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Fareed Zakaria GPS

Interview With Hillary Clinton About Trump, The Coronavirus, And The 2020 Presidential Race; Hillary Clinton: Biden Is Building The Kind Of Coalition Of Energized Votes That I Had; Hillary Clinton: There Are Unconscious Biases And A Double Standard; Hillary Clinton On Misogyny In America & The World; What In The World: The Other Immigration Crackdown; With The "Public Charge" Rule, Trump Sharpens An Old Tool; The GPS Challenge: How Long Did Largest Trade Deal To Date Take Place? Aired 10-11a ET

Aired March 08, 2020 - 10:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[10:00:28]

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN ANCHOR: This is GPS, the GLOBAL PUBLIC SQUARE.

Welcome to all of you in the United States and around the world. I'm Fareed Zakaria.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Today on the show, Hillary Clinton. The 2016 Democratic candidate for president talks to me about her opponent Donald J. Trump.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Such a nasty woman.

ZAKARIA: And his three-plus years so far in the White House.

TRUMP: We've done I think more than any president.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He has made some very serious missteps as president.

ZAKARIA: She also shares her thoughts on the 2020 Democratic candidates who are still standing, one of whom will be Donald Trump's opponent this time.

CLINTON: What Joe's victories on Super Tuesday showed is that he is building the kind of coalition that I had.

ZAKARIA: Also the former secretary of State talks about the coronavirus, Afghanistan and, on International Women's Day, the state of women in the United States and the world.

CLINTON: There still is something inside that when a woman says, wait a minute, I'd like to lead, little unconscious alarm bells start to ring.

(END VIDEOTAPE) ZAKARIA: But first here's my take. Medical experts are trying to map out the health effects of coronavirus. Economists are estimating its economic fallout, yet predicting its broader political consequences is likely to be the biggest challenge of all.

It's possible the virus will quickly be contained, and we'll all move on, but if it persists, this epidemic could accelerate a major political shift. In several countries the populous right is trying to blame the contagion on open borders and migrants. In reality the disease has spread internationally mostly by travelers and tourists. Impoverished asylum seekers don't usually get on board cruise ships, but that hasn't stopped politicians from trying to exploit the crisis.

Italy's firebrand Matteo Salvini railed against the government for continuing to allow in migrants from Africa, though there are very few cases of coronavirus on that entire continent. In the United States the scurrilous attacks have been directed mostly against China.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JESSE WATERS, FOX NEWS HOST: They are eating raw bats and snakes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, Jesse.

WATERS: They are a very hungry people. The Chinese communist government cannot feed the people.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, no.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAKARIA: Really. Tom Cotton, one of Donald Trump's staunchest allies in the Senate, suggested that the virus might have originated in a high security biochemical lab in China.

In the 1980s I remember when the far left trafficked in rumors about HIV having been invented in CIA labs. The far right has now found its own virus conspiracy theory.

President Trump for his part fuels the fears by emphasizing how the disease came from China hand how he heroically saved American lives by closing the border in late January to people coming from China.

In fact, public health officials stress the importance of comprehensive public health systems that can safely and speedily test lots of people, isolate and provide care to those infected and issue clear guidelines for the rest of us.

Things have now ramped up in America, but the process has been far too slow, in large part because Trump eliminated the White House's pandemic chain of command in 2018. It would have been even worse if his proposed budget cuts for the CDC and other agencies had actually gone through.

Coronavirus is also wreaking havoc with trade. We are already in a phase of deglobalization as shown by the slowdown in world trade. Some of these shifts are a natural rebalancing after decades of accelerating globalization, but will they be more than that?

It will all depend on politics and politicians. If people's fears can be exaggerated and manipulated it's possible to imagine the world heading further down a path of tariffs, walls and barriers. The historian Angus Maddison found that after the last great era of globalization broke down with the onset of World War I, trade and immigration flows were depressed for three decades.

In many ways we still do live in a world of pervasive globalization, especially in the digital economy. According to a Bloomberg report, trade and services has risen by about 50 percent over the last 10 years. Royalties and licensing fees, an indication of the spread of information, technology and entertainment worldwide, are up about 60 percent.

[10:05:05]

While migration flows have actually remained stable over the last decade, travel has continued to expand dramatically year after year. You see, we humans want to have contact with the rest of the planet. The solution to problems of a global age can only be global, better information, communication and coordination across the world. No one country can stop an epidemic by itself. International collaboration is crucial.

Sadly it's far easier to peddle fear and hate and explain that it all began because the Chinese eat raw bats.

For more go to CNN.com/fareed, and read my "Washington Post" column this week, and let's get started.

Let's get right to my guest this week, Hillary Clinton. I will, of course, talk to her about the 2020 presidential race and the current occupant of the White House, but since I started with coronavirus and since it has the world on edge, that is where I will start with her as well.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Hillary Clinton, pleasure to have you on.

CLINTON: Thank you very much, Fareed.

ZAKARIA: So Donald Trump says there have been 100,000 cases of the coronavirus worldwide, and yet just a very small number in the United States. Should he get credit for that?

(LAUGHTER)

CLINTON: I don't think that anybody should get credit for that. We are a long way from knowing how this will all play out. It's really just beginning. Let us all hope that the numbers stay low, the fatalities stay as low as possible, but what I'm worried about is the attitude that has been taken by the president himself and his administration, trying to downplay the risk, not being prepared, initially pushing the experts out of the picture. Now thankfully they are back in and able to not only talk to the public but help to better manage how we are responding.

ZAKARIA: He, the president, has said that there are some things the Obama administration did that he questioned. He says that the Obama administration didn't handle the swine flu well. He talks about how it changed some of the parameters of testing. What do you think?

CLINTON: Well, I don't think the facts support that assessment. In fact, what we do know is that the SARS epidemic, which happened in the very beginning of the Obama administration, because I was secretary of State at the time, really was a full-court press by the administration to be sure that at every level, not only national, state and local but globally the United States was part of the response.

The centers for Disease Control had been given the responsibility under the Obama administration to be vigilant and try to get ahead of where viruses like this were formulating, especially if they were animal-to-people transmission viruses, so there was a lot that was done under the Obama administration, and, in fact, the Trump administration severely cut back the CDC budget, cut back on this program of overseas vigilance, but I don't think it's a time to point fingers whether it's from the past or from the present.

What people should expect is that everybody from their president on down is focused on one thing, not on name-calling and blame-placing but how are we going to make sure that we prevent the spread of this virus in as much as that is possible and be sure that we support state and local health officials, particularly on the front lines, doctors, nurses and others, so that they will fully equipped and ready to take care of those who get seriously ill.

I think the experts have all told us that is there are probably many, many people walking around with the virus by now, that it has been transmitted in many places of the country already. Many of them will not get sick or will get only mildly sick. Others it will be a more acute experience and so we've got to be sure that we're prepared to take care of those who get really sick.

ZAKARIA: Another big thing that's happened as recently is the deal with the Taliban. You were secretary of State dealing with exactly this issue. What do you think of the deal from what we know of it?

CLINTON: Well, I think what's more important is what do the Afghan people and their government think of the deal, and they were pretty much cut out of the negotiations. Immediately after it was signed between the United States and the Taliban in Doha, the Afghan government, which has been elected to represent the Afghan people, said they did not agree with the very large prisoner release that had been included in the agreement.

[10:10:17]

There was supposed to be a cessation of hostilities. Apparently that did not hold and American forces were part of bombing a couple of sites in recent days where the Taliban had resumed fighting, so I think it's difficult to have a peace agreement when you leave out the government of the country that you are expecting to uphold and live under the peace agreement.

ZAKARIA: When we look at the broader region, are you worried that we are on a path toward greater conflict with Iran because the tension has mounted. Sanctions are on Iran. The Iranian economy has been strangled, but there is no negotiation going on.

CLINTON: I think it was a very serious error of the Trump administration to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal. I started the negotiations on that. We were determined to put a lid on the nuclear weapons program of Iran, and we did. Now, I can understand a new administration might come in and say, we don't think you got a good enough deal, we want to make it even better.

I would argue with that, but I can understand it, and because of that we want to reopen negotiations to add even more elements to this deal, but that's not what they did. What they did was to say it's a terrible deal, we're pulling out. So what has happened?

We now know that Iran has gone back to enriching uranium. It appears they have increased their stocks of highly enriched uranium putting them closer to the development of a weapon. That doesn't make anybody safer, and while they are doing that, there are no discussions as far as I know going on.

Iran is also facing a real crisis with the coronavirus that has hit its people and its leadership very hard. There could be an opportunity to try to open some doors for cooperation. None of that is happening, so what is happening as a result of what I think was a quite short- sighted decision on the part of the Trump administration? They are getting closer to a nuclear weapon which to me is a disastrous development because of what it will mean in the region and the encouragement it will give to others to pursue a weapon as well.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, Hillary Clinton says she warned America about how bad a president Donald Trump would be. Now she says it's worse than she imagined.

Back in a moment with that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:17:36]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: When you look at the Trump administration, we're now three years in, you were campaigning against somebody who had never held any government office, and you were worried and you sounded the alarm.

CLINTON: Mm-hmm.

ZAKARIA: Honestly, do you think it has been as bad as you thought it would be? CLINTON: It's actually been worse, Fareed, because when he was

elected, I did hold out hope that despite all of the rhetoric, the bombast and everything we heard in the campaign that the job has a way of encouraging people to grow into it, to accept the awesome responsibilities that one has, but when I heard his inaugural speech, the divisiveness of it, the continuing to set Americans against Americans, the language, the carnage in the streets, I knew that he had no intention of trying to be the president for the entire country.

He was still very much focused on those who he had brought into his base, and I think as a result he has made some very serious missteps as president.

ZAKARIA: And you think it hasn't gotten better over time?

CLINTON: Well, the economy that he inherited was on the right track, and it was important that it remain on the right track. I'm worried, though, that we have seen some unfortunate detours, for example, with the trade embargoes and trade wars that he's engaged in, and the failure to make any investments for the future.

The big tax cuts have not produced the kind of big investments that are going to make us richer and safer and stronger. We were talking a minute ago about the virus. You know, there's a lot we should be doing to invest in infrastructure here and around the world to protect us against the spread of disease.

With climate change, a lot of disease is going to move further and further north out of tropical climates and are going to be posing threats to us. We're not thinking about the future. And it's all transactional, what's in it for the president and his allies, his cronies and his re-election.

ZAKARIA: The thing I'm struck about is when he attacks you or Democrats, it's always -- it's about the character of the person. It's very personal.

[10:20:02]

So he's asked by Sean Hannity what do you think of Mike Bloomberg, and he just goes on about how short he is which is actually not even true. He's 5'8". But -- that he wanted a box for the debates, which, of course, again is not true. But he is trying to something very simple, you know, and that goes to somebody's character. I mean, Sleepy Joe or, you know --

CLINTON: Mini Mike.

ZAKARIA: Crooked Hillary and Mini Mike.

CLINTON: Mm-hmm.

ZAKARIA: Not always rooted in -- in anything, but somehow he is effective in making that work. Should Democrats be mimicking that?

CLINTON: I think there's a real problem because when Democrats do, they get punished, and I think there are a number of reasons for that. If you criticize someone personally or on a character basis on the right, it's just part of the landscape. It's how you win elections. It's who you are, and he's perfected the art of the smear. And if you're on the other side of the political divide, most of the people who think and work and vote over there really don't like that.

They aren't comfortable with it. They don't think it's the right thing to do, so it's difficult to thread the needle. So I do think there are enough criticisms to make about him that you don't have to resort to that kind of name-calling.

ZAKARIA: There was an article in "Vox," I don't know if you saw it, on Super Tuesday, on Facebook, the single most searched article, the single most searched news topic was Hillary Clinton's e-mails.

CLINTON: That's right. I saw that. Just think about --

ZAKARIA: What do you make of it?

CLINTON: Well, I'll tell you what I make of it, is that FOX and the sort of right-wing echo chamber has mastered Facebook, aided and abetted, might I say by Facebook. So I read that article and what that said to me was here it's Super Tuesday, the Democrats are trying to decide who they want to nominate against Donald Trump. The coronavirus is spreading.

We now have more and more reports from different places in the country, but led by FOX News and Breitbart and others, it's going to be about my e-mails, a totally, you know, bogus, finished, nonsense attack on me because they know how not only to drive those stories under the radar screen where the mainstream press like yourself are covering, you know, what's happening now, but they know how to deliver those stories through the algorithms into the feeds of millions and millions of people.

So I begrudgingly give them a lot of credit because they are shaping a narrative that is part of the messaging around Trump's re-election, around people who challenge Trump, changing the subject all of the time. You know, they're not interested or even worried about Trump saying that the coronavirus is a hoax. They don't want their listeners, their viewers, you know, the people that they are frankly feeding this other narrative to, to be focused on that.

Well, what's one of the ways to get them? You know, I live rent-free in all their heads, as you know, Fareed, so what's one way to get them diverted from the mistakes Trump is making in handling the coronavirus? Well, let's bring up Hillary's e-mails again. Very clever, very diabolical, very destructive to the kind of fact-based environment, and particularly news environment that is necessary for a democracy to function.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, Secretary Clinton on Bernie Sanders verses Joe Biden. Does she have an endorsement to make? We'll see.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:28:44]

ZAKARIA: If Bernie Sanders is the Democratic nominee, will you campaign for him?

CLINTON: I will support the nominee of the Democratic Party.

ZAKARIA: But will you campaign for him?

CLINTON: I don't know if he would ask me to campaign for him, Fareed, because I have no idea what he is thinking about for a general election campaign. As I've said many times, I do not think he's our strongest nominee against Donald Trump.

ZAKARIA: Is that an endorsement of Joe Biden?

CLINTON: I'm not endorsing.

ZAKARIA: There's nobody left.

CLINTON: Well, I guess that's true. There isn't anybody left, but I think what Joe's victories on Super Tuesday showed is that he is building the kind of coalition that I had basically. It's a broad- based coalition. I finished, you know, most of the work I needed to do for the nomination on Super Tuesday and then it kind of lingered on, and I think Joe is on track to doing exactly the same thing, putting together a coalition of voters who are energized.

You looked at those numbers. People are turning out, and they are turning out to try to pick the person they think would be the best president but also the person as our nominee who would most likely be able to beat Trump, and clearly the Trump campaign and Trump himself know who they don't want to run against and know who they do want to run against.

[10:30:00]

ZAKARIA: One of the challenges you had was unifying the party particularly the Bernie Sanders wing of the party. Do you think Joe Biden will be able to do that better? Is Bernie Sanders more likely to be more cooperative this time around?

CLINTON: Well, I hope so because his failure and the behavior of a lot of his top aides and certainly many of his supporters up to the convention, at the convention and even up to Election Day were not helpful. I had thought we would unify. That's what we'd always done before, and that's what I expected.

I certainly tried to do that when I ran against Barack Obama and worked very hard for him, so I don't know what his plans or the people around him are planning. I can only hope that they understand.

We all have to have a singular goal of defeating Donald Trump. There is nothing more important. Four years of his Presidency is going to leave enough damage, damage to our institutions, to the rule of law, to the expertise of our government and everything from climate change to Coronavirus pandemics.

We cannot even imagine the damage that would be done by four more years of this kind of behavior. So I hope that - that the people including Sanders himself who have worked hard to get the nomination, if they are not successful will close ranks with the rest of us.

ZAKARIA: You know him you've dealt with him for a long time. Do you think he's the person who will wholeheartedly support Joe Biden?

CLINTON: I hope so. He's known Joe Biden longer than he's known me and has had in the past very nice things to say about Vice President Biden. And I hope that he doesn't want to see further damage inflict on our institutions and all that that would mean to our democracy.

ZAKARIA: Do you think, given that we now have two - two men in the late 70s running for the Democratic Nomination, it's essential that the Vice President be a woman that the Vice Presidential Candidate be a woman?

CLINTON: I'm going to let whoever ends up being the nominee make that decision. There are so many factors that go into it. Personally I would love to have a woman on the ticket finally again.

We've had two women Vice Presidential Candidates, one for the Democrats and one for the Republicans, but obviously I would like to, you know, keep that moving and actually have it happen in this election, that someone would be the first woman Vice President.

But whoever the nominee is has to take a really hard look at the Electoral College. What will help him, because that's who it's down to, what will help him win the Electoral College, because I think our nominee could win the popular vote again as I did but that doesn't matter as we know.

ZAKARIA: Coming up on "GPS," Hillary Clinton on the state of women in American society and around the world.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:35:00]

ZAKARIA: Today is International Women's Day, fitting then that my guest was the first female Presidential Nominee of a major American political party. I wanted to hear her thoughts on the state of women in America and around the world. Do you think that the United States today is still misogynistic in many aspects of its life?

CLINTON: I think that the unconscious biases that exist in our society, in any society, even ones where on paper they have advanced much further with things like paid family leave, for example, paid child care and the like to empower women to make their own choices that still is at work.

And the double standard, particularly in public life and not only in political public life but business life, the life of the media and the arts and so much else, yes, there is some absolute misogyny that certainly lives online.

I was so appalled to read about a sticker that had been made depicting Greta Thunberg, the young woman who has been trying to sound the alarm about climate change, being literally subjected to sexual assault, a sticker that was being passed out at a company that is involved in the oil industry in some way.

Now, look, I - I understand that we're still fighting over climate change, although that seems somewhat absurd to me, but to fight by objectifying and having a picture that demonstrated a level of violence towards this young 16-year-old girl who has every right in the world to stand up and say, you know, world, you're not doing what needs to be done, that's misogynistic.

That's not - I don't agree with her - I don't know why she has a big platform. I want a big platform, you know, to repudiate that. Instead it's like let's show her being assaulted. That's misogyny, pure and simple.

So it goes from that kind of overt example of misogyny to these unconscious biases. So we carry it with us, it's sort of deep in the DNA what we expect women to be, and we're okay with kind of opening the doors and allowing our daughters, our granddaughters, you know, to get great educations, compete for great jobs.

[10:40:00]

CLINTON: But there's still is something inside that when a woman says, wait a minute, I would like to lead, I'd like to in charge, I'd like to be your President or your Chief Executive or whatever it might be, little alarm bells, little unconscious alarm bells start to ring.

ZAKARIA: There are people who look at the persistence of feminists, things like me too, or the cancel culture, and they say this is spawning a backlash that is electing Donald Trump, that is empowering these kinds of forces. Is that something to worry about, or is this just a price you have to pay?

CLINTON: You know, I think that forward movement, kind of the law of physics, will always produce a reaction. So whatever the reason might be, there are going to be people who are - who feel that, you know, demanding one's rights or demanding accountability for behavior that is out of bounds is somehow inappropriate or has gone too far is outside the comfort zone.

This is all new to society. Everybody is working this out trying to make sense of it, but I don't think that the process of trying to understand. How do we truly respect and value women in the workplace which is really at root what this is about without objectifying them, without harassing them? How do we best do that?

And if that requires people to be more conscious about their behavior and to think well, you know, maybe that's not a welcome pat on the back or comment, okay. That's not a huge price to pay, so this is - this is where we are in this ongoing debate about how best to empower women, to be the best that they can be under whatever circumstances they find themselves.

I think the backlash which you see in different places around the world is out of fear and it's out of a sense of losing control. In many countries, you know, women working outside the home is seen as incredibly threatening. Until recently women driving a car was seen as incredibly threatening.

This is happening across the world, and there are lots of both serious and kind of amusing ways people are fighting back so for example, in Japan, an advanced economy, they would have an even higher GDP if they could get their educated women in the work force.

That's very difficult because of the way their family structure works, and so women are often taking care of both the young generation and the older generation without much help because the business culture really consumes most of the day, six days a week, of the husbands and providers in those families.

So the women who are in the workplace, they are kind of a pioneering set. And they have been a recent couple of controversies because women have said we don't want to have to wear high heels to work.

You know, after a while, it really hurts your back to walk around in the high heels, and as I understand it the Labor Minister said no, employers can demand that you wear high heels. Or we want to wear glasses, you know. Some of us can't wear contacts and we can't do our work without wearing glasses.

No, we don't want glasses in the workplace so trying to govern even advanced society how women appear says volumes about how women are viewed? So you can go from, you know, the worst circumstances for women where they are still, you know, basically marginalized and shut out to advanced economies where they are still viewed as something of an oddity.

And that's what those of us who believe in the equality of men and women and openness of opportunities to men and women based on ability and work ethic and all the rest of it are going to have to continue speaking out. So that, you know, we don't lose progress and go backwards.

ZAKARIA: Thank you for speaking out here, Hillary Clinton, pleasure to have you on.

CLINTON: Thank you.

ZAKARIA: If my interview leaves you wanting to hear more of Secretary Clinton, there's a new documentary series about her on "HULU". It's called simply "Hillary" and it uncovers her life up through the 2016 campaign.

Next here on "GPS," the Trump Administration has spent three years upending American immigration. Now they have just made a major change in the rules that you might not have heard about. That consequential story when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:45:00]

ZAKARIA: Now for our "What in the World" segment. If the Coronavirus crisis has you worried about the Trump Administration's level of competence, let me point you to an area where the White House has been astonishingly effective, immigration.

Legal immigration to the United States between 2016 and 2018 fell by more than 11 percent, not counting refugees according to an analysis by the National Foundation for American Policy, and it will likely fall more, and this is happening because of strenuous efforts by the administration on a number of fronts.

Late last month a seismic new immigration regulation went into effect, the public charge rule, which makes it much more difficult for immigrants to obtain green cards if they are deemed likely to collect welfare as legal permanent residents.

[10:50:00]

ZAKARIA: As "The New York Times" reports the rule will ask immigration officials to evaluate applicants based on dozens of criteria, including English proficiency, credit scores and whether they receive Medicaid or food stamps.

It's sort of a wealth test for immigrants, and it's a regulation that could reshape legal immigration in the country. The Migration Policy Institute estimates that 69 percent of the millions of immigrants granted green cards between 2012 and 2016 had at least one negative factor under the new public charge rule.

The institute also finds that the rule would disproportionately impact Latino and Asian immigrants. This rule is actually a drastic expansion of a regulation that has existed in some form for more than a century.

And as a Former State Department Official Christopher Richardson explains in "The Washington Post" since its inception the rule has been discriminatory. First, it was used as a justification to deport poor Irish immigrants in the 19th century.

In the 1930s officials used it to bar Jewish refugees from entering the country. Trump has provoked an outcry with policies like the travel ban or dropping refugee admissions to historic lows, but many changes to immigration policy have gone unnoticed.

Last year the Migration Policy Institute compiled a bulleted list all of the administration's policies surrounding migration. It ran 40 pages. The National Foundation for American Policy estimates that Trump's new rules will have lowered immigration by 30 percent by 2021.

Now for Trump this is probably good politics, but it isn't good economics. As Richard Shearmur wrote in "The New York Times" one of the United States' biggest economic advantages over other rich nations is the size and growth of its labor force, a significant component of economic growth. If Trump policies remain in place, average annual labor force growth will be anywhere from 35 to 59 percent lower in the long term, according to the NAPF, and that will likely translate into lower economic growth.

But a future with drastically lower immigration isn't just bad for growth it's actually also bad for welfare. That's because as "VOX" notes immigrants of all skill levels contribute to social security and Medicare through payroll taxes. And an aging population means fewer American-born workers which means we need immigrants to pay into these systems.

That is the great irony of the public charge rule and other policies enacted by this administration. Purportedly they aim to cull immigrants who leech off the state but low immigration itself imperils many welfare programs for all Americans. It's just another example of the Trump Administration dressing up myopic nativism as patriotism.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:55:00]

ZAKARIA: Dozens of British officials poured into Brussels this week to begin post-Brexit trade talks. They are up against the clock. Negotiators only have until the end of the year to finalize trade rules, labor standards and even maritime borders.

It brings me to my question how long did the European Union's largest trade deal to date take to negotiate nine months, 14 months, 52 months or 70 months? Stay tuned and we'll tell you the correct answer.

My book of the week is Thomas Philippon's "The Great Reversal." We had him on the show recently. This is the most important book on economics I've read in a while. It will explains how the United States went from being a vibrant free market with low prices for consumers to one in which oligopolies and monopolies abound and consumers get shafted with higher price.

Powerful, persuasive it should be sent to every member of Congress in Washington. The answer to my "GPS Challenge" this week is D, Japan's deal with the European Union took almost six years to finalize before being implemented in February.

After Donald Trump announced the Transpacific partnership Japan and Europe redoubled their efforts to create the world's largest free trade zone, but Britain will not get access to Japan unless it's part of its new deal with the European Union.

Now both the European Union and at UK want a new free trade deal but reaching that goal will be an uphill battle. Given the EU's geographic proximity and economic interdependence with the UK the European negotiators demanded an equal playing field, meaning British goods must meet the same environmental and labor standards as their European counterparts so as not to undercut them.

But London complains that to follow EU rules would be counter to the very point of Brexit which was to be freed from them. Moreover, the Brits will be simultaneously negotiating a deal with another one of the world's largest markets, the United States.

Washington wants Britain to lower its food standards and allow in such American goods as chlorinated chicken and hormone-treated beef, but to do that would complicate Britain's chance of a deal with Europe.

It seems that Boris Johnson is stuck between an American rock and a European hard place, and he has ten months to decide. Thanks for all of you for being part of my program this week. I will see you next week.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN HOST: Hey, I'm Brian Stelter, this is RELIABLE SOURCES. We're covering the story behind the story. So let's get right to it.