she means there. thank you so much for spending your sunday morning with us. the latest on what the new johnson & johnson vaccine could mean for the fight against the pandemic. that and more when the news continues next. this is gps, the global public squarement welcome to all of you from around the world. i'm fareed zakaria coming to you live from new york. today on the show, bill gates. having warned about pandemics, he is now warning about the next grave danger, climate change. >> climate change is this phenomenon that's growing so that by the end of the century it's horrific. i mean, it makes the pandemic we're in now look like nothing. >> he has some big ideas about how to divert a disaster.

i will talk to him about those as well as covid-19 and much else. that plus the u.s. calling out saudi arabia's most powerful prince for his role in the killing of an american resident. also, the biden administration goes on the offensive militarily with a strike against iran-backed militias that have been attacking american forces. we'll explore. but first here's my take. congress began hearings this week on the security failures that led to the capitol being invaded by an armed mob on january 6th. that's appropriate and useful. but my fear is these kinds of inquiries almost always end up adding more security procedures, putting up more barricades and making american government ever more imperial, armed and removed from its citizens. i remember living in washington briefly during the 1980s.

it was easy to enter congress and to walk amidst the grand rooms and imposing statues, occasionally even bumping into senators. even the white house is relatively accessible as it had always been designed to be. no more. after the 1995 oklahoma city bombing, the 1998 capitol shooting and of course 9/11, citizens who wished to go to the capitol must go through a tightly controlled tour that has a vast underground visitor center where they are forced to watch a movie. can't we watch the movie at home? over the same period ugly barricades were thrown up around the white house with parts of pennsylvania blocked off. since the black lives matter protests last summer, even more barricades went up around the white house. in the wake of january 6th, it is surely going to get worse. look, i understand the need for security. but in a democracy, that has to

be balanced against the need or openless and accessibility. the architect of washington, d.c. designed broad avenues so people could always see the country's great government buildings which he believed was symbols of democracy. the country spent extravagantly building the capitol, persevering in its construction even during the civil war because it was a monument for its citizens, not an office building for politicians. the situation is much worse abroad. america's diplomatic outposts used to be handful buildings in the centers of cities where people could meet and events were held. i recall going to watch classic hollywood movies sponsored by the u.s. information service at the stunning seaside consulate in mum buy. but that jewel has been sold off, as are many others. america's diplomats now often work in fortress-type buildings where multiple layers of

security rarely encountering the people of the country they are in. if you want to know why america is not well understood or loved in iraq or afghanistan, visit the u.s. embassies in those capitols. the united states has more of an imperial apparatus than many actual empires did. even when london ruled the world anyone could walk right up to 10 downing street, the home and office of the british prime minister. after a string of ira bombings in the 1980s, the government installed simple gates blocking off one small street. even the french, who, as we know, are partial to grandeur have a modest set of low, movable barriers around the palace which houses the president. the way american politics works today, you are rewarded only for advocating ever more security. so after 9/11, embassies and

consulates around the world turns down hundreds of thousands of qualified visitors to america because the officials denying the visa application pay no political cost for doing so. had they let in one person accidentally who committed a terrorist attack, they would have been hauled into congress and classified. as a friend who works in government explained to me, no one has ever been fired for classifying things as secret. the result? massive overclassification, which limits information sharing within government and within the public. michael hayden recalls that he once got a top secret message that read, merry christmas. this typer securitization is part of what the scholar poll light calls the thickening of government, the adding of layers and layers of hierarchy and more

procedures which creates a more closed and inflexible organization. he writes, covid-19 showed just how far americans must go to find accountability in the federal hierarchy. health care heroes waiting for personal protective equipment faced 18 layers between the top of the department of health and human services and the ppe and the strategic national stockpile. small businesses waiting for paycheck protection support faced 16 layers between the top of the treasury department and the small business administration's program office. if you are trying to understand why america performs so poorly in situations like the pandemic and is also so distrusted by many of its citizens, this might be a crucial part of the answer. the u.s. government now represents a dinosaur, a large lumbering beast with much body and little brain, increasingly well protected but distant from

ordinary people and unresponsive to the real challenges that confront the nation. go to cnn.com/fareed for a link to my column this week. and let's get started. ♪ on friday, the world finally got to see the u.s. intelligence communities report on the murder of jamal khashoggi. the report said saudi arabia's crown prince approved the operation that killed the saudi journalist who was an american resident. but the biden administration did not sanction or otherwise punish the kingdom's most powerful man. why not? joining me now is megan o'sullivan, former deputy national security adviser, who is the director of the geopolitics of energy politics at harvard. nick is a columnist for "the new york times" and was a friend of

khashoggi's. and professor of international relations. let me start with you. you have dealt with these very officials in many cases in the middle east. how do you think this is being seen? how significant was the release of this report? >> well, i do think that the release of this report was significant. first it demonstrated that the biden administration will adhere to the law in the way the trump administration didn't. as you know, this report was mandated by congress to be released. but secondly, i think it's significant because it calls out the crown prince in a very explicit way that hadn't happened before. mohamed bin solomon i think at 2019 60 minutes video he said, look, nobody in the u.s. government has blamed me explicitly or demonstrated that anyone close to me did anything wrong. that nails that it's clear that is not the case. and this is a remarkable public

censure of the crown prince and coupled with the harsh words that president biden has had for the saudi kingdom in relationship to this report is a break with the past. >> nick, i know you have been more critical. i want to ask you because i really respect your judgment. i know your argument is, look, this guy was essentially guilty of murder, and we should have sanctioned him. but, i mean, he is de facto the head of state of major u.s. ally and, you know, vladimir putin is guilty of murder. we're not sanctioning him. what makes this case so special for you that you want to really cross that line. >> sure. well, for example, tony blinken said that our foreign policy has to be bigger than one person. i would note that mbs, his sins,

are not just the murder of one journalist for "the washington post." look, he has created instability everywhere he goes. he kidnapped lebanon's prime minister. he instigated a feud with quatar helping iran. he started a war with yemen creating the world's worst humanitarian crisis. he's, i'd say, damaged saudi arabia's brand. there is a matter of values that if we impose sanctions on the people who carry out the murder, then we look weak when we don't impose similar sanctions on the person who ordered the murder. but i also think there is an issue here of our interests. and, you know, king solomon is in poor health. he's 85 years old. and mbs right now is on track to succeed him. if mbs becomes the next king, we

may be stuck with king mohamed for the next 50 years. and i don't think that it's a done deal that he replaces his father. i think that if we impose certain sanctions or we make it clear to the kingdom that there will be a real cost, that we perhaps can affect that decision. and i think that would be really important for a long-term saudi-u.s. relations. >> how is this playing in saudi arabia? and what do you think of nick's argument that there is still an opportunity to influence -- to really play domestic politics in saudi arabia? >> thanks, fareed. first of all, i think he is exactly right in terms of his evaluation of mohamed bin solomon as a statesman, his

moral evaluation of mohamed bin solomon. but i think he's not quite being fair to the biden administration and he's not being quite realistic about politics in saudi arabia. as professor said, what the biden administration has done is not nothing. it is not the biden administration that sent the message that he has impunity. it is the trump administration that did that. the biden administration has started to pull back on the slack to the trump administration gave to mohamed bin solomon. it is not just that they have now named mohamed bin solomon has the murder of jamal khashoggi. but the ban on top officials is an unprecedented step. the u.s. onoises about the war n yemen, i think these are all fairly significant things.

but also, as i said, nick is not being totally realistic about saudi arabia. the king of saudi arabia is 85 years old and mohamed bin solomon has spent the last five years gathering up all the threads of power in that country in his hands. you only need to read the book of mr. christof's new york times colleague to get a sense. he's the minister of defense. he's a chairman of the $400 billion public investment fund. the saudi soccer league is named after mohamed bin solomon. so the idea that the americans could pressure the king of saudi arabia who i'm not sure has been coherent for many years into signing some memo that would then cause mohamed bin solomon to slink off the scene i think is unrealistic. >> all right. we are going to have to take a

break here. when we come back, stay with us. we'll talk a little bit more about this. but also the biden administration's other big move in the middle east. a strike on syria. fareed zakaria gps is sponsored by cleveland clinic. and stay tuned for stories of cleveland clinic's innovations.

and we are back with nick, chris and megan. nick, i want to give you a chance to respond to the previous discussion. we were talking about mohamed bin solomon and whether he should be personally held accountable. i think donna's point was if you try to play politics in saudi arabia, it is going to backfire. the guy is very powerful. he's consolidated power. this is a big slap on the wrist from the biden administration. i would add to that, as far as we can tell, he's pretty popular in saudi arabia, particularly with young people. again, i just want to ask you why you think trying to do something like this with mbs when we haven't done it with putin who has murdered people, invaded ukraine, crimea, you feel like we have a -- you know, we can make this stick in a way? >> yeah.

so one is that biden has been tougher on saudi arabia than trump was and, you know, that's absolutely true. that's a pretty low bar. and biden himself has strongly implied that he was going to impose sanctions on mbs. so by his own standard, i think he fell short and looked weak. in terms of the question you posed about can we actually influence saudi internal politics, you know, we don't know. i think that, you know, saudi politics are incredibly opaque. there are some prominent saudis who think that the deal is done. nothing can influence it. you may be right. others say, no, there have been six crown princes in the last decade, that there is some chance of replacing him if there is pressure on king solomon. king solomon is not going to do this likely.

so the stakes are so high. saudi arabia is so important that i think that it's worth doing this not -- not to indicate that we deck kate who saudi arabia will choose as its next king, but to make clear that the country knows that if the next king is somebody who creates humanitarian crises abroad and kills journalists for american publications that that will have a huge impact on u.s.-saudi relations and on saudi arabia's own defense posture. >> all right. i got to get to other stuff going on. megan, the u.s. forces took out a syrian site that was said to be used by iranian-backed militias. give us a sense. is this important? was this the right thing to do? >> i do think it was the right thing to do. and it was important from a number of different levels. first at the most basic level, it demonstrated that such a i

attacks -- this was the first large scale attack since biden came into government. so responding to that, noting it is not going to go without a response is important. but it also sent a couple of very important messages by the biden administration. first as we have all seen the biden administration has come in with a very clear message that diplomacy is going to be first, that diplomacy is going to be the foreign policy tool of choice and a lot of effort has gone into underscoring that message. i think that is the right message, but it would be a problem if that message were misinterpreted to mean that military force is off the table. and this strike underscores military force is still an important part of america's tool kit. secondly, i would say this strike really emphasizes that this team, although they are many of the same faces from the obama administration who worked on the iranian deal, this team

understands it is not 2015 in dealing with iran. if this had happened under the obama administration, it may well have been that this attack on u.s. forces and coalition forces would have gone without a response because the obama administration was so focussed on getting a nuclear deal with iran. the biden administration is under no pretense that if it goes easy on iran and other domains it increases its chance of getting the deal. in fact, i would say the message is quite the opposite, that the biden administration understands. it's going to go hard against iron and other arenas while it tries to bring diplomacy back to the table when it comes to the nuclear file. >> all right. let me ask you about a broader subject. it is the tenth anniversary of the arab spring. and you have written powerfully on this. what do you think -- how should we think about the arab world right now? you know, more stable, less

stable? where do things stand? >> well, i think, fareed, that the arab world right now is really torn between two competing projects. that democratic project that we all thrilled to during the arab spring ten years ago, it is alive and well and you see it playing out in places like lebanon and algeria and sudan. so there is still this momentum for greate er accountability, me democracy, more participation. what's new now and this things us back to mohamed bin solomon, is that the autocrats have a response to the arab spring. it is not just the increased oppression that we see, but it is this recognition that they need to respond to some of the demands that were driving young people into the streets in the first place. and i think if you look at the reforms, for example, that mohamed bin solomon has been championing in his country even as he has engaged in a lot of terrible things, you begin to

understand those forms are in part driven by this need to ward off the spectrum of revolution, et cetera. so when we talk about balancing our values and our interests in saudi arabia, part of the problem is that these -- some of these autocrats are advancing values like women's liberation and greater personal freedom that we actually support. >> nick, let me ask you very quickly. we have about 30 seconds left. yemen is the world's biggest humanitarian crisis. do you believe that there is a prospect of it winding down or stabilizing? i don't know what the right word is. >> you know, i think it's shattered and it is going to be very difficult to glue together. i think that there is now some political will in saudi arabia and, you know, greater political will outside to try to do some kind of a dial. but it's harder.

and there may be more aid headed in that direction, which will ease the hunger. but it's going to be really difficult to see a unitary government actually ruin the country again. that ultimately is what we really need. >> we're going to have to leave it at that. thank you all. really fascinating perspectives. next up, bill gates on the two biggest crises of our times: climate change and pandemics.

in my recent book, when describing the dangers to human kind, i touch on climate change, but explain that this is a vast topic that deserves its own books and warnings. luckily for us, bill gates has written just that. it is titled "how to avoid a climate disaster." welcome, bill gates. >> great to talk to you. >> you warned about pandemics and you warned we hadn't funded it enough and we hadn't taken enough precautions. and then it took a pandemic. you probably agreed that at this point we would probably do what we need to. what do you think it will take with regard to climate change? because i'm struck by the fact that we have had many, many severe hurricanes now. we have had five million acres of land in the west burned to the ground. that's the state of massachusetts. we have had this texas power blackout.

do you think it is that these are not severe enough crises or that people don't connect the crisis to climate change? >> well, the interesting climate change is definitely going up. in fact, that's why i hadn't done a book. you know, i gave a ted talk about climate in 2010. that's actually five years before the pandemic talk. but it was in the last few years that i saw that the interest, particularly in the younger generation, was going up. and i think some of those awful events explain that partly just e equator and in certain natural ecosystems. getting people to project from the bad things to, you know, miami beach is gone and people won't farm in texas, that actually requires you to project

ahead. you know, most things like earthquakes, we have lots of them in various sizes. and, so, you get building codes and people are serious. pandemics only come quite rarely. and climate change is this k phenomena that's growing so that by the end of the century it's hor horrific. but the cognition to see it coming and take the steps now, this is a huge challenge. will that young generation force us to make this a priority every year for the next 30 years or not? >> let me ask you about your own journey. some people might say you took a while to get to this book, which is -- by which i mean al gore wrote earth in balance in 1992,

"inconvenient truth" i believe was in 1996. i'm wondering what took you so long that in the sense did you feel like the science was ambiguous and that you really wanted to get it right and only in the last five or seven years have you been convinced by the evidence or just take us through your journey. >> yeah. i'd say up until the year 2000, i was obsessed with software. and although i had curiosity about many other things, my depth was all in software. in the year 2000, me linda and i fund the gates foundation. i travel to africa and i'm no longer ceo so i'm learni ing otr things and talks to farmers in africa about how the climate was changing. before 2005, i did not understand it. economics, you know, industrial activity, chemistry, physics.

but by 2010, i had my head around it enough that i did the ted talk, which was about innovating zero. and i wouldn't change a word of that. i didn't jump in to any of the conferences because the interest level wasn't high enough, particularly after the financial crisis interests went down. but then when 2015 came along, i felt, gosh, we've got to get r and d and innovation here. it can't just be using the tools we have and near-term reduction goals. those are good but those in no way paint the picture when you are trying to get every source to zero. >> let me ask you when looking at texas, what do we need to do to create greater resilience for the grid? because until we get to the point where we will be able to replace things with green technology and such, you are going to have these kind of extreme weather events.

you are going to have power outages and it seems to me we need to be thinking about how do you make sure that critical infrastructure, hospitals, you know, are able to withstand these blackouts, which are not going to be a few hours and therefore you could put a diesel generator in. what is the backup resilient capacity we need? >> yeah. even though this particular texas event the problem, which is tragic, was not caused by the shutdown of renewables. it was caused by the shut down of all their sources primarily natural gas because of the point of weatherization, the point is more important. we will have more events like this because of climate change. that is more cold fronts will be able to come down through the midwest. and of course you will have very hot periods as well. there is three ways to make the grid reliable when you have lots

of weather dependent wind and solar on that grid. say you are trying to get up to 80%. you need lots and lots of transmission. and texas, because it is not connected to other states, wasn't able to call on their extra capacity to save its citizens lives. so the amount of transmission we need to build in this country is g gigantic. you want some form of energy storage. bridge storage is ridiculously expensive. it is much, much harder than electric batteries for cars, but there is lots of innovations that will provide some of that. third, you will want some degree of weather independent green energy, which only nuclear fission has a chance of doing that at scale. next on gps, bill gates on what a post-vaccine world will look like.

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we have had two pandemic milestones in the last week. the world surpassed 2.5 million covid deaths on thursday. half a million such deaths on monday. there is light at the end of the tunnel. back now with bill gates. let me ask you next about the pandemic, bill. so we now have vaccines. we are getting vaccinated. tell me what you think life will look like in the western world by july, august, september. will we be back to normal? and if not, where will we be? >> by the fall, we'll be back to almost normal. that is, i would expect basically every school to be in session and at some level of

occupancy restaurants and sports events to be taking place. the big problem is that we're not doing enough to end the pandemic globally. that is, the vaccines are just going to the rich countries. this has been a big focus of the gates foundation throughout the crisis, is to get additional factories like the big factories in india. that is starting to happen with astrazeneca already and soon johnson & johnson and novavax. vaccines are a miracle. all five that went through western regulators are amazing vaccines. and even though we have a little bit of tunes that you might have to take a third dose because of the variants, we will get on top of that. so the fall will be almost normal, even though because of the reinfection problem we can't fully go back to normal until we

help the entire world. right now that could take all of 2022 unless we do a better job. >> when you look at the american government response to this, i want to ask you, you know, what conclusions or what reflections you have because we clearly bungled the initial period and the testing, tracing and isolation. we never got that going. then we had a chance with the vaccines to be able to do -- we had time to learn and we had a chance to get the vaccine roll-out right. we were not able to do that. then we had to deal with the variants. and we find of -- i think it is fair to say we bungle the variants well. the one thing we got right is writing the big checks to the private sector for the vac seeps. but anything the government had to administer, it handled badly. what do you make of that? >> well, leadership matters. and, sadly, the cdc which, you know, trains for this kind of

stuff, they fell short a tiny bit with the initial task. they weren't allowed to reach out and work with the private sector to get a website, you know, so that the testing -- everybody in the country would just say, okay, i want a test and that would be allocated properly and you would never have more than a 24-hour delay. wycize for the vaccine, that should have been a cdc website that you get told, okay, go here to get your vaccine. and it is making sure that communities with people of color are getting strong messages and, you know, really spending to make sure we're doing this in an equitable way. >> do you think that the biden administration has made a substantial improvement on what has gone before? >> yes. they don't search the web for the craziest person and put them on their task force. they admit when things are going wrong. you know, just to deal with the

e federal government has to care. it is hard to change. it is too bad in a way that the vaccine rollout started under the, you know, sort of denial administration and now it's harder to get it back in place. but the supply in logistics will not be limiting within about three months here in the united states. >> do you think -- and this is a question about pandemics and global warming. do you think that part of the complacency we have is there is this view. joshua talked about it in a lecture he gave that human beings think that nature will take care of us. and his point was, nature is just a bunch of physics and chemistry. and if we push too hard, you know, you could easily end up triggering chemical reactions

that end life on earth. >> yeah. we're very lucky, you know, that the temperature on this planet and the lack of radiation, even or magnetic field protects from certain things. the more you study it, the number of things that have to be right for life is mind blowing. the weather situation has been pretty stable. the fact that we're the ones destabilizing it is deeply ironic in the fact that we're having a hard time recognizing it is deeply ironic. so, yes, we are spoiled, particularly those of us who live in the temperate zones and don't do outdoor farming. a farmer knows, hey, i'm going to have years even with climate change for crop failure. lots of religious stuff started with praying for rain.

so there are farmers who have malnutrition and increased death. hundreds of millions of people won't be able to live and will speak better territory. >> next up, the $1.9 trillion biden covid relief package. is it too big, too small or just right?

back now with bill gates, the co-founder of microsoft and

the co-chair of the bill and me linda gates foundation. can i ask you about the economy bill? do you think that -- you know, the big debate taking place now is whether we need a stimulus or a covid relief plan as large as president biden is proposing. $1.9 trillion. there are people who say the output gap is not that big. others say, look, most of this is going to public health and relief for people that are not allowed to work. what do you think? is it the right size? >> well, the government always has a hard time targeting exactly the people who are in need and particularly if you are designing programs very quickly. there is no doubt there is some number of people who really are still suffering. you know, say it's 15% out there. the other 85% had the benefit of last year's stimulus activities and, you know, actually, you

know, the poverty rate is down, income levels are up. so it will be tricky when you want to move fast to be targeted. if you add this stimulus to the next round, the build back better, that makes at least a few commentators worry about inflationary pressure. so i know there is a lot of good things in the stimulus bill, and the build back better will have a lot of fantastic climate-related stuff in it. but i hope we can target it better. and we are definitely getting to levels that those inflationary worries aren't crazy. >> you said in another interview that you thought the permanent ban on donald trump and twitter should be rethought. i want to use that as a way to ask you what would be the right solution? you were thinking through in that response that there must be

some way to make sure that lies and false conspiracy theories don't spread while honoring the first amendment. i was wondering what you thought of this idea which was that the algarhythms created by companies like facebook and twitter and all the social media companies are designed to keep us all hooked. and so, you know, the more sensational, the more outrageous, the more dramatic preference over the more boring, you know, so that hillary clinton running a child prostitution ring in a pizza parlor is going to get more clicks than bill gates has a new book about climate. do you think that the government should and can mandate that these algarhythms be written in a way so that they don't just take you down these rabbit holes and show you facts, show you information? is that an appropriate way to think about this? >> well, i'm not an expert on

this as, say, climate change. but i think there is a difference if somebody says i want donald trump specifically to be, you know, his messages to come to me versus putting into somebody's feed similar kind of outrageous, you know, things about the election that, you know, then you're selecting in somebody who wasn't directly requested. so, yes, those feed algarhythms, we're at a very immature stage at understanding how the government and companies should avoid those magnification of conspiracy theories. i do think there is probably some solution there. >> finally, bill, i asked you about what the fall would look like for most of us. there is a big debate taking place with all this money that

has been showered by the federal government that, you know, some people think we will see an explosion of economic growth in the united states in the fall. others think it will be a much longer process because a lot of stuff won't come back, business travel, theaters, things like that. what do you think? are we going to have a big boom in the fall? >> well, certainly off of the base, the sectors like entertainment and yourtourism, those come back, that will add. some sectors like furniture buying and other things have been super strong. of course, the stock market has had this income effect because of the interest situation. to me the interesting question isn't the next 12 months. it is the permanent change to the notion of, do i u know, go be physically in the,

say, i'm talking to african heads of state, will they keep a block of time so we could have that quick 20 min outmeeting more often instead of flying all the way there for the one hour meeting every few years. so the behavior strange about only being in the office a quarter of the time or telehealth or better online education, those are the changes that i'm fascinated by, which are permanent changes to behavior that could change how you think about downtown commercial space dramatically. >> and your gut is that these changes are here to stay. >> half the companies have their employees come in one week out of four, that the, you know, traffic patterns, the shares of real estate between companies, that's a very dramatic change, you know, with rents going down.

winners and losers. >> it is a terrific book and people should really read it. thanks again for joining us. >> thanks, fareed. next on gps, four years ago, it would have cost you around $1,000 to buy a bitcoin. last week it was worth more than $57,000. sorry you didn't get in on the digital currency craze? so are some of the world's biggest governments. that story when we come back.

now for our what in the world segment. if you are worried you are missing out on the bitcoin craze, you are in good company. governments have watched the currency take off and now they want a piece of the action. this week jerome powell said the federal reserve is seriously considering creating a digital dollar that would exist alongside the traditional dollar. in fact, a recent survey found 86% of central banks are exploring the idea. to understand the idea, consider

crypto currencies like bitcoin. these are created by private actors that theoretically work like cash. you instantly purchase a tesla by sending them bitcoin. this only works because tesla has agreed to accept bitcoin as payment. no one has to accept it. central bank dig cal currencies on the other hand would be legal tender. rather than taking weeks to transfer money to bank accounts, print checks and mail out debit cards, the government sends the money to a digital wallet on your phone that could be used to buy groceries or pay rent. in pilot projects, the chinese government sent small amounts of money to people via lottery. they have made four million

transactions, totaling $300 million worth of spending. the main benefit of digital currencies as janet yellen told "the new york times" this week would be -- >> faster, safer and cheaper payments. >> now, countries are approaching this idea cautiously because we worry about damaging their financial system by undermining institutions like private banks. but some governments also see an opportunity to disrupt the global financial system to their benefit. for example, a digital euro could help the eu chip away at the dollar's dominance. it is a long-held goal that has only become more pressing as the united states has weaponized the dollar. when the trump administration imposed sanctions on iranian individuals and businesses, secondary sanctions meant that european countries had to stop doing business with iran or else they could be cutoff from the u.s. financial system.

european nations tried to set up a mechanism to skirt the sanctions, but it was a failure. digital currencies could offer a better solution. china and russia would also like to challenge dollar supremacy but they may have an additional darker motivation. as the financial times points out, libertarians have challenged crypto currencies because they keep the government out of commerce. state-backed digital currencies can empower governments by providing detailed information about people's business dealings, who is trance acting with whom, what they're buying and selling. in the right hands this could be used to set economic policy or target money laundering. in the hands of the chinese communist party or the kremlin, it could be used to crack down on ethnic minorities or political disdents. it may follow the same path the internet had. it would empower individuals.

and to be fair, it has fulfilled that promise in many parts of the world in many ways. but in other parts and in other ways, it has become yet another tool of authoritarian government control. one more sobering and unintended consequence of the great information revolution. thank you to all of you for being part of my program this week. i will see you next week. hi. i'm brian stelter live in new york, and this is "reliable sources" where we examine the story behind the story and try to figure out what is reliable these days. the hour, addressing the declassified report about jamal khashoggi's murder. will president biden be pressured to take a stand against saudi arabia? making facebook pony up and what started there is not stopping there. u.s. lawmaker david cicilline will join me live.