money you will receive for a limited amount of time that will run out. >> reporter: the federal stimulus money, the $600 per week is set to expire at the end of july. the unemployed woman you heard from in the story, she said the entire experience has taught her that her wages and the wages of people who might work in a theater behind me, well, those wages simply are not high enough in this country. especially if you consider college loans and health care. kyung lah, cnn los angeles. >> thank you for joining me. i'll see you back here in one hour at 2:00 eastern time. "gps" starts now. 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, trump targets the world health organization. he is threatening to make his

funding freeze permanent if the organization doesn't shape up in just 30 days. >> they have to be more fair to other countries, including the united states or we won't be involved with them. >> i'll talk to a top official at the w.h.o. china moves to tighten the grip on hong kong and threatens america with its relations with taiwan. what is behind beijing's bold new moves? i wi i. 2.4 million americans filed for unemployment last week bringing the total to almost 40 million unemployed in just nine weeks. markets continue to climb. gary cohn joins me to explain the economy. also, my latest about

beijing's troubling response to covid-19. china's deadly secret remere tonight at 9:00 p.m. eastern and pacific. i will bring you a preview. >> the battle that began in china becomes a world war. first here is my take. as polls continue to show a steady lead for joe biden, president trump seems to be getting increasingly desperate. he's now committed himself to an election strategy that is centered on blaming china and its leader xi jinping. throughout january and february, you'll remember, trump showered praise on xi describing him as strong, sharp, and powerfully focussed. repeatedly emphasizing the close cooperation on covid-19. he praised beijing on the transparency as late as march

27th, trump tweeted "we're working closely together. much respect." that was before it became clear he mishandled the outbreak and before his approval ratings began to drop. no wonder he returned to a familiar batter. blaming foreigners. if the 2016 campaign centered around blaming mexico for 2020 campaign will clearly focus on scapegoating china. china engaged in the cover up of the initial outbreak in wuhan. local officials silenced whistle blowers. the entire chinese communist party system was terrified that this bad news would slow growth or spook marks or reveal it had mishandled a public health emergency. they did the same and more during the sars outbreak of

2003. they sequenced the entire genome of the coronavirus and released it to the world on january 12th. much faster than what happened with sars. they also realized belatedly in this particular case their censorship of control was exacerbating the public health crisis. on january 21st, the communist party, central, political, and legal affairs commission posted a statement "whoever delays or conceals reporting for the sake of their own interests will be forever nailed to history's pillar of shame." the post was later removed probably because it revealed that people had been delaying and concealing reports. in any event, by the end of january, the world health organization had announced a global health emergency and several places moved quickly to combat it. the united states was not one of them. had trump done so, america would be in a very different situation

today. taiwan, which gets millions of travelers from mainland china each year, did not close its borders to china until after the u.s., yet it took smart, targeted steps early to limit the spread. as of saturday, it has had seven deaths from covid-19. adjusted for population that would be 100 deaths in america. hong kong has had four deaths compare that to over 16,000 confirmed deaths in new york city. now the real puzzle here is not that trump is engaging in china bashing but the democrats are joining in. they're falling into a familiar trap. republicans take a legitimate challenge to the united states and pump it up into a mortal danger massively exaggerating the threat and accusing the democrats of appeasement or even of taking part in a conspiracy with the enemy. beijing/biden, and the democrats, instead of standing their ground, get scared and join in the scare mongering.

in response to bashing biden and china, biden released his own china-bashing ad which competed with trump in the racially charged tone. rather than explaining that policy toward china will require both confrontation and cooperation, the biden campaign has basically conceded the argument to trump. these are not just election year antics, these tactics have lasting consequences. democrats supported cues and covert operations around the world in the '50s and '60s for fear they would be labelled soft on the soviet union. they stumbled into vietnam in large measure because lyndon johnson did not face republican accusations that he lost a country to communism. the most recent generation of democrats went along with the iraq war because they didn't want to see weak in the war on terror. in 2002, as republicans began beating the drums for war with iraq, joe biden joined them saying we have no choice but to eliminate the threat. this is is a guy who is an

extreme danger to the world. for trump, the attacks make sense. he and his followers want to cripple international institutions. they want an end to global cooperation on issues like climate change. they understand the cold war with china would destroy globalization and the open rules-based international order. democrats believe in this world. they see it as the fulfillment of a vision conceived by woodrow wilson and franklin roosevelt that has provided unprecedented peace and prosperity for the world over the last 70 years. so why aren't they joining in is destruction? for more, go to cnn.com/fareed and read my "washington post" column this week. let's get started. ♪ on monday, president trump tweeted out a letter he had sent

to the head of the w.h.o. it concluded with "it is my duty to inform you if the world health organization does not commit to major substantiative improvements within the next 30 days, i will make my temporary freeze of the united states funding to the w.h.o. permanent and reconsider our membership in the organization." strong words from the organization's biggest funder. i want to bring in a top official at the w.h.o., stewart simonson, the assistant director general. he runs the organization's office at u.n. headquarters in new york city. first, tell us where are we in the pandemic? >> well, thank you so much for inviting me. i appreciate the opportunity. we're on the beginning end of this pandemic. we've got some way to go and i fear the worst is yet to come. today 5 million cases, 331,000

deaths, and cases on all of the continents on the globe. 216 countries and territories. it is truly a global pandemic. >> why do you say we're at the front end? what are you expecting? >> well, i think ads the virus moves around the globe and gets into places like bangladesh where traditional public health measures are not readily applicable, social distancing, so forth, i think there is a very real chance of a catastrophe. >> so let me ask you about some of the facts on the ground and some of the charges against the w.h.o. that basically you had information coming out of china by really december 31st.

there were doctors who were talking about it in china in the central hospital. there was information that came to you from taiwan, and you did not act fast enough or you sat on it. in the one case, i think the implication is you were inattentive and the second case because it came from taiwan you discounted it because you didn't want to annoy china. >> uh-huh. well, first off, both assertions are wrong on their face. taiwan, on december 31, sent us a inquiry through the event information system, which is part of the international health regulation infrastructure for reporting disease outbreaks. taiwan has access to this secure system. they sent us a query. they said that news reports were stating there was a phenomena in

wuhan and they requested more information. that was it from taiwan. and these were based on news reports. in terms of sitting on information, there is no conceivable reason w.h.o. would sit on information. no interest of ours is served by doing so. our interest is in sounding the alarm when the evidence indicates the alarm should be sounded. that is exactly what they did. >> on january 14th, you reaffirmed something china said, which was that the coronavirus was not spread from human to human. why did you do that? we know it's completely false. >> yeah. that was in a tweet, i believe. >> yep. >> later that day, on the 14th, dr. maria who is the covid-subject matter expert indicated in the press briefing that based on our experience

with mers and sars there was every possibility that it could spread human-to-human. we were basing the morning, that tweet, on the information we had received from china because we had not received any information to the contrary at that point. maria was basing her statement on her experience with coronaviruses. >> do you think knowing what you know now that china was transparent and gave you the information? was there a cover up? >> i wouldn't prejudge the independent review that the assembly has indicated will occur. i wouldn't prejudge that. >> as you know, i've asked you a number of the questions that president trump asked in the letter. let me ask you, the argument is that the incentive is you don't want to annoy china. you don't want to anger china. you don't push back because they're a big funder, because

they've been nice to the w.h.o. >> yeah. well, in my experience, and the secretary, i have never seenny favoritism shown toward any particular member state. it's a one state institution. it is true that china krifbt -- contributes to the organization. mostly assess contributions but there are others that do, as well. >> what will the w.h.o. look like if the united states freezes funding or even leaves the organization? for you, as an american, who works at the w.h.o., how does it make you feel? >> i could never bring myself to think about the united states leaving the w.h.o. w.h.o. and the united states have been connected since the

very beginning. w.h.o. was founded by the united states and other member states. w.h.o. has benefitted from enormous generosity from the people of the united states. almost inca the united states, since at least 1902, has been the leader in global public health. and i cannot imagine an environment where the united states would not be in w.h.o. and contributing to w.h.o. as it does today. let me put it this way, individually we are no match -- together we are. that was shown really proof positive in 1980 when smallpox was declared eradicated.

it could not have done without the support of the united states and all member states. if we stick together, we will take care of covid. we will put covid back to where it belongs. >> thank you. tonight on cnn at 9:00 p.m. eastern and pacific, please tune into my latest special. it's called "china's deadly secret." it takes you inside the chaos and perhaps the cover up in china as it became ground zero for covid-19 in december. next on "gps" now china is lashing out at the american secretary of state and tightening its grip on hong kong. why such assertive moves by beijing? why now? we'll be back in a moment. ♪ ♪ ♪

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on tuesday, secretary of state pompeo sent out a tweet that might have seemed innocuous. it said "congratulations doctor." the united states does not recognize taiwan as a country in deference to beijing. the chinese foreign ministry expressed strong condemnation and threatened counter measures. how much worse can the relationship get? joining me now are tom freedman. an op-ed columnist for the "new york times" and the author of the book "thank you for being late." and zani is the editor in chief for "the economist."

tom, you know, with china and hong kong, for example, for many months, china watchers were telling me they were struck by how patient the chinese government had been. beijing was not intervening or overruling the hong kong authorities. now they are cracking down. it feels like trump had been praising xi when he wanted the trade deal. now the gloves have come off as he's campaigning. what do you make of this sort of downward spiral? how dangerous is it for the world? >> well, it's very dangerous for the world. you know, fareed. i don't like to use the term china. i prefer the term one sixth of humanity. how we relate to one sixth of humanity will have a huge impact in everything from the cost on issues of feed to the mortgage on your home. my view of trump originally in china was that donald trump was not the american president that

americans deserved but was the american president that china deserved. an american president who was ready to rudd r-- draw red line with china but trump did it in an ineffective way. you know, the democratic position on trump and china should be trump is a chump. why is that? basically on trade and now on w.h.o., what was the trump position? it was always to go at it alone. what we should have been doing on trade is signing the tpp agreement, getting the europeans on our side, and making the trade issue between u.s. and china the world against china it would leverage the chinese reformers inside on our side. we made it a fight between trump and xi over who has the biggest tariff and it leveraged all the nationalists in china on xi's

side instead of ours. we are doing the same thing with w.h.o. it's not smart when you're taking on one sixth of humanity. you need the others on your side. >> this is all happening when the chinese announced something startling. they have no growth target for this year. that might sound hard to people but china has always had, for decades, a growth target. it has met it. they are not meeting it this year. they're not announcing a target because it's probably the weakest growth in 45 years in china. >> that's right. and the target is a huge change, as you say. the economy slunk. they would have to announce low target. i'm not sure this is a sense of weakness from china relative to the rest of the world. they're not doing that because they don't want to be embarrassed but i think they

think with some reason that the chinese economy is not doing nearly as badly as many other economies around the world. and a lot of this behavior that is coming from beijing will crack down on hong kong is using the timing of covid whether the rest of the world is distracted. to do something that president xi is determined to do, which is crack down on what he sees as a hot bed of subversion of dangerous liberal ideas. i'm not sure it's so much distracted as it is going in a direction that an increasingly authoritarian dictatorship in china is determined to go. it's very dangerous. i totally share tom's view it's an extraordinarily dangerous moment. i can't think of a more dangerous moment between the relationship with the u.s. and china. >> you made a good point that this is leveraging it but leveraging the nationalism in china that is also popular. we sometimes forget that populism -- nationalism in china, as well. tom, i want to ask you about

secretary pompeo. i don't want this to slip unnoticed or uncommented. the inspector general of the state department was fired because apparently he was investigating the secretary of state. isn't that what inspector generals are meant to do? >> well, you know, fareed, the contest is over. we thought recollectix tillersoe worst secretary of state but pompeo is clearly superceded him in that title. you know, this is is a guy whose got no single diplomatic accomplishment to his record. i think his most important actions is that he has metaphorically speaking now shot two u.s. diplomats in the back. one the ambassador to ukraine who was fired for doing her job at the behest of trump and giuliani and now the inspector general who is investigating several things involving pompeo. and this is really, really sad.

it's really, really dangerous. i think this is also a distractions machine. you know, fareed, people forgot that last week the attorney general confirmed that america got hit with the first arabian peninsula externally directed terrorist attack since 9/11. the most leathful -- lethal in pensacola, florida. gosh, who was -- remind, fareed, who was head of the cia and the state department? you know, during the time when this attack happened? it was mike pompeo. there's a lot of distractions going on here. >> we're going take a break. when we come back, we'll talk about the open skies agreement. the united states pulled out of an international agreement. we'll explain why. without the lactose. so you can enjoy it even if you're sensitive. yet some say it isn't real milk.

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in august of 2017, a russian air force jet flew over the pent con, the capital, the cia and donald trump's property in new jersey. didn't it send american f-16 scrambling? no the flights were preapproved thanks to a treaty called open skies which allows others to inspect others from the air. now america is pulling out. let us talk about this with tom freedman. zani, i want to talk about it in a context with a larger point which is i get the sense in europe there's great concern that the trump administration is pulling out of a number of these

kind of structures that have, you know, kind of built the post world war ii order. the former swedish prime minister conservative wrote we are now in the first crisis of a post american world. europe doesn't look to the united states for global leadership anymore. do you think that is true? >> i think that's right. ting is very important to see this in the context of the dismantling of the arms control system under this administration. the u.s. pulled out of the iran deal, as you know. secondly, the north korea talks collapsed and the collapse of the imf treaty. i think there's a sense that all the machinery that has held the arms control system together is now falling apart. that, from a european perspective -- [ inaudible ] >> keep going, sorry. i think we lost zani. we'll get back to you. >> i want to ask you the same

question. you have covered international diplomacy for as long as i can remember. i was reading you in high school. does it seem like a moment, you know, the post american world was describing it? >> yeah you know what is so worrisome, fareed, is this administration is really good at what zanny said dismantling things. if you want something broken, these are your guys. paris climate agreement, arms control, you know, iran nuclear deal. but they haven't replaced it by any other new structure other than america alone. and this is happening, fareed, at a time when there's a whole set of issues that now require global governance. but there is no global government. all there is is the ability to collaborate together. these are issues from pandemics, to realliesarms control, to cli.

i was reading up on sars. it began to spread around the world. but you know why sars didn't become covid-19? because there was very early a w.h.o. enabled global coordination to stop the spread. and, you know, when you have all these global issues that require global governance and there is no global government, the only way to replace it has been american-led multinational, multilateral coalitions. we're dissemibling those. >> >> what do you think of the place we're at? you mentioned sars. there's been ebola. there's been mers. in a sense, i also feel as though there have been almost sort of shocks to the system. the financial crisis, 9/11. it feels like there's something about this world we're in, hyperglobalized, hyperconnected, that is prone to some of this kind of thing and we're not, you

know, we're not buying enough insurance >>well, i'm writing about this now because as i look back on my own, you know, writing in the last 20 years, pandemics are us. i basically started covering a geopolitical pandemic called 9/11. i covered a pandemic in 2018 and now covid-19 and i'll soon be covering an atmospheric pandemic called climate change. this is what happens when you have a world that is intertwined. people are going to extremes in a lot of directions and it's so globalized that you can transmit, you know, abhorrent behavior in one corner of the world quickly all over the world at the same time. >> and is it your sense that if we would get to a place where, for example, the united states and china could cooperate, the

united states and european union could cooperate, it feels like, you know, pandemic is the kind of thing that should remind us of the common humanity. instead it's pulling us inward. that dynamic of nationalism seems heightened now >>well, fareed, in this kind of interlinked world where we're stressing big systems all over, what is it you want? you want one word. you want resilience. it's going to be coming at you from multiple directions. what is the best way to get resilience? for the world's two premier powers. china and the u.s. to be collaborating on arms control, on pandemics, on climate change, on cyber. the fact we're falling apart is really a very disturbing. this is not just because of america and trump. president xi has overplayed his

hand. i would say we have underplayed ours and underperformed. this has been something fed by both beijing and washington. each is looking for a distraction to distract the people from mistakes made at home. it is very, very dangerous. the world we could wake up to would be a less resilient world. that's not a world that either people will thrive in. >> thank you, tom. i want to thank zanny. unfortunately we just got her back at a point where we're out of time. we'll get her back on soon again. thank you both. next on "gps" all american states have started their reopening process but americans don't seem ready to to go back to work or shop. i will talk to the former head of president trump's national economic council. now, simparica trio simplifies protection.

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without modern precedent. j.c. penney followed a slew of major other retailers and declared coronavirus-induced bankruptcy. and graduating seniors facing worst job market since the great depression. here to talk about the economy with me is gary cohn. welcome, gary. >> thank you for having me, fareed. >> so explain to us where we are. it feels, to me, we're beginning to open up the economy but it's pretty clear people are not willing to go back to work and shop at the same level and washington the republicans are saying, well, you know, the money is run out. we can't do much more. and yet you're not going to have the economy bounce back if you just listen to jay powell. what is happening and what should be done?

? >> i think we're in an interesting transition point in the whole covid crisis. initially the government came with a very big response. the response that was needed. i think as a response that was properly sized. the federal government threw about $3 trillion at the u.s. economy, enhanced unemployment benefits, ppp, paycheck protection for small businesses, and other forms of stimulus that allowed businesses to stay open, to hopefully allow our economy to be in a position to recover. that was the initial response, which was the right initial response. we've now moved from the initial response to the recovery phase of where we are. we're in that transition mode. transitions are always difficult. we still have some of the response issues to deal with. when you look at where the cities and states are, they still need more money from the

federal government because we asked the cities and states to spend enormous amount of money on unemployment benefits, medical benefits, and, remember, cities and states cannot print money like the federal government. they actually have to run a balanced budget. so cities and states need to get the money back from the federal government they spent on the citizens and the citizens deserve it. remember, many of the people they were paying were first responders. they were working overtime to help us as citizens. also, the hospital system. our hospital systems in america we asked them to shut down and only treat, essentially, death- -- people in death situations or people with covid. that really meant that the vast majority of the hospitals and the medical infrastructure in the united states was taken offline. remind people, that's 20% of our economy. so we need to give our hospitals money to allow them to continue in a way that we want them to be

and reinstate them to the position they were in beforehand. that's part of the response. there's also a big recovery. the recovery means getting workers back employed and getting workers back into the system. our economy is based on people going to work, taking their earnings, and consuming. and that we have to reinvigorate that cycle of work and consumption. >> so let me ask you that, gary. you know this because you were at goldman sachs during the financial crisis. how do you reanimate the animal spirits, you know, of the economy? how do you get people to want to spend in an environment where they are understandably scared. >> yeah. look, for the last 10 weeks, we have heard that the most important thing you can do is stay home. and stay out of the economy and only leave your house for essentials. we need to start explaining to our citizens what it is safe to

do and what it's not safe to do. where you can go and how you can feel comfortable doing it. we need to give our businesses a safe harbor to reopen. if i'm a small business owner and i feel like i could run into a legal liability by opening my store, if someone feels like they get covid by coming into my store, i would be very reticent to open my store. we need to create a safe or b r harbor that if a store keeper make takes your temperature at the door, maybe only allows two or three people in the store at a time, makes you wear a mask, that they can avoid the legal liability to do that. so as we get more and more stores open, people have more and more of a choice of where they can shop, and we bring more and more people back into the economy, you know, one of the things that is going on that we have to be careful of is the big box retailers do sell essential goods. we did allow them to stay open

during the crisis, but they also sell many nonessential goods. so those same nonessential goods could be bought by stores on main streets all over america. the main street stores are closed and people are buying those nonessential goods from the big box retailers. we need to get those main street stores open. we'll start restimulating the economy by them bringing their employees back to work. this is a circle we have to start moving. we have to start getting people back into the work force and comfortable coming back into the work force. >> i just have a minute, gary. i'm sorry to ask you to answer this in a short form, but should we worry about the debt we're spending, as you said, $3 trillion if we do what you suggest it's probably another couple of trillion dollars. how should we think about that? in are people worried on capitol hill about the debt >>well, look, initially right now we should not be worried about the debt.

we need to spend whatever we can to recover our economy. but a year from now, hopefully when we get through this and this is behind us, we absolutely have to worry about the debt. we now have the knowledge that at any given moment in time, our congress is going to need to spend -- you tell me $3 to $5 trillion to stimulate the economy because of a crisis. and we don't know what that next crisis is. so our next congress, the congress that sits down in 2021, they almost have to sit down and look at our spending and our revenue side. they really need to look at our budget. how we spend money. there's a lot of places we can cut back. in addition to that, i think we have to look at the tax system and think of ways we raise revenue. you back to 1935, and the depression, some major tax reform came out of that. we actually built a social security system, which is a 6.2% tax from a initial dollar for every american because we needed

to build the safety net. i think the next congress has to think differently than they've thought in the past. i think they have to think with the knowledge we are going to have another crisis. >> a pleasure to have you on. >> thank you for having me. and we will be back. every financial plan needs a cfp® professional -- confident financial plans, calming financial plans, complete financial plans. they're all possible with a cfp® professional. find yours at letsmakeaplan.org. you should switch it to tracfone wireless to get more control over your wireless plan. they give you unlimited carryover data-- you pay for your data, you keep really? yeah, you just swap your sim card you can also keep your phone, keep your number,

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china's deadly secret premiering tonight sunday 9:00 p.m. eastern and pacific. the show takes you inside china as it came to grips with the covid crisis that was developing in wuhan. the big question is, what did beijing know and when did it know it? we will pull back the curtain on the moment authorities realizaled they were facing a new deadly disease, and the mistakes and perhaps the cover-up that ensued. we'll take you inside wuhan, the epicenter of the covid-19 outbreak. take a look at this clip. >> reporter: all of this is happening during the season of celebration, around chinese new

year. it is a time when hundreds of millions of people travel. >> to get an idea just how big chinese new year is in this country, think of it as thanksgiving and christmas combined. >> reporter: it's also a time when the communist party holds important meetings and events. >> in wuhan they held a bank kitt for thousa banquet for thousands. local political leaders determined not to disrupt the political calendar. >> a pot luck dinner for 40,000 people to get that dinner into the guinness book of record records. >> that's right. local officials trying to break a record for the largest-ever pot luck dinner. >> which turned into a giant superspreader event and increased the em democratpidemi >> reporter: early january, wuhan hospitals filling with

covid pishtatients, yet city authorities report no new cases for weeks. >> sort of shut it down. >> shut it down. strong incentive to keep the information away from the public. >> reporter: this is a global health expert who was in contact with the chinese cdc during the crisis. >> evidence suggesting human to human transmission indeed occurring made the situation even worse. lactaid is 100% real milk, just without the lactose. so you can enjoy it even if you're sensitive. yet some say it isn't real milk. i guess those cows must actually be big dogs.

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hello everyone. thank you so much for joining me. i'm fredricka whitfield. we begin with new warnings about the coronavirus as americans celebrate this holiday weekend. from the looks of beaches coast to coast, hard to tell there is a pap democratic still under way. oceanfront communities swarmed by people looking to spend time outdoors after months of being cooped up during stay-at-home orders. social distancing seemingly on the back burner for many. in myrtle beach, south carolina, officials declared this weekend an extraordinary event which is a type of executive order that authorized law enforcement to take extra steps if needed to protect public health and safety.

all of this comes as the head of the fda warned today that the coronavirus is not yet contained, urging americans to protect themselves and their communities. the number of deaths in the u.s. is closing in on a grim milestone approaching 100,000. and now two states in the south are seeing cases spike. north carolina reporting its single high evidence one-day total on saturday while arkansas' governor says his state is seeing its second spike. >> it's clear and evident to me that we have one peak and then we've had a deep dip and then we're having a second peak right now, and they're really about 30 days apart. >> and cnn has reporters from coast to coast. we begin with cnn natasha