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Fareed Zakaria GPS

Former Danish Prime Minister On Trump's Greenland Threats; Elon Musk Wades into Decade-Old British Scandal; Interview With Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo; The Real-World Consequences Of Unchecked Social Media; Behind America's Health Wave. Aired 10-11a ET

Aired January 12, 2025 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:33]

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, soon to be President Trump wants to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT-ELECT: The Gulf of America.

ZAKARIA: Take over the Panama Canal and buy Greenland from Denmark. I'll talk to Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former prime minister of Denmark, who also served as NATO secretary-general. And --

TRUMP: I, Donald John Trump.

ZAKARIA: Trump will be inaugurated in a week and a day. And the Biden administration is doing everything it can to protect its chief accomplishments. Central to those efforts has been Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. I'll talk to her exclusively.

Plus, Filipino journalist Maria Ressa won the Nobel Peace Prize in part for her fight against disinformation. She says dangerous times are ahead after Mark Zuckerberg got rid of fact checkers for Facebook and Instagram.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: But first, here's my take. Having campaigned on a policy of ending wars, making peace, putting America first and disentangling the country from the world, Donald Trump this week decided to revive 19th century imperialism.

In a single press conference, he proposed making Canada a state and acquiring Greenland and the Panama Canal by economic coercion or, if need be, by force. Republican leaders whom Trump has only recently trained to denounce the old Republican foreign policy of expansionism and internationalism, quickly adopted the new party line and are now showering praise on Trump's grand vision and big thinking. Where will all this go? Some say we are simply back to the madman

theory of foreign policy, which posits that it's good for the president to sometimes appear unpredictable, even irrational, because it throws adversaries off guard.

It's worth recalling that Trump tried this gambit in his first term, most obviously with North Korea's Kim Jong-un. He began by threatening him with nuclear war, quote, "fire and fury, the likes of which this world has never seen before," and then abruptly switched to romancing him with love letters. None of it worked. North Korea continued to build its nuclear arsenal, conduct missile tests after a brief pause, and threatened its southern neighbor.

The scholar Daniel Drezner notes that much research has concluded that the original subject of the madman theory, Richard Nixon, produced no positive results for his efforts to seem crazy and unhinged.

The talk about making Canada a state appears to be mostly trolling, targeted at that country's liberal prime minister, whom Trump dislikes, but it has forced even Trumpian politicians like Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, and the rising Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, to push back firmly.

During the 2016 campaign, Trump's nasty rhetoric about Mexico helped the most anti-American candidate in that country's next election, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, climbed dramatically in the polls. Trump might similarly encourage greater anti-Americanism in Canada this time around.

Trump's focus on Panama and Greenland has some basis. The Panama Canal is one of the world's great maritime choke points. But the Panamanian authorities have handled it responsibly, professionally, and in no way treated the United States badly, as even the "Wall Street Journal's" editorial board recently noted. Nor is there any evidence of Chinese military influence on the canal or in the canal zone, as Trump claims.

China is growing its ties to Central and Latin America economically. But the easiest way to help Beijing expand those ties even further would be for Washington to make a ham-fisted effort to colonize the canal. That would lead to nationalist attacks on the U.S. in Panama and revive fears of American neo-imperialism throughout the continent.

[10:05:01]

Greenland is turning into a pivotal place largely because of climate change, which, ironically, Trump has called a hoax. The melting of the polar ice caps will open up new oceanic shipping routes between Europe and North America, and Russia, and China will actively try to gain influence in these new seaways.

It is and should be American policy to thwart both nations' efforts to expand their economic and military footprint here. But the U.S. doesn't need to acquire Greenland to do this. It already has all the access to the island it wants. Washington had a string of bases on the island during World War II and the Cold War. One remains and is now operated by the Space Force. In fact, Denmark has actively assisted in America's newfound interest

in Greenland. A few years ago, Greenland, which is governed semi- autonomously, nearly made a deal to accept Chinese financing for a set of new airports. The Pentagon asked Denmark to prevail on the Greenlanders to cancel the deal. The Danish government succeeded, replacing much of the Chinese financing with its own.

Working with Denmark made America's efforts more effective. Similarly, American firms, including one financed by the Breakthrough Energy ventures fund, backed by Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, are actively exploring whether Greenland could be mined for some of its rich mineral supplies. This would be quite similar if the island were technically American.

America has been so influential around the world because it has been able to persuade others that it seeks to act not just in its narrow self-interest, but for broader interests, that it wants peace, stability, rules and norms that help everyone. That's why it was able to get 87 countries to immediately condemn Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine. That is why so many of China's neighbors have allied themselves with the United States of America.

In the news conference, Trump proposed getting rid of the, quote, "artificially drawn line" between Canada and the U.S. Of course, that is precisely what Vladimir Putin says about the line between Russia and Ukraine, or Xi Jinping about the division between China and Taiwan. This is a world that makes Russia and China great again.

Go to CNN.com/Fareed for a link to my "Washington Post" column this week, and let's get started.

That was Donald Trump Jr. landing in the capital of Greenland this week while his father, the president-elect, continues to assert that American control of that island is an absolute necessity. Greenland's prime minister has said that the territory is not for sale and will never be for sale, and is also calling for complete independence from Denmark.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen is a former prime minister of Denmark and a former secretary-general of NATO. He joins me now.

Anders, welcome. Tell me, what -- how do you react to this whole situation?

ANDERS FOGH RASMUSSEN, FORMER DANISH PRIME MINISTER: Well, I'm very calm. Actually I think this is not going to happen as outlined by President Trump. But I agree that Greenland has a strong strategic importance. And I also agree that the U.S. has a crucial role in the arctic. And that's why already today, we have a defense agreement between the U.S. and Denmark on the defense of Greenland.

And based on that, the U.S. is already running an airbase to detect missiles that could threaten the United States. And if the U.S. would like to strengthen that defense by establishing even more air bases in Greenland, that would be possible within that defense agreement. I think it would be welcomed by the governments of Greenland and Denmark. And actually, I'm a bit surprised that President Trump, who I think was elected because the American people thought he was the right leader to address the challenges of China, that he selects Greenland as his first objective. And even threatens one of his closest and most reliable allies, Denmark. That's why I don't think this is going to happen.

ZAKARIA: But does this complicate the, you know, things for Denmark? Does it complicate the relationship between Greenland and Denmark? Because Greenland has sort of semi-autonomous, has always wanted, you know, more autonomy.

[10:10:09]

And now does this mean that Greenland might try to do some kind of freelance deal with Denmark? What did the -- what are the dangers there from Denmark's perspective?

RASMUSSEN: Well, it's for the Greenlanders to decide the future of Greenland, and that will be decided once in the future by having a referendum in Greenland. If Greenland decides to have independence, they can get independence. And in that case, there will be negotiations between the government of Greenland and the government of Denmark on who will defend Greenland.

Denmark is today responsible for the defense of Greenland in cooperation with the United States. I think that will continue in the case of Greenlandic independence.

ZAKARIA: And what has been the reaction in Denmark? I mean, this is the United States threatening a fellow founding member of NATO, right, with military force?

RASMUSSEN: Yes. As I said, we don't think this is going to happen as Trump has outlined. But in Denmark, there is a big surprise that he's using exactly the same arguments to gather control over Greenland as President Putin has used to attack Ukraine, and still we are surprised that Trump, instead of challenge China, which I think is a real geopolitical risk in the world today, instead of addressing that challenge, he starts by challenging Greenland, Canada, Panama. All allies or partners of the United States. I don't think that makes America great again.

ZAKARIA: What do you make of that, that, you know, is Europe bracing for four years of rhetoric and bombast and maybe actions, anti- European actions by Donald Trump?

RASMUSSEN: No. Well, we know that President Trump likes to be provocative. And I would also give him the credit that thanks to his harsh rhetoric in the past, the Europeans finally woke up and started increasing investment in their own defense. When I was -- when I left as secretary-general of NATO, only three allies lived up to the 2 percent target, which states that all allies should invest at least 2 percent of their GDP in defense.

Today it's 23, so we are on the right track. It's embarrassing. We still need nine allies to live up to that target, but I think it's thanks to the harsh rhetoric of President Trump. And maybe he uses exactly the same tactics right now to put pressure on all of us to get something in exchange.

ZAKARIA: Anders Fogh Rasmussen, pleasure to have you on, sir.

RASMUSSEN: You're welcome. Thank you.

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, Elon Musk is creating havoc in the British government after resurfacing a debate about a notorious sex abuse scandal about a decade old. Edward Luce of the "Financial Times" will break it all down when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:18:27]

ZAKARIA: The soon-to-be first friend of the United States, Elon Musk, is already making major waves around the world. This time across the ocean in Britain. This particular controversy began when he resurfaced a decades old sex abuse scandal involving gangs that exploited and raped young girls in England.

This month alone, the tech billionaire has posted more than 200 times about the issue on his social media platform X, where he has more than 210 million followers. He has made baseless claims that Prime Minister Keir Starmer was complicit in the rape of Britain, and brought up the idea of replacing the Labour government.

Why is Musk wading so deeply into British politics?

Joining me now is the "Financial Times" columnist Edward Luce.

Ed, welcome. Explain to us if we can simply and briefly what is the scandal? When did it begin? Why is it called the grooming scandal?

EDWARD LUCE, U.S. NATIONAL EDITOR AND COLUMNIST, FINANCIAL TIMES: So thanks, Fareed, for having me on. Yes, this is a scandal that stretches back more than two decades. It's about gangs, chiefly of Pakistani English, people of Pakistani heritage in smaller northern and midland towns in England, who groomed and abused children on quite a large scale.

And it first sort of broke into public consciousness in 2012 when a journalist for "The Times of London" put it on the front page, and that then sparked all kinds of inquiries as to why this seemingly systematic abuse had not been flagged earlier, and why no prosecutions had occurred.

[10:20:10]

Since then there have been many inquiries. There are now, I think, 60 or 70 people in jail, some of them for life, and dozens of other separate trials going on. So this is a long standing scandal that has recently come back to life because Elon Musk, as you just mentioned in your introduction, alleges that Keir Starmer, Britain's prime minister, is somehow responsible for covering it up. It's bizarre timing and there's no real basis to what Musk is

alleging, and there's no real precedent for a British government having what you call the first friend of America, having, you know, maybe de facto incoming vice president called for a change of government in Britain, in one of America's closest allies.

ZAKARIA: And as you say, I just want people to be clear and understanding. So when the scandal broke in 2012 Keir Starmer was not the prime minister by a long shot. In fact, he was a conservative government. In fact, the journalist who broke the story says Keir Starmer, who was then in a kind of public prosecutor, actually helped prosecute a lot of these cases and nothing has happened in the brief period of Keir Starmer as prime minister, where he has taken any act, any action that covers up or anything like that. Right?

I'm just trying to understand, is there any basis for implicating him in this scandal?

LUCE: No, there's no factual basis. It's true that he was director of public prosecutions in Britain, which is kind of the equivalent of attorney general, but also solicitor general. When that scandal broke in 2012, he then stepped up what was clearly a very lax system. He sort of tightened up the Crown Prosecution Service, which he was in charge of, to try to prevent such a recurrence of, you know, what was clearly a massive sort of fail by the system.

And he then began the prosecutions that are ongoing. But we've got, you know, a pretty long legacy now of trials in this case. And there have, of course, been other child abuse scandals in the church of England, the Catholic Church, the Boy Scouts, private schools, as you've seen in other countries that have not been mentioned by Elon Musk and that haven't had this kind of publicity.

ZAKARIA: And Musk doesn't like Keir Starmer. He's been encouraging the Reform Party, which used to be called the UKIP Party, the pro-Brexit party, to essentially rise. He's calling for new elections. Do you understand what that's about?

LUCE: Yes. I mean, he's a big fan of far-right parties, not just in Britain but in Germany. As you know, the Alternative for Deutschland, the far-right German party, he's saying is the only possible savior of Germany. And Nigel Farage's Reform Party in the U.K. similarly, he believes, will be the savior of Britain.

The context is the conservatives were defeated last summer by the Keir Starmer's Labour Party, and the conservatives are competing with reform for the far-right vote. They're moving to the right and Nigel Farage's Reform is moving to the left to make it a bit more electable. And they're roughly neck and neck in the polls. So there is this sort of battle as to who can be more right-wing and who can claim the mantle of sort of being a Trumpian British Conservative Party.

And Musk's interventions in favor of reform should be seen in that context. The reality is that Musk is not popular in Britain. The approval ratings I think a few years ago for him, when he was seen principally as a space guy and an EV guy, were very high. There are now fewer than 1 in 5 British people approve of Musk. So I think there are diminishing returns to this kind of really unprecedented intervention in another democracy.

ZAKARIA: Ed Luce, always a pleasure to have you on. Thank you.

LUCE: Thank you.

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, as America prepares to inaugurate Donald Trump for four more years in the Oval Office, what is the Biden administration doing to safeguard its achievements? I'll talk to the secretary of Commerce, Gina Raimondo, when we return.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:29:09]

ZAKARIA: The Department of Commerce, which my next guest leads, has been a very busy place in recent weeks. As "The Economist" reported, Commerce officials have been signing contracts, awarding funds to chip makers as part of the Biden administration's CHIPS Act, which subsidizes the development of semiconductors here in the United States.

It's seen by Team Biden as a crucial part of the race for America to lead the world in tech, and its future may be in peril because Trump doesn't like what he calls that chips deal.

Joining me now exclusively is Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.

Pleasure to have you. Let me ask you to first directly address President Trump's criticism. He says this is a very bad deal. You're giving away money. What should have been done was just high tariffs to block out foreign chip makers and all the chipmaking would in fact come to America anyway.

[10:30:06]

GINA RAIMONDO, U.S. COMMERCE SECRETARY: Yeah. Well, first of all, good morning, Fareed. Thank you for having me.

I obviously strongly disagree with that position, but frankly, Fareed, I don't think that he will disrupt the great work we've done on the chips program. And the reason I say that is because, number one, it's very successful. TSMC, the best chip company in the world, is because of our efforts right now producing in the United States for the first time ever in our country's history for nanometer sophisticated chips, which we need for our national security.

But at the end of the day, when you tear away the political rhetoric or bluster, let's remember this is a national security effort. And it was bipartisan. Senate Republicans, House Republicans voted for this. It was, in fact, started under President Trump's last term.

It was Wilbur Ross and Mike Pompeo who began this effort. So, you know, I'm hopeful that it will be sustained. But even more than that, you know, tariffs have their place, right. Like China is subsidizing the chip industry. And that's not fair.

It hurts American industry and workers. And tariffs have their place. That being said you know as well as I do we need to manufacture in the United States. It's expensive to do it here. And so you need both the chips effort and tariffs in order for the U.S. to be successful and to be secure.

ZAKARIA: So if national security is the guideline, is the north star, what should the United States do about Chinese electric vehicles, which don't really, as far as I can tell, pose a national security threat, but they are clearly making very, very high quality, very cheap electric vehicles.

RAIMONDO: So great question.

I think there are two issues, Fareed. The high quality, low, low, you know, cheap as you say, they are high quality, right? Anyone will admit, you know, and the Chinese have excelled in that.

However, the reason they're cheap is because the Chinese government is massively subsidizing the entire supply chain. That's not fair. And so that's a place that I think we ought to look at tariffs and -

ZAKARIA: But doesn't the United States subsidize once again, there are massive tax credits to buy EVs in America. There's -- there's the Biden administration has put a huge rollout of charging infrastructure. That's all subsidies. Isn't it?

RAIMONDO: Not the same. Not the same. I mean, when you can buy your inputs, your chemicals, your electronics for almost nothing as a manufacturer, that's an unfair subsidy versus setting up the infrastructure for a charging station.

There is, however, I think a real national security issue with connected vehicles, which is why the Commerce Department has taken action on this. Nowadays, you know, Fareed, a car isn't -- it's not a -- it's not steel on wheels. It's like a computer on wheels. Everything's connected.

If we were to have a million, 2 million connected Chinese connected vehicles in the U.S. and all of that data on U.S. drivers and the conversations they have in the car and the places they go, if all of that data went back to Beijing, that's a national security threat. And so, we at the Commerce Department, before the end of this administration are going to put out a rule designed to protect Americans from that threat, which is to -- which is not trade. You know, it's not a tariff. But what were saying is we have to protect Americans, our data from the threats that connected vehicles pose to America's national security.

ZAKARIA: Many people in Democratic circles talk about you as a potential future presidential candidate. Are you interested in that? Will you will you consider that as part of your post-cabinet life?

RAIMONDO: Fareed, right now I'm just trying to make it to next Friday, finishing all the work that I have working around the clock. And then I plan to take a little bit of a rest and pick my head up. But I am so committed to this country. I dedicated 15 years to service, so I got to run through the tape and then we'll think about the future after that.

ZAKARIA: Gina Raimondo, thank you so much for joining us.

RAIMONDO: Thank you. Happy New Year.

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, I will ask the Nobel Peace Prize winner and journalist Maria Ressa why she says we are entering dangerous times after Meta announced that it was ending its fact-checking program, when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:39:25]

ZAKARIA: This week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced an end to the company's U.S. fact-checking program, which used third party moderators to weed out misinformation on Facebook, Instagram and Threads. These sites will now rely on users to correct misinformation and disinformation. Zuckerberg attributed the decision in part to the reelection of President Donald Trump, citing a cultural tipping point in favor of freedom of speech.

My next guest is very concerned about the move. Maria Ressa is a Filipino journalist and the founder of a digital news site there called "Rappler". Ressa won the Nobel Prize for her efforts to preserve freedom of speech and to fight disinformation.

Maria, welcome.

In your experience, what role has fact checking played in, you know, in dealing with stuff that appears on Facebook. Give us like an example or two, so we understand what we are, what -- what fact- checking is doing in your view.

MARIA RESSA, 2021 NOBEL PEACE PRIZE LAUREATE: Sure. You know, I was concerned and lived through the harms that Facebook could that Facebook created. Online violence is real world violence, right?

People think of, you know, just one lie. But imagine a lie repeated a million times when people can't tell what's real and what's not real, what's a lie? And so what we saw happen in the Philippines was essentially an alternate -- it also happened in the United States, didn't it? Alternate realities, false information on Facebook.

And what fact checking did was to -- it's the first layer to actually, actually frankly, Facebook should have been the one to be a fact checker, right? You and I, if we say a lie, were held responsible for it so people can trust us. Well, Facebook made a system where the lie is repeated so often that people can't tell. So fact checking was Facebook's response.

It was launched in 2016 and it tried to restore factual accuracy online and when -- and when you look at a place like Myanmar, which got a lot of criticism for what happened there and what kind of role could fact checking have played? Both the United Nations and meta came up with the same conclusion, which is that this platform, Facebook, actually enabled the genocide that happened in Myanmar, right?

Again, think about it as when you say it a million times, and it's not just a lie, but also it's laced with fear, anger and hate. This is what was prioritized in the design and the distribution on Facebook. It keeps us scrolling. But in countries like Myanmar, in countries like Philippines, in countries where institutions are weak, you saw that online violence immediately became real world violence.

ZAKARIA: And the disinformation does disinformation spread more easily? Let's be honest, because human beings are attracted to excited by, you know, anger, fear, conspiracy theories, all this kind of stuff that, you know, we know what will get people agitated and intensely interested.

RESSA: Yeah, absolutely. Fear, anger, hate, lies, salaciousness, right, in some ways, this is the worst of human nature. And I think that's what big tech has been able to do through social media. It has -- the incentive structure is for the worst of who we are, because you keep scrolling and the longer you keep scrolling, the more money the platform makes. The business model is surveillance capitalism.

ZAKARIA: And finally, what do you make of the argument that Zuckerberg and of course, others have made that the fact checking inevitably has a political slant, and fact checkers tend to be left of center, and that inevitably this means that there is going to be a subconscious at the very least, sometimes conscious tilt to the fact checking process?

RESSA: I think it's gaslighting. And frankly, you know, the three D's -- delay, deny, deflect. Again, this is not a free speech issue. This is a safety issue.

And to get rid of the standards and ethics, right, you are going to get rid of facts on a global platform. You will. I mean, and were already seeing some of the impact on minorities, where again, this is what happened in Myanmar. This is what's happened in different parts of the world where violence has happened.

I think that Mark Zuckerberg had never really understood nor respected the role journalism played. And Facebook became the world's gatekeeper. And that's part of the reason we've seen the corruption of our public information ecosystem.

The fact checking program was like putting your finger in the dam. The best solution would have been to change the design. And then I think, finally, this is the biggest problem that were going to face now without a shared reality, without facts, how can you have a democracy that works?

ZAKARIA: On that ominous note, Maria Ressa, thank you for being on.

[10:45:03]

Next on GPS, RFK, Jr. wants to make America healthy again when he becomes health secretary. Derek Thompson will tell me why health trends are actually already moving in a positive direction, when we return.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ZAKARIA: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whom Donald Trump has tapped for health and human services secretary, has vowed to make America healthy again.

[10:50:06]

But my next guest actually says that there is a mysterious health wave breaking out across the United States. Derek Thompson is a staff writer at "The Atlantic" and hosts of "Plain English" podcast.

Derek, welcome.

So let me start out by asking you the statistic everybody talks about when talking about American health care is we have the most expensive system in the world, and it delivers very bad outcomes that our life expectancy in particular looks very bad compared to, say, Europe and Japan. But you say that masks an important set of causes of death. Explain what you mean.

DEREK THOMPSON, STAFF WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: Well, I think the American health care system has any number of problems. It's too expensive. There's too many uninsured people.

But the reason why America has a shorter lifespan than similarly developed countries is that Americans are more likely to die young. And the reason were more likely to die young is because of really four factors cars, drugs, guns, and calories.

We die in car accidents much more frequently than other rich countries. We have way more guns and have way more gun deaths. Our drug overdose deaths are higher than practically any other OECD country, and Americans are also obese relative to other rich countries. We have an obesity rate that's 50 percent higher than the average in Europe.

ZAKARIA: And the good news is these are coming down. So let's talk about them.

Car deaths, are they are they coming down a lot?

THOMPSON: Yeah. Car deaths have come down relatively significantly. What I think happened here is a pure pandemic effect during the pandemic. I think you saw an outbreak of a lot of anti-social behavior. People were driving around like maniacs. And you saw car fatalities just really surge.

But in the last few years, car fatalities have come down a lot. And that's very important because if you look at the CDC numbers for the most common cause of death among people in their 20s or 30s, it tends to be what they call unintentional injuries or unintentional accidents. Those tend to be car accidents.

ZAKARIA: What about drugs? Well, you know, this is the thing we hear so much about the drug, the opioid issue, fentanyl. Are those deaths coming down?

THOMPSON: This is a really interesting mystery. Why are drug overdose deaths finally coming down? I think you can break this into a few different categories. It might be the result of good policy. It might be the ironic result of bad policy, or it might just be luck.

Good policy means that the Biden administration and various states and cities have tried to push more Narcan onto the streets. It helps people with overdoses, with more Narcan on the streets, more people are surviving their overdoses. On the bad side, policy side, um, there's something called the iron law of prohibition which says that, ironically, when enforcement goes up, you tend to get more dangerous drugs.

And as we've seen, this uncontrolled migrant flow over the Mexican border, it's possible that as Mexican cartels, cartels found it easier to get more drugs into America, they could reduce the power or the potency of every individual unit of fentanyl that was coming across the border. So it's possible that, ironically, because of bad border control policy, the distribution or the supply of drugs on the street are less dangerous than they used to be.

And as a result, we're having fewer drug overdose deaths. And finally, this might be another pandemic effect. This is a grim possibility, but maybe so many people died of drug overdoses in 2020 and 2021 that that trend of drug overdose mortality simply wasn't sustainable going forward. And as a result, a truly terrible number in the pandemic has come down to a merely very bad number.

ZAKARIA: Okay, guns?

THOMPSON: With guns, I think the story or the explanation really breaks down into two parts. So the easy one with the pandemic effect is, again in 2020 and 2021, you had a lot of institutions that tend to hold young men who commit the majority of crimes shut down, schools were shut down. You had people staying at home, and as a result, maybe some of the more antisocial people went out onto the streets and committed crimes without other people watching them.

So as people went back into their normal routines as schools reopened, that tends to be, or that happened to be exactly when we saw the murder rate begin to fall. But there's another possibility, which is sometimes called the Ferguson effect. After a major police killing like we saw in Ferguson, Missouri, so long ago.

And as we saw with -- with the death of George Floyd, its conceivable that as you have people protest police brutality, police respond by pulling back their activities. Crime blooms until they police the streets more in a response to that blooming crime. And then crime comes back down.

ZAKARIA: And finally, declining obesity in America. THOMPSON: Well, declining obesity in America. I think we're probably

looking at the new class of GLP-1 drugs, also known as Ozempic or Zepbound, Mounjaro.

[10:55:07]

And these drugs are unbelievably powerful. In clinical trials, they seem to find that people are reducing their overall weight by 20 or even 30 percent when they're -- when they're on these drugs. And that's unbelievably important because there are so many diseases, cancers, for example, and disabilities that come with a country that has an obesity rate 50 percent higher than the rates in Europe.

ZAKARIA: Derek Thompson, great to have you on with some good news for the new year. Thank you.

THOMPSON: Thank you.

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