Return to Transcripts main page

Fareed Zakaria GPS

Dispatches from Ayatollah Khamenei's Funeral; The Divisions Inside Iran; Iran War Swings Between Diplomacy and Escalation; Mississippi's Miraculous Leap in Education. Interview With New York Times Columnist Nicholas Kristof; Interview With Award-Winning Journalist Theo Baker. Aired 10-11a ET

Aired August 02, 2026 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:51]

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.

Today on the program, divisions in Tehran. While some Iranians work to negotiate peace, powerful hardliners want the war to rage on. We'll get the view from inside Iran with the journalist who attended the funeral of Ayatollah Khamenei, and we'll discuss the ongoing uncertainty in the region with a top analyst.

Also, the Mississippi miracle. A black fourth grader in that state is two and a half times as likely to read proficiently as one in California. Nick Kristof explains why the Deep South holds surprising lessons for the rest of the country on education.

Plus, reporting by a student led to the resignation of Stanford University's president. I'll sit down with that young student who was the author of a new book that delves into big tech's influence on campus, and how it has distorted the university's mission.

But first, here's "My Take."

For those who thought the Supreme Court had ended Donald Trump's obsession with tariffs, think again. In February, the court struck down his sweeping liberation day levies, ruling that the president did not have emergency powers to tax imports from almost every country on earth. Trump's response has been to search the statute books for ever more unusual, obscure and maybe illegal ways to restore very similar tariffs.

First came a temporary global tariff. When that expired, the administration imposed tariffs of 10 percent to 12.5 percent on 60 economies, more than 80 countries, claiming unfair trade practices. For Canada Trump reached back to Section 338 of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, a provision that had never been invoked before.

For the new sweeping tariffs, the rationale discovered suddenly in the last few months is alleged forced labor. The administration has declared that countries ranging from Cambodia and China to Norway, Japan and Australia have failed to keep products made with forced labor out of their markets and that this failure burdens American commerce.

The charge is so obviously spurious and sweeping. Sweden is as bad as Cambodia that it gives away the game. It was almost certainly devised because the White House needed a legal pretext to subvert the spirit of the Supreme Court ruling against Trump.

This is more than ordinary political spin. The president appears to be ordering the U.S. government to formally certify as fact something it knows is not true. Agencies must now publish findings, construct legal arguments and affix the authority of the American state to a falsehood manufactured for the apparent purpose of evading the nation's highest court. That is how institutions are corrupted.

First, they are asked to bend the truth, then to attest to the lie, and then the lies become routine so no one thinks they are even unusual. It is the road to Orwell's world. Incidentally, Walk Free, the human rights group that compiles the global slavery index, estimates that America imports $169.6 billion worth of goods annually that are at risk of being made with forced labor, by far the highest total among the group of 20 countries.

That does not prove American enforcement is worse than that of other countries that Trump has targeted. But it makes the administration's moral posture look even more absurd than it is. The economic case against tariffs is stronger by the day as the numbers roll in. Spending on manufacturing construction, which surged under Joe Biden and peaked at about $250 billion at an annual rate in September 2024 had fallen to about $175 billion by May of this year.

[10:05:13]

Manufacturing employment is down roughly 75,000 jobs since Trump returned to office. Factory output has risen, but the gains are concentrated in advanced manufacturing and A.I., much of it reflecting investments planned before Trump took office and little related to tariffs.

Consider Greg Fraley, whom the U.S. Chamber of Commerce wrote about a few months ago. He helps run FALCO, a small Arizona company that makes aluminum parts for commercial aircraft. This is precisely the kind of business Trump says he wants to help, an American factory employing American workers.

FALCO's aluminum costs are up 72 percent. The company cannot simply buy American metal. Domestic production meets only about half of U.S. demand, and much of that output is not available on the open market. So Falco keeps importing aluminum, pays the tariff, and absorbs the damage. It has frozen hiring, postponed expansion, allowed its workforce to shrink by at least 20 percent through attrition, dipped into cash reserves, and added a tariff surcharge to customer bills, according to Fraley.

Meanwhile, even after the so-called liberation day fallout, Trump doubled the tariff on imported aluminum to 50 percent and recently offered producers a discount if they built smelters in America. Rio Tinto, one of the world's largest aluminum producers, immediately said no.

So the tariff has achieved a trifecta. Higher costs for an American manufacturer, fewer jobs and less investment there, and no new smelter from the foreign producer the tariffs were meant to entice. The logic is upside down. Aluminum smelting accounts for only a small fraction of America's aluminum jobs. The vast majority are in recycling and in the midstream and downstream industries that turn the metal into aircraft parts, cars, cans, machinery and building materials.

Trump is protecting the tiny upstream slice by taxing the vastly larger industrial base that depends on it, and employs many more people. For eight decades, the U.S. led the world toward open markets and open trade. In barely two years, Trump has transformed it into effectively the most protectionist major advanced economy in the world. The result has not been a manufacturing renaissance.

It has been higher prices, weaker investment, fewer manufacturing jobs and a government increasingly willing to make falsehood official policy in order to defend a failed economic creed.

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

The "Whiplash War, Operation Boomerang, the Forever Negotiation." These are some of the ways the international media is describing the state of America's volatile conflict with Iran, which seems to lurch between sudden eruptions of fighting and fragile pauses for diplomacy.

My next guest has just returned from 10 days inside Iran with a striking account of how that country is responding to the war.

Abdul Latif Dahir is a Middle East correspondent for "The New York Times." He was granted rare access to report on last month's funeral of Ayatollah Khamenei, the country's former supreme leader, who was killed back in February. Abdi joins me from Beirut.

Welcome, Abdi. Let me ask you, you were at a Shia funeral and in general the Shia are very big on martyrdom. Did the Ayatollah Khamenei's funeral have the air of a kind of search for revenge for a martyr's death?

ABDI LATIF DAHIR, MIDDLE EAST CORRESPONDENT, NEW YORK TIMES: Yes. Thanks for having me, Fareed. Yes, for sure. There were so many people, millions, who came from across the country who essentially were calling for revenge. They basically were talking about this revered leader, you know, who was central to Iran for almost 40 years and essentially, were calling, you know, their leadership to basically not compromise, not negotiate, essentially to continue this war until his killing but, you know, was avenged.

And that's definitely a central message that we heard from so many people that we interviewed in the streets of Tehran, but also in Mashhad, the city where Khamenei was born and where he was eventually buried. [10:10:06]

ZAKARIA: But yet, you know, we know that this is a regime that massacred tens of thousands of people, perhaps in a weekend that is unpopular by many, you know, many accounts. And you write about this. What can you tell us about, you know, dissent in Iran? Are there sort of two Irans, an Iran that came out for this funeral and an Iran that is still deeply critical of the government? And can you get a sense of the relative weights of these two Irans?

DAHIR: Absolutely. Yes, we definitely did witness two Irans that were coexisting side by side. There was definitely the government that was out here and, you know, projecting defiance and endurance and a lot of strength. But on the flip side of it, yes, there were the other Iran that, you know, where many people talked about the economic hardships that they have going through, the water shortages, the electricity blackouts, the inflation rates, and what was going on across the country. And also, of course, many people who talked about how this war has now complicated all of that.

ZAKARIA: There's something you wrote about which I was struck by, the fact that people were -- women were not covered, that people were in many ways flouting the kind of religious prohibitions that had been placed on them. And it is part of what some people have been reporting, which is the sense that Iran has moved from being a kind of hybrid regime where the religious clergy had a very central role to a military dictatorship, where the regime may now be more hardline and nationalist on foreign policy issues, but is actually less concerned about enforcing all these things like the veil and various Islamic edicts.

DAHIR: Yes, absolutely. This is something that we witnessed in many parts of Tehran. You had these two Irans that were living side by side, which was like, you know, young women driving their motorcycles, not wearing the hijab. You know, young men, you know, tattooed, wearing shorts, smoking in the streets. And at the same time, you had like all the religious people who were, you know, not missing any of the prayers, who were, you know, chanting and celebrating Khamenei.

So it was this contradictory Iran that was existing both at the same time. And some of the people who, you know, were able to sort of like explain, like, you know, how this came about were talking about how the war had also created conditions in which they said that the government is definitely busy with a much bigger problem than, you know, right now, enforcing these edicts on the streets on a daily basis.

ZAKARIA: Given that you had this rare opportunity to be in Iran, would you say that, you know, you got a sense of why the Iranians are being so defiant, why they are, you know, willing to brave these terrible conditions, bombing and such. You know, or is it just that it's a very repressive regime and people have no say? I mean, you know, what kind of conclusion did you draw?

DAHIR: I go back to the sort of like restrictions that we had on us and the government minders that were with us all the time. And -- but even with that, you know, people were able to talk about, you know, sometimes even say that, yes, we might not want this government. They are like a lot of issues that are, you know, not right with it, but so many other people that we also spoke to talked about, you know, being wary of foreign intervention and other people coming in to like bring down the government.

They said that they felt that, you know, it was the job of Iranians to like do that for themselves and not some other power to come in and do that for them.

ZAKARIA: So a sense of nationalism above all else.

DAHIR: Yes. And a deep pride in their country. That's one of the things that I came up, with from almost all the interviews that I did, there was this sense of like standing by Iran and being very proud of their culture and their history. And, you know, this moment in time that is really difficult. Nobody talked about this being easy at all. And all the ways in which Iranians were coming together to stand by each other.

ZAKARIA: Well, fascinating reporting. Really enjoyed reading all your stuff. So stay safe and thank you.

DAHIR: Thank you for having me, Fareed.

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, given what we've just heard is going on inside Iran, what is the way out of this war? We'll explore with an expert.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:19:11]

ZAKARIA: In June, the United States and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding to cease hostilities, but it hasn't helped. Both sides have continued to exchange fire. The Strait of Hormuz has hardly reopened. So does Iran want to deal?

Joining me now is Dr. Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at Chatham House.

Sanam, welcome. So, first, will it be fair to say that we're sort of fundamentally where we are because the United States is looking for a kind of quick exit, almost a kind of quick transaction to get the strait open, and the Iranians are looking for some kind of long-term resolution to the broad issue of the hostility between the United States and Iran?

SANAM VAKIL, MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA DIRECTOR, CHATHAM HOUSE: Well, President Trump has always celebrated the fact that he is a dealmaker, a transactional president, if you will.

[10:20:04]

But what we have observed and learned since he's come into office, particularly in the second administration, is that the quick transactions are not delivering sustainable peace processes or even sustainable MOUs. And that is what's problematic.

The problems of the Middle East can't be resolved in a quick transaction. They're all interconnected, they're transnational and they require a deeper negotiations that this administration, but perhaps also the international community today is not really prepared to invest in.

ZAKARIA: So what kind of a deal does Iran want? What does Iran want here?

VAKIL: I ultimately still believe that Iran does want the bigger deal. It does need to unlock sanctions relief and frozen assets and come to a modus vivendi with the United States. But I think it recognizes that in this Trump administration, there are divisions within Trump's circle. The president, of course, is increasingly frustrated and it recognizes that it probably cannot get that bigger deal out of this administration.

So it's seeking to preserve its leverage. And that includes the Strait of Hormuz, which is, you know, what it got out of the war. Secondly, of course, it still has its nuclear program, which is unresolved. Of course, buried, to use President Trump's words. So it needs to maintain this leverage and try to achieve something at the negotiating table when the time is right, when both parties are actually willing to concede in a meaningful way.

ZAKARIA: Can they take the pain? The economy is in terrible shape. You know, these bombings must have destroyed it further. They're being sanctioned. You know, are they -- is it possible Iran is overplaying its hand? It's in some sense tactically won, right? It has achieved what it was trying to do. Should they not be searching for a way out more than they are?

VAKIL: I personally believe they should. I think they are overplaying their hand. And I think that the longer this war goes on, it will boomerang back on them. The region, Iran's neighbors, wholly oppose this war and have worked very hard diplomatically to mediate and to find offramps. And the longer this goes on, the more Iran and Iran- backed groups continue to spread the conflict around the region, the more there will be a sort of anti-Iran alliance developing.

And I think that's problematic for Iran. But the Iranians, to answer your question, don't make existential decisions based on macroeconomic indicators. They see this war as do or die for them, and they not only need to survive, they need to emerge from this war with cards in their hand that they can play at the negotiating table, and they don't want to be cowed by President Trump or forced to submit like the Venezuelans were.

ZAKARIA: So if there was one thing you would tell American policymakers to understand right now, to get out of this mess, what would it be?

VAKIL: I would say that they need to understand their adversary. This adversary doesn't only answer to pressure, that incentives, inducements, and proper negotiations is the way through and the way out of this mess. The United States and President Trump can be lured into a two-week bombing campaign, and that can damage and destroy Iran's territory further. But Iran is willing to absorb those hits and absorb those costs if it means that it can still retain its leverage at the negotiating table. So I think the president should be focusing on the diplomatic track, not just the military track.

ZAKARIA: That is good advice, Sanam. Thank you so much. Always a pleasure.

VAKIL: Thank you.

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, black fourth graders in Mississippi now score higher in reading on average than those in Massachusetts. For a state with historically weak education rankings, how did they make this happen? I'll ask the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nick Kristof.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:28:47]

ZAKARIA: American high school seniors' reading and math test scores fell to historic lows in 2024. That's according to the most recent report card from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which is full of grim statistics. But my next guest says some students have actually made remarkable gains in recent years. And in surprising places.

Nick Kristof is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and an opinion columnist for "The New York Times."

Nick, thanks for being with us.

NICHOLAS KRISTOF, COLUMNIST, NEW YORK TIMES: Good to be with you.

ZAKARIA: So the big news that everybody has heard about, I think, is the sort of Mississippi miracle. But I want to, you know, give people a sense of just how miraculous it is. I'm going to just I have to look at the statistics. They're so extraordinary. So spending per pupil in Mississippi was below $12,000 last year whilst in New York, it's almost $30,000. And now if you do it on an adjustment for demographics, which is usually where you'd look at it, Mississippi ranks number one in America in both fourth grade and eighth grade math.

What you're seeing is black fourth graders in Mississippi are, on average, better readers than those in Massachusetts. Massachusetts is thought to have the best public school system in the United States, and it spends twice as much per pupil as Mississippi does. So big picture, give us a sense what has happened.

NICHOLAS KRISTOF, COLUMNIST, NEW YORK TIMES: So, you know, we're used to looking down on these deep south states for a good reason. And, you know, they really did fail their kids, and especially poor kids, and especially Black kids.

But over the last 20 years or so, beginning with Mississippi, they have begun to lead the way. And you've cited some of those results. I mean, you know, a Black kid in Mississippi, for example, is two and a half times as likely to read proficiently as a Black kid in California. A low income kid in Mississippi is twice as likely to be proficient in reading as a kid in my home state here in Oregon.

And I think they did this in a couple of ways that other states can learn from. And the fact that Mississippi's model was then followed by Alabama and by Louisiana, and they had success too, I think is encouraging.

You know, one thing that Mississippi did was make sure that kids could read by the end of third grade. Another thing it did was to crack down on absenteeism. A kid can't learn if they're not in school.

ZAKARIA: So it feels to me like what you're talking about, in some ways, is a kind of return to basics, which is, you know, kids have to attend school. But in some of these places where the kids who are embarrassed to go to school was they -- they didn't have clothes to wear or, you know, they hadn't been able to afford a haircut, the schools have actually stepped in and helped them with those kind of things.

So, it's sort of high standards, accountability, but then also a real focus on what is it that teachers need to make this happen. Is that the kind of combination that seems to have worked?

KRISTOF: Yes. And in some ways, I think, you're right that it is. You know, there's a back to basics element of it. And the science of reading gets a lot of emphasis. But there's much, much greater emphasis on metrics and measurement.

And, you know, carefully seeing how each student is progressing, identifying those kids who need that help and -- you know, I think more broadly, we just see these schools fighting for their kids.

ZAKARIA: How possible would it be for other states to apply some of the lessons?

KRISTOF: You know, I think it's eminently possible. But it will require eating a little bit of crow and acknowledging that the places to study are states that, frankly, we, you know, we often look down on.

But little things like, you know, making sure that every kid reads by the end of third grade and identifying their progress and pulling out those kids who were lagging and giving them special instruction. And kind of bringing in the community.

I was in one school in rural Mississippi, and they were about to take the third grade reading test and all the parents and members of the community and siblings were lining the hall as the kids went into the test and cheering them on. It was like, you know, seeing a championship football game. And then the community shops had donated bicycles for the kids who passed on that first test. And so, you know, there is this real push, this willingness to make this a priority. You know, look, I'm a liberal. I deeply believe in liberal outcomes, but I think that we have sort of a shied away from accountability with the idea that it's unfair to low income kids. And I think what we've learned is that it's unfair not to have metrics and accountability, that we fail these kids.

ZAKARIA: When, George W. Bush pushed a certain set of these kind of reforms, he had a line which was -- he said, let's not fall prey to the soft bigotry of low expectations. I feel like that that line now rings true.

KRISTOF: I think it does. You know, I was a little -- I wasn't sure about that line at the time, but, you know, in Oregon, we reduced high school graduation requirements on the theory that they were holding back kids of color, for example. When you don't make sure that kids graduate with the skills they need, you're not doing them favors.

And you know, the kids in Alabama and Louisiana and Mississippi have been held accountable. And the kids who have most benefited from that accountability have been kids of color and low income kids. I think there's an important lesson there for liberals like me.

ZAKARIA: Nick Kristof, always such a pleasure to have you on the program.

[10:35:03]

KRISTOF: Good to be with you, Fareed.

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, Stanford University attracts the best and brightest minds in the world. But my next guest says that Silicon Valley's influence on the university has reached a troubling and tipping point. That story when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAKARIA: Theo Baker, the son of respected journalists Peter Baker and Susan Glasser, enrolled in Stanford University passionate about coding and excited to be in Silicon Valley.

[10:40:00]

He ended up following in his parents' footsteps and joined the campus newspaper, "The Stanford Daily." As a freshman, he broke a story about problems with the university president's academic research, which would ultimately lead that president to resign.

Theo became the youngest ever recipient of the prestigious George Polk Award for his reporting, and he has written a new memoir called "How to Rule the World: An Education in Power at Stanford University." He joins me now. Theo, welcome.

THEO BAKER, AWARD-WINNING JOURNALIST: Thank you for having me.

ZAKARIA: I want to focus on the picture you paint of Stanford which really, in many ways, is the world's most important university now. So you get there, you know, determined to be a computer science guy. And Stanford is, of course, in the Bay Area, but it's also one of the great universities in the world with great departments in every area. What did you find?

BAKER: Yes, yes. Well, I described in this book something of a Faustian bargain that Stanford has made, right? This university, like no other institution of higher education, has had a meteoric ascent in the last few decades. It went from a regional university servicing the wealthy, you know, children of San Francisco and Californian elites into now this global powerhouse, you know, with an annual budget higher than 116 countries, right? And that happened because of this relationship, the symbiotic relationship with Silicon Valley, which pours in billions of dollars on campus, but has also allowed for some of its corruption.

ZAKARIA: And so you get there and you quickly discover that at the point -- as a freshman, if you are in computer science or A.I. or, you know, electrical engineering, there is already a massive recruitment effort by Silicon Valley to fund people, to hire them. Describe what it was like.

BAKER: Yes. Well, we're in the middle of this massive gold rush right now, and the resource to mine is talent. I mean, look at these A.I. researchers who get $200 million signing bonuses, right? So these adults are hunting for a meal ticket. They treat these students as a commodity, and especially the youngest ones, right? Youth is fetishized in this system because you're getting the fresh, raw, unadulterated product.

And so I learned that for a select few students, those who are tapped on the shoulder and identified as the next trillion dollar startup founders, there are yacht parties and slush funds and something called pre-idea funding, which was the newest new thing when I arrived.

ZAKARIA: Explain what a pre-idea funding is.

BAKER: Pre-idea funding. I mean, it's what it sounds like even though it sounds absurd. That before you even have a concept of a company, a VC will hand you a two-page agreement and say, hey, here's a few hundred thousand dollars, here's $1 million, go make something with it. If you make a company, call me. Otherwise, it never has to be paid back.

ZAKARIA: This is to a 17-year-old freshman?

BAKER: To a 17-year-old freshman. And it's remarkable because you take these young students and you tell them to make very big promises, and then you teach them that when things go wrong, when deception comes out, it will not be followed up on.

ZAKARIA: And there is a class. The title of the book comes from a class called "How to Rule the World." Explain it because not most people even know it exists at Stanford.

BAKER: Yes. Well, this is where it's great to write nonfiction, because I think if you told someone that there's a secret class with 12 students a year called "How to Rule the World," taught by a Silicon Valley CEO, where they learn how to extract value from people.

I think if you told someone that in a novel, they would say, oh, it's too unrealistic, right? But what they learned effectively is how to deceive to get their way, that the ends justify the means, according to the seven people I spoke with who are in the class.

You know, when I arrived at Stanford, this class was so cloak-and- dagger, so secret, that even to know it existed was a status signifier. You were rule adjacent just to have heard of the existence of the secret class. And that, to me, really said something, you know, about this cult of exclusivity.

ZAKARIA: So, you know, given the sums of money you're describing and it feels like this must distort what is meant to be one of the west's great intellectual, you know, repositories where learning is prized for its own sake.

BAKER: Yes. Look, I graduated from Stanford in June. I'm delighted to have gone to the university. There are so many excellent professors. But this is also a system that rewards cutting corners to get ahead, where students are taught that they are to follow in the example of the countless billionaires who have emerged before them, you know, where there's a guy on campus who's known by the moniker of Professor Billionaire because he made $20 billion by investing in his students' companies.

You know, this is a school, right, that actually operates its own venture capital fund on campus to fund students' new companies. So, this integration has become so complete that at this point many people are coming to Stanford University not to get an education but to get rich. And that perverts some of the fundamental and core tenets that have been articulated time and again by leaders of higher ed, including at Stanford.

ZAKARIA: What's your, you know, your parting thoughts? As a as a graduate now, what would you wish the university would do to kind of refocus?

BAKER: You know, it's an interesting question. I think what Stanford faces is a concentrated version of the challenges that have beset higher education in the last few years, namely the question of identity.

[10:45:05]

What does Stanford actually stand for, right? What is the point of coming to this place? What does a chemistry major and an Olympic athlete and somebody who's building a startup in their dorm, what do they have in common, and how can the school articulate that?

I think the communication around the school, the lack of transparency and accountability for bad actions, have allowed for, you know, the Elizabeth Holmeses of the world to replicate. You know, the same day that we announced this book about fraud in Stanford and Silicon Valley, another Stanford alum, Do Kwon, was sentenced to 15 years in prison that day for his role in a $40 billion, I believe it was, crypto scam, right?

And so the reason that these outcomes continue to happen isn't just that there are a few bad apples, it's that the set of incentives have gone awry. And it will require some very, very intentional maneuvering to get us off that course.

ZAKARIA: Theo, terrific book and about lots more. If people want to learn about your break up with your girlfriend, growing up, it's all in the book. Thank you.

BAKER: Appreciate it. Thank you so much.

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, Hungarian strongman Viktor Orban spent 16 years building one of the world's most infamous illiberal democracies. Now, the country's newly elected prime minister is trying to tear it down. Can he do so and still maintain his democratic credentials? I'll tell you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:50:53]

ZAKARIA: And now for the last look. For nearly three months, Hungary has been undergoing what its new prime minister has called regime change. In April, Peter Magyar defeated right-wing populist incumbent Viktor Orban in a landslide. But as Magyar is now finding out, winning at the ballot box was the easy part. It is far harder to dismantle the whole system of Orbanism that the strongman spent 16 years building, especially if you want to play by democratic rules.

Until this year, there was a sense of permanence to Viktor Orban's rule. Since 2010, he had swept four elections, rewritten the constitution, packed the courts with loyalists, and according to some watchdog groups, handed some 80 percent of the media to his friends.

By 2014, he was proudly calling Hungary an illiberal state. Many believed that no opposition could realistically defeat him. That changed this year when Magyar, a fellow conservative and former member of Orban's nationalist party, Fidesz, united the opposition around a patriotic vision of Hungary.

Today, Magyar is trying to undo the damage Orban did. His government calls the changes Operation Cleansing Fire. Magyar has fired Orban loyalists from major state companies, including state TV, in a purge that he compares to rooting out the Italian mafia.

Last month, Hungary's parliament amended the constitution to force out the pro-Orban president of the nation. He was in a largely ceremonial role, but he could have slowed down the new government's agenda.

Magyar has also been giving tours of the lavish, publicly funded offices of his predecessors, including gold plated bathrooms. He put them on social media to show the country what he calls the former regime's Great Gatsby lifestyle.

But moving forcefully means making uncomfortable choices. The political scientists Stanley Bill and Ben Stanley say that to undo an autocrat's damage, a new government must do three things, act quickly, effectively, and legally. But rarely can it do all three. They used Poland as a warning.

In 2023, that country voted out the right-wing populist Law and Justice Party after eight years in power. Prime Minister Donald Tusk's new centrist coalition promised repair. He played strictly by the rules, but thus sacrificed effectiveness. Lacking a big enough majority in parliament his reforms were stalled by the vetoes of two populist presidents.

Hungary faces a different problem. Magyar's Tisza Party now has a two- thirds supermajority. That's the same dominance of parliament that Orban once used to remake the country his way. Magyar has pursued speed and effectiveness, but this comes at the cost of due process.

For example, human rights watch has criticized Magyar for how he removed former President Sulyok by rushing to rewrite a line in the constitution rather than a formal impeachment process. The group labeled the move as reminiscent of the Fidesz era, an echo of Orban's old playbook. To his credit, Magyar has passed a bill to cap a prime minister's term to eight years, constraining himself or any future autocrat.

But as Daniel Hegedus of the Institute for European Politics warns, Hungary's future now depends largely on one single man limiting his own authority. If we need to build a system of political power based on self-constraint, then we are practically building a sandcastle.

Constitutional scholar Kim Lane Scheppele observes that since the fall of the Berlin wall, no country has reversed populism for more than five years without the populist pendulum swinging back.

[10:55:00]

A strong man's movement usually outlives him and can survive as an alternative ecosystem of media, donors and loyal courts. When President Trump lost in 2020, Trumpism came back stronger in 2024.

Hungary, though, could be a rare exception of democratic repair. This is because of the breathtaking speed at which Orban's coalition appears to be vanishing. Many of its leaders are already quitting, defecting and leaving the country.

In the coming months, Magyar has said he will begin to draft Hungary's new constitution, which will be put to a public referendum. This will be the clearest test yet of what Magyar calls regime change. Whether he can really build institutions strong enough to prevent a return of Orbanism, while also having the discipline to limit his own powers. If he does, he will have given Hungary a second democratic revolution.

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)