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, tensions ratchet up with north korea after the death of otto warmbier. just how dangerous have things gotten? and can china play a real role in cooling things down? i have a great debate. and, chicago mayor rahm emanuel, the no-holds barred former white house chief of staff weighs in on the current white house and the man in charge of it all, donald trump. >> they've made some choices that i think will now have consequences that are not just

immediate but long-term. also, the urgent issue that both the president and rahm emanuel are warning about. america's crumbling infrastructure. and what is the future of conservatism in the trump era? will the world of ronald reagan ever return. >> i pledge to you a government that will not only work well but wisely. >> the always sharp david brooks weighs in. finally, a windswept island in the middle of the pacific. it should be a paradise. instead, it's a dump. literally. and it's all our fault. i'll explain. but first here's my take. while we've been focused on the results of special elections, the ups and downs of the russia investigation and president trump's latest tweets, under the radar, a broad and significant shift in american foreign policy appears to be under way. put simply, the u.s. is

stumbling its way into another decade of war in the greater middle east. donald trump came into office with a refreshing skepticism about america's policy toward the region. >> everybody that's touched the middle east, they've gotten bogged down. >> but trump also sees himself as a tough guy. >> i would bomb the shit out of them. >> now that at the's in the white house, his macho instinct seems to have triumphed. the administration ramped up military operations across the greater middle east. but what is the underlying strategy? in the fight against isis, u.s. forces have been aggressively initiating attacks resulting in sharp rises in civilian deaths in iraq and syria. and in a dramatic escalation this week, the u.s. shot down a syrian warplane putting washington on a collision course with syria and its ally, russia. worst yet, it's unclear how this belligerence towards the assad

regime will achieve the sole stated mission of america's involvement in syria -- to defeat isis. logically, if assad gets weaker, his main opposition forces, various militant islamist groups including isis, will get stronger. compounding the incoherence, the administration explained that, while it had attacked assad's forces, it was not fighting the assad regime and the downing was simply an act of "collective self-defense." a few such more acts like this, american combat troops could find themselves on the ground in the middle of the syrian civil war. in afghanistan, trump delegated the details of a mini surge of 4,000 more troops to defense secretary james mattis and other senior military leaders. now let's remember, the united states has been in afghanistan for 16 years. it has had several surges in troop numbers. it has spent almost $1 trillion on that country, and yet mattis

acknowledges that the u.s. is not winning. what will an additional 4,000 troops achieve that over 100,000 troops could not. in yemen, with washington's latest arms sales to saudi arabia, the u.s. is further fueling the saudi's proxy war against iran, a war that has led the kingdom into a de facto alliance with al qaeda. king salman seems unlikely to persist in this conflict even though it has resulted in a humanitarian catastrophe. a child in yemen is dying from preventable causes every ten minutes according to unicef and the poorest country in the arab world turned into a wasteland in which terror groups will compete for decades to come. in almost every situation american forces are involved in, the solutions are more political than military. everything military has been tried. this has become especially true in places like syria and afghanistan when many regional

powers have major interests. military force without a strategy and a deeply engaged political and diplomatic process is destined to fail. perhaps even to produce a series of unintended consequences. think about the last decade and a half. during the campaign, donald trump seemed to be genuinely reflective about america's role in the middle east. >> this is not usually me talking -- okay -- because i'm very proactive, as you probably know. >> i know. >> but i would sit back and let's see what's going on. >> yes. after 16 years of continuous warfare, hundreds of thousands dead, trillions of dollars spent and greater regional instability, someone in washington needs to ask before the next bombing, before the next deployment, what is going on? for more go to cnn.com/fareed and read my "washington post" column this week. and let's get started. ♪

rahm emanuel knows just how tough it is to enter the white house on inauguration day and try to set up a president's agenda. he did it. emanuel was president obama's first chief of staff. when he walked into the white house on january 20th, 2009, he had the huge additional challenge that the american economy was imploding with the worst global recession since the 1980s, perhaps since the 1930s already under way. so how would he grade the first five months of the current resident of 1600 pennsylvania avenue, his chief of staff, the rest of the administration? joining me is the mayor of chicago, rahm emanuel. so, rahm, when you're watching them, what do you think? >> thank god i'm mayor of the city of chicago. no. here's what i would say, fareed, is i used to tell president clinton this, which is, if we knew in the first year of the first term what we newbie the

first year of the second term, we'd all be geniuses. nobody is really, ever, ever ready. the only thing that prepares you is the campaign. but you have a president that never held office and basically everybody in the white house but a few have never actually been there. you focused on me from president obama, i was senior advisor to president clinton. but you also had other members of ron klain, vice president's biden chief of staff was in the white house before. you had a number of people there that had the experience of the rhythm of a white house and knowing how to constantly weigh policy against politics against the public relations. and that's the kind of three-dimensional chess you have to do. i would just say they've made some choices that i think will now have consequences that are not just immediate but long term, and they need some victories. i keep emphasizing that

victories beget victories, losses beget losses. i think that they've made some mistakes that have exacerbated an already troubling fragile coalition and political position of the president. >> so what is a white house like in a situation like this? you saw the clinton white house during the impeachment process. is it a kind of bunker mentality? is it a siege mentality? is it possible for people to just execute policy and to plan policy, or is the investigation taking over everything? >> well, if anybody tells you the investigation doesn't kind of permeate, they're not being honest with you. you have to fight it, but it doesn't mean you're going to succeed. but you have to fight it. what that means, you have to set up a separate communication, separate legal, separate kind of congressional and outreach. then a total white house operation. i think, if you go back, we did a pretty good job under the ken star investigation with president clinton.

if we sat there and high-fived each other, said, oh, we kept a chinese wall, that's not honest. it's too dominant a factor. it's very hard to keep an investigation of the presidency and the people in the white house separate from day-to-day operations. very hard. but it is what you have to do. >> do you understand the sort of bannon strategy, which seems to be go for your base because you'll always have them, these guys are the center, they'll never come to you and that's the theory, it has begat at 36% approval rating. seems to me it doesn't work. but what do you think? >> you have to separate this. there are different needs from congressional to local party officials versus your state-wides. it may work for president trump. but it does not work for the rest of the republicans. and his relationship with his

voters may not be transferrable. we're going to find out stuff pretty soon relating to other congressional races and other elections in both new jersey and virginia for governor, et cetera. their strategy is very straightforward -- get their voters and keep them on amphetamines. highly charged. i'm not sure where the battlegrounds for congress are, the battlegrounds for state houses. that's going to be an electoral strategy for success up and down the republican ticket. i think, it's not just a strategy, there's a set of policy decisions that are slowly but surely alienating persuadable voters. i think basically, as far out as you really can see now, which i don't think you can, this election in 2018 will be a referendum on trump. democrats are going to say we're going to be a check on this president, a check mate. and the republicans -- and we're going to accuse the republicans of being a blank check. that's basically it. >> explain something to me.

a puzzle i have with president trump -- >> one? >> one policy position, why wouldn't he, when he came into office, have done what he said he was going to do throughout the campaign, announce the creation of make america great bonds, 40 or 50 or 30, whatever you want to call them, raze money at the lowest rates you're really ever going to see, and actually build infrastructure, putting people to work, putting his base to work? why has he not done that? >> fareed, i'll give you one up on that, if i can. think his presidency had he started on the one area bipartisan rather than the one area like health care which was going to be polarization. he'd have democrats in a position, we'd have to decide to cooperate and, therefore, our base would be angry or work with him on building something. his entire presidency would be focused on the one thing he pledged, which is jobs. he decided to do the exact opposite, which is to go to a set of policies on health care that would be divisive and

would be unproductive. as somebody who worked on health care, it was going to be a cul-de-sac. that's exactly what's happened politically and economically, and it's wrong. my view is, he made both a political and a policy blunder of the first order, which is what rookies make when they come right out of the box. >> do you think it was because he listened to people like paul ryan and mitch mcconnell who said this is what the republicans want? >> yeah. i think a lot of people -- i don't know. i only know what i read. i don't know -- i know -- the one thing i do know, what you read is 10% usually of the ice above the water level. you don't know everything below. by the end of the day, the president makes the call. he can listen to all the advice, but only one guy that makes the call. had he started on infrastructure, one, it would have been good for the economy. two, bipartisan and three, he would have been focused on his core message, which was jobs. the talk about health care vis-a-vis his base, i think, misread what his base wanted.

i think it was actually a total misreading of the republican base. he changed the republican base and republicans in congress aren't up to speed with what his base is. that's a political analysis, but it's actually, if you look at the history -- >> your point is his base is actually -- >> more jobs focused, more america focus. >> and working class anxious about health care, not really interested in the ideological debate about repealing obamacare. >> totally misreading, i think, what the base is. therefore -- but he made that call. i think there's still fundamentally a dire need and a desire, both a dire need and a desire to build a 21st century transportation system for a 21st century economy. you can see places succeeding and investing in the future and you can see people that aren't investing and what's happening to their economy. >> but it will cost money. >> totally! it costs money to build it, it is going to cost money to build the future. back in a moment. much more to discuss with rahm emanuel, including how he is making chicago's infrastructure

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enjoy the relief. you would be forgiven if you've missed entirely the president's infrastructure week at the beginning of the month. after all, the week happened to coincide with the most anticipated testimony since watergate. jim comey's. trump announced that america deserves the best infrastructure in the world and said, in his most trumpian manner -- >> it's time to rebuild our country to bring back our jobs to restore our dreams and yes, it's time finally to put america first. >> in calling attention to america's infrastructure problems, president trump finds himself with some strange bedfellows like my guest, chicago mayor rahm emanuel. what do you think of trump's plan? >> well, i don't know it. the one thing that came out of is somewhat the privatization of the aviation system. i fundamentally believed you're

not going to get from here to there, a 21st century transportation system for a 21st century economy without money. i'm open to public and private. we've done some of that. but it doesn't replace public. i'm for an increase in the gas tax. it's real money for real problems that will solve real problems. 1994 was the last time the increase in a gas tax and we did index it to inflation. if you ask president clinton, he would have told you that was a mistake. a lesson when i became mayor, we raised the water rate over a four-year window and indexed it to inflation. i don't want another mayor or city council to handle that politics. it's 4.9 billion mr. over a 10-year window. it's 900 miles of water pipe. 670 miles of sewer pipe, two largest water filtration plants in the united states and pumping stations will be totally rebuilt. then it's indexed, so the work continues. >> rahm, you have found a way to make chicago's infrastructure great again without much help from the federal government. explain how.

>> some yes, some no. on the airports, basically when we're done with the new runway system, o'hare will have added midway's capacity. we did that with federal help. >> two new runways? >> yes, two new runways. but when the system is complete, we're the only city in the united states that built a third airport in the last decade because we're adding midway's capacity to o'hare. >> an express train line to the airport. >> we're exploring that and actually working on an rfp exactly on that. our mass transit system, half the track will be new by 2019. one-third of -- about 40 individual stations will be totally new. every railcar by 2019 will be totally new or rebuilt. we have 4g, the first mass transit system with 4g on it. we've done it with local, state and federal resources but the school modernization, we're doing that alone as a city. >> you point out, this means lots of jobs for people in chicago.

>> we did about -- if you do it over a four-year window this next leg is about 50,000 to 60,000 construction jobs, all building trade jobs. in the first four years it was also a similar kind of 52,000 jobs. we are now last april was the lowest unemployment rate in april in the history of the city of chicago. i'll give you other data points. five years in a row, number one city in corporate relocations in the united states of america. five years in a row, number one city for direct foreign investment in the united states of america. my most important is it relates to this. every year for the last five years, the city of chicago's economy grew faster than the united states, faster than new york and faster than d.c. i do believe investments in transportation system in capital has created a foundation for greater and faster economic growth than the country as a whole. >> rahm emanuel, pleasure to have you on, as always. >> thank you.

next on "gps" -- who can possibly tame kim jong-un and his north korean regime? is it donald trump or china or anybody? we'll tell you when we come back. love, grandpa. ♪ let us be lovers, we'll marry our fortunes together ♪ older grandaughter: it'll be alright. i know. grandson: how did you meet grandpa? grandmother: actually on a blind date. [ laughter ] i wish he was on the trip with us. he's sitting right between the boys in the back of the car. [ laughter ] ♪ america ♪ all come to look for america ♪ all come to look for america life's as big as you make it. the all-new 7-seater volkswagen atlas

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with north korea, it has not worked out. at least i know china tried." we'll try to get to the bottom of what trump meant and whether there is anything he can do about this rogue regime. joining me now the president of the plow shares fund, and the chair for center for international and strategic studies. >> pleasure to be with you. >> victor, a lot of people argue that, while we think that north korea is under brutal sanctions, the most sanctioned regime in the world and therefore, there isn't much more one can do about it, there are a number of people who say, when you actually look closely at it and you look at the enforcement of sanctions, we could turn the screws a lot more tightly on north korea. do you agree? >> yeah. fareed, i think that's right. when you compare the sanctions regime that was against -- that

against north korea, there really is no comparison to sanctions against iran. much more comprehensive. in the case of north korea, a very important player in a sanctions regime is going to be china because 85% of north korea's external trade is with china. we can do other things on the margins trying to impose sanctions for human rights violations and other sorts of things. but the key player really there is china. and china -- >> do you think that donald trump was accurate in saying that the chinese tried but weren't able to succeed? because a lot of people feel the chinese always promise they're going to crack down this time and at the end of the day they never really do. it's for a tangled set of reasons, it's an old treaty ally, they worry about the consequences of destabilizing, but they never push that hard. >> yeah. unfortunately, i think that's right. china is the key player. but they will not put enough pressure on the regime for fear

that it's going to collapse. china has said that they will impose a cull ban on north korea. they don't appear to be living up to that. to scott peterson coal imports from north korea. commercial satellite imagery of the north korean country shows that there's infrastructure and construction projects taking place which don't look like what you would expect from a regime that is feeling the pinch of worldwide sanctions. so china is not doing what it should be doing in terms of this. there are many reasons as you said as to why that's the case. and that is perhaps why president trump tweeted what he did. >> joe, you have a kind of wholly different view of an alternate path to getting north korea denuclearized. why don't you lay it out. >> sure. you can get china to do more and they can do more, and you can put more sanctions on north korea, and we should do that. but sanctions alone are never

going to solve your problem. no country in history has ever been coerced into compliance or collapse over a nuclear weapons-related sanctions regime. but lots of countries have been convinced to give up their nuclear weapons. and this is the missing element. the chinese are willing to do more but they want to know what is the united states going to do. are you willing to enter into talks with north korea, for example. there are four countries key to solving this problem. obviously the united states and north korea, but also south korea and china. right now, you have the chinese, the south koreans and even the north koreans singing notes from the same song. they're willing to talk about a freeze on north korean capabilities, not the elimination. what do the north koreans want? they want security assurances from the united states. they want that manifested in a freeze on u.s. and south korean joint military exercises on their border. the question is, is the u.s. willing to do that. >> victor, i'm going to assume

you're going to say we tried that in 2005, they were made a kind of offer, and during the clinton years, and it didn't work. >> yeah. the north koreans have been given on numerous occasions security assurances, even negative security assurance in the six-party talks, which the united states said on paper we will not attack north korea with nuclear or conventional weapons. you know, i'm all in favor of a freeze as well. i do believe that the north koreans, the chinese and the south koreans are moving towards a position where the united states needs to stop our military exercises with the south koreans in return for a freeze. i don't think that's a particularly good deal. those exercises are purely defensive and readiness, if there's ever a need for readiness anywhere in the world it is going to be on the korean peninsula given all of the north korean provocations. maybe there are other ways to get to a freeze. to give up military exercises

for that would be giving a lot more on the part of the united states than we've given in the part for a lot less than what we've gotten in the past. and i don't think that's a good negotiation. >> joe, what do you say to those who say we've tried this in the clinton years. bush made an offer. the north koreans never quite agree or comply. >> victor is absolutely right. there are very sound reasons why we do those joint exercises. this would be painful for us to give it up. that's right. but if you're not going to give that up, what are you going to give up? this is really the core of the problem right now. isn't actually north korean intransigents, they're willing to talk. it's the fact that we don't have a north korea policy. we tried to outsource it to china thinking that they were going to solve it for us. that was always a pipe dream. what is our policy? it is incoherent right now. the south koreans don't know, the chinese don't know, the japanese don't know. the administration is running on fumes and partially it's because they haven't brought the people in who could do the job.

they haven't appointed people in the state department who know what they're doing, who can do this. look, there's one person on the show right now who would be an excellent assistant secretary of state to help solve this problem, and it ain't me. >> well, on that note of recommendation, which we hope president trump is listening to, we have to end it now. victor, joe, pleasure to have you on. >> thank you fareed. next on "gps," there are many things to fear in today's world. one of the scariest is small, smaller than the eye can see. what you need to know about germs and why it's scary when we get back. okay. got it. rumor confirmed. they're playing. -what? -we gotta go. -where? -san francisco. -when? -friday. we gotta go.

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every step you take, narrows the influence of narrow minds. bridges continents and brings this world one step closer. so, the question you asked me. what is the key? it's you. everything in one place, so you can travel the world better. for some, it's a distance. for some, it's a time. for some, it's a point. a pose. moving a bunch of heavy stuff. and doing...whatever this is. and for some, it's 8 hours of high-performance sleep. with beautyrest's innovations and technology, sleep performance is the new performance. and i quit smoking with chantix. i was very grateful to have chantix. at times when i would normally go smoke, i just didn't it's kind of like "wait a minute,

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you hear a lot about the enormous threats coming from terrorism, global warming and vladimir putin. but one of the biggest threats facing the united states isn't big at all. actually, it's tiny, microscopic, thousands of times smaller than the head of a pin. deadly pathogens, either man-made or natural, could trigger a global health crisis, and the united states is wholly unprepared to deal with it. bill gates recently weighed in on this topic saying, with all the things that kill more than 10 million people in the world, the most likely is an epidemic stemming from either natural causes or bioterrorism. the w.h.o. estimates that a worldwide flu pandemic could result in a global economic loss of $3 trillion which makes president trump's latest budget proposal released last month all the more stunning. he's asking for draconian spending cuts to the very government institutions that are

tasked with protecting americans from deadly diseases and bioterrorism. the budget is called a new foundation for american greatness and it's anything but. here are just a few examples of proposed cuts. the centers for disease control and prevention's budget will go from $7.7 billion to $6.4 billion, a 17% cut. the national institutes of health will go from a $31.8 billion to $26 billion, an 18% cut. there are other examples too. like the obscure national center for emerging and zoonotic infectious disease within the cdc and whose stated goal is to protect against the unintentional or intentional spread of infectious diseases like ebola, smallpox, anthrax, rabies and plague. that budget goes down from $579 million to 414 million, a cut of 11%. as you can imagine, many in the

scientific community are outraged. the former head of the cdc tweeted that the proposed budget was unsafe at any level of enactment. even representative tom cole from oklahoma said cutting the centers for disease control leaves the american people very vulnerable. the administration seems to have developed amnesia about the global health emergencies of the recent past. for example, between late 2013 and january 2016, more than 11,000 people died from the wildly contagious ebola virus which ravaged liberia, sierra leone and guinea with some victims seen as far away as nigeria, spain and the united states. and then there is the mosquito-born zika virus which the department of defense estimates has infected 178,000 individuals in the western hemisphere since 2015. zika has been linked to the birth defect microcephaly and

the world health organization says zika remains a significant enduring public health challenge requiring intense action. one only needs to look back to 1918 when the spanish flu pandemic killed an estimated 50 million people around the globe. in many ways, we're even more vulnerable today. densely packed cities, wars, natural disasters and international air travel mean a deadly virus propagated in a small village in africa can be transmitted almost anywhere in the world, including the united states, within 24 hours. i haven't even touched upon the potential for bioterrorism. according to daniel gerstein of rand, biological weapons are now within the reach of many rogue nations, and possibly some terrorist groups. which is to say that a budget based on america-first is short-sighted and won't help the u.s. stave off the threat from deadly pathogens. biosecurity and global pandemics

cut across all global boundaries. pathogens, viruses and diseases are equal-opportunity killers. when the crisis comes, we will wish we had more funding and more global cooperation. but then, it will be too late. up next is the conservatism of ronald reagan dead and gone forever. david brooks weighs in on the future of the right in the wake of donald trump. ging blood sugas not a marathon. it's a series of smart choices. and when you replace one meal or snack a day with glucerna made with carbsteady to help minimize blood sugar spikes you can really feel it. glucerna. everyday progress.

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of many on the right he will forever be the king of conservatism. his presidency the high point of that movement. what does donald trump's presidency represent? where does conservatism go from here? where does the republican party go from here? early in the week i had the opportunity to talk to a man who thinks a lot about these issues. "the new york times" columnist david brooks. >> david brooks, pleasure to have you on.

>> good to be with you. >> when you look at trump and the way he's been governing, the things he's passed, it's a hodgepodge of some things that seem hardcore republican economic agenda, repeal of obamacare, some of it is the trade protectionism he's always promised. is there a new conservatism developing? >> no, i don't think so. not in this administration. i think we saw glimmers of it in the campaign. and what trump understood that a lot of us didn't understand what debate we were having, we grew up in the debate of big government versus small government. whether you want to use government to enhance equality or reduce government to enhance freedom, in the campaign, he said it's not our debate. as many people, including you, it's open, closed. between the headwinds blasting in their faces and closed waters, closed-trade security. those that feel it's pushing at

their backs and want open trade and open opportunity. he hasn't delivered on that. that's because there are not a lot trumpians in the world of policy. he staffed his administration with the extent it is staffed with people from the reagan era, '84, reduce tax rates, cut government regulation. so i think he opened the door for a new kind of conservatism, but has not fulfilled it. that's for somebody in the future. >> so where do republicans go? when you look at republican congressmen, politicians, have they looked at that campaign and said, we need to become more populous conservatives? is that where the party is heading? >> there was a book that was real useful to read. a short book equaled account the structure of scientific revolutions." he said what happens in science, also true in politics, you get a paradigm, you get a way of looking at the world --

reaganism. that was a paradigm. it works for a little while, then slowly it detaches from reality and it is hollow, but nobody knows it. somebody comes along, punctures it and it collapses. that's what trump did to reaganism. then you get this period of chaos where people haven't released the old paradigm but don't know what the new one is. then you get a competition of paradigms. in the republican party you'll get a libertarian paradigm, a pa paleo conservative pat buchanan paradigm. if i had to bet, i would like an alexander hamilton open trade lot of immigration, lot of economic dynamism. but frankly, when i look at the polls, there are not a lot of people who want what i want. the steve bannons of the world, that's where a lot of the people are. they're older, economically disadvantaged and they want a national conservatism that will protect them. >> and if that is what they want, the party you think will

fold. to me, what's been interesting to watch is conservative intellectuals have, by and large, particularly the more prominent ones like you, have stuck true to their ideas and ideals and been very critical of trump. i think george will essentially got fired from fox for that reason. but the republican pop tiglitic have not. they have all caved and in some way or the other have accommodated themselves to trump. >> yeah. either those of us in the class are high bound and rigid or stuck with our ideas and not reflecting reality or the politicians are craven and don't want to lose their jobs and they will go where the people are. that's basically where they are. one of the things we've learned and trump demonstrated, parties are not that ideological. trump ran against a lot of republican positions and republicans signed on. what parties are these days are cultural signifiers, social identity markers, and just teams. and people think, what team has

people like me on it? what fits my social identity? what fits my social identity? people looked around and said sarah palin. she's kind of like me. whether she believed in low or high tax rates, other health care policy. they weren't thinking about that but, "who's like me?" for a lot of people in the republican party, older, whiter, less educated at the core, trump was like that. >> does that tell you inthey wi be loyal to him to the end if these investigations go bad for the president? >> pretty much. one of the things we've learned over the past 20 years we get super excited about super scandal. think, it's about to tear that person down. time and time again, it's sort of a noise in the background

when people are voting and they're voting the things they care about. economics, their health care, education, or they like the person. my conversations with trump voters, the scandals just don't come up. with they always a buffoon, whatever, but at least still basically trying to say the right things. so i don't think it will have any -- >> does part of that core, 35% or so of the country, strengthened every time the media criticizes him? because the last thing they want to do, to give you the satisfaction for having been right about donald trump? >> one of the things we learned about the class structure in this country, people in the middle, lower class, working class, don't mind billionaires, don't mind rich people but they mind our bossy professionals. teachers, lawyers, journalists, who seem to want to tell them what to do or seem to want to tell them how to act. and if you had to pick the classic epitome of that person who most offends them that would

be hillary clinton. so she was exactly the wrong person, and so i find them remarkably stable in their support. there's been seepage around the edge for donald trump, but so far it's just seepage. >> david brooks, pleasure to have you on. >> thank you. next on "gps," henderson island is right in the middle of the south pacific. by all rights it should be a paradise. instead, it's a dump. literally. find out why, when we come back. rumor confirmed. they're playing. -what? -we gotta go. -where? -san francisco. -when? -friday. we gotta go. [ tires screech ] any airline. any hotel. any time. go where you want, when you want with no blackout dates. [ muffled music coming from club. "blue monday" by new order. cheers. ] ♪ how does it feel the travel rewards credit card from bank of america. it's travel, better connected. the travel rewards credit card from bank of america.

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the future isn't silver suits anit's right now.s, think about it. we can push buttons and make cars appear out of thin air. find love anywhere. he's cute. and buy things from, well, everywhere. how? because our phones have evolved. so isn't it time our networks did too? introducing america's largest, most reliable 4g lte combined with the most wifi hotspots. it's a new kind of network. xfinity mobile. for the nearly 70 years since chinese nationalists barricaded themselves from

communist revolution, communists considered taiwan its territory. no ties to anyone that recognizes taiwan's independence bring me bringing me to my question -- which established diplomatic relations? stay tuned. we'll tell you the correct answer. this week's "book of the week," ed loos' book. sustained the western world, that it's crumbling. the reasons are soaring inequality, rising growth, rising powers, like china and india, his tone is urgent, appropriately so. and now for the "last look." henderson island is is a remote unimhabited island west of chili. sounds like it should be a

beach-side paradise. right? take a look at these photographs showing what the secluded spot actually looks like. despite its isolation from humans, currents swept in an incredible amount of garbage on to the island. in a new study, alarmed scientists who troubled there say they found the densest plastic pollution ever recorded on earth. they estimate the island is covered with roughly 38 million pieces of plastic from around the globe, and more than 3,500 pieces of debris are thought to be deposited on the island's north beach every day. according to plastic oceans foundations humans use 300 million tons of new plastic annually. half is which is for single use. a world economic forum points out dumped into the seas every minute. by 2050, they say, there could

be more plastic in the ocean than fish. this, of course, affects beaches and marine wildlife, but the toxic plastic often irreaded into small pieces also enters the food chain when fish that end up on our plates consume it. so if you want to one day find yourself a beach-side paradise, please, make sure that today you are re-using and recycling. as one of the report's angers told us, we as individuals can do a lot, and we need to, fast. the correct answer to the "gps" challenge question is, a. one year after the president of panama hosted taiwan's president for the opening of the expanded panama canal, the panamanian government ditched taipei to establishment diplomatic ties with beijing. increasing clout on the world stage has made it more and more difficult for taiwan's allies to stand by taipei as the "new york

times" tellingly pointed out, even though taiwan's president attended the revamped panama canal's opening ceremony, the first vessel to pass through it was actually chinese. thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. i will see you next week. the battle over health care. >> the plan in its entirtly absolutely pring premiuming down. >> they proposition too much. premiums go down? no way the republican bill brings down premiums. >> i don't think the bill is adequate now. unless it gets fixed i'm against it. >> no way in god's earth this bill should be passed. >> democrats themselves many admitted obamacare is a failure. >> if you stop dobb thinking repeal which is trumpcare, we'll sit down with you and make it better. >> i see this bill sass first step, a first important step in the direction of repealing those portions of obamacare we