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Fareed Zakaria GPS

Interview With Former National Security Advisor Tom Donilon About John Bolton's Tell-All Book; Interview With Secretary-General Antonio Guterres About U.N.'s 75th Anniversary; Poll Shows Joe Biden With Growing Lead Over President Donald Trump; Holly Jarman: The Public Health System In The U.S. Is Very Fragmented; COVID-19 Cases Surge In U.S. As Europe Keeps Numbers Low. Aired 10-11a ET

Aired June 28, 2020 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:10]

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN ANCHOR: 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.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Today on the show, Bolton's blockbuster. His new book tells us what he did as National Security adviser. But what should he have done? How should he have reacted to Donald Trump?

I'll have a frank conversation with President Obama's National Security adviser, Tom Donilon.

Then this week marked the 75th anniversary of the signing of the United Nations charter. Is the organization still stuck in 1945? Does it wield any real power in today's changed world?

I'll talk to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

And the U.S. once pointed to Italy as the worst case scenario it hoped to avoid on COVID. Now America is faring worse than Italy was at the peak of the crisis. What in the world happened?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: But first, here's my take. As the United States has faltered in its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, many experts have warned that China is using the situation to enhance its influence across the world. This is part of a familiar pattern in which the U.S. has worried that its competitors or its adversaries were 10 feet tall and growing. But, in fact, a striking feature of the recent international landscape has been China's strategic blunders.

The most significant example is China's recent incursion into India, in the Galwan Valley, long under dispute by the two countries. For reasons that are not entirely clear Chinese forces have reportedly taken about 23 square miles of arid land, sparking a deadly skirmish. This has triggered a powerful backlash in India. New Delhi has tried for years to maintain good relations with both the

Americans and the Chinese. India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi has met with President Xi Jinping many, many times and often rejected talk of aligning with the U.S. pursuing a foreign policy characterized as multi-aligned.

No one is using that phrase now. India's media has erupted with anti- Chinese sentiment and serious analysts are advocating a sharp shift in its foreign policy.

India's recently retired foreign secretary, Vijay Gokhale, wrote an op-ed arguing that China's neighbors had to stop accommodating Beijing's aggressive moves and recognize that they need a robust U.S. military presence to help them managing the situation. He declared that in the post-COVID age, enjoying the best of both worlds may no longer be an option.

All considered, China's relations with its other neighbors. In the past few months Chinese ships have sunk or harassed ships from Vietnam, Malaysia and Japan in areas that those countries consider their exclusive economic zones. China has said it was simply patrolling its own waters but this kind of behavior has led to a remarkable strategic reversal in the Philippines.

Under President Duterte, Manila had been drifting away from Washington. In February, Duterte announced that he was terminating the Visiting Forces Agreement, a significant setback for Washington's efforts to maintain close military ties in the region. Well, this month Manila announced that it would no longer be terminating that agreement in light of political and other developments in the region.

Or consider Australia, whose economy has benefitted enormously from China's rice. As a result, Canberra has sought friendly relations with Beijing. No more. Australian officials suspect China of mounting a string of cyberattacks against the country, though China denies it. While reports also suggest Beijing has intimidated Chinese students studying there to remain loyal and it's used businessmen in the country as agents of influence.

More recently, after Australia called for an inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus, China moved to restrict Australian imports and discourage tourism there while state media said, Australia was gum- stuck to the bottom of China's shoe.

China has adopted a confrontational foreign policy in words as well as deeds. Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian is now famous for his sharp, sometimes abusive language. In the wake of COVID-19, he publicly floated a conspiracy theory that the disease might have been brought to China by the U.S. Army.

The country's new breed of diplomats, the wolf warriors, as they're called, tend to be just as aggressive and confrontational believing that offense is the best defense and heaping scorn on anyone who doubts the country's propaganda.

[10:05:09] Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese leader, who brought his country into a quasi-alliance with the United States and initiated economic reforms that produced the Chinese miracle, had always counseled that Beijing should not pushed its weight around. Hide your strength, he would say, paraphrasing a Chinse proverb.

In 2005, an adviser to President Hu Jintao wrote an influential "Foreign Affairs" essay, "China's Peaceful Rise to Great Power Status," expanding on the concept of China as a quiet, great power. These ideas might have sounded like good global citizenship but they were rooted in an acute understanding of China's geopolitical position.

China is not rising in a vacuum but in a region with other major countries such as Japan and India and Australia. Every action Beijing takes should be considered in relation to the reaction it causes in those nations' capitals.

Thanks to its actions over the past few years under President Xi, China today finds itself in the same strategic situation as the Soviet Union did during the Cold War. Surrounded by countries that are growing increasingly hostile to it.

Go to CNN.com/fareed for a link to my "Washington Post" column. And let's get started.

We now know all the juicy bits from John Bolton's tell-all, but what is the big picture? How should we think about what we've learned about President Trump and American foreign policy?

Joining me now is the man who was National Security adviser before Bolton was, Tom Donilon. He served under President Obama from 2010 to 2013.

Welcome, Tom.

TOM DONILON, FORMER U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Good morning, Fareed. Nice to be with you today.

ZAKARIA: So, as a former National Security adviser, when you read this book, what was the one thing that surprised you or struck you?

DONILON: Well, it's an extraordinary book. The National Security adviser, of course, is the person in the White House who in most cases spends the most hours a day with the president of the United States. It is the most administrations the first person the president sees in the morning when he comes into work and it's the last person that he talks to at night. So, I've never seen anything like the report that we got out of Ambassador Bolton's book, particularly not about a president who's still in office.

A number of things struck me. You know, there's obviously a high level of dysfunction in the substance of the book, which is disturbing, obviously. One thing, though, as a former National Security adviser that I was struck by is his reports on the president's daily briefings, the so-called PDB, that is relative to a story, by the way, which broke overnight -- yesterday on Russia. But he reported that, in fact, that the president rarely read the PDB and did not meet on a daily basis. Maybe only once or twice a week with his advisers to discuss what was in the PDB.

Why is that important? This is the intelligence community and its premiere product, essentially bringing the world to the president on a daily basis. I gave this briefing probably 800 to 900 mornings at the White House. It's the way in which the president stays on top of the world. It's the way in which the intelligence community can bring strategic and tactical warning to the president about something that might be emerging.

This has been a product that's been brought to the president, every president since February of 1946 when Harry Truman received the first daily briefing. So it's essential. I really don't think a president can do his job well without having this kind of flow. And when I mentioned strategic warning, things like war, terrorist attacks and, indeed, in this case, most relevantly, a pandemic.

And we know from reporting in "The Washington Post" that the Intelligence Community brought this to the attention of the president at least a dozen times in January and February. And if you miss one of these warnings, obviously the impact can be pretty devastating for the country. We now have another example of where the president says he wasn't briefed on this Russia stuff.

ZAKARIA: So let's talk about that, Tom. The report of course is that the Russians have been offering a bounty to Afghan, to Taliban warriors, to kill American troops, coalition troops, but in particular American troops. What do you make of it and what should the president have done?

DONILON: Yes. Well, number one is, of course, I don't know that -- I've not been privy to the intelligence, but based on the reporting, it's been confirmed by a lot of news outlets, as you know. I've raised two things. There's a process concerned like we were just talking about with respect to whether the president was briefed on this or not. He tweeted yesterday that neither he nor the vice president were briefed on this.

That seems pretty extraordinary to me, given the sensitivity of this intelligence. It seems to be some sort of breakdown in process at the White House, which is pretty significant in that the president wouldn't have been aware of something like this. But secondly --

ZAKARIA: Well, maybe it's one of those --

(CROSSTALK)

[10:10:08]

ZAKARIA: Maybe it's one of those briefings that he never got. In other words, it was in the briefing but since -- he seems to take one out of every five, right? He does it once a week.

DONILON: Well, it shows how dangerous it is not to consistently engage with the world, consistently engage in what your Intelligence Community, which is the best intelligence service in the world, is telling you. It shows you the danger here of not consistently engaging with the intelligence.

But the substance is also important, I think, Fareed, on this. It really shows us where we are with Russia. And I'd say three things about that in just 30 seconds here if I might. The United States and Russia are actively hostile across the board. Whether it be in Europe and Ukraine and Libya. We now know in Afghanistan, whether it be in terms of threats to our election. We are actively hostile with Russia.

Secondly, Putin's not deterred. You know, in my encounters with Putin, it's very clear that he sizes up his interlocutor and he makes judgments with respect to cost and benefits to the steps that he's going to take. In this case he hasn't been deterred. And indeed, third, we've taken a number of steps, which are inexplicable given this intelligence and given the overall state of the U.S./Russia relations.

Just recently, you know, this intelligence evidently, according to "The New York Times," was presented in March and yet at the end of May the president canceled the G-7 meeting, decided to pull half our troops out of Germany and, indeed, said that he was going to invite President Putin to the White House for a reconvened G-7 meeting in the fall, which is kind of extraordinary given where we are.

So we had a process breakdown here, obviously, and the substance is inexplicable to me.

ZAKARIA: Let me ask you about the other great power involved, China. Trump is now clearly decided that he is going to run on an anti-China platform. That that has become that -- that foreign policy has become part of his domestic re-election campaign. How dangerous, you know, is this in actual terms, in terms of foreign policy, war and peace?

DONILON: Yes. Well, I mean, it's quite clear that the president made a pivot during the first part of this year from really an embrace of President Xi including his performance on COVID and moved during the course of this election year to a harsh criticism of the Chinese with respect to the COVID crisis and its origins.

It's clear, Fareed, I think coming out of this crisis that the United States and China will be I think probably in terms of its relationship at the lowest point in decades maybe since the 1970s when we established formal relations with China. I think we're heading towards on the current course towards a bifurcated world with intense rivalry on most aspects of the relationship and hopefully some aspects of cooperation.

It's going to be the most important challenge for the next president, whoever he is, that we have to -- we have to face moving forward. It's a -- there's really no challenge more important for the next president.

ZAKARIA: Let me ask quickly, Tom, we have 30 seconds or so left. Should Bolton have resigned or testified in some way against the president?

DONILON: Yes, well, I think that, you know, we had during the course of his tenure and after his tenure an impeachment inquiry. He should have participated in the impeachment inquiry, I think. Nobody is as sensitive to me as I am to executive prerogatives and privileges, but clearly he had important things to say about the direct topic of the impeachment inquiry. He said he had additional things to say, which would have caused them to expand the inquiry.

And he clearly had in his own mind resolved the executive privilege and confidentiality issues because he had a book manuscript that he was proceeding with. So I think he should have -- he should have participated, should have found a way to participate in the constitutionally convened process to look at the Trump presidency and its conduct because, again, he had -- it's clear he had resolved whatever executive privilege issues might have been or confidentiality issues that might have been presented. So I think it was his obligation to participate in the constitutionally convened process.

ZAKARIA: Tom Donilon, a wealth of insights. Thank you so much.

DONILON: Thank you, Fareed.

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, Friday was a big anniversary for the U.N. 75th anniversary of the signing of the charter. I will talk to the secretary-general of the United Nations just next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:14:05]

ZAKARIA: Seventy-five years and two days ago, on June 26th, 1945, the United Nations' charter was signed in San Francisco. Today the U.N. has 193 member states, a freshly refurbished modernist headquarters in New York, and an annual budget of $3 billion. But has it lived up to the hopes that the signers had for it three-quarters of a century ago, to maintain international peace, to develop friendly relations between nations and to achieve international cooperation?

Joining me now is the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres.

Mr. Secretary-General, pleasure to have you on.

ANTONIO GUTERRES, UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY GENERAL: Great pleasure to be here with you.

ZAKARIA: So, it seems we confront a sort of fascinating paradox. We confront a pandemic that is, by nature, global. It respects no boundaries. And yet it has caused countries to turn even more inward.

[10:20:02]

Even the European Union countries shut down their borders to one another, travel bans are in place and, of course, the countries like the U.S. and China having increasingly tense relations. How do we take a global crisis to create more global cooperation?

GUTERRES: I think we need to make sure that world leaders understand the fragility of our planet and the fragility of humankind today. We have microscopic virus. It's putting us on our knees. As you rightly said, the problem is for the moment, we have world leaders unable to come together, we have relationship between -- among the three main powers as dysfunctional as ever, more dysfunctional than ever.

We see the difficulties in making the Security Council agree on what is necessary to solve some of the most dramatic conflicts at the moment. And we have seen in the response to COVID-19, each country going its own way. Not only in relation to the borders and whatever, but even in the strategies to fight the virus and in the strategies to open up and to launch the recovery.

So I do believe this is a crucial moment. And the only way to defeat the COVID, the only way to defeat climate change, the only way to put some more in cyberspace, the only way to protect ourselves against the risk of nuclear proliferation, the only way to advance our fragility is to work together.

If not, the COVID will go on from an area of the world to another. It came from China to Europe to the west, now going south, then it come back a second wave. The global economy will open up and will close again, the borders, et cetera. We might instead of a recovery that would take one or two years, we might face a depression for five or seven years.

This is so dramatic that people need to understand that what divides us is not relevant compared with the need to come together and address these challenges. And that is what -- in my position as secretary- general of the United Nations, it's my duty to permanently tell leaders, time to stop with this division. Time to come together because the problems are defeating us.

ZAKARIA: In an interview with "The Economist," you made an interesting point. You said that in -- you know, in the last few decades, it had actually been easier to mobilize the world because of an era of American supremacy. And you pointed to the East Timor crisis and one could look at many crisis where if the United States said it was -- you know, it was engaged and it was willing to provide resources, particularly military resources, sort of everything fell into place.

So are we now -- is the reality now that we are in a kind of multipolar world in which other countries simply will not accept that kind of leadership? How would you characterize the world today?

GUTERRES: I think we are not yet in an organized multipolar way. It would be good to have an organized multipolar world. But we are more in a chaotic than a multipolar world. We're in a world where power relations became unclear. I think it's very important to maintain and engage the United States in a world that will hopefully will become more multipolar in the future. But again, multipolarity in itself is not a guarantee of peace.

Europe before the First World War was multipolar. But in the absence of multilateral forms of governments the result was confrontation and war. So we need a multipolar world, but we need more and more multilateral forms of governance. We need to have shared strategies.

ZAKARIA: Let me ask you about an awkward question for you, which is that the leading power still, the country that founded the United Nations, the United States, has an administration now that is actively undermining it. President Trump came to the U.N. and said the future does not belong to globalists, it belongs to nationalists. He has withdrawn the United States from the World Health Organization. He's gutted the World Trade Organizations' arbitration process.

Can the world survive an American administration that is trying to, you know, dismantle some of these structures of international cooperation?

GUTERRES: I think we need to be able to combine two things. One is to have an America re-engaged in world affairs, but the second is for the international organizations like the U.N. to understand they also need to reform themselves. And I believe that if you combine those things, a clear will of reform.

I mean, we were founded 75 years ago. The world has changed. There are many aspects in which we are dysfunctional. We need to correct those aspects. And I think that if we are totally determined to it, it will also contribute to bring back the United States into a more engaged attitude in relation to international organizations.

[10:25:01]

If one looks at regional organizations, it's true that now we are working together but it's based on the goodwill of leaders. We need to have a much more institutional framework in which organizations work together because we cannot distinguish peace, economy, social aspects, everything is interlinked. We need an exclusive multilateralism.

ZAKARIA: Do you think that China wants an open, reformed United Nations that promotes genuine human rights, even values -- even democratic values? Can the U.N. system work with a China that becomes the second most powerful country in the world, perhaps even the largest economy in the world?

GUTERRES: I think that as the United States is essential, China is essential in a world order that needs to combine the efforts of all countries. I will recall you that the Paris agreement was only possible because of the American-Chinese agreement in relation to climate change at the time.

So I truly believe that there must be a functional relationship between the United States and China. A functional relationship among different powers in order to be able to make the world be effective in addressing the challenges of today.

Having said so, the human rights dimension is a core dimension of the United Nations. And China will also have to accept that. And it's fair to recognize that China has done a lot in relation to economic and social rights. I mean, taking out of poverty hundreds of millions of people is an important achievement in this regard. But on the other hand, in civil and political rights, China has still a long way to go.

ZAKARIA: Mr. Secretary-General, honored to have you on, sir. Thank you.

GUTERRES: Thank you very much. It was a pleasure.

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, there are just over 3,000 hours until the 2020 election here in America. Yes, we count these things. But what does the race look like right now? I will get a great update from Nate Cohn of "The New York Times."

[10:30:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAKARIA: We've all seen that poll that came out this week. Donald Trump is 14 points behind Joe Biden. It's a "New York Times" poll. And I have that newspaper's Nate Cohn to help us understand it and all the rest.

Nate, so let me ask you the question that everybody is asking in the words of the - why is this poll different from any other poll? What make this is one feel different than "The Hill" the poll showing Hillary Clinton ahead four years ago?

NATE COHN, DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT, NEW YORK TIMES' THE UPSHOT: Well, there's no comparison between these surveys and the surveys that showed Hillary Clinton ahead four years ago Fareed. Hillary Clinton was up by four points in the final national poll.

As you said, Joe Biden is leading by 14 points national poll. He's up by similar smaller amounts in the critical battleground states. And so even if the polls were just as young wrong as they were four years ago, Joe Biden would still be elected President fairly, comfortably.

There is no reason next the - that could happen in a polling error or something but it is materially different.

ZAKARIA: The polls that went wrong the last time, as you pointed out to me before, were the state polls. The national poll actually was roughly correct. We have state-by-state polls now "The Times" and the CNN did.

The mistake that was made the last time around, and I know this because we've talked about it on this program before, was that the state-by-state polls did not account for enough non-college educated whites and the undecided vote was three times as large as normal, and that broke differently than people expected.

So, those two issues, college educated versus non-college educated and the large number of undecided. Do you think you factored those in the poll factors those in this time?

COHN: Well, the poll certainly factors the educational questions these polls are only 33 percent of the respondents on average had a college degree in the final estimate. That's about 15 points lower than the average state poll of 2016. It's in line with what the national poll showed last time and what our national survey shows this time?

So I am at least as far as our polls are concerned, I'm not remotely worried that there are too few white college educated voters. They make up a majority of the respondents in these rust belt states and Joe Biden is still ahead by double digits.

The undecided voters are a different question. And you know in our surveys the undecided voters do appear to lean Republican in a way that they didn't so obviously lean Republican four years ago. They're likelier to say they voted for President Trump last time.

They're likelier to say they considered themselves a Republican. But they're undecided for a reason. They disapprove of the President's performance. So, I don't think that makes the poll wrong and it's possible they could return to the President the final account.

But for now, they're not undecided because they're shy about their support for the President. They're undecided because they're dissatisfied with the President.

ZAKARIA: So, let's talk about that point. You said they might come back. How historically how accurate are polls about this far out?

COHN: They're not particularly accurate. You know, on average I think there's an eight-percentage-point error between polls taken this far out and the final surveys ahead, and the final election result.

Now, I'll point out that error has declined significantly over time. We don't have errors that are so significant over the last 20 years or so, in part because American politics has become more polarized.

While in contrast in the '60s and '70s or even in the 1988 race between Michael Dukakis and George H.W. Bush, there are huge swings in the race that I don't think we have real reason to expect. But, I won't tell you the race can't change considerably over the next four months.

And the race changed a lot over the prior four months. So, I see no reason you know, to be confident that the polls we see now will be the same as they are in October.

[10:35:00]

ZAKARIA: Yes, things have polarized so much that there is less movement toward the end. What's the part of the poll that when you particularly to the internal demographics that struck you the most?

COHN: I was most surprised by the extent of the President's losses among white voters. You know it's such - in many ways this moment feels like it's very much about race. The Coronavirus is disproportionately affected communities of color, and in particular African-Americans.

Obviously the protest about race and criminal justice has focused predominantly on issues involving non-white Americans. But, the change in the President's support is overwhelmingly concentrated among white voters, even though it would not seem to be a moment that disproportionately affects them.

ZAKARIA: Yes, so the white backlash hasn't happened. In fact, if anything, it's been the opposite. Let me ask you one final question. Florida, he's down nine points in Florida in this poll. Would it be fair to say if the President loses Florida, essentially it's impossible for him to win the Electoral College? He would literally have to run the table to win?

COHN: He would have to run the table. And it's given that Florida is so representative of the country, it's hard to imagine how the President could lose in the State of Florida and still be doing well in the Midwest? After all there are plenty of Midwestern white voters who have basically relocated to Florida.

And, you know, the President's fallen behind in Florida for a reason that would affect him even more in the Midwest. He's doing quite poorly among older white voters. And it's obvious why that would hurt him in Florida but it's also fairly obvious I think why that would hurt him in the Midwest?

ZAKARIA: Nate Cohn, always a pleasure to have you on. You make this make sense in a really engaging way. Thank you.

COHN: Thank you for having me.

ZAKARIA: Next on "GPS," where once America was pleased to have not as big a COVID crisis as Italy, today cases are growing in the United States much faster than they were in Italy at its peak of its crisis. What in the world is going on when we come back?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:40:00]

ZAKARIA: EU officials tell CNN that they will likely block most U.S. travelers from coming to their certificate territory. It is a stunning turn-around from Mid-March when President Trump banned European travelers from coming to the U.S. Europe was then seen as being at risk of having an out of control outbreak.

Now that risk is right here in America. How did this happen? Joining me now is Holly Jarman from the University of Michigan School of Public Health. Holly, we've all seen versions of the chart, right, where the European cases, EU cases going down, down, clearly flattened the curve, more than flattened.

In the U.S. case, the curve never quite flattened and is now rising again. What do you think fundamentally explains the junction between those two lines, the European line and the American line?

HOLLY JARMAN, PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: Well, I think there are a couple of reasons behind what we see here in terms of the very different experiences between the U.S. and European countries when it comes to the first wave of COVID-19.

First of all, political leadership really matters especially the ability of central governments to bring everyone together and to coordinate responses. I mean, even across regions of their own countries but also coordinating responses between the different systems we think are important for dealing with a pandemic so health care, public health and also systems of social support for people.

ZAKARIA: So, you said a number of things. Let me piece those out. The first one you talked about is centralization. We understand that the U.S. has a crazy quilt patchwork of central, state, local, thousands and thousands of different authorities.

The second you said was about health care and public health. Now here, I want to drill down. The U.S. is supposed to have a great public health care system. You know it to Johns Hopkins ranked it the best in the world. We think of the CDC and the NIH as being these jewels.

Is what you're saying, that the American system is very well geared for, you know, maybe individual health care for an individual person, particularly someone who can pay for it, but it doesn't have a kind of integrated system the way a state-run or even a state paid system would have?

JARMAN: Yes. So, our public health system in the United States, as you say, is very fragmented. So, we have all the fragmentation that comes from having lots and lots of different local governments with state public health functions and state government with public health functions. And we have fragmentation that comes from the health care system with lots of private provisions.

In a number of European countries, public health functions and things that the health care system does are better integrated. And so I think you need to look at both the health care system and the public health system together. Our public health system in the U.S. not only is it separate from health care, but it's been consistently underfunded.

ZAKARIA: Do you think the kind of inequality plays a role here, by which I mean the American system, American society is more unequal? And, of course, we famously do not have universal health care.

What that means, obviously, there are very poor people who maybe didn't get tested, didn't could worried about whether they could afford a test, whether they could afford the care? And, so a system that leaves people out in an epidemic or pandemic is of course a huge problem because if they get infected, you know, it's going to course through the whole system?

JARMAN: Yes. So, we have to be clear that Europe has some of the same structural inequality that we have in the United States. But I think some of the systems that are designed to tackle inequality have been used effectively by governments during the pandemic.

[10:45:00]

JARMAN: So, in Germany they were able to move government employees from other duties to help do contact tracing and reach out to people who have been exposed to the virus. Some governments, like in Spain and Italy, took a little bit more control of private health provisions to help expand the capacity in their health care systems.

In some countries, I think Ireland and France and Estonia, actually, suspended some user charges and co-pays that people have to pay to use health care. And then other countries including Portugal, France and Belgium extended in paid sick leave to publicly financed health systems including in some cases few people who are not residence of those places.

So, Europe has a lot of problem with inequality but some of the systems they have to tackle social inequality are a bit more robust than they have been and are in the United States. And I think they were used more effectively by governments in some cases.

ZAKARIA: You make a very interesting point about paid sick leave. In Europe, in general, if you were sick, you were much more willing to stay home, which had the effect of not infecting people, because you knew you would still get paid. In the U.S. people are reluctant to stay home because they lose wages.

JARMAN: I think so. I think this is a really important component of policy that we don't talk about very much. We don't just have to test people who might have been exposed to COVID-19. We don't just have to do contact tracing.

We don't just have to isolate people. We have to actually support those people to stay and be able to stay in isolation. So, things like paid sick leave and basic rights for employees are really important.

So, some European countries try to put in place or bolster the facilities that they already had to protect employees, the idea that you provide people with health care, social support, income replacement, and uphold their rights as employees is a really important part of making any kind of advice from the government or lockdown and advice on physical distancing or lockdown much more effective.

ZAKARIA: Holly Jarman, pleasure to have you on. Thank you. Next on "GPS," Donald Trump has shown again this week that he thinks the way to make America great again is to keep immigrants out. When we come back, I will show you with facts why he's wrong?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:50:00]

ZAKARIA: My book of the week is Barry Gewen's "The Inevitably of Tragedy" Henry Kissinger and His World", it is where these days for serious thoughtful scholarly would to make waves but this book has done just that.

It is not a biography of Kissinger but a study of his world view, shaped by a background as a German Refugee from fascism always aware of the fragility of democracy and civilization. But its subject is larger even than that.

Gewen writes with great intelligence and elegance about the complex challenge of using power to pursue justice in an imperfect world. It is an impressive achievement. And now for the last look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We will make America great again!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAKARIA: Make America great again may be Trump's trademark, but there's one area where America is already undoubtedly great, high Tech. Yet ironically, it is the industry that Trump is now disrupting, threatening to make America's greatest companies uncompetitive by denying them their most vital resource human capital.

This week he put a freeze on visas that allow tech companies to recruit highly talented workers from abroad. Trump claims he's putting Americans first by reserving jobs for those who lost employment as a result of the COVID-19 crisis.

But this is nonsense. First, there have been no tech jobs lost. While the U.S. unemployment rate overall spiked to a stunning 14.7 percent in April, census data analyzed by the national foundation for American policy actually found that the unemployment rate in the tech sector has declined since the pandemic began.

Despite all of those jobless people in America, there were still over 120,000 openings in the tech sector in April. The tech industry remains in a constant, almost desperate need for enough highly skilled workers to keep it going.

And we know that the American tech industry has been built by immigrants. First or second generation immigrants have either led or founded more than half of America's leading tech companies, including Google, Amazon, Oracle and Apple.

Currently both Google and Microsoft are run by immigrants and the senior ranks of all the big tech companies are filled with the world's smartest people to whom America gave a chance. It's no surprise, then, that Trump's proclamation drew the ire of the likes of Google, Apple, Amazon, and Tesla. The truth is these companies will have to go where the talent is.

As Cisco's CEO Chuck Robbins said, this may be a Canadian Jobs Creation Act. You can you go to Toronto and hire people there and work quite effectively. That is the risk we run if we start to eliminating these visa programs. The real winner of course will not be Canada, but China and India. They produce hundreds of thousands of engineers every year.

[10:55:00]

ZAKARIA: The best have tended to come to study in America and stay here. Now, they will go back home and start those companies over there, keeping the innovation, profits and jobs far from the United States. What Donald Trump is really doing is making China great again. Thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. I will see you next week. Don't forget, if you miss a show, go to cnn.com/fareed for a link to my I-Tunes' Podcast.

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