. 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 live from new york. today the white house in disarray. warring with the attorney general, leakers and senators. what does all this mean for policy, from health care to gender issues in the military and what does the world make of this circus? >> and america's new

nationalism. ronald reagan's republican party was all about free trade and immigrants, no more. >> we will take new steps to patrol our border and impose immigration control like you have never seen before. >> steve bannon on american nationalism. >> the united states closes it and china opens itself up. i will talk about the eastward shift of global power. finally, summer on the french riviera, all the talk is ofing fires. but first here's my take. on monday i met a nigerian man.

your country has gone crazy, i'm from after that, i know crazy, but i didn't think it see this in america. the world had gone through bouts of anti-americanism before, but this time is different. first there's the sheer shock of what's going on, the election of trump and the chaos since taking office. karl rove described this president this week as vindictive, impulsive and shortsighted and his criticism of the attorney general is unfair, unjustified, unseemly and stupid. and one of the most tranl you and profoundly misguided courses of presidential conduct that i have witnessed in five decades

in and around the nation's capital. a new pew study--trump's presidency has made the u.s. something worse than feared or divided, it has becomer relevant. it not that trump is deeply unpopular. the 22 approval, compared to obama's 64% at the end of his presidency, that was to be expected. but on the question of confidence of various leaders to do the right thing, xi jinping got more -- this says a lot of the about trump, but it says a

lot about merkel's helpation. facing the challenges of trump, brexit and populism, support for europe among it residents has risen and plans to deep on european aggression is on the way. as it institutes protection--combined -- emanuel macron, it's economy has rebo d rebounded and is now growing as fast as that of the united states. companies from canada to china in various ways has announced that america cannot be counted on. the drop in america has gone

well beyond trump. 64% of those people surveyed had a favorable opinion of the united states. that has fallen to 49%, people around the world still believed the america, the place, the idea, this is less true today. in 2008 i wrote a book about the emerging post american world. amisted the -- for more go to cnn.com/fareed and read which "washington post" column this week, andlet get started.

>> okay you heard my fake, let's bring in a great panel to discuss. the former director of the richard nixon presidential library. c nr professor at princeton, and a joint fellow at the u.s. institute of peace and a former speechwriter for george w. bush. i want to start with you because it feels to me like we're in a very important moment in terms of congressional reaction to president trump. you saw senior republicans like mitch mcconnell publicly disagreeing with trump. on health care, three republican

senators voted against, but i wanted to read -- lisa murkowski has called the secretary of the interior saying they will no longer support projects of hers in alaska. she responded -- this feels like a republican revolt against donald trump. >> it's beginning, i think we often hear a lot about president trump and his base. but really it's the republican party that protects him and it the republican party on which he depends, broadly defined. all these things you have talked

about are some evidence that the fire wall of the republican congress is starting to weaken, if not fall apart. this is very significant. he can't afford this. with attorney general sessions, we have seen ongoing push back which is making it difficult for him to do what seems to be the move he's looking for so that he can go after the special prosecutor. >> david frum, let me read you from your old place of employment, you were an editorial writer at "the wall street journal." the journal, part of rupert m murdo murdock's empire -- about tru - trump-sessions abu. he's harming himself, alien --

he never tried to sell the policy to american public in part because he knows nothing about health care. now in the past, conservative intellectuals like yourself denouncing trump have not made much difference. will this, are we seeing something new? >> we are seeing something new, because "the wall street journal" does speak with and for paul ryan. the challenge for the republican party as an institution, is that while president trump is a severe problem, so also is the editorial page of the "wall street journal." what a president elected in to 16 needed to do was to lead the party back to itself on health care. return to a prior status quo, that would not make good on the

guarantee of near universal coverage that's been in place for almost seven years. as we saw in the vote, republican senators and republican members of the house did not believe in that commitment, they backed into it. where leadership serves is by taking a party that has put itself in a place unsustainable, and then you have a president who says i am going too offer a version of america than just my base. instead, donald trump, he knew so little about health care, that he believed "the wall street journal," and that's a bad place to be. >> is this all going to be solved by the appointment of a military man had chief of staff? i asked you, somehow the word keeps coming back to your area of expertise richard nixon, because alexander hague who was

appointed during nixon's second temple. >> the chief of staff is -- many presidents have always wanted to be at the center of the wheel and then all the spokes would lead to them, that's disaster. richard nix soften allowed bob hald erk haldeman as his chief of staff. nixon would go around haldeman. when presidents leave that model as we have seen in trump, they only encounter troubles. trump's problem is he lets other people talk to him. besides his tweeting. his problem is bannon has direct access, scaramucci has direct

act says, in order to be successful, he needs to control people, he has to be able to tell people, no, you can't see the president. we have seen trump delegate to mattis, but trump is delegating things he doesn't really understand, military operations. will he dell delegate to kelly? >> one thing i think you will see, is that if trump asks kelly will do something illegal or unconstitutional. -- >> president nixon asked alexander hague to destroy the tapes, and hague said, don't ask me, ask your valet. don't ask me to do it. he was thinking about his family and he said no. >> we are going to go out to

robin wright and we will ask her about the crises in north korea, and if these crises is a way to distract from his deep domestic troubles. when the unexpected strikes... don't worry we've got you covered. the hartford strikes back. i am totally blind. and non-24 can throw my days and nights out of sync, keeping me from the things i love to do. talk to your doctor, and call 844-214-2424.

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we are back with tim, julian, robin and david. robin, you traveled to north korea at what was the highest legal of contact between the united states and the north korean government ever in its history. what do you make of what's going on in north korea, and trump's series of tweets concerning the

chinese? >> we're now at a point where the north korean capabilities are so sophisticated, they have a range now of over 6,000 miles for their intercontinental ballistic missiles. we're also at a point where the window for diplomacy has closed. and the president rather than working this issue, as he's preoccupied with his war at home, is not taking the kind of steps that will get us closer to diplomacy that will -- he's belittling president xi jinping, he's saying the chinese are doing nothing for us. this is not the way to deal with the most populous nation on the earth. the reality is that north korea is reaching the point that it's

going to be a nuclear power and there's very little the united states can do about it except try to diminish the capability of north korea to use them. and he's not dealing thoughtfully and diplomatically, with this fundamental challenge that may well form his foreign policy legacy. >> you're so knowledgeable by iran, there are reports that donald trump, more than reports, he said he wants to find them in noncompliance with the iran deal, even though the iaea has several times certified that they are in compliance. what would happen if the united states in a sense unilaterally, disagreeing with the inspectors on the ground and say that we believe that iran is in noncompliance. >> trump clearly wants iran to

back away from the deal. yes, through inspections possibly, demanding inspection of sites that are not on the list, or not suspected of having been involved in a nuclear program. whether it's imposing new sanctions, opening fire on iranian ships in the persian gulf. there are a lot of ways that we are moving toward, i think, a position that the united states looks like it is supporting regime change. and i saw as you did too, the iranian foreign minister and i think the idea that iranians are going to walk away from this is unlikely, and that puts us in the position of what is our policy? we are now split with the europeans, 40 years we have been together to pressure iran on nuclear and other issues, and now north korea is doing business with them, putting

their ambassadors back in tehran. this is where the president lacks the kind of sophisticated knowledge of the world, it was reflected this week when he stood next to the lebanese prime minister when he said that -- hezbollah is a major part of the lebanese government. and they're fighting against isis and al qaeda in lebanon. it is troubling that president trump knows so little about the world. >> julian, do you think these crises are an opportunity or a challenge? >> i think they're a challenge, i think the same problems we have on domestic policy will re-create themselves on northern policy. all the actions we have seen, threatening allies and opponents, tweeting and randomly distracting people in his own party from what they need to be doing. and lacking a real sense of

policy and a vision in terms of where this all goes, all of these will be problematic, as it turns to the international stage. >> another seeming distraction, or what some people would regard as distraction was the trump agenda. i'm assuming it's an attempt to play the cultural world car, and force democrats to have to defend these small minority that many people would regard as odd, i don't. but will it work? >> it's a culture war that actually turned into a culture skirmish, because as you said, there just isn't enough excitement about this issue on one side or the other. and it's just like donald trump has a tendency to start wars with his allies.

the united states is stumbling, without plans, and often without friends. one of the clever thing that people say in washington is what happens if these guys ever encounter a crisis that is not of their own making? what happens when they face a true international crisis, but the situation is much worse than that, because this team is an international crisis. this is itself, this government is the greatest threat to america's national security we have seen maybe since the end of the cold war. we are careening, we're going to end up in some kind of confrontation and we're probably going to end up there alone. >> when you look at the way this administration is handling itself, something that richard haass today to me, the president of the council on foreign relations. he said looking at scaramucci, he said that nobody seems to care about the dignity of the office they hold. and that starts with the

president, but it goes down throughout the white house, there's no sense that these guys are sort of national treasures. >> that has a corps rrosive eff. imagine watching priebus being publicly humiliation, with no consequence other than priebus loses his job, this is an understaffed administration, you need more people. and three, the effect on our international reputation. if we're going to stare down foreign adversaries, they have to believe that we are not only unified, but professional. the scaramucci show that we saw this week isn't amusing at all. it would be amusing if it were reality television, but the u.s. government is not reality television. that's not the way to run the

country as a superpower. next on gps, the case of a missing 3$3.4 trillion, the gop analysis of facts, when we come back. ♪

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xfinity mobile. it's a new kind of network, designed to save you money. now for our "what in the world" segment. at the end of may, the trump administration released details of its proposed budget for the next fiscal year, and on july 13, the congressional budget office released their analyst of president trump's budget. the cbo said that trump's budget underestimated trump's tax cuts by $3.4 billion. how could they make such a big

math error? actually they did it intentionally. president trump assumed that because of its tax cuts, the american economy would grow by 3% a year for the next decade. the cbo said that growth would be 1.9%. note that the american economy has grown on average 1.8% over the last ten years, sprinkle the magic pixie -- the story of dynamic scoring is the story of the republican party's analysis of facts and analysis in favor

or ideology. they were the party of green eye shades, conservative assumptions and careful accounting. they did not believe in wide eyed assumptions, in fact when ronald reagan proposed tax cuts that would pay for himself, his traditional republican rival george sr. called it reagan economics. in fact, the national debt tripled under ronald reagan. and after george w. bush cut taxes, the national debt increased again. bill clinton by contrast actually raised taxes and ushered in stronger growth and higher tax revenues, but the mountains of evidence has not stopped republicans from using dynamic scoring.

predicting there would be a broos -- thousands of new jobs would be created. except the promised growth never material'sed. instead between 2013 and 2014, the state's budget of 6 billion was butchered as revenue fell by $713 million. this caused lawmakers to pass tax hikes, in 2015, the economy grew at 2%, while the rest of the nation jumped to 1.6%. the rest of the nation experienced a -- sam brownbeck has been nominated to be the state department's ambassador at large for religious freedom.

says the dynamic scoring is not about honest revenue estimating, it's about using smoke and mirrors to institutionalize republican ideology into the budget process. steve mnuchin, garry cohen and others in the administration know better. instead of smoke and mirrors they should use facts and analysis. the proposed wall on the mexican border is just the start of the nationalism and isolationism that could be coming to this new america, the man behind it all, steve bannon, we'll go inside his brain when we come back. for the strength and energy to get back to doing... ...what you love. ensure. always be you. listen up, heart disease.)

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by -- and the nationalists led by one man, steve bannon. if you listen to the mexican border wall to pulling out of paris, it would appear that the nationalists are the ones winning, add to that, the president's strongly nationalistic speech in warsaw this month, and it's clear that steve bannon has the president's attention at least for the moment. my next guest has written a book by the rise of bannon. the first question is bannon's world view as i see it seems to domina dominate, even with the transgender ban. but bannon has disappeared. i assume he recognized that the one thing you can't do in this administration is being more prominent or even anything close to prominent as president.

>> in the early days of the administration, he was portrayed in popular culture and media, as being this dark mastermind, or public president as "saturday night live" called him. and trump doesn't want to have a co-star, certainly not one who seems to be pulling his puppet string. you can survive longer in trump's circle, if you're behind the scenes whispering into his ear instead of at the podium. >> really this transformation, idealogically, the republican party used to be the party of free trade, of openness, that was reaganism and trumpophobia.

do you think that bannon came to his nationalist protectionist, populist views, slowly, suddenly? what happened, this was a gold m goldman-sachs president. >> he had a deeply traditional catholic upbringing, he went to a right wing catholic military academy, became fascinated with traditionalist thinkers, particularly those in the 1930s and 1940s who tended to believe that the world was in decline, that the western world was under assault by the forces of islam, and i think the other thing is bannon's own personal experience. he served in the navy in the persian gulf during the failed rescue mission to rescue can american hostages.

and bannon -- >> this was under the carter presidency? >> this was under carter's presidency and bannon was raised in a working class, irish catholic, democratic, pro kennedy family. at time bannon was a democrat, but he described to me in interviews taking shore leave and going to -- these teaming hases of young anti-american muslims and then watching the hostage crisis, he described the middle east to me as being prime evil, he said it was like stepping back into the fifth century, so i think that was the beginning, the roots of the islamophobia. >> trump talked about in the campaign, what people wanted to hear, the republican base, they don't want to hear about milton

freeman economics and free trade and entitlement reform, the kind of stuff paul ryan talks about. they wanted to hear abo-- is th kind of an american expediency? >> i think what trump sees in the bannon vision is not a philosophy or an intellectual underw underpinning for trump's ideas. the idea of america first nationalism. who could be against that? and trump with his salesman skills was able to distinguish himself from what bannon and what trump would consider the globalist pro free trade, hawkish, orthodox republicanism that characterized the views of the other 16 candidates more or less in the gop election. and what trump did and bannon

certainly helped this was to practice a kind of political arbitrage, he understood that the policies being offered and pushed by the republican matter leaders no longer met the needs of the party's white working class, increasingly rural and isolationist base, and took advantage of that in a way that exposed just how vulnerable the republican party really was. >> what's striking to me about it is that there's a few slogans about american elections, people often say the taller candidate often wins, but the other one is that the more optimistic candidate wins. but in bannon's view of the world, it's a very dark view of the word, a western decline, you're surrounded, you're fighting to preserve the soul of america. is that where half the country now is? >> i think it is.

and i credit bannon for being a shrewder analyst of both democratic and republican politics than anybody in washington, certainly anybody in either of the major parties, he understood this kind of roiling anxiety and dissatisfaction that i think was masked by the booming stock market, the fact that urban areas are doing very well, that the entire political and media did not believe that donald trump could win the presidency, and therefor didn't take it seriously until election night. up next, from america's turn in, to china's turn out, how beijing is consolidating global power and influence as washington loses it.

for thousands of years the world's most powerful civilizations were not from the west, but from the east. the east was where the money and the might was. now after two centuries of military, economic and cultural domination is the pendulum of american power swinging the other way. that is the question that the book "easternization, asia's rise and america's decline." the author sat down with me to discuss china and the eastern renaissance. >> it you describe how already on the ground, foreign policy is changing, international politics is changing. and in particular, the rise of china has really transformed international politics, which used to be for the last 20 to 30

years, was a single poll, china is now increasingly assertive, right? >> yeah, i think it's both a phenomenon, mainly in asia, but also it has global domination. especially since xi jinping came to power. you definitely get a different view of china. and the slightly confused reaction of the u.s. as to how much they can push back. china got away with it. people are beginning to sort of factor the rise of asia, the rise of china into their thinking. so just to give you a couple of examples, in turkey, which for 100 years has seen their destiny of europe.

maybe europe's not where it's at, maybe asia is where it's at. if you talk to russian -- they're looking to build a special relationship with insurgent china. >> even western countries are much more aware of their eastern destinies so that germany, the largest trading partner for germany now is not the united states but china. >> absolutely. and i think merkel spends a lot of time going to china cultivating that relationship. and what's happened in my own country, that brexit, the decision to leiave the eu is tht europe is not where it's at right now, we're going to have to build relationships with india and china. so the british

reluctant to -- china dates its center of humiliation to a british invasion and now it's the brits who are having to cultivate the chinese. >> when someone hears this about the backdrop of the american strikes on syria, people will say, well, us certainly seems like the united states is still running the world. you point out that the united states can act in these completely unilateral fashion in the middle east. and i think you -- by implication you're wondering can they do the same? we all wonder, were there to be an issue like this in north korea? >> sure. >> can the united states really act the way it did in syria in north korea? >> technically it could, but i think politically not. of course america can't tolerate

this, they might have to take out the north korean nuclear program, even if that's technically, militarily possible, there would be a problem with south korea. one would think that south korea would want that, but they don't, because they're completely in the firing line and that north korea could clearly level -- i'm not sure the japanese would want it baud they're in range of north korea's missiles already. particularly china, do they say that we cannot tolerate another power 2k07 natunominating the sa sea, maybe we're dominant in our

backyard, china can be dominant in their backyard. i don't think themens haamerica have decided that really. >> pleasure to have you on. >> thank you. selfie? yeah! ok. desk in the background. ok. best day ever. (crash!!!!) when the unexpected strikes... don't worry. we've got you covered. the hartford strikes back. i am totally blind. and non-24 can make me show up too early... or too late. or make me feel like i'm not really "there." talk to your doctor, and call 844-234-2424.

>> in the more than six months since he took office, president trump couldn't be more visible. dominating the headlines almost every day. one country has had the opposite problem in recent months and that brings me to my question, which head of state from which country has not set foot in his homeland in over two months? i don't have a book of the week today, but i do have something exciting to tell you about. my latest documentary "why trump won." trump's victory shocked the world, including me. so how did we miss the signals? >> it's the most unbelievable

thing. >> how in the world did he win? that's what i dig deep into in this new program, "why trump won." 10:00 p.m. eastern on cnn and cnn international. the correct answer is c, after en -- seek treatment for an undisclosed medical condition. last sunday the nigerian president ee's twitter account showed pictures of the president in india. a former nigerian president died in office in 20 so, shortly after taking months of medical leave in saudi arabia, his illness triggered a crisis over

the transfer of power. thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week, i will see you next week. hey, i'm brian stelter, welcome to our viewers in the united states and all around the world. this is ""reliable sources."" our weekly look at the story behind the story, how the media really works and how the news gets made. and the news seems like one long episode of political survivor, starring president trump. for now steve bannon and jeff sessions and robert mueller are all still in. even with new chief of staff, nothing will change unless the president changes. if nothing else, trump is a reliable source of news. consider all of the stories that could have been our lead this hour. we could have led with the fallout from all