this is "gps," the goebl public i'm fareed. >> car yeah coming to you. today on the show, a new cold war. u.s./china relations are at their lowest in many decades. what will it take to get back to some kind of normal.

and an ugly week in america as it passes 150,000 covid deaths and records its worst economic quarter ever. i'll talk to an all-star panel about it all. then casting doubt on mail-in ballots. on accepting election results. >> i have to say -- i'm not just going to say yes. i didn't last time either. >> and now suggesting postponing the elections entirely. donald trump is setting up a dangerous november. could america really become authoritarian? i'll ask anne applebaum, who has written a timely new book. also, the u.s., in some measures the world's richest country, has struggled with covid, so how are the world's poorest faring? for the most part, not well.

i will talk to the former british foreign secretary david miliband. but first here's my take -- we're used to thinking about the american presidency as a position of moral leadership, a bully pulpit in theodore roosevelt's words and many occupants of the white house have used that function well. but the modern american president also has a core managerial aspect as the ceo of the federal government. and this dimension of power is crucial in a national crisis. donald trump has never understood or mastered that role, and that is the central reason why america's krz krz outbreak has turned into a catastrophe. the american presidency has become a symbol of superstar status with pictures of the white house recognizable around the globe, but the constitution actually makes the office weak by design, giving it among the most limited set of powers of any head of government in the

world. preeminent scholar richard neustadt noted that to get any done, the president has to use whatever influence he does possess on congress, agencies, the media, state governments, private interests, foreign allies and public opinion abroad as well as at home. compared to all the oppositions, even a strong president is weak. some argue that the accumulation of presidential power through executive actions has been vast and dangerous. others note that this expansion is mostly in the realm of international affairs, arguing that there are really two presidencies, a strong one in foreign policy and a weak one in domestic matters. in any case, when compared with most parliamentary systems, where the head of government essentially controls both the executive and legislative branch, the american presidency is, indeed, weak. that's why a national crisis has always required a heroic exertion of power.

it was herbert hoover's failure to use his office to tackle the great depression that led to franklin roosevelt's victory, and it was fdr's creative and effective use to rescue the economy. ever since then, presidents have understood when facing a real challenge, they must use all their talents and efforts to mobilize the government's resources. now the covid-19 pandemic is one such a challenge, one the biggest the country has ever faced but tackling it requires the president to take charge, coordinating and overseeing the actions of dozens of federal agencies, making sure they're working in concert. it means close cooperation of the states, allowing for some variation and experimentation but still ensuring core national standards and objectives are met. and it requires a clear, consistent message that educates and leads the public. in other words, it's hard work. a comparison with germany's instructive, that country also has a weak central government and its chancellor has limited

powers, partly because of the nazi past and partly because of a long tradition of decentralization. as a result, when covid-19 struck, berlin, too, faced the struggle of multiple sources of authority but the central government managed to coordinate its public health agency successfully, steering the national response while exercising a light touch that allowed for some local experimentation, and the quick rollout of testing by private companies and labs. the chancellor angela merkel acted as the national guide, presenting the public with clear scientific requirement, the rate of spread, and was crucial to keep that number under one. the result is that germany today has 110 deaths per million people compared with america's 470 deaths per million people. trump actually handle says the bully pulpit aspect of the white house effectively. i don't like the ideas he puts

forward often, but he does so in an innovative way, using all the tools of social media on to amplify his voice and get out his message. unfortunately, during the pandemic, he used this platform to promote unproven treatments, discourage mask wearing and stoke anti-lockdown sentiment. still trump seems to think public relations is the essence of his job. as covid-19 hit, he made bold announcements about convenient testing at walmart and cvs, tests with instant results. for the most part, he failed to deliver. this is how trump has handled most of his presidency, from travel bans to repealing obamacare, half-baked policies are sumly announced, little actually gets accomplished. the point of policy for trump is political theater, not execution. even when he uses presidential

powers, like sending federal troopses on sensibly to restore law and order in cities it's really to make a political statement, not to solve an actual problem. trump has turned the american presidency into a reality television show. but the covid-19 pandemic has painfully demonstrated that you cannot solve a national crisis with ratings and tweets. go to cnn.com/fareed for a link to my washington post column this week. and let's get started. let's get right to this week's terrific panelists. robert zoellick was the president of the world bank and he served as deputy secretary of state in the george w. bush administration. he's also the author of a new book -- "american and the world:

a history of u.s. diplomacy and foreign policy." anne applebaum and kishore mahbubani before becoming an academic. bob, let me start with you. you've written this terrific book that is really a kind of analytic survey through american history, starting with ben franklin in paris and ending with the present. and a theme that i see consistently in it is that americans have found a way to be practical and find practical solutions to problems. so, when you look at that history and you look at where we are with china today, it seems as though on both sides of the aisle there is this view now that american diplomacy toward china failed and we need something very different and much tougher in response. so, how do you react to that? >> well, first, thanks for having me on the show. and in a way, your opening is a

nice segue into what i was trying to cover in the book, which is the challenge of actually pragmatically trying to address and solve problems. and using all the different instruments of u.s. power from the presidency on down. now, as for china in particular, i'm afraid the relationship appears to be in freefall. and i don't quite know where the bottom is going to be. this is a responsibility of both sides, from china's and some of the changes under xi and certainly under the trump administration. and i think the starting point is where you ended, which is that for any administration, it's important to have a sense of what do you want to accomplish? we know what you can complain about, but what results and how do you want to try to achieve them? in the past, another theme in the book, is over the past 70 years the u.s.'s reliance on the reliance system and the economic network it created to be more successful and bring other

powers to bear. that's not what this administration has done. its approach to china in the first three years was to try a bilateral trade pattern which is weak and only half executed. over the past few months there's been a pivot to what looks like a very political focus to try to blame china for everything. so, whoever is running the white house in the future, the relationship with china, i think, is going to have to try to go back to understand how we try to have a new competition as well as find areas of cooperation on areas like the environment and pandemic issues. and the cold war theme, which you mentioned, will take us in the wrong direction. >> anne, how would you respond to what bob was describing, and keep in mind, on both sides of the aisle in washington, i noticed we're back in a kind of

cold war dynamic by which i mean it is always safer to be a hawk than a dove. it is always safer to claim you're being tough, you're standing up for america, and it's happening on both sides, also the u.s. and china. the hawks are, in a sense, reinforcing each other. >> fareed, i think you're exactly right. and this return to a new -- to a cold war, a new cold war, is easy and bipartisan and wrong. to begin with, you know, bob zoellick himself coined the responsible stakeholder idea where we engage china to make it a responsible stakeholder in the world. it's certainly true that approach had its limits and we needed to get tougher with china. but it wasn't a total failure. you know, china's rise was good for the global economy. it raised hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in china and elsewhere. and china is a player in the global system.

it is also true that china is pushing its military power, its technological power in ways we need to stand up to. but it shouldn't be a new cold war. that's looking backwards. furthermore, it's letting china set the agenda. china pushes and we try to block and now we're pushing it at every turn to almost try to deliberately create a crisis. but the point is, china has a vision. it has a vision of what china is going to be technologically advanced by 2025 and by 2049, 100 years after the revolution, it wants to be a high-end income country. it has a vision for itself in the world. we need to be competing with china by our own vision of where we want to be in the world. what we want to see with technology, what kind of technology, data governance, human rights, an economic

system, an open society. we need to be competing positively, not returning to what is such an easy thing for those of us who grew up in the cold war with russia to say, let's do it all again. >> kishore, we don't have a lot of time in this segment, but i want you to tell me briefly, what could we do now? we're in the middle of a pandemic. you have these two countries now at odds. is there a creative diplomatic path to return to some degree of normalcy? >> well, i would make quickly two points. the first one i agree with the points that bob and anne-marie have made, and i agree the term cold war is dangerous because it creates a deep sense of complacency on the part of the united states, we can also defeat china. by this time you're taking on a 4,000-year-old civilization that is now enjoying its most

energetic streak ever in 4,000 years. take the long view. the second point is right now the four of us, bob, anne-marie, you and i were caught on a boat that was caught on fire. the stupidest thing the three of us could do is argue about who started the fire. we should come together and put out the fire. so, the simplest thing the united states and china could do is agree to put a complete pause on the geopolitical contest, focus on putting out the fire, which is covid-19, declare an end to the trade war and say, let's stop all that. guess what. i bet you the markets will bounce as soon as we do that. >> fascinating. now, when we come back, i'm going to ask all of you, has america's bungling of the covid response hurt american power? how much does it matter?

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a book that you're ready to share with the world? get published now, call for your free publisher kit today! and we are back on "gps" with robert zoellick, kishore ma into ban any. you see a country that 50 years ago put a man on the moon and, you know, it is clearly floundering with this crisis and the other countries are handled it extraordinarily well. you look at taiwan and it has under a dozen deaths. you look at singapore, where you come from, and the number of deaths are miniscule compared to the united states per capita. what are people saying about america? >> well, i mean, i hope you don't mind if i'm a bit frank in my reply.

the esacians admire the united states a great deal, and the elites were all trained in american universities. the best alumni of american universities, and there's a problem, america will solve it first, america would do it best. that was an assumption we all had. what's happened on covid-19 is quite shocking because the number of deaths per million in east asia, as you noted, are all below ten. and the gap is phenomenal. and the key point here is that -- fareed, is that in east asia, there's always been a respectful government. and they believe good governance, good government, is essential. and also suggested both in your opening remarks and in bob's opening remarks about how u.s. presidents are very ingenious at using their office to get things

done. so, this time it's around it's am as though whatever the u.s. could do wrong, it has done wrong. and i can assure you that the rest of the world wants to see the u.s. do well and wants the u.s. to succeed, but maybe the first thing to do is acknowledge that good government -- the term government is good and not bad. >> bob zoellick, let me ask you, as a long-time republican and a man with a reputation for extreme efficiency in government, do you think that the anti-government rhetoric of reagan and thatcher created the defunding of many federal agencies over the years, has it caused a circumstance where it is much more difficult to coordinate a robust public health response that requires government in the united states? >> well under both the bush 43 administration and the obama administration, they both focused on pandemic issues, so i don't believe that the constant

debate to and fro about the nature of government in the united states prevents an effective response. i think the problem is where you pointed your finger at the top. what i want to end on this is the white house is not all of the united states. so, probably most people haven't focused as much, but the federal reserve did a fantastic job not just for the u.s. economy but the global economy. i bet as we go forward the private sector woshing with government on vaccines will be a critical part of sort of getting out of this hole. so the next big question from an international side will be, how will the u.s. take advantage, our financial and economic power and, frankly, what i think will probably be the critical medical and health solution, and deal with it internationally? i'll give you an example from another republican administration. president bush 43 had an hiv/aids initiative that probably did more for african health that any u.s. relations are africa. that will be the challenge for

the next u.s. administration. >> kishore, we should just tell viewers we lost anne-marie slaughter. the minute she gets back, we'll bring her back. kishore, let me ask you, when you look at this challenge, you know, getting the world together, do you think china bears some responsibility as well? under president xi, it has become more nationalistic, it has become more repressive. you see the way it is now implementing the national security law in hong kong to stifle political dissent. it's gotten tougher on neighbors like india. doesn't china need to do hard int introspection? >> absolutely right. china has become a much more difficult country to deal with. but that's a natural event as a result china will become much bigger. becoming much bigger.

remember in 1918 in ppe terms, china's gdp was 10% of the united states. 10%. so, while i'm talking to you, there's a little cat in my room. after a few minutes the cat has become a tiger. the tiger is a different animal to deal with. now, the question is this, can we wish china away? can we ask china to immediately conform to our needs? and i say, it cannot happen. we have to deal realistically with the china we have. and i believe we can cooperate with china and ask china to behave exactly as bob said, as a responsible stakeholder, and make it clear what we expect of a responsible stakeholder. and i believe we can get that done with china. >> anne-marie slaughter, we're glad to have you back. let me ask you in the final minute, what is your reaction to the fact that american citizens now are banned from europe? did you ever think you would see

this? >> this has to be the nadire of the america in the world in my lifetime. we have been disliked for many things. we've had many controversies. but right now the world is looking at our spectacular incompetence and disfunction. i never thought i'd see anything like it. >> anne-marie slaughter, kish e kishore, bob zoellick, thanks for being on. as the president ponders postponing the 2020 presidential election, some americans are worried about creeping authoritarianism. anne applebaum has written a book about why that has a seductive allure. very timely and important conversation when we come back because he said a multi- vitamin alone may not be enough. .back..

when donald trump and his allies withheld aid from a foreign country in hopes of getting dirt on a political rival, many people cried foul. this, they said, doesn't happen in a democracy. when federal agents cleared the park next to the white house for a trump photo op, people cried foul. this, they said, doesn't happen in a democracy. when president trump this week raised the idea of postponing the elections, people cried foul, saying, again, this doesn't happen in a democracy. so, what is the state of american democracy and is it sliding towards something more sinister? anne applebaum has a brilliantly timed new book "twilight of democracy:the seductive lure of

authoritarianism." welcome, anne. i want to ask you about the central question to start, because i think there's been a tendency in the united states, certainly i share it, to say, yeah, trump, it's a circus, he's vulgar, he clearly doesn't believe in some of these democratic norms, but the country is strong, the institutions are strong, this will be a blip, this will be temporary. but you have lived in poland, right next to hungary, and you've watched a different trajectory. is the book to warn us against complacency? >> yes, that is one of the points of the book. i feel that over the last 30, 40, 50 years even, we've all become convinced that democracy is something automatic. we don't have to worry about it. it's just how our systems work. and once you have democracy, you know, you've had free elections a few times, you can't backslide. actually, the founders of the united states, the people who wrote our constitution, were very aware that democracies had

failed in the past. they were reading about ancient democracy, the roman republic that failed, and they were thinking about how to prevent failure. and we can see all around us in the world today that there are democracies, some which have had many -- multiple changes of power, which are running into trouble and which are experiencing real crises. and the crises are not that different from the ones happening in the united states. so, yes, i mean, if the book has a single message, it's that. don't be complacent. democracies can fail. in fact, almost all the ones hither to have. >> so, when you look at the world you're living in, in poland and hungary, these are places we all celebrated the birth of democracy in eastern europe in 1989, and seemed very -- you know, really consolidated democracies. they seem to have embraced the values of democracy and liberalism very powerfully. in a nutshell, what happened?

>> so, in both countries what happened was that authoritarian-minded parties came to power. once they did come to power, they began destroying and undermining the institutions that keep democracy -- if you think about it, democracy asks a lot of politicians. it asks them once they win an election to keep the system going so that their political enemies can beat them again in four years' time. it also asks people out of power to accept that their political enemies have the right to rule for four years. and what we've seen happening not just in eastern europe but elsewhere in the world is parties coming to power and changing the rules and altering the way the system works. look, there are elements of the republican party now in the united states who are afraid that because their party is becoming a minority party, because it doesn't -- it hasn't won -- it has more trouble winning national elections, winning the popular vote than it used to, they are worried about,

will they be able to continue? and they're looking at changing the rules. do we need to undermine people's trust in the media by calling it fake news? do we need to do gerrymander electoral districts so it's harder for democrats to win? do we need to do voter sue prosecute e suppression? do we need to tease people with the idea that it's not legitimate to scare them off? these are all tactics that america might find new, but they've been tried and used elsewhere all over the world. >> it seems to me what people -- this is quite widespread. it's not just on the right -- have lost faith in the idea of a fair process. that if you just -- democracy is all about a fair process. you have freedom of speech and then you hope the best ideas win. you have independent courts and you trust that the courts over time will rule in the right -- in the right way. and people are saying, no, we don't want just a fair process. we want to figure out what the

outcome is. we just want to get directly there. >> yes. i mean, you're absolutely right to say that there's nothing special about the right or, you know, that makes it -- you know, that makes it lean toward authoritarianism. but you also pointed to something really important, which is -- we live in an age when you can press a button on your computer and someone will deliver you a book or a pair of shoes the next day. but democracy seems to take a long time and people feel, you know, look, enough. we need some more direct way. we need to solve this problem faster. and the danger of that impulse, which is understandable, is that people then try to skip the stages of democracy and we end up with something much worse. >> how bad can it get? at this point would you say that hungary and poland have effectively ceased to be real liberal democracies? >> so, i would say hungary has

ceased to be a liberal democracy, yes. i don't think an opposition party can win a national election now in hungary. something like 90%, 95% of the media is controlled directly or indirectly by the government. poland is a different story. there's still an opposition but it's getting harder for it to compete because the rules of the playing field are no longer even and there's now some talk of changing the electoral law to the advantage of the ruling party and also changing the media law to make independent media more difficult. but i stress again, these are -- these are two examples, but these kinds of ideas and these idz kinds of political parties have enormous amount of appeal in other places swle. you can see them in italy, you can see them in france, we can talk about the philippines, with he can talk about turkey, we can talk about india in a certain sense. you know that story better than me. but the lack of faith in the system, as you say, in the rules, that the rules will create an even playing field and get to a good solution is quite

widespread in a lot of our democracies. >> well, this is a very important book. anne, as with everything you write, terrifically written. thank you so much for coming on. >> thanks, fareed. next on "gps," i've warned before when covid hit the developing world hard, it could reverse decades of progress there. david miliband is the president of the international rescue committee, which helps refugees in 40 countries. he will give us an update and much of the news, alas, is not good. (vo) the time is coming for us to get out and go again. to visit all the places we didn't know meant so much. but we're all going at our own speed. at enterprise, peace-of-mind starts with our complete clean pledge, curbside rentals and low-touch transactions. with so many vehicles of so many kinds, you can count on us to help you get everywhere you want to go... again. whenever you're ready, we're ready for you. enterprise.

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if rich countries like the united states and united kingdom have struggled so badly with the pandemic, what could we expect from countries with much more limited resources? that part of the world, or much of it, is david miliband's brief these days. he's president and ceo of the international rescue committee which helps people in you man taryn crises. he's a former foreign secretary of the united kingdom.

welcome, david. let me ask you to give us an update, because when it -- when covid first hit, there was a bit of almost a paradox, which is that it was hitting the richest parts of the world very forcefully, but in the poorer parts of the world, it seemed to be what was called a very slow burn. what does it look like now? >> well, i think that we're at a pivot point now. the disease is going from a rich country's disease, which is affecting poorer people in those countries more to a genuinely global pandemic. we've seen the exponential growth in latin america, mexico, colombia, but over africa over the last two months a 500% increase in the number of recorded case, and certainly in the health centers that the international rescue committee runs in conflict zones and in refugee hosting states around the world, we're seeing an uptick. i think the critical point to understand is there's so little testing that too often, we're flying blind in really tackling

the disease. that means that you're having very high, what are called case positivity ratios. 30%, 40% of the people getting tested have the disease compared to 8% across the united states. and you're also having health systems that are already weak seeing people scared to go and have malaria treatment or other treatments, and so there's a compound of the covid effect with a further health effect even before you get to the economic emergency that's being created. we think there's still time and necessity for prevention. we also have to step up on the curative front. >> tell me about some of the worst places. what are you worried about when you're looking at this, both in terms of just sheer humanitarian nightmare and maybe the political fallout? >> let me put it into two categories. first, the war zones of the world are our greatest concern. yemen, syria, northeast nigeria. these are conflict zones with populations that suffer in all

sorts of ways and very weak state infrastructure, much of which is being bombed and destroyed during conflict. parts of afghanistan fit into that category, too. and those are certainly very high on our emergency list. however, i'd also add, fragile states hosting refugees and where the population is under strain strain in all sorts of ways. i would put countries like pakistan in that category. i also want to highlight countries like bangladesh, which is hosting a million refugees from myanmar, so far seems to have done a job in containing what you would think is a disease ready to run rampant. a million people in bazaar, compared rd to 10,000 in new york. the country is really mobilized. i'm incredibly impressed in the way we've worked with the bangladeshi government to mobilize mask production. 5,000 masks are being produced by local population with the international rescue committee

being distributed in the main refugee area in bangladesh. and that's managed to keep the disease so far under control, at least as far as we can see. so i think there's some lessons from these states, as well as real concern. >> as you know, there is not much appetite in the united states to think about these issues. what would be your case -- make the case why it is important for america to help these countries. >> the case is that this is a connected world. so, there are two critical aspects of the call that we're making to the united states congress to put $20 billion out of the $1 trillion they're talking about, for the next covid package. first is there will be no return to normty until it's brought under control. we know the links between the global supply chain. they won't be changed overnight.

so, the first part of the argument is a sheer strategic argument that says the united states for its prosperity in part depends on the rest of the world. the second is a global leadership point. i can guarantee you this, the pr offensive that's been mounted by countries like china over the last five months is only a foretaste of the kind of presence we're going to see in many of the countries that traditionally have allied with the united states. i think there's a geopolitical case, too. i have to also add, there's a sheer moral case. i mean, there is one doctor for 5,000 people across africa compared to one doctor for 300 people in the united states. those are the kind of moral challenges that i think are very important for a country that takes itself seriously like the united states. i think they're buttressed by the strategic business case as well as the geopolitical one you. >> david, let me ask you, finally, you're a former foreign secretary of britain, leading -- the leading light of the labor

party for many years. what explains britain's pathetic response to covid? i mean, this is a country that, after all, has had very good government. i mean, i remember lee kwan of singapore telling me one of the problems they had was they inherited the traditions of british bureaucracy. how has it done so badly? >> it grieves me as a brit, proud brit living in the u.s., it grieves me the situation. i think i would put it down to, first of all, a bravado that turned into negligence because the uk was very late to lockdown. while the rest of europe was locking down in march, the uk government was still saying that it was not necessary. i think the second aspect of it speaks to the public administration point you're raising, which is when it comes to the test and trace system, which is obviously so fundamental to controlling the disease, the british response has been marked by incompetence, i'm afraid. when you put those two things

together, you see why the uk has tragically ended up with the largest number of excess deaths in europe. that's something i never wanted to see. and it is a situation which is not yet under control as the latest flurries have shown over the last two or three days. >> david miliband, always a pleasure to have you on. thank you so much. >> thank you. when we come back, two words --tic t tiktok, tiktok. i'll explain what that means and you should understand it when we come back. with less of the sugar you don't. [grunting noise] i'll take that. woohoo! 30 grams of protein and 1 gram of sugar. ensure max protein. with nutrients to support immune health.

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and now for the last look. tiktok, tiktok, donald trump says the clock is ticking for this popular app for teenagers. in case you're unaware, tiktok is a social media platform for short-form videos whose already high popularity exploded during

quarantine. for gen zais z teens and millenials it's a lighthearted home for choreographed moves and videos but a diverse set of institutions had already banned it internally from wells fargo to the biden campaign, from the indian government to the u.s. army. what in the world is going on? well, tiktok collects information from users like their location and what they're saying in messages to other users. that isn't much different from what other social media companies gather. the real difference, tiktok's parent company, bytedance, is chinese. there's a fear tens of millions of americans' interests and movements could be handed over to the chinese communist party. in addition, the skeptics say, beijing could use the platform to promote itself and restrict ideas it doesn't like. perhaps in response to these concerns, bytedance seemed to be looking for american ownership for tiktok. first american investors were

reportedly trying to buy a majority stake in the company. then "the new york times" learned microsoft was in talks to buy it outright. even trump said this would not be enough to ease his security concerns, threatening to ban it entirely. meanwhile, tiktok points out that the app is not even available in china and says it has not and will not turn over american data to beijing. but governments around the world find it difficult to imagine any chinese private company withstanding the might of the beijing government, especially with a 2017 chinese law requiring that companies assist in intelligence gathering when asked. let's not forget, china is consistently ranked the world's worst abuser of internet freedom by freedom house. still, tiktok has worked hard to demonstrate its independence from china. when the controversial national security law came into force in hong kong earlier this summer, tiktok took the drastic step of removing itself from the city entirely. in may an american ceo replaced

the chinese one and tiktok insists its data servers are in virginia and backed up in singapore bypassing china entirely. and to be fair, many of the voices outside of washington, d.c., who urged tiktok be banned are simply afraid of the competition. american tech companies envy the success tiktok has had with young people, and many technology experts say mandating transparency and regulation instead of banning it outright is the best way to confront any threat that tiktok poses. but these arguments are getting drowned out as hostility toward china increases. tiktok is one of the opening salvos in an emerging battle of technology between the world's two largest and most dynamic economies, a new tech cold war. thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. i will see you next week.

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hey, i'm brian stelter live in new york. this is "reliable sources," our weekly look at the story behind the story. ahead this hour, why misinformation about miracle cures is just worsening america's pandemic. plus, new reporting about one member of the murdoch family making a dramatic break from the family business. later, what is the gop doing? why are they claiming the republican national convention will be closed to press? what is going on? a new statement from the party coming up in minutes. but first, an election mess in the making, with three months before ballots will be counted. picture all of us americans in