this is gps, the global public square. welcome to all of you in the united states and around the world. i'm fareed zakaria. today on the show, france goes to the polls to elect its next president. the british prime minister calls for a new election. and the kurds voted last year to give their president extraordinary powers. what to make of all these votes. i have a great panel to discuss. also, liberal democracy is in decline around the world, and tyranny of the majority is on the rise. what is behind this growing wave

of ill liberal democracy. >> reporter luke harding did until he was thrown out. his inside story about what's really going on behind those walls. and former microsoft ceo is worth billions, he's spending a few mel omillion to discover wh what happens when you put american government under a microscope and examine it like a business. but first, here's my take, every administration takes a while to settle in. president trump's has had a rockier start than most, with appointments in every key agency still unfilled.

but the president's basic foreign policy is coming into view, and it's not a pretty sight. the approach is being tested on the most difficult foreign policy problem of all, north korea. there is a pattern to donald trump's approach so far, it begins with bravado, the use of rhetoric that's not backed up by much. the president insists that if china doesn't deal with north korea, america will. oh, really? how? south korea would vehemently oppose such a view. remember, seoul is only 13 miles from the border. and of course any military action would enrage china. plus a bombing campaign would be ineffective since north korea's nuclear sites are scattered,

buried deep and in some cases under water. trump's repetition of beijing's line that korea was once part of china, south korea has been made deeply uneasy by the trump administration. tough talk is supplemented by aggressive military reflexes, whether that means using bigger bombs in the middle east or sending ships eventually into east asian waters, these tactics can be yoousz useful if there is a strategy behind them. so far they look like tactics in search of a strategy. the flexing of military might in the hope that this will impress the adversary, but all the shock and awe in iraq did not help when there was a faulty plan to secure peace. more bombs in the area will not answer the question on how to defeat isis without a vetting president al assad.

the united states has had a-it has not worked. even the brief effort at cooperation during the clinton years was half hearted, with washington never fulfilling all of its promises to north korea. in any event, it was quickly reversed by the george w. bush administration, the results have been clear. north korea has continued to build its nuclear program and engage in provocative tests, as isolation has increased in recent years, pyongyang what only become more confrontational. in a recent essay in foreign affairs, maybe it's time to -- if the united states really hopes to achieve peace on the korean peninsula, it should stop looking for ways to stifle north korea's economy and undermine kim jong-un's regime and

s.t.a.r.t. finding ways to make north korea more secure. it is also a regime that wants to survive and has. i recall many similar arguments made about iran, before the nuclear deal, that that was a fanatical country, we were told they would never negotiate was, would never accept a deal, would never shut down their centrifuges, so far all these predictions have proved wrong. it might be time to pursue a new policy with north korea. let's get started. the attack in france further escalated the already attentions

over this weekend's french presidential election, when the volts are counted, the current field of almost a dozen candidates will be narrowed down to two, who will compete for the votes of these french men and women. and last weekend's vote in turkey too, what it all means, let's bring in the panel. a french public intellectual, and the first female editor-in-chief of the economist, she joins us from london. and the political editor of the german newspaper. he joins us from hamburg. bernard, let me begin with you with the obvious question. what are we to make of the french election and will this terror attack improve the chances of marine le pen and dampen the hopes that the

centrist candidate. >> there is of course to speculate and to make bets, but if you ask me, i would say no, i don't think that this terrorist attack will give so many votes to mrs. le pen. i continue to believe that she will be beaten in this election for many reasons, first, before she was obscene in her way to exploit the terrorist attack and the death of this brave policeman, she was obscene. number two, there is in the french people, because of the last two years, a sort of terrible and tragic, but rarely, i would not say habit, but they know that this can happen and that simple solution will certainly not be the way to get rid of terrorism. people know that it is so absurd, now that they have a

simplistic tool to defeat terrorism and islamist creeds in this country. it could improve her voters, but not as much as she could think. >> how do you see this in the german context? because germany has a million refugees it has taken in, so far there's not been much in the way of a terrorist incident. but were there to be one, are you worried that there could be the rise of a new movement? there is a new party, but it's been doing worse and worse in recent months. >> we had a terrorist attack in germany shortly before christmas, when a truck hit a christmas market and left 12 feel dead. the impact on the political stage was basically limited to the reactions you would expect,

we had a thorough investigation on the causes of this attack, who was to blame, why was the perpetrator not discovered before he was able to commit the attack, but of course the afd, the populist right wing party tries to capitalize on these events, but i have to say without much success yet. so maybe the germans are not really -- they haven't been impacted as the french. >> is it possible that we are witnessing peak populism? by which, the populist trend we have all seen in reference to president trump? this is the beacon that's going to decline. >> maybe, maybe. i wouldn't start saying anything about that until after the second round of the french election. but even then, i think the striking thing, if you look at the french election, is that on

both left and right, there are anti-establishment candidates and if you look at the four people who are the most likely, two of whom are most likely to make it to the second round, many of them are a vote against the establishment, there is someone who didn't have a party, there is the extreme economist, there is the stream right. this is the way the french people are grasping for something different. there's a genuine anger about the status quo. >> what do you think about the rise of all of these anti-establishment candidates and anti-socialists? >> to be involved in these politics and this electoral race, the good brand is to be anti-system. this is sad because the system is not so bad, the system means democracy, the system means institutions, but the fact is in order to run, you have to pre --

all of them. what i would say nevertheless, is that again, i believe that -- i saw the great article in the can economist recently who said that the next prime minister would be marine le pen. this would be the worst, because they have sort of twins. they are fake twins, but twins. my speculation, my belief is that it will not be that at the end of the day. my belief is that the last minute, france will recover its nerves, first of all, to this sunday and within two weeks. and we have a candidate, he's in a way anti-system. but he belongs to the system.

he's young, he has energy, he's a sort of french kennedy-like candidate. and i think this definitely can work. >> hold on, when we come back, we will ask what to ask if prime minister mays calls for another vote on brexit in england. that's when we come back.

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and we are back with i european panel. zanny what to make of the teresa may decision, the first time in decades that the prime minister

has called such an early election, what's behind it? >> well, it was a complete surprise because she had said loudly and clearly that she wasn't going to do it and now we have a fixed term parliament bill here and there wasn't supposed to be one until 2020. the reason why she's going to do it because she realizes it's a good time to increase dakota dramatically her majority. particularly to the extreme brex brexiteers in her policy. they are assuming a far bigger majority, which means that she has not only a mandate for conducting the negotiations to brexit in the way that she wants, she has a mandate for all the other things she wants to do. so the economy is still looking pretty good. so any of the pain that people expected from brex sit hasn't

happened yet, she will never have a bigger moment than she has now. >> and the collapse of the left in britain, which has really happened across europe, but it does seem as though the social democratic candidate could give angela merkel a run for her money. why? >> it came as a surprise to many of us, that the candidate ranked so high in the polls. all of a sudden there was a surge for the social democrats. they lingered afternoon 20% before mr. schultz was announced then they made it to 30, 35, sometimes in some polls, even topping mrs. merkel. and that's miraculous because mr. schultz could actually be identified with the brussels establishment, the very thing people despise and the very

thing populists capitalize on. >> on the surface it does seem he's more pro european than merkel, he's more left than merkel and he's pro social welfare, to a fascinating situation. donald trump has sort of endorsed marine le pen, he seems to suggest that he likes her from time to time and he just said that he thought that the terror attacks would have a big impact implying then they would help marine le pen, does it help in the european context or the french context to have donald trump on your side or does it hurt? >> i think it hurts. there are two things that did hurt marine le pen, which was the endorsement by vladimir putin and the endorsement by donald trump. france is not completely lost, as germany, we are not lost, germany and france, we're not

lost in the liberate translation, and there is still the feeling today that donald trump and vladimir putin was -- about nato, about the building of europe. so for marine le pen, it was bad news, and she looked, when she received the endorsement of putin and trump, she looked so childish, so unmature in her stupid drawing, that it cannot help her leadership. and these battles in german and in france, these electoral battles will also be about leadership.

marine le pen lacks leadership. marine le pen lacks love of france, this is a very important point. marine le pen does not like france, hates france and this is rather well known now. >> very quickly, i would love to have you weigh in on post brexit, this next election, will it help teresa may that she is a staunch ally of president trump or will it hurt her? >> in europe, being seen as a friend of trump is not very helpful. but what she has done here is to position herself as the person who can lead the negotiations, the person the country is trust on brexit and at the same time paint herself as someone who is capable in contrast to someone

who is mostly useless. i would be very -- >> when trump came to washington, you said that germans had a tough time understanding trumpish, when he was against nato and for nato, against tar rirs and for tariffs. has it been clarified at all in this merkel scene as having stood up for donald trump? >> i think the government is still trying to learn trumpish, as i guess most of the western governments are, to get behind what trump is actually meaning when he says words. so what the german government is trying to get in touch with people around him and try to make sense of hiss policies or to figure out if there are policies at all at the moment. and i think the best outcome would be for the time being,

that there are no translation mistakes, being lost in translation, with our most important ally would be disastrous. so to answer your question, no, we still don't understand trumpish to the full. >> i think, join the club, thank you all very much, fascinating conversation. next on gps, why in the world did donald trump call to congratulate turkey's president erdogan on his recent reversal of democracy in that country. when we come back.

now for our what in the world segment. donald trump made a very unusual call last week, he phoned resip erdogan and congratulated him on winning the election to amend turkey's constitution. the results of that referendum

represents the most significant reversal of democracy in decades. turkey was once a shining star among developing democracies, it is now leading the trend away there genuine liberty, a recent report from freedom house says that authoritarian powers are gaining the upper hand across the globe. the organization noted that 53 out of 116 saw the biggest one-year drop in any of the country. turkey had a decline of 15 points in just one year, and that was before this latest referend referendum. russia had a rating of 20, down two points from last year. among other countries with the biggest decline are poland, venezuela and hungary, a report

goes on that says true democracy includes a free press, independent courts and legal protections for minoritieainorm. i called it ill liberal democracy. increasingly around the globe in more fragile democracies, we see populist leaders winning elections and then manipulating the system making it almost impossible for the opposition to challenge their rule, this is what happened in venezuela 20 years ago when the charismatic populist hugo chavez was elected president. at the time venezuela was a vision in democracy. or look at hungary, where the prime minister came to power

with an overwhelming majority in 2010, but he soon set out to completely overall his country's constitution, eliminating judicial checks on his power. his actions have kbrugt out the masses to protest. meanwhile, back in turkey, german chancellor angela merkel, in a clear sign that she is deeply concerned about the state of democracy in that country, sent a message to president erdogan, calling on him to engage with the opposition. so we are now in a world where the chancellor of germany is holding fast to democratic values afternoon the world and in the middle east in particular, while the president of the united states is calling to congratulate the leader on their destruction. next on gps, luke harding discussion so far into putin's

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this is humira at work. . my next guest was expelled from russia in 2011 after four years of reporting there. the kremlin says he had violated a number of rules concerning the work of foreign importantimport correspondents whatever that means, he has said that by the time he left, he felt like he could almost have written the kgb handbook. harding has a new book out about the poisoning of spy. this is the russian spy who was in london and who most foreign governments believe was poisoned

by the kremlin, while he was in a british hospital. >> if you cast your mind back to 2006, of these famous images of him lying in his hospital bed, his hair had fallen out and he had been poisoned by mr. putin. of course mr. putin denied this, but putin had personally approved the operation to kill him. >> why very expensive? >> he was killed with radioactive palladium, you need a nuclear reactor and in a sense this was sort of a state plot to kill him involving radioactive material flown into london and put in ll -- accusing the kremln of his murder. >> when you researched all this,

you must have looked at a great deal of work that russian intelligence agencies do in europe, do outside of russia, the way they infiltrate, given that background, what do you think of the concerns, the accusations about the way russia tried to influence the american election and perhaps try to penetrate the trump campaign? >> i their they're highly plausible. and also nothing new, what happened to the u.s. last year, has been happening all across europe. we have seen parliaments hacked, we have seen attempts to influence the french election, loans to marine le pen, the far right candidate. i think what we see an attempt, a rather clever attempt on several different levels, using social media, using traditionally espionage, using

hacking to nudge to russia's favor. >> do you think that this strategy is one that, i mean, it seems so successful, because there's plausible deniability is. it involves very soft power, is this the way of future for intelligence? >> it is the way of the future. what is the lesson of the hacking last year, is it to stop? no, the lesson is to keep going, and what we see is a very clever, quite cynical attempt to undermine the european union, to do things which helps russia and also to kind of work with the far left and the far right, to exploit this populist mood, the anti-establishment mood and to allow russia's sort of sovereign efforts to get through.

putin is a kgb guy and he's rolling it out successfully. >> you believe that at the heart of putin's power, and this is in the book, it's about money, he -- they have been able to create this massive source of income revenue, and that's the slush fund that keeps the kremlin power system going. >> yes, i would say there are two projects, the nationalist, sort of neo soviet -- that's project one, but there's also project two, which is a kind of private project, just among friends which is to basically steal large amounts of money, and we're talking billions and billions of dollars, and you

have to offshore it in banks in the u.s. and you also have to protect it from others stealing it. >> you come to the panama paperings and you discovered that there was a russian cellist, who had an account, a bank account with two billion dollars in it. and after your reporting, putin was asked about it. >> it's an astonishing story. this guy is a cellist, he told the "new york times," he was not a man of means, he didn't have much money, and we were part of the consortium that dug into

this leaked data. i think the reason this story is important is because if you go to switzerland, to credit sui e suisse. and collectively these guys, we can only guess, but $300 billion, $400 billion, but putin is the supreme arbiter, he can use it to buy a football stadium, he can use to it buy a lot. next on gps, what would happen if you examine the government like you might look at a business. does it meet its budget? does it spend efficiently? what does it do with its under performing units. steve balmer has spent $10

million to put it all under the microscope, he will tell us what he's found out. this is bill's yard. and bill has a "no-weeds, not in my yard" policy. but with scotts turf builder weed & feed, bill has nothing to worry about. because scotts weedgrip formula is twice as effective on dandelions as it used to be. so bill can clear out weeds at the same time he feeds and strengthens his lawn. it kills dandelions, clover, and other invaders, guaranteed. this is a scotts yard.

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did you know that 11% of america's working-age population works for the government? federal, state and local governments combined employed more than 23 million people in 2014. and those governments spent $5.4 trillion, that's a 5, then a 4 then 11 zeros for nothose of yo following along. our next guest is a billionaire, and he wanted to spend one of those millions examining the government about being run like a business. he looked at balance sheets, heads koufbts and where the money went, what happens when you do the same to government? let's start with that first

statistic, the number of people who worked for the government, did that surprise you? and do you think it's too high? well, it did surprise me, it's an imam -- it also includes teachers, who obviously have worked for government, it includes people who work at hospitals that are operated by the government, when you look at it inning aning ing ning a --- whether some of these things should be done by government or done privately, but i was impressed that such a low percentage of people were doing the work that typically people call bureaucrats if you will, so i noted that with great interest. >> expand on that, that's a very interesting point, you know, the point that people think these kind of vast, faceless

bureaucrats sitting in offices, you know, passing memos, there's not a lot of people doing that, there's a lot of, as you say, people working in hospitals, nurses, park rangers, that kind of thing, right. >> if you look at the eight or nine area that involve government workers, that's what you're going to find, you're going to find police, firemen, people who work in correctional facilities, in hospitals, in government businesses like water and sewer and the like, obviously teachers and professors and the people who work in schools and universities, the military, people when you look at healthcare, the data you provide tells me a sad story about american healthcare and goes back really decades. i look at three or four decades of the numbers and basically the story is costs have gone up, way

up. outcomes, healthcare outcomes really haven't improved very much. and you don't provide this data, but you know if you look at it compared to other countries, it's striking how poor u.s. outcomes are particularly compared with the soaring costs. again, what do you see in that data? >> well, i think there's a couple things i'll note. what we should do maybe somewhat different. i think it is interesting that over the period of time, which i think goes back 2000, 2005, that the government has mentioned it, we look at the average age of death as opposed to the average life expectancy. in my opinion, advances in healthcare and increased healthcare spending in the last 15 years should better be reflected in the average age at which people die, frankly, than almost anything. it's moved up, but maybe 0.8 years. if you look at the public health statistics, the percentage of people with diabetes, depression

and other sort of public health characteristic, those numbers, other than smoking, have not come down. and at least as i look at the numbers, those public health statistics to me seem very material and very interesting as it relates to healthcare in this country. >> another sad statistic, in some ways the one that should worry us all the most is the lack of economic and social moebt. you have this interesting plot chart which shows essentially what is the chance of a child exceeding the income of the family who grew up in, the parents he was born to. and it looks much worse today than it did 30 years ago. and it doesn't look very good. that seems to me in some ways the met ta problem which is the sense that the american dream, that your children will do better than you, is under

greater stress. >> well, the american dream's interesting. what is the american dream? is the american dream the dream that kids can advance sort of statistically versus their parents economically? that might be the dream. the dream might be can people live better than their parents, which is slightly different. and to me, the thing that's striking in the data is there are groups of people who have a very low probability of moving up the economic ladder. in the documents we show that for white kids, it's about 27% chance that if your parents are in the bottom 20%, you wind up in the bottom 20%. perfect, of course, would be 20%. so 27 to 20. for african-american kids, that number would be 50% chance of staying in the bottom 20%. obviously, a much more sort of constrained set of economic

mobility criteria for african-americans versus white kids. >> when you look at all this data, what i was wondering, i constantly thought about the fact that i would love to see comparisons to other countries. for instance, on this economic mobility data, european countries, particularly in northern european does much better, canada does better. have you thought maybe about providing international comparisons so that people can understand where america stacks up? >> well, i think it would be a great thing to do, but it would start with trying to prepare something equivalent to usa facts for canada or the uk or france. there's a lot of things that would need to be in place for us to do an equivalent piece of work. would i like to do that? yes. is that probably our very next step? maybe not. but we've had some approaches from at least people in canada to say is there a way to do equivalent work? i think it would be cool as heck if we can find somebody to

partner up with in a couple of countries. we're not up to taking on that work ourselves right now. there's still a lot to be done in the united states. >> fascinating stuff. data-driven view of politics, thank you, steve ballmer. >> thanks, fa read, my pleasure. >> moving en masse from the countryside to cities. we have the satellite pictures to prove it. we'll show you one shining example in a moment.

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and now for a bit of good news. the imf predicts that global economic growth will accelerate slightly faster than previously expected. the organization is now predicting 3.5% global growth for 2017. and that brings me to my question of the week. what percentage of global growth do emerging market and developing countries account for? is it greater than 10% or 25% or 50% or 75%? stay tuned and we'll tell you the correct answer. this week's book of the week is juval noah harari's "homo deus"

he provided a sweeping look on the planet. barack obama recommended that book on the show. in this new book he picks up the story at the present, describing how artificial technology are changing what it actually means to be human. this is one of those books that is sure to make you think and discuss and argue. and now for the last look. take a look at the satellite image of india taken in 2012. now look at the 2016 image just four years later recently released by nasa. notice the difference. india is brighter. the images show the vast growth of indian cities in just a short time. the world bank says a third of india's population, approximately 430 million people, live in cities. and they are on an amazing growth trajectory. eight of the top ten fastest growing cities in the asia pacific region from 2016 to 2030 will be indian according to an

oxford global city study. and by 2030 indian cities are to be home for another 300 million people. that will be like adding the population of the united states to india cities. india's government has pledged to build 100 new cities before that time, the u.n. points out. now, let's go back to the recent satellite image of india. the cities light up, but see all that darkness? roughly 300 million people in india still do not have access to electricity. and for the electricity that is flowing, much of it today comes from coal-fired power plants but the india government predicts that more than half of his electricity will come from nonfossil fuel sources in the next decade "the guardian" points out. let's hope they are right. the answer to the challenge question is "d." according to the imf's most recent world outlook report, developing countries account for more than 75% of global output

and consumption. that's more than double the share 20 years ago. india is expected to be the fastest growing major economy this year expanding by more than 7%. thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. i'll seal ye you next week. happening now in the newsroom -- >> the minute north korea gets a missile that can reach the united states and put a weapon on that missile, the nuclear weapon, the instant that happens, this country is at grave risk. >> tensions flare and an open threat from north korea and a third american detained in pyongyang. plus, countdown to the president's first 100 days as a government shutdown looms. >> i don't think anybody is trying to get to a shutdown. shutdown is not a desired end. >> unbelievable video of a 4-year-old girl falling out of a moving vehicle. we'll talk to the heroic volunteer