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Fareed Zakaria GPS

Interview with Hillary Clinton; Interview with Antonio Guterres. Aired 10-11a ET

Aired September 22, 2024 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:41]

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 coming to you from New York.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Today on the program.

HILLARY CLINTON (D), 2016 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The contrast between the two visions of our future could not be more stark and different.

ZAKARIA: Hillary Clinton, the former first lady, former senator, former secretary of state, who of course ran for the American presidency against Donald Trump in 2016. We discuss the Middle East, Trump versus Harris, and much more.

I also sat down at the United Nations this week with Secretary General Antonio Guterres. I asked him about the war in the Middle East, which will be a year old in two weeks, the war in Ukraine, which will mark three years in early 2025, and why the United Nations doesn't seem to have much influence to bring about peace.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: But first, here's my take. I the clamor of the campaign season we're missing what should be a landmark event. The United States has managed to bring inflation down without so far triggering a recession. Such a soft landing is a rare achievement that by one measure has only happened one other time in the last 60 years. A good measure of credit should go to the Federal Reserve and the manner in which it operates.

And yet, that is now under threat. Just two years ago, inflation in America had hit a 40-year high, reaching over 9 percent. It has now come down to around 2.5 percent, falling more and more quickly than in other major economies. The Federal Reserve could be assigned some of the blame for inflation getting so high, though a lot of that seems to have been a result of the pandemic, which made it so that goods could not get the customers around the world.

The Biden stimulus was another factor, but it's worth noting that inflation soared in many countries where the government handed out much less cash to its citizens. The real mark of the Federal Reserve's achievement, though, is not that it made no mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes in the midst of a once in a century event like the pandemic. It was that the Fed was able to course correct in a careful deliberate manner and crucially, without much concern about the politics of its decisions.

Even as many federal institutions become increasingly politicized, the Fed remains largely meritocratic. It's a place where highly trained experts try to do what is right for the country in the long term. The rate cut this week is one that most economists believe is a reasonable one and even disagreement is muted. The "Financial Times" applauded it while the "Wall Street Journal" editorial board seemed in favor of a smaller cut. But even "The Journal" noted it was not made for political reasons.

I'm not romanticizing the Fed. It has made its share of mistakes but people on the right and left who have worked there tend to find that the deliberations and decisions are largely devoid of politics.

Alan Blinder, a former vice chairman of the Fed, who also worked in the White House, has noted the contrast between the two places with politics being dominant in the White House and good policy being the credo at the Fed. The Fed's independence has been hard one and recent. It really begins with former Fed chair Paul Volcker doing what was needed to bring inflation under control in the 1980s.

The stagflation of the 1970s had been caused in part by a week fed chairman who was bullied by President Richard Nixon into lowering interest rates to goose the economy in time for Nixon's reelection. Since then, the Fed has steered the American economy through booms and busts with considerable success.

When I looked into this topic over 20 years ago for my book, "The Future of Freedom," the Federal Reserve, along with the Supreme Court and the armed forces, tended to have much higher approval ratings than Congress. The point I made then was that it was telling that it was the places that could keep public opinion and pressure at bay that were most admired by the public.

[10:05:06]

Congress, by contrast, which slavishly panders to people is despised by that same public. Today, everything is now seen in political terms. The Supreme Court's ratings have sunk partly because of its own missteps with highly politicized decisions like Bush v. Gore and the most recent one on presidential immunity. And now there is an assault on the Fed.

Donald Trump has never liked the independence of the Federal Reserve largely because he doesn't like the idea of any institutions being independent of his control. He was enraged that several of his attorneys general would not act as if they were his personal lawyers. He fired the FBI director because he would not take direct orders from him. So despite the fact that he appointed the Fed chair, Jerome Powell, who is a lifelong Republican, he relentlessly criticized Powell when he was president and did so again this week.

Some of his acolytes, always more loyal than the king, are drawing up plans to curb the independence of the Fed.

The American economy is the envy of the world. It has recovered more strongly from the pandemic than any major economy and unlike many others has seen wages rise. Its major companies dominate the world. If you add up the top 10 public companies in Europe, they do not equal the value of Apple alone, or Microsoft, or Nvidia. But this image rests on policy, on American monetary and regulatory policy that in crucial ways is still being handled in a serious, nonpartisan, meritocratic manner.

If this last area of American strength gets politicized, it could weaken the foundation of America's power, the edifice on which all else rests.

Go to CNN.com/Fareed for a link to my column this week. And let's get started.

My next guest is one of the most prominent figures in American politics. Hillary Rodham Clinton was of course first lady of the United States then a U.S. senator from New York, and then served under President Barack Obama as secretary of state. In 2016, she made history as the first woman nominated by a major party to run for president. More recently, she's added university professor and Broadway producer to her list of accomplishments.

These experiences, among many others, are explored in her new book, "Something Lost, Something Gained."

Secretary Clinton, welcome back.

CLINTON: Thank you so much. It's great to be back with you, Fareed.

ZAKARIA: This is such a terrific book. It's really fascinating and wide-ranging and personal. I want to start by asking you about, you talked a lot in the book about what it meant to be a woman in politics and your path to it had to be slightly complicated. I mean, I've looked this up, but when you went to Wellesley, ivy league colleges were not co-ed. When you went to Yale Law School, it was basically the first year that they had opened it up to women.

And so in some ways, you became a political spouse and gained prominence that way. Kamala Harris has done it a different way. And probably benefited from your opening all those doors. Do you think she has a better chance at kind of breaking through that glass ceiling because of that?

CLINTON: Well, I hope so. I really hope so. And I think that it's a relay race. People do their part. They tried to open doors or break through ceilings in order to make it possible for somebody to come after them. And as I, you know, write in the book and in the epilogue to the audio version that I read, I didn't know how I would feel because obviously it was a huge disappointment not to win in 2016.

But when President Biden withdrew and endorsed the vice president, I immediately, along with my husband, endorsed her as well. And it felt right. It felt exciting, exhilarating. I think she is not only absolutely equipped and ready to be president, I think we need somebody like her right now, Fareed.

ZAKARIA: In what sense?

CLINTON: This is an election not just between two people, two tickets, two parties. It really is an election between democracy and autocracy, freedom and oppression, but also between leadership that wants to bring us together to do big things, to demonstrate America is fully ready to be as prosperous and as focused at home and leading abroad because the world needs that.

[10:10:06]

And so the contrast between the two visions of our future could not be more stark and different. I think Kamala's campaign has demonstrated, as it's already been written and talked about, a level of energy, even joy. The contrast is the Trump campaign, it's dark, it's dystopian. It's filled with, you know, attacks on different kinds of people, finger-pointing and scapegoating. That's a very different view of who we are as a people and what we should aspire to.

ZAKARIA: Why do you think he gets almost half the country behind him and particularly the working class? You talk about this in the book. How the working class gravitated toward the Republican Party after the 1970s and '80s.

CLINTON: Right. Well, I write about and obviously I've talked and thought a lot about this. I think there are a number of reasons. I think that people have high expectations for their own lives and for the leaders that they invest themselves in and if you are disappointed or feel like you're falling short or worried that your children will not do better than you did, it's natural to be somewhat unmoored and leaders can appeal to you in one of two ways.

And I've seen both. I've seen leaders who say, yes, you know what, we have problems. I want you to be involved in helping to fix them. I want to empower you. I want to create the tools you need to chart a better life for yourself and your family. Or you have leaders saying, you know what, it's rigged against, you deserve better, you've lost that job to name the minority groups or immigrant or minority of whatever kind that is getting an unfair advantage. So I'm giving you an explanation for why you feel stuck or disappointed.

You know, historically, America has fallen in the first category. It's like, OK, go west if you're not happy where you are. You have mobility to go find a job. I was saying to you before we started. You know, my father hopped a freight train in Scranton, Pennsylvania, because he heard there might be a job in Chicago during the Great Depression. You know, there was an energy and an optimism that has really marked who we are but the combination of demagogic leaders like Trump who appeal to the fears, not the hopes, the fears and social media, which can spread all sorts of conspiracy theories, alternative explanations, alternative facts, about, you know, why things aren't going as well as you would like them to go, or what can be the explanation for that.

So I think there's a social, political, cultural, and technological set of reasons that add up to the political differences. ZAKARIA: You're talking about how important it was for you to take on

women's issues and by women's issues, I mean, helping women with their healthcare, with their childcare. And you were frustrated throughout your career that these were seen as women's issues and not society's issues. And yet they had a huge impact on society at large.

CLINTON: Right. Yes, well, they're economic issues, too. You're right. They're society issues, economic issues, and a lot of these issues like childcare, paid family leave, have been dismissed for way too long as kind of, you know, side issues, women's issues. But the evidence is overwhelming that we are making it so difficult for families to balance their work life and their family responsibilities, and if you are concerned about the falling birth rate, if you're concerned about increasing productivity, if you are concerned about how we need to be supporting the most important job in society, which is raising children, then you should be in favor of things like paid family leave and early childhood education.

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, Hillary Clinton has been teaching at Columbia University. After the break, I asked her about campus turmoil around the Israel-Hamas war.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:18:55]

ZAKARIA: And we are back with the former first lady, former secretary of state, former senator, Hillary Rodham Clinton. Mrs. Clinton, along with President Clinton and Chelsea will welcome world leaders to the Clinton Global Initiative Conference here in New York this coming week.

So things in the Middle East are very complicated, but the Middle East, debate at home is also very complicated, and you've watched it in a sense and participated in a way because you've been teaching this course at Columbia, and I think there was -- there has been some student reaction. Describe what you -- you know, what's your sense of what's going on on campuses with the Middle East right now?

CLINTON: Well, actually I have a whole chapter about that in the book because it was quite striking to me. I co-teach a course with the dean, a very distinguished political scientist at the School of International and Public Affairs called Inside the Situation Room. We'd love to have you come some class, Fareed.

Incredible students, very large lecture class like 375 students from across the university, mostly students from SIPA, the school we teach in.

[10:20:07]

And we taught the Wednesday after October 7th, and it was a very somber difficult class. We hurried through our prepared curriculum and then we basically sat down and answered questions for 45, 50 minutes. And the questions were really raw. I mean, we had a student from Palestine, a Palestinian student. We had a student from Israel. We had students from across the Middle East. We had students from Asia, and obviously the rest of the world struggling to understand what all of it meant. But it was a respectful, informative. open dialogue. And literally at the end of it, the students applauded. But that was on Wednesday.

By a few days, we were doing an event, and we started being protested. The dean and I and our guests, and being screamed at, being called, you know, all kinds of names. What happened in that period? And the best I can sort of unpack it is that there were already existing groups within our country and particularly on certain campuses like Columbia who had talking points. They had a plan for protests and disruption.

And I watched it sort of morph into something that was not student led, even though students participated, but which had outside funding, outside direction and I still to this day, I'm not quite sure all that was going on with it. And a lot of students were caught up in that. And a lot of the videos on social media gave not just a one-sided view of the conflict, but a totally anti-Israel pro-Hamas, not just pro- Palestinian view.

And for me, it was distressing because, look, I have my own opinions formed over many years. I am willing to sit down and have a conversation with anybody but it's difficult to have conversations with people who hold strong opinions with no factual and historical basis. And so in trying to talk to students, not just at Columbia but elsewhere, I would be met with slogans. I would be met with attacks and, you know, very inflammatory language.

And when I would ask, well, what about, you know, what happened in 2000 at Camp David? No. Do you know what happened in 1947? No. Do you know how difficult the relationships have been? No. Do you know that there are Arab Israelis, and some are serving in the IDF? None of that. And this whole chanting of, you know, from the river to the sea, what does that mean? What river, what sea?

That's what bothered me. And I think this year has been, you know, much quieter, much more educational environment where people can have these conversations. The ugly presence of antisemitism, not just positions against Israel. Yes, you could -- it's perfectly legitimate. I don't like what that country does, and I don't agree with that country's foreign policy. that is absolutely what you should be debating at a university.

This was not that. This was screaming at students who were Jewish, it was blocking their entry into classes or into club activities. It was nasty. And so there was something else going on here that was very troubling. And we now, you know, we have seen evidence of, you know, obviously foreign money, foreign influence. The algorithms on TikTok, which were anti-Israel right off the bat, and so I think that a university particularly has an obligation to, of course, protect free speech, but also to protect students against harassment and against the kind of behavior that interfered with their learning. So that's where we are now.

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, I asked Hillary Clinton a very personal question about her very public manner.

[10:25:08]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAKARIA: And I want to ask you one last question. A personal question. You talk a little bit about your marriage and about Bill, and I hesitate to do this, but you have had for better or worse the most -- probably one of the most public marriages in -- you know, in the world.

CLINTON: True.

ZAKARIA: Everybody knows.

CLINTON: Well, they think they know.

ZAKARIA: They think they know.

CLINTON: They think they know.

ZAKARIA: And that's what I want to ask you.

CLINTON: Yes. Yes.

ZAKARIA: You talk about the dark periods in -- do you feel as though you are now in a place where you -- do you forget the dark periods?

[10:30:02]

Do they stay with you? How do you -- you know, you see, you and your husband seemed to have, and you have survived while so many of your detractors are now thrice divorced.

CLINTON: Of course. I know. Well, I think for me, and as I've said this for many years, nobody really knows what happens in a marriage, except the two people in it. And every marriage I'm aware of has ups and downs, not public hopefully for everyone else. And you have to make the decisions that are right for you. And I would never tell anybody else. Stay in a marriage, leave a marriage, whatever the easy answer is.

And you know, for me and for us, I think it's fair to say we are so grateful that at this stage of our life, we have our grandchildren, we have our time together. You know, I write about how we start the morning playing spelling bee in bed, and you know, Bill is like such a great player. He gets to queen bee almost immediately, it feels like. We just have a good time. We have a good time sharing this life that we've lived together for now nearly 50 years of marriage.

That's what is right for us and that's really my message. You know, I write in the book, how during one of the darkest periods, during the impeachment, I had to almost have a binary view of the world that I was living in, my reality. On the one hand, I was deeply hurt, deeply confused, really upset, angry. And on the other hand, I knew that this was a political ploy to try to drive, you know, Bill out of office. And I thought he'd been a really good president, and I resented that

as an American citizen that these hypocrites who, you know, had all kinds of their own stories about, you know, marriage and everything else, were going after him because of a very unfortunate, you know, incident in his life. So on the one hand, I'm trying to make a decision about my life, my marriage, my future, my child, my family, which only I could make.

On the other hand, I saw the hypocrisy and cruelty of what those Republican members of Congress were doing and that is a reality that people on the outside could never have understood. And, you know, obviously I got tons of unsolicited advice from all sorts of observers but my friends, and I have a whole chapter in there about how incredibly grateful I am to my friends, friends of a lifetime, friends, you know, that have stood with me, have supported me, who during that dark periods showed up at the White House to be with me.

And I, you know, I had a different kind of set of challenges. I mean, it's always hard if there's a problem in your marriage, you feel like it's your entire world but in my case, it was the world. So I had to go through it at my own pace, on my own terms, according to my own values. And I'm very grateful that we are where we are.

ZAKARIA: And I'm very grateful to you for coming on the show. This has been a pleasure and honor.

CLINTON: Thank you. Thank you, Fareed. Always good to see you.

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, is there still a path to peace in the Middle East? I'll be back with the secretary general of the United Nations.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:038:36]

ZAKARIA: In two weeks and one day, the world will mark a grim first anniversary of the October 7th attacks, and the war that has ensued. With the events of this week in Lebanon, that conflict now threatens to further engulf even more of the Middle East. 1,000 miles north in Ukraine, that war continues to grind on. President Zelenskyy told me last week about the peace plan he intends to present to President Biden in coming days. But as in the Middle East, the two sides are so far apart. It's difficult to foresee a speedy end to the conflict.

This is despite much debate about it at the United Nations. On Thursday, I traveled to the organization's headquarters in New York to talk to Antonio Guterres. A former prime minister of Portugal, Guterres has been U.N. secretary general for nearly eight years.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Mr. Secretary General, pleasure to have you on.

ANTONIO GUTERRES, U.N. SECRETARY-GENERAL: It's a great pleasure to be with you again here in the U.N. ZAKARIA: I want to ask you, you know, reaction to the news of the

moment, which has been this, what appears to be an Israeli intelligence operation that has detonated, exploded these various communications devices in Lebanon among Hezbollah fighters.

GUTERRES: What worries me more is what this means as the potential of a much more dramatic escalation to full-blown war.

[10:40:05]

And, I mean, these devices were made to explode now, according to the information that come, because someone was discovering that they had the bombs.

ZAKARIA: Right.

GUTERRES: And so there to be exploited.

ZAKARIA: Use it or lose it. Yes. Yes.

GUTERRES: But the logic of this kind of devices is for a preemptive strike in a major military operation to dismantle the communications capacity of your adversary. So the fact that these things existed means that there is a potential for a much stronger escalation. And that is what concerns me. The possibility of transforming Lebanon in another Gaza, which I think would be a devastating tragedy for the world.

ZAKARIA: And why do you think it has been so difficult to get any kind of a ceasefire or any kind of a deal at this point?

GUTERRES: You mean in --

ZAKARIA: Between Israel and Hamas? Even something or some talks between Israel and Hezbollah.

GUTERRES: Neither the government of Israel nor Hamas really want a ceasefire. That to me is obvious. I mean, what is on the table is quite reasonable. And both sides should be in a position to accept, and until now we see that whenever there is a new development, some new complication arises, and it is for me clear that both sides are not interested in a ceasefire. And that is a tragedy because this is a war that must stop.

Of course, it started because of the horrendous terror attack of 7th of October. But then it triggered a military operation that has reached the level of deaths and destruction that I do not remember in any other in my lifetime. And as I condemn very strongly the action of Hamas, I also think we need to condemn the fact that there is an attempt to have a collective punishment of the Palestinian people.

ZAKARIA: Do you think that the U.N. has any role to play in a post-war Gaza?

GUTERRES: That will depend on the will, of course, of the Israel and the will of the Palestinians. We are ready to do what we will be asked to do but as I said, we are not here seeking any protectionism. What we want is a solution and we admit that for Israel there might be an interest, for instance, you know, coalition of countries, both Western countries and Arab countries to guarantee a transition.

For us, what is important is that whatever the transition mechanism that is put in place, it is done with the involvement of the Palestinian Authority, and it is done as a step for the two-state solution to become a reality. Because, I mean, many people say the two-state solution is becoming not possible because you have the settlements that are moving on, more and more areas grabbed in the West Bank by both settlers and by the authorities.

The point is, OK what is the alternative? How can we conceive in the 21st century a one-state solution in which millions and millions of Palestinians who have no rights, would have no citizenship, would have a situation of total segregation? That is absolutely unconceivable.

ZAKARIA: Do you regard that as an apartheid condition?

GUTERRES: Apartheid is specific thing, you know, specific country I believe I don't like to use the same expression, but what we would have is indeed a situation of segregation of one people within a state controlled by another people. And that is something that is unacceptable. It will be indeed similar to the situation that we had in South Africa.

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, having just seen the effects of war in Kyiv last week I asked the secretary general whether he has realistic hopes for peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia anytime soon.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:49:20]

ZAKARIA: Next week, world leaders and their entourages will converge on New York City for the annual U.N. General Assembly. I sat down at the U.N. on Thursday with Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

Mr. Secretary, let me ask you about the other war. Russia-Ukraine. The problem it seems to me you face as secretary-general of the United Nations is that a permanent member of the Security Council, Russia, has violated one of the core principles of the United Nations, which has no aggression, respect for sovereignty. What do you do in a situation like that?

[10:50:00]

GUTERRES: Well, I have not the power to stop it, but we had from the first moment a very clear position. This is a violation of the charter. This is a violation of international law. This is a violation of the territorial integrity of Ukraine and for us we need we need peace. We need to stop this war, but we need peace that is just, and peace that is just is peace that respects the U.N. charter, peace that respects international law and peace that respects the territorial integrity of Ukraine in its internationally recognized borders. And that is our position of principle. Of course, there is no

negotiation for peace. I don't think any of the sides is now interested in a direct negotiation for peace. I don't see a role that we can play, but we can be clear in the affirmation of the principles that must be followed because the day territory integrity is forgotten and the day this is becoming a bargaining tool, that day will create an enormous potential of instability in the whole -- in the whole world.

ZAKARIA: But, Mr. Secretary, it does seem as though it's very unlikely that Ukraine will regain all the territory that it has lost, that it will regain Crimea. It is likely that at some point there will be negotiations and then there will be a compromise. And unfortunately it will be a compromise of those principles because I don't think Russia is going to give up every last square inch. That does set a precedent for, you know, which has not really happened since World War II.

GUTERRES: That might happen but not with our support.

ZAKARIA: You will never -- you will never support --

GUTERRES: I consider that the territorial integrity must be respected. Of course. I mean countries are free to establish whatever they decided in relation to their future but the role of the U.N. is to affirm the principles of international law that everybody must respect. The rule of law is a central principle for each society and for the law of society.

ZAKARIA: Do you get the sense -- you have communications with the Russians. Are they ready, interested in negotiating at this point?

GUTERRES: I don't think so.

ZAKARIA: And the Ukrainians?

GUTERRES: I also do not think so.

ZAKARIA: So this is a dire situation.

GUTERRES: I think that both are still betting on the possibility of a military victory. President Zelenskyy has announced that he has a victory plan to present in the United States, and I think the Russians have clearly indicated that they also have victorious military objective.

ZAKARIA: So when you look at these two crises it feels like this is one of the darkest chapters of the United Nations' history because in both cases they are ongoing, in both cases, the U.N. has not been able to be much use?

GUTERRES: Fareed, it is, first of all darkest chapters of world and obviously it is for us an enormous frustration. But it's a frustration that has a lot to do with what we have in today's global governance. I mean, the institutions that are relevant in global governance, the U.N. Security Council, the Bretton Woods Institutions, and several others, we could go on and on in different areas of governance that exists in the world, we're created after the Second World War with the logic that corresponded to the power relations at the time, the global economy at that time.

And obviously 80 years afterwards, they are totally, totally outdated and unfair and ineffective in answering the challenges, the enormous challenges that our great grandfathers could not have imagined.

ZAKARIA: But here's the problem which is to reform them the very countries that are in power have to vote themselves into lesser positions themselves.

GUTERRES: That is true in the Security Council.

ZAKARIA: Right. Right.

GUTERRES: But I must tell you, when I came to this function, the reformers in the Security Council was a taboo. Nobody would accept that to be discussed. And even the committee that exists in general assembly, they couldn't produce written texts on it. Now everybody accepts that the reforms with the Council is a must, might be difficult to get, but everybody accept it's a must. And we have recently a meeting in which all members, including the permanent five, said they were ready to accept African permanent member of the Security Council, which shows that things are changing, which shows that people are gaining conscience that with climate change, wreaking havoc all over the world, with artificial intelligence without effective guardrails and with the potential of becoming also another existential threat.

[10:55:23]

With this multiplication of conflicts everywhere many of them going on and on with a total impunity that exists in the world where everybody thinks that they can do whatever they want and nothing happens to them. I these circumstances, it's clear the institutions, the global institutions we have need to be adapted to respond to those challenges. We cannot accept that this chaotic situation of the world is a new normal with which we have to live.

We need to fight to change it and to fight to change it, we need to reform the instruments of governance that were created 80 years ago.

ZAKARIA: On that slender note of hope, I will thank you, Secretary- General, for joining us.

GUTERRES: It's a pleasure always to discuss with you.

ZAKARIA: Thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. I will see you next week.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)