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Fareed Zakaria GPS

A New Proposal for Peace in the Middle East. Lessons From A Violent Era In U.S. Politics; Repercussions Of The A.I. Revolution. Aired 10-11a ET

Aired September 08, 2024 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:01:03]

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, as the death toll in Gaza tops 40,000 and Israel continues to reel from the murders of six hostages, and both sides grow ever more weary of war, a peace plan has just been put out by a former prime minister of Israel and a former foreign minister of the Palestinian Authority.

Could it work? Will those with the power to agree to a ceasefire even entertainment it?

I'll talk to the men behind the proposal, Ehud Olmert and Nasser al- Kidwa.

Plus Dana Bash on the most violent election in American history. And Yuval Noah Harari on the danger A.I. poses to democracy.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

The great German statesman Otto von Bismarck is reputed to have once said that God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the United States of America. He might never actually said that but it captures the sense that many around the world have at America's continuing inability to surprise on the upside, in the words of a businessman friend of mine. But it remains unclear as to whether the incumbent party, the Democrats, will be able to benefit from this good fortune.

The latest evidence for its special providence is that the United States appears to be doing the near impossible -- getting inflation down far and fast without triggering a deep recession. The former Federal Reserve vice chairman Alan Blinder points out that using strict definitions, the United States has been able to achieve such a soft landing only once before in the past 60 years. In recent remarks, Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Fed, has all but

declared victory and he deserves considerable praise for getting the balance of policy about right through some very treacherous times. The U.S. economy currently has low inflation, low unemployment, a booming manufacturing and dominance in technologies of the future like A.I. and gene editing. Even rising inequality, which has soared for decades, has recently abated.

And yet, these factors are not giving the incumbent Democrats the advantage one might have expected. In most polls, Donald Trump continues to lead Kamala Harris on the question of who would better handle the economy, though by less than he led Joe Biden. More broadly, the race remains virtually tied. While Harris had improved on Biden's disastrous standing, her standing in the race both nationally and in swing states lags behind where Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden stood at this point in their races against Trump.

When you consider that Trump could do better than he is in current polling, which happened due to polling errors in both 2016 and 2020, the race remains a toss-up. In the end, as I've pointed out, this election will not be fought over economics. The most recent reminder of the political mood in the Western world comes from Germany. For many years, even as rightwing populism surged elsewhere, it did not take hold in Germany.

Until the last year or so, the small right-wing populist party, the Alternative for Germany, remained marginalized, but it now looks like the small, not likely to be marginalized for much longer. It won one recent German state election, a first for a far-right party since the Nazi era, came a very close second in another state, and is vying for the top spot in a third state.

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It looks poised to become Germany's second political party after the center right CDU. As with many right-wing populist parties, the AfD's rise can be largely credited to the politics of immigration. The story is a familiar one. As long as mainstream political parties turn a blind eye to the seismic shifts taking place relating to immigration, they are in danger of being outflanked by the populist right.

In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders has also gone from being an extremist firebrand with whom few would ally to the leading political player and kingmaker in the recent Dutch elections. There are strategies to blunt the populist right's appeal. In Denmark, the centrist parties have adopted a very tough line on immigration and assimilation, tough enough to be criticized by many mainstream politicians but the result has been that populism which fled up in past elections seems at bay in that country.

And Poland, the center-right party of Donald Tusk fought its election not on immigration, but over the future of democracy in Poland and its membership in the European Union, both popular positions in that country. In the United States, immigration remains a core concern. In "Wall Street Journal" polls, it was either close to the top or at the very top of voters' concerns, both nationally and in swing states. Kamala Harris has been able to effectively blunt some of Trump's

appeal on this issue by pointing out that he squashed a tough border protection bill, mostly written by Republicans. But she may need to do more. Many commentators believe that the Trump phenomenon is a fluke, fueled by his celebrity and almost cult-like following. Some of that is true, but right-wing populism isn't going anywhere.

Fueled as it is by a deep backlash against the economic, political, and cultural openness of the last few decades. And the urban elite it spawned. Look at Europe, look even at countries like Turkey and India, where leaders have allied themselves with those opposed to liberal cosmopolitan elites. Look at the Republican Party, which now has no home for people like George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney, Paul Ryan, and even Mitch McConnell, leaders who once defined the party.

Trump could win. But even if he loses, his movement and right-wing populism are here to stay.

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

This week a senior U.S. official said negotiators went 90 percent of the way to a deal between Israel and Hamas. Included in that agreement are plans for a ceasefire and for Hamas to release the hostages it holds. But perhaps that's senior official was surprised when in an interview on FOX News Thursday morning, Benjamin Netanyahu said unequivocally there's not a deal in the making. Unfortunately, it is not close.

So if not that deal, then what? My next guest, top former officials from Israel and Gaza, have a plan, a new plan. Ehud Olmert was the 12th prime minister of Israel and Nasser al-Kidwa was the foreign minister of the Palestinian Authority.

I want to welcome both of you. And take note, this is a very rare moment to have two of you on the same platform. I don't believe we've had a prominent Israeli and a prominent Palestinian for a long time.

But let me begin, Ehud, by asking you. Tell us what your --- what is your impression of what is going on in Israel right now? There are these protests. There is great sadness obviously about the brutal murder of these six hostages. What is the political consequence? Are we at some kind of a potential inflection point?

EHUD OLMERT, FORMER ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: I believe that we are close to a turning point. We have to make a deal and I completely trust the announcement by the White House that they have an idea for a deal which can work if the Israeli prime minister will agree to do it. He doesn't want to do it, not because of any reasonable reason regarding the security of the national interest of the state of Israel but rather because he doesn't fit in with his own personal considerations and political interests.

And this is quite obvious to everyone in Israel and his former partners to the coalition, the generals, the former chiefs of staff, Gantz and Eisenkot, who knows something about military and something about this Philadelphi Corridor saying that this is nonsense.

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This is not an excuse. This is not a reason. He simply doesn't want to end the war. The only way to reach an agreement at the end of the day is to end the war between us and the Palestinians in Gaza, and to embark on a new different direction that Dr. Nasser al-Kidwa and myself thought about and talked about and wrote about.

ZAKARIA: Nasser al-Kidwa, when I look at this plan, it feels to me like you are coming back to something that has been proposed again and again, and, you know, it hasn't worked for whatever reason. Why will a two-state solution proposed this time work when it didn't in 2000, when it didn't -- when Ehud Olmert proposed it to Abu Mazen.

So why is this plan different from the other plans?

NASSER AL-KIDWA, FORMER PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY FOREIGN MINISTER: I think we need to be clear about what we have in hands. This is not a plan, not a comprehensive plan, but this is very important mutual proposal on the most important three issues in hands namely the situation in Gaza, the war in Gaza, and need for immediate cessation. And the political solution in the form of the two states as well as the future of Jerusalem.

Now, to answer your questions, why it might work this time while it did not work in the past, the answer might be simple because of the war, because I believe that the people on both sides have become tired of the war and they want to see an end of the war and a substitute to the war. So what is the substitute? The substitute is what we said in our mutual proposal in terms of ending the war and the meaning of the ceasefire, the release of all hostages, the release of the agreed number of Palestinian prisoners.

The full withdrawal of the Israeli troops. The establishment of a governmental body in the form of a transitional council of commissioners in Gaza that is organically linked to the Palestinian Authority. We don't want to create any different entities in the West Bank. On the contrary, we want to maintain the territorial integrity and the unity of the Palestinian people.

You know, there is an alternative to war that we can do it together in a different way, that we don't need to go the same path of killing, of maiming people, of bloodbath that we see in Gaza. We have to end that. And the alternative is definitely the road of debate. The road of reconciliation. The road of a political solution.

And yes, two states, Israel and Palestine, based on the mutual recognition on the basis of 1967 borders with, by the way, the territorial solution that was proposed by Prime Minister Olmert, the 4.4 percent of the territory that is to be exchanged in this swap between the two states.

ZAKARIA: When I look at Israel now, it feels to me that's the political support for a two-state solution, which is at the heart of your proposal, just has evaporated. It was there in 2000, maybe it was there when you were proposing it, but today, I mean, if you look at by any indication the left of the Israeli political spectrum essentially has vanished. I mean, Labour is down to three seats.

If you look at what the Knesset did when they passed a resolution that said there will be no two-state solution, that was voted for by many more members than Bibi Netanyahu's coalition. A very thumping majority of the Knesset voted for it. I think only eight people voted against. So at this moment, it feels like, you know, Israel is just not going to go for a two-state solution.

OLMERT: Fareed, this is precisely the reason why we have to put it right now on the agenda. It's time to change direction. We are going to defeat Hamas. We already defeated Hamas. Maybe we'll kill a few more and there will not be any Hamas left. What then? There are six million Palestinians. I commend Dr. al-Kidwa for his courage to understand that this is not the time for avenging each other.

This is the time for moving away from the bleeding of this terrible confrontation that we had into a direction that may offer a new horizon. And that's we are trying to do. It's highly unpopular maybe now amongst them and amongst us.

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When it will become popular, it will be very easy. It's now difficult, therefore it's the time now to strength forward without any fear and to understand that we are fulfilling a mission that will change the Middle East and maybe it will change the world.

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, and in this scenario what does one do about Hamas? I'll ask Nasser al-Kidwa and Ehud Olmert, when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAKARIA: And we are back with Nasser al-Kidwa, a former foreign minister of the Palestinian Authority, and Ehud Olmert, the 12th prime minister of Israel.

[10:20:03]

Nasser al-Kidwa, what to do about Hamas? Because Hamas, let's face it, it has been historically quite popular. There is a large segment of Palestinians who believe the Palestinian Authority has been corrupt and feckless and maybe collaborated with Israel on security, and so the alternative of Hamas has always seemed attractive. They did win the elections in Gaza, though after that they've kind of stayed on.

But even in the West Bank, one of the reasons the Palestinian Authority doesn't want to hold elections is because Hamas might win. What do you do about Hamas? Can it have a role given this political legitimacy that it has among a large segment of the Palestinian people?

AL-KIDWA: With regard to Hamas, let's start by presenting an alternative. An alternative for better future, for better life for the Palestinian people and their kids and their children, for better education, for better economic situation, for better opportunities, et cetera, et cetera. So it's not a matter of being tested, the Palestinian people being tested every few weeks, or they should cooperate in certain way, no, but it's a matter of providing them with better option. So let's start from here.

Secondly, I think that in any way the result of this war will be clear, I said repeatedly that this war would lead to a new Israeli government, to a new Palestinian leadership and to a new Hamas. And I still say that I don't hesitate in saying that and we need to have different kind of situation in Gaza.

Now, what we propose here is to have a governmental body composed of commissioners, transitional body of Gaza commissioners with some kind of organic linkage between that counsel and the Palestinian Authority to ensure the territorial integrity and the unity of the people and of the land. But that body should be formed a light of consultation with every factions without direct participation of any factions.

Because this is not -- this should not be a political representation. This should be a place of good people that are able to do the job. They are trusted by their population and they're trusted by the international community, by the donors community, and again, they have the abilities to fulfill the job and to really start rebuilding Gaza, which is monumental job, very difficult, but it has to be done anyway.

ZAKARIA: Do you think that your plan rests on a change in government in Israeli? In other words, is there any chance that Bibi Netanyahu would go for this and if not do you think it's conceivable that another right-wing prime minister -- because I think that's what's in the cards, a Naftali Bennett or an Avigdor Lieberman. Would they go along with this plan or do you need a political transformation of Israel where somehow you get a moderate who becomes prime minister?

OLMERT: I'll tell you, Fareed. You know, I always thought before I was prime minister, while I was prime minister, when I worked with other prime ministers and watch world leaders that the ultimate measure for great leadership is the ability when the time comes to do the opposite of everything that you ever promised to do, because this is what needs to be done now. This is what Menachem Begin did when he pulled out entirely from Sinai. This is what Ariel Sharon did when he pulled out entirely from Gaza.

This is not what Netanyahu is going to do because he's not a great leader. He is not Churchill, and he's not Roosevelt and he's not even Chamberlain. And I'm afraid that none of the possible contenders in the state of Israel presently are capable of taking this decision because none of those people in different positions are prepared to do that which looks to be unpopular at the moment, but which is the only possible way to change lives.

ZAKARIA: But then how --

(CROSSTALK)

OLMERT: The public opinion, the lack of solution, the fear of continued confrontations and violence, and terror, and what some of the partners of Netanyahu want very much like Ben-Gvir and Smotrich will ultimately lead into new elections, which I believe will take place sooner than most people think, perhaps at the beginning of 2025. This will create a new government. And when there will be a new government, the leadership that will understand will take over.

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ZAKARIA: Do you want to run?

OLMERT: I want a new leadership in the state of Israel and we'll see what comes up. I will not talk about my own personal plans before I know that there are elections for reasons which can you can understand.

ZAKARIA: Ehud Olmert, Nasser al-Kidwa, thank you both for coming together and for talking to us about this important proposal.

AL-KIDWA: Thank you.

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, what can the most violent election in American history teach us about this year's presidential race. My colleague Dana Bash will join me to discuss a fascinating new book that she has written.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAKARIA: Donald Trump and Kamala Harris will meet on the debate stage for the first time on Tuesday night. Even if Trump doesn't mention Harris' race explicitly in this form, he has already put the issue out there questioning when Harris, quote, "became a Black person," unquote. So, how might history help us understand this moment?

That has been a quest for my colleague, Dana Bash. She is, of course, the co-anchor of CNN's "STATE OF THE UNION," and has co-authored a new book called "America's Deadliest Election." It tells the cautionary tale of the 1872 Louisiana gubernatorial election held amidst the extraordinary dysfunction in that state after the Civil War. The rancor and chaos brought about the Colfax massacre, a racist massacre, which left at least 150 Black men dead. Dana Bash joins me now.

Welcome, Dana. What do you think, you know, when you look at that period's polarization how much is it similar, how much is it different from ours?

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I'll start with how it is similar, and that is the rancor around the electoral system, and the right to vote, and who is going to vote, how they're going to vote was white-hot back then.

Back then it was about one thing and one thing only. It was racism. It was the south, which is -- was still reeling from losing the Civil War, trying to hold our grasp on the notion that Blacks should not be as equal in society as they. And they realized in the first couple of elections after the Civil War, during reconstruction, that they could easily -- Blacks could easily get more rights with the simple power of the vote. And they were determined to stop people of color from using that right. And it was all about that one notion, which is race.

ZAKARIA: And all of that, then translates into a disputed presidential election that has to meet eerie parallels. So, tell us what happens in 1876 because you have the thing that people fear in a state like Pennsylvania. So, you know, explain it with that in mind.

BASH: Yes. The elections were impossible to really decipher in Louisiana and in three other states. So, when it got to the Electoral College and when it got to Congress, when they were going to certify the votes, they got two slates of electors because there could not be any kind of unity and decision inside the states. Those four states in 1876.

So, by the time the Congress had to deal with it they had to throw those votes out from those four states, and they had a tie in the Electoral College. And it was decided then that the vice president's role was only ceremonial, that he could not make choices. And that was obviously the same decision that Mike Pence used, I don't know, 150 years later.

ZAKARIA: Tell us about the Colfax massacre and -- what do you -- what is the significance of it? Why did it happen? You know, how should we think about it?

BASH: We should think about this massacre as something that everybody and America should understand that it was brutal. It was around the 1872 election, 150 Black men were slaughtered in cold blood in Grant Parish in Louisiana, Colfax. And they were killed just for one reason, is because they were pushing for their votes to be counted.

And the result of that, the prosecution of that horrible massacre, was done in federal court, went all the way up to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court decision, a famous decision called Cruikshank, said that it is not the federal government's job to decide civil rights -- and civil rights generally. And also, within the election laws, it's up to the states. And so, Louisiana and other states said, fantastic. We will take it upon ourselves.

And they imposed Jim Crow laws that were the law of the land in -- across the south for a century. And that's how we got Jim Crow. I think about that "Sliding Doors" movie and the notion of it.

What could have happened, Fareed, if the decisions were not made to try the Colfax massacre case in federal court that allowed the Supreme Court just do what it did? What if President Hayes did not get the presidency with a wink and a nod deal to pull federal troops out who were kind of in and out of the south, protecting the rights of Black Americans post-Civil War during reconstruction effectively ending reconstruction?

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What if that didn't happen? We would be in such a different place with regard to racial, economic, all of the big, big problems that have plagued us since the original sin of slavery. ZAKARIA: The book really highlights how elections have consequences and mean -- and consequential elections at inflection points have huge consequences forever. Dana Bash, thank you so much. Pleasure to have you on.

BASH: Thank you so much for having me. Thank you.

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, questions swirl about how to keep the world safe from the many risks that A.I. could pose. My next guest, Yuval Noah Harari, has ideas on just how we can do that. We'll be back in a moment.

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ZAKARIA: Artificial intelligence has made a grand entrance into global public consciousness over the past few years. Its positive applications seem nearly limitless as do the potential risks it poses. But my next guest says that many of the problems posed by A.I. are not new. And to understand how the combat them, we can look to the history of how humans spread and receive information.

Yuval Noah Harari is an Israeli historian and writer. His forthcoming book is "Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to A.I." Yuval, welcome.

YUVAL NOAH HARARI, AUTHOR, "NEXUS": Thank you.

ZAKARIA: You do this thing better than almost anybody, which is to step back and take a look at the broader sweep of history which you did so beautifully in "Sapiens." Tell us when you look at A.I. and you think about, you know, the other example, people often talk about is Gutenberg and the invention of the printing press.

HARARI: Yes.

ZAKARIA: How similar is it? How different is it from other bursts of information technology in human history?

HARARI: In one way, it's completely different from anything we've seen before, because it's the first technology which isn't a tool, it's an agent. It can make decisions by itself. It can create new ideas by itself. Gutenberg's press could copy our ideas, but it could not create new texts. And it couldn't decide --

ZAKARIA: We were in control.

HARARI: We were in complete control. A.I., in contrast, it's an agent. It starts to make independent decisions and it can even create new texts, images, videos, and so forth. So, in this sense it's very different. And the big danger is that it will escape our control, something that the printing press could never do.

ZAKARIA: Now, that we have totally democratize the production of information and that A.I. makes the production of highly sophisticated seeming -- information easy why will -- truth will be the small, lonely island.

HARARI: Yes.

ZAKARIA: And as you say -- I mean, think about a place like CNN or the "New York Times," it's costly. You have to have factcheckers. You have to have reporters. You have to go back and forth. Meanwhile the junk, the disinformation, of course, is good. There is going to be much more of it because they don't need any of that apparatus.

HARARI: Yes, it's cheap and it's attractive. I mean, the truth is not only costly, the truth is often complicated because the reality is complicated. Whereas, fiction can be as simple as you would like it to be. And the truth is often painful. Whether as individuals or as entire nations often we don't want to hear the truth about ourselves. Whereas fiction can be made very flattering.

So, the truth is at a disadvantage, and it's the responsibility of people who run large media companies to make the right investments. And this -- again, this is something we learned with every previous wave of new information technology. And now the tech giants, they are telling us that this history doesn't apply to us. And they very often try to kind of divert the conversation to freedom of speech. They say, we don't want to censor anybody.

But the problem is not freedom of speech. The problem is that their algorithms of Twitter and Facebook and so forth, they deliberately promote information that captures our attention, even if it's not true. And when people complain about it, they say, but how can we tell what is true and what isn't true?

The same way that people at CNN and the people at the "New York Times," and the people for centuries have developed mechanisms to tell whether a story is true or not. And if you don't have these mechanisms, you're in the wrong business.

ZAKARIA: You say that this whole problem becomes much greater with A.I. Why?

HARARI: Because A.I. can start creating content by itself. Previously, over the last 10 years or so, we saw a big battle for attention between algorithms but they only promoted content created by human beings.

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Now, A.I. is capable of starting to create content by itself, texts, images, videos, and we haven't seen anything yet. I mean, the AIs of today are still extremely primitive. In five or 10 years they are going to be far more sophisticated in their ability to create content than most human beings.

ZAKARIA: So, for you, the solution is really quite significant regulation of companies that do social media and things like that?

HARARI: Yes. We need regulation. And again, the regulation is not about harming the freedom of speech of human beings. It's about regulating the algorithms and the bots, which don't have freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is a human right. It is not a bot right.

ZAKARIA: Do you think that -- I mean, given the power of this technology, are we kidding ourselves that we can put in place some regulations that will make a difference? It sort of feels like -- a little bit like, you know, the industrial revolution that's going to roll through no matter what you do.

HARARI: The industrial revolution itself was regulated. Initially, they send kids to work in coal mines. Eventually, there were relations that said, no, you cannot send 10-year-old kids to work in coal mines. They should go to school.

So, at least democracies managed to regulate industrial revolution. They should do the same with A.I. because their very existence is at stake.

ZAKARIA: Yuval Noah Harari, always a pleasure.

HARARI: Thank you.

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, the world may have gotten a handle on COVID, but older diseases are seeing a resurgence across the world. I'll tell you why and what you need to know when we return.

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ZAKARIA: And now for the last look. As if war and hunger in Gaza weren't bad enough Palestinians are now facing the scourge of disease. The conflict has prevented children from getting vaccinated and polio has begun to spread. So dire is the situation that Israel and Hamas agreed brief pauses in fighting to allow an immunization campaign to proceed this week.

The unwelcome return of polio highlights a concerning global trend. Back in 2020, the world's attention focused on a terrifying new disease called COVID, that no one knew how to treat. Today, we have a much better handle on COVID, but the world is contending with the resurgence of old diseases across many countries.

A June analysis by Airfinity and "Bloomberg" found more than 40 countries experiencing an infectious disease outbreak at levels 10 times higher than before the pandemic. These are age-old diseases that have tormented humankind, such as tuberculosis, measles, cholera, and polio.

Tragically, many of these diseases are preventable. Take measles, from 2000 to 2019, the share of children receiving at least one dose of the measles vaccine rose from 71 percent to 86 percent. That prevented an estimated 25 million deaths.

During the disruption of the pandemic, the vaccinated share fell to 81 percent. It has bounced back to only 83 percent, a level previously seen in 2009. Measles is now surging in the U.S. and abroad. The WHO reported an 88 percent increase in cases last year. One major factor here is vaccine hesitancy. According to a 2023 UNICEF report, surveys found declining support for childhood vaccinations in 52 out of 55 countries compared to before the pandemic, a double-digit decline in most places. People who have been sowing doubts about vaccines should realize they are costing lives.

Another disease raising fears around the world is Mpox, formerly known as monkeypox. It spread widely in 2022. Now, a deadlier strain is proliferating in several African countries and cases have reached as far as Sweden and Thailand. This may sound like a new affliction for humanity, but it is really an old enemy in different clothing.

Mpox is closely related to smallpox, so close that smallpox vaccines are used against Mpox. The world eradicated smallpox by 1980 and understandably stopped administering smallpox vaccines. Yet it has failed to take Mpox seriously, which is far less fatal but has infected over 100,000 people since 2022 and killed over 220.

There's another area where success has bred complacency, sexually transmitted diseases. Worldwide cases of syphilis have spiked. For example, in the U.S., the latest data showed syphilis at levels seen last in the 1950s. One reason has to do with HIV which used to scare people into getting tested and using protection, gay men in particular. Now, there are very effective drugs to treat HIV and prevent transmission.

[10:55:02]

That is fantastic. Except that it means people are taking fewer precautions and spreading other STDs.

Two other kinds of diseases bear mentioning, common illnesses like flu and strep throat have roared back after the pandemic, after people were cloistered and natural population immunity dwindled. Other pathogens have benefited from environmental factors like climate change. Cases of dengue fever are at a global record as mosquitoes have extended their range.

By the way, if you think that the U.S. emerged from COVID, ready to handle a new epidemic, think again. As Caitlin Rivers writes in "Foreign Affairs," trust in public health institutions is down. The CDC's budget for public health preparedness and response has not kept pace with inflation. And conservative state legislatures have curtailed the power of state health officials.

Science is far from perfect, always a work in progress. But over the years, the science of public health has produced remarkable advances in lifespan and quality of life worldwide. We need to overcome our pandemic fatigue, use the best tools we have, and extinguished these outbreaks as quickly as possible.

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

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