Return to Transcripts main page

Fareed Zakaria GPS

A Global View Of America's Election; The Rising Tide of Anger & Populism; Inside America's Gun Super Owners; American Start-Ups Hiring Foreign Workers. Aired 10-11a ET

Aired October 30, 2016 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:05] 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. This is a special edition of GPS coming to you live today from London.

It's nine days until the American presidential election and we thought it was worth getting a sense of what it all looked like to the world.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We are the laughing stock of the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAKARIA: I have assembled a panel of former foreign ministers to give us a truly global view. What has the election done to America's image in the world?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

Trump: Such a nasty woman.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: -- Social Security trust fund.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAKARIA: What can be done to repair it? And what to make of Russia's role in America's election?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: He has a very clear favorite in this race.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAKARIA: Then, Trumpism beyond Trump. Populism hasn't just been rising in America, it's been rising around the world, why? We will explore with Brexit's leader, Nigel Farage and the Pulitzer Prize- winner historian, Anne Applebaum.

Finally, the British parliament is in dire need of repair but what to do with the politicians while they fix the building? We will tell you about one plan to dump them all in the river. I will explain.

But first, here's my take. There are so few details provided by FBI director, James Comey, that it is impossible to know what to make of his decision to inform congress about new e-mails relating to Hillary Clinton's server. The timing is unfortunate since justice department guidelines expressly advise its officers to be careful not to be anything to action or announcement that could interfere with elections or the democratic process.

It also raises a larger issue. The United States has gone too far down the road of criminalizing public policy. When your opponents do something wrong, even profoundly wrong, in politics, it is often best to treat it for what it is, bad judgment, bad policy, bad ethics. And to make the case to the electorate to hold those people accountable. It should not be standard practice to instantly begin searching for ways to treat that behavior as criminal.

This has been a bipartisan problem. When democrats controlled the legislature under the Reagan administration, they turned the Iran- contra affair into a legal matter, which resulted in the appointment of an independent counsel, years of inquiries and bitter partisan divisions.

Then came the Clinton years when the (Zeus) exploded. The investigations of Bill Clinton consumed public attention, cost tens of millions of dollars and results in an impeachment that was totally unrelated to the original alleged offense, Whitewater on which no charges were ever filed.

The last two presidencies have seen something of a respite from these witch hunts but it seems possible that we are ramping up again for a round of criminalization of policy differences. House Republicans are now promising years of hearings and inquiries should Hillary Clinton be elected president.

The FBI and the justice department in particular should stand as independent institutions and not be swayed by demands made by partisans of either side. James Comey's decision to provide lively color commentary on his decisions to testify to congress, to send them raw FBI data and now send them this vague letter are all a break with long standing practice and established procedures. Not since J. Edgar Hoover, as an FBI director, positioned himself as a player in the political realm.

The power to use the state to put someone in jail is an awesome authority. It should not be used against political opponents. It poisons the public arena. It makes politics a life and death affair. And it reminds one of third world banana republics not an advanced democracy. For more, go to cnn.com/Fareed and let's get started.

ZAKARIA: So just how has the U.S. election looked around the the world? What does the rest of the word want out of this election? And what to make of Russia's alleged interference?

I have a great panel of former top diplomats, now free to speak their minds: In New York, David Miliband, he was Britain's foreign secretary, he now runs the international rescue committee. In London, Bernard Kouchner, he was France's foreign minister, he's also a founder of Doctors Without -- beyond borders, Medecins Sans Frontieres. In Warsaw, Radek Sikorski was Poland's foreign minister, he is now a distinguished statesman at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

[10:05:10] And the Singapore, Kishore Mahbubani, who was that country's foreign secretary and he's now dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School at the National University of Singapore.

Kishore, let me start with you, you're the furthest away. You follow this closely. What do you make of the mood in the United States?

KISHORE MAHBUBANI, FORMER SINGAPORE FOREIGN MINISTER: Well, I think I would say the whole world is shocked that a country, the most advanced democracy in the world, can produce a candidate like Donald Trump. And frankly, you know, our good friend, Joseph Nye, always talks about American soft power and its power overseas. Clearly, Donald Trump has made a huge dent in American soft power.

But more importantly and more fundamentally, the emergence of Donald Trump shows that America hasn't come to terms with the fact that it has to deal with the very different world now. So even if Trump goes, I think this two have to deal with the problem of, you know, Trumpism that is a real political reality now.

And the question is, what is America going to do about it in a more fundamental way and not just about one man, it's about a political phenomenon that has emerged.

ZAKARIA: Radek Sikorski, you have seen this kind of populism or you tell me how you describe it across Europe, including in your country in Poland, have you not?

RADEK SIKORSKI, FORMER POLAND FOREIGN MINISTER: We have. But in United States, thank god you have had our experience of the public domain being manipulated by foreign-inspired social media and foreign hacking. And I hope the people of America draw their own conclusions.

We, of course, particularly, alarmed here by one of your candidates' links, business links, ideological links, media links, not just to the Russian government and Russian business circles but it now appears also to be ideologues of Russian fascism, of Russian imperialism, it's very disturbing.

ZAKARIA: Bernard Kouchner, when you look at this campaign, what is the first thing that comes to your mind?

BERNARD KOUCHNER, FORMER FRANCE FOREIGN MINISTER: Surprise. Know. It was a surprise. But now we knew. Populism is all over the world. The developed, let's say, the advance world, yes, we have the same reaction. Not exactly the same, this is the extreme rightists in my country.

But the problem is that like our friend from Singapore said this is a non-comprehensive attitude. They don't know that the world has changed. They don't know that now we are facing the rest of globalization or the rest of the world. And they believe that they are still the center of the world. This is impossible. Trump, it's a bit ridiculous to say so, but his views are so middle-aged views. He don't know what -- he wants to build up another wall in between Mexico -- this is ridiculous -- if it was not serious, it was ridiculous.

But honestly, we are in the certain trouble, psychological and, I'd say, politically we are in trouble. And all over, not only in Poland, with our good friend Radek, but in Britain, Brexit and all over the 27, 26 now nations. They don't understand what's going on. They don't understand that we have a responsibility. And fortunately, I believe that Mr. Trump will not be the president because otherwise, we are completely lost. We all the people of the world, we will be lost. But I hope it will not happen.

ZAKARIA: David Miliband, let me ask you. The three of you, I realize, who have worked with Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, what did you make of her? Did you trust her? Was she good on her word? And do you think she'd make a good president? Just the qualities, I'm not asking for an endorsement.

DAVID MILIBAND, FORMER BRITAIN FOREIGN MINITER: The most striking quality of Hillary Clinton that was evident from the moment she was nominated to be secretary of state is that she's the best listener that I've ever known in politics. She has got a real mind that sucks in information and wants to have the widest possible range of information to make decisions. I think that she's a powerful thinker. She's a strategic thinker. She's a careful thinker. And those were important qualities to use your word.

My perspective on this election is that populism has been shown to be popular until it gets elected.

[10:10:05] And fortunately, it's not usually elected although the Brexit question is a challenging one but some of the consequences are beginning to be felt. I think that as I think about Europe, I've recently been in China. As I think about the time I spend in the Middle East with the humanitarian work we do, the striking features of the perspective of the U.S. election are two-fold.

First of all, there is the element of the banana republic that you referred to, the combination of money, law, coming together in the way that you describe. But the second thing is there's also an element of fear about whether or not America has the capacity, not just amongst its leaders but amongst its people, to play the kind of leadership role, the subtle, careful but nonetheless, strong leadership role that the world needs even a multi-polar world of the kind that we've got, still needs the America that can make its presence felt in a principled and practical way around the world.

ZAKARIA: Fascinating. When we come back, don't any of you go away, we will talk about one other element of this campaign that Radek Sikorski mentioned. The third wheel of the American presidential election, not Gary Johnson but Vladimir Putin, when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [10:15:48] ZAKARIA: And we are back with our panel, a very

distinguished former diplomats, David Miliband, Bernard Kouchner, Radek Sikorski and Kishore Mahbubani.

Radek, I want to pick up on something you talked about. What do you worry about if Donald Trump were elected as a Polish politician and patriot?

SIKORSKI: That he is the kind of man who, first of all, seems to be an admirer of President Putin. And secondly, who doesn't seem to have much respect or concern for America's long-standing allies.

In Poland, we have a principle that every U.S. administration learns Russia afresh. But I think in a Trump administration, the price for that tutoring paid by America's allies would be particularly high. President Putin is a gambler. He has already leveled Chechnya, invaded Georgia, Invaded Ukraine, bombing Aleppo. He would like a sort of the (ultra mark two) with the United States sharing of influence. that, of course, is alarming to America's allies.

And that's why people that I know are rooting for a traditional candidate. Hillary Clinton has a strategic mind but she also accounts the enlargement of NATO as a success of her husband's presidency. And we believe she would defend it.

ZAKARIA: David Miliband, what do you make of this Russian role? Why is Russia done all of the things that Radek described and why is it now, seemingly, interfering in the U.S. election?

MILIBAND: I think that you always have to remember that Russia is fundamentally a declining power. It's declining economically. It's declining demographically. And it is trying to stave off those factors by adventurism politically. I feel this personally, since the International Rescue Committee has had eight of our hospitals that we support and run inside Syria bombed by the Syrian administration and by the Russian government in the course of the last year.

And obviously, the overreached that the Russians are showing in respect to some fundamental principles of international humanitarian law poses absolutely fundamental questions for the global system. I think there's an opportunity for the new administration, one obviously that Mr. Trump doesn't want to take by everything he had so far, but an opportunity if Mrs. Clinton is elected.

And the opportunity is two-fold. First of all, in global strategic terms, I found in China last weekend a willingness and a determination to assert that they wanted to reform and rebuild the international system not to undermine it or create a parallel system. And secondly, I think in tactical terms, that creates an opportunity for the U.S. to try to wean the Chinese away from their reliance on their Russian ally and to create some more balance in the international system.

For the reasons that Radek Sikorski has set out and no doubt my other colleagues will do so as well, that it absolutely the essential because the international system at the moment is not working as a system and it's not being properly led on a range of issues, not just security and economic and international humanitarian, but also on health and other issues.

ZAKARIA: Bernard, let me ask you again. You are the third foreign minister. Radek and David also worked with Hillary Clinton. What do you make of her as a person, as a secretary of state and could she take on the kind of challenges David Miliband is describing?

KOUCHNER: Yes. I had the pleasure -- lucky enough to work with Hillary for years. And as being said several times, she is a good manager. She knows perfectly. That is to say not only superficial view. And to be secretary of state of such a country, you have to be very close to the people.

[10:20:08] I mean, she was, let's say, sort of a siege woman during all of her life and she had to be cautious every minute -- husband, crowd, the attacks, et cetera. But privately, she's a very warm and very human woman. And that she's not considering the people from the top of the Trump tower to see the crowd. No, she knows. This is a lesson to follow Hillary in the developing country. She's going to the people. She is listening to the people.

You know, formerly, she worked as a representative of the fight, the women's fight, she was very good, remember the speaking conference. But not only that as a women, we have to be very proud of -- not the women, very proud of her. All is destiny. But close to the poor people in Africa, everywhere. She is very touching. She is not looking like being touched but yes, she's touching.

And second, could you consider one second country like United States represented by Mr. Trump? But this is impossible to accept. Impossible. It will provoke a real revolution not only in United States but everywhere.

And going back to what Radek said that is to say this is a victory. It's already a victory of Mr. Putin in Syria where there is bombing 2 to 300,000 and bombing to kill all families and the babies in Aleppo but also in Mosul. Do you imagine that it would be the country that United States withdrawing of their responsibility? No. Believe me, no. It will not done.

ZAKARIA: Kishore, we have a little time but give me a sense of what you make of -- I mean, the sense of pessimism that has produced Trump. Does it puzzle you? You come from a part of the world that's growing.

MAHBUBANI: Well, I think, you know -- as you know, there's no populism in Asia. And frankly, Asians are still in love with globalization. And as David Miliband just said China wants to rebuild and strengthen the international system and not undermine it.

But if I can can just give a slightly different point of view. Because the world looks very different when you look at it from Asia. And, you know, Asia makes up the vast majority of the world's population. Actually, we agree that Hillary Clinton will be a far better candidate than Donald Trump. But it would be an absolute mistake for Hillary Clinton to come into office and say -- hey, I know exactly how the world works and I know exactly what to do. Because the world has changed fundamentally. And if I can recommend one good book to her, it's a book written by

Fareed Zakaria called the 'The Post-American World'. It was written too early but the post-American world has can and you've got to now deal in a much more multi-polar world with very different instincts from the one you could use in the uni-polar world when her husband was president. So it is a very difficult job for Hillary Clinton when she becomes the president because suddenly, she will have to unlearn many of the instincts she had in the past and develop new instincts.

You remember, Fareed, you asked me to write an article for "Newsweek" once, in which I said -- hey, what Hillary Clinton needs is a long- term strategy for China. And for that, I got my arms twisted by the NSA for saying something which is quite obvious. When you deal with China, you just can't deal with it episode by episode, you've got to have a long-term 10 to 20-year strategy in dealing with a great power like China.

So my big worry about Hillary Clinton coming to office is that she may continue with the old instincts and that will be a problem. But if she relearns what the new world is all about and makes an effort to reach out to Asia, Asia will receive her very warmly.

ZAKARIA: All right. On that very excellent book recommendation, I'm going to have to thank you, Kishore Mahbubani, David Miliband, Radek Sikorski and Bernard Kouchner.

[10:24:37] Next on GPS, Donald Trump may have cornered the market on populism. But as my panel noted, there's plenty to go around in much of the rest of the world. Why? We have Anne Applebaum and Nigel Farage up next to explain.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:28:48] ZAKARIA: We are back. I'm here in London for this special edition of GPS and we're going to talk next about the rise of populism around the world. It's not just Brexit, it's not just Trump, it's happening many places, why?

Joining me now in London is the man who has been called the brains behind Brexit, Nigel Farage. And in Warsaw, the columnist Anne Applebaum, who is the past recipient of the Pulitzer prize for nonfiction.

Nigel, you heard the previous panel. They're all as far as shocked by Donald Trump and shocked by his lies. You're not, right?

NIGEL FARAGE, EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT MEMBER: No, I'm not. And can I just say that that the word populism, I first heard it 10 years ago. (Inaudible) Boris say the present European commission called me a populist, which I thought was perhaps a compliment, maybe it meant I was popular.

Any opposition to the current established political class is now written off as populism. what is Trump doing in America? He's reaching out, you know, beyond the Washington beltway, beyond Wall Street, beyond the rich, beyond the famous to ordinary American people who have seen globalization mean for them, that their living standards have gone down. They've watched their country being taken into an endless series of wars overseas that arguably I would say have made things worst, not better.

And all Trump is saying is "Enough; we've had enough."

"We're sick of the rich getting richer. We're sick of foreign wars. We want to take back national democracy and control our borders."

And it's very interesting. You know, with your previous panel, that a threatened elite choose to abuse this. But the more they abuse it, the more they encourage people to vote for it. We saw that in Brexit, and I believe we're seeing that with Trumpism in America.

ZAKARIA: Anne, the core of this kind of message -- call it populist; call it what you will -- is a kind of anti-elitism, isn't it? Is that -- is that true across Europe?

ANNE APPLEBAUM, PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OR NONFICTION: I would say it's true across Europe and around the world, although I think I would refine it a little bit. I don't think it's just anti-elitism. It's very significant that many of Trump's core supporters are not the poorest Americans. The average Trump supporter, according to one poll, one measure, is $70,000 a -- worth $70,000 a year, which is not -- which is not impoverished by any means.

The poorest -- the poorest people in America are still supporting Hillary Clinton, just like the poor in many other countries don't support populist movements. But populism has achieved a couple things.

One is that, in its modern form, whatever the term used to mean, it now is something that offers very fast solutions, instant -- instant solutions. You can get rid of the E.U., and everything will be better. If you abolish the system, your lives will be more prosperous. And in an era when people can click on a button and download something and get it right away and have things instantly, democracy and the slow process of creating coalitions, creating real change, making things happen, having boring conversations about budgets and priorities and what can be done and what can't has ceased to interest a lot of people.

And what populism in its modern form -- and I would say it's both on the far right and the far left, and, surprisingly, they're very similar now -- is offering people instant-fast solutions, you know, as well as a sense of we can do this ourselves; we can have nationalism; we can -- you know, we can achieve something without other people, which is, I'm afraid, going to prove fantastically unrealistic.

I think David Miliband said in your previous program that the trouble with populists is they're popular, as Mr. Farage said, until they win. And then, when they win, as they have, for example, in Venezuela or as they have, for example, in Greece, then it turns out that their solutions are flawed and are as complicated as anybody else's.

ZAKARIA: Nigel, what about that? I mean, you listen to Trump's core message. In many ways, it is -- he

looks at the average American person and he says "Your life seems hard, and it's all the fault of Mexicans and Muslims and Chinese people..."

FARAGE: Well, that's your...

(CROSSTALK)

FARAGE: That's your interpretation.

ZAKARIA: "... and I'll get tough on them."

But isn't he directing a lot of that fury or angst to the other, to the outsider, to the foreigner?

FARAGE: Well, I don't think he's blamed all the world's problems on minorities. You know, I mean, he's gone a lot further than I would have gone in some of his speeches. I get that.

But it's very interesting. You know, Anne Applebaum talks about the far right and the far left. It's very interesting, isn't it? When you're in the middle; when you're part of the establishment; when you're rich; when your life's great; when you're part of whether it's Goldman Sachs or the government or big media, it's very easy to be disparaging and use terms like "far right" and "far left."

And I put it to Anne, the far right and far left are now called the democratic majority. We saw that in Brexit, despite all the threats from all over the world. We may see it in America in nine days' time, and I increasingly think that we will. And it's happening across the rest of Europe, too. And I do honestly think that it's about time the rich and famous stop talking down to people who want change. I repeat, we've had enough of failure.

ZAKARIA: Anne, what should mainstream parties do?

If they do confront this reality that the programs that they propose -- in their eyes, they're trying to be responsible, so they propose a series of, you know, small-ball incremental programs that won't bust the budget, that will try to take advantage of globalization. And so that's, you know, in the United States, expanded child care or worker retraining. This all sounds -- it lacks the drama of Trump's rhetoric or populist rhetoric anywhere.

APPLEBAUM: Yes, and as you have also just heard, it lacks the -- the accusations, the, you know, "you're a part of the elite" that Mr. Farage just directed at me. I suspect he's richer than I am, but that's a -- that's another issue.

(LAUGHTER)

The -- the -- you know, the task now of, I would say, not mainstream parties but of democratic parties, is to reignite an energy and interest in our systems in reviving our systems and not in destroying them. Because what we have seen from the populist parties -- and mind you, I

use "far right" and "far left" because I don't have better words for them. I mean, what links Syriza in Greece, UKIP in Britain, you know, the populist parties in Venezuela, in the Philippines -- what links all of them is hard to express in one political term, except that it's a desire for fast solutions, very often things that have been tried before and failed but that won't work once they're in power.

So what we need to do is reach out to democratic parties around the world to -- and ask them to rekindle their faith in democracy and rekindle movements that will -- that will be -- that will inspire people once again about the advantages of liberal democracy, remind people of the catastrophe that populism brought us in the past, whether it was a form of fascism or a form of communism earlier in the 20th century, and rekindle the energy.

And, actually, you're beginning to see that happen in a couple of places. Here in Poland, in Spain, in one or two other European countries, you have begun to see new parties which are also composed of young people and are also beginning to bring people together in new ways, which are trying to revive the system.

I mean, I'm not against the revival or the reform of the system. I am against destruction. And I am against the nihilism of people and politicians who want to see everything destroyed just for the sake of destroying it, which I think is what a lot of the rhetoric that you hear from these kinds of parties, certainly across Europe and in the United States, is really about.

ZAKARIA: We will have to leave it at that.

Thank you both very much.

Next on GPS, inside America's gun super-owners. These are people with massive collections of arsenals. What does that all tell us about fixing the country's gun problem? When we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAKARIA: Now for our "What in the World" segment.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(UNKNOWN): The caller is indicating she thinks there's someone shooting in the building.

ZAKARIA (voice over): Newtown, Orlando, San Bernardino.

(UNKNOWN): Large armed response here.

ZAKARIA: There are sadly too many tragedies to list. You know the scale of the problem, but it is worth repeating some sobering facts. There have been more mass shootings in the United States in 2016 than we have had days this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

Civilians in the U.S. own some 270 million guns, according to the latest Small Arms Survey, which is more than one for every adult. In fact, civilians own more guns in the U.S. than in the next nine countries put together, according to that same survey from 2007.

But now a groundbreaking study from researchers at Northeastern and Harvard reveals new details about gun ownership in the U.S., and it might change how you think about the gun control debate.

The study, funded by the Fund for a Safer Future and the Joyce Foundation, is the first of its kind in 20 years. It will be published in 2017 pending peer review, but we got a sneak peek.

Here's perhaps the most startling statistic from the study. Three percent of American adults own 130 million guns, about half of all the civilian firearms in circulation in the United States owned by just 3 percent of the people. That means that approximately 7.7 million Americans own eight to 140 guns each.

America's gun super-owners, as The Guardian dubbed them, own an average -- an average of 17 guns apiece. The report finds that gun owners are disproportionately white men over 45 who hold conservative political views. Most of these owners are educated, having attended at least some college. And a lot of them are well off. About a quarter of firearm owners make over $100,000 per year. As for the so-called super-owners, some are collectors and hunters.

The study provides some reason for optimism. The U.S. is not quite as awash in guns as we might have thought. Gun ownership is concentrated, and these serious gun owners would surely understand the need for basic controls that make sure that the wrong people don't have access to weaponry.

But the most important lesson I draw is that we need more data. Bill Clinton has cautioned liberals about dismissing gun culture in places like Arkansas. "A lot of these people -- all they have got is their hunting and their fishing. Or they're living in a place where they don't have much police presence," he said.

But the Northeastern and Harvard study suggests that there has been a significant shift in the reason why people buy guns. The report found that almost two out of three gun owners bought guns to protect themselves and their families against other people. So the main driver of gun ownership today is fear, and this is true for both men and women.

In fact, self-defense is one of the main reasons more women are becoming gun owners. But guns do not actually ensure security. Northeastern professor Matthew Miller, one of the authors of the study, told "GPS" that, on average, keeping a gun in the house makes people less safe, especially women and children. The data clearly proves this.

People don't always judge risk effectively, Miller adds. There's more actuary risk, for example, in driving to the airport than there is in flying, but people are more afraid of being in the air than on the road. Miller says that, even though firearms claim as many lives as motor

vehicle crashes and overdoses, there's very little research on guns. Quote, "It's really obscene how much more money is spent on other issues of mortality that claim as many or fewer lives," he adds.

Surely, there are reasonable requirements that can be made of gun manufacturers and owners to mitigate the risks of these dangerous weapons. And surely, surely, we would understand these risks better if the U.S. government were allowed to actually commission studies on guns and gun ownership, something currently prohibited by law.

Let's just look at the data. It will really save lives, thousands of lives. We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAKARIA: I'm about to introduce you to an idea that would be anathema to Donald Trump. It is an American company that is filling American jobs with foreigners. But this is not your average outsourcing. This idea has a very important twist -- a very smart twist, I think.

You're about to hear about it from Jeremy Johnson. He is the co- founder of Andela, and he brought with him to the studio one of the company's success stories, Tolulope Komolafe, who works for an American start-up from her home in Nigeria.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Welcome to both of you.

Jeremy, the premise of this company that you founded is that there are five job openings in software development in the United States for every software developer. That is, there are four unfilled jobs in software development. And you decided, why not try to look around the world to fill those spots?

JEREMY JOHNSON, CO-FOUNDER, ANDELA: That's exactly right. I mean, the premise of the company is that brilliance is evenly distributed but opportunity is not. For those five jobs, you've got 1.8 million open I.T. jobs in the U.S. alone. People can't find the people they need to help continue growing their businesses.

ZAKARIA: And so what did you decide to do? Explain how you set Andela up?

JOHNSON: What Andela does is very simple. We operate in Nigeria and Kenya. We were actually co-founded in Nigeria and the United States. Kenya came about a year later. And we seek out and then give exposure to some of the brightest people I have ever met in my life, kind of like Tolu here, but who are also passionate about solving problems with technology. And we connect them to leading companies like Microsoft, Facebook and Google, but also dozens of venture-backed start-ups around the U.S. who have as their core constraint on growth access to great technical talent.

ZAKARIA: And you're -- tell us your admit rates, as it were. You are more selective than Harvard or Stanford. How many applications do you get for...

JOHNSON: By pure applicant numbers, it's about 10 times more selective. We have a .7 percent admissions rate into the program.

ZAKARIA: So how many -- how many, you know, people...

JOHNSON: We've had 40,000 applicants. In the class that Tolu applied to, there were over 2,500 applicants for about 20 spots. So she was one of those 20.

ZAKARIA: So growing up in Nigeria, how did you decide to -- to study computer science?

TOLULOPE KOMOLAFE, WORKS FOR AMERICAN START-UP IN NIGERA: Like almost everyone in Africa, my parents were thinking I should go study, that I should be a doctor. And in my first day in school, I was thinking, OK, let me try and be a doctor. But at a point, I was like, this is not what I wanted to do. What I was -- I was always -- I had interest in I.T. And I decided, OK, it seems...

ZAKARIA: Well, what does that mean? You had interest in I.T. because, what, you played video games, or how did you develop that?

KOMOLAFE: Yeah, I played a lot of video games when I was growing up. I was playing against a lot of guys. I was -- I won a fair share.

(LAUGHTER)

And, yeah, that just got me hooked on I.T.

ZAKARIA: Now, what do you say to people who will look -- listen to this and say, this is great for people Tolu, but what does this mean for the average American? Aren't you taking jobs away from Americans?

JOHNSON: You know, when you look at the I.T. space, we've never had -- literally not once in the two-year history of Andela -- a company say we're going to let someone go in order to hire an Andela fellow. All of our partners have said "We haven't been able to find someone. This job rec has been up for six months, and we haven't been able to find someone with the skill set needed to do it, like, we don't know what to do, and this is a constraint on growth."

And so I actually think what this is going to do is create jobs for Americans, as well, because those companies will be able to grow and hire people in other areas.

ZAKARIA: What would you say, Tolu, to somebody in America who says "Why are you taking away my job?"

KOMOLAFE: That's -- that's a great question. I would say my goal is to be a world-class software developer, and the only way I can be that is -- is to walk with the best of the best, and that's what I'm doing right now. And that's what Jeremy has given to me.

So I believe...

JOHNSON: I would say that's what you're giving to yourself, but either way, totally fine.

(LAUGHTER)

KOMOLAFE: OK, yeah, so I would say, in the next two years, I'll be one of the best world-class developers out there because of this.

ZAKARIA: And maybe then you'll, as you say, found your own company in Nigeria and hire more.

KOMOLAFE: And hire more, yeah.

JOHNSON: Or hire a bunch of Americans.

KOMOLAFE: Yeah, maybe.

(LAUGHTER)

ZAKARIA: Do you -- are you hopeful about Nigeria's future?

You see people like yourself; are there enough of you; do you think it will change the country?

KOMOLAFE: Yes. I think it will change the country. Every day, I believe we are changing the world one line of code at a time.

ZAKARIA: That's a beautiful note to end on.

Jeremy, Tolu, thank you so much.

JOHNSON: Fareed, thank you very much for having us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAKARIA: The polls are looking good for Secretary Clinton. We're just nine days to go, and it brings me to my question of the week. When was the last time a U.S. president was elected who formerly held the position of secretary of state: 1856, 1884, 1912 or 1920?

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

This week's book of the week is Arthur Brooks's "The Conservative Heart." We're now in the season for books about the future of conservatism. How did it get from William F. Buckley Jr. to Donald Trump? And what are the ideas that would rescue it?

Well, my candidate for the most interesting rethinking of conservatism would be this very well-written book that is full of intelligence but also empathy. It's about the head but also, as the title says, the heart.

The correct answer to the "GPS" challenge question is A. Six people held the role of secretary of state before becoming president, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren, and the last was James Buchanan, who was elected in 1856.

If elected, Secretary Clinton will be the first female president, the fourth president in history who served both in the Senate and as secretary of state and the first former secretary of state to be elected in 160 years.

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