out for this holiday weekend. best-selling author james patterson talks about his book on the kennedy family and his efforts to assist bookstores impacted by the pandemic. time magazine political correspondent, molly discusses a life and career of house speaker nancy pelosi. nick adams, founder and president of the foundation for liberty and greatness offers his thoughts on the similarity between president trump and winston churchill. and on monday it is an extra 24 hours of book tv monday evening kickoff a summer series featuring david and find the whole schedule online on booktv.org or consult your program guide. ♪ ♪ >> welcome to the policy briefing series i am a director of the hoover institution for the hoover institution at stanford university is a permanent

research institutions. we have been generating policy ideas that promote economic prosperity, national security and democratic governance. the dissimulation of the work has a simple impact on important public policy issues here and around the world. we begin taking the steps to lead us out to this crisis we help you find value in these important discussions as we look forward to ways to mitigate potential effects of the coronavirus has had on the u.s. and on the world. as a reminder, we will be taking audience questions and encourage you to submit yours using the button at the bottom of your screen. today's briefing is from larry dimond who is a senior fellow at the hoover institution. he is with the u.s. world bank and other governmental and nongovernmental agencies dealing with developments. his recent books include his influence in american

interest, and ill wins, saving democracy from russian rage, chinese ambition and american complacency. thank you for joining us today. >> thank you tom it's a pleasure to be with you and all of the audience. he went let's jump right in your expert on china and democratic institutions around the world. let me jump right into the middle of this. several leaders within the chinese communist party have claimed that their government has performed well relative to democracies in the world and controlling the spread of the virus within china and providing aid in critical supplies to other nations. has a corona been a boon for authoritarian regimes like china and their reputation for dealing with pressing social problems? >> guest: well, tom, thank you. i don't consider myself an expert on china but i have been trying to understand what it has been doing to project inappropriate power around the

world and to repress its population at home. i don't think you need to be an expert on china to know the claims it's making are false. in the challenges it is posing to democracy has a lot of hull in them. so let's begin with how this virus started. we know it began in wuhan. it went from being from being an early crisis that needed radical containment to be a global pandemic because china was not transparent with its own society or world with what was happening. those were trying to ring the alarm bell about the inception of the virus that could be very dangerous to human life were punished, suppressed, and ultimately one of these chinese doctors of course lost his life, many of them

fighting the epidemic. globally, tom, i think it's very important that first about we don't know what the death rate in china is because we can't believe any of the statistics they produce. they are all manipulated. and second of all, we do know what the death rates are and democracies around the world, because they are transparent in the assembling of data and information. that record shows very wide variation among democracies in the world and how they are managing the crisis. so in spain, you have had over 500 people. 1million population dying from the virus over 400 in italy, over 300 in britain, and nearing 200 in the u.s. but some countries have had

very little impact on human life. israel has had only 25 deaths. 1million, south korea only five. 1million, and taiwan has had under one death. 1million. that is been the greatest success story of any country in the world and managing the virus. so democracy is very live and i think the lesson here is not to just take chinese propaganda on its face, but rather to look and see why some democracies have been doing better than others. >> with the other democracies what explains the variations across democracies in respect the disease what about china's claims what's the validity of that claim. >> they have been sending planes, personal protective equipment, facemasks and so on. it has been nothing at the level that they promised or

ballyhooed as the propaganda initiative in some cases people open up the boxes and they find which is often been the case with their road initiatives what they deliver is a lot less than what they promise. some of the materials have been distinctly inferior quality and people feel a little bit cheated. >> guest: interesting. let's go back to talking about the cross-country variation within democracies the success in thwarting the pandemic. i would imagine there's some demographic variables that explain the variation, want you to focus also on the differences in governance across these countries and how that may affect their ability to combat the virus. >> guest: i think if you study

what countries like taiwan have done going have a very deep dive into that one week from now when the hoover institution will host at 9:00 a.m. pacific a really extensive policy discussion of the taiwan experience in managing covid-19 will have the vice president of taiwan and the secretary of state science and technology advisor speaking to us along with several other panelists including our own lonnie chung. what you learn from the taiwan experience from south korea, from israel, some of these other countries like germany and scandinavia, early warning made a difference. countries responded very rapidly very vigorously with public health measures public education measures they were able to get ahead of the virus

and often contain it and identifying the sick isolating them, contact tracing, screening at the airport and so on. earlier and widespread testing made a big difference as well in a number of these countries in different ways taiwan was doing testing of people in terms of their temperature and movement and so on. career manufactured had a lot of viral tests that they applied very early, taiwan, israel they have been using big data to try and track the pattern of the virus. in the democracies that have had success also have some other common features. they have strong public health systems they tend to be healthier with long life

expectancy, and lower levels of chronic diseases. one of the things i worry about in the united states is if you look at the advanced industrial democracies in terms of one indicator of public health which is the rate of obesity the rate of obesity is 36% maybe 50% higher than the. advanced democracies so we have some work to do. these successful democracies were able to acquire and widely distribute facemasks, hand sanitizers, they push their public health experts out in front to be the authoritative voice and coordinating a response they elicited her started from the beginning with higher levels of public trust and confidence and therefore cooperation than in some of the other

democracies. sue and interesting that's a good starting discussion i know you are an expert on the governance around the world and in particular he studied the emergence or contraction of the use of democratic institutions and countries you coin the phrase democracy recession to have the growth of democracy around the world what is this pandemic doing to the constant struggle between democracy and authoritative regimes around the world? : : : for comprehensively and persistently authoritarian. you saw vladimir putin say he was going to do this but used

this to eliminate term limits, you had hungary which had already crossed the line to authoritarianism pass a measure of parliament that gave victor or bond decree power and suspended parliament and by elections in the prime minister can now ruled i -- by decree. you had countries banning newspapers, arresting opponents and critics. even india has been using the emergency to prosecute critical journalists and intellectuals including, and his brother said hearth, a major indian online newspaper is being prosecuted,

in a critical fashion. you have the liberal democracies and authoritarian regimes seizing on the crisis to narrow freedom and another thing we can talk about, something we all need to ponder, the challenge to human freedom, this comes from even liberal democracies like korea and israel with tracking and surveillance apps on mobile phones and what happens if those don't go away after the crisis. >> host: we are listening to larry diamond at the hoover institution. we are talking about democracies and authoritarian regimes. tracing and tracking quarantine strategy a lot of countries are using, might be considered

invasive surveillance of the location, the restrictions based on gathering that data. it does create problems, ways to mitigate those problems. can you talk about that? >> guest: our watchword, involving a free society at the hoover institution, this is a pretty important problem from the standpoint of human liberty, they helped states identify where the audience -- where the virus is cropping up. who had been in contact you can alert the people and it does automate and speed up the

contract tracing. governments can use them to monitor people for other reasons and what happens when we surrender our privacy, surrender and to get that freedom back after the crisis. we can't trust governments, even very liberal governments to surrender these tools after the crisis is over. we should have a debate for why people want to surrender their freedom even now. after the crisis ends and what is going on, we need independent review boards of respected jurists, civil society leaders, religious and

ethical leaders, monitor what the government is doing in the claims the government is making, get authoritative information of mobile phone companies what those applications, and how much freedom we want to surrender. and return to the people. >> free democracy is successful in managing the south korea taiwan, and how do they navigate the civil liberty governance concerns associated with that. >> i think this is a matter of debate now in korea where the

current president moon has a lot of popularity. the independent-minded society. and by the intelligence organization, to track terrorists being used to track the virus. this is ongoing. there is such a enormous success in containing the virus early on. reducing, pretty close to 0 and it is easy to do if you are an

ion state that requires strong public health coordination and vigilance and early action, the compromise of individual freedom in the temporary emergency -- >> the apps or technology that allows tracing, these apps are technologies, built with self-destruct systems to automatically expire 6 weeks out, 8 weeks out and there is a way to balance civil liberty with surveillance issues. and to protect individual privacy. and how does it protect privacy.

>> i don't know how they daughter what they do and one way to ensure greater privacy is to use immediate blue tooth connections to identify who you are in contact with a ever in a centralized telephone system. and by relying on more immediate geographic connection of bluetooth, with respect to the self-destruction. i think definitely all legal and technological steps toward eclipsing liberty have to have

sunset clause is attached to them. this is a time related one. and to order the mobile phone companies to implement the self-destruction button. when the crisis has passed. >> great idea. i will come back to the challenges the pandemic is imposing on democracies, a really good question about what they are doing to authoritarian regimes. james asks the following question when it comes to broad-based crises like covid-19, the totalitarian regimes. with very economic structures.

how can countries with decentralized structures, decentralized that competitive advantage in ramon asks the following question. with cuba and venezuela have there been any, and if so what are they? how are the tightly held authoritarian regimes in the world reacting to the pandemic. >> guest: it is impossible to claim, it is intrinsic authoritarian advantage about managing the pandemic, pretty admirable job of doing so frankly in terms of immediate and transparent reaction to the first signs of crisis, a must -- much better job in china has done without the cost in terms of human freedom, korea, taiwan, singapore, and so on,

they did have the 2003 experience of the sars epidemic and learned from that about the need from a lot of the measures they spoke of but the claim of intrinsic advantage for authoritarianism simply doesn't wash. the second question again? >> what is going on in places like cuba? >> guest: it is hard to know what is going on with respect to covid-19 in countries like cuba and venezuela. we don't have honest reporting of information, in venezuela the population has been so devastating by hunger and now nutrition. who is dying from was.

and data informs with these earlier points and. what venezuela is in, in the global south, have not been hit like the level of epidemic that europe, the us, and so on. is that because of their climate, or they haven't been in the global transmission quite as much? it remains to be seen but it is noteworthy. i will say iran has been hit pretty hard by this. again, we don't know what the

real rate of infection are because who would believe iranian state authorities involving the accuracy of reporting. >> host: have been no infections in north korea. >> guest: yeah. >> host: i want to get back to democracy and talk about ways the pandemic are threatening the pillars of democracy. let's talk about free press and the media. what pressures are being placed on the free press in the media in democracy generally has resulted in the pandemic and will the free press stay vibrant, an important part of democracy? >> guest: what we are finding now is a heightened need for an effective, vigorous, independent press. we would like it to be one that doesn't further feed political

polarization. we want pluralism, will have media, print media, online media, television media. and and with investigative reporting. with 5 year prison terms for any false reporting with the covid-19 pandemic. who is supposed to determine what is false reporting and what are inconvenient facts government and especially authoritarian or liberal governments don't want their people to know and india has

become an important friend of the united states, the relationship with india is a very important one. donald trump's trip there was a positive step for the united states but we do need to be careful not to give the prime minister a completely free pass while he intimidates critics and tries to suppress media independence in this crisis. that is a dangerous potential trend that could develop. >> host: question about the media. and editor, with these circumstances, with scientific information. our free societies, are they

better able to manage that, and with consistent information about enthusiastic wild west discussion about what is going on. >> i think our major publications, whether their editorial line is in one direction like the wall street journal or in the other direction or the new york times. they did a good job trying to inform their readers, and we didn't know about hydrochlor hydrochloroquine, in recent evidence it doesn't look so promising but. when i don't identify it is speculative at best, now we are

hearing remdisavir is showing promising health effects. the media have been pretty wise and responsible, reporting the range of possibilities. when we have a vaccine. they dampen public expectations would allow for the real prospect of hopeful and early breakthrough. and contest them in a bad light is suppressed. you actually handicap the ability to fight this virus. this is why china you take for granted this is the way they operate. germany is not going to wind up

suing china for damages. the whole world has the right to do so whether the virus, whether it escaped from at institute of virology lab. and suppression of the truth from the beginning contributed to the spread of the virus. i will just say this. it is so important. transparency, transparency, transparency. early, truthful, authoritative reporting of what is happening, intelligent, responsible

interpretation. they can question it if they want but moderation of it by the media has been crucial in battling this virus. that brings us to the social media where it is much much more like a wild west. and some hope that facebook is going to be more responsible in getting some of the information on its website and facebook is moving pretty soon toward the creation of an independent review board for some of its editorial decisions. that could help in moderating that. >> google, youtube and facebook censoring actual useful information as opposed to conducting a legitimate editorial activities.

>> guest: this brings us to the independent review board. let's say facebook decides to take down some posts, challenging one scientific claim by government or floating a scientific idea that facebook decide his quackery so they are going to take it down, the thrust of david's question, isn't that dangerous? the value of where we are headed with facebook's voluntary decision to create this independent review board, the facebook user if they have their material taken down could file an appeal to the new independent appeals board and they would assess it and there would be a noncorporate body of individuals weighing the evidence and making the decision. >> host: let's get to another pillar of democracy, voting.

the pandemic affected our physical ability to conduct fair and widely subscribed voting and elections. i have a question from michael, is there a best practice during this public health emergency. >> guest: the clear best practice is something at hand. and and to make more broadly available to the public is vote by mail. if you are going to make progress, slowing or containing the virus in the coming months. if you have a resurgence of the

virus in the fall of this year. in the fall of 1918, a lot of people are going to, and you are short of poll workers like we were in wisconsin but even in cities like milwaukee where they reduce the number of polling stations by 95%, absentee from their homes, put their ballot or prestamped obviates envelope. and it is going to be a lot safer. at a minimum it is important that we give states and localities for assistance they

want and need to ramp this up as an option for their voters if they want to avail themselves of it. five states will vote purely by mail in november of this year, three in colorado, oregon or washington. they are joined by two others, hawaii and utah. utah is an interesting case. it is a deep red state, faithfully republican. county by county, facing in universal vote by mail. the voters liked it. it worked out well, decided to adopt it at the state level. political science colleagues that evaluated what happens when counties in california, washington and utah switched from voting mainly in person to mandatory vote by mail.

what they found is very encouraging to the current moment, no partisan impact at all. vote by mail had no effect on the percentage turnout of democrats versus republicans. had no effect on the average electoral results in terms of the balance between two parties. seems to be partisan neutral. and we can all get behind it and improve our safety and security and legitimacy of the election by having more comprehensive vote by mail. >> host: the person that checked the ballot is the person entitled to make the vote. how does one protect against noncitizen voting by mail? >> guest: they will not get a mail ballot. i don't think -- no one has

raised significant concern. the greater concern is very subtle, i don't dismiss the authoritarian figure in the household and maybe traditional father or strong-willed other individual and i will tell you how to vote. the downside of every other option, the downside of that is pretty low risk, the risk of many people feeling they can't vote or maybe they are exposing themselves to greater danger by voting in person, 7 people at

least who voted in wisconsin came down with covid-19 in the april primary. >> host: maria wants to know why we don't just vote electronically by the internet? >> guest: i think there will be growing support for internet voting. senator bob carrie authored an op-ed in favor of that and the answer is very simple. the technology simply isn't there, to ensure against fraud and subversion and contamination of the vote. it is too easy to hack any internet system, even what we thought would be a secure one. just ask the pentagon. the best computer scientists in the world and the united states have a very clear stand here and it is in two parts.

part one is don't ever hold a vote of consequence that cannot be audited or recounted by paper trail. internet voting can't do that, the secrecy of the ballot in order to do that and number 2, don't institute internet voting until we have some technological breakthrough that is not on the horizon. >> host: let's talk about civil society. every democracy depends on a vibrant civil society. they engage in voting and discourse to solve social problems. the predicate of civil society is freedom to assemble, and this pandemic is limited in many significant ways. how do you see the pandemic, civil society vibrant for

democracy. >> guest: in several ways, there is the danger of legal action by elected and nonelected leaders who want to heighten their power and diminish freedom so that they don't have to suffer criticism and oversight. i am really worried about damage to the resource base of civil society, nonprofit institutions, think tanks, universities, oversight organizations as a result of the economic pain we are going to be going through and the third thing is a lot of civil society organizations prosper

from face-to-face, and not just to defend democracy, to hand out food to hungry people. one of the crazies food banks are facing right now is not only a shortage of the money, to distribute it. there is a shortage of volunteers who hand out the food because people are afraid of getting sick. all of these are dangers to civil society and community spirit. >> host: have you seen any new displays of civil interaction that give you optimism about the future of our democracy? >> guest: yes i have. we are all seeing them. some of them involve these, from a distance celebrations of the amazing work of our medical

care professionals and first responders who are being treated like the battling heroes that they are. when people come to the balconies or play music or applaud them or sing them and so on and the musical tributes including the amazing tribute cnn hosted a couple weeks ago. i have to say, i think another reassuring thing is we haven't lost our sense of humor. some of the best humor that i have seen, political humor and almost infantile humor has been generated during this pandemic and if i could share one example we need a light moment amid this grim challenge we are

facing. the new yorker had a hard cartoon, many of us are dog owners, we identify with this, had a cartoon of a bunch of dogs seated around the border with the head dog in your role as director had a cat at the other end of the board room, the director is saying to the other dogs, our covid-19 plan is working, the humans are staying home and the cat pipes up why wasn't i consulted about this. >> host: that is great, that is funny and appropriate for the times. the greatest celebration of our time is the virtual cocktail party that everybody is attending at least on friday afternoons. i will enjoyed those. >> mine is on thursday afternoon so i will savor it at the end of this day. >> host: a great conversation,

thanks for joining us this morning. our next insider policy briefing will be tuesday may 5th at 11 am pacific, 2:00 pm eastern with doctor scott atlas and economist john taylor. they will be discussing covid-19 and the reopening of the economy. just remind you, doctor scott atlas is the david and joan trey tell senior fellow at the hoover institution was before becoming here, he was a tertiary care medicine, medical centers in the country, served as chief of neuroradiology at stanford university medical center. john taylor is the george p shultz senior fellow of economics at the hoover institution and professor of economics at stanford university. john served as under secretary of the treasury for international affairs under president george w. bush. i'm looking forward to my discussion with a preeminent medical doctor and economist as we examine the salient questions around reopening our

economy in a safe and productive manner. you can join tuesday's briefing the same link you signed on today and you find the hoover institution, hoover.org and on twitter, facebook and instagram. i want to thank you for joining us, please stay healthy and look forward to seeing you next time. >> here's a look at some publishing industry news. last week simon & schuster ceo carolyn reedy died at 71. she began her public cutting -- publishing career and about in 1974 and moved to simon & schuster in 1992 where she led the company for the past 12 years. there is a plan to assist independent bookstores in the wake of the covid-19 pandemic. the publisher, one of the biggest in the world will provide greater discounts, extend dates on invoice payment and assist with cost of returned books in stores that are working to reopen. the new york times reports on

the many forthcoming books about the coronavirus pandemic. on a -- jonathan burnham said the difficulty for publishers is we know there will be a lot and only a few of them will work. also in the news, in pd bookscan reports book sales were up 10% for the week ending may 9th would buy a surge in young adult nonfiction purposes. a young adult nonfiction sales were on par with 2019 but still down almost 9% for the year. many book festivals and conferences forced to cancel continue to offer attendees a virtual experience. expo will offer a series of online events, all the programs will be hosted on the facebook page and be free to the public. next month the bronx book festival will take place online on june 6th and the american library association's annual conference goes virtual from june 24th through 20 sixth.

booktv will bring new programs and publishing news which you can watch all our archived programs anytime, booktv.org. >> african-american studies professor frank frank wilderson offers his thoughts on being black in america. then we look at books by pj o'rourke and another discussion from the virtual bay area book festival on parenting during the pandemic. find more information on booktv.org. >> frank wilderson spent years in south africa where he was elected to the african national congress. during the country's transformation after apartheid. and red, white, and black, cinema and the suc