♪ >> hello, everyone, and welcome to "amanpour & co." during the holiday season, we are dipping into the archive and looking back at some of this year's highlights. so, here's what's coming up -- an extensive conversation with the most powerful woman in the trump administration. kellyanne conway opens up about her personal story, the president's tensions with the press, and her work to stem the opioid crisis. then i speak to another powerful woman on the world stage. as head of the international monetary fund, christine lagarde is at the helm of the global economy and in the cross-hairs of president trump's trade war. plus, white fragility and the racism we hide even from ourselves. our michel martin talks to author robin diangelo. ♪

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everyone. i'm christiane amanpour in washington at this hour, where crisis continues to disrupt the trump administration. and if democrats retake the house in november, buckle up for endless investigations and ever-more-bitter partisan fights. it is in this contentious atmosphere that i sat down with presidential counselor kellyanne conway. now, she's the most powerful woman in the white house, and she's one of the few senior advisors still standing some 600 days into an administration of revolving doors. conway is best known around the world for her combative defense of the president and for introducing the phrase "alternative facts" to the lexicon. but she has a major policy role, overseeing critical initiatives, from the opioid epidemic to working with veterans and military spouses. now, i can be as combative as anybody, but instead of getting into the ring with conway, i really wanted to explore and probe her views on her job and, of course, the administration's relationship with the press.

we started by talking about the personal when we sat down in the eisenhower executive office building right next door to the white house. kellyanne conway, welcome to the program. >> thank you. >> let me start by just digging a little bit into what it means to be the most powerful woman in the white house. that is who you are professionally, but personally, you are a wife, you are a mother of four. how do you do it all? are you living the "i have a dream, have it all," feminist ideal? >> i think i'm living the feminist ideal without calling myself a feminist and without being anti-male... >> 'cause that would be too radical. ...or pro-abortion, which seems to be what some people think is the entry fee, the definition of being a feminist. i consider myself, christiane, a product of my choices, not a victim of my circumstances. but in some ways, as blessed as i am and as fortunate as i've been in my life, thank god, my life is a very common experience. it's a very pedestrian, everyday example of the american dream

come true in that i was raised by a single mom. >> mm-hmm. >> my father left when i was 3 years old. and we have a relationship now. he has a great relationship with me and my family, my children. but my mom figured it out in the 1970s with her high-school degree, never expecting to go back into the workforce. and she just figured it out, as i think so many women have. i was raised in a house with my mom, her mom, and two of my mother's unmarried sisters. so, these four catholic italian women raised me in a small house in south jersey between philadelphia and atlantic city, never had a single political conversation that i can remember. we had pictures of the last supper and the pope on the wall, not of john kennedy or ronald reagan. >> [ laughs ] i just want to ask you -- how did what you describe as your circumstances affect you and shape the way you are as a woman, as a professional woman? i mean, did you face obstacles climbing the proverbial professional ladder? you're a successful political consultant. you've done books. you're on television. you're now the senior counsel to the white house, to the

president. did you -- did you have to face your own misogyny moments, your own sexism, your obstacles and adversity? >> yes, actually, but i didn't let it define me, and i didn't let it stop me. i let it help me to shape me and to help me grow and know who i am. i'm self-deprecating. i'm self-aware. i know what all my weaknesses are. i didn't need men to point them out for me, although many tried [chuckling] along the way and failed. but, remember, too, i'm in -- i was in political polling. i was in polling corporate and political polling in the republican party. in some ways, at a microcosmatic level, that's like being in a -- in a -- in an elks club meeting in a locker room on a golf course, you know? it's very, very male-dominated, male-centric. and there were many times, christiane, as you can imagine, even when i had my own company and i was a paid political analyst on cnn 22 years ago, when there were very few of them -- they gave me my first shot on tv. even then, it would be, "let's let the girls do the focus

groups. the men will do the polling," which, looking back, only meant, "let's put her on the airplane for three days away from home, and i'll sit here on my behind in washington and look over the numbers." but that's okay because i got on the plane. when they said, "how's it playing in peoria? what's going on in lubbock?" i got on the plane, and i talked to the people in peoria and lubbock, and i worked, literally, physically in all 50 states. so, i've had such a privilege for decades now of literally going out and talking to americans. >> so, let me ask you, because it's obviously clear that we have to get to this point, and that is this -- i mean, i don't know what to call it -- distrustful, dysfunctional, really, you know, destructive relationship between the presidency and the press at the moment. i wonder whether there's a way to get out of it. and i'm really interested in exploring it because it is the pillar of democracy. i mean, the fourth estate... >> no question. >> ...is a vital pillar of our democracy in civil society. you yourself, i don't believe,

thinks that we, the press, are the enemy of the people. do you believe that? >> i don't. i've said that. no. >> you don't believe that? >> i don't. >> then, do you try to weigh in with the president on this issue? of course, he has his views, and he makes it clear all the time. but you know that a couple of -- a month ago, there were some 300 u.s. newspapers that tried to, you know, gather the group to defend the press themselves against this "enemy of the people" slogan. and shortly afterwards, there was the arrest of the man in california who had taken this to heart, who had threatened to shoot boston globe reporters in the head. i mean, at what point is there a red line for you personally in the rhetoric causing potential danger and having consequences? >> okay, well, there's a lot in your extended statement, so let me just say this. i don't think the press writ large is the enemy of the people. i do find the press often, in their coverage of this white house and this administration and this president, to be the enemy of the relevant, to be the enemy of

what americans are telling the press in the press's own polling is relevant to them. they don't cover what's in their own polling. so, a major outlet will do a poll, and they'll ask americans, "what's the most important issue to you?" and let's just say, in some fashion, the top three or four issues are the economy and jobs, healthcare, immigration, foreign policy, education. they don't cover those issues day after day. and they'll say, "yes, we do," and they don't. if you do a content analysis, they simply don't. they want to cover the messenger, not the message. they want to cover palace intrigue and personnel and not principles and policies, which is what people around kitchen tables are talking about. >> to an extent -- >> now, it's going to be a little tough for me and, i would think, some of my colleagues here who have been forced to have either secret service protection or security and, really, just change some of our lifestyles at times -- it's gonna be a hard thing for me to

swallow that the only people under threat or under assault are reporters at this newspaper or this person. >> but -- >> if certain reporters feel that way, why do they go on late-night tv? why do they have agents they pay a percentage to? why do they write books? why do they give speeches for tons of money? probably two speeches is what i'll make in the white house in a year. so, many people want themselves to be public figures -- i'm not entirely sure of the logic, but -- >> well, i think people watching will be, not the press. >> right, but -- no, no. i'm serious about trying to figure this out because i've put my life on the line most of my career to tell the truth... >> you have. >> ...to tell the truth. and i just wonder whether, again, you feel that there's a potential consequence. i understand that there's some hate groups -- >> it goes both ways. >> there's some hate groups directed toward some of you in the white house. however, there are also all sorts of despicable and undemocratic leaders all over the world... >> been around forever. >> ...who are taking seriously president trump's permission to demonize their own press, not to mention us, but to demonize

their own press, to put them in jail, to often do worse to them. >> christiane, that didn't happen in the last 20 months, as you full well know. >> no, but i do also know that, actually, it has exaggerated -- >> you're actually an award-winning journalist who's gone around the globe. >> but it has got worse in the last few months. >> look, i think -- >> and people are using the "fake news" slogan to justify the unprecedented amount of imprisonment and violence directed towards journalists around the world. >> i see things every single day that are just not true. people will call -- i'm not even in the press and comm shop, and people will call me and ask a question. i'll say, "that's not true." people will actually do a story about my state of mind. and i'll say, "but that's not true," and they'll write it, anyway. "well, we have two sources." two sources who aren't me about what i think? >> but do you accept what i just posited as a reality? >> what i want to tell you is, i truly feel for your generation and your elevation of journalists because the media writ large now does not include a lot of christiane amanpours. it includes a lot of people who call themselves reporters

because they sit on twitter all day seeing who wrote what and then they repeat it, even though they don't independently research it themselves. >> but the president accuses people from established, high-level media organizations, including the new york times, cnn. it's not just the twitterati. >> but he sees things that aren't true. christiane, i assure you i work here, and i work here because i want to be one small molecule for change in the country i love so deeply, that has given me and my family so much, including freedom and the ability for my three daughters to go to school where girls, in some places in the world, can't. i can drive. i can go to college and law school as the first person in my family. a lot of women can't around the globe. you know that more than anybody. and so, for me, who's doing that kind of -- who's doing that kind of reporting? we see things every single day on tv and in print that i promise you -- i swear to god -- are patently false. and nobody calls, or they don't believe when we tell them what the truth is. and my main grievance has always

been simple. i said it during the campaign. i said it during the transition, when i also said, "look, the president and the media are going to share joint custody of the country for the next four or eight years. i'll say eight years now. we have to figure out a way to responsibly "co-parent," as they say in modern language, and that goes both ways. but my -- what i've always said, christiane, and i'll continue to say, is it's not just the biased coverage. that's easy to detect. if you want to find biased coverage in this or i want to find bias in coverage in that, you'll find it. it's incomplete coverage. it's that the administration and the media have two independent but consequential platforms by which to inform the american people, if not the world, to your point, of what's actually happening here. the economic numbers are the story that -- the greatest story never told, what the president is making good on his promises with respect to trade and manufacturing, construction. if you're a coal miner, if you're in construction, if you're in manufacturing, if you

want to be in a vocational trade, this is your president. that story's not getting out there because it's not as riveting. and you know what? a lot of policy is tough to figure out. >> a lot of policy is tough to figure out. >> there are some journalists who are liberal. there are some who are just lazy, and they don't want to figure out -- >> and there are some who are good at what they do. >> present company excepted. that's right. that's why i said i feel for a certain generation, elevation of journalists because people -- even the most virulently anti-trump editors will not allow certain things in their paper if they can't check them for veracity, right? even if they'd like to, they won't do it. but the same reporters who can't get away with doing it there get away with it through their cable news comm projects, get away with it on social media. >> as you know, at our cable-news organization, if there is a mistake, we apologize, correct, and move on very rapidly and very transparently. >> sometimes. >> we do. what i want to know, though, is, do you think the president might take a stance of his own to pull back from this? because remember what he told lesley stahl right after his

inauguration -- i mean, sorry, after his election -- even before he was inaugurated. he basically said, when she asked him about this, "you know, you know why i do it. i do it to discredit you all and demean you all so that when you write negative stories about me, no one will believe you." so, is this a long-lasting strategy? or can we see potentially some way to get out of this thing that doesn't seem to be good for you or for us? >> i'll respond in a few ways. first of all, i do agree that it's not healthy for the body politic on either side. there's no indication we have, and we -- someone like i and others have tried -- the president has tried -- to turn down the temperature, to give more access. he just gave a few major interviews to print outlets. he gives interviews on television. but when you see story after story, when you hear all the good news not being covered -- i'm gonna give you a great example. we talked about the economic reports. i think the media will start covering the economy if it ever goes down. i think they'll start covering the regulation if it ever starts

going up again. and i want to say, if this country doesn't know what fentanyl is, then the media are falling down on their jobs. >> okay, i want to ask you about that because it's -- >> 30,000 americans died from it last year, and if you're not talking about that, if you're talking about anonymous -- fentanyl's not anonymous. my goal is to make sure the 30,000 americans who died from a fentanyl overdose last year aren't anonymous. >> and this is your big issue in the white house, one of the big ones, the opioid crisis. do you have personal experience that leads you, like so many americans and so many politicians -- do you know people who have suffered from this? do you have anybody in your family? i mean, has is it close to you? >> i do, but, again, i think that makes me like everybody else. it gives me the connective tissue with the rest of the country. i do, and i think everyone does. the president went first here, christiane. he said, "my brother, fred jr., died of alcoholism at the age of 42." and he will say -- he said it again recently. i think the pool spray was there -- press pool was there. he said, "my brother was so handsome. he was so smart. he was the oldest, and it just

ruined -- you know, it ruined his life and eventually took his life." so, he went first in sharing his story. here at the white house, we have a website, and it's -- share your story -- crisisnextdoor.gov, because we want everybody to know the stigma and the silence that attends to addiction in any form, but particularly opioid and drug addiction, needs to be blown away, that people feel like they can come to somebody in their circle of life and share that story. i have experience with the me too movement. long before there was a me too movement, i was put upon, i was victimized, but nobody cares because i work for president trump. >> no. people care. >> oh, i don't know. i said it -- i said after the -- >> what happened to you? >> it doesn't matter to me now, but i just want to say -- i'm 51 years old, so you can imagine. when this was -- this was, i think, acceptable and much more commonplace behavior. >> what happened to you? >> nobody had cellphones. i want to say this -- that i said that, for the first time, after the debate in st. louis, which was two days after the "access hollywood" tape came out and president trump and hillary clinton debated.

and afterwards, i said it on live tv. and they said, "oh, here's a list of people who think donald trump should get out of the race, and republican members of congress." i looked at the list, and i said, "fascinating. i hadn't thought about a few of them in a while, but when i see their names, i'm reminded that they were early, early disciples of the me too movement. it wasn't called the me too movement at the time. but that is -- i think what's changed for women and what i'm really proud of with president trump is i was -- i was in republican polling and politics, and i had a successful business for decades, but it's he -- it's he who elevated a woman -- i was hiding in plain sight -- to his campaign manager. it's he who has a female press secretary. president obama had four press secretaries, never a female. he had two or three campaign managers, never a female. but he had a top counsel adviser who was a female, as well. >> and i have her office -- valerie jarrett. she's lovely, and she was great to me when we first got here in showing me the ropes. >> let me just ask you a bit more about the opioids because, you know, congress has attributed something like

$5 billion. some are saying -- >> $6 billion. >> $6 billion now. good. some are saying, though, it needs about 10 times that amount and that a lot more emphasis needs to be on prevention and against harm and treatment, rather than law enforcement. do you agree with that? >> so, i agree that there is a three-front war on the opioid drug demand/drug supply crisis. and when the president gave his remarks in his policy rollout on march 19th in new hampshire, he said exactly that. we need to tackle these simultaneously, not sequentially, because they're all important -- treatment and recovery, prevention and education, law enforcement and interdiction. you cannot arrest or punish your way out of a drug crisis that is roiling every demographic and geographic group. it knows no boundaries. it discriminates against no one. and what the president has done -- i'll quickly run through them. what the president has done is he's secured $6 billion in new funding from congress. now, $4 billion came through the spending bill, of which not a single democrat voted for. so, i would ask those democrats who say, "we need 10 times

$6 billion," "why'd you vote against the first $6 billion?" i am happy to tell you that h.r.6, the largest legislative package in our nation's history on any one drug crisis at any one time -- that passed the house, christiane, 396 to 14. nothing passes the house 396 to 14. so, there's great bipartisanship in the effort to solve. it's now in the senate. we want it on the president's desk so he can sign it and tell the country what's in it. so, prevention also means and education also means of prescribers, of drug companies, because we're now seeing 30 pills in a bottle go down to 5 or 7. and i want to make very clear to your audience that we're not talking about chronic-pain survivors, of which -- excuse me -- chronic-pain americans who suffer from chronic pain and need pain medication, like my own mother. we're talking about the collegiate or high-school-sports injury. we're talking about the dental procedure, the surgery, where you go home with these bottles of pills and that's when the

trouble begins. >> i just want to get back to -- from where i sit, usually reporting from europe and around the world, some of the stuff that's come out in the bob woodward book and in previous accounts of this white house and this presidency -- people are kind of concerned. they don't know how to adjust and adapt for the trump factor. they see him sometimes denigrating and pouring cold water over global alliances and the hard work of diplomacy and negotiations and tending to cozy up -- that's my word -- to more traditional adversaries. then they also see, well, the president may say something and tweet something, but the government -- the administration, congress -- are actually taking traditional foreign-policy, you know, positions. do you buy that? i mean, is this administration doing traditional foreign policy, while president trump, nonetheless, says what he wants to say about things and responds to various allies and

adversaries in that way? >> well, as secretary and general jim mattis said earlier this week in response to the book, that the idea that he would disparage the -- and this is a key phrase -- elected commander or tolerate anybody else doing that -- that is the way many people view this president or any president. he is the elected commander in chief. he has a certain view of foreign policy. he thinks this country had been taken advantage for many, many years. he has said it many times. he said it many times on the campaign, so it helped him get elected, where he says, "we're getting taken advantage of." he's taken us out of the iran deal. he kept the promise of five presidents -- five presidents -- to move the u.s. embassy from tel aviv to jerusalem and to recognize jerusalem as the capital of israel, as israelis do. he pulled us out of the paris accords. and everybody said the same thing every single time, didn't they? "oh, my god, the whole world's gonna fall apart. our faces will melt off tomorrow." >> people are still saying that

overseas, by the way. >> of course they're going to say it. >> but let's talk about vladimir putin, specifically. he praises him, and yet your administration and congress keep up with the fairly tough -- >> he sanctions him, though. no, no, but it's him, too. he sanctions. it's not just the administration, and -- i'm sorry. i have to push back on that. this president has called for the department of treasury, has called for congress and others in a position to look at the sanctioning. he has sanctioned and expelled russians from this country. he -- it's not that he's cozying up -- i'm actually offended by the term, the verb -- to vladimir putin. it's that the president is doing what he always said he'd do, which is, if he can join together with other major countries and leaders to work on the big issues on which we agree, he will do that. and so, in this case, it may be syria. it may be north korea. when he met with vladimir putin, they discussed the middle east. they discussed syria and north korea. when -- if -- just this week -- it didn't get a lot of coverage, because kim jong-un, i guess, is not anonymous, but it's a major

thing that secretary pompeo is continuing these talks to follow up on the singapore meeting and that kim jong-un has said he wants to denuclearize and that they're taking steps that way. we're already ahead of the game that way, christiane, because the vice president went to hawaii and received the remains of our brave men and women in battle from north korea. the three detainees are back here on american soil with their families. so, this is a president who has said he is open, if the conditions are right and they continue to not put america last or even second, to meet with different leaders. but let's be fair about all the trips he's had, all the bilateral meetings he's hosted here at the white house, all of the multilateral meetings that he has attended. his first trip in may of 2017 was -- the very first stop was to the seat of the muslim world. he went to saudi arabia. then he went to the vatican. and he went to israel the same trip. and that just shows -- should show the entire world that he is

serious about bringing peace, not war, anywhere that he, as the commander in chief at a time such as this, the american president, can do so. but he also thinks that we're getting screwed on our trade deals, and he's very -- he's very honest about that. he's renegotiating nafta with mexico and then with canada. and he thinks that our trade policy is part of our security policy. you can't have national security without economic security, and vice versa. and nafta is 24 years old. he thinks it's very unfair to our workers. he thinks it's unfair to our interests and that it needs to be modernized and more reciprocal and equitable to americans. a lot of americans agree. >> and we will take that up with one of the leaders of the global financial community, christine lagarde. kellyanne conway, thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you so much. appreciate it. thank you. >> revealing insights from a formidable washington insider. and as i said, we're taking up some of the economics with another powerful washington player, christine lagarde. she is the managing director of the international monetary fund, where she's trying to hold the

line against new american trade moves and keep the global economy humming along. lagarde believes passionately that equality is an economic game-changer, as well. listen to what she said about the global financial crash of 2007, which was spurred, if you remember, by the collapse of lehman brothers. >> if lehman brothers had been a little bit more lehman sisters and brothers -- you see? concession here. [ laughter ] we would not have had the degree of tragedy that we had as a result of what happened. >> and christine lagarde joins me now. welcome to the program. >> thank you. >> let's just start with a little lehman sisters. i know it's ancient history, but, you know, you've often complained about posturing and too much testosterone around a negotiating table. >> well, i'm afraid this has not improved very much. [ chuckles ] we are just actually going to release a study on the financial sector where it's very clear that there are not enough women in finance. only 2% of bank ceos are women.

and if you look at the range of people in the banking and the financial sectors who are taking decisions, 20% at the most are women. so we seriously have a shortage. >> and you used to tell me and you used to say publicly that this is not just a moral issue and just a vanity project, but it's actually a dollars-and-cents issue. >> absolutely. it's more than that, actually. it's a dollar issue because, generally, firms that have women on their board or on their executive teams are more profitable. you look at the bottom line. it's very clear. and there have been many studies on that front. but more to the point in finance, in banks that have more women or in supervisory authorities that have more women, it is more stable. it is safer. it is more secure. there are less risks taken. and, you know, we've had a lot of risks. >> well, in fact, we're just going to -- that takes me right into the risky situation right now. you might have heard kellyanne conway. she just said that, you know,

the united states is getting screwed... >> oh! >> ...by many other countries in unfair trade and unfair surpluses and all the rest of it. and, actually, steve mnuchin, the treasury secretary, told you yourself that you need to take a firmer hand dealing with some of these global players regarding their trade surpluses. are you going to take a firmer hand? and do you buy into that? >> i think it's not because you have a leak in your bathtub that you're going to destroy the bathroom. and i know it's a silly analogy, but that's really where we are. we have international trade, and we have been really fueling innovation, improved productivity, reduced cost of living because of international trade. you know, because of international trade, an american family is able to spend probably about 1/3 more than it would had it not been for trade. and that is particularly true

for the low-income families. >> even the left-behind families? >> yes, absolutely, because they are the ones who buy more food. they are the ones who buy more clothes. they are the ones who are going to take advantage of the good deals that you have on some of those goods that are imported. so, it has been, in the main, extremely beneficial for the consumers and for the economies that have been opened -- more innovation, more productivity. that has been really a good deal. but it is true -- and i agree with steve mnuchin -- that the system needs fixing. but you don't destroy it. you fix it. and i think we should collectively -- because that's a collective adventure that we are on -- we should collectively fix the system and make sure that the trading terms and conditions that we're operating under are fair. that i completely agree with. >> so, that is what the president says as well -- it must be fair, not just free trade. but the new book by bob woodward refers specifically to some of his trade views, and they quote, you know, his staff secretary

and even gary cohn, his chief former economic adviser -- you know, asking him about these views after they saw, scribbled on a speech, edited a speech by the president, "trade is bad." and gary cohn is quoted as saying to the president, "well, why do you think that?" and he says, "well, i don't know. i've thought it for 30 years." and cohn is reported to have said, "well, i thought i could be a professional baseball player for 15 years. doesn't make it true." how do you get to a political environment where you can overcome this economic nationalism? >> i think you, first of all, have to demonstrate that it has been beneficial for nations. and when i tell you that innovation has been better in the u.s. as a result of trade, productivity has been improved as a result of trade, and consumers have had a better deal because of trade, it goes in that direction. that's number one -- not to mention the fact that hundreds of millions of people have been taken out of poverty because of trade in other corners of the world.

but what's also really important is to pay attention to those people who have not had the benefit of all that because their jobs were gone, because their industry was moved out to mexico, to china, to vietnam, to wherever, because the costs of producing there were lower than the cost of producing in the u.s. so, for those people, special deals need to be put in place. special programs need to be implemented so that they are trained to do other things, they are supported during those transition periods. and that's where i think many of the systems in the world -- not just in the u.s. -- have actually failed them. >> can you make bespoke carve-outs for the people who are losing out, as you suggest? i mean, is the global economy that flexible that you can -- and have this globalization and free trade and lifting millions, if not billions, of people out of poverty, and also try to help those who are, by technology or migrating jobs, losing out?

>> yeah, absolutely, because some people are, you know, net beneficiaries, and others are net losers. and you need to find a way to compensate them. but i don't think it's only trade- and globalization-related. we're going to have a far more difficult challenge to deal with, with technologies and with the way in which technologies, automatization, robotization, artificial intelligence coupled with biotechs, are going to actually affect the way in which we work, and significantly -- and more so women than men. >> in what way? >> ah. that's a new study that we're going to publish soon, as well. what we did is we tried to measure the impact on work of robotization, artificial intelligence, biotech, and all of that. and work has been done by other institutions focusing on 30 countries of the oecd. and you realize that 28 million women's jobs are going to disappear, which is roughly 11%.

if you look at the male population, it's only 9%. you extrapolate that to the global economy -- it's 180 million women's jobs that will go. now, why are women more affected than men? i think that's really the issue. >> 'cause that's not the story we're hearing right now around the world. we're hearing that traditional male jobs are being lost -- therefore, this populist backlash, this nativist backlash. >> it's not the -- well, there is that, and clearly it's an issue, particularly in advanced economies, and particularly in this country. but if you, you know, fast-forward and you look at the impact that technologies will have, you very soon see that those who have repetitive tasks, those who do routine jobs, those whose, you know, tasks can actually be substituted, replaced by machines are more women than men. so, we need to think about that now and make sure that women are

equipped to actually deal with that and anticipate the risk that they are under. >> so, i mean, are you saying that this disruption that -- people call it disruption and chaos -- from the trump administration, upending the so-called, you know, post-war global, liberal, political, economic world order, has its flaws, but, also, has concentrated your minds, the global sort of economic minders, to actually deal with some of the stuff that he's talking about? well, he certainly has emphasized areas where we need to fix, but we don't need to destroy. that's the point i was making about the bathtub leak and the bathroom that you don't want to destroy because -- baby and the bathwater, some people might say, too. >> ah, i know. i know. you don't want to throw that, yes. but we live in an international world, where problems are often international in nature. whether you look at pandemics, whether you look at terrorism, whether you look at the financial crisis, whether you

look at climate change, all of those factors that will affect all of us greatly are global by nature. you can't stop any of that. you can't build a wall to stop that. so we need to work on that collectively, all together, and it has to have the rules of law. it has to have order, discipline, and ways in which to implement those rules. so, in that vein, he has led many of us to concentrate on what exactly needs to be fixed and how do we do it? >> what about this trade war? do you believe that we have been in a trade war, we're still in a trade war? is there a trade-war truce? where are we? where are we right now, with china, for instance, and the eu, vis-à-vis america and tariffs? >> you know, we have seen an escalation of the trade-war threats, and we have seen implementation of some of the measures. $50 billion worth of chinese

goods are now subject to additional tariffs. there is a threat that another $200 billion will be under the same threat and more -- >> it's relatively little, right, compared to the trillions of dollars of the global economy? >> i wouldn't say that it's little. i wouldn't say that it's little because if you look at the global package of total chinese goods exported to the united states, and if that was under additional tariffs, you're talking about a real impact on the economy, yes. >> and on american consumers? >> oh, yeah, absolutely. the american consumer is going to pay a higher price because what do you do if you're -- okay, i won't take the american-consumer example, but i'm building airplanes. let's assume i'm boeing for a second. and suddenly the steel that i need, the aluminum that i need, the titan-- or whatever components i need -- suddenly, prices are higher because they have been subject to a tariff. what do i do? do i squeeze my margin to keep my price to compete with airbus? eh, maybe, but maybe not. maybe i increase my prices because i want to keep my

margins and keep my shareholders happy. so, this is what is likely to happen, particularly for products that cannot be easily substituted or that are not in a wide-open competition. >> a second ago, you said, you know, you can't roll back this internationalization of trade and all sorts of other, you know, relations between the world, all of that kind of stuff. >> yeah, climate change, pandemics, terrorism, all of that. >> and yet the president is trying to renegotiate nafta. we understand he's come to some kind of deal, a separate deal with mexico, but canada still has not come into the fold. and the president has tweeted that there's no political reason to want or to have to have canada involved in a nafta or a three-way deal. congress has a different view. >> mm. >> but is he right that he doesn't need canada to be part of any kind of, you know, north american trade deal? >> do you know any country that doesn't need its neighbor? we all need our neighbors, and we all need to have a good relationship with our neighbor. and, you know, when you're doing a lot of trade with your neighbor, you want to do it at

the best possible terms -- fair, reciprocated, but it has to be accepted on both sides. >> and for europe, we've heard now from the european trade ministers and others that they are quite happy to try to deal as trump said -- let's just get rid of all tariffs, all barriers, on cars and all the rest of it. i mean, i'm sort of lumping it all in, but is that a reality, that there might be just a tariff-less trade? >> that's an interesting proposition. it's one that should be explored. first of all, i would observe that tariffs are already very low, so going one step further and trying to remove tariffs is to be explored. why not? >> i mean, you have a huge and vastly responsible, burdensome portfolio, i think, i mean, dealing with the global economy and trying to keep it healthy and humming along with all these political and cultural currents that are buffeting us. how do you stay fit, healthy, motivated, upbeat?

i know you used to be a synchronized swimmer for your country, for france. >> that's right. >> do you still do that? >> i don't do the synchronized part. i do the swimming part on a regular basis, yes. >> what did it bring you, the synchronized part, and the swimming part now? >> the -- well, swimming develops physical strength, resistance, resilience. and the synchronized part of it is the most interesting one because it teaches you teamwork, discipline, coordination of music, athletic skills, and flexibility. and you have to hold your breath. [ both laugh ] >> think before you speak and do. >> that's right. >> christine lagarde, thank you so much for joining me. >> thank you. >> so, when it comes to racism, many white americans have the same visceral response -- "i'm not a racist." but our next guest, dr. robin diangelo, argues simply and sadly that's not

true, that an unconscious bias exists within even the most progressive of us white people. she would know. dr. diangelo says that she was one of them. in her new book, the sociologist describes what she recognized as her own white fragility. she sat down to talk about all of this with our michel martin. >> why "white fragility"? and how do we recognize it? >> you know what? the fragility part is meant to capture how little it takes to set white people off, to set us off into defensiveness. so, for many white people, the mere suggestion that white has meaning will cause us to erupt in defensiveness. for many of your listeners, the fact that i'm generalizing right now about white people will set off the defensiveness. individualism is a really precious ideology for white people, and we do not like to be generalized about. >> my response to that is, i'm a sociologist. i'm quite comfortable generalizing about groups of people. social life is observable and

describable in patterned ways. and, yes, i'm an individual. i'm also a member of a social group. i have to be willing to grapple with the collective messages we're all receiving because we live in a shared culture. >> so, let's back up a second and talk about how you got interested in this work and in this subject. i know that you were an academic. i know that you're a lecturer, and also you've done -- what would you call it? -- anti-racist training or -- >> yes. >> it used to be called diversity training. maybe it isn't called that anymore. >> i think of myself as somebody who came from practice to theory rather than a lot of academics who go from theory to practice. so, i applied for a job in the early '90s for diversity trainer. that's what we called it at the time. i thought, "of course i'm qualified to go into the workplace and lead people on discussions of race. i'm a vegetarian. how could i be racist?" i had that really classic liberal, open-minded kind of idea about what it meant to be

racist, and i saw myself of course as outside of that and felt qualified. and i got the job, and i was in for the most profound learning of my life. it was a parallel process. so, two key pieces were, one, for the first time in my life i was working side by side with people of color who were challenging the way i saw the world. and part of being white is that i could get that far in life -- i was a parent at that point. i was in my 30s, and never had i had my racial world view challenged, one -- two, definitely not by a significant number of people of color, and not in any kind of sustained way. and it worked like a mirror, right? i was like a fish being taken out of water. i would not have been able to tell you i had a racial world view because, as a white person, i was raised to see myself as just human. now, you're a particular kind of human. i'm just human. and if we're gonna be talking about race, i expect we're gonna be talking about your race, not my race. so, most white people have a very unracialized identity.

so, that was the first thing. the second was going into the workplace, overwhelmingly white employees who were mandated to be having these conversations, and the hostility was off the charts. >> you tell some very interesting stories in this book. for example, you talk about leading a seminar where 38 out of the 40 people in the room were white, and then one of the participants literally pounds the table, yelling, you know, "white people can't get a job," and everybody who had a job there was white. what -- >> it's a kind of delusion. i think that -- i mean, some people have said when you're used to 100%, 98% feels oppressive, right? i mean, as a white person, i was just raised to expect the world to be mine in absolutely any field i see myself represented. i see myself represented in all my teachers and my curriculum and my heroes and heroines. and so just even the suggestion that we need to make sure we're

being fair and including other people seems to set the white collective off. >> tell me some of the things that you saw in these workshops that led you to this theory. >> it's a lot like water dripping on a rock, right? i didn't get it the first, second, third, but it's so consistent and so patterned that it's like a script. and after a while, you can just stand there and say, "i can predict what this white person is gonna say right now." and sure enough, they say it. so, i was taught to treat everyone the same. i have people of color in my family. i was in teach for america. i marched in the '60s. i taught in a diverse school. the evidence that white people give for their lack of racism is very revealing to what we think racism is. and everything i do is to try to get us off the surface, which is all this neg-- all these narratives, and get under there to the underlying framework because despite all those narratives -- "i was taught to

treat everyone the same," "i don't see color" -- our outcomes haven't improved. by virtually every measure, there's racial inequality in this country, and by many measures it's increasing, not decreasing. and i think what's really clear -- we are not post-racial, right? and so what's happening there, right? so, the question that drives my work is, "how do we pull this off? how do we insist that our race has no meaning in a society that is deeply separate and unequal by race? how do we sit, those of us who are white, in such explicit segregation and claim there's nothing happening here?" >> one of the things that i think some people might experience as deeply provocative is when you say that white progressives cause the most daily damage to people of color. how so? >> well, white progressives are my specialty because i am a huge white progressive.

and what i mean by that is not so much democratic, republican. any white person who sees themselves as not racist, less racist, who's thinking right now of all the other white people that they wish were listening to this program right now 'cause they really need it -- that is a white progressive. and i think we do the most daily harm because we're more likely to be in the lives of people of color, and yet our identities are very much rooted in this idea of ourselves being free of racism. and so if racism comes up, we're gonna put all of our energy into making sure you see us as free or racism and, really, rarely any of our energy into what we need to be doing for the rest of our lives. it certainly includes people who have conscious intent of harm, but most bias is actually not conscious. so, we have to change our understanding of racism from an individual moment that may or may not have occurred to the system we're in and that is circulating 24/7, 365.

and that changes the question from, "is or isn't he or she racist?" to, "how is racism manifesting in this context?" >> you speak very frankly in the book about how you've stepped in it yourself, if i can use that phrase. can you give an example of where you experienced your own white fragility? >> i used to be the co-director of equity for a large nonprofit, and my other director was a black woman, so we were an interracial team. and our executive assistant was also a black woman. and one day the company hired a web developer to come in and design the company's webpage. and she set meetings up with every team to interview us about what we did so that she could design our page. so, she calls the three of us into a meeting with her -- i'll call her angela -- and it turns out that she's also a black woman. so i'm in a room with three black women, two of which i'm very close to and one i don't know at all. and she gives us a survey to fill out, and it's tedious to

me. it seems kind of template. it doesn't capture the nuance of what we do, so i push it aside, and i say, "let me explain. we go out into these different offices, and we do these anti-racism trainings. in fact, debra here was asked not to come back when she went to such and such an office. i guess her hair scared the white people." she has long-locked braids. so, i want you to notice what i'm doing. not only am i making a joke about a black woman's hair, which is a sensitive issue and i do know better, but i'm positioning myself as the cool white person and they're all the clueless white people. and i wish i could tell you that i recognized i was doing that. i didn't. meeting's over. a couple of days later, the assistant, marcia, comes to me and says, "angela was really offended by that joke you made about black women's hair." and i immediately -- "oh, god. thank you." and i called angela, and i said, "would you be willing to grant me the opportunity to repair the racism that i perpetrated towards you in the meeting last week?"

she said yes. we sat down, we talked about it, and she said, "i don't know you. i have no relationship with you. i have no trust with you, and i do not want to be joking about black women's hair in a professional work meeting with a white woman i don't know." "i hear you. i apologize." then i asked, "is there anything i missed?" and she said, "yes. that survey you so glibly shoved aside -- i wrote that survey. and i have spent my life justifying my intelligence to white people." owned that, apologized, asked, "is there anything else that needs to be said or heard that we might move forward?" and she said, "yeah, if we're going to work together, i'm sure you're gonna run your racism at me again, and so the next time you do, would you like your feedback publicly or privately?" >> interesting. [ both laugh ] >> i love her for that. i said, "publicly, in my case, please. it's really important that other white people see that i'm not

free of this, but it gives me an opportunity to model non-defensiveness. and are we good?" "we're good." and we moved on. and one of the things she said to me was, "this kind of stuff happens to us all the time. what's never happened to me before is what you're doing right now, this repair, and i appreciate it." and i think white fragility functions as a kind of everyday white racial bullying. we white people so often make it so miserable for people of color to talk to us about what they're experiencing from us, to talk to us about the inevitable and often unaware racist patterns we're manifesting, that most of time they don't. >> you said you don't want white people to feel guilty, which is exactly what i think some people listening to our conversation will feel and will think that you want to evoke. so, why do you say you don't want white people to feel guilty? >> well, because it's -- you didn't choose your socialization. you didn't choose your conditioning. you were born into a society that set you up in these ways. you don't need to feel guilty unless you're -- you know that

and you're not doing anything about it, right? so, i think the key -- guilt is a natural part of the process, but it's what you do with the guilt. if it becomes your excuse for not engaging any further, then it's just indulgent and you're just using it to protect your position. if it motivates you to keep going, then it's useful. >> we have a group of people who are resurgent at the moment, and we certainly see them openly discussing their view that they don't want a meritocracy. they want a white -- a hierarchy with white people on top, particularly white males, i want to say. how do you understand that? >> when i think about it, there's not one single thread. there are many threads, and it's also what makes us so often irrational on this topic 'cause there are so many different things going on. politicians have always been able to manipulate the white collective through racial animus. maybe some of your listeners are familiar with the southern strategy and of that coded -- back in the reagan days, "welfare queens," you know, those kind of coded terms,

dog whistle. we're beyond dog whistle. and now, you know, you can just come out at the top of the hierarchy in the highest office in the nation is pretty explicit racism. >> what about... >> go ahead. >> ...the people who voted for obama and then voted for trump? >> i think that obama was symbolic. i think what obama did was allow us to feel really good about ourselves under very narrow terms, right? if the word "racism" ever came out of his mouth, i don't know what would have happened, right? he had to be the perfect black man, right, the safe black man. he's also brilliant and clear and educated. and so also, at the same time, that allows me to feel good about myself. there's also a little bit of challenge there in how powerful

a black man he is, right? and i would ask any white person who voted for obama and sees that as kind of their evidence that they're free of racism to ask themselves, how did it change your life on the ground? how did obama's presidency change the lived experience for black people in this country day in and day out? i don't think that it did. it was important symbolically, but mass incarceration, school-to-prison pipeline -- these things have not diminished, right? in many ways, they've increased. >> do you see trump as a reaction to obama? and if so, why? >> i see trump as a reaction to obama because trump gave permission to the resentment that was roiling under the surface. >> resentment of what? >> of black advancement, of black uppity-ness, of -- to use a jim crow analogy, "you will step off the curb when i come down, and you will not look me in the eye."

his racism is explicit and undeniable. and that that wasn't a deterrent i think white people have to look really hard at. why was that not a deterrent to you? in fact, i would wonder if it wasn't actually something that excited you and allowed you to indulge in and not admit it. >> why do you say that, though? where's your -- you're a scholar. like, where's your data? like, what makes you say that? >> there's a kind of glee in the white collective when "black bodies" are punished. when you think about the way football players are talked about, as if, how dare they not be grateful? we don't tend to talk about white football players in terms of, "you should be grateful for what you have," right? there's something really deep going on here. and toni morrison beautifully argues that white people need black people. there is no white without black. i cannot be superior if you are

not inferior. and so there's a kind of investment in those positions. and it's the bedrock of this country, right? it's maybe buried in a way that it wasn't in the past, but it sure looks like it's coming back up. >> so, given that some people who will be hearing our conversation will say, "i would like to do better, i don't have access to these seminars or these training experiences at my job, but i'd like to do better," what should they do? >> the simplest thing a white person can do that wants to do better and that this is a new journey for them is take the initiative, break with the apathy of whiteness, and go look it up. i'll never forget talking to a multiracial group of people, and i asked the question to the people of color, "what would it be like if you could just give white people feedback when we showed our inevitable and often unaware racist assumptions and patterns and had us receive that feedback with grace, reflect,

and seek to change our behavior? what would that be like?" and i'll never forget this man of color raising his hand and saying, "it would be revolutionary." and i'm just like, "wow. a revolution, that i would receive it with grace, reflect, and seek to change the behavior." that's how difficult we are. and yet it's also how easy it is. we just can't get there from this paradigm that says, "only bad, intentional, mean people could ever perpetrate racism." >> robin diangelo, thank you for talking with us. >> you're welcome. >> an uncomfortable message, but an important one from robin diangelo. and that's it for our program tonight. thanks for watching this special edition of "amanpour & co." on pbs, and join us again next time. ♪ >> 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 --

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