. 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,

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