Return to Transcripts main page

Fareed Zakaria GPS

U.S. Investigating Theory That Virus Started In Wuhan Lab; An Interview With Austria's Chancellor Sebastian Kurz; Lessons From Europe: How To Reopen An Economy; Female Leaders Praised For COVID-19 Response; A Divided World Tries To Weather COVID-19 Crisis; America First Meets COVID-19. Aired 10-11a ET

Aired April 19, 2020 - 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 coming to you live from New York.

Today on the show, President Trump wants to reopen America, but can it be done? Well, a handful of European countries are already opening up. I will talk to the chancellor of Austria, Sebastian Kurz, about how his country is managing this transition.

Also, is President Trump right about China?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It could have been stopped in China before it started, and it wasn't. The whole world is suffering because of it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAKARIA: He says Beijing is faking its data. He even speculated that the virus might have come from a Chinese lab. We'll have a debate about Trump, China and COVID.

And Madam Secretary Madeleine Albright tells me why America can't hide behind oceans or a wall as it combats COVID. She says Donald Trump must work with the rest of the world.

But first, here's "My Take." President Trump now tells us China is to blame for the havoc that the coronavirus is wreaking across the world. He's paused funding to the World Health Organization because he says it colluded with China in keeping the facts hidden.

To evaluate these claims, just keep in mind one tweet from the president on January 24th. "China has been working very hard to contain the coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American people, I want to thank President Xi."

What did the world, including President Trump, know about the virus at that point? Well, one day earlier, on January 23rd, the World Health Organization warned all countries should be prepared for containment of the virus including active surveillance, early detection, isolation and case management. Contact tracing and prevention of onward spread."

By this point stories about the virus were all over the news. China had announced that the virus was being transmitted among human beings and had begun locking down parts of Hubei Province. As for the U.S. government, on January 18th, a week earlier, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar had briefed Trump on the dangers of the virus according to the "Washington Post."

By January 24th, there were two confirmed cases of the disease in the U.S. and on January 27th the Centers for Disease Control issued a level three warning to avoid nonessential travel to China. On January 29th, Trump tweeted, "Just received a briefing on the coronavirus and China from all our great agencies who are also working closely with China."

That very day, one of Trump's most trusted aides, Peter Navarro, wrote a memo warning about a possible pandemic that could kill up to a half million Americans. Navarro noted that Chinese reports indicated that the virus was likely far more contagious than the flu, more like the bubonic plague or smallpox.

The next day, January 30th, the WHO declared a global public health emergency. Just hours after that, this is what Trump said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: And we're working very strongly with China on the coronavirus. We think it's going to have a very good ending for us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAKARIA: So, the question is, was Donald Trump telling the truth about China then or is he telling the truth about it now?

Let me be clear, with regard to COVID-19, China engaged in a coverup and the WHO did not push back enough, though both deny it. Local officials in Wuhan knew about the disease early but chose to minimize fears about it and to punish doctors who spoke out. Beijing for its part kept a tight lid on information, refused help from the CDC, and gave the WHO limited access to Wuhan.

Some health experts say it is likely that China is still giving us unreliable data about the numbers of infected and dead. And China's repressive regime has always controlled and manipulated information to serve its larger interests.

But none of that changes the fact that Donald Trump was well aware of the potential dangers of the virus by late January at minimum and by mid-February at the latest. He made a judgment that the virus would not be a big problem for America, that it would go away in April with warm weather. He apparently worried that taking strong actions against it would spook the stock market. It is those misjudgments that have significantly worsened the COVID-19 crisis in America.

[10:05:01]

Now to deflect blame from himself, President Trump has decided to bash China. This compounds one bad policy with another. Whatever China's mistakes, missteps and deceptions, the fastest way to defeat this pandemic would be to build a broad international alliance, to pool resources, share information, and coordinate actions. Right now Washington is doing the opposite, restricting trade in key supplies, allegedly outbidding other countries for shipments of PPE and acting without even consulting with its closest allies.

China, meanwhile, has tried to scrub its own record by floating a conspiracy theory that the U.S. Military created the outbreak in Wuhan. It has also tried to varnish its image by doing undeniably good things like lending its expertise to countries around the world and sending supplies to hard hit places such as Iran, Italy, Spain and the United States.

During the Cold War, when the United States and the Soviet Union were mortal rivals, they still cooperated on a campaign to vaccinate the world and eradicate smallpox. Now we are in the middle of a global pandemic, and the U.S. and China, the world's two leading powers, are trading insults and one-upping each other in a childish blame game that will not save one human life anywhere.

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

Let's talk more about Trump, China and COVID. Joining me now is Nadia Schadlow, who wrote a piece for "The Atlantic" called "Consider the Possibility That Trump is Right About China." She was a deputy national security adviser in the Trump White House. She is now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. And Kishore Mahbubani is a former diplomat, now a distinguished fellow at the National University of Singapore. He is the author of a new book, "Has China Won?"

Nadia, let me begin with you and ask you, lay out what you mean when you say that Trump is right about China.

NADIA SCHADLOW, SENIOR FELLOW, HUDSON INSTITUTE: Sure, Fareed. Hi, Kishore. Trump is absolutely right about China. When he took office, he essentially looked at what China had been doing over the past 15 years that had been noticed, by the way, by bipartisan experts, you know, both sides of the aisle in terms of its unfair trade practices, its theft of intellectual property, its forced tech transfers, its complete lack of reciprocity vis-a-vis the United States.

All of these activities had been noticed, as I said, by previous administrations. But President Trump decided to approach the problem in a different way. He basically said constant engagement and constant cooperation without reciprocity wasn't working. So he changed his tactics. What he talked about vis-a-vis China and what he explained vis-a-vis China is actually not really in dispute across -- as I said, a wide range of bipartisan experts.

What's in dispute is his new tactics. In this particular COVID situation, we have seen exactly what he has said. China's coverup is costing us millions of lives, thousands of deaths. They have silenced and disappeared people in early December who were the first to call out the problem. They removed and destroyed evidence of the virus, bleaching wet stall markets, closing and shuttering labs, preventing people, still experts, from going and understanding sources of the virus, the genomes of the virus.

They denied human to human transmission for up to seven weeks, from early December until January 20th. That's a long time. A long time when people are traveling. And speaking of traveling, they stopped internal travel in China, but did not stop external travel, which tells you a little bit about how they were thinking about the rest of the world and a little bit about how they were thinking about not caring about infecting people all over the world.

And in fact, the first couple to infect -- to reach Italy, it's considered the first COVID case there, was a couple from Wuhan who left China around January 23rd right before the international travel ban set in. So what President Trump actually has been talking about for the past three years unfortunately we're seeing proof of that today. And unfortunately because no one wants to see what's happening now in the world, the tragedy, economic, health, personal, on all levels. So there's no question he's right.

ZAKARIA: Kishore, how would you respond to this notion, particularly the part that China did mishandle at the very least the COVID situation?

[10:10:08]

KISHORE MAHBUBANI, FORMER SENIOR SINGAPOREAN DIPLOMAT: Well, you know, Fareed, I completely agree with you that the time will come when we have to investigate what happens. But right now the whole world is in the middle of a major battle against this virus, which has proven to be extremely tricky and very difficult to control, very difficult to manage. So, what we need to find out now is more about the virus and, and the way to do it is to get all the scientists of the world to get together and talk to each other, and not blame each other at this point in time.

ZAKARIA: But, Kishore, if I may --

MAHBUBANI: And I also agree --

ZAKARIA: If I may interrupt you.

(CROSSTALK)

ZAKARIA: Let me ask you, the point that Nadia is making is that China has denied access to the CDC, it denied access or it limited the access to the WHO, and it did appear to do some things which made it more difficult to investigate the virus.

How can you learn more about it if the Chinese government is manipulating this information because it doesn't want to seem like it fumbled or it mishandled this? MAHBUBANI: There's a very simple answer to that question, Fareed.

Listen to what the scientists are saying. As you know, there was an open letter published in one of the most prestigious medical journals, Lancet, by various medical professionals saying that China had done a remarkable job in pushing back the virus. China had shared the genome of the virus as soon as they've decoded it on January 12th.

And frankly, on January 23rd, when the Chinese shut down an entire province, two days before Chinese New Year, you could not have given a louder signal to the world that something had gone fundamentally wrong and bad in China because it's like closing up America two days before Thanksgiving. So there were a lot of warnings out there. But I can also say as a matter of fact that many countries did not understand or anticipate what was coming.

And I believe that if you approach China without insulting them, without blaming them, I'm confident that they want to cooperate with the rest of the world. Because China loses as much as all of us do. There are 330 million in America, under 1.4 billion people in China. Six billion in the rest of the world. We're all terrified of this virus. And all want to work together. So I think this is the moment to work together with China, and if you listen to the scientists, they will tell you that they can cooperate with the scientists in China. And that's the reality.

ZAKARIA: All right. We are going to come back and we're going to discuss one specific element of this which has become controversial, the origins of the virus. Was it in a lab or wet market? Does it matter? When we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:17:54]

ZAKARIA: And we are back talking about Trump, China, COVID and the blame game with Nadia Schadlow, a former deputy National Security adviser to President Trump, and Kishore Mahbubani, a former top diplomat in Singapore.

Nadia, let me ask you about this question of the origins of the virus. Some of the allies of the president argued initially that this was -- this came out of a bioweapons program or implied this came out of a bioweapons program from a lab in Wuhan. Now the claim is that it may have accidentally originated from that lab, a bat may have in infected a researcher.

What I don't understand is if it was accidental and came out of a lab or accidental and came out of the wet market, how does it matter? The point is people are no longer claiming that China intentionally spread this virus around the world, which would seem odd since it has wreaked havoc in China as well. Isn't the issue Chinese intent?

We seem to -- we seem to have lost your audio, if you can hear me, Nadia. Can you just try again? I think we've -- we're having a little bit of difficulty here. Kishore, let me ask you, while we get that fixed, one of the arguments

people make about China is that people like you, frankly, coddle it too much. That you accommodate its weirdnesses, its dictatorial practices, its repressive nature, that if the United States and the West were to get tougher on China, demand action, punish it for things that it does such as the deceptions over COVID. There are people saying take the Winter Olympics away, that this would force China to play by the rules more. What do you say to that?

MAHBUBANI: Well, I mean, I hope Nadia is listening. If she is listening, I would say that I agree with her opening point that a time had come for a reset in U.S.-China relations because China had just become so big and so strong.

[10:20:04]

But the question is, how do you go about doing this reset? And here I think the important thing to understand about China is that if the United States is 250 years old, the Chinese have a civilization that's over 4,000 years old. And it seems rather strange to the rest of the world -- I'm not coddling China.

I'm just saying that it's very difficult for a 250-year-old country with one quarter the population of China to try and convert a civilization that's been around for over 4,000 years with its own political culture, its own dynamic.

And the Chinese have learned that when we are weak, the West steps all over them as they did in the century of humiliation. So today, when the U.S. once again begins to insult China, the Chinese say, here they go again.

And paradoxically, Fareed, all of these insults towards China are strengthening the Chinese regime because the legitimacy of the regime in China rests on an ocean of emotion among the Chinese body politic and that ocean of emotion says you stepped on us when we were down.

Now we are up, you're angry towards us? And guess what, it strengthens the regime dramatically. So what this points to is that what the United States needs to do is do a complete reset, a reboot, and learn from Kissinger, learn from George Tenet, how to manage a new rising power which is far greater than any other power has been before.

And George Tenet gave very good advice. He said cultivate friends, focus on domestic spiritual vitality, don't insult, even the Soviet Union, and be humble. Guess what? All these pieces of advice that George Tenet gave on how to handle a rising Soviet Union in 1949 are completely ignored in 2020 when the United States has to deal with a far more formidable power than ever before. So I say -- I'm not saying you shouldn't reset your relations with China, you have to reset them.

ZAKARIA: Let me --

MAHBUBANI: You have to establish a new basis. But let's do it with a strategy. ZAKARIA: Let me get Nadia in here because I do want to hear, Nadia,

what you say about these claims because they are quite widespread about the virus and its origins, because, as I say, it seems to me that the accusation or the implication is often made from some conservatives is that the Chinese intentionally ceded this virus in the world, but if it accidentally came out of either a lab or a wet market, why should they be held responsible for that? I mean, it was obviously a mistake or an unintended consequence.

SCHADLOW: Right. Thanks, Fareed. And I'm sorry about that. I lost everyone. First, I haven't heard any U.S. government officials that I've been in contact with talk about deliberate engineering. What we are seeing is a very likely possibility that the level four lab in Wuhan, the Wuhan virology lab, did not have appropriate safety measures in that lab. In 2018, U.S. State Department officials had gone and expressed concerns and warnings about that. So there were two competing theories about the Wuhan seafood market or the Wuhan --

ZAKARIA: Sorry, I think we lost her again. Kishore, do I still have you?

MAHBUBANI: Yes.

ZAKARIA: So I just want to ask you very quickly, how do you think China is reacting to all this? Because what I notice is China is itself -- I mean, you talk about treating it with respect. But under Xi, China has become more nationalistic.

Their Foreign Ministry spokesman now openly mocks the secretary of State, openly talks about this is the -- the spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry says that the United States military has concocted this virus. So while -- as I said, I don't -- I think that we are being somewhat unfair in implying that China deliberately ceded this virus, but the Chinese Foreign Ministry is taking, you know, frankly, a completely ridiculous conspiracy theory and airing it as well. China surely has some part to blame here as well.

MAHBUBANI: I completely agree with you that both sides should stop these insults, stop this blame game.

[10:25:01]

And, by the way, some scientists have come out in both Lancet and in Nature to say this was clearly didn't come from a lab. That's very, very clear. And I just heard a lecture from a virology specialist, OK, and these virology specialists can do actually trace where it comes from. How it travels and scientists can do that. So if the politicians can step aside, and not insult one another, I am confident the scientists had can come together, American, Chinese -- Chinese scientists, European scientists, Japanese scientists can come together and find a solution.

ZAKARIA: All right. On that note of a plea to listen to science, Kishore, I have to let you go.

Kishore Mahbubani, Nadia Schadlow, thank you so much. I'm sorry about the signals. This is the life with this kind of television right now.

Next on GPS, the chancellor of Austria on how he is opening up his economy.

[10:30:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAKARIA: Europe was the first part of the western world to get hit hard by the Coronavirus. It is now the first part of the western world to begin to open up. So just as America tried to learn from Italy's difficult experience with the pandemic, surely we can learn from the European nations that are opening things up.

Austria this week was one of the very first openings up small shops as a first small step. But everybody, both shopkeepers and customers, must be wearing masks, and there are rules limiting the number of people allowed in each store.

Joining me now to explain is the Chancellor of Austria, Sebastian Kurz. Pleasure to have you on, sir.

SEBASTIAN KURZ, CHANCELLOR OF AUSTRIA: Hello. Good to hear you.

ZAKARIA: So, let's start with the beginning. You locked down March 16th. It was a pretty strong lockdown. Had it by at that point already gotten out of control? You have a lot of ski resorts in Austria. Were you late in locking down in the first place?

KURZ: We were one of the first countries in Europe which decided to have a complete lockdown. I think it was extremely important that we were faster than others and our reaction was tougher than in other countries.

In these days, we did not have high numbers. We only had a few thousand cases and we only had a few hundred people in the hospitals. But because of the exponential growth, it was necessary to have this lockdown. It was good that we did it because now the situation in Austria is under control.

We only have about 100 new infections every day. And we are extremely happy that we reacted so fast and we reacted so tough.

ZAKARIA: So, as you have opened up, you have more people mingling with one another under controlled circumstances and with masks. But are you seeing the rise of cases? Are you seeing the rise of hospitalization in these few days that you have opened up? Has there been an increase in any of the COVID-related numbers?

KURZ: No, our numbers are still going down. The situation in the hospitals is very good, also the absolute numbers of new infections is about 100 a day. So very low and we think our numbers could go down even more. What we try is to reopen very slowly and very carefully. We do it step by step, always two weeks in between.

ZAKARIA: So, explain that. You opened a few things now, as you say. You're going to watch to see for two weeks and make sure nothing goes up. And then you will open more things. What - give us a sense of what the sequence will be? What will happen two weeks from now and then what will happen a month from now?

KURZ: Well, we started with the small shops on Monday. On the 1st of May, we will open all shops. The mid of May our plan is to also open up restaurants. I think it is important that we always have two weeks in between, which gives us the opportunity to watch the numbers very carefully and slow down our reopening plan if necessary. And if necessary, also pull the emergency brake.

ZAKARIA: Now, this is a question I think everyone is wondering. When you have restaurants and hotels, which I think are also going to open at the same time, what will you do to provide an assurance to people who are walking in that the staff there is COVID-free?

KURZ: Well, the best thing you can do is to do as many tests as possible. That's the first point. The second thing is, of course we still have restrictions like social distancing. And you mentioned it before, the people in the shops, but also in the future in the restaurants or somewhere else will have to wear masks.

I think this can be quite helpful. And, of course, what is important is to have a good containment strategy so that if there are new infections that these people are isolated very quickly.

ZAKARIA: Explain the testing. So if I go into a restaurant, will there be - there will be some assurance that once a week, once every two weeks everybody in the restaurant has been tested?

KURZ: Well, this would be perfect. It's not possible to do it at the moment.

[10:35:00]

KURZ: At the moment we have about 10,000 tests a day. But we are working hard to increase our testing capacities. Probably in the future this could be possible.

ZAKARIA: And do you think - give us a picture of you know at least your sense of what the future of tourism at least until a vaccine will look like? People come to the airports. Do you think like in some Asian countries will you be taking their temperatures? Will there be medical documentation required? Will I have to get some kind of health passport? What do you think?

KURZ: Yes, I think this is the right way to deal with it. If the situation is under control in a neighboring country like Germany, for example, I think you will not need documents. In the future, it will be possible to travel freely like we have in the past.

So I think tourism can be possible. But of course there will be the need for restrictions like a number of people maximum you can spend your evening with, or other restrictions like social distancing in the restaurants where you have breakfast or dinner. I think another important point is that we have to be perfect in containment. We know from all the Asian countries that they're extremely successful in isolating people who are newly infected. And if you're good on that, you can keep your numbers low.

ZAKARIA: And you are, in a sense, giving hope it seems to me to a lot of people, that there is light at the end of this tunnel. Do you feel that way?

KURZ: Yes, definitely. I think that it will take months and the situation will stay difficult, but we will have something like a new normal. I think what should be all our approach is as much freedom as possible and as many restrictions as needed.

ZAKARIA: Chancellor Kurz, pleasure to have you on.

KURZ: Thank you and all the best for the U.S. as well.

ZAKARIA: Thank you, sir. Next on "GPS," many of the countries being hailed for their handling of the crisis seem to have one common element - female leaders. Is this a correlation or causation? I will talk to America's First Female Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, about that and lots of other things when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:40:00]

ZAKARIA: Many have said this is the world's biggest crisis since World War II. Well, Madeleine Albright lived through that war in Europe as a child and later emigrated to America where she would reach great heights becoming the First Female Secretary of State.

I'm always honored to have Madeleine Albright back on the show today. She's the author of a new book "Hell and other destinations." Madeleine Albright, pleasure to have you on.

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT, FORMER U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Great to be with you, Fareed, thank you.

ZAKARIA: So first I want to ask you about this intriguing thing that's going around the internet which is that the countries that have been well managed seem to have female leaders. I should point out it is not a scientific study.

In fact, there are many male leaders who have done well, South Korea's run by men and has done particularly well, but there does seem to be a bunching of women there. And I just thought I would get you to tell me, you know, do you think there's anything here or is this itself a kind of sexism where we're attributing to female leaders some particular "Female Qualities?"

ALBRIGHT: Well, I - I think that it may not be scientific, but I really do think that you can see a difference. For instance, the ones that have women leaders, Germany and New Zealand and Finland and Iceland, Taiwan, they have done very well in terms of trying to mitigate and deal with this.

And I thought about it, what the qualifications may be. First of all, I do think that women have the capability of multi-tasking thanks to the fact that all the things we have to do in terms of at home, children, housekeeping, jobs.

It also gives us peripheral vision. I also think that women can be very decisive and move forward and then I think one of the things - and I thought about it a little bit - it hasn't been easy for women to get into high level positions.

And I think it means that we have a tendency to listen, to be cooperative, to try to figure out how not to aggrandize ourselves but to really look towards solving problems. So I think it's interesting. Also women have less of a tendency to be authoritarian.

In a previous book "Fascism" I describe authoritarianism. There are no women that are practicing authoritarianism or fascism now and I think is because we know that it is better to have unity in our family than to pit one group against another.

So I do think there's something in this idea that there are women that can run their countries. But I also believe - there was something that was said in that article was that women, in fact, need to be more like men. No, I don't think so.

I think women need to work with men, but I think we are fine doing what we believe that our talents bring in terms of supporting others.

ZAKARIA: You know there is one piece of this that is scientifically proven, which I mean the data shows overwhelmingly. Women take health more seriously. I'm not just talking about women leaders. Women go to get annual checkups at I think twice the rate of men.

[10:45:00]

ZAKARIA: They take the advice of doctors more consistently, men get a negative test, so you know, gets bad cholesterol results, they're more likely to ignore those results than a woman. What do you think that is about the kind of the greater focus on health care?

ALBRIGHT: I think what's interesting that you brought that up, because part of the problem has been that women have not taken care of their own health, and part of it has changed because women have been persuaded that being healthy themselves is a way to keep their families healthy and the environments in which they operate.

So they take the results seriously, follow directions, but I think it has been a matter of trying to persuade women to understand that if they're sick, then those around them will be sick. There really is something about the tendency of care giving in women and this multi- tasking. I feel really that that is a differential.

ZAKARIA: In your book, you talk about going through the war. To what extent - in some ways, that's a much more scary prospect, I suppose, particularly in London where you had bombs going off everywhere. The Germans were bombing London almost throughout the entire war.

What has it been like for you? You had so many periods of difficulty. What is this one - how does this one compare?

ALBRIGHT: Well, it only compares in the following way, which is that - I was, of course a little girl. But I remember and I've heard a lot about it from my parents was that they weren't in control of the bombs and how they could deal with them?

The only thing they were in control of is their own behavior. And I keep that in mind because we're not in control - I'm not in terms of how this virus began. I am in control of my behavior. By the way, Fareed, as you know I'm an extrovert, I'm trying to learn to be an introvert. I'm not doing very well, but I do think that what is very important is resiliency.

And it's that resiliency, the desire to work together and to be an optimist. So, I do think those are the things that I learned from my parents from being in London during the blitz where we spent a lot of time in the cellar of this apartment house.

ZAKARIA: Finally, Madeleine, what do you make of the way the United States government is reacting to this? I think it's fair to say that this is the first international crisis I can recall really since World War II where the United States government has sort of abdicated its role as the leader.

There are times the United States has led and people have criticized it, it has done the wrong thing certainly, but in this case you don't get the sense that the Trump Administration really wants to play some role internationally. It is perfectly fine doing it. Is this really the new world, a world of America absent?

ALBRIGHT: I think if it's the new world it's very dangerous, because when we're awl nothing happens. It doesn't mean we have to dominate everything, but we do have to deal with partners to solve a problem. And this virus certainly knows no borders.

And it does require working with other countries cooperation. And I'm very, very troubled about the confusion that the Trump Administration is sowing by changing its mind all the time and not being a part of an international approach to this.

We haven't even seen the horrors that will come when the numbers are reported out of the developing world, where they don't have water to wash their hands or health systems and the only way that we're going to solve this is through international cooperation.

And so I think we're muddling everything at the moment, and we cannot be absent. America is essential, and I think the issues about the world health organization, for instance, it doesn't prove anything for us to pull out, not to do anything.

We need to be at the table to help solve problems that are coming upon us in the 21st century. And it doesn't really take a genius to figure out that the connections that are there. So I'm sorry to see America not play its rightful role.

We are necessary - we need to be partners with the others to help solve this very, very difficult virus and the plague that it is creating in the world. And, by the way, with the Chinese, what's happened is President Trump and President Xi is pushing each other's hyper nationalist buttons. We don't need that either. We need cooperation, not hyper-nationalism.

ZAKARIA: On that important note, Madeleine Albright, always a pleasure.

ALBRIGHT: Thank you very much.

ZAKARIA: And we will be back with some good news.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:50:00]

ZAKARIA: And now for the last look. It seems that some of the world leaders are playing a never ending blame game about the spread of this pandemic. But if you look closer you will find signs of cooperation and global solidarity.

In Iran, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei paddled conspiracy theories accusing the U.S. of creating COVID-19. But the Tehran Freedom Tower was lit up with messages of loves to Wuhan, Paris and, yes, New York.

Meanwhile, the red and gold of the Chinese flag was projected on the temples in Egypt in recognition of China's work to overcome the virus. And in Switzerland, an enormous American flag was projected on to the face of the Matterhorn as the small Swiss Mountain Village proclaimed support for the nation with the highest number of cases. Thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. I'll see you next week.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:55:00]

BRIAN STELTER, CNN HOST, RELIABLE SOURCES: Hey, I'm Brian Stelter live in New York City, welcome to "RELIABLE SOURCES" where we cover the story behind the story. We have big interviews coming up, including two of the most powerful people in the social media universe the heads of Youtube and Instagram are both on deck.

Plus, Philip Bump and Juliette Kayyem on right wing media's world in pushing of false stories about closing or opening America.