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Fareed Zakaria GPS

Interview with Senator Jack Reed (D-RI); Large Gaps Remain in Ukraine Peace Talks; Europe in the Age of Trump; "Succession" Come to Life? Interview With Wall Street Journal Media And Entertainment Reporter Joe Flint; Interview With Washington Institute For Near East Policy Senior Fellow Holly Dagres; Interview With MTV Co-Founder Tom Freston. Aired 10-11a ET

Aired December 14, 2025 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:37]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: The breaking news this hour, two tragic scenes in Providence, Rhode Island. Police say they have a person of interest in custody after a deadly shooting at Brown University. Two students there killed, another nine injured after a masked man opened fire on the Ivy League campus during a final exam review session.

And the other horrific scene, at least 11 people are dead, 29 more hospitalized after gunmen opened fire at a Jewish event at Bondi Beach. Officials are calling this a terror attack targeting Australia's Jewish community. There were two suspects in that case.

And there's incredible video of a bystander confronting one of the gunmen wrestling a weapon from him. We know one of the suspects was killed, another is in custody. And officers are investigating whether there was a third suspect involved in the attack.

Let's talk more about the scene unfolding at Brown University. Let's bring in Democratic senator, the senior senator from Rhode Island, Jack Reed.

Thank you so much for being here, Senator Reed. I'm so sorry for what you are dealing with in your beloved state of Rhode Island. What is the latest that you are hearing on the investigation?

SEN. JACK REED (D-RI): Well, first, we are all shocked. You know, there's always the possibility of something like this, but we'd never thought it would come to Rhode Island, which is a very small community. And we try to take care of each other, but the horrific and also for the families, unbearable for those, particularly the two students who died. But the wounded students also.

What's happened is that we've had outstanding coordination with not just the Providence Police Department and fire department, but with other cities and towns throughout Rhode Island. They sent police. They sent fire. The FBI was here. Federal coordination has been incredibly appreciated and effective. And as a result, about 4:00 a.m. this morning, they arrested a suspect and brought him back to Providence. He's in the custody now of the Providence Police.

There'll be a press conference, I'm told, at noon. And I will do my best to attend. And at that point, they will have more details. But the horrible news that we lost two students and others are seriously wounded. But we do have the suspect in custody.

BASH: Well, that is good news. And they are breathing a sigh of relief, as I'm sure you are as well.

REED: Yes.

BASH: Rhode Island, we've been discussing this morning, does have one of the strictest gun laws or some of the strictest gun laws in the nation. And yet this tragedy still happened. What does that tell you?

REED: Well, we always have to look very carefully about how effective our laws are. And you're right. We have some of the strictest laws in the nation, and they're enforced. So the first set of questions that should be asked is, you know, how did the gunman get the guns? They were, I'm told, handguns. They were pistols. So that might be one way he got them. There's more of a concern, obviously, of military type weapons.

And then it appears that he's about 30 years old so not a question of age. But I think we have to check very closely how he obtained the weapons. I'm told also that when they captured him in Coventry, Rhode Island, about 20 miles from the Brown campus, they found other handguns. So if these are illegal handguns, you know, we have to look and see how he got them. And if there's a hole in the process, we have to plug the hole.

There's, you know, there's just a proliferation of firearms, and they're -- and they're one reason, not the only reason, but they're one reason why we have these tragedies.

BASH: Is that hole pluggable?

REED: I think so.

[10:05:00]

I think part of it is, you know, improving the background checks that we do. Sometimes they're cursory at best. Records aren't maintained. And many people say, well, we do have background checks, but if the background checks are cursory or, you know, you can get by with them, then again, we have to make them tougher. I mean, we hear all the time that most of the weapons and military grade weapons that are going into Mexico to their drug gangs come from the United States.

Like it's easier to get firearms in the United States, military grade, and take them to Mexico than just to get them in Mexico. So I think we have to look closely at all of our laws and not be satisfied until these occurrences are something of the past.

BASH: Yes. I mean, Senator, I have been covering Washington for a very long time, and I've heard that kind of promise and hope that you can get things done more times than I'd like to count.

REED: Yes.

BASH: Do you really think -- I mean, I want to be an optimist, but we also have to be real here. Is that going to happen?

REED: No, I -- I think we have to recognize that there's a powerful and well-financed gun lobby. The gun manufacturers, the retailers, all of them, they're very effective and very influential. And then there's also in popular culture in the United States, this association with guns, with the winning of the West and et cetera, and a lot of other factors. But, you know, there are reasons why we don't get things passed.

But then you confront a situation like we've seen at Brown where innocent students take an examination, probably thinking, gee, I'm going to be out here an hour and then I'm on the train or plane back home. What a great Christmas. Hanukkah is coming up. And they're dead or they're severely wounded. I mean --

BASH: Yes.

REED: Our priorities in this regard are wrong. I can recall sponsoring with John McCain a legislation years ago that would have required background checks at private gun sales. And it passed the Senate. But what the leadership did at that time, the Republican leadership, even though it was a bipartisan bill, they took the whole bill down. They voted against it because they didn't want to see any changes, significant changes to gun control.

But -- and it's, you know, this is not a strictly a partisan issue. This is an issue for regional and for all Americans. But we've got to do more.

BASH: Senator Jack Reed, so sorry for what has occurred and is occurring.

REED: Thank you.

BASH: In your state of Rhode Island. Thank you for joining me.

REED: Thank you, Dana.

BASH: Thank you for spending this very busy Sunday morning with us. Much more on the breaking news coming up. And "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS" will pick it up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN ANCHOR: This is GPS, the GLOBAL PUBLIC SQUARE. Welcome to all of you in the United States and around the world. I'm Bianna Golodryga, filling in for Fareed.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GOLODRYGA: Today on the program, the fate of the Ukrainian people hangs in the balance as Donald Trump seeks to make peace in the biggest land war in Europe since 1945. But will the American president sell out Ukraine to get Russia to sign on the dotted line?

I'll talk to Carl Bildt, the former prime minister of Sweden.

Also, billionaires, bragging rights and the future of moviegoing in America. We'll tell you what you need to know about what could be one of the biggest deals announced this year.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I want to do what's right.

GOLODRYGA: And yes, our parent company is at the center of the intrigue.

Plus, Fareed's interview about Iran's historic and unprecedented drought. Situation is so dire the country is thinking of moving its capital from Tehran. How did this happen?

Then MTV co-founder Tom Freston tells Fareed about a time when not only did the entire world want their MTV, they also clamored for any and all American culture. Is that era over?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GOLODRYGA: It's been nearly four years since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and there's still no peace deal that both Kyiv and Moscow can accept. But in recent weeks, diplomacy has reached a frenzy, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy holding urgent talks with leaders from dozens of countries, some known as the Coalition of the Willing, as he pushes for peace on Kyiv's terms.

This rush follows the emergence last month of a leaked U.S. drafted peace plan that appeared to greatly favor Russia, and Zelenskyy has now sent a counter peace proposal to Donald Trump. The talks have also grown more complex after Washington released a document last week outlining its foreign policy, which is strikingly harsh on Europe while conspicuously light in its criticism of Moscow.

[10:15:10]

To help make sense of it all, I'm joined by Carl Bildt. He's a former prime minister of Sweden and now co-chairs the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Mr. Prime Minister, thank you so much for taking the time. It is good to see you. So as we mentioned, Ukraine and its European allies have sent President Trump their own peace proposal but serious gaps remain, specifically over territorial concessions and U.S. security guarantees for Ukraine.

It is clear that President Trump at this point is quite impatient and reportedly wants a deal done by Christmas. But all of his pressure seems to be directed at one party, and that is Ukraine. Russia is continuing its maximalist demands here. So what does that tell you about the type of deal that President Trump may force Ukraine to accept?

CARL BILDT, FORMER SWEDISH PRIME MINISTER: Well, up until the infamous summit in Alaska, the Europeans and Trump were basically on the same line. A ceasefire and the fighting along the existing lines, and then go on from there and try to resolve the different political issues. But since Alaska, President Trump has changed and essentially endorsed the Russian demand that Ukraine should give up territory which Putin has not been able to conquer, in spite of throwing his entire armed might against it for three and a half years.

And that is something that is unacceptable for the Ukrainians. The Ukrainians are ready to accept a ceasefire along the existing lines. The Europeans, although they are saying this is for Ukraine to decide, but basically supporting that line. And I think that is in the counter-proposal that President Zelenskyy has now sent to President Trump. And then let's see. Is President Trump ready to put pressure on President Putin instead of just pressure on President Zelenskyy?

GOLODRYGA: Yes. And President Zelenskyy maintains that he has no legal or moral right to cede land to Russia. It has been reported that European leaders are warning President Zelenskyy not to cede territory unless they get firm guarantees from the United States about security provisions for Ukraine. If that doesn't happen, is Europe effectively telling President Zelenskyy or advising President Zelenskyy not to accept President Trumps plan? And if so, is that a wise move?

BILDT: Well, it's essentially up to President Zelenskyy to decide. But essentially the European sympathy will be him. I mean, with him. It's not fair to ask him to give up lands that he has been shedding blood and tears and lives for three and a half years just because Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump likes it. Is the Europeans or are the Europeans ready to support Ukraine? Well, I mean, the Europeans are now doing most of the support for Ukraine anyhow. Be that financial or be that military. America has backed away from quite a lot of it already, regrettably, but that's a fact.

GOLODRYGA: So are you suggesting that if the United States does walk away or doesn't offer specific security guarantees for Ukraine, that Europe is ready to step in, in its place? And do you think, if so, that that's deterrent enough for Vladimir Putin not to at some point re-invade Ukraine?

BILDT: Well, as a matter of fact, I don't think there is any sort of paper security guarantees that can replace what we need to do anyhow in the years ahead, and that is support Ukraine financially. Be that call it reconstruction or call it sustaining the Ukrainian state or call it helping to finance their defense. I think the security guarantee that is really relevant for Ukraine in the future is their own defensive capabilities.

I don't think it's going to be sort of American or European papers or even commitments of military support. It's going to be their own efforts, but those efforts are going to require our financial support. And that I'm quite convinced the Europeans will be ready to do.

GOLODRYGA: Well, this all comes as the U.S. released a national security strategy unlike any that we've seen in decades, describing, quote, "civilizational erasure in Europe," accusing European governments of abandoning and subverting democracy, and effectively declaring an end to NATO role as an expanding alliance, and we should note your country is the latest member to have joined that alliance.

Moscow clearly has welcomed this language, and we know publicly European leaders have been quite muted in response to this report but privately they seemed alarmed. What is your reaction?

BILDT: Well, I thought the document, particularly in the section on Europe, because the section on Europe are different from the other sections. It's a fairly bizarre document, I have to say. It has an extremely distorted view of what's happening in Europe.

[10:20:03]

I mean, it expresses concern about the fate of democracy in western Europe, but not the fate of democracy in Russia or China, or not to speak about Saudi Arabia and other places. It sees Russia's effective for stability, which is fairly bizarre when -- more than bizarre, I have to say, when Russia is a country that has been attacking another European country and is conducting hybrid warfare against other European countries, not a single word about that, but only criticizing Europeans for something that, I mean, frankly, bizarre.

GOLODRYGA: You're right. The strategy does call for, quote, "strategic stability" with Russia at this moment, which has a lot of European leaders now waiting for the national defense strategy, which is expected to be released soon as well.

I want to ask you about the focus of the upcoming issue of "Foreign Affairs" magazine. It has a very provocative title, "How Europe Lost." And here's the crux of their argument. "By giving in to Trump on defense, trade and democratic values, Europe has effectively bolstered those far-right forces that want to see a weaker E.U. Europe's Trump strategy, in other words, is a self-defeating trap. There's only one way out of this cycle. Europe must take steps to restore agency where it still can, rather than wait it out until January 2029, when magical thinking assumes the current transatlantic nightmare will come to an end. The E.U. needs to stop groveling and build greater sovereignty. Only then will it neuter the political forces that are hollowing it out from within."

Do you agree with that assessment?

BILDT: I disagree with the assessment, but I agree with the recommendations. I mean, Europe have to stand on its own legs somewhat more. That's what we're doing now in terms of defense. There's no question we have to build a NATO with substantially less of the United States. We have to look at the sort of the competitiveness of our economy. So we need to do more and to be more self-confident.

But as the nature of our society is, I don't think we need to be particularly shy. I looked at sort of one index, for example, in freedom of the press. The United States is number 53 on that list. Every single European Union countries is well ahead of the United States with one exception. That's Hungary. That happens to be sort of an indirect ideological ally on President Trump. And if you take sort of social indicators, the number of people in prison, the level of overall education, the nature of the health system and the life quality, I think we offer a quality of life for the majority of our people that is better than we offer in any other part of the world.

So we have to be perhaps somewhat more self-confident and self-assured when it comes to these issues. The quality of life in Europe is, I think, unsurpassed in the world today.

GOLODRYGA: Carl Bildt, we'll have to leave it there. Thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it.

BILDT: Thank you.

GOLODRYGA: And up next on GPS, high stakes, hostile moves. A contentious fight, the battle to buy Warner Brothers Discovery is straight out of the "Succession" playbook.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEREMY STRONG, ACTOR: I think I'm the best option.

SARAH SNOOK, ACTRESS: Oh, right. Because you like playing boss?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GOLODRYGA: So who will win? We'll discuss when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:27:49]

GOLODRYGA: The astonishing showdown in the entertainment industry this week feels like watching a scene from "Succession."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Brother, we are putting together a hostile takeover of one of the largest media corporations in the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GOLODRYGA: In an extraordinary move on Monday, Paramount CEO David Ellison announced a hostile bid to take over media giant Warner Brothers Discovery.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID ELLISON, PARAMOUNT SKYDANCE CHAIRMAN AND CEO: We are offering shareholders $17.6 billion more cash than the deal they currently have signed up with Netflix.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GOLODRYGA: Ellison is appealing directly to the company's shareholders in hopes of striking a deal after Warner executives rejected Paramount's bid in favor of another industry heavyweight, Netflix. This faceoff between Paramount and Netflix has Hollywood reeling, as the outcome is likely to shape the entertainment industry for decades to come.

The already contentious battle has caught the eye of President Trump, who vows to be involved in the sale. I should mention that Warner Brothers Discovery is CNN's parent company.

Joining me now is Joe Flint, an entertainment reporter for the "Wall Street Journal."

Joe, it is good to see you. And let's start with how unusual this moment is. A hostile takeover bid in Hollywood from a company that is significantly smaller than its target. That's almost unheard of. So from your reporting, walk us through how we came to this moment.

JOE FLINT, MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER, WALL STREET JOURNAL: Well, to really get into how we came to this moment, we have to go back a little bit to when David Ellison, who ran a company called Skydance, took over control of Paramount, and he did that with an eye of getting even bigger. So Warner was always in the back of his mind.

David Ellison is the son of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, a friend of the White House and a billionaire, as no doubt your audience knows. And so literally a couple of months after they closed the deal for Paramount, they're going after Warner Brothers. They made three unsolicited offers, which then had the effect of kind of forcing Warner to put the whole company up for sale and entertain offers from others as well.

[10:30:00]

And that's how we got here. Netflix and Comcast were other bidders, and the Warner board ultimately decided a Netflix offer was a better fit.

GOLODRYGA: So, with this hostile takeover, David Ellison is essentially arguing that Paramount never got a fair chance with Warner Brothers Discovery, despite what he believes is a better deal for its shareholders.

Now, from your reporting, a major factor in Warner Brothers' decision in partnering with Netflix instead is Paramount's financing, specifically sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East, and Jared Kushner, President Trump's son-in-law's company, being involved as well. How much of a factor was that in Warner Brothers Discovery ultimately siding with Netflix?

FLINT: Well, in our reporting, there certainly was concern from Warner about the financing that Paramount had and whether, in fact, they would be able to pull this deal off. Certainly, the sovereign wealth funds are a concern, especially in Europe, and trying to get the deal through European regulators. Warner has a lot of concern that that would be a factor. And ultimately, they also were kind of a little worried about how backstopped the Ellison family was in all of this. And Netflix basically came in with a big check from Wells Fargo, which was more appealing to the Warner board.

GOLODRYGA: And has Paramount meaningfully addressed that financing concern in its most recent bid?

FLINT: Well, they're certainly making the case to shareholders in lots of letters and detailing their talks with Warner, and that they believe they have the financing and that the game has been rigged, if you will, in favor of Netflix. I think Warner still has some questions.

But there's also just a fundamental difference of opinion here. On paper, the Paramount last bid of $30.00 per share is bigger than the Netflix bid of about $27.75. But when you factor in -- I don't want to get too down in the details for your audience, but when you factor in other components of this deal, including how the Warner Cable assets are being valued because that's another part of all this, they believe the Netflix deal is better. And the people I've talked to said, hey, Paramount, instead of complaining about the process or going on CNBC and saying, we're here to finish the job, make a bigger bid.

So, we're going to see if that is, in fact, what happens next. Will Paramount come back with an even bigger bid? And we'll be right back to square one, perhaps.

GOLODRYGA: Well, as I mentioned, Warner Brothers Discovery is the parent company of CNN, and you've reported that David Ellison's father, Larry Ellison, who, as you noted, is one of the world's richest men and the founder of Oracle, had called President Trump and signaled that he'd, quote, "make sweeping changes" to CNN if Paramount indeed won.

How much could Trump actually influence the regulatory process here? He's already said that he's going to be involved.

FLINT: Well, typically, a president doesn't really put their thumb on the scale of a big merger. They let their independent agencies, whether it's the FTC, the DOJ, handle these reviews.

Obviously, this is a different situation. And the president has said what he said. He's also expressed concerns with both buyers. So, he could make it a very challenging review.

I think there's a lot of debate about whether an actual sale of CNN to a third party could really be stood up in court, but certainly it can drag out what already promises to be at least a year in terms of regulatory scrutiny.

GOLODRYGA: Joe Flint, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate the time and your reporting.

FLINT: Thank you. GOLODRYGA: Up next on GPS, Iran's capital, Tehran, is running out of water. Experts warn taps could soon run dry in the city. So, how did the situation become so dire? Fareed will be back with a conversation with an Iran expert. That's up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:38:49]

ZAKARIA: Iran's capital, Tehran, is edging toward what officials call day zero, the moment when the city's water supply completely runs out. The situation is so dire that President Masoud Pezeshkian warned last month that authorities may have to evacuate the city which is home to around 10 million people.

Following the nationwide Women, Life, Freedom protests, and more recently a devastating war with Israel, is the Iranian regime prepared to endure yet another crisis? Joining me now to discuss is Holly Dagres, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute and the curator of the Substack, The Iranist.

Holly, welcome. You always write so interestingly about Iran. If you were to put it very simply, what explains this extraordinary situation that this is a major country, an oil exporting country that appears to be literally running out of water and thinking about evacuating its capital city?

HOLLY DAGRES, SENIOR FELLOW, WASHINGTON INSTITUTE FOR NEAR EAST POLICY: Unfortunately, it's 46 years of systemic mismanagement and corruption, and that's really been what's been leading this.

[10:40:01]

Of course, there's drought and also, to an extent, U.S. sanctions. But really this has been something that the Islamic republic has been ignoring until they've actually started talking about this publicly as you've noted with Masoud Pezeshkian's recent alarming comments.

ZAKARIA: So, you know, one of the things that people don't know enough about with the -- with the Islamic regime is that it's called the Islamic regime and it's, in many ways, a theocracy. It's also a kind of quasi socialist regime. The government owns and controls almost everything. And that in some ways is at the heart of this, right?

DAGRES: Yes. So the systemic mismanagement, corruption, a lot of this corruption is actually driven by various things. It's driven by the IRGC's engineering arm, which analysts and activists call a water mafia, a mix of individuals that are actually over damming the country for 46 years. And now we're seeing this situation cause the dire water situation that Tehran is in, where there's only 10 percent of capacity in five of the capital's dams, and Iranians are taking note.

And there's still a sense of they're not doing enough, and it's just more of rhetoric and not actually taking action. And instead of actually doing what needs to be done, they're blaming things like women violating mandatory hijab rules for clouds not raining on the capitol.

ZAKARIA: How bad is the situation? You hear about all -- I mean, you hear all kinds of problems in Tehran. So, paint a picture for us.

DAGRES: Well, I talk to people on the ground. And for people in Tehran when it comes to water, those that can afford it, they purchase water pumps to suck whatever water they can out of the pipes. Others, depending on the district, they're actually dealing with nightly water shuts that start around 10 p.m. until morning. Others unexpected.

And that's just water. We have to remember that there's also an electricity blackouts that were happening over the summer. And as you noted earlier, this is a resource rich country that is a top oil and gas exporter. Like how are they unable to meet their people's needs?

And it's not that Iranians are ignoring this. We've also been seeing for years now, starting with 2021 protests against the water situation in different parts of the country, farmers, ordinary Iranians, we've seen them actually had security forces, systemically blind protesters.

And more recently, just a couple months ago, Iranians were chanting electricity, water, life is our inherent right, which was a bitter play on if you remember very well, in the early 2000, the nuclear mantra, nuclear energy is our inherent right. So, that's to tell you where things are.

ZAKARIA: There is an irony here, is there not? Which is that Iran's water system was engineered in the 1970s under the Shah of Iran, with the help of a whole team of Israeli engineers who performed, apparently something, you know, quite ingenious.

I assume there is no discussion of that. And of course, no possibility that they would ever reach out to Israel to ask for help.

DAGRES: Certainly not when their -- when one of their main chants is, death to Israel, and are currently, I would say, in wartime with Israel, because there's a sense on the ground, and I think within the clerical establishment and also I believe within Israel, according to reports, that a second conflict would be happening.

I think it's interesting that just 2018, the Israeli government had started a Telegram channel in Persian that was talking about ways and means they could offer that help, which was a soft power move, of course. But it does highlight that they too had noticed that this water issue was greater.

I also think it's important to note that, you know, we talk about this water issue, but the issue at hand here is the Islamic republic itself. And we've seen that the Iranian people have been discontent for a very long time with them. And that came to head during the 2022 Women, Life, Freedom uprising.

They were unsuccessful in their quest for positive change. But those sentiments have not changed. Even the Pezeshkian government had put out a polling just the other month that said that 92 percent of Iranians are discontent with the conditions on the ground. So, I think there has to be some real, real changes, and I just don't see that happening.

ZAKARIA: Holly, pleasure to have you on.

DAGRES: Thank you.

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, back in the 1980s, everyone around the world wanted their MTV. And my next guest, Tom Freston, brought it to them. He was a co-founder of the network. His stories when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:49:36]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: MTV, music television.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAKARIA: On August 1st, 1981, MTV was launched.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAKARIA: The advent of the first 24-hour cable network dedicated exclusively to music videos came at a time when American culture and American music, in particular, was one of the country's most significant soft power exports.

[10:50:00]

From Madonna to Prince to Michael Jackson, MTV broadcast the most popular American music, sometimes reaching more than 150 countries. Today, the media landscape is shifting. Forced to contend with social media and the internet and streaming, by the end of the year, MTV will shutter most of its global channels.

Tom Freston is a co-founder of MTV and the former CEO of Viacom. His new memoir, "Unplugged: Adventures from MTV to Timbuktu," tells his extraordinary story. He joins me now. Tom, pleasure to have you on.

TOM FRESTON, CO-FOUNDER, MTV: Pleasure to be here, Fareed.

ZAKARIA: So, the music video for you begins in 1969, in San Francisco, when you're high. Tell that story.

FRESTON: Yes. It was my first day in California. I had been working in a bar in Aspen. I had gotten out of school, and I went to California. My first night it was Saint Patrick's Day and a friend said, hey, I got tickets to go to the Fillmore, which was sort of the garden of psychedelic Eden at the time, and the Jefferson Airplane is coming. And why don't you come? So, I'm getting like, the full on San Francisco treatment day -- night one. And there was the Joshua Light Show. It was really powerful. You know, when you have a great song and it's coupled with sort of really engaging imagery, the power of a song is really multiplied.

And you just -- I thought I was either having a hallucination or I was in one. I wasn't quite sure. But that really stayed with me and planted a seed. It was actually 10 years later to the day I entered the doors of a company -- of the company that would have become MTV.

ZAKARIA: So you have that, you know, experience and that background, but then you have another -- the intervening 10 years, you're like a global itinerant, traveler, wanderer traveling all over India, Afghanistan. Why were you doing that?

FRESTON: I have been working in an ad agency, and I got assigned to Charmin toilet paper. It was sort of a line I couldn't cross.

And this former girlfriend called me from Paris and said, hey, you can't sell toilet paper. I'm going to go across the Sahara Desert. Why don't you quit your job and come with me?

A week later, I was on a plane. We did that. I stayed with her for about two months, and I kept going for a year. And I ended up falling in love with Afghanistan and India. This was a tumultuous 70s.

And I stayed for eight years, started a business which became very successful. And, you know, around 1979, a series of bad things began to happen. And I came back to the states, and that's when I fortuitously got a job at MTV.

ZAKARIA: How did you -- how did you guys decide that American music was going to be so popular around the world? Did you -- did you know it from the start? Did you sense it once?

FRESTON: Well, American music and film had a big cultural time. It was very culturally dominant in the 70s and the 80s, in particular.

ZAKARIA: Yes.

FRESTON: And there was a lot of reasons for that. One was English was ascendant. Two, most other countries didn't have the money or ability to build independent studios or whatnot. And American companies had lock on distribution and so forth.

So -- and almost like American culture was seen sort of as a symbol of the free world during the world -- during the Cold War years. So, it was ascendant and it was strong. But then, you know, around 2000, it began to melt away with the internet.

And so, you know, local cultures got the means of production, and you would see the advent of like, now you have K-pop out of Korea. You have Afropop out of Nigeria. You've got this huge wave of Latino music led by Bad Bunny, who's going to be the head of the -- you know, the center act at the Super Bowl this year. So, it isn't as if American music and, you know, popular culture or soft power has vaporized, but it has diminished because other countries have gotten better at it themselves.

ZAKARIA: It's sort of the rise of the rest.

FRESTON: Yes, exactly.

ZAKARIA: You've had sort of three careers, as it were, the sort of crazy wandering traveler, businessman, MTV, and Viacom. And for the last several years you've been working on NGOs. You work with Bono.

What do you think has happened to American soft power now? You know, when you watch the destruction of USAID, this is a part of the world that you're active in because of ONE.

FRESTON: Yes, it's really -- it just bothers me so much. I mean, to have Elon Musk, the richest man in the history of the world, in the richest country in the history of the world, basically, take the poorest people in the world and take away lifesaving medicines for like 20 million people who are on HIV, you know, HIV antiretroviral drugs, it really bothers me. It's one-third of one percent of the American budget.

[10:55:01]

And it's like we're going to put them in the woodchipper. Like it's a criminal syndicate. So, it's been really sad to have a hole blown in the world, global health kind of ecosystem by America pulling out of all these things. So I would say, you know, it brings up a lot of resentment.

ZAKARIA: You've had such an extraordinary career, but it also seems so idiosyncratic, serendipitous. If there was a young person who said, I want -- I want to be able to have wandered the world, run a major studio, and then been, you know, working with Bono on all these aid projects, what's the common theme? What advice would you give somebody?

FRESTON: I would say, when you're really young you can take a chance, step off the conveyor belt, and go out into the world.

I mean, it isn't the same as when I was out there where you could go almost anywhere. But, you know, you see -- you can see America and see the world from a different perspective, be in other people's shoes, and opportunities will come clearer to you.

And I think when you come back, you're going to be a more desirable candidate for a lot of people in a lot of companies. And, you know, if you've been in school for 16, 18 years, you don't really know what you want to do. Why not take a beat and go out and see the world? It's the best classroom you will ever find.

ZAKARIA: Well, Tom Freston, what a pleasure. And thanks again to Bianna Golodryga, and thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. I will see you next week. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)