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tv   Fareed Zakaria GPS  CNN  August 2, 2020 10:00am-11:00am PDT

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for 37 years we have been fighting for survivors of child sex abuse. even in these uniquely challenging times we're still fighting with dedication and devotion. california law gives survivors a chance to take legal action, but only for a limited time. if you were sexually abused by a priest, scout leader, coach or teacher contact us confidentially today. it's time. 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
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live from new york. ♪ today on the show, a new cold war. u.s./china relations are at their lowest point 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. equivocating on accepting election results. >> i have to say -- i'm not just going to say yes. i'm not going to say no. 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?
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i'll ask ann 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 covid-19 outbreak has turned into a catastrophe. the american presidency has
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become a symbol of superstar super power 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 preeminent scholar richard neustadt noted that to get anything done the president has to use whatever agencies, the media, state governments, private interests, foreign allies 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
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executive and legislative branch, the american presidency is, indeed, weak. that's why a national crisis has always required a heroic exerrion of presidential power. it was herbert hoover's failure to tackle the great depression that led to franklin roosevelt's victory, and it was fdr's creative and effective use that rescued 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,
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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 problem of multiple faces of authority but the central government managed to coordinate its public health agencies 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 criteria for government decisions, at one point explaining the concept of ro, the rate of spread, and why it was crucial to keep that
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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 handles 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 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. worse still, trump seems to think that 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. massive new supplies. 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 summarily announced, little
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amended by federal agencies or struck down by courts or reversed by congress, the initial chaos dies downrs but little actually gets accomplished. the point of policy for trump is political theater, not execution. even when he uses presidential powers, like sending federal troops ostensibly 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.
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so much to talk about. 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, "america and the world: a history of u.s. diplomacy and foreign policy." anne marie slaughter director of planning in the state department in the obama administration and kishore mahbubani was a top diplomat in singapore for 30 years 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
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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?
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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 package which was 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
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you mentioned, will take us in the wrong direction. >> anne, how would you respond to what bob was describing, and keeping in mind this, on both sides of the aisle in washington, i notice we're back in a kind of cold war dynamic, 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.
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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.
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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 mahbubani, 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 actually very
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dangerous because it creates a deep sense of complacency on the part of the united states, we defeated, now 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 on fire, the stupidest thing that we could do is argue 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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and we are back on "gps" with robert zoellick, kishore mahbubani. kishore, let me ask you, what does it look like from east asia? you see the richest country in the world, a country that 50 years ago put a man on the moon and, you know, it is clearly floundering with this crisis and the east asian countries have handled it extraordinarily well. you look at taiwan and it has under a dozen deaths. you look at singapore, where you
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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 east asians admire the united states a great deal, and it's important to emphasize that the east asian elites were all trained in american universities. the best alumni of american universities are in east asia, and there's a problem, america will solve it first, america will do it best. that was the 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. in europe and in the united states it's in the hundreds and the gap is phenomenal. the key point here is that, fareed, is that in east asia, there's always been a respectful
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government and we believe that good governance and 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 around, it's almost 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?
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>> 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 working with government on vaccines will be a critical part of sort of getting out of this hole. so the next real question from an international side will be how will the u.s. take those advantages, our financial and economic power and frankly what i think will probably be the critical medical and health solution, and deal
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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 than anything in u.s. relations and africa. >> we have lost anne marie slaughter. we will bring her back. kishore, when you look at this challenge, 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 introspection?
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>> you're absolutely right. china has become more assertive and 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%. it's become bigger. while i'm talking to you, there's a little cat in my room, and after a few minutes the cat has become a tiger, the tiger is a different animal we have to deal with. 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.
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>> 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 dysfunction. i never thought i'd see anything like it. >> anne-marie slaughter, kishore mahbubani, bob zoellick, pleasure to have you all on. >> thanks for having us. next on "gps" 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 kind of
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government has a seductive allure. very timely and important conversation when we come back.. ♪ well well well you, ♪ you make my dreams come true. ♪
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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.
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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 meant 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
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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?
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>> 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
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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 suppression or warn people in advance or do we need to tease people with the idea that it's not legitimate to scare them off? these are all tactics that americans may find new but they've been tried and used elsewhere all over the world. >> it seems to me that what people -- this is quite widespread 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.
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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. there have been plenty of left wing au her to taryn states in the past. 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?
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>> 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 a ruckus opposition although it's getting harder 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 kinds of political parties have an enormous amount of appeal in other places as well. you can see them in italy, you can see them in france, we can talk about the philippines, turkey, 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
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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.
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chances are you have some qhere are a couple answers... lysol disinfectant spray and lysol disinfecting wipes together can be used on over 100 surfaces. and kill up to 99.9% of germs. lysol. what it takes to protect. 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 humanitarian crises. he's a former foreign secretary
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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.
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that means that you're having very high, what are called case positivity ratios. 30%, 40% of the people getting tested having 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 us about some of the worst places? what are you worried about when looking at this as a 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
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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 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 cox's bazar, living there in a density of people compared 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
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being distributed in cox's bazar, 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 normalities in the u.s., business normality, until the global situation is brought under control. we know the links between the global supply chain. they're not going to be changed
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overnight. however the debate about reshoring goes. 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.
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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 great advantages singapore had 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
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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, tiktok tiktok. i will explain what that means and you should understand it when we come back. with access to america's largest 5g included. that's right. unlimited and nationwide 5g for the whole family for just $25 bucks a line. only at t-mobile.
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then reward them by switching to bud light seltzer. yayyyyy!!! one more sip! one more sip! yayyy!! the course structure the it just suits my life perfectly because i am a mom, i'm a wife. and i was able to complete those short courses- five to six weeks- and then move onto the next until i reached my goal. is more important sthan ever.rp where's my tablet? you have to remember the names of your grandkids, pets, your son-in-law. favorite son-in-law. and the eternal question, where did you put your glasses? sure, you can spend the day looking for things that you misplaced. or you can take natrol cognium.
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cognium improves memory and recall in healthy adults. it's safe and is shown to be effective in multiple human clinical trials. six letter word for head? noggin. stay sharp. stay you. with natrol cognium. and my password?
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and now for the last look. tiktok. tiktok. donald trump says the clock is ticking for the popular app for teenagers. in case you're unaware tiktok is a social media platform for short form videos who's already high popularity exploded during quarantine.
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for gen-z teens, it is a light dsz hearted home for choreographed videos and a diverse set of institutions 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 byte dance is chinese. and there is a fear that 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 it to promote itself and restrict ideas it doesn't like. perhaps in response to these concerns, byte dance seemed to
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be looking for american ownership for tiktok. first american investors trying to buy a majority stake in the company and then "the new york times" learned that microsoft was in talks to buy it outright. but trump said even 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 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
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insists that 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 urge 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 that 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'll see you next week. ys will be about keeping a routine...
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hi, everyone. thanks so much for joining me. we begin this hour with the coronavirus pandemic, what a white house task force calls a new phase with more widespread cases. the infection count is over 4.6 million and climbing. saturday saw the sixth straight day of over 1,000 deaths in our country. as the cdc projects, another 20,000 americans will die in just 3 week's time. despite all of that, today the white house's coronavirus task force coordinator dr. deborah birx said there are some reassuring signs