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Fareed Zakaria GPS

Interview with Aryeh Neier; Interview with Bill Maher; Interview With Pulitzer Prize-Winning Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin.Aired 10-11a ET

Aired May 26, 2024 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:41]

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 from New York.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Today on the program, the ICC requests arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense minister, drawing a mix of applause and strong condemnation around the world.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There is no equivalence between Israel and Hamas.

ZAKARIA: I'll talk to Aryeh Neier, the founder of Human Rights Watch, a Jewish American who fled Nazi Germany in 1939, who has studied the situation closely and come to some tough conclusions.

Then the perpetually provocative Bill Maher. With five months to go until the election, I asked him about Donald Trump, the Republican Party, and whether he is sounding crankier than usual these days.

BILL MAHER, HOST, HBO'S "REAL TIME": It's not that I've gotten old. It's like your ideas are stupid.

ZAKARIA: And the protests that emerged across college campuses this spring echoed those against the Vietnam War in the 1960s. I'll ask the master storyteller, Doris Kearns Goodwin, about those comparisons and about leadership lessons Biden can learn from past presidents.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: But first, here's "My Take."

The situation in Israel looks grim. The war in Gaza drags on with more Palestinian casualties, opposition to Israel builds internationally, if and when Israel decides it has degraded Hamas enough to stop no Palestinian or Arab forces likely to be willing to take over Gaza, so Israel will stay on as the occupying force. New insurgencies will probably pop up and Gaza will remain a wasteland populated by 2.2 million Palestinians living lives of desperation.

Meanwhile, conditions in the West Bank are deteriorating rapidly. If the Palestinian Authority were to collapse Israel would have to volatile arenas and around five million Palestinians to police night and day indefinitely.

There is a way out. In fact, the Biden administration has been working to find a way to turn the crisis into an opportunity. National Security adviser Jake Sullivan has been doggedly pursuing an effort to get Saudi Arabia to normalize relations with Israel in return for what Saudi Arabia's foreign minister has described as a credible and irreversible path to a Palestinian state.

The plan might sound like a pie in the sky, but in fact official American and Saudi sources have publicly said that they are close to a deal. The parts that involve Washington and Riyadh have been mostly worked out by Sullivan and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. It involves major American commitments, a formal security guarantee from the U.S. to Saudi Arabia, as well as technology transfers to enable a civilian nuclear program.

But the final element, a path to a Palestinian state, is critical. The Saudis have not demanded that a Palestinian state be established right away, merely that there is a solid road to it. That will mean a timetable for Israel and a series of conditions for the Palestinians, each having to meet its obligations. Such a deal could also open up key elements to stabilizing the situation in Gaza, Palestinian participation and Arab involvement in post-war security, reconstruction funds and European support, among other things.

It would all realize Israel's greatest hope and dream, to be integrated into the region economically and politically. After all, once Saudi Arabia, the custodian of Islam's two holiest sites and the funder of many Arab governments, has joined hands with Israel there will be strong reasons for other Arab and Islamic countries to follow.

The main obstacle right now is Israel's opposition to any such concessions. That's understandable. Israelis are still traumatized by the brutal October 7th terrorist attack. They believe that any talk of a Palestinian state rewards terrorism, and they cannot trust that a Palestinian state would ever be a peaceful neighbor. These are all valid concerns.

[10:05:03]

But it's also worth remembering that efforts to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia have been going on for at least five years. To derail those efforts because of October 7th would really be to reward terrorism. Israelis need to be reminded that they have an existential problem.

As an Israeli prime minister once said, the truth is that in the area of our homeland now lives a large population of Palestinians. We do not want to rule over them. We do not want to run their lives. We do not want to force our flag and our cultural on them. In my vision of peace, there are two free peoples living side by side in the small land with good neighborly relations and mutual respect.

Each with its flag, anthem, and government with neither one threatening its neighbor's security and existence. He added, a strong Palestinian government will strengthen peace.

The man who spoke those words was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Bar-Ilan speech in 2009. In it he outlined conditions for that Palestinian state, demilitarized with a prohibition against making military treaties with foreign powers. But he is on the record speaking in favor of a Palestinian state.

President Biden should now lay out his vision for this future, explain that the U.S. and Saudi Arabia have come to an agreement and that all that remains is for Israel to join in the discussion and reach a comprehensive packed. He should remind Bibi Netanyahu of the final lines of his Bar-Ilan speech, invoking the Prophet Isaiah, let us know war no more, let us know peace.

Go to CNN.com/Fareed for a link to my Washington Post column this week, and let's get started.

Israel faced a tough week as the International Criminal Court requested arrest warrants for three Hamas leaders and for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense minister Yoav Gallant. All of them responsible. Its chief prosecutor Karim Khan said for crimes against humanity.

The International Court of Justice, a U.N. body also based in the Hague said Friday that Israel must halt its offensive in Rafah, although its decisions are not binding, of course. That ruling was part of its ongoing hearing on whether Israel is guilty and its war on Hamas of genocide against the Palestinians.

My guest is Aryeh Neier. He is a giant in the world of Human Rights and a survivor of genocide himself. He was born a Jew in Nazi Germany. He and his parents escaped Berlin two weeks before the start of World War II. He went on to study at Cornell and then to co-found Human Rights Watch. He was at the forefront of the movement to establish the international tribunals, which eventually became the ICC and the ICJ.

He's also the former head of the ACLU and the author of many books. He wrote a powerful piece in the "New York Review" books this month on the situation in Gaza.

Thank you for joining us.

ARYEH NEIER, CO-FOUNDER AND FORMER DIRECTOR, HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: Very glad to do it.

ZAKARIA: Your name, Aryeh, is Hebrew.

NEIER: Yes. It's a Hebrew name. It means lion.

ZAKARIA: Why did your parents give it to you?

NEIER: Well, my parents was INS and they wanted to give me a Hebrew name even in Nazi Germany.

ZAKARIA: All the time you were head of Human Rights Watch. You I think only one time accused the country of genocide. NEIER: Yes.

ZAKARIA: Saddam Hussein's attempt to eliminate the Kurds.

NEIER: Yes. The Kurds.

ZAKARIA: So when you say in this "New York Review of Books" piece that you have concluded that Israel is guilty of attempting genocide?

NEIER: Yes.

ZAKARIA: That's a very heavy charge.

NEIER: Yes.

ZAKARIA: What is the principal reason you say that?

NEIER: Well, first let me say that when the South African case charging genocide was initially brought, I was not one of those who endorsed the South Africa's argument of genocide. I didn't endorse it because I thought Israel had a right to retaliate against Hamas. And I thought Israel had a right to try to incapacitate Hamas so that it would never be able to do anything like that again.

But I was disturbed by some of the actions of Israel by the use of very large weapons, 2,000-pound bombs, which are utterly inappropriate in a crowded urban area. A bomb like that can kill somebody two football fields away. And using bombs like that was inappropriate in the context of Gaza. But still, I didn't think that Israel was engaged in genocide just because of the effort to retaliate against Hamas even though I thought Israel went far overboard in the way of its retaliation.

[10:10:13]

ZAKARIA: So what changed your mind?

NEIER: What changed my mind was that over a period of time Israel has obstructed the delivery of humanitarian assistance to Gaza and those who have been most severely victimized are not the members of Hamas. Men with guns ordinarily find a way to get food and to get fed. But it is young children who are most severely damaged by malnutrition, and who will either starve to death or if they survive they will be diminished for the rest of their lives, diminished physically and psychologically by the severe malnutrition they are enduring as children.

And I thought that severe obstruction of the delivery of humanitarian assistance amounted to a genocide.

ZAKARIA: The Israeli case is multifold, but let me suggest one angle that I've heard people take, which is in the beginning, there was a kind of Israeli rage and there's that famous quote of Defense Minister Gallant. He says, I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly. But that over time they did start letting food and fuel in, and they

have not -- you know, there might have been a period where they said and did things like that. But that was brief and it has ended.

NEIER: The amount of food and the amount of water and the amount of fuel they have allowed in its entirely inadequate to deal with the two million -- more than two million people who live in Gaza. And the USAID administrator, Samantha Power, testified before Congress that famine had set in Gaza. The head of the U.N. World Food Program has said that full-blown famine is underway in Gaza.

Destroying the farms, destroying the greenhouses in Gaza, killing a large number of aid workers who were involved in the distribution of food, challenging the ability of the U.N. agency that has been principally involved in distributing food, to continue that activity and persuading the United States and other governments to cut off funds from that agency. All those things have had a cumulative impact on the availability of food and water and electricity, and medical supplies in Gaza.

ZAKARIA: Prime Minister Netanyahu says that the Israeli, the IDF, the Israeli army, is actually scrupulous and very moral in the way it handles these things. It tries very hard. What do you say about that?

NEIER: He says that, I don't think others would say that. At this moment there are settlers in the West Bank area who are interrupting trucks taking humanitarian assistance into Gaza. They are attacking the truck drivers, spilling the contents of trucks carrying humanitarian aid. The Israeli Military Defense Forces have not intervened in order to prevent the settlers from engaging in sabotage of that sort, in delivering humanitarian assistance.

The Israeli Defense Forces have aided the settlers and a very large number of Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed in the past few months. Often with the Israel Defense Forces, either standing by or directly participating in attacks on Palestinians in that area.

ZAKARIA: There are Israeli officials and that people who feel passionately on the subject who say the reason these warrants are particularly unjustified is because Israel has a process, a judicial process to look into abuses of its army. It's a democracy.

NEIER: The statute for the International Criminal Court is based on the principle of complementarity. Complementarity means that if a government actually in good faith conducts an investigation itself of abuses that have been committed and takes action itself to punish those who may have been engaged in abuses, the ICC should step back. But in the case of Israel there is no indication that there has been any effort by the Israeli authorities to conduct an investigation of the abuses committed in Gaza.

[10:15:07]

ZAKARIA: Do you think in the past have they done it? Do you have confidence in the Israeli system? NEIER: No, I don't have confidence in the Israeli system. There have

been many abuses over the years and there has not been appropriate investigation and punishment of those who have been responsible for abuses.

ZAKARIA: Prime Minister Netanyahu says that this prosecutor is antisemitic and is feeding antisemitism.

NEIER: You know, the use of the term antisemitism to attack those who criticize Israeli policies degrades the concept of antisemitism. Antisemitism has been a great scourge but it doesn't insulate the Israeli government from being held to the same standards that other governments have to be held to around the world.

The Israeli government has been very comfortable with certain antisemites. Prime Minister Netanyahu, for example, has cultivated a relationship with Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary and I think it's appropriate to consider Orban an antisemite. But to charge the International Criminal Court with antisemitism is I think absurd.

ZAKARIA: For you as somebody, a Jew who escaped Nazi Germany, this must be --

NEIER: Yes.

ZAKARIA: It's a weighty charge to accuse Israel of genocide.

NEIER: It's a terrible thing to accuse anyone of genocide, but it's a more terrible thing that genocide should take place. In my view, Jews are only going to be safe if everyone's rights are respected and the rights of Jews are respected along with the rights of everyone else.

ZAKARIA: Aryeh Neier, 87 years old, you are certainly still going strong. Thank you.

NEIER: Thank you very much.

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, I sit down with the always insightful Bill Maher to talk about the presidential election, Gaza and more.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:21:39]

ZAKARIA: No one across the political spectrum is safe from the acid wit of Bill Maher, the comedian and host of "Real Time" on HBO. On recent episodes of his show, he has brought his sharp analysis to big issues in the news such as the presidential election and college campus protests.

I wanted to talk to him about all that and more. He has a new book called "What This Comedian Said Will Shock You." And I should note that HBO and CNN share the same parent company, Warner Brothers Discovery.

Bill Maher, pleasure to have you on. MAHER: Always great to see you.

ZAKARIA: So in the middle of your book, you write, "Some people think I've changed. I assure you I have not. I'm still the same unmarried, childless, pot-smoking libertine I always was. I have many flaws, but you can't accuse me of maturing."

MAHER: That sounds like a really funny, good book.

ZAKARIA: So I want to put to you, because I know you like, you know, listening to disagreement. People who say to me, and there are many, who say I love Bill Maher. But he has matured too much. He's become cranky. He's become crotchety. He's become one of those old guys who says the kids are crazy.

MAHER: Really?

ZAKARIA: It was better in my day. What do you say to them?

MAHER: They're wrong. I mean, they're wrong and the kids are crazy. It's interesting, they have this idea the younger generation, maybe every generation does, that just because something is new makes it better and that's not true. New is not synonymous with better.

ZAKARIA: You're just sounding like an old-fashioned conservative.

MAHER, But it's -- OK. I heard a couple of people say, or maybe they wrote it online that, well, I'm a hypocrite because you were for the demonstrators in 1968 or whatever it was when they were demonstrating against the Vietnam War. Yes, that was very different. First of all, the students weren't against their own. These students were threatening other students. That didn't happen in the Vietnam War.

And being against the Vietnam War was -- made sense. It was a war that we probably should not have been in. This is --

ZAKARIA: But let me ask you --

MAHER: This is demonstrating and protesting for a terrorist group, I mean, Hamas is --

ZAKARIA: Well, to be fair, a lot of students -- there were a lot of outside, you know, people have mixed together what students are doing, what outside protesters are doing. But let me ask you a broader question, which is, a lot of people will say, look, this is how you get change. You -- it's noisy. Some people say the wrong thing. Some people go too far. But the whole tradition of this kind of expansion of rights, it's messy, it's chaotic.

You know, yes, we're -- you know, there's probably a bunch of excesses as there were probably was in the '60s. There was the Black Panthers and the Weathermen and things like that. But they think of you as somebody who was, you know, you were OK with all that, but you've turned.

MAHER: I haven't turned. Yes, people have said to me, you make front of the left more than you used to, and guilty. I have because the left has changed. Now, the right has changed also, and even worse. I mean, the right doesn't believe in democracy anymore. I mean, they've thrown their lot in with the sociopath named Donald Trump, who only things elections count when we win. OK, well, that's worse.

[10:25:00]

But it's not like the left hasn't changed also. So I'm going to call it out wherever I see it. I mean, there are things that have to do with, you know, gender and race and free speech, and just ideas about, you know, you can be healthy at any weight and gender is always a social construct and maybe we should give communism another try and maybe we should get rid of capitalism and the Border Patrol. And let's tear down statues of Lincoln and get rid of the police. Just, you know, know, no. It's not that I've gotten old, it's that your ideas are stupid. OK. And --

ZAKARIA: Common sense is still common sense.

MAHER: Yes, common sense is common sense, and I'm going to call it out whatever it is on the spectrum.

ZAKARIA: Let me ask you about a related thing that you've written about and talked about, which I find very interesting. You think that men in particular have lost -- young men have lost the ability to communicate, to date, to know how to court women.

MAHER: Yes. I think this is going to be a very big problem. I think young men thought it was a great thing when Tinder came along. Oh, my gosh, look, I don't even have to talk to a girl. It's all right here on my phone. I can just scroll through, like it's a menu, like I'm ordering from Grubhub. But the truth is that Tinder is mostly men. You know, it's like two-thirds of men who were on the site. So that's not good odds if you're a man.

And then most women on it say they will swipe left on anyone who is not six feet tall, which would leave us out. So what is the upshot of this is going to be? My guess would be a lot of horny, frustrated, angry Trump voters is I'm guessing where these guys are going to go. You know, they already have this group called incel. Have you heard of that? Incel stands for involuntarily celebrate, and they're very angry and very vocal, and I don't blame them.

I remember when I was an incel, but, you know, we didn't have a word for it. Women have not changed that much. I know if you look in the media, it looks like we're all fluid and gay and trans and on the spectrum and non-binary. But I don't know. You know, "The Bachelor" is still on. I just don't think women have changed that much. And they're communicative creatures. You have to talk to them.

And I think men are losing that ability. I think they, you know, they just think they can send a text of an eggplant emoji and write, what's up? And they're going to be home, Fareed. No. You have to court. Yes, you have to do some courting. Women have not changed in that regard.

ZAKARIA: All right. We have to take a break. We will be right back with Bill Maher. We're going to talk about Republicans and their craziness, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:31:54]

ZAKARIA: And we are back with Bill Maher with his new book. So, Bill, you've talked a lot about how the left has gone crazy. But to be fair to you, you've always also pointed out the right has gone even crazier embracing Trump.

I want to ask you why you think it happened. Because, you know, this was the party of Ronald Reagan, free markets, free trade, loved immigration, very optimistic. What do you think made it -- you know, it's now doer pessimistic. America is -- it's American carnage.

MAHER: Well, I think the basis of it is we started to hate each other. I mean, you mentioned Ronald Reagan. Famously, he used to have a drink at the end of the day, often, with Tip O'Neill, who is the leader in the House and a Democrat. But they were just to Irish pals who get together and have a scotch at the end of the day.

And they knew they weren't going to get along on many issues, but they didn't hate each other. They could drink together. That is inconceivable today.

Can you imagine Joe Biden having a drink with Mike Johnson? It just would never happen. When you hate people, you don't listen to them. So, it doesn't matter how reasonable they might be.

We have reached this place where each side thinks the other side is an existential threat. You hear that term from both sides all the time. That is just a terrible place to be. Because we find ourselves in this situation where both sides are literally siding with enemies of America rather than the opposition party within the country.

I mean, you see Republican MAGA people with t-shirts that say, I'd rather be with Russia than Democrats. I mean -- I mean, Trump stood with Putin against our intelligence agencies. Fox News literally uses Russian talking points. I mean, Tucker Carlson went over there and did the whole dog and pony show backing up Putin basically. And on the left, you see them marching for Hamas, a terrorist organization. This is a terrible place to be and it can happen here.

The last chapter in the book is called Civil War, and its -- you know, you hear more about it all the time. People who are actually pining for it, civil war, come on. Let's do this thing. Let's get this going. Let's have this national divorce.

It can't work. It won't work. Half the country is not going to self- deport, even if you win every election.

ZAKARIA: So, what should -- I mean, somebody like Obama came in trying to be the unifier.

MAHER: Right.

ZAKARIA: I remember he famously would invite the then speaker John Boehner to White House screenings.

MAHER: Right.

ZAKARIA: Boehner went there a couple and got -- got so much shift for it, never went back. Biden has tried, you know, to reach out. What's the strategy that might work?

MAHER: Apparently not that. I mean, I think we're past that. I don't know. I don't know what it is.

I mean, I think this goes back to the Supreme Court fights that we had like in the -- was it late 80s or early 90s? This goes back a long way. So, it's going to take a long way to get back to some sort of normalcy.

[10:35:04]

I don't know. Sometimes you have to hit bottom before you can go back to the top. I don't know what that means in this country. But I know one thing, Donald Trump is not going to concede the election.

So, what happens in January 2025 on the 20th, when inauguration day rolls around and he didn't win the election? He's not just going to go away. And if he wins and he's the president in January 20 of 2025, he's never going to give that up because he doesn't understand the constitution, doesn't care about it. I don't think he has ever read it. He just knows power and winning, and our side is right.

ZAKARIA: Where do you get more hate mail from, the left or right?

MAHER: I don't know because I don't read it.

ZAKARIA: Or backed out.

MAHER: I don't care.

ZAKARIA: Bill Maher, pleasure to have you on.

MAHER: Thank you. Always.

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, the 1960s was a tumultuous decade filled with hope and change but also despair and violence. What lessons can we draw from this era? I'll ask Doris Kearns Goodwin.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:40:33]

ZAKARIA: My next guest is one of the great chroniclers of American history. For years, Doris Kearns Goodwin has studied the lives of presidents from Abraham Lincoln to Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt, to Lyndon Johnson whom she worked with directly. She came to know them so well she would sometimes call them my guys. But in her new book, Doris Kearns Goodwin has written about the other guy she, perhaps, knew best, her late husband. She follows the life of Richard Dick Goodwin, who worked as a speech writer for both JFK and LBJ during turbulent times. The book is called "An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s." Doris Kearns Goodwin, welcome.

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN, PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING HISTORIAN: I am very glad to be with you.

ZAKARIA: So, I want to begin by talking about one president. There's a story in there about the origins of the term -- the phrase, a great society. I mean, if Lyndon Johnson -- the most important thing he has done, I think, which puts him really in the pantheon close to FDR, was that slew of programs, the great society and civil rights. Why was it called the great society?

GOODWIN: What happens is it's really is a great story. Bill Moyers calls Dick one day in March, to just come there, he had been brought over as a speech writer for LBJ having worked for JFK. And he said, the president wants to talk to us about a Johnson program, not something that he's just doing to finish for Kennedy. He had gotten the tax cut too which was Kennedy's. Civil rights was moving through.

So, he said -- Dick said, are we going to the Oval Office? He said, no, we're going to the White House's swimming pool. They get to the swimming pool and Johnson swimming naked in the pool. Dick said he looked like a whale going side stroking up and down.

The two of them are standing there in their suits and ties, and Johnson says, well, come on in, guys. And they have nothing to do but strip, and they go in. Now, you suddenly have three guys swimming in the pool.

ZAKARIA: Naked.

GOODWIN: And then -- naked. He finally goes over to the side and then he just holds forth, this is what I want the Johnson program to be. And he goes through Medicare, civil rights, voting rights, aid to education, immigration reform, PBS, NPR, pollution control. It was extraordinary. That vision was in his head already, had been there for a long time really.

And then they had to figure out a name for it. So, there was debate in the White House. Some wanted to call it the glorious society. Some wanted to call it a better deal instead of a new deal. But Dick just tried out the great society in a number of small speeches. And that's what caught on.

ZAKARIA: And the civil rights part, that's another connection. That famous moment when he addresses Congress and he says, we shall overcome, which was the anthem of the civil rights movement. That was your husband.

GOODWIN: Right. He had only that one day to write that speech. Johnson decided on a Sunday night he was going to give a speech to a joint session on Monday night to call for voting because the Selma demonstrations have taken place.

And again, the country's sentiment was fired conscience by watching what the Alabama troopers did to the peaceful marchers. So, he knew, I have to act now. And so, as he was working on the speech that day, he took a break outside and he heard some kids in a distance singing, we shall overcome. And he, of course, had also been on the march on Washington.

So, when he got to that moment in the speech that even -- it starts out so beautifully. He said, I speak tonight for the dignity of man and the destiny of democracy. Every now and then history and fate meet at a certain time, in a certain place. So, it was in Lexington and Concord, so it was in Appomattox, so it was in Selma, Alabama.

Then he goes on to say, but even if we get this voting rights act, it's still going to be a big battle to overcome prejudice and bigotry that we need to do. But if we work together then the full blessings will be given to Negro-Americans. And if we do that, and he paused, we shall overcome.

The audience was silent for a moment and then they realized the banner of the civil rights movement, the outside movement was being brought into the highest councils of government, to the highest power, and something would be done. And John Lewis said that in Selma, Alabama, Martin Luther King cried at that moment.

ZAKARIA: Wow. And it's amazing that you remember those words all these years later. So, nowadays people are looking at the analogies between the 60s and now. What about the protests on campuses, the Vietnam War compared to Gaza?

GOODWIN: I mean, the Vietnam War was a major issue in the United States. Our soldiers were going. Now, tens of thousands are going to be killed. And there was also a defined mission to stop the bombing and negotiate the peace.

And actually, the young students who came for McCarthy in New Hampshire, who was going to run against LBJ in '68, from all over the country their mission was met.

[10:45:04]

I mean, they came. They cut their hair. They cut their beards. The girls wear long dresses. And they went door to door and they simply talk to the hawkish people in New Hampshire, don't you want to change the direction of the country? They listened to them.

And he got 42 percent of the vote. It led to Lyndon Johnson stopping the bombing, trying to negotiate peace, withdrawing from the race. And had it not been for fate, in many ways, that mission might truly have been accomplished. Because what happened is north Vietnam said they'll come to the table. The very next day they were set to go to Hawaii to bring generals and everybody there to start the talks, Martin Luther King was shot.

And then the riots happened. And then the peace talks stalled. And then you get the Democratic convention. And frustration has built up. Those same peace kids are there. They just want to see a peace plank and they're there to make that happen.

But there's also people just wanting mayhem, disturbing, holding Viet Cong flags, provoking police. And then the police, of course, had a riot and that was the end of the Democratic Party's chances for that election. Law and order became the theme of Richard Nixon.

ZAKARIA: Again, quite different from today. This was a war Americans were fighting thousands of college students were being recruited for it.

GOODWIN: And they say now in some of the polls that while Gaza seemed important on the college campuses where it was being played out in most young people between 18 and 30, inflation is way at the top. And Gaza, maybe 15. So, it has made itself because of the media and because of where the protest took place. But it's a different caliber, different kind of fight, much more complicated. Sensitivity is on both sides, et cetera.

ZAKARIA: And we will be back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:51:14]

ZAKARIA: And we are back with the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. Doris, I want to ask you to take us into your -- this extraordinary repository of knowledge you have in a way in which you've been asked to do it time and time again, which is you've had presidents asked you, what does history teach? What should I do? You've had Joe Biden asked you that.

So, looking at this moment in history, what are the -- what do you think, you know, one way of asking it is, what did you tell Joe Biden?

GOODWIN: Well, I think, you know, that was at the beginning of Joe Biden's time in the White House. And we talked about what communication style might be best suited for him. And I thought the fireside chat, conversational style of FDR, would be.

The difficulty today is that when you used to have an FDR speech, 80 percent of the radios would be tuned into it. It was everybody listening at the same time and he was able to make people feel he was talking in their living rooms, that he was fighting for them.

And I think for Biden, right now, more important than telling what he has done, people know that or they might not know that, the ads can do that, but he has to make people feel he's fighting for them. That's what FDR said. It's very simple. They have to feel you're on their side. And he has to make them feel there's still a battle to be -- there are so many battles still to be fought way beyond what the legislation has.

There's the battle for women to have the right to choose. There's a battle for climate change. There's a battle for gun safety. All those are out there. Majority of people want those things done. And he has to make people feel I'm going to fight for those. This is a continuing fight and I'm on it.

ZAKARIA: The polls show something very interesting that people want change and, you know -- and some of them want change in effect from the right and someone from the left, but nobody wants the status quo. So, Biden has to show that he is a change agent. Is that a problem presidents have often faced because he is the incumbent?

GOODWIN: It's always hard when you're the incumbent because then they blame you for every part of the country that they don't like and they don't really give you credit for the part that's already there. But somehow that's got to take vitality. It's got to take tone. It's got to take him going around the country. And it's -- it's hard to do.

I mean, I think that's right, but I think they can do it sometimes. I mean, a second term is often difficult for people and they lose it sometimes.

ZAKARIA: Trump, on the other hand, does have this extraordinary cult like following of people. I don't think I've ever seen that with a politician. Is there -- is there something that comes close in American history?

GOODWIN: He has a charisma and there's no question. Teddy Roosevelt had a charisma. And Teddy Roosevelt also like being in the center of power as does Trump. And they said about Teddy that he wanted to be the baby at the baptism, the bride at the wedding, and the corpse at the funeral, but his charisma was used to make a better country for us in the industrial revolution. And he became a very popular president. Much like Trump, in a sense, people adored him and would follow him around.

But today the television and the media and the social media have allowed that charisma to create a group of people who feel he's on their side somehow, whether or not that's true in terms of policies that he would enact and what he said he would do. There's an emotional connection they have with each other, a camaraderie with each other.

We are against them. And them are the establishment. Them are the system. Them are the elites. And somehow, he has made them feel he's against them. And that's a powerful feeling that you have to combat.

ZAKARIA: What does it take for somebody like Biden? Because his role model has to be someone like FDR, right? FDR -- people always thought he was fighting for them.

GOODWIN: He made them feel that day by day. You know -- I mean, there's -- there's a story of a construction worker hurrying home one night and his partner said, where are you going? He said, my president. He's coming in my living room tonight. I have to be there to greet him when he comes.

You know, he talked to them, my friends, but he was a fighting spirit. I mean, even in that first inaugural, he comes in and he says, only a foolish optimist would deny the brutal realities of this moment. [10:55:05]

But I am telling you that there's nothing to fear but fear itself, if we fight together. You know, he said, it's not your fault that this depression is taking place. It's the leadership, the leadership that I'm replacing.

You know, I'm going to act as if we're at war. And I'm going to get you jobs. And I'm going to fight.

And that's the spirit that people -- when they're feeling -- that they're not being treated, right, or they need some vision of the future if that person is making them feel he's got to lead them somewhere and you have -- we have to accept that that's what's happening with Trump and the group of people that's still support him and figure out how to make them feel that somebody else has the policies that might help them in the future. And also has a fighting spirit.

ZAKARIA: Thank you so much.

GOODWIN: Thank you for having me talk about all this.

ZAKARIA: The death of Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi in last week's helicopter crash raises big questions about the future of the Islamic republic. Next Sunday, I'll bring you my documentary "Why Iran Hates America" which looks back at the roots of the regime and its animosity toward the U.S.

Meanwhile, thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. And I will see you next week.

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