Q&A: Chaos at the ICC, Hegseth's testosterone screening & Christiane responds to Iran critics

**Jamie Rubin** (0:02)
This is a Global Production.

**Christiane Amanpour** (0:05)
He thinks is that everybody needs to look like him, you know, chiseled and worked out and quite often white.
They've rolled back DEI and quite often male. That's the ultimate view that Hegseth has of who should be fighting America's wars. I am a journalist. I'm independent. I report without fear nor favor.

**Jamie Rubin** (0:23)
And that's what journalists do. That's what you've done. And when people criticize you for it, I find it offensive.
The same people who don't like your comments about Reza Pahlavi think you somehow support the Islamic Republic when they don't like what you're saying either.

**Christiane Amanpour** (0:41)
Supporters, advisors, team members are meant to tell their principles the truth. That is the sacrosanct piece of advice that a principle, i.e. a president or a king or a prime minister or whoever it is, gets in order to make real hard choices and decisions based on evidence, facts and truth, not based on having their ego massaged.
Hello, everyone. It is time for our Q&A episode of The Ex Files with me, Christiane Amanpour, in France this week.

**Jamie Rubin** (1:17)
Jamie Rubin here in New York.

**Christiane Amanpour** (1:19)
Right. So let's get started. This is where we answer your questions. So Jamie, you want to read the first one?

**Jamie Rubin** (1:25)
I do. And it's a long question and it will be an interesting discussion, I hope.
Marco Rubio, our Secretary of State, Sandy on email, asks this question, has been threatening to dismantle the International Criminal Court, quote, brick by brick, unquote. Could we discuss the significance of the ICC and what these threats could mean for international justice? I'm also keen to hear what you think about the significance of the ongoing investigation into the Chief Prosecutor, Karim Khan. How damaging is this for the organization's credibility? Question, Christiane, I know you've covered this extensively.

**Christiane Amanpour** (1:59)
I think you should take the Marco Rubio bit and I'll take the Karim Khan bit and it will become apparent why.

**Jamie Rubin** (2:06)
All right, well, let me start with the ICC. Look, the ICC is not something that Americans' governments particularly like. I think President Clinton signed it with a certain reservation.
It's never been very popular here. The United States, for its own reasons, doesn't believe that international justice systems have been working well. They feel that it's skewed. Remember, the purpose of an International Criminal Court is to prosecute when domestic courts don't prosecute. That's the purpose of it. The United States believes that it prosecutes its own soldiers when they commit war crimes, and it has a strong record of proving that it does so and punishes those soldiers or others who have committed war crimes. There are large issues of war crimes about war and peace. Should you go to war? That unfortunately, lawyers think should be legalized, made into legal discussions as opposed to political discussions. So I'm saying all this at the mega, highest level because that's why the United States has never really loved the International Criminal Court. In certain cases, it's done great work with Charles Taylor, this horrible man in Liberia who committed these horrible war crimes and suffered for it. It obviously worked in the case of the justice of war criminals in Serbia and in Rwanda.
I've been testifying in a trial that's going on that I think is a travesty of justice. I've said this before on this broadcast, because sometimes international law takes on a life of its own. Jamie, it's a podcast. Podcast.
And so I think international law is controversial. And I'm someone who generally supports the importance of international law. If you have a Trump administration, where none of them believe in it at all really, or many of them don't, it's no surprise that they're trying to tear it apart. And the fact that it is now controversial because of what you're going to talk about makes it a lot easier for the likes of Marco Rubio and the Trump administration to try to destroy it. But Republicans have never liked it. The Congress has put in prohibitions against any indictments being used against American soldiers. You even have a controversy now because the mayor of New York, Mamdani, has threatened to arrest Bibi Netanyahu if he comes to New York during the General Assembly.

**Christiane Amanpour** (4:41)
Trump very carefully, very carefully, and I know that might be the headline, but he said he would work in accordance with the laws of New York and he would deal with the legal...

**Jamie Rubin** (4:50)
Right, but if he could, he thought he ought to be arrested.

**Christiane Amanpour** (4:52)