hello, everyone, and welcome to "amanpour & company." here's what's coming up. >> the first woman to wear a hijab to represent us in congress. >> she came to the u.s. as a somali refugee. 23 years later she's taking her seat in congress. i speak with minnesota's ilhan omar. plus, the one shocking statistic that can tell us so much with america today. when it comes to infant mortality, the united states ranks 32 out of 35 wealthiest nations and why the death of black newborns is driving this number. and the age of silicon valley worship is over. where do we go from here? we get a reality check.

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station from viewers like you. thank you. welcome to the program, everyone, i'm christiane amanpour in london. consequences long delayed but not denied. congressman steve king of iowa has a well established history of racist views, but it's what he told "the new york times" this week that's finally spurring some action from republican leaders. quote, white nationalist, white supremacist, western civilization, how did that language become offensive? well, house minority leader kevin mccarthy called the comments unamerican and stripped king of his coveted spots on the judiciary and agriculture committees. here's what president trump had to say about it. >> mr. president, what about steve king's remarks? >> who? >> steve king. congressman king. >> i haven't been followi it. i really haven't been following it. >> so what could possibly stand in more stark contrast to king

and trump's brand of politics? look no further than fellow midwesterner, ilhan omar. she was born in somalia and partially raised in a kenyan refugee camp. i first spoke to her when she joined the minnesota house of representatives, the first somali american legislator in the country. in november, another first. along with michigan's rashida, they became a member of congress. ilhan omar joins me from washington to discuss all of this. congresswoman, welcome to the program. >> thank you for having me. >> how does it sound to be called congresswoman? >> it's still a little shocking. i pinch myself every time somebody calls me that. every day i take a vote. so still getting used to it. >> and also just the visuals. you know, congress voted down a

181-year ban on wearing head scarves in congress. here you are along with another fellow congresswoman. >> it certainly is. we here in the united states within our constitution, there is not supposed to be a religious test and that would have constituted one, so i'm really excited to be part of a body that decided to make sure that the space was welcoming and i had the right to wear my hijab. >> on a different and more political issue when it comes to diversity, we mentioned in the introduction that congressman steve king, also from the midwest, has been stripped of his roles on various committees because of asking publicly what is wrong with language such as white supremacist or white nationalist and western civilization. do you think he should be expelled from congress? do you think that it was right to strip him of these particular

committees that he sits on? >> the language that he used really is one that causes lots of fear and causes division and we are a country that try to be one of unity and inclusiveness. it was really surprising yesterday to see congress follow through in upholding those ideals. >> so you feel sort of hopeful then about this very diverse new congress actually making its presence felt substantively, politically, culturally? >> yes. i am very hopeful and optimistic about the kind of changes we are going to institute. you know, we all ran on rejecting this fear mongering

rhetoric that has kind of overtaken our country, and so it was really exciting to see this new congress stand up to bigotry and hate yesterday and send an overwhelming, bold message to the american people that we will not sit by idly while some members of community feel threatened that some people in the people's house have used. >> just a quick question about a very, very serious matter you're all having to deal with and that is a government shutdown in its fourth week and the number of federal employees and others that are working either without pay or having to not know whether they're ever going to get paid. i don't know, setting up yard sales in order to make ends meet. just really incredible stories we're hearing from people who are affected. did you ever imagine that this would be what was welcoming you as you began your first week as

a congresswoman? >> it's really appalling. there's the excitement of coming in with a new, diverse, vibrant and energized congress. and then with the backdrop of now having to deal with this manufactured crisis, it feels like a poorly scripted episode from "house of cards." it's a little different being that this president isn't as strategic entertaining as frank underwood is. and so we are having to deal with the crisis that will unfold from this shutdown when we have hundreds of thousands of federal employees who have on, as of friday, received a paycheck with zeros on it. and we know that if the shutdown continues, there is 38 million americans who already are struggling with insecurity who

will not get their food stamps. we know that our federal courts are going to run out of money. there are federal law enforcement agencies who will not have money. so this is really going to be a crisis if our counterparts in the senate don't exercise leadership and the white house does not follow through. >> in context of the picture you tweeted when you came to washington january 2nd to take up your seat in this freshman congress, you tweeted a picture of you and your father coming to washington saying 23 years ago from a refugee camp in kenya, my father and i arrived at an airport in washington, d.c., and today we return to that same airport on the eve of my swearing-in. what was going through your head, not just about what it took for you personally to make it, but as well in this political and cultural climate? >> so when we came in 1995, you

know my family landed in new york and we finally transitioned into arlington, virginia. when we landed at that airport, my dad had hopes about the kind of possibilities that awaited us. i don't think he ever in his wildest dreams could imagine just 23 years after arriving in the united states his youngest child would get an opportunity to serve him, his neighbors and his state in the u.s. congress. and it hadn't really been something that we talked about until we arrived at that airport, because my dad and i come back to d.c. after we moved from arlington to minnesota. but we've never done it together. and so to come back together at that same airport was very

emotional moment for the both of us, as we were selected back on the day that we arrived to what my dad would call arriving to our america, and now getting the opportunity to really serve and fight for the america that we knew we could have and the one that our neighbors and all of us deserve. >> you know, i see your broad, broad smile as you talk about that, not just the personal remembrances but what you believe to be the promise of america. so what did you grow up in that refugee camp in kenya, which you fled, i guess, from the famine in somalia and the troubles and the civil war in somalia, and how did you receive the american dream in that refugee camp? >> so, it was the american ideals that we received in that refugee camp. it was one that allowed all of the people to have prosperity,

to live a life that is free, just and fair. and there was a huge disconnect when i landed in the united states. i remember my father and i and my siblings driving through manhattan after we landed and realizing that there were homeless people and panhandlers on the side of the streets and turning to my father and saying to him, this doesn't look like the america you promised. and his words precisely were to me, you have to have patience, we are eventually going to get to our america. and when we arrived in arlington, it was a little bit closer to the america we heard about in that refugee camp, and i knew that i had to get involved in trying to make sure that the ideals of this nation could be fully fulfilled not only for myself but for my neighbors and for all of our

communities here. >> you also are very concerned about the issue that's on all young people's minds, and that is climate change. you have called and talked about the need for this green, new deal. tell me about that and what you intend to push and how you intend to fight this in the climate of an administration who doesn't really believe in man made climate change or having to counter it. >> yeah, i mean so for so long we have given -- we've studied the issue, we've made some inroads in trying to resolve, and my generation and the generation that is coming up that my daughter, who's 15, belongs to recognized that we must address it urgently. and we need to make real investments in tackling this issue. so for me it looks like full divestment from fossil fuels, it looks like making investment in

communities economically, it looks like moving communities that are traditionally reliant on jobs that are produced through mining, in getting them to 21st century sustainable and green jobs. and so it is a bold, urgent move in addressing climate change. and we have an opportunity to really do that by having direct investment in our communities. >> so again, it's quite difficult to persuade quite large sectors of the american society. i spoke to a climate scientist who's also a committed christian, katherine heho and she is very vocal about trying to persuade people, talk, talk, talk and try to persuade. this is what she told me how she deals when she meets those not convinced by the science.

>> i have a conversation just about every day by someone who rejects the science of climate change. when they do so, they typically throw up what i think of as scien sciency sounding myths. or you scientists are just making this up to line your pockets. or if god is in control, this can never happen, or the earth is going to ending a anyway. but if they talk more than about 30 seconds, immediately the conversation will take a right turn into i don't want a price on carbon. i've heard that fixing climate change will destroy the economy. i wouldn't be able to drive my truck anymore if we have limits on carbon. >> so how do you -- what's your reaction to that and how do you change that? >> precisely, she's correct. and so in minnesota, you know, like i said in greater minnesota, in the iron range,

this is precisely the kind of conversations that we're having with folks. and so what we tell them is that we are committed to creating jobs by expanding 21st century infrastructure like broadband so that there is an opportunity for them to get jobs. we also talk to people about what it means for us to not only worry about the kind of inconveniences we will have today, but the inconveniences that will be created for the next generation. and those conversations of talking about what principles drive us, what our priorities should be, this investment in the future, reserving a future for our children starts to kind of make that left turn into a

positive conversation with them. >> can i just move on to something that's generally a rite of passage for politicians in the united states, and that is to sort of profess sort of -- or pay homage to apac, the pro israel pac that is very, very prominent. should jewish americans be worried about congresswoman ilhan omar because of one of the tweets you made a long time ago. you were part of a new wave of democrats not afraid to be critical of the government of israel. during the 2012 military offensive in gaza, you tweeted israel has hiypnotized the worl. how do you put that into context now and what do you say to american jews. >> i remember when that was happening watching tv and really feeling as if no other life was

being impacted in this war. and that really -- those unfortunate words were the only words i could think about expressing at that moment. and what is really important to me is that people recognize that there is a difference between criticizing a military action by a government that has exercised really oppressive policies and being offensive or attacky to particular people of faith. i say the same things, if not worse, when it comes to the saudi government. i've called for boycotts and

boycott to saudi arabia because to me it is important when you see oppression taking place, when you see regressiveness happening, when you see our values being attacked as humans, you must stand up and it doesn't matter who the inhabiters of that region might be. it is who is leading it and we must address the leader shship t leads to a more unjust world if we are to express our values of peace and justice in the world. >> so just to have you on the record and to get you to say exactly what you mean, so you're saying holding a government like israel accountable, even criticizing government policy, is not anti-semitic? >> absolutely not, absolutely not. and in that tweet and in any

other conversation i've had, i only talk about the state of israel. and i think it is really important for us to make sure that we are not associating the people with the country and its government. when i talk about somalia and what's happening in somalia, i am not talking about the people of somalia, i'm talking about the leadership and the administration. when i talk about the united states and the injustices that happen, i think about in regards to policy and what our government is doing and how this administration is behaving. i'm certainly not talking about the people who are not monolithic in their views and values. >> on that note, congressman ilhan omar, that you so much for joining us from washington. >> thank you so much. it's always an honor to be with you. so just as congress welcomes its most diverse ever group of

legislators, we're getting a shocking reality check about racial inequality. a black baby born in america today is more than twice as likely to die as an infant than a white baby. and consider this, that disparity is even wider now than it was in 1850. that's even before the end of slavery. and education and income make little difference. why is this happening? and what can we learn about the gulf in life experience that is determined by race in america? journalist linda villarosa is bringing this to life. she's been covering this for years and was spurred on by personal experience which she details in her staggering expose last summer. why america's mothers and babies are in a life and death crisis. linda is joining me now from the new york. welcome to the program. >> thank you very much. >> i have to say that even knowing what we know and even

regularly covering the issue of persistent racism and inequality in the united states, this particular issue and the fact that it's worse now than it was many, many years ago is staggering. so let me just ask you why you think that is happening? >> there are several reasons. some of them are technical. so our health care system doesn't do as good a job as we could with mothers and babies. and some of the assumption is that pregnancy is going to go well. but in many cases it doesn't go well. but what i was very interested in was the racial disparity. so why would this problem still be existing? why is it so much worse in our country than other developed countries? and why doesn't income and education protect against this problem? so that's when i looked at it. and when i first heard some of the statistics, i actually thought it was wrong. i argued back. i was like i -- this must be an international issue. it doesn't happen in the united states. but it's true, it's persistent

and it's been going on for a long time. >> so you mentioned the stats. let me just mention some of them to you and we'll talk about them. first, the overarching issue that we mentioned, the united states ranks 32nd out of 35 of the wealthiest nations when it comes to infant mortality. and that, we're told, is driven primarily or largely by the death of black babies. and then there is -- there are these statistics. 700 to 900 maternal deaths occur in the united states each year. 50,000 potentially preventible near deaths. black women are three to four times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than their white counterparts. again, you say that you thought some of these statistics were about much less developed, indeed underdeveloped countries around the world, but they're happening in the united states. describe what you found out about race and the factor that it plays. >> what i found out about race was twofold.

one, that there's persistent inequality and discrimination in society which affects women's bodies. so that has been looked at. it's hard to understand, but it is real. there had been a lot of studies that examine that. and second, that within the health care system, there is persistent discrimination. it became very real in general for us in society with what happened to serena williams. so when she was pregnant with her daughter, went in to have the baby, she had a problem that had her not able to breathe. she had a pulmonary embolism. but doctors at the hospital ignored her persistent complaints. this is a woman who has every access to health care, every access to the best health care, and also a supreme knowledge of her own body. so she almost died. thank god her baby is fine, she's a year old. but why would that happen in this country?

>> she talked a lot about this. she shared on facebook, for instance. i didn't expect that sharing our family's story of olympia's birth and all of the complications after giving birth would start such an outpouring of discussion from women, especially black women who have faced similar complications and women whose problems go unaddressed. let me be clear, every mother, regardless of race or background, deserves to have a healthy pregnancy and childbirth. well, yes, that's true. every mother deserves to have that. but in your article about simone, i want you to describe simo simone's problems. you point out very clearly that, again, that regardless of education or income, black mothers do not get that same treatment and attention. >> what happened with simone landrum was tragic. at least the first time. so i met her through her dula. and so she had had a baby the

year before who died. and she almost died, bleeding to death. and when she tried to tell her doctor even before she went into labor what was going on, he ignored her real legitimate complaints. then she -- bleeding and bleeding and bleeding, her baby girl, harmony, died. she got pregnant again and she was terrified about what was going to happen with this baby so she ended up with a doula. >> which is? >> it's generally a woman who is supportive to a pregnant woman during -- during pregnancy, during childbirth and after. and so that is someone who is trained, takes care of you, is an advocate for you. so she had this wonderful doula. so she ended up going into labor and i was there. and some of the things i saw about the way she was treated, i was surprised about what happened. for example, the medical personnel kept asking her over and over to decide -- to

describe the traumatic birth from the year before, which was making her really stressed out. her baby's heart rate was going up and down, up and down, up and down, which was really scary. and we were all staring at the monitors. and i noticed that the doula was the only one focused on the mother. and then when she went into labor, she was about to have the baby, a new doctor came in to deliver the baby. so it was someone none of us had ever seen. studies show that black women are much more likely to meet the doctor that is delivering their baby for the first time when the person is having the baby. >> you're talking about simone. i want to play a clip of an interview you all did on the daily around this article that you wrote. there's simone talking and you're talking. let's just play this clip. >> my baby, i think he get kind of scared, though. he's like mommy. no, mommy okay, mommy not going to die.

he thinks i'm sick and stuff. >> so she was a little cautious. she was superstitious. she didn't want to have a baby shower. she didn't want to buy clothes for the baby because she just wanted to make sure everything was going to be okay before she really, you know, let her heart open up the idea that i really have this baby. >> in her case, the doula sort of saved her in the childbirth that you're talking about. is a doula situation a stopgap measure? is it band-aid sticky tape or is it the solution? >> it's only band-aid sticky tape. the solution is really to admit that we have these kinds of disparities, racial disparities in both our society and our health care system that is affecting black women. and the worry -- and black people. and the worry is that we are the -- just the tip of the iceberg or the canary in the coal mine and it's more outward

expressions of islamophobia, homophobia and discriminations of other groups will showup in our health an it affects the health of our entire country. >> so these are all really important studies that you're citing from the cdc and the new england journal of medicine. this is science put forward examining this terrible phenomenon. what i'd like to understand from you is this issue called weathering. you know, linking toxic stress to black infant mortality. >> weathering was a term coined by arlene geronimus, who was a professor at the university of michigan. it's kind of beautiful because it talks about the weathering of the body because of persistent racial insults and persistent racial discrimination. but weathering is twofold. it is once the body actually becomes biologically older

because of the lived experience of being a black woman in america, but our bodies also weather the storm in a way the way a house might weather the persistent banging of rain and wind. and so i really like it. i think it's very poetic but it's also really frightening to think that what happens to you in this country affects your body, affects your birth, and affects your baby. >> and the other myths that you have confronted and basically debunked and science is debunking them as well and medical personnel and experts who care about this are talking about it. you talk about how often it's considered, well, black people are passing down some kind of genetic defect. >> reporter: somethi-- or somet black teens do things to would affect their health and themselves.

tell me about that and particularly through your own experience. >> well, race is used as a risk factor for poor health and it includes infant mortality and maternal mortality. so that means either there's a genetic marker of some sort, which is not true, or it's something the woman is doing wrong. not eating right, not getting prenatal care, not taking prenatal vitamins. so most of that has been debunked, because even when those factors are equal, there is still lower birth weight and preterm birth. so it's better, i think, to look at race as a marker for ill treatment by our society. and it has an effect on the body. certainly more research needs to be done in this area, but this is real and it is something that has been studied, but it's been largely not acted upon. in my own experience, i was -- i got pregnant and i was the health editor of "essence" magazine. honestly i was trying to be in

really good health because i was telling other people how to be in good health. i was taking care of myself, i'm athletic, i was eating right, i was going to the doctor. i had an amazing doctor, i had health care coverage. but i ended up with interuterine growth reconstruction, whistric something that happens to people who are using drugs or drinking or smoking during pregnancy. i didn't understand it at the beginning and i was surprised that my specialist was asking me what kind of drugs do you take and going through this array of drugs that i could be taking. i was like what are you talking about? so my baby, it turns out, was better outside of my baby instead of inside my body so she was induced right at term and was really tiny. she was only 4 pounds, 13 ounces. she's fine now, she's healthy and great. but i always thought, is there -- did this happen to me for some reason because i'm a

black woman in america. there have been some studies that show even when -- even when prenatal care and smoking and drinking are the same or black women are doing it less, we still have more preterm babies and low birth weight babies. then when you look at genetics, it's very fascinating. so there was a study, i guess it started in the late '90s, and it was looking at the birth weights of mothers from west african -- poor west african countries compared to other immigrants, compared to black americans and white americans. so the statistics showed that babies born from west african immigrant mothers were the same weight as white babies born in america and the immigrant babies. but within one generation, the black immigrant babies were smaller birth weight and looked more like african-american size babies. so low birth weight is connected

to infant mortality. so i remember the words of the researcher were very clear, and this is a really serious researcher. university of illinois. and what he said was there's something about being a black woman in america that is bad for the birth weight of babies. >> it really is shocking. >> it really struck me. >> do you have any hope that this will progress, the science will progress, the medical community -- i guess what is the answer? >> i think what we have to do is really face up to the fact that this is a problem in the u.s. and what i've been seeing since i wrote the article makes me kind of excited. so i am not a doctor, i'm not a scientific researcher, i'm a journalist. but i've been invited to speak at medical schools and to medical students who are really interested in this topic, who are interested in looking at unconscious bias that they may be bringing into the medical care system. so i'm really excited by some change. i also think we call doulas and

other health care workers a stopgap measure, but it is an important measure. it has worked in other countries where we take -- we have some of the best medical and clinical technology in the world and we -- but we don't -- but we don't do very good with the care in health care. so bringing someone that can help you and just saying this is a legitimate part of our health care system, to have someone that is your support system there with you. and so i really like that idea, whether it's called a community health worker, a doula, a patient navigator, to make sure there is someone that puts the care back into our really high tech health care system. >> it's really a remarkable story. congratulations for bringing it so much light and exposure. linda, thanks for joining us. >> thank you. so a little bit of light at the endi of that tunnel, that heart breaking reality check. now for reality of a different kind. for decades, america and the world have worshipped at the

feet of silicon valley and its mega profitable innovations. but our next guest says that these giants have rolled the dice past go and collected the world, using what he dubbed jedi mind tricks to convince us of a dubious reality. scott galaway is an entrepreneur, business professor and author of "the hidden dna of amazon, apple, facebook and google." he said how serious this is for everyone in the world. >> you've written a book before on the big four tech guys. >> yep. >> google, facebook, apple, amazon. we'll talk a little bit about your predictions coming up in 2019, but considering those names, what just happened in 2018? >> yeah, so you saw effectively these companies for the first time, there was what i would call a sober adult conversation around the downside of technology. the only conversation we had in '15, '16 and '17, which ceo was more jesus-like or going to run

for president. these were supposed to be the companies that were driving our economy and innovative. they were going to cure death and put people on mars. there was a real downside. '18 was a watershed year where we said there's some downsides here and there's a recognition that for-profit entities and companies aren't concerned about the condition of our souls. they're for-profit companies and they will pretty much say and do anything to increase earnings and increase shareholder value. we're coming to grips with the fact that, okay, that means there needs to be checks and balances on these companies. so i would say '18 was a year of recognition and an adult conversation around big tech. >> for so long part of that worship of tech came from the fact that we accepted that this was the price of innovation. that we are in an unparalleled era of innovation. you say that's not really the case. >> correct word there that you use, idoltry.

technology literally saved the world. in 1944, my mother was a 4-year-old jew living in london who was shuttled to spend her nights in the tube because of the blitzkrieg. and we won a foot race with hitler to split the atom. science literally saved the world. we've come to believe that technology has this benign key role in society. so when we see these innovators, we believe naturally they'll play a more important role in our society and they are more good, if you will. now, you talked about have we come to believe this is the era of innovation. this is actually the era of noninnovation. there were more startups being started in the carter administration than there are now. new business formation has been cut in half. and i largely believe it's because we have monopolies that created an almost impossible atmosphere for small companies to get out of the crib. >> so how do you get around those monopolies when they have so dominant in their spaces that they can prevent others from

entering it just because of size and scale and money that they have to spend? >> in the u.s. we have a long, proud history when a company becomes an invasive species and starts performing infanticide on promising companies and prematurely euthanizing bigger companies that are better taxpayers and better employers, we have a proud industry at breaking them up. the people at at&t weren't evil, the people at the railroads weren't evil, the people at standard oil weren't invarts. but one company becomes so dominant and so powerful that small companies can't survive, we move in, the doj and fcc and break them up. we seem to have lost the script and don't want to do that anymore. so my answer is simple. break them up. >> the issues around facebook this past year, and to some extent google and others, have increased some understanding of the amount of data that these

companies are transacting. most consumers don't get it. how do we reframe this relationship where clearly all the information about me is worth something to these advertisers, to these other third parties that facebook and google are selling me out to. how do i change that dynamic and say, hey, this is my information, you should start paying me for it, not just giving me free e-mail? >> people talk a big game about privacy, and i think we're coming to grips with just how much data they have on us an becoming increasingly uncomfortable with it. but i think if you look at consumer behavior, people are comfortable with their privacy being violated as long as there's a coupon or utility at the ending of it. in my generation and you're a little younger than me, but still your generation, we're more concerned than millenials who advertisers are trying to reach right now. they are comfortable with uber knowing everywhere they're going. they're comfortable with posting

selfies to the world, even if their accounts aren't protected saying this is what i'm doing in every place i'm at. i always thought privacy was a little bit overrated in terms of actual consumer behavior. what is, i think, a bigger issue is what we talked about, the anti-competitive behavior, which supresses our economy and that it can be weaponized by bad actors. if the kgb tried to invent the ultimate surveillance platforms in their wildest dreams, they would come up with something a fraction as effective as facebook. this is a kgb dream come true. then what's even better? let's have american investors pay for it and let's have a management team that'sin sent i'vized not to put up the safeguards necessary such that we can't weaponize it. the most innovative act of 2017 and '18 was the weaponization by facebook of the foreign intelligence arm of the russian government and we paid for it.

this is the most innovative act of the last ten years. and a strange thing about humans as a species is we're easier to fool than convince we've been fooled. we have been played like no nation has been played before, but we refuse to admit it because it's embarrassing. and the folks that didn't put in place those safeguards and resulted in what is arguably the greatest dent or threat to our free elections in the last 100 years should be held accountable. we should elect people to put in place safeguards to ensure it does not happen again. >> do you think that there is any way that we take those steps? we aren't necessarily electing officials that understand tech and its place and how dominant it is now, right? we've seen repeatedly in hearing after hearing where some of the questions coming out of these people's mouths indicate to you that they didn't get it. >> you're exactly right. so 4% of our elected officials have a background in technology

an engineering. it appears the 96% always show up on those hearings. it was on full display. this is an ageist comment, but the majority of our elected officials are older. i feel this way now. i'm having trouble keeping up with technology. so it's hard to regulate something you don't understand. it's difficult. we're also getting outgunned. amazon has 88 full-time lobbyists in d.c. it's much easier to seem innovative. the fastest way to look older is to go after big tech. you look like you don't get it. it's like putting on mom jeans. you immediately look ten years older. that's the last thing you want to look if you're an elected representative who's already in your 70s is to look like you don't get it. it's hard, you're outgunned, maybe you don't understand it. so we don't have the firepower, the human capital to go after these companies. we're seeing more of it in europe. i do believe you're seeing congress and senators, senator mark warner, senator bob bennett from colorado, are starting to say this is such an important

issue, we need to allocate the bandwidth, we need to allocate the time and the effort. i think we're starting to see or i'd like to see the beginnings of the push back against these firms. >> let's talk a little bit about amazon that you've looked at closely the last couple of years. put in perspective the scale of their reach. >> you have two-thirds of u.s. homes have a recurring revenue relationship with amazon prime. no cable company, no telco company has 66% share or a pipe into two-thirds of households. 80% of wealthy households have amazon prime. more households have amazon prime than a land line phone, own a gun or voted in the 2016 elections. so you can go -- the largest market share of the fastest, most profitable sector of technology, the cloud, who is it? amazon. we have never seen a company like this so dominant across different key components of our economy. it is a juggernaut. i've been predicting for the

last five years it would be the most valuable company in the world. if i were going to write a sequel, it would be about amazon. anywhere amazon is bumping up against the other three, it's winning. amazon will do more money in media group than snap, twitter and pinterest combined this year. in three to five years it could be the third largest online media company in the world. this is amazon. everywhere in voice, siri used to own voice. now alexa has taken siri behind the gym and kicked her butt. now amazon owns voice. what's the most innovative hardware company in the world. of course it's apple. well, is it? amazon's echo might be the most innovative hardware product. all roads lead to the same place and it's seattle. >> you predicted correctly and early and often that this entire

survivor competition between cities for hq 2 was already decided ahead of time. and you also predicted that they would buy whole foods. what's your prediction for 2019 and how amazon grows? >> amazon is about to become -- i predicted they'd be the first trillion dollar company and i was wrong. they will be on the backs of one industry. they will announce something more formidable and definitive, maybe an acquisition or an effort in health care, which is the most disruptable space in the world. it's pretty easy to understand if a sector is ripe for disruption. you look at its pricing relative to inflation. and if there's a gap and they haven't filled that gap with innovation, it's disruptable. amazon has the ability to essentially skim off the healthiest families in america, maybe insure them, maybe offer them better services, and it will create incredible havoc in

the marketplace in health care. when they announce they're buying a $100 million online pharmacy, the retail pharmacy sector shed $11 billion. when they announced they were looking at health care costs with jpmorgan and berkshire hathaway, the next morning at the opening bell, the health industry shed $31 billion in value. this is based on a $100 millio acquisition and a press release. and this is one of the reasons or i think evidence of how powerful amazon has become, and it's become too powerful. amazon can perform jedi mind tricks on not only an entire sector, it can just think ill of a sector and begin choking it of the mother's milk to business and that's access to capital. amazon can take the value of any consumer company down 30% in 30 days with 30 press releases. it took the value of kroger down a third in 30 days just announcing it had acquired a grocer 1/11 the size of kroger, whole foods. in 2019, my prediction is amazon

begins its aszencent piby makin formidable move in u.s. health care. >> does that mean they're looking at my shopping patterns and all the other information that they have on me and then say, well, you're buying quite a few m & ms, maybe you should be insured differently for diabetes? >> i think you're exactly on to something. amazon knows your body mass index. they can look at the size of your clothes. they know your diet most likely, so they know how healthy you're eating. they know if you're in a monogamous relationship. they know your wealth. they know your zip code. they know most of the markers. pretty soon they'll probably know what pharmaceuticals you're taking. so they can put together the ultimate actuarial table and assess two-thirds of households. what if you came in one day and alexa said would you like to cut

your health care, your health insurance costs in half? say amazon, tell me more about prime insurance. amazon could literally skim off the ten healthiest households in america and start insuring them. what is amazon great at? it's great on sitting on top of a data set and figuring out what businesses to go into and start deciding which components of health care they want to be in and which components they just want to outsource and say, all right, we will lift the best orthopedists in your area but we don't want to be in that business, we'll just charge them a fee to send them referrals. when amazon depogoes into that s business, and they have a willingness to hemorrhage money, this is going to be a massively expensive venture and amazon has the capital, they have the data set and they have the technology. >> you know, one of the things you point out is that as this search for the second

headquarters happened, this was a significant transfer of wealth. >> yeah. >> that cities gave away money that should actually be going to their schools and their police and their firefighters to lure amazon. >> yeah, hq 2 wasn't a contest, it was a con. i realize i'm boasting here. but i said back at the beginning of the year, it's going to be one of two places. it's going to be either d.c. or new york. i was wrong, it was both. and what we forget is these companies aren't run -- the business is run by algorithms, but the company is controlled by a 54-year-old man who's the wealthiest man in the world. this is what it means to be the wealthest man in the world. it means you never have to commute. you become the master of no. so query me this, if you're a 54-year-old man, the only thing you can't buy is time. you've got 30 more christmases or holidays with your kids, that's it. maybe 38 if you're really healthy. so is the wealthest man in the world with the most options in

the world, is he going to spend 14 days, much less 14 weeks a year in indianapolis? this is human nature. i've been running companies, starting companies my whole life and i always tell my real estate broker we can have an office anywhere in the world as long as i can walk there. jeff bezos was never going to spend a lot of time in columbus, ohio. the bezos have three homes, seattle, new york and d.c. and now the company has three headquarters that each average 6.7 miles from their headquarters. this was a ruse. it was an abuse of the commonwealth. to your point, it was nothing but an elegant transfer of funds from municipal fire, school and police districts to the shareholders of amazon. it's in my been reflects poorly on the code and the character of the board that game phied these municipalities and ever gave them the impression they had any chance. the game was over before it starred. >> i suspect jeff bezos will say, listen, i'll employ 50,000

people, they'll contributing to the economy and the tax revenue will go up. >> sure, it's a question of math and economics. i will argue that hq 2 will go down in history in a similar vein of an olympics. there's a lot of ribbon cutting and discussion of economic growth. then ten years later economists do the math and say was it really worth $1.3 billion to bring those jobs to queens? i don't know if you've ever been to a kids auction. they do this at my kids' school. dinner with the headmaster and somebody gets excited and says 4,000, 5,000, 8,000, and then someone bids 9. i said tell you what, we're going to do 2 an they take 17,000. this is exactly what they did. they got everyone in a frenzied pitch, got them to a certain level and said to the two cities that had won all along, new york and d.c., where jeff base owes is building a palace, they already have a beautiful home on the upper east side, and said you need to match the term sheet that was given to us by newark.

you need to match the term sheet that was given to us by chicago. and if you do, it's yours. and no mayor can resist the temptation of detonating a prosperity bomb in their town square. the way these guys got played, the way that cuomo and the local officials got played in queens was they were always going there, and they should have known that. they should have said we'll give you some stuff. they did not need to give amazon shareholders $1.3 billion for those jobs. they were coming here regardless of the subsidies. >> you know, you just ended a series of video podcasts, if you will, that you were doing. in the last one you had a sentence that stuck out to me. it said we no longer worship at the altar of character and kindness, we worship at the altar of millionaires and billionaires. at some point along the line, the wealthy has kind of shifted our vision away from what you're talking about, which is really

just to care about other people. this is also the topic that you're heading towards in your next book. >> marx said that the problem with capitalism is you ultimately ending up in an environment where there's a world of plenty -- a world of poverty and a world of plenty. capitalism, the society we live in, the incentives are so dramatic to be focused on economic security. if you're wealthy in this country, you're going to live longer, your kids have more opportunity, you have a greater selection set in terms of mates. it's just incredible what you can get here, how much better your life can be. so it's very easy to get on a hmmster wheel where you're totally focused on economic security. i think a lot of us fail to realize at the end of the day that economic security is a means of providing security for our families and strengthening and deepening our relationships. there's a lot of research that say all happiness kind of comes down to a very basic thing and that is the number and depth of your relationships. now, we're a capitalist society.

i think parents, men and women, have an obligation to create economic security for them and their kids. kids who live in low income households have higher resting blood pressure. we have a responsibility to be economically viable. you're going to have a better life. but the correlation between economic success and happiness, there is a correlation, but it tops out at a certain point once you can afford the basics, a nice home, education, vacations, which by the way is a ton of money in manhattan. but at that point happiness levels off. you don't get any unhappier. it's also a myth that billionaires are less happier, but they're not any happier than millionaires. i think that our society puts us on a hamster wheel. it's important to check in and say at the end of the day, this is the means, not the end. and the ends are deep meaningful relationships at work, with your friends, and with your mate. >> thanks so much. >> thank you. thanks for having me. >> coming full circle there with what's really important. and just a note, we were talking

earlier about stwaninfant morta and childbirth in america. we know that health care is a major election issue both in the united states and around the world. well, here in britain, there's a historic vote on the brexit deal today, and that will determine the uk's future after divorcing the european union. one member of parliament feels so strongly about voting against the plan that she's delayed her own planned cesarean section by two days, against doctor's orders, so she can be presenting in parliament to cast her vote. we'll have much more on the momentous vote in tomorrow's show. but for now, that is it for our program tonight. thank you for watching "amanpour & co." join us again tomorrow night. uniworld is a proud sponsor of "amanpour & co." bea tollman is synonymous with

style. when she acquired uniworld, a boutique cruise line, she brought a similar style to the rivers with a destination inspired design for each ship. bookings available through your travel advisor. 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, seaton melvin, judy and josh weston, the jpb foundation and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

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>> announcer: this is "nightly business report" with bill griffeth and sue herera. death of a giant. jack bogel who revolutionized investing has died at the age of 89. banking on it. the big banks power higher, pulling in record profits in 2018, adding steam to the recent market rally. at a crossroads. the markets have moved sharply higher in a short amount of time, but how ft is too fast? and what happens next? those stories and much more tonight on "nightly business report" for wednesday, january 16th. we do bid you a good evening, everybody. we begin tonight with some sad news.