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Fareed Zakaria GPS

Interview with Former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni; Interview With Former Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Nasser Al-Kidwa; Interview With UCSD's 21st Century China Center Founding Chair Susan Shirk; Interview With Author Robert Kagan. Aired 10-11a ET

Aired May 12, 2024 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:37]

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN ANCHOR: This is GPA, the GLOBAL PUBLIC SQUARE. Welcome to all of you in the United States and around the world. I'm Fareed Zakaria coming to you live form New York.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA (voice-over): Today on the program, President Biden threatens to halt arms shipment to Israel and pushes for a ceasefire as Netanyahu seizes a vital part of Rafah. What will it take for Israel to end its operations against Hamas and what would a ceasefire mean for Palestinians?

I'll ask two former foreign ministers, Israel's Tzipi Livni and Nasser al-Kidwa of the Palestinian Authority.

And Xi Jinping traveled to Europe for the first time in five years to meet with the leaders of -- get this -- France, Serbia, and Hungary. Can China drive a wedge between Europe and America?

Then there are less than six months to go until election day in America. The historian Robert Kagan says this could be the country's last free and fair election. Hyperbole or fact-based fear? I'll ask him.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: But first here's my take.

When President Biden made clear he was going to run for reelection I had a sense of what his election strategy was and thought it was an intelligent path to victory. After the chaos of COVID and Trump, Joe Biden would stand for normalcy and a rising tide of good economic news. Donald Trump would divide Republicans with significant chunks of the party wishing that someone like Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis would be their nominee.

Meanwhile, Trump would unite and motivate Democrats, allowing President Biden to focus on the votes of independents and swing states who threw the electoral college to Trump in 2016 and to Biden in 2020. I have to admit none of this is playing out as I thought it would.

Trump is now leading in almost all the swing states. But behind those numbers lie even more troubling details. As someone worried about the prospects of a second Trump term, I think it's best to be honest about reality. I understand that polls are not always accurate. But in general, they have tended to underestimate Donald Trump's support, not overestimate it. I doubt that there are many shy Biden voters in the country.

The economy has been in a robust recovery for more than two years now with unemployment hitting a 54-year low in 2023 and increasing only slightly since then. But Biden is getting little credit for it. The shift here is stark. On the question of whom voters trust more to deal with the economy, Trump has a 22-point lead over Biden according to an NBC poll from January. This marks of a 15-point bump for Trump compared to the same poll in 2020.

Perhaps this is because inflation is a far more pervasive problem than unemployment affecting all Americans every day. Perhaps it's because people's views on the economy now are largely derived from their broader attitudes towards the candidates. But whatever the reasons it's a stunning reversal in the midst of a relentless stream of good economic news.

On cultural issues, Biden and Democrats benefit from the opposition to the Republican Party's position on abortion. But on the other great cultural issue, immigration, Biden is 35 points behind Trump as to who would handle it better. And I do wonder whether abortion will be as large an issue in a presidential race, given that reversing Roe v. Wade threw the issue to state governments and legislatures, and not the federal government.

Perhaps the most worrying new trend for the Democrats is that far from being the more unified party they are now bitterly divided over the war in Gaza. Bernie Sanders has said the eruption of pro-Palestinian protests could be Biden's Vietnam and even invoked the specter of Lyndon Johnson choosing not to run for reelection in 1968 because of the opposition to that war. The analogy is farfetched. America then was itself sending hundreds of thousands of troops to Vietnam with more being recruited from college campuses every week.

[10:05:05]

But there's no denying that the party seems more openly divided than it has been in decades. Only 33 percent of Americans said they approved of Biden's handling of the Israel-Hamas war, which is now opposed both by people who think he is too soft and people who think he is too hard on Israel.

Meanwhile Republicans seem to be uniting behind Trump. Whatever opposition he faced in the primaries has largely melted away. And the trials against him keep him in the spotlight, infuriate his base who sees him as a martyr, and even may serve to make him the object of some sympathy among people in general who believed that his prosecutors are politically motivated. This happens to be true in my opinion. I doubt the New York indictment

would have been brought against a defendant whose name was not Donald Trump. A majority of Americans are skeptical that Trump will be able to get a fair trial according to a CNN poll. And I haven't even mentioned Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornell West and Jill Stein, all of whom would probably take votes away from Biden.

Things could change. Polls do suggest that were Trump to be convicted of a felony, it could shift votes in Biden's favor. The administration may be able to pull off a ceasefire in Gaza and then a broader political settlement that gives Palestinians political rights and Israel diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia. Trump could always embroil himself in some kind of scandal. But trendlines are not working in Biden's favor. He needs to do something bold and dramatic to seize the initiative, on asylum policy, for example, and reverse these numbers.

The one that troubles me the most is on the question of who was the more competent. Joe Biden led Donald Trump by nine points in 2020 but Trump now leads by 16 points in January 2024. That 25-point shift could be a reflection of people's sense that the president's age is affecting his capacity to govern. And there's very little that Joe Biden can do now to change that perception.

Go to CNN.com/opinions to read my column this week. And let's get started.

The U.N. said today that around 300,000 Palestinians have been forced from the southern Gazan city of Rafah in the last week adding emphatically at a post on X, there is nowhere safe to go. Earlier this week, the Israeli army seized the Gazan side of the Rafah crossing with Egypt and President Biden threatened to halt weapons aid to Israel if they launched an all-out attack on the city.

So what are the prospects for a ceasefire and how do Israelis feel about the current state of the assault on Hamas?

Joining me now is Tzipi Livni, who has served Israel as foreign minister and vice prime minister.

Welcome, Tzipi. Let me ask you to begin with the Biden team says Israel does not need to do a major ground incursion into Rafah to secure its goals of destroying Hamas. Bibi Netanyahu and his cabinet disagree. Who do you think is right?

TZIPI LIVNI, FORMER ISRAELI FOREIGN MINISTER: Well, I'm not sitting now in the cabinet and I don't want to be, you know, a balcony adviser to the Israeli government, but it looks like there was not only majority, but all of the ministers decide that it is necessary. But I believe that this is a matter of tactic. As long as we all agree about the goals of the war, meaning the eradication of Hamas, topple the regime of Hamas and release of the hostages.

So I do hope that these tactical questions will be solved between Israel and President Biden. And the most important thing that is missing right now is not the question of what the Israeli forces would do directly in Rafah, outside of Rafah or other cities in Gaza, but the real question is, OK, and then what? What's the end game? Who's going to replace Hamas in Gaza? Because topple the regime is important, but you cannot just topple the regime without replacing it.

And this is a question which is in dispute between the Israeli government, between Netanyahu and Biden, and I do believe that this is the master key for different issues that are now on the table.

ZAKARIA: Let me ask you how you reacted when you saw some of the members of the Israeli cabinet really mocked President Biden.

[10:10:08]

One of them tweeted a line that was Hamas loves Biden after the Biden administration threatened to pause aid. This is an administration, Joe Biden's, that has provided Israel with massive amounts of support. The president came directly into the war zone. The United States has provided tens of billions of dollars' worth of military aid to Israel in this.

And the Israeli government on this one -- given this one disagreement has pushed back or some members of the cabinet have pushed back against Biden very hard.

LIVNI: Yes. I completely agree that the support that President Biden showed since October 7th is impressive. It's not just showing the empathy to the victims of these horrors but really so create a deterrence that prevented deterioration into a regional war, the supply of weapon, and listening to some of these early ministers, it's completely unacceptable.

Now, it's not a secret that I'm a longtime opponent of Prime Minister Netanyahu and I completely disagree and detest some of the ideology that this minister represent. So they are a damage not only to the Israeli-U.S. relationship, but it's a damage to Israel itself from different aspects. And this is only one of it.

ZAKARIA: You mentioned that the key issue is what replaces Hamas. What do you think should replace Hamas? People talk about the Palestinian Authority. People talk about some coalition of Arab states like Saudi Arabia and Egypt. But who would provide security? You know, that seems to me the key there because Saudi Arabia is not going to want to have its troops be firing on Palestinian insurgents.

LIVNI: Well, it's clear that, and I'm not also thinking about just throwing the keys to the other side of the fence hoping that some of that is not a terrorist organization will catch the key and everything will be fine. In a way we have the experience of the disengagement from Gaza will be left, dismantle of the settlement, pulled out our forces and Hamas took over. And therefore doesn't need to take it in terms of stages.

Now, if we publish an ad on tomorrow's paper wanted the regime for Gaza, I don't see many that will apply for the job. And therefore, since there are two million Palestinians there, there's a need for a Palestinian new regime. And the only, not perfect, but that can start doing it is the Palestinian Authority after reforms that the United States is working with them, but yet, this is not enough and there is a game changer.

And this is the bigger plan because there's a need, of course, for the release of the hostages with a ceasefire. During this time hopefully we can start working with the legitimate Palestinian Authority, which is not Hamas, and they are cooperating with the Israel on Israel security in the West Bank. So this can be also a basis and giving legitimacy to Israel to continue in acting against terror within Gaza until we have a regime that can act against terror.

But the Saudis are really a game-changer because this can create not only a new reality in Gaza, but a new security structure in the region, in the region. And my criticism on the Israeli government right now is that they are not willing to deal with what we called since the Iran the day after and the day after is here and now. And they are not willing to do so because some of these ministers are not just mocking the president of the United States, but also are not willing to deal with this because for them, the Palestinian Authority is part of the problem, and Netanyahu succeeded in portraying the Palestinian Authority and Hamas as the same.

So it's really a very complicated jigsaw and there's a need for the U.S. to orchestrate all the different part of it. But there's a need also for Israel to start talking about the -- who's going to replace Hamas as a regime because otherwise all the other option are worse.

[10:15:05]

Israel doesn't want to re-occupy Gaza. Maybe some of the ministers that do but it's against our interests. Hamas cannot stay and we all agree not only in Israel, but also with the U.S., that there's a need to eradicate the regime. And there's a need for cooperation with Egypt on Philadelphi Corridor, the border between Gaza Strip and Egypt. But there's a need to make this decision because otherwise leaving it chaos will bring Hamas back.

And this is what we see in some parts of Gaza Strip, where the Israeli forces already acted against Hamas. They pulled out and now Hamas is back. And this is something that we really cannot afford. And of course we need --

ZAKARIA: Tzipi Livni --

LIVNI: -- a civilian regime that will take care of the civilians from humanity perspective. Very complicated, but I believe that it's doable and this can bring the change and turn this awful situation into maybe hopefully a new opportunity.

ZAKARIA: Tzipi Livni, thank you so much for that very interesting and wise set of remarks.

LIVNI: Thank you.

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, I will ask the former Palestinian Authority foreign minister Nasser al-Kidwa about his vision for peace and what role Palestinians could play in Gaza after the war.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:21:02]

ZAKARIA: And now for another perspective on the war in Gaza and what comes next, I want to bring in Nasser al-Kidwa. He is the former foreign minister for the Palestinian Authority and represented the PLO at the U.N. He is also the nephew of the late Yasser Arafat.

Nasser, welcome. Let me ask you whether from your perspective the Biden administration's recent public distancing itself from Israel on the issue of Rafah and a full-scale ground operation there is welcome news? Do you think that it's been effective? How do you view what the Biden administration is doing right now?

NASSER AL-KIDWA, FORMER PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY FOREIGN MINISTER: Well, to be frank with you, I think the administration is saying the right thing. They say that we don't like what we see happening in Gaza. However, when it comes to action, it's different story. So do I like it? Yes, I like it. Do I think that this was enough to change things and to change the course of events? Unfortunately not.

And unless we see serious change, unless we see some clear positions taken, some actions taken, I think we'll stay in the same situation.

ZAKARIA: What do you think is going on in Gaza right now in terms of, is Hamas defeated, is -- how would you -- you know, that's been the Israeli goal. Do you think it's being achieved?

AL-KIDWA: No, it was not achieved and it's not going to be achieved, and that emphasizes the fact that what's Mr. Netanyahu is doing now on Rafah is catastrophic. He is taking the situation to a new level, a new catastrophic level, a criminal level, I would say, and without any specific results because he -- remember, he said the same thing before Khan Younis. He said the same thing before even the city of Gaza, and before attacking the Shifa Hospital and the result was the same.

So this is a situation that cannot be solved by military means only. This is the situation that requires also some political consideration and some political understanding of the situation that then will take us all to ending this catastrophe and move forward not only to solve the situation in Gaza, but to hopefully solve the overall political situation as well.

ZAKARIA: One has to assume that the population in Gaza is more radicalized now. I mean, given the trauma of the last few months, you know, if you were to hold an election in Gaza tomorrow, am I wrong in thinking Hamas would probably do better than it would have done before?

AL-KIDWA: I wouldn't agree with you, Fareed, on this one because I think one of the results of the catastrophic situation now is the fact that the population feels hopeless. And they feel that the party who brought them here in this situation was at least partly Hamas, irrespective of the atrocities of the Israeli -- of the Israeli side. So I don't think so.

Nevertheless, let me say also that unfortunately elections tomorrow is impossibility because of the fact, not the least of the existence or the presence of about two million displaced Palestinians. You cannot say -- you cannot tell a displaced person, come and vote. You have to take care of his needs or her needs first and provide them with the necessary tools to survive and then move forward and go for political solutions and change internally democracy, including elections.

ZAKARIA: All right, stay with us. When we come back, I will ask Nasser al-Kidwa what the day after looks like and what it should look like in his view.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:29:22]

ZAKARIA: And we are back with the former Palestinian Authority foreign minister Nasser al-Kidwa.

Nasser, let's talk about the day after and what it would look like. You heard Tzipi Livni say the Palestinian Authority should take over but lots of people say in the United States and Israel, frankly in the Palestinian territories as well, that the Palestinian Authority is corrupt, it's compromised, and particularly that Mahmoud Abbas, Abu Mazen, who heads it is too old, too compromised a character. What do you think?

AL-KIDWA: Well, I don't disagree with that. But let's talk about the day after, in general. And here, I think, several very important things need to happen.

One, first and foremost, this catastrophic war needs to end. I mean, this bloodletting, the agony of the population, the crazy ideas such as collective deportation, and shrinking the territory of Gaza and things like that need to stop. And then we need to ensure that there is Israeli withdrawal, a withdrawal without return and without any attempt to impose conditions on the Palestinian people that the people don't -- don't accept, such as the siege.

Then, of course, we need to reach a solution on an exchange of hostages and prisoners. In a way that would end this -- this -- this drama and in the right way. After that here, I agree, again with you, what you said at the beginning, that we need to have a drastic and seriously reformed Palestinian authority, not the kind of gimmick that we saw with the current government when Mr. Abbas brought that government.

I mean, this did not change anything and cannot change anything. We need to change the system, in general. We need to change the ability of Mr. Abbas to govern at will and to do whatever he wants through maybe an empowered government that can rebuilt Gaza, which takes us to another thing that needs to happen.

We need to have an effective government, free from corruption, and capable of rebuilding Gaza. And prepare the situation -- this part of the country, in addition to the West Bank, prepare it for elections after a while when the situation permit it this time (ph), because after all election is the only possible solution, real and drastic solution for all the ills of the Palestinian situation.

And finally, we need to have a conference of donors that would provide for the financial assistance necessary to rebuild Gaza. Before that, I think, we need also to have some kind of an Arab security presence that would provide for a temporary situation whereby it can take over from the Israelis and hand over to the Palestinian government, the new Palestinian government.

I think this is something that the Arabs will be willing to consider if, number one, there is an Israeli commitment for full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. And number two, if there is an Israeli commitment for a political solution that provides for the two states, Israel and Palestine, with the mutual recognition between the two of them by a certain date that is agreed upon.

ZAKARIA: So, I don't have a lot of time, but I have to ask you, when you look at the mood in Israel today, it seems that they are intent on staying in Gaza to maintain some security presence. They have already created buffer zones. They're creating corridors to make it hard to move from north to south Gaza.

When you ask people in Israel about a two-state solution, it seems to be at its lowest -- the lowest levels of support for it in decades. How would that -- do you anticipate this changing? It seems difficult.

AL-KIDWA: Well, it is difficult, but it will -- it will change. Once, I read an article for an Israeli author who said that there will be a political solution, not out of magnanimous attitude and enthusiasm but out of desperation and the failure of both sides to annihilate the other side.

ZAKARIA: Let's -- on that somewhat hopeful note, I will leave. Nasser al-Kidwa, thank you so much. Pleasure to have you on.

Next on GPS, Xi Jinping made a rare trip to Europe this week. What came out of that visit, and what did it have to do with China's competition with America, when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:38:57]

ZAKARIA: China's paramount leader, Xi Jinping, just wrapped up a multi-country trip to Europe. His first in five years. His choice of countries, France, Serbia, and Hungary, might seem unusual, but it speaks volumes about his strategic goals.

I can't think of no better person to discuss those goals than Susan Shirk. Susan was a senior State Department official handling East Asia, and she is currently a research professor and the founding chair of the 21st Century China Center at UC San Diego.

Susan, welcome. So, just give us at the broadest level, what do you think Xi Jinping is trying to do in going to Europe?

SUSAN SHIRK, FOUNDING CHAIR, UCSD'S 21ST CENTURY CHINA CENTER: He's trying to win Europe back to China after a long period in which people in Europe are very critical of China's position particularly on Russia's invasion of Ukraine, as well as on trade and human rights issues. So, he's trying to show that even though relations with the United States might be poor he can -- he's a good friend and the Europeans are good friends of China.

[10:40:13]

ZAKARIA: In other words, he's trying to get people in the Chinese Communist Party elite to understand that his foreign policy is -- you know, it can work.

SHIRK: Yes. I suppose the most positive way of looking at it is that perhaps there is an adjustment in Chinese policy to moderate it away from this more aggressive wolf warrior diplomacy. But actually, what he said and did in Europe suggests that there isn't any significant adjustment in Chinese policy going on. He's just trying to show that his policies have not which are, I would call, overreaching, have not failed. That they're sufficiently successful that the French and the Serbians and the Hungarians, anyway, are willing to welcome him in a positive and friendly manner.

ZAKARIA: And do you think it succeeded? I didn't see any big shifts in Europe on -- particularly on policy toward Russia -- Ukraine.

SHIRK: I agree with you. There -- really the tangible results of his meetings look pretty minimal or invisible. And, you know, right now, Xi is under a lot of pressure especially from the United States, because it appears that his support of Putin has crossed a kind of red line in that. Although, he's not giving Russia any military equipment, per se, he is supporting the military industrial complex in Russia, and maybe facilitating what will later be a Russian offensive which is something that really is a core interest of the Europeans and the United States that Russia does not win the war in Ukraine.

And I think that perhaps Xi Jinping really doesn't understand that. He doesn't understand how important this issue is to the West.

ZAKARIA: Susan, in your book, "Overreach," and which I think the subtitle is "How China Derailed Its Peaceful Rise," you outlined -- it seems to be very persuasively that Xi Jinping's foreign policy has been a break with Chinese foreign policy and has been unsuccessful.

It has caused all this antagonism in Japan, in India, in Australia, and in Europe. Have you seen any sense of course correction? Or when you go to China, do people talk about how maybe this wasn't the right path?

SHIRK: Well, people -- certainly, people in the elite are critical of Xi Jinping's foreign policy along with his domestic policies. And since the lock down, the COVID lockdown and the demonstrations that led to its sudden reversal, there is a surprising amount of dissatisfaction in China at the elite level and at the -- at least the middle-class mass level. And I don't really know where all of that is going to lead, but I know that Xi Jinping must be very worried about it.

I mean, look how rarely he has traveled abroad recently. He has been very preoccupied with China's domestic problems, especially its economic problems. But also, he's there having restored a more dictatorial form of communism that resembles Mao, and he has got to know, I'm sure he knows, that many of the other members of the elite don't agree with his policies particularly in his kind of bromance with Putin.

The Russia position of Xi Jinping is among the most unpopular of his overreaching especially among the elite which, I think, is a very important context for this trip to Europe.

ZAKARIA: Susan Shirk, thank you. Next our GPS, with less than six months until Election Day, people are wondering whether Trump and his supporters could once again reject the democratic process.

[10:45:04]

My next guest says this kind of American antiliberalism has deep historical roots. And he'll explain them when we come back.

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ZAKARIA: Donald Trump recently told a reporter that he would only accept the results of the 2024 election -- quote -- "If everything's honest" -- unquote.

[10:50:02]

Trump also falsely claimed that he won Wisconsin in 2020. With 177 days until Election Day many are once again wondering how to think about Donald Trump, his election denial, and his loyal followers. Well, my next guest says their movement has deep historical precedents and is a rebellion against nothing less than the America envisioned by the founding fathers. That is why Robert Kagan titled his book "Rebellion: How Antiliberalism Is Tearing America Apart Again." Kagan is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Bob, let's do this historically because, I think, it's important people understand. So, your argument -- everyone thinks of America and the founding of America as the -- as the kind of culmination of an enlightenment liberal project. Liberal, meaning, individual liberty, not big government spending. But you say, from the beginning there was also an antiliberalism that was part of the founding.

ROBERT KAGAN, AUTHOR, "REBELLION": Sure. And, you know, it was a combination of a certain way of thinking, but it also was something brand new. And I think it's important to remember what was entirely new about the American system, we take it for granted, which is the principle of universal individual rights.

Before that, the colonists enjoyed their rights as Englishmen. But the English did not base their constitution on the idea of universal natural rights. So, that was a huge leap. So, to establish a system where you're supposed to care about other's freedom as much as your own is a very difficult thing. In some ways, it's contrary to human nature.

And so, from the beginning, there has always been resistance to this idea. And certainly, in the United States, most obviously and prominently because there was still slavery. So, even leaders of the south opposed the declaration of independence, said it was unnatural. And I think people thought maybe that died with the civil war or it died with Brown versus Board of Education in 1954. But I think what we've seen is that this anti-liberal strain, this resistance to the idea of universal rights goes throughout our history and we're seeing it still today.

ZAKARIA: There was an article recently that pointed out -- looked at the rhetoric of Trump this time around, and pointed out, it's -- it's much more extreme, even than the rhetoric in 2016. It talks about revenge, retribution, I will destroy the old elites. Do you worry about that or is that just Trump, you know, winging it?

KAGAN: You know, you never know what Trump means and what he doesn't mean. The one thing I feel confident of is that I'm sure this experience of being put on trial would be a searing experience for anyone. And for someone who foresees the possibility that he could be the most powerful man in the world, the thought of vengeance is clearly forefront in his mind.

So, I think, the answer is yes. He will -- he will seek vengeance. But the thing to understand as I think most people do about Trump is -- the problem is not that he has a careful plan for becoming a dictator. I don't think he has any such plan. He will be a dictator by virtue of the fact that he wants what he wants when he wants it, and how he wants to get it.

And if you listen to him talk about his second term plans, a lot of it involves militarizing various elements of society, using the military on immigration, using Homeland Security as a force. And, you know, who's going to stand in his way when he wants to do something like that?

ZAKARIA: What do you say to people who say, look, this is -- you know, this is the usual liberal hand-wringing and catastrophizing. He was elected. He ruled for four years. You know, so what if he gets elected again?

KAGAN: Well, when people talk about his rule for four years and this economic policy and that, they leave out the very end. And at the very end, he tried to rule as a dictator.

I mean, let's just think this through. If Mike Pence had not shown the backbone that he did at that moment, Trump might conceivably have stolen election that had gone against him. And at that point, he would be ruling as a dictator, not as a democratically elected president. He was completely willing to do that, if not eager to do that.

I would ask voters in America, what more do you need to know about a presidential candidate? We don't know, you know, what Biden is going to be like in a second term, but we know what the parameters of what Biden are going to be like in a second term. Trump has proven that for him there are no parameters. He has said he's willing to go against the constitution.

And so, we don't know for sure what he's actually going to do. But if we're making a judgment about presidential candidates, can we not pick the guy who has already tried to become a dictator and says he would do it again?

ZAKARIA: It leaves you -- I have to say the book it is not a hopeful look.

KAGAN: There is -- there is a slight hopeful bit at the end of it in the sense that I believe if we can get past this year's crisis -- in many ways, this is the last gasp of a shrinking white nationalist minority, a shrinking white Christian nationalist minority.

[10:55:10]

This is their last chance. Trump is their last chance because the country is moving on. It's becoming more and more diverse. It's going to be a majority, minority country pretty soon. And so, their ability to pull this off again, I think, is limited.

Also, I think, once Donald Trump is gone, the movement will splinter and follow different people. So, I believe we are in a uniquely dangerous moment but that if we can get past this moment, things look a lot better.

ZAKARIA: On that note of optimism, Bob Kagan, pleasure to have you on. Thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. I will see you next week.

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