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, bob woodward, the trump administration, and fear. how does the trump white house compare to the eight others he has written about? what is the, quote, big problem trump's aides talk about constantly? and why do so many people tell

bob woodward so much? , t also, it's ten years sin the collapse of lehman brothers. since the financial meltdown, we haven't had a crisis or a crash. are we overdue for one? and are we ready for it? i'm bring you the troubling truth. and pope francis, the vatican and child sex abuse. can the church heal? can it survive as is? i'll talk to the "new york times's" ross douthat who has a new book out on pope francis. first, here's my take. for several years now scholars have argued 2 world is experiencing a democratic recession, they note a general hollowing out of democracy in the advanced industrial world. when we think about this problem, inevitably, rightly, we worry about donald trump. his attacks on judges, the free press, his own justice

department but there's also a worrying erosion of a core democratic norm taking place on the left. it's become commonplace now to hear cries on the left to deny controversial figures on the right a platform to express their views. colleges have disinvited conservative speakers like condoleezza rice and charles murray. others were unwilling or unable to allow speakers to speak with protests overwhelming the events. a similar controversy now involves steve bannon who in recent months has been make the airwaves in print as i did on cnn. some claim bannon is simply unimportant, irrelevant, and thus shouldn't be given a microphone. if that were the case, surely the media, which is a for-profit industry, would notice the lack of public interest and stop inviting him. the reality is the people running the "economist," t financial times, "60 minutes,"

the "new yorker" and many others who have invited bannon know he is an intelligent and influential ideologist, a man who built the largest media platform for the new right, ran trump's successful campaign, briefly in the white house as his chief strategist and continues to articulate and energize the populism that's been on the rise throughout the western world. the real fear that many of the left have is not that bannon is dull and interesting but opposite. that his ideas will prove persuasive to too many people. hence the solution, don't give him a platform and hope this will make the ideas go away. did the efforts of communist countries to muzzle capitalist ideas work? we've been here before. in 1947, william shockley, the

nobel prize winning scientists who was in many ways the father of the computer revolution was invited by yale students to defend his absornt views that blacks were genetically inferior who should be involuntarily sterilized. he was debate roy innis, the african-american leader of the racial equality. the debate was innis' idea. a campus uproar ensued and the event was canceled. it was rescheduled with another opponent and that was disrupted. the difference from today is that yale recognized it had failed in not ensuring that shockley could speak. it commissioned a report on free speech that remains a landmark debate. it decided college cannot make its primary value the fostering of friendship, harmony or mutual respe

respect. we value freedom of expression because it provides a forum for the new, the provocative, the disturb and the unorthodox. we take a chance when we commit ourselves to the idea that the results of free expression are to the general benefit in the long run, however unpleasant they may appear at the time. it's on this bet for the long run, a bet on freedom of thought, belief, expression and action that liberal democracy rests. for more, go to cnn.com/fareed and read my "washington post" column this week. let's get started.

40 years ago this summer, two reporters on the "washington post" were assigned to report on an unusual event, a break in to the democratic national committee headquarters. most of their reporting relied on the man who became called deep throat. woodward has now written books about every president in almost half a century. but none like his latest. "fear" tells an extraordinary story about the trump administration. bob woodward, pleasure to have you on. >> thank you. >> let's explain why you began all those years ago when reporting on the watergate break in to use what was then a fairly unconventional technique which was confidential sources, sometimes called anonymous sources? >> well, they're not anonymous to us. that's very important to

understand. the reason carl bernstein and i used the confidential sources, it's the only way you can get people to tell you the truth. they were not going to go out and if you said gee this is on the record, you wouldn't get the official version. in watergate there were so many secrets that were buried and hidden so how are you going to do that. you have to find people who will be truth tellers where you can establish -- and this is the key -- a relationship of trust where you'll protect them. you can check out the information from other sources so you present a version that is authentic and real rather than something that is manufactured and in the case of the nixon

presidency peppered with lies and deceit. >> to explain to people your process, i was cautious about anonymous sources because you don't want to create the opportunity for something that can't be checked. if you say something happened at a meet ing meeting and off quot where the president or secretary of defense said something, how do you arrive? >> from somebody who is there. lots of people keep diaries, there are extensive notes. there are documentations of this, you can find other people in the room and check it and go back to the original source. this is the joy of having time so you can maybe work on one meeting or one event and you've

done great number of interviews and checked it and you get to a point where you have the best obtainable version of the truth. >> and you have notes which include the sources which are going -- i think it's yale university where somebody at some point will figure out from your notes, from your documentation who told you what? >> yes, and most specifically i tape recorded these interviews with nearly everyone. i have thousands of pages of documents, hundreds of hours with people who will participants and the agreement with the sourcings was i'm not going to name you but i'm going to use this information if i can verify it. and you're right, somebody will be able to go back and do an

archaeological dig as they have done on watergate, carl bernstein's and my papers are at the university of texas, all the notes, all the data, all the story drafts and people have gone and looked at that. >> and it's fair to remind people that your most important source, mark felt, publicly denied that he had leaked anything to you. >> yes, and he was number two in the fbi and he was quite clever about it because he said i'm not deep throat and of course if i was deep throat i would deny it. and so he was able to have a -- have it both ways for a long time until 33 years later when he came out and identified himself as that source. >> when i read the book what i'm struck by is the degree of chaos

you describe. all of it centers around a president that seems impulsive to listen to the person that last talked to him. he pits his advisers together almost deliberately. how much is normal? >> pitting one adviser against another is absolutely acceptable. lots of presidents do this. they want to have the debate. what happens in the trump white house and i think the book shows in chapter and verse, it's trump against the facts. and the experts will come in for instance, only you could probably write a long paper about the world trade organization but trump says this is the worst organization in the world. this is where we make complaints

about unfair trade practices and the aides come in and say 85.7% of the cases we win and trump says no, no, that's -- that's wrong and they say call your trade representative these are the facts. no. trump just closes down, will not listen. it is the absence of an open mind. you know so well that anybody in any business or institution very important they grow and learn and listen. the capacity to really listen is very important in a leadership making role. >> stay with me next on gps. bob woodward will tell us why trump's senior most officials describe something as the big

problem with president trump. what is it? and is there a solution when we come back?

we are back with bob woodward, the author of the run away best-seller "fear." you describe james mattis as saying there's a big problem with donald trump and it recurs through the book. describe what mattis and gary cohn see as the big problem with donald trump. >> what's important and what has not been reported until this book that it was an alliance between the secretary of defense james mattis and gary cohn, the

chief economic adviser and they said we have to get the president in some environment off site away from the chaos of the white house and give him an education about this old world order so they call him over to the tank which is the meeting place of the joint chiefs of staff, what mattis describes to the president is the great gift of the greatest generation to americans and that is this rules-based international order. you have trade, security agreements like nato and the secret intelligence partnerships and that's the old framework. you can't ignore it or destroy it and trump wants to do that and you see everyone fighting him on it and at the end mattis

is depleelted, feels totally frustrated in the case of secretary of state tillerson at that point this is when as nbc reported accurately he calls the president -- said the president was an effing moron. this is the big problem but it doesn't get solve d. >> so the web alliances, trade deals, security relationships that undergirds stability and creates the open world economy and trump in the book is con standly lashing out because he sees it we're paying too much. is it your sense that for example on south korea when people explain if you brought the troops home you would have

to pay for them because south korea subsidizes the cost. is there any indication that he learns in office? >> well that is part of the problem. see, he gets at times driven by his anger. there is a missile interceptor system called thaad, cost billions of dollars a year but it's the best in the world and no one has anything like it and trump asks about it and they say it's a good year, we have a 99-year lease and trump says who pays for it and they say we pay for it. and trump goes why are we doing this? take the effing thing out, put in the portland and this makes no military strategic or

intelligence sense. >> you point out in one telling anecdote which i assume you got from steve bannon that bannon tries to point out he's going to have a problem running for the primary for the republican nomination because he never voted in a primary and he says no, i voted for 30 years in every one and bannon says no you haven't and he says yes i have and he says it's a matter of public record, you've only voted once in 1998 and then he says, yeah, i guess that's right. >> it's not only steve bannon but it's dave bossy, another campaign aid. he points out that they've given all this money to democrats and he says no, it's not true and it proves that, well, that's okay. i'll just power over that essentially which, of course, is

trump style and when you're president in the end, i think that there are about two or three moments where you're making critical decisions what will we do in the financial crisis. what are we going to do about the 9/11 terrorist attack and you go to process. process matters. it's almost funny if it didn't make you cry that general kelly when he comes in as chief of staff last year. and one of the rules is you can't make decisions on the fly by the seat of your pants and they write out if you're going to make a decision we have to

have a formal decision memo that you will sign. seat-of-the-pants decisions don't count. they're not considered final. and this is a management system -- and this is why i call it a nervous breakdown of the presidency. >> bob woodward, always a pleasure to have you on. >> thank you. yesterday was the 109 an th anniversary of lehman brothers. it was a watershed moment in the global financial crisis. what would happen if a crisis of that magnitude happened today? the news isn't so good. i'll explain when we come back.

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i know! i know! i know! i know! when did brian move back in? brian's back? he doesn't get my room. he's only going to be here for like a week. like a month, tops. oh boy. wi-fi fast enough for the whole family is simple, easy, awesome. in many cultures, young men would stay with their families until their 40's. now for our what in the world segment. >> wall street on red alert. investment banking giant lehman brothers saying it will file for bankruptcy. >> yesterday marked the ten-year anniversary of the collapse of one of the largest investment banks in the world. the fall of lehman brothers began a global financial crisis and recession. banks seized up, private

borrowing virtually ceased, global trade cratered. anniversaries tend to inspire reflection and a search for lessons. that exercise is more important in this case because another one is sure to come. after the dwight crisis, 34 condemned the speculation in mortgage-backed securities and believed it's crucial to identify and pop such bubbles but speculation is part of capitalism. recall the south sea bubble, the dutch due lip boom, the railroad kras, the dotcom boom and today the number of people speculating on bitcoin exceeds the number of people who can explain what bitcoin is. there will always be hot markets and people will pile into them. there will be another crisis. the real question is, when and how can we respond to it?

hank paulson, timothy geithner and ben bernanke write about it in an op-ed at the "new york times." they write that it was mitigated by emergency powers that the fed, the fdic and treasury no longer possess. the dodd/frank act limits emergency loans or gain tease on assets agencies can make, in some cases requiring congressional approval. their diagnosis is right but it only hints at the real problem, the consensus that allowed for washington's speedy response to the crisis in 2008 that has since been destroyed. look at tarp, the $700 billion bank bailout signed into law by a republican administration within three weeks of lehman's collapse. the level of cross party coordination to get the thing out reads like a utopian fantasy today. george bush was a deeply unpopular republican in the waning months of his presidency.

ha henry paulson got down on one knee and begged nancy pelosi not to blow up the bill. presidential nominees john mccain and barack obama, bitter rivals on the stump, both lobbied for votes while they were campaigning against each other. on the second try the bill cleared the house with the votes of 91 republicans and 172 democrats. through the blouses, washington saved the american and perhaps the global economy but trust in public institutions never recovered. just ahead of bush's first term, 44% of americans recorded a high level of trust in the federal governme government. at the height the number was 24 24%. the crisis gave way to populism at home and in europe. in the united states this translated to a remarkable fraying of the left and a hostile takeover of the right. so when the next financial crisis hits, the real problem will be any response to require

a substantial degree of bipartisan cooperation and fast. does anyone think that is possible in today's washington? when we come back, i want to talk about the future of the global economy and where will the next crisis start. i will be back with andrew ross sorkin in a moment. this is an insurance commercial.

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we haven't had a crisis since, which means according to some observers we're overdue for one. the question is where will it come from and what is likely to start this new financial fire. i've asked two great minds in financial journalism to come together to look into the future. andrew ross sorkin is an editor and columnist at the "new york times" and author of "too big to fail." a new edition has just been published to mark the anniversary. and sani minton beddows is with the "economist." let me start with you, the recovery is either the longest or second-longest in american history. people say these things don't go on forever. what is the state of the american economy? are we due for a recession? >> at some point we will have another recession but i want to separate two things because you started talking about a financial crisis and now you're talking about a rezegs.

we will have another financial crisis. what could cause a recession? they tend not to die of old age. it usually has something to do with the federal reserve. if the federal reserve tightens policy it could the economy into recession as the rush of the tax cut wears off. if it moves too slowly it will have to damp down quick and that could push the economy into recession. i don't know what will cause it but like you i'm sure at some point there will be another recession. >> and the crisis. you look around at the world what seems unsustainable? >> i'm less worried about a classic run on the bank style

crisis like 2008 but i'm much more worried about the distrust that was created as a function of that crisis and not just the distrust in the united states of government and institutions and elites and the idea of expert which is unto itself is a problem but the populism and nationalism created not just here but everywhere so when i wrote "too big to fail" we talked about in the context of banks, now we talk about in the the context of cities, states, countries. so when you think about our relationships with our allies, trade fight s we're seeing, at some point did the chinese say you know what? we're not so sure we want to buy your debt at these prices anymore. do our allies say we don't trust you in the way we used to? if there is going to be another big one, it's more likely that will precipitate it. >> that is the kind of thing

you're talking about in your robust defense of free trade liberalism. you're worried about a world that is moving toward trade wars and worst. >> we are -- in our anniversary we've written a manifesto for renewing liberalism because we feel right now the credo of liberal democracy which has done so much to promote prosperity is under attack and it's under attack domestically by the rise of populism and nationalism on both sides of the atlantic and also a rising economy, the world's biggest economy which is profoundly ill liberal. >> and zanny, is the next crisis one that you would worry about a result of that which would be a conflict between the united states and china? certainly the conflict between the two largest economies in the world could tip the world, let alone the united states, into

recession? >> absolutely. that could be cataclysmic, an out-of-control trade war is one of the things i worry about. . i worry about the euro area which is the one bit of the post 2008 crisis this hasn't been fixed and the third thing i would leaf you with is the incredible rise in dollar borrow ing outside the united states. and in a world where we have less trust, less willingness to work together that worries me, in ten years ago in 2008 the world's biggest economies created something called the g20 which was a new club designed to work together to get out of the crisis, can you imagine that happening now? >> what does that -- where does that leave you, andrew? does it make you think that the united states -- how should it handle the reality of this

world? what is -- what -- if you had a magic and with, if you had president trump's -- either of them what would you tell them? >> i would try to reestablish a sense of trust, a sense we are operating in a responsible way. a since we want to be a leader not just of america and america first but of to some degree a world order and that would help one other crisis out. it's the one of cyber. people don't talk about it enough. i worry about looking at my bank account and seeing zero. and that is something we have to

worry about given the size and magnitude of these institutions tod today. that's how they're too big to fail. >> that is a sobering point. pleasure to have both of you on. next on gps, pope francis has been a wildly popular pope but now he has a big problem, one that threatens to bring down his papacy. i'll talk to the "new york times'" ross douthat about that times'" ross douthat about that when we come back.

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the good seems light in this picture of the pope as he met with officials from the u.s. bishop's conference on thursday but the topic was heavy, the american contingent traveled to roam after a one-time vatican ambassador to the u.s. alleged publicly last month that top vatican officials knew about sex abuse allegations against former washington cardinal mccarrick

but didn't act. the vatican ambassador says he even told pope francis himself about the allegations. also last month, pennsylvania released a report that found that more than 300 priests had abused over 1,000 children. now states have announce red newed investigations into the catholic church and child sex abu abuse. it's not a problem limited to the united states. earlier this week, pope francis ordered the presidents of all of the catholic bishop conferences worldwide to come to the vatican in february for a meeting to discuss, quote, the protection of minors, unquote. i wanted to talk about this with ross douthat, an op-ed columnist for the "new york times" an the author of a new book, to change the church, pope francis and the future of catholicism. so this is good timing with the book because what you're describing is another set of controversies and it seems like

this child abuse controversy which has flared up into another one. >> the two big crises in the last 50 or 70 years in catholicism intersecting. one is the crisis of sex abuse and the other is a long-running conflict about how much the church can change to adapt to modernity and the two have always been intertwined in so far as arguments about priestly sex abuse have tended to turn into arguments about whether priests should be celibate, whether the church should ordain women and have more women in positions of power but they've converged more sharply because pope francis has seen accurately as a liberalizer. someone who wants the church to change and his abusers who have said that cardinal mccarrick was known to be a predator in the vatican are conservatives so this is being read through the

lens of liberal conservative battles in the church as well as the sex abuse crisis. >> would it be fair to say that you have conservative critics of francis who are taking this opportunity to weaken a liberal pope? >> yes, it would be fair to say that but that doesn't get us to the heart of the question which is what francis knew and when he knew it. >> i guess what i mean is these guys reason is on the side of inaction and covering up in the past. >> that part is a misapprehensi misapprehension. the sex abuse crisis has cut across liberals and conservatives in the church. you have these two competing theories of what went wrong. one theory is the is the church should let men get married and do away with celibacy, the other

theory is a laxness, a kind of moral laxness led to this climate in seminaries and among and those two people who hold those views can agree on the protection of children. the reality is that the church and the u.s. has made great strides on the protection of children. but they can't agree on how to deal with what is really now sort of a catholic me too moment. where the subject is on the bishops and arch bishops who covered things up in the past and who were predators themselves. >> how dangerous of a moment is this for pope francis? >> it's pretty dangerous. it's a situation where you have an actual vatican insider even though arch bishop is associated with conservatives and this theological critic of the pope and also in a position to know a lot of things that are sort of kept in vials deep in the vatican and in the u.s.

there is a question hereof basically how bad is it for francis? if it's just that people knew about him and he was put under a modest sanction by benedict and francis didn't pay attention to it, he should simply apologize and fire a bunch of people and his papacy can continue. he has taken a stonewalling and counter accuse torrey approach raises the question of what's really in all of those files that may not come out in the next six months, but from the trump era in our own politics, leaks tend to happen when scandal is involved. >> where do you think the church is going? your book is in a sense cautionary. you are not the biggest fan of pope francis. you think he is too liberal and making the church lose sight. >> it sort of loses touch.

the church needs to change with some changes in effect compromise core christian ideas and teachings. when i wrote the book, i ended in uncertainty about where the church goes next. this return of the sex abuse crisis has in certain ways increased that. you have this stalemate between often older theological liberals and younger conservatives. the church has a billion people worldwide. every context and culture is different. the papacy is an incredibly difficult job. obviously in the short-term this further discredits the church in the western world, but in terms of what happens next and where the church goes, only god really knows. >> that is the first time somebody has said that on gps. >> the limits of punditry have been reached. >> we will be right back. at you and i can't disguise ♪

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this wi-fi is fast. i know! i know! i know! i know! when did brian move back in? brian's back? he doesn't get my room. he's only going to be here for like a week. like a month, tops. oh boy. wi-fi fast enough for the whole family is

simple, easy, awesome. in many cultures, young men would stay with their families until their 40's. now for this week's question. what surprising person or entity won an emmy award this week? facebook, the department of homeland security, nasa's jet propulsion laboratory or kelly an conway? stay tuned and we will tell you the answer. my recommendation is for a movie, not a book. i caught up with a movie released last year. detroit made by the director of "zero dark thirty." it's based on a true story that happened in detroit in 1968 when tensions and riding erupted in dozens of cities across the united states. it is a gripping and harrowing

story superbly portrayed that will leave you sadder, but wiser. now for the last look. this is the world poverty clock. it gives a countdown of the people escaping extreme poverty every day. for two decades, it has been declining and it has been cut by more than half since 1990. it's one of the few feel good stories of recent times, but we are now seeing a related statistic move in the opposite direction. take a look at this chart from the new un report on global hunger. the number of under nourished people in the world steadily declined from 2005 to 2014, but the trend has now reversed. why are we seeing this trend worsening? in addition wars and economic slow downs, the report points to a leading cause of global hunger and food insecurity, extreme weather.

severe droughts cause more than 80% of losses in agriculture and increase in tsunamis and large storms is influencing the fishing industry. without major changes addressing the challenges, the report warns the world will struggle to meet the sustainable goal of eradicating global hunger by 2030. as the head of food and hunger, a hotter world is a hungrier world. the answer is c, nasa's jet propulsion laboratory won an emmy award for interactive program at the creative arts emmy awards. they won for spell binding coverage for the grand finale after nearly 20 years in space. nasa's orbiter was running out of fuel. jpl began a social media campaign to showcase the achievements before the final act. a plunge into saturn.

it traveled 4.9 billion miles. including the final images of stat urn before it burned into the atmosphere. congratulations to all involved. thank you for being part of my program this week. i will see you next week. i'm erica hill coming from fayetteville, north carolina. what is a tropical depression is not giving up. the governor of north carolina saying a short time ago and i quote him here, the storm has never been more dangerous than it is now. he is talking about a fly over with the coast guard on sunday and when referencing the area where we are here in fayetteville, he talked about the cape fear river. he said it was stark