. this is gps, the noble public square. welcome to you will a of you in the united states. i'm fareed zakaria coming to you live from new york. we will bring you the latest on the u.s. government shutdown in a moment. but also. today on the show we mark one year of the president trump presidency. we'll start with immigration. it has been a main policy plan since the day he launched his campaign. >> i will build a great wall and nobody builds walls better than me. >> now it has brought the united states government to its knees, why is the topic of immigration so divisive.

we'll explain. also, "star wars," no, not the one with luke skywalker. i'm talking about ronald reagan's "star wars,". >> wouldn't it be better to save lyes than to avenge them. >> more than three decades after he spoke, surely the u.s. can protect itself from a nuclear attack. right? well, probably not. i'm explain. >> then, polls. we just entered a new election year in america. trump's approval is at record lows. should we believe the polls this time around? >> we have the answer. but first, emmanuel macron is today the most admired world leader among world leader around the world. he has managed to win the french presidency and stay relatively popular all while speaking

positively. he has done this in the face of a tide of populism that is still surging. what is his secret? well, one key area to watch him on is immigration. on tuesday he announced yet again that his government would be tougher on immigration expediting asylum claims and deporting those whose applications have been rejected. he's been criticized an congratulated. the central issue feeding populism around the globe is immigration. that's why you still see right wing populism in such countries as germany, holland and sweden where economic growth is strong, manufacturing is still vibrant and inequality has not risen dramatically. donald trump, remember, beat 16 talented republican candidates because he outflanked them all on one issue.

immigration. meanwhile democrats keep moving left believing this will make them more credible populists. polling shows the public's already with them on economic issues, where it and the working class especially differs with them is on immigration. and yet, the party is now more extreme on this topic than it has ever been. positions that dozens of democratic senators took on immigration ten years ago, are now totally rejected by almost every democratic party leader. most, for example, would have aeg agreed that america's current mix of immigration skews too heavily towards family and needs to attack more with skills. the party embraces sanctuary cities suggesting they defy federal authorities who try to enforce the law of the land. the same with laws they don't id

like, say guns or abortion. it is difficult to be moderate on any topic these day, most of all immigration. dunkin donu donald trump discusses the ways -- in tone and temperature. demeaning immigrants. to compromise with these kind of attitudes seems distaste full, even immoral. and yet, the issue is one that should allow for some sensible middle ground. the late edward kennedy was one of the most liberal senators in the country. senator john mccain is a staunch swi conservati conservative. any were able to agree. let's be honest. the scale and speed of immigration over the last few decades is a really issue. just since 1990, the share of foreign born people in america has gone from 9% to 15%.

it's nearly doubled in germany and the any they anetherlands. nearly tripled in denmark. most come from more cultures that are distant and different. societies can only take so much change in a generation. if mainstream politicians do not recognize these realities and insist that those who speak of them are racists, they will only push the public in its desperation to em grace the real racists, of which there are many. for more go to cnn.com/fareed and read my washington post column this week. let's get started. and now for the shouldown. those who thought that disfunction in america couldn't get any worse have been proven wrong once again. the united states government has now been shut down for little more than 34 hours and each side

is pointing fingers at the other. just listen to what happens for example when you call the white house comment line. >> thank you for calling the white house. unfortunately, we cannot answer your call today because congressional democrats are hoding government funding, including funding for our troops and other national security priorities hostage to an unrelated immigration debate. >> for their part, the democrats are blaming the shutdown on trump and his republican colleagues who they point out control the executive branch, senate and house of representatives and still cannot get a spending bill passed. >> let's get some historical context with tim nef tally. he is a profess of history at nyu and former director of the nixon library. let's step back for a moment. how did we get here? >> well, this train wreck is the result of two different processes. the first is the problem our

government has had for years at passing a budget. since october of last year, which was the start of the 2018 budget cycle, there have been three continuing resolutions. at the same time, in september of last year, president trump, without any pushing, but he motivated himself and his staff did it, i guess, he signs an executive order which ends the daca program on march 5th. so you have these two trains hurtling towards each other. the minority party, the democratic party, thought it had created a bipartisan compromise to deal with daca. >> which trump seemed to endorse at that opening. >> so if -- if the president accepted it, the two trains would have missed each other. but the democrats have decided, i guess, and some republicans, because five republicans voted against the budget in the

senate. >> for freedom caucus reasons. they don't want to spend as much money. >> they weren't willing to fund the government. and the issue now is whether this brinksmanship on the part of the minority party will turn out well for the democrats, a republican senator, ted cruz, and his allies, tried the same thing in 2013 to undermine the affordable care act. they didn't get what they wanted, but they did win the senate in the 2014 election. >> so when you look at it, looking back again, how will history judge will who won this? >> history's always very good at the winners. we just don't know who's going to win. >> whoever blinks loses because right now you -- it's a game of chicken. somebody's going to blink. >> the real mistake, frankly -- it's so easy by the way to be

sitting here and saying this. the democrats had a moral and political obligation, i think to highlight daca and say look, the deportations are going to start march 6. you have a president who wants to solve this problem. you have enough republicans who want to solve it. it should be a national consensus that leads to yes. and they didn't get a yes. and so they decided to highlight this the only way they can in our system, which is largely a win or take all system, which was to say, we can't move forward with a budget if 700,000 people are going to be deported. the president has started digging in already. he's already made a case for not moving at all on this. so, at this point, i don't see how you get donald trump to yes, given his current rhetoric. and that puts the democrats in a tough situation. because they don't want to defund the government for -- on the basis of one issue. they wanted to highlight it.

so these are tough moments for the democrats. >> you said, you know, one of the -- original problem is we can't pass budgets and we have these continuing resolutions. that feels to me like you've had a kind of breakdown of governing majority. there used to be liberal republicans and conservative democrats. and really for 20 years the government is funded in this very strange mechanism continuing resolutions. >> well, patronage was a useful tool. and it made it possible to wheel and deal. you didn't like an idea i had on one piece of legislation, but i would be happy with another. lindsen johnson went to john f. kennedy in 1963 and said one of the way to get civil rights legislation passed is to help poor whites. if you would send money to poor whites in the south, you could

help senators who are not going to vote for you on civil rights but they won't mess up the system. they won't block it. they won't support it, but they won't block it because their people benefit from government. what has happened in this country -- it started in the 80's. you have a group of americans who don't believe government can ever work. so how do you get compromise when you have people who are elected to washington whose job is to disrupt the federal government, not to make it more effective and efficient. >> the odd thing of course is for those who think government will shut down, two thirds of government spending is entitlement program. all that people find ways around emergency services. my fear is the people who get hurt are ordinary civil servants, poor people. that kind of stuff that gets hurt. of the vast majority of government actually continues. >> it does. i remember, i was in the government in 2011 when it

almost shut down and i saw the list of people who wouldn't be paid and would be furloughed. there are hundreds of thousands are americans who will not are paid on monday because of this little game that's being played in congress. >> tim naftali, always a pleasure. next we dig deeper into the central issue that caused the shutdown, immigration, when we come back. energy in just two weeks! i'll take that. -yeeeeeah! ensure high protein. with 16 grams of protein and 4 grams of sugar. ensure. always be you. a place with 24-hour fvalet servicee and a boutique salon a place with all day arts and crafts it even has a day spa a place that's so much like home, because well... it is home

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give me your tired, poor, huddled passes yearning to breathe free. does that plaque characterize the procedure american approach to immigration? or is it rather what attorney jeff sessions said this week on "fox news"? >> what good does it do to bring

in somebody who's ill literate in their own country, has no skills and is going to struggle and not be successful. that is not what a good nation should do. we need to get away from it. >> this week it became an issue shutting down the u.s. government. i wanted to talk about the subject in america today. other issues as well, joining me is a senior editor and author of the new book. trump oc rassy. he became and american citizen in 2007. margaret hoover is the president of the american unity fund and author, cnn contributor and has been a citizen since birth and the great granddaughter of president herbert hoover. and also, the author of a terrific new book. the square and the tower, networks and power, from the free masons to facebook. he hopes to take the exam to become a u.s. citizen soon.

i'm confident he will pass. david, on immigration, where do you think -- yourestrictsist, b notice since the president has been talking about this you have been reluctant to agree with him. >> i got this asked to me before. he's saying many. things about immigration that you have said, why don't i support him. >> my response is the reason i said those was to keep people like donald trump out of power, not to bring them into power. donald trump is exactly what i was afraid of in all those long years when i was talking about the need for a moderated approach. the alternative -- 2016 the united states received nearly 2 million, about half illegal. that is tied with 1998. as the second highest year on record. and as you have noted, the proportion of the foreign-born

not population is reaching pre world war i peaks. the alternative is not zero. it is a different number that is more stable, sustainable within the country. and the transformation of this debate into a binary one is exactly the result that i've worked so hard to try to stop. it is a middle of the road course to keep the economy growing and society stable. >> neil, you're an immigrant. your wife is. and you're generally thought of as quite conservative. where do you stand. >> of course i'm in favor of immigration. the scotts have been the great immigrants of world history. there are furg gus son's everywhere you can possibly go. i think there are more people called that in jamaica. we're in favor of immigration. the way i would look at it is with historical perspective. the last time there was this rapid surge in immigration in

the united states taking the foreign-born share of the population up to 15% was in the late 19th century. what happened was exactly what's happened in our time. a populous backlash. natiiv nativism, populism, deep roots. in my book, i tell the story of a trump of the late 19th century. he campaigned with a slogan the chinese must go. opposing chinese immigration into california. you had to take him both literally and seriously because that then got enacted with the 1882 exclusion act. throughout the last couple of years i've argued we shouldn't think of donald trump as a fascist or some kind of tyrant in the mold of vladimir putin, much less stalin. we should think of him as an american populist. the thing about immigration is a

sudden increase of the sort we've seen not only in the united states but in other countries as a consequence of large scale migration nearly always produces this kind of backlash. yet the democrats margaret have lost their ability to compromise just as much as the right. >> they have, although the place we are now is about a very non controversial element, the deferred -- daca agreement. this is something that actually republicans and democrats widely debr agree upon. >> the parties have become po l polarized. >> do you agree with what neil said? your book is about how trump is not just garden variety populist. >> i think trump is coming along at a moment when a lot of american institutions are under

pressure for a lot of other reasons. back in the 19 ort century it was a source of strain. wages had begun to rise. united states is experiencing something else never before seen in its history, which is a decrease in life ex peck see, at least among people without college degrees, especially among whites. that didn't happen during the great depression. that kind happen in germany when they were literally starving. the only other place is in the post soviet republics. there is a larger crisis that is very unlike anything seen before in american history. it's also happening at a time when institutions are weak and powers are the presidency are m immense. in 1913 the president wasn't followed around with a briefcase with the capacity to end life on earth. now he is. >> you're a little bit more optimistic. >> look, i think one of the

pieces missing from this discussion is certainly immigration is part of it, but there are fundamental economic structural problems driving populism just as much. there is wage stagnation among a certain group of white non college educated men who helped electric donald tru elect donald trump. there are problems no the going to be answered in the first year and since populism will continue. i think there's this thought that populism will see its backlash in 2018, politically at the ballot box. the truth is i think it is firmly rooted both in the left and right politically here, even if it received trumpism receives a backlash. >> social media have changed the way in which the public sphere operates. although it's lovely to be on television. we all know part of what's going on is in the new domain of social media. facebook and twitter.

they incentivize extreme views as well as fake news. that's why i would expect the reaction to trumpism. to produce an equal and opposite populism on the left. bernie sanders may be back or some version. we already saw just last week the kind of grand standing that democratic hopefuls with an eye an 2020 are going to. corey booker's history onics. >> it's not a set of ideas. it's a system of power. he has no policy ideals. he's not even a populist. he will go to the meetings. you're right, you're right. some say you can't both be right. you're right again what he is is a system of power. that is why he's so much more dangerous than populists past. he's deadly serious about is enriching himself, shutting down

the institutions in government that would normally catch him. right now the president is receiving streams of undisclosed millions of dollars from business partners in philippines, turkey, india, no one knows how much he's receiving or how subject those people are to pressure from their own government. it is a remarkable thing that the present fell lilipino -- do trump has to shut down a lot of the government simply for self preservation even apart from the fact he seems to be the ever burning center of the biggest espionage scandal. >> on that, thank you so much. next on gps, president trump may have disparaged many nations and their would be immigrants recently. i would encourage him to watch this next segment because there is a region of the world where he ought to take a second look

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segment. the trump administration has made clear what types of immigrants it considers undesirable. earlier in month when the president reportedly used a choice word to condemn a wide swath of poor african countries and asked why america needed more immigrants from haiti. trump denies using any profanity. he called his language tough though. he also uses tough language about latin america on the campaign trail in 2015. >> they're sending us not the right people. it's coming from more than mexico. it's coming from all over south and latin america. >> and jeff sessions has questioned why america should accept ill literate immigrants. the president and his attorney general might be shocked to learn that the right people are actually in south and latin america, literal, college-educated and ready to work. and that region is producing more and more of them every day. le they are in the midst of an extraordinary revolution in education. across the region young people are flocking to college campuses

at a staggering rate. it has increased from 21% in 2000 to 43% in 2013 according to the world bank. access has increased dramatically dweas well. up from 16% in 2000. that's an increase of 3 million students. around 2,300 new institutions of higher learning have sprouted up in the region since the early 2,000s. what is driving it? there are two main factor, young people who are completing high school in higher numbers and large number of new institutions, many of them in the private sector. so more students are enrolling in higher education in latin america, but do they then find jobs with higher wages? across the region the report notes people who graduate from institutions of higher learning earn more than double what high

school graduates earn. the world bank urges caution, it is not all rosy and further progress will take policy shifts, it says, for example the quality. mushrooming institutions will need to improve as will the high school graduates. however, the picture on the whole is one of unmistakable progress in latin america. perhaps if president trump and jech sessions knew these facts and they are facts, they will welcome people from these countries rather than demeaning them. next on gps, how many americans approve of the president's performance, how many don't. will the dems take back the house? the senate? tell us all the like hood of these things but they think they failed us in 2016. i will talk to two of the best in the business when we come back.

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it is a new year, 2018 and even numbered years in america are federal election years. that means in less than 300 days voters will go to the poll for senate and house seats. this entire year we will be inundated with polls that tell us who's likely to win and lose. but we all remember 2016 when most polls told us hillary clinton was likely to win. so will 2018 polls be right? joining me now are two of the smartest people writing about polls. a domestic correspondent for the "new york times's" upshot. so nate, i remember you wrote something recently on the -- or the upshot did for sure about the generic ballot that asked people do you prefer to have republicans in the house or democrats. and i think your point was that this is the point at which the

polling is quite predictive. this far in advance. it's difficult to imagine the democrats not taking over the house. do you still feel ta way? >> i think i agree with that. the most people who have thought about the question would put the tipping point threshold maybe around 8 points. it's possibly fair to say the democrats are at least modest favorites to take the house. >> do you think this is more a reflection of the fact people are turned off by president trump and the republicans as opposed to being turned on by the democrats? >> yeah. i mean look. when you have a midterm election, it's all about the president who's in the white house. it's ref den dumb on the president. we know this going back since like 1866. i think there have been three elections in which the party that was in the white house actually gained seats in the house of representative at the midterm. this is a big referendum on the president of the united states. basically being stable there in the past few months. that's bad news for republicans.

>> president's approval rating. how seriously should we take is it? i think a lot of people feel like it does look low, but on the other hand, he did seem to win when he was pretty unpopular with a large segment of society. is there something hidden in here that could surprise us all? >> i think that the point is fair. the president's favorability ratings today are higher when he was elected last year. i appreciate that concern to say the least. but, you know, our midterm elections and in general they're referendums on the party in power. trump is now the president. that wasn't the case a year ago. that completely changes the salience of that number to -- the way you should think about the likely outcome of an election. could the polls be off again, as i think we're going to get to? yeah. are there advantages he might have like the possibility he'll do better than among the voting electorate? yeah. i think that even the most

optimistic take on his approval rating would still indicate the republicans are in a lot of danger in november. >> so the two big errors i think you guys came on the show and talked about were the und underestimate of the number of non college educated whites in america. it turns out there isn't a single place where you can get that number. and who tended to vote more for trump, and the number of undecideds who it was assumed would break kind of 50/50 and broke more heavily for trump. have pollsters adjusted their models to take this into account for 2018? >> some have. but on balance, they haven't. there are, i can count the number of pollsters who have changed their methodology to increase their representation of less educated white voters on one hand. there's really not much you can do about that. . in the end, pollsters can ask voters what they're going to do and if they choose to do

something else, that's their call. that doesn't necessarily mean they'll be wrong the same way. >> is seems tough for the democrats, true in. >> look, it's 26 democrats, 8 republicans up, democrats need a gain of two now in order to take control of that chamber. the fact that there are a ton of red seats up, now it should be said indumb bantss who are in the party that's not in the white house in the midterm overwhelmingly tend to win. but you're going to montana, these are all states that donald trump won by 18% point the or more. democrats have to defend all these and pick up arizona and nevada. but i think that most people would agree that republicans have a better chance of holding on to that chamber than democrats have taking control but the trance that democrats take control is significantly up than it was from the beginning of the year. >> what is the chance that the senate will go down?

>> i would say it's probably between 30 and 40%. >> you say i think in one of your pieces that the polling at this point is pretty inducative of what's going to happen. in other words, can ejust stop looking at the polls and what we have now is a pretty good indicator? >> the generic ballot is pretty stable. and i think that's in part because they're not specific candidates. the news doesn't change your overall view as quickly as it might with two individual candidates where news might break on trump that causes people to react very strongly one way or the other. and historically, if you were to try and make a prediction based on the generic polling now, you would do a pretty good job of it. it doesn't mean it's perfect. at this time in 2010, they were pretty close and they ended up with a nine-point lead.

>> we would ask both of you back probably in six months. up next, a frightening 40 minutes in hawaii last weekend as cell phones in the state buzzed, alerting the owners that a ballistic missile was head the right for them. what could the united states do to thwart a real attack if there were one. find out when we come back. ntie. wondering, "what if?" i let go of all those feelings. because i am cured with harvoni. harvoni is a revolutionary treatment for the most common type of chronic hepatitis c. it's been prescribed to more than a quarter million people. and is proven to cure up to 99% of patients who've have had no prior treatment with 12 weeks. certain patients can be cured with just 8 weeks of harvoni. before starting harvoni, your doctor will test to see if you've ever had hepatitis b, which may flare up and cause serious liver problems during and after harvoni treatment. tell your doctor if you've ever had hepatitis b,

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ballistic miss sill threat inbound to hawaii. that was the message september out by the state of ri last saturday. it took 38 minutes for a second one to be september out saying there was no threat. what if there were a real missile headed to hawaii, l.a., new york or d.c., could the u.s. government say shoot the missile

down? what should people do? joining me now to answer that and more is a nuclear weapons historian. so, let's first talk about how it would be work. do we think for example the north korea has the capability to hit hawaii today? >> north koreans have tested a lot of different missiles and nuclear war heads. it's not like they've tested one or two. they've tested literally hundreds of missiles over the last decade or so. do they have that capacity? experts debate whether or not well is this test the same as what would happen if a war head was on top? would it all work as planned? i tend to feel like we should assume they have that capacity, because if you are wrong, and you assume they don't, the consequences are horrific. >> how long would it take for a missile to get from north korea to h to hawaii? >> you have to make assumptions. but 30 minute ss a pretty good

estimate. >> how long would it be before the united states would know such a missile had been fired. >> the united states should be able to know relatively quickly. a missile is a very, from a data point of view, noisy thing. there's going to be a lot of heat. if you have a infrared since so sensor you're going to know. i can't say for sure, i'm not sure that's even knowledge that people have in the open world. but, it's going to be relatively quickly. oilts it's not the old days where you won't know. >> that gets to the crucial question which i think many people wonder. we spend $600 billion, $700 billion every year. why can't we shoot it out of the sky. >> shooting missiles with missiles is very difficult. this is not the fault of bad military contractors or bad scientists. it's just a fundamentally

difficult tactical feat. you are trying to shoot something relative to the size of the sky very small and going at speeds that are very hard for us to comprehend. when this missile is moving it's going to be going about 5 ki kilometers per second. we're talking 11,000 miles an hour. that's a very fast thing. so the phrase they used to use in the cold war for talking about missile defense is shooting a bullet with a bullet. you can -- the fact we can even shoot some of our test missiles down is kind of miraculous in and of itself. but, this is just very hard to do. it's always going to be pretty hard to do, and that's no slur against anybody. >> why is it then that the much more local versions seem to work whether it's the patriot system, or -- am i wrong that actually they don't work? that's the one place where people do seem to want them, and the israelis, south koreans, et

cetera. >> there's a hot debate about how effective they are. when you see the israeli army or american forces showing you some interception, they are not showing you when they miss. again, that's not surprising. >> during the first gulf war there was a very important debate that said the missile defenses they claimed worked very well had actually worked very badly. >> there's someone at mit that did a lot of work on this. it's very hard to know. these missiles that should just be point the out smaller missiles, things like skuds. they are not the same speed. they are not the same distance, same problem. these are -- if we have a hard time shooting those down, we're going to have a very hard time shooting down a long range intercontinental missile. >> if that had not been a false alarm and somebody heard that, what should people do? there are still signs for fallout shelters. is there anything to do?

i realize in the 50's people would hide under the desks, which is absurd but is there anything not absurd to do. >> it's not as absurd as you think. it depends on where the bomb is going off. it's absurd to hide under your desk if you're expecting eight missiles to hit the city and all multi megaton range. at that point the desk is not going to help you much. if you're thinking about one nuclear missile and it isn't -- doesn't land on you, some of the effects of a missile are things like things -- windows breaking, ceilings collapsing, things of that nature, similar to earthquakes and tornados, in that case a desk is probably better than nothing. a shelter or basement better than a desk. you can't with any reliability say if you do something you're going to survive a nuclear attack. what you can do is we have studies that say if certain behaviors are carry the out over a large number of people, the

likelihood of those people surviving changes quite a bit. even at hiroshima, the people inside did better than the people outside. people in concrete buildings about better than people in wooden houses. so in some sense, the old duck and did you evcover rule, or ta, that's a pretty good strategy. >> that's very useful. thank you. if there is a missile coming do hide under your desk. next on gps, what is the most pressing problem facing the world in 2018. we have an answer. i'm guessing it will surprise you, find out when we come back. having moderate to severe plaque psoriasis is not always easy. it's a long-distance run. and you have the determination to keep going. humira has a proven track record of being prescribed for over 10 years. humira works inside the body to target and help block a specific source of inflammation that contributes to symptoms. in clinical trials, most adults taking humira were clear or almost clear

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president trump's first physical examination as president took place last week. white house physician did not find any issue with his cognitive state. the president's weight indicated that he is very close to being officially obese, a common and costly problem in the united states. what percentage of american adults are obese, less than a quarter. more than a third. stay tuned we'll tell you the correct answer. my book of the week is max boots, the road not taken. the american tragedy in vietnam. in every american war over the last half century, military success has always founded on political failure. how to win hearts and minds. he answers this question through a brilliant beautifully written biography of a forgotten man who

worked for the united states government as it battled in the philippines and vietnam. it is a long book but well worth the effort. now for the last look. a new year brings with it a look of -- weapons of mass destruction, the planet's problems are plentiful but the gravest threat we're likely to encounter may surprise you. the report out there week concludes that the biggest threat the world is likely to face in 2018 is extreme weather. this is the second year in a row that the report has reached such a conclusion. this is not to say we shouldn't concern ourselves with other problems like wmds, in fact the authors say it could have an immense impact. but climate is key as the planet

continues to be pushed to the brink. the report notes that as nations turn inwards it will make it more difficult to combat climate change stressing the importance of collaboration. food for thought for many around the world, and inside the trump white house, we hope. after all, this report comes before the president delivers his speech at the world economic forum in switzerland this week where he will surely advise countries to put themselves first. the answer to my gps question is b. 36.5% of u.s. adults are obese according to the cdc making it the country with the highest percentage of obese adults in the entire developed world. an estimate is americans spend $149 billion a year on related medical costs. trump's doctor said he discussed diet and exercise with the president who was less enthusiastic about the latter.