Return to Transcripts main page

Fareed Zakaria GPS

Global View of the U.S. and the 2016 Race; Behind Working Class Whites' Trump Fervor; Creating an Institute for Great Thinkers. Aired 10-11a ET

Aired August 14, 2016 - 10:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[10:00:10] FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST: This is GPS, the GLOBAL PUBLIC SQUARE. Welcome to all of you in the United States and around the world. I'm Fareed Zakaria.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: We'll start today's show by asking what the world thinks of America's frolicking presidential campaign.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He's the founder of ISIS. He's the founder of ISIS.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Donald Trump is not qualified to be president and he is temperamentally unfit to be commander-in-chief.

ZAKARIA: I'll talk to guests from South Africa to Russia, Israel to Britain.

Then, who are Donald Trump's voters? I'll talk to the author of a haunting memoir, Hillbilly Ellegy, who grew up in the coal mining region of Appalachian, among the white, mostly working class people who are at the heart of Trump's support.

And one of the world's richest men is pouring his fortune, not into putting his name on buildings and hospitals and colleges, but into ideas. The ideas that will shape the 21st century. Nicholas Begruen will explain.

Finally, and a novel use of drones that's taking off online, using them to safe lives instead of end them.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: But first, here's my take. In recent days, I have had a dream. That America has a real Republican Party. A party offering a serious, right of center alternative to the Democrats. Such a contest of ideas would improve the public debate and offer Americans a real choice, not the cartoon campaign we have today.

Donald Trump had the opportunity for a reset this week and managed to derail it with his talk of Second Amendment people, but forget the detour for a moment. Trump's much heralded speech laying out his economic policies was an incoherent mish-mash of populism, hypocrisy and pandering.

When did the Republican Party's intellectual decay begin?

According to the conservative writer David Frum in his book "Dead Right" it began in the Reagan years. Recall that Ronald Reagan had viciously attacked Jimmy Carter for racking up deficits and debt. In fact by the end of Reagan's two terms, the national debt had tripled. You see Republicans came to recognize that whatever it might say the American public in fact did not want cuts in government programs. Since then most Republican presidential candidates have promised the public huge tax cuts without any real spending restraint to pay for them.

The result of course has been massive deficits. Republican economic plans nowadays are simply not serious. In the primaries, the three main candidates of the party of fiscal discipline, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump presented plans that added $8 trillion, $10 trillion or $11 trillion in tax cuts over the next decade according to the non-partisan tax policy center. Even the much respected Paul Ryan's plan, largely adopted by Trump now, has a $2.4 trillion hole in it.

These vast gaps are papered over with magical assumption so higher growth and the usual vague calls to end waste, fraud and abuse in government.

Trump's plans are a replay of these dishonest tactics. He say he will cut taxes big league, but of course never pays for them, assuming the usual bogus growth numbers to make them look better on paper. He promises vaguely to cut regulations, suggesting at a rally this week he could do so by as much as 75 percent, which is so absurd that I don't think even he believes it.

Imagine instead of all this, a Republican Party that firmly believed in limited government, local control and social conservatism, and propose policies that were true to these beliefs. Imagine it presented a serious plan that rationalized America's unwieldy and corrupt tax code, simplified brackets, cut rates but paid for it by eliminating loopholes, deductions and credits. Imagine a Republican Party that focused less on tax cuts for the rich, but improved access to the market for the poor and middle class.

For example, a party that not propose not to eliminate Obamacare, but to reform it using stronger market mechanisms, allowing greater competition and price transparency across the country. Imagine a party that presented specific plans to cut regulations that hamper the formation and growth of small businesses, and encouraged large companies to hire more and make new investments that encouraged states to get rid of the ever expanding licensing requirements that are put in place to keep out competition.

[10:05:14] Political systems need debate and choices. America would benefit greatly if the Republican Party were to become a substantive market oriented right of center party. For now, this remains a dream. For more go to CNN.com/fareed, and read my "Washington Post" column

this week. And let's get started.

People in the United States often ask me what the world thinks of this wild presidential election season. Well, I'm about to let you hear for yourself with four guests from around the world. Donald Trump has minced no words about this. He doesn't really care about the rest of the world or what it thinks of him. He wants to of course make America great again. Russia, though, is one of the few foreign countries whose people tell pollsters they like Mr. Trump and that's where I'll begin my introductions.

Pavel Felgenhauer is in Moscow. He's the columnist for Russia's independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper. Chemi Shalev is the U.S. editor for Israel's Haaretz. He joins us from Tel Aviv. Ferial Haffajee is in Johannesburg. She's a leading South African journalist, and editor and Gideon Rahman is FT's chief foreign affairs columnist. He's with us from London.

Ferial, let me start with you. What do people make of what's going on in South Africa?

FERIAL HAFFAJEE, 2014 WINNER, INTERNATIONAL PRESS FREEDOM AWARD: So, Fareed, do you know the South African term? It's sort of a national term of empathy or sympathy, and I think that's what I hear most often about the American election. For me it seems like South Africans are slightly incredulous that it might be possible that you could go from a figure like Barack Obama, who's very, very well-loved here, to somebody like Donald Trump.

Equally incredulous, we've watched statements about the war for Mexicans, the ban on Muslims coming to the U.S. and then today statements about IS. And that's the key theme I see running through it. So Donald Trump hugs our headlines, Hillary Clinton not putting in a great showing across our media and social media.

ZAKARIA: Chemi, when one looks at Israel, there was a kind of aborted love affair that seemed to be -- to take place between Trump and either the country or its prime minister. He tried to support it very -- you know, he's talked about how strongly he supports it. Tried to come Israel and then cancelled when the prime minister -- when Bibi Netanyahu seen indicated perhaps he wouldn't meet with him.

What's going on there?

CHEMI SHALEV, U.S. EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT, ISRAEL'S HAARETZ: Well, first of all, I think the default position, not only for the prime minister, but probably of a majority of Israeli public opinion would be to support the Republican candidate no matter who it was. And if it was anyone I think perhaps most of the 16 candidates who were running against Donald Trump, you'd probably have a 70/30 majority. Mainly because Barack Obama is not very well-loved in Israel.

But Trump has thrown his banner into the works. And the polls indicate even a slight majority for Hillary Clinton. He's been all over the map on issues concerning Israel. I think people are starting to catch the drift of, you know, the reservations in America from him. I did hear one interesting comment and that is that somebody said that there's very -- something very comforting in Trump for Israelis because we had always assumed that among Western democracies we have the most insane system and the most insane politicians. But now it turns out that it's a worldwide phenomenon, including what's going on in Europe in the recent Brexit vote.

ZAKARIA: Gideon, when you -- when Brits look at Trump, do they see it as a version of Brexit, in other words the people who supported Brexit were also in a sense nationalists, in a sense, seemed hostile to foreigners?

GIDEON RACHMAN, CHIEF FOREIGN AFFAIRS COLUMNIST, FINANCIAL TIMES: Well, I think there are definitely some parallels. The constituency that Trump is putting together in the United States, the disaffected white working class, people that are worried about immigration, capitalizing on anti-elite sentiment, I think those were things that drove this rather unexpected vote for Brexit in the UK. That's I think the tone of Trump is much wilder even than the Brexit campaign in the UK.

So it was quite interesting when Nigel Farage is one of the more right-wing politicians here in Britain and was the leader of the Brexit campaign, when he went to the Republican convention, he said it was for the first time in his life he felt left-wing watching the kind of antics of the Trump-led troops at the Republican convention.

[10:10:04] ZAKARIA: (INAUDIBLE), I've saved the best for last. Explain to us Russia's love affair with Trump.

PAVEL FELGENHAUER, COLUMNIST, RUSSIA'S NOVAYA GAZETA: Well, I would say primarily that Trump is popular here in Russia because Barack Obama is deeply unpopular. So I mean, anyone who's attacking Obama would be seen nicely by the Russian population. Obama is seen as a person who organized the sanctions after Russia took over Crimea -- and these sanctions together with the growing price of war cause very badly for Russian population. We have a shrinking economy, household incomes, and everyone believes, I mean, not only the Kremlin but actually the masses of the people believe that this is all Obama's fault.

And Hillary Clinton is seen as a kind of surrogate, a continuation of Obama. And Trump is saying the right words about he's ready to maybe recognize Russian annexation of Crimea, maybe will give Russia -- or the rest of you Ukraine as the kind of dependency, as part of Russian recognized influence. So he's believed to be maybe the good guy.

ZAKARIA: Thank you all. We'll come back. What I'm going to ask you next is what does the world think of America today and its current president.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:16:02] ZAKARIA: We are back with Pavel Felgenhauer, Chemi Shalev, Ferial Haffajee, and Gideon Rachman. Gideon, let me ask you how the world is looking at America these days

because if you look at the data, the United States has come out of this global recession better than any other country, its technology companies dominate the world, its stock market is hitting all-time highs, its unemployment is low.

Do people perceive America as back and Barack Obama as popular?

RACHMAN: Well, I think Obama is pretty popular in Europe. I mean not at the sort of crazy levels of popularity he was enjoying in 2008, when, if you'll remember even before he was elected president, he gave a speech in Berlin before a sort of ecstatic crowd of over 100,000. And people have discovered since then no, he can't actually walk on water. And so he's still popular, but not on that level.

I think the view of America is a little bit mixed. I mean, I think that people haven't totally picked up on the strength of the American economic recovery and there is a sense that -- depending on who you talk to, some people worry that maybe America is backing off from its commitments around the world, you know, could they have done more to sort out Syria, should they have been a little tougher with Russia, and so on.

ZAKARIA: Ferial, how does it look from South Africa? Is America still a kind of model? I mean, I've always been struck by the fact that Africans are generally quite pro-American. Is that more or less true today?

HAFFAJEE: I think that's true when Barack Obama became president, so both these inaugurations were almost like public holidays and affairs of (INAUDIBLE) where there were parties to go and watch it, especially the first one. And then Barack Obama, as well as First Lady Michelle Obama both have very close links, so I think a very highly regarded presidency.

In other places, more discerning journalists, I may read, I think there's some disappointment that Guantanamo hasn't been closed, for example, or that the smoldering rifts that are Afghanistan and Iraq as well as Syria haven't really been brought -- been brought to peace.

I think the good reputation that America enjoys because of the two Obamas is going to be dealt quite a blow if Donald Trump becomes president later this year.

ZAKARIA: Pavel, you talked about how Obama is unpopular because he's been tough on Russia. But in general, is America also unpopular? My sense is that Russians have really lost any fascination that they had after the Cold War with the United States and regarded with pretty jaundice ties.

FELGENHAUER: Yes, there's no love there. America is seen as the major geopolitical enemy, the big Satan that's trying to kind of hold Russia under, not allow Russia to rise again to its normal status of superpower and so on, though at the same time America's also to some extent envied and basically the Russian elite, they would want to be with the United States on par, kind of working a world concert. Over the heads of other nations, finding quid pro quos, agreeing as they did during the Cold War, that the two superpowers working together, keeping a new world order. So America is seen as an enemy, but at the same time, as a very important partner.

ZAKARIA: Chemi, let me ask you something slightly different because I saw something that you said, when Donald Trump made his comment about the Second Amendment people maybe being able to do something about Hillary Clinton once she was in office, appointing judges.

[10:20:05] It reminded you of something and I want you to tell us what it reminded you of?

SHALEV: Well, it reminded me of the months preceding our late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's assassination. But in fact I was reminded of this atmosphere before Donald Trump made his comments and it first occurred to me at the GOP convention in Cleveland where I -- you know, where I sat and listened and was quite dismayed by the constant cries of lock her up, lock her up, and the kind of criminal indictments that were being issued from the podium, and both of the -- both parts of this convention were main elements in the months that led up to Rabin's assassination. When Donald Trump made his comment about the Second Amendment, people -- that sort of clinched the disassociation.

And it's not farfetched to assume or to think that there may be one person or two people in America who are putting all of this together and thinking to themselves that true patriots have to do something. And it's clear that that is the case because say somebody, you know, god forbid tried to hurt or harm Hillary Clinton tomorrow, I don't think anybody would be surprised. Everybody would connect it to the atmosphere that exists today in the Trump camp and everybody would say, yes, we should have seen it coming. So I think after Trump made his remarks, everybody is in that position where if it does happened, they would have been forewarned.

ZAKARIA: On that note, thank you so much all of you for a fascinating conversation.

Next on GPS, for years many people have worried about the rise of Islamism in Turkey. But it turns out it is a different ism that they should have been worried about. I'll tell you what when we come back.

Don't forget, if you miss a show go to CNN.com/fareed for a link to my iTunes podcast.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:25:55] ZAKARIA: Now for our "What in World" segment.

It's been a month since the attempted coup in Turkey. Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan survived the revolt and has responded ferociously, declaring a state of emergency followed by what can only be called a mass purge. More than 50,000 soldiers, police officers, judges and other civil servants have been arrested or suspended.

The "New York Times" broke down what a purge of this magnitude would look like in the United States. Nearly 9,000 Turkish police officers have been fired which is tantamount to firing every cop in Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia, Dallas and Detroit combined according to the "Times." And the suspension of 21,000 private school teachers would be like stripping every third teacher in a private American elementary or high school of his or her license as the "Times" put it.

Beyond this more than 100 media outlets have been shut down. Why? Alleged connections with Erdogan's former ally turned foe, Fethullah Gulen, the Muslim cleric living in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania whom Erdogan accused of masterminding the coup attempt. Gulen has denied any involvement.

Now I have not been able to find any evidence to prove one side or the other. But the size premeditated nature and scale of Erdogan's purge is stunning and appears to be part of a pattern. Erdogan came to power as a reformer and indeed in his first years he and the Akh Party enacted a series of reforms perhaps because they hoped to gain entry into the European Union.

When Europe's great powers made clear that Turkey would likely never be allowed into the Western club, Erdogan's reforms began to dry up and instead we began to watch a determined effort to amass power.

First he turned on his long-time foes, the secularists, especially the military, long seen as the guardian of Turkish secularism. The government alleged conspiracies and coup plots and arrested hundreds of military officers including former generals.

As Turkish journalist Mustafa Akyol said of those purges, there was a series of witch hunts, relentless intimidation, and even confiscation of critical media outlets. Akyol continued in that November 2015 "New York Times" piece, "As a result Turkey has become the textbook case of illiberal democracy where ballots rule but free speech and the rule of law are fading."

It is now a new enemy but the same tactics. Taken in its entirety, what we are witnessing in Turkey today is the descent of democracy. And it is tragic. Ever since Erdogan's first electoral victory, some in the West have looked at Turkey with cautious, suspicious eyes, wondering whether Turkey, this 99.8 percent Muslim nation, would go the way Iran did in 1979.

They had good reason to worry, Erdogan and his party have placed an emphasis on religion and social conservatism. That's according to Steven Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations. But Cook notes that theocracy has never been on the cards for Turkey. In fact Erdogan has not enacted any Islamic laws or instituted Sharia in any sense in Turkey. For Erdogan it's not about religion. It is about power.

Looking ahead, Steven Cook expects that Erdogan will call for new elections that would ultimately concentrate power in the presidency.

This week Erdogan visited Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg to mend frayed relations. As Erdogan has faced criticism for his counter coup from Western statesmen, Russia has been supportive. In a way it's fitting. While the world was obsessed with Erdogan's

alleged Islamism, what it should have feared was another ism from Erdogan, a very different one. Putinism.

[10:30:00] Next on GPS, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee: it is working-class whites in these places who are the mainstay of Trump's support. The Appalachian-born Silicon Valley executive and now-best- selling author author J.D. Vance will explain to us why.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAKARIA: J.D. Vance's book "Hillbilly Elegy" has been all the buzz this summer. His timing could not have been better. Vance, the Appalachian Yale Law School grad does an extraordinary job of unwittingly explaining something that has been puzzling most of us: What is behind the fervor for Donald Trump in so many parts of America?

It's a beautifully written book that leaves you touched and enriched.

J.D. Vance, thanks for joining me.

J.D. VANCE, AUTHOR: Thank you for having me.

ZAKARIA: So let's start with that puzzle. If you look at Ohio, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are almost neck to neck, despite all the crazy things he's done, despite everything. You were born in Ohio, as it turns out. You know these people. Why do they support him?

VANCE: They feel left behind in the modern American economy, and not just the economy, but the modern American way of life. So they have seen manufacturing jobs go overseas or shut down all together. They have seen coal mining jobs more difficult to come by.

And in the wake of that, they have seen a really tough cultural crisis that's moved in, rising opioid addiction rates, family breakdown rates. And so what they feel is, in some ways, this extraordinary disconnect from the people who are in Washington, D.C. And so even though Donald Trump says a lot of outrageous things, they see him as the person who's taking that battle to D.C. mainstream.

ZAKARIA: Now, who is -- who is the "they?"

You were born white Anglo-Saxon Protestant...

VANCE: That's right.

ZAKARIA: So when I look at you, when you look -- you know, I read your name, you seem like somebody who has been a kind of child of privilege in America, but you say that, actually, you've come from the forgotten part of white America and that your family tradition is poverty?

VANCE: Yeah, that's right. So my grandparents, who raised me, grew up in eastern Kentucky, coal country, and my grandma got pregnant at 14; they moved north to southern Ohio because that's where the steel mills were and that's where good jobs were. Their children were expected, I think, to live the upwardly mobile American dream, but the family story, as I write about in the book, has been a little bit more complex.

My mom has struggled in different ways; my aunt and uncle have done much better, at least, you know, in material terms. And so I think what happens is that the people who expected, in some ways, their children and their grandchildren to live much better lives have found that, at the end of the day, the poverty that was the family tradition, maybe going back, in my grandparents' case, 100, 200 years, it seems to be happening all over again in the generation that they expected to do the best.

ZAKARIA: And this, what you're describing, in a sense, your family is a symbol for these vast swathes of the white working class, who used to work in, you know, in the Southern slave economy, in steel mills, in coal mines, stable jobs, but not particularly upwardly mobile. And almost all of these people come out of the Scotch-Irish tradition, right?

VANCE: Yeah, that's right. So the Scots-Irish tradition is a very important part of the culture of these places. And the reason I think my book, the message of it, is a little bit broader-ranging than just Appalachia, is because the white working class is relatively culturally homogeneous.

So in New York, in rural New York, or in northern Alabama, you're going to find people who think broadly the same about a whole range of issues. And part of that is just because they're working in the same sorts of jobs; they have always had a slightly ambivalent or even confrontational view of the rich man or the elite. And so I think they find themselves in this political moment feeling very similarly about a lot of different issues.

ZAKARIA: And they are suspicious of cities, cosmopolitan elite, people with a lot of education? And I'm guessing therefore, when they listen to a Hillary Clinton or a Barack Obama, who speak in that very educated way, policy proposals, evidence, data, that's less attractive than somebody like Trump who is really just connecting at a gut level?

VANCE: Yeah, that's absolutely right. I mention a lot that the way that people talk about politics around the dinner table or at church is not the way, fundamentally, that most elites talk about politics. And on the one hand, it's obviously important to have people who are making policy that's rooted in evidence, rooted in the right thinking. At the other hand, you have to connect to people at an emotional level, too, and I think that's something the American elites have been increasingly bad at.

Part of it is that they just sound so filtered. They sound like everything that they're talking is filtered through a political consultant. But some of it is honestly that they're just a little disconnected. It's hard to show compassion and understanding, even if you want to, for people that you don't really know. And, unfortunately, one of the trends in American society is this rising residential segregation by class. And so a lot of the wealthy folks, a lot of the elites in our society,

whether they live in Cincinnati, Ohio, and are living pretty intact lives or in Washington, D.C. where they have political power, they don't really know a lot of the people that are -- that are struggling in this 21st Century economy.

ZAKARIA: Talk about the issue of violence. You talk about it, even growing up, in your own family, you have this hair-raising story of your grandmother threatening to basically kill your grandfather if he gets drunk one more time; he does and she pours lighter fluid over him and actually strikes the match?

VANCE: That's right.

ZAKARIA: One of the things I remember reading about the Scots-Irish is there has always been this tradition of violence and almost a kind of vigilante violence, that you don't wait for -- you don't report stuff to the cops; you just do stuff?

VANCE: Yeah, absolutely. It's funny; my sister told me a story a couple years ago where a family had talked about their Christmas presents all being stolen, and they reported it to the police. And one of the first comments on that thread was "Why did you call the police? Why didn't you just deal it with yourself?"

So there is definitely a vigilante justice, I think, part of this that's built into our culture. And, fundamentally, I think that it manifests itself most relevantly today in a certain disconnect from, let's say, the -- the ways of behaving in, let's say, a corporate board room, right? If someone disagrees with you in a corporate boardroom or on the job, you're supposed to take it constructively, say OK, and move on.

But I think that, maybe, that cultural value needs to be developed a little bit. And it's something I certainly had to learn growing up because my initial reaction is to say, "If you're criticizing me, that's a personal affront." And so this is an important part of the story, I think, is that cultural element of disagreement and sometimes the violence.

ZAKARIA: And you end up, at the end of the book, feeling like these cultural norms and behaviors, the social pathologies of the Scots- Irish are really at the heart of the problem. You don't think that there could be a kind of government fix, or a market fix. You feel like this is a deep cultural problem?

VANCE: Well, I think it's both. I do think that there's certainly a role for government policy to play. I think the point of the book is that government can't fix everything. And if you think about what I grew up around, which is this inter-generational family violence, this sense of learned helplessness, that my choices didn't matter, I don't think the government can totally address those problems.

And so the book is primarily, in some ways, a letter to my own community, hopefully a compassionate and sympathetic letter, but really an explanation of "Here are some of the things that we could do to make our kids' lives better." And I hope that people will take the message to heart and receive it as someone who loves this community because it's my community.

ZAKARIA: Just a fantastic book. Thank you so much for coming.

VANCE: Thank you. Appreciate it.

ZAKARIA: Up next, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the Information Age -- all eras that have changed the world because of profound new ideas. So what will the next big ideas of the 21st Century be? One billionaire is spending a fortune to figure that out. He will be with us next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAKARIA: Nicolas Berggruen is one of the richest men in the world. Forbes estimates his net worth to be over $1.5 billion.

He used to be known as the homeless billionaire, once living in luxury hotels with no permanent residence. But now he's settled down in Los Angeles and he's spending a big chunk of his fortune to create an institute there for great thinkers, to consider the great issues of our time, such as the impact of technology on society. He's called the endeavor a "secular monastery," and among its participants are former heads of state like Tony Blair, top academics like Joseph Stiglitz and billionaire technologists like Elon Musk.

I ought to tell you that I am on the institute's advisory board. Listen in.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Nicolas Berggruen, pleasure to have you on.

NICOLAS BERGGRUEN, BILLIONAIRE: Thank you, Fareed, delighted.

ZAKARIA: About 10 years ago, you decided, at a point at which you had made enormous amounts of money, that you wanted to educate yourself about ideas, about philosophy. And you hired professors from UCLA to tutor you. Why were you doing that?

BERGGRUEN: It comes back to my teenage years. I was interested in politics and in philosophy, because I really felt that ideas shaped who we are, and I still feel that way. So I went back to trying to learn what does the world of politics and the world of ideas look like, but not just Western, but also Eastern. And that's why I spend time with these professors from UCLA. And it reinforced my view that ideas make the world, and they make also politics. And by not only learning, but then by investing in the world of ideas, in the world of new ideas, I could not only learn something for me, but hopefully contribute.

ZAKARIA: So now you, like many billionaires, have pledged that you're going to give away most of your money. But what's unusual is that you are giving away the vast majority of it, and this is hundreds of millions of dollars, to fund ideas. There's no hospital wings with your name attached. You -- you want to fund ideas. Why?

BERGGRUEN: Because, at the end of the day, they shape us more than anything else. Hospitals are very important. Luckily, lots of people are doing it. But we are still shaped today by Confucius, by Jesus Christ, by Karl Marx, for good or for bad. So the people who have really made a difference in terms of our cultures, in terms of who we are as humans, and our lives, our social and political lives, these people are thinkers.

And today I do actually think we need new thinking. I feel strongly that, in this world where politics and conventional politics are being challenged, especially in the West. I don't think the answers are going to come just from political re-thinking, but really from new concepts as to what it means to be a human and what it means to have an occupation in the future.

ZAKARIA: So explain. All this has come to fruition now with a center, a prize. Describe what you are doing?

BERGGRUEN: We created an institute, the Berggruen Institute, five years ago. In addition, to reward the importance of ideas, we're going to have a philosophy prize, similar to a Nobel Prize, but in this case for philosophy. So we'll have a yearly million-dollar philosophy prize to really underline how important ideas are and thinkers are.

ZAKARIA: And the center will have a $500-million endowment, will be -- this is above the Getty Center in Los Angeles, being designed by Herzog and de Meuron. So this is very large, very grand. And what do you hope will come out of it?

BERGGRUEN: Well, I'm not sure it will be grand itself, but the ambition is grand, for sure. And this is not a lonely project; this is a project that's been done with lots of people who are great thinkers and who have been great leaders. So it's really empowering more thinking and empowering these people to come together and to produce good works. So that's really the idea.

ZAKARIA: And do you now spend most of your time on this, on funding ideas, or are you still an active investor, hedge fund manager?

BERGGRUEN: All my time is on this, on the institute -- that and the children.

ZAKARIA: That's your -- your answer to -- to Socrates's question of how to live a good life?

BERGGRUEN: I'm lucky. It's a pretty good answer.

ZAKARIA: Nicolas, pleasure to have you on.

BERGGRUEN: Thank you very much, Fareed.

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, a novel idea, a way to use drones to save lives instead of ending them.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) ZAKARIA: Today marks the anniversary of the passage of the Social Security Act. Here's what Franklin Roosevelt said after signing it into law with great fanfare.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FORMER PRESIDENT FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT: We can never insure 100 percent of the population against 100 percent of the hazards and vicissitudes of life, but we have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against the loss of a job and against poverty-stricken old age.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAKARIA: That brings to my question of the week. In the iconic photographs of the signing, only one woman is present. Who is that woman: Mary Harris "Mother" Jones, Eleanor Roosevelt, Hattie Wyatt Carraway, or Frances Perkins?

Stay tuned and we'll tell you the correct the answer.

This week's book of the week is "Hillbilly Elegy" by J.D. Vance, whom you just heard from. Vance has a beautiful, quiet voice in which he explains this world without celebrating or condemning it. It is an unvarnished, honest picture of America's white working class. All in all, it's rare to have somebody with a sympathetic understanding of his world, and that is really what is special about this wonderful book.

And now for the last look. Loyal viewers of our show might remember a story we did a couple of years ago on the mine kafon. This ball-like structure looks like art but is actually a wind-powered land-mine- clearing device. The ball rolls around land-mine danger areas until, boom, it finds one and blows itself up.

Well, now it's creator, the Afghani artist Massoud Hassani, has just launched a Kickstarter campaign for his newest invention, the mine kafon drone. Here's how it works. The drone flies above a dangerous area, generates a 3-D map with a built-in aerial mapping system, uses its metal detector to pinpoint any land mines, places a detonator on top of the mine with a robotic arm, flies away, and, boom, blows it up.

According to Hassani, the mine kafon drone is safer, up to 20 times faster and 200 times cheaper than traditional de-mining methods. The Kickstarter project has already far exceeded its $77,000 goal, raising over $130,000. It will enable Massoud's lab and team of 21 engineers from all over the world to finish development of the prototype and begin testing it in the field.

According to the United Nations, more than 10 people are injured or killed every day from land mines or other such explosives. Over 89 countries and territories are affected by land mines. Hassani and his team believe that this new invention has the ability to clear all the minefields on earth in as little as 10 years, a new twist on the slogan "Make art, not war." The correct answer to our "GPS Challenge" question is D, Frances Perkins, Franklin Roosevelt's labor secretary. She was actually the first-ever female Cabinet secretary. When she was once asked if she ever found her gender to be a handicap, she quipped that it only bothered her in climbing trees. Still, it would be another 20 years before the second female Cabinet secretary was named. That was Oveta Culp Hobby, who was named secretary of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare. Malcolm Gladwell talked about just such a phenomenon in last week's show. In case missed that or any other show, check out our podcast at cnn.com/podcast.

Thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week, and I will see you next week.