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Fareed Zakaria GPS

Examining the Economy and Immigration; Interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson; Interview with Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein; The Divisive Politics of Immigration. Aired 10-11a ET

Aired June 24, 2018 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:13] 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: Today on the show, borders, migrants, and public sentiment. I'll start by talking to the United Nations Human Rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein. What is his take on U.S. policy regarding children at the border? What about President Trump's apparent fix after the uproar?

Also, why immigration? Why now? Why such passion on both sides of the argument? I have a great panel to discuss.

And a new arms race in space. This week, President Trump announced a sixth branch of the U.S. Military, a space force.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We are going to have the Air Force and we are going to have the Space Force, separate but equal.

ZAKARIA: What would it do? And is it a good idea?

The great Neil deGrasse Tyson helps us understand.

NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON, ASTROPHYSICIST: It'd be nice if peace in space led the way to peace on earth.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: But first, here's my take. Democrats are exultant that Donald Trump had to reverse his policy of separating immigrant families at the border. And there is good reason to celebrate. The policy was mean-spirited and unnecessary. But I do wonder whether Trump's retreat will prove to be as damaging to the president as liberals think.

The president's cruelty made it easy to oppose his policy, but in their delighted at the Trump administration's latest missteps, Democrats may be walking into a trap. The larger question is surely, should the country enforce its immigration laws, or if circumvented, should we just give up? According to a U.N. report, last year the United States became the

world's leading destination for asylum seekers with a 44 percent increase of Central Americans who comprised almost half the total at about 140,000. David Frum suggests in "The Atlantic" that most of these people probably come to escape poverty, rather than violence, which is actually declining, and that many hope bringing children will help them avoid punishment.

That's why when asked in 2014 about the tens of thousands of unaccompanied children who had come to the border, Hillary Clinton responded --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We have to send a clear message. Just because your child gets across the border, that doesn't mean the child gets to stay. So we don't want to send a message that is contrary to our laws or will encourage more children to make that dangerous journey.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAKARIA: Immigration has become an issue that motivates a large group of Americans passionately, perhaps like no other. Some of this might be rooted in racism, but it also represents a kind of heightened nationalism.

In an era of rampant globalization, people want to believe that they still maintain some sense of stability and control. Nationalism has been around for centuries, but is it now in a sense the last doctrine standing?

The great story of the 20th century was the loss of faith between the ascendance of science, socialism and secularism, people lost their ability to put their trust in the dogmas and duties of religion. But this didn't change the reality that people wanted something they could believe in, something with which they could have a deep emotional bond.

Nationalism has increasingly become that substitute, being endowed with a strong and almost mystical attachment. And immigration has become the litmus test of nationalism, perhaps because other sources have faded or become politically unmentionable. As Western societies became more diverse and as minority groups within them asserted their own identities, it became more difficult to define nationalism by ethnic or religious terms.

So what is left? How does one define a nation? For Americans, political ideas and ideology have always been at the heart of nationalism. That's why being a communist could be thought of as un- American. But beyond ideology, there has always been, even in America, a more emotional conception of the nation. And immigration has become a proxy for that gut feeling, the sense the country must be able to define itself, choose whom it will allow to come in, and privilege its own citizens over foreigners.

In politics, people remember a few simple things. To illustrate that point, a pollster in the 1980s once told me a story.

[10:05:03] A focus group asked a man whom he would vote for in the 1984 elections, Ronald Reagan or his Democratic opponent, Walter Mondale. Reagan, the man replied, Mondale is a communist. The pollster explained that this wasn't actually true. The man replied, "Well, maybe. I'll still vote for Reagan. One thing I know, nobody has ever thought he was a communist."

Donald Trump might have lost this round, but no one will ever think he is soft on illegal immigration.

For more, go to CNN.com/fareed, and read my "Washington Post" column this week. And let's get started.

The policy of separating children from their parents at the border didn't, of course, just arouse passions in the United States. No less authority than the Pope spoke out about it backing U.S. Catholic leaders who had called it immoral. Macron, May, Trudeau, even the supreme leader of Iran, of all people, criticized the policy. And my guest, the human rights chief, said it was unconscionable and called on the practice to be halted.

Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein joins me now from Geneva.

Zeid, you described this as -- you quoted the American Association of Pediatrics and said this is essentially government-practiced child abuse. Government-sanctioned child abuse. The administration's response, even though it has not reversed policy, has been to say, look, we cannot allow people to come in here deliberately to break the law. These people are coming in illegally and the country has to be able to protect its borders. How do you respond to that?

ZEID RA'AD AL HUSSEIN, U.N. HIGH COMMISSION FOR HUMAN RIGHTS: Well, the point that you made I think was an important one, Fareed, that the opprobrium across the world was very clear. There must be a humane way by which those seeking asylum can access not just legal help but are entitled to individual assessment. And if there are conditions of detention, they must be a last resort and the detention must be kept to a minimum, especially where children are concerned.

And clearly the separation of children from families is absolutely prohibited under international human rights law. And even if the U.S. is not party to the treaty that governs this, it needs to respect international standards. And so, as you said, we were pleased to see that the president has reversed course on this.

ZAKARIA: You point out the U.S. is actually not -- has not signed the convention on the rights of the child. In your view, should it?

AL HUSSEIN: Oh, yes. The U.S. is the only country not to have acceded to it, and certainly it should. But again, even if it doesn't carry that obligation, it should meet and respect the international standard. And it's simply, of course, not good for the reputation of the United States worldwide. The United States has been a chief architect of the human rights system that we have in place that was put together after the Second World War. And so to be taking such measures is clearly -- it doesn't do itself any credit. And again, I think the response that you cited is demonstrative of that.

ZAKARIA: It's been a tough week for the Human Rights Council in other ways. The United States has withdrawn, I think the first member state to ever do this. And Nikki Haley and the administration officials argue that, look, this is a rights council that makes a mockery of the name. You have countries like Cuba and Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, of known human rights abusers, on it.

Do they have a point that these -- if these countries are on there, the whole thing is a sham?

AL HUSSEIN: Well, there is certainly a point to be made on composition and we ourselves have said that especially if you have members who are not cooperating with my office, which is distinct from the Human Rights Council, or other human rights mechanisms, then they, of course, should -- their whole membership, membership needs to be revisited, and we agreed. And I have cited, for example, in the past, the examples of Venezuela and Burundi being members who are not cooperating with the council and therefore, their membership needs to be reviewed, and --

(CROSSTALK)

ZAKARIA: But what happens when --

AL HUSSEIN: -- the resolution that set it up.

ZAKARIA: What happens when the most powerful country in the world is absent from the council?

[10:10:05] I mean, you try to present very tough reports. You have this one on Venezuela, you have this one on Kashmir. These are very tough ones, in the case of Kashmir, against a very powerful country, the government of India. Presumably, not having America at the table is going to make it less likely that these reports are taken seriously.

AL HUSSEIN: Well, I think you've hit the nail right on the head. You're absolutely right, Fareed. We produced our second report on Venezuela. It is a hard-hitting report. My office produced it. And the Human Rights Council is a place of destination. That's where the report would normally be considered informally because it hasn't been asked of me to produce it. And when we look in the past, we did the same on Yemen, for example, where we produced a succession of reports. And after three years, the Human Rights Council produced an investigation, an international investigation.

And we've asked now the same for Venezuela. We've asked the same for the situation in Kashmir on both sides of the line of control. And like that, you're absolutely right, if the U.S. is not at the table to discuss these issues, then it's hard to see how you can move them forward. And so one hopes that the U.S. would reconsider its position. It seems to be premised almost entirely, if one were to speak openly, about the issue of the Item Seven, the so-called Item Seven, where there's a singular agenda item for the occupied Palestinian territories, and Israel feels that, of course, and from the view of the United States, that it's being singled out. But that seems to be the principal cause for its departure.

ZAKARIA: And what's the response? What response do you have to the argument that the council focuses too much and too obsessively on Israel and that occupation?

AL HUSSEIN: Well, I think the record shows that while this may have well been the case, you know, 10 to 15 years ago, over the last 10 years, the number of resolutions focused on Israel has dropped, and others -- you know, our viewing of other crises and other human rights situation has expanded. And clearly, if there was a political horizon in terms of advancing the peace process, and I think the movement of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem has complicated the possibilities of coming out with a result. And now it does look very difficult.

Admittedly, I don't see an easy way to resolve that particular problem, but my hope is that the U.S. would re-evaluate its position and come back. And we still have a lot of important work to do and yes, the U.N. -- the U.S. does play an important role.

ZAKARIA: Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, pleasure to have you on.

AL HUSSEIN: Thank you, Fareed.

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, we'll dig in deeper. Just why is immigration such a hot topic in America? And who won this round, the left or the right?

When we come back, Nick Kristof, Linda Chavez and Reihan Salam.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:17:41] ZAKARIA: So just why has immigration become such a divisive topic in America today, and which side of the aisle has the upper hand politically?

Joining me to talk about that and more, Nicholas Kristof is a "New York Times" op-ed columnist. Linda Chavez is a columnist and commentator and the chair of the Center for Equal Opportunity. And Reihan Salam is the executive editor of "The National Review."

Linda, you are a conservative Republican. You worked for Ronald Reagan on these issues. And I'm wondering what you think has changed, because Ronald Reagan was once asked something about illegal aliens, and he said, I have another word for illegal aliens, it's willing workers.

LINDA CHAVEZ, CHAIR, CENTER FOR EQUAL OPPORTUNITY: That's exactly right.

ZAKARIA: A long way from today.

CHAVEZ: That's exactly right. And in fact, I think he would be mystified by what's going on. And by the way, illegal immigration when Ronald Reagan was president was actually at a higher level than it is today. So this whole idea that there is this huge infusion of people coming across the border, it's a crisis, we have to do something about, we've got to build walls, we've got to keep people out, simply doesn't comport with the facts. And unfortunately, I think that the Republican Party has seized on this issue as a way to galvanize working-class whites to try to turn their economic anxiety into a kind of fear of immigrant immigrants, that immigrants are stealing their jobs, and I think that's bad for the Republican Party, bad for conservatism, and bad for America.

ZAKARIA: So, Nick, does that suggest a kind of increased, inevitable polarization, where, you know, the Republican Party is going for this white working-class vote that is anxious economically and culturally? The Democratic Party is trying to build this new multicultural coalition of immigrants, and therefore can't imagine any kind of sensible measures that would restrict it?

NICHOLAS KRISTOF, COLUMNIST, NEW YORK TIMES: You know, I think that may have been true historically. I do think that there are a couple of things now that will create more opportunities, and one is the fact that, look, we're down to a 3.9 percent unemployment rate. I mean, I'm from an area in rural Oregon where there was deep resentment in the white working class at immigrants, perception that they were partly to blame for the deep economic troubles there. But it's a lot harder to feel that resentment when unemployment is this low, when there are jobs available, signs everywhere.

[10:20:02] And I think the other thing that has really changed is, indeed, the fact that President Trump is in office and that there is this very deep revulsion at the family separation, and I don't think immediately, but I do think that creates some opportunity over time to try to actually address these issues.

ZAKARIA: Reihan, let me ask you that, because you've generally been on the conservative side of immigration. Nick's argument and he's made it in his columns is that the family separation is so brutal, that it's immoral in his view and unconscionable, but also, it might backfire politically for the Republicans.

REIHAN SALAM, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, THE NATIONAL REVIEW: I think there is definitely something to that. If you look at the antiwar movement when George W. Bush was president, it was large, it was vibrant, it was very powerful and influential. As soon as Barack Obama was inaugurated, however, that antiwar movement really receded very, very quickly.

Oftentimes in our politics, you see a kind of thermostatic reaction in which when you have the other party in power, you polarize the rest of the public against a given position. So before Donald Trump was on the political scene, the American public was somewhat more restrictionist. Once Donald Trump came on the scene, the American public has actually moved very quickly and very drastically towards a more favorable position towards immigration.

The question is whether or not that's actually durable when you think about some of the larger issues. And one of the larger issues, I dare say, is what happens to immigrants after they've been in the country for 10 or 20 years. The emphasis right now is on harrowing stories at the border and the ennobling sacrifices that people make to enter the country. But then you also see a different, silent crisis that no one wants to talk about.

Fareed, you and I both live in New York City and have lived in New York City for many years. You now see a rash of suicides among mostly men who have been in the country for 20, 30-plus years. These are people who have seen very little, if anything, in the way of earnings growth. These are people who are not fresh and new and bright-eyed. These are not people who believe in the American dream. These are people who've had their dreams deferred, and in some cases, feel their dreams have been betrayed.

These are people the right doesn't talk about because they do not speak to immigrants, and these are people the left, particularly the pro-immigration left, doesn't want to talk about because then you see that actually integration is a real challenge in a stratified, unequal society.

ZAKARIA: All right, we are going to have to come back and talk about exactly this, integration and assimilation. Census data says that white Americans will constitute less than 50 percent of the population in fewer than 30 years and it is statistics like that that stoke fear and anger among Trump's base.

Linda Chavez has been studying all this for years. I'm going to ask her for her conclusions when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:26:40] ZAKARIA: And we are back with Nick Kristof, Linda Chavez and Reihan Salam.

Linda, so the question then becomes what happens to these immigrants when they come in and there has been a concern, Reihan mentioned it, and many others have, that the simulation is not working as it should. You've studied assimilation, you know, for many, many years now. And let me tell you the specific one I remember, my old dissertation adviser Sam Huntington had, which was about Mexicans. And his argument was, look, generally, assimilation in America works great, but there are too many Mexicans, they come too fast, they live too close to the border, it's too easy to go back and forth, and that has produced a huge problem. And clearly, there is the political reality that people did feel that way. Do the numbers bear this out?

CHAVEZ: Well, I'm very admiring of Samuel Huntington. He, you know, has been -- was a terrific public intellectual and scholar, but he was simply wrong about Mexican Americans. And one of the things that always amused me is that he used New Mexico as his example of Hispanics who had not assimilated.

Well, they weren't immigrants, number one. They were people like my family but came in the 1600s, settled the state, and it is true that you can go to little towns in northern New Mexico and find older people whose first language is still Spanish. And by the way, it's the 17th century version of Spanish. It's not what's spoken in Mexico today. Hispanics are integrating. I wrote a book about this in 1991, and I

did a lot of research and data on what happens. Part of the problem is that it's obscured, the numbers are obscured, because we have so many new people coming in. It's like taking a snapshot of the Lower East Side in 1913 and assuming the Jews were never going to amount to anything. When you have lots of people coming in, the numbers overall are going to show a depressed level.

What's important to look at is the second generation. And for Hispanics, second-generation Hispanics who are born here in the United States, 97 percent of them speak English, they attend college at rates comparable to those of whites, and they're moving into the middle class.

ZAKARIA: What about Central Americans who are even poorer than Mexicans?

CHAVEZ: Actually, Cato Institute just did a study and shows exactly the same rates. In fact, they show college graduation rates for second generation Central Americans the same as that of Americans overall.

ZAKARIA: Nick, people might not realize this, but you are the child of immigrants and from Ukraine.

KRISTOF: I'm the newbie in here.

(LAUGHTER)

ZAKARIA: Did you feel like, I mean -- is there a challenge that people don't realize when you were growing up?

KRISTOF: I mean, I do think that kids tend to be sensitive to any way in which they're different. And so, you know, I remember being sensitive of my dad having a strong accent, this kind of thing. You know, I hope that we're getting to the point when we look around and realize that what immigrants bring is strength to the economy, strength to the society, and every bit of economic analysis tends to bear that out, that immigrants contribute more to Social Security and --

ZAKARIA: But there is some data that they depress the wages of poor black and Hispanic workers, for example.

KRISTOF: So yes, in terms of low-wage, American-born workers there is ambiguous data. I think it's reasonable to suspect that there may be some issues there, overall economy benefits that low-wage workers, people who dropped out of high school, only have a high school degree, maybe -- may face difficulties. And I think it's a fair criticism that elites who were making policy weren't sensitive enough to that issue and didn't try to address it.

But I think, if we look at overall policy, then we have to look at the benefits. And I think it's also worth noting that, you know, between the U.S. and Mexico now, according to Pew, net migration is, if anything, toward Mexico. And what we're -- what we've been seeing... ZAKARIA: In other words, more people are going back than are coming to the United States from Mexico?

KRISTOF: That's correct. And Central America has been the real source of immigration across the southern border. But that's because of huge violence in Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala. And that violence may now -- it seems to be going down again. So there is some reason to think that we are still living with the consequences of this terrible gang violence there and that, you know, over the next few years, that may no longer be as salient an issue as it is today.

ZAKARIA: Reihan, a final thought -- is this immigration crisis going to peter out? If Nick and Linda are right, there isn't as big a problem; it's getting better; this is not going to dominate American politics?

SALAM: I'm afraid not. I see things quite differently for this reason. When we talk about assimilation as people learning to speak English, it is absolutely preceding apace. However, immigration is a differentiated phenomenon. People bring with them different skills, networks and opportunities to the United States.

And what we are seeing is a bifurcation. You see a group of highly skilled immigrants who are flourishing, who are entering the mainstream, and you see other immigrants who are being ghettoized and racialized, people who are finding themselves trapped in enclaves and also who are neglected, precisely because their stories aren't heart- warming stories and so their stories are forgotten. This is a big issue now. It will be a bigger issue in the future.

This is going to be something we are going to deal with for many decades to come. The question is, will we deal with it realistically and thoughtfully?

ZAKARIA: We are going to have to close on that and we will definitely revisit this issue. Thank you all, fascinating.

Next on "GPS," why are countries from Scandinavia to Poland beefing up their defenses, restarting military drafts or even welcoming the U.S. military in ways they have never done before? I'll give you a hint. It has all to do with the big bully that is close by -- when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAKARIA: Now for our "What In the World" segment. The wildly popular Norwegian television thriller "Occupied" has been described by The Guardian as "Homeland" for anxious Europeans. Set in the not-so- distant future, it imagines a country turned upside down by what it most fears. In this case, that's not Islamist terror; it is a Russian invasion.

Now, you may think it's just a TV show, but a look at what's happening in the region suggests that art is imitating life. Norway has asked the United States to more than double the number of marines training in the country to about 700 and station them nearer to the border with Russia, an action that has riled Moscow. Finland welcomed American marine tanks in May for training exercises for the first time in history. And last year, it pledged to increase the size of its army by 20 percent. And peace-loving Sweden, conflict-free for the past 200 years, issued pamphlets last month to its 4.8 million households, readying them in case of war. Last year, it brought back the draft.

And it's not just Scandinavia that's been beefing up defense. Poland has offered the United States up to $2 billion to set up a military base there. And last week, the U.S. Army and NATO completed Saber Strike 18, a massive 18,000-troop training exercise in Poland and the Baltic states, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

There's more. Lithuania and Latvia increased military spending by 21 percent last year. Romania increased spending by 50 percent, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

What do all these countries have in common? Well, they're all pretty vulnerable to a giant provocator next door. Russian provocations in and around the Baltic Sea are real and constant. The change for this region came when Russia annexed Crimea. That was a wake-up call for its neighbors, many of which had been cocooned in a post-Cold-War calm. And its success in Crimea and Ukraine only emboldened Russia. Sweden and Finland, neither of which enjoy the protection of NATO membership, have both complained of Russian incursions in their air space in recent years.

NATO says that from 2013 to 2015 Russian air traffic close to its European members' air space increased by about 70 percent. In 2013, Russia simulated a nuclear attack against Sweden, according to NATO, and Russian fighter planes have lately been flying dangerously close to American aircraft in the region.

And then there are the war games. In September, Russia conducted a massive military exercise with Belarus under Putin's watchful eye. Russia said 13,000 troops were involved, but the United States and NATO say the number was closer to 100,000.

You might say that military exercises are mere saber-rattling, but similar exercises immediately preceded Russia's offensives in Georgia and Crimea, according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. And let's not forgot that, in this match-up, Russia's immediate neighbors are woefully outgunned. Russia's army is among the largest in the world. It spent $66 billion on defense last year. Sweden, Finland and Norway combined spent less than $16 billion. The Baltic states weren't even close.

It's easy for Americans to look at the Russian threat through the prism of partisan politics. Russian aggression can feel abstract, more of a nuisance than an urgent concern. Some charge that the Kremlin influenced Trump's campaign in secret meetings, which is at the heart of a long U.S. investigation. It certainly meddled in the elections by marshaling an online army, one that we could not see.

But for countries in Eastern Europe, some of which are within an hour's drive of St. Petersburg, things look very different. Even with NATO's presence, Russia could capture them in a matter of days, according to a recent RAND report. So they are all doing a lot more than making TV shows about it.

Up next, does America need another branch of the armed services? Well, if the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guards weren't enough, the "Space Force" will soon be coming to a galaxy near you. But is it a good idea? I will ask Neil deGrasse Tyson.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CROWD: (CHANTING "SPACE FORCE!")

PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP: Space force. Space force!

(APPLAUSE)

So we have the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Marines, the Coast Guard. But we have the Air Force; now we're going to have the Space Force, because...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAKARIA: The crowd, apparently, loves the idea of a space force, as does the president. That was from a Wednesday night rally in Minnesota, two days after Trump announced the creation of a sixth branch of the United States Armed Forces.

But the announcement raised more questions than it answered, so we called our favorite astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson. He is the head of the Hayden Planetarium and the author of "Astrophysics for People in a Hurry," which has been a bestseller now for almost 60 weeks.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

Neil, pleasure to have you on.

TYSON: Great to be back, Fareed. Thanks.

ZAKARIA: So is this a good thing that Trump has announced?

TYSON: I've thought a lot about it, but I don't have a strong opinion. The idea of a space force is not fundamentally odd when you consider that the Army, 70 years ago, birthed the Air Force. There was the Army Air Force. And once we realized that technology and war- fighting capabilities evolve...

ZAKARIA: And was going to take place up in the...

TYSON: In the air space rather than the ground space -- then it was sensible to suggest that perhaps this should be an entire branch of the military unto itself.

So today, all space capabilities of the military are handled by the Air Force. That was the natural extension of what the Air Force people did. And it's huge. Air Force controls GPS... ZAKARIA: Right, most people don't realize...

TYSON: And I know someone who has a show called "GPS."

(LAUGHTER)

ZAKARIA: But most people don't realize that GPS, which is really now basically the underpinnings of the digital economy...

TYSON: Yes.

ZAKARIA: I mean, everything we do in terms of location...

TYSON: Yes, billions of dollars of commerce.

ZAKARIA: ... is -- is funded on the back of an infrastructure sustained, run by the U.S. Air force.

TYSON: By the U.S. Air Force. That's correct. And there's an entire place where that happens in Colorado. The point is that we as a nation have assets in space of incalculable value. And so, when you think of what a military does, as a minimum, they would protect a nation's interests, a nation's assets, and space is another place. You have the ground; you have the air; and you have space.

So it's not a weird idea to say we perhaps should have a space force. The question is, does the Air Force think that they can't handle it under the current administrative bureaucratic structures?

And if not, then maybe it's a good idea. But if the generals say, "We got this," then I don't see the need to force it on them.

ZAKARIA: What I also have noticed in the last few months is that the Chinese and the Russians have gotten more active in very interesting ways. So the Chinese went up and destroyed one of their old satellites. And the Russians went up and essentially deactivated one. And I thought that they were in some sense signaling, you know, "We have the capacity to go up into space and to screw around with stuff or to destroy it entirely." The fact that they could do it to theirs means they could just as easily do it to American stuff.

TYSON: Every single thing you do in space is a capability, OK? Can you send people into space? Can you dock in space? Can you space-walk? Can you stay in space for months, for a year? Can you move a satellite? Can you destroy a satellite? Can you retrieve a satellite? All of this is a "Hmm," you know; you make note of this.

So once you have this checklist, then yourself as well as your adversaries will look to see whether any of these can be, sort of, weaponized or used for nefarious purposes.

ZAKARIA: Do you think it's inevitable that space becomes an arena for conflict?

TYSON: The U.N. space treaty that promises peaceful uses of outer space -- by the way, there's more than just no nukes in space. It's if there's an astronaut in need from another country, then you're obligated to assist them. It's a very nicely worded document. But I've always -- there's a part of me that always says, "Why do we promise we'll treat each other nicely in space?" If that's successful, why don't we have a peaceful use of earth treaty?

(LAUGHTER)

If it works there, it seems to me it should work on earth.

ZAKARIA: Right, right, right.

TYSON: And if we can't get it to work on earth, why should I have any confidence at all that somehow, oh, now we're in space; now we'll all be friends?

ZAKARIA: Right, right, right. Why would the arena make a difference? It's the political tensions that cause the rivalry.

TYSON: And I know I sound cynical saying that, but human nature scares the hell out of me. And so I -- so I don't know. I think it'd be nice if peace in space led the way to peace on earth. That would be kind of good. When you're in space, you have a very different view of earth. Earth is like, "Whoa, how come I don't see the color-coded countries that were in my schoolroom globe? Oh, because we made those lines. We -- they're artificially created. We're humans on the speck of a planet we call earth," and...

ZAKARIA: And it seems so small and fragile?

TYSON: Oh, yeah, because it is small and fragile.

(LAUGHTER)

It doesn't just seem that way; it is small and fragile.

By the way, I serve on a board of the Pentagon, the Defense Innovation Board, but I'm not speaking for that board, nor, obviously, for the Pentagon. By the way, there are future needs and concerns of what a space force would have to think about, such as asteroid defense, all right? That's a complete, space-based threat to the livelihood not only of a nation but of the world. And it may be that the cooperation of the world in space is to save civilization. And that could be the greatest force of peace there ever was.

ZAKARIA: Neil deDrasse Tyson, as always, a pleasure.

TYSON: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Next on "GPS," a theme park where you can have a ball and learn about corruption. Want to go? We'll tell you all about it, including where it is, when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) ZAKARIA: And now for my question of the week. What nation just became only the second in the world to set up a legal market for recreational marijuana: Canada, Colombia, the Netherlands or Sweden? Stay tuned and I'll tell you the correct answer.

My book of the week is "American Immigration: A Very Short Introduction" by David Gerber. It falls to a British scholar to write this balanced, intelligent and well-written primer on a controversial topic. He succeeds admirably, highlighting the contributions of immigration to America but also noting the downsides, which are largely focused on illegal immigration. In the midst of all the noise on this topic, if you want clarity, read this very short book.

And now for the last look. Welcome to Corruption Park in Kiev. Come on in, have a blast, and learn about corruption in the process. This tent, you'll notice, is a golden dome, a tongue-in-cheek reference to a solid gold loaf of bread left behind by former President Viktor Yanukovych, who fled Ukraine in 2014. The loaf became a symbol of Yanukovych's now infamously kleptocratic rule. After he was overthrown, his people discovered he lived in a lavishly decorated palace, now a museum complete with a private zoo and an impressive vintage car collection.

And Yanukovych wasn't the only one with nice cars. According to Reuters, this BMW cost $300,000 and belonged to a corrupt official. Also on display is an explainer breaking down how much graft has cost ordinary Ukrainians. Sadly, corruption isn't just a thing of the past in Ukraine; it continues to cost the country and the world big money.

IMF estimates have put the cost of corruption in Ukraine at 2 percent of GDP. Worldwide, they say bribery alone shaves about 2 percent off global GDP growth.

With so much at stake, here's to hoping we'll see exhibits like Corruption Park pop up all over the world, including the United States. Viewers should feel free to tweet or e-mail us and tell us what they would like to see as the exhibits.

The answer to my "GPS" challenge question this week is A. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau fulfilled one of his campaign promises this week by legalizing the consumption and cultivation of marijuana for personal use as well as a nationwide recreational market for the drug. Uruguay led the world in overturning its prohibition on pot, but Canada is the first major economy to legalize it nationwide.

Newsweek reports Canada's weed market is expected to grow to about $4.5 billion and generate about $300 million in taxes. But don't buy those buds yet, Canadians. Legalization goes into effect October 17th.

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