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Fareed Zakaria GPS

Interview with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani. Interview With Polish Deputy Prime Minister Radoslaw Sikorski; How Politics And Religion Mixed At Charlie Kirk's Memorial; What Evangelicals Want From Trump. Aired 10-11a ET

Aired September 28, 2025 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:36]

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, a special U.N. General Assembly edition of GPS. We'll begin with Syria's minister of foreign affairs, Asaad al-Shaibani. He, like his boss, the president, is a former rebel. Together, they promote the idea of a new existence for their nation. Will it work?

Then I'll speak to Poland's deputy prime minister, Radek Sikorski. Less than three weeks ago, some 20 Russian drones invaded his nation's airspace. This week in New York he fired back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RADOSLAW SIKORSKI, POLISH DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER: You have been warned.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAKARIA: And was the Charlie Kirk memorial evidence of a new religious revival in America?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: But first, here's "My Take."

The Trump administration's announcement last week about the new rules for H-1B visas, including the most, would now require $100,000 fee made headlines. But few pointed out that, as usual, it played fast and loose with the rules that govern the process, which require a prior period of public notice and comment, invoking national security to levy the fee.

The Trump administration has been following this pattern from the start. One of its early actions was to fire more than a dozen inspectors general, disregarding the law that required specific reasons for each one's firing and public notice. The administration seems to be ignoring and flouting laws and rules purposefully so as to erode the checks on its authority.

It could have pushed Congress to pass legislation raising tariffs to whatever level Trump wanted. The Republican majority is there have denied him practically nothing. Similarly, it could have asked Congress to shut down USAID since foreign aid has rarely been very popular.

Instead, President Trump took unilateral executive action. The administration is deliberately refusing to play by the rules in ways that look to most observers like usurpations of authority and accumulation of power. Some are deeply troubled by this. Others brush it off. But the question I want to ask is why? Why has America's vaunted system of checks and balances proved so weak?

Among the Western democracies, America today stands out. Amid the widespread rise of populism, discontent with various establishments, and angry political rhetoric, the U.S. appears to have moved further than any other down the path of illiberal democracy, where constitutionalism and the rule of law are being steadily undermined.

Hungary is the obvious other example, but Hungary is a very young and fragile democracy, scarred by decades of communism. The United States is the oldest constitutional republic in the world, and yet Sweden's V-Dem Institute has described the erosion of American democracy as unprecedented in scale.

Any one of the administration's actions might have in a previous era provoked public outcry. But today we routinely see regulatory threats and lawsuits against media companies, threats to deny law firms, government, business or access to federal buildings. The use of the Justice Department to target political opponents, and the use of military forces within the United States.

Some laud these moves as necessary acts of executive authority, but almost no one would disagree that the breadth and number of these actions are unprecedented. Certainly in the half century since Watergate. Ironically, part of the problem stems from the age of the Constitution, which in many ways is an enduring success.

America's political framework actually dates back not even to 1776 or 1789, but further to the structures of government put in place by early English colonial settlers. This system was modern for its age, but that was 300 years ago.

[10:05:06]

Today, to give one critical example, many Western democracies have departments of justice and electoral commissions that are independent of the elected government. In America, neither prosecutors nor elections are really insulated from politics or elected politicians. Since Watergate, certain norms have developed around the executive not interfering, but they are just norms as the Trump administration has shown by breaking them without consequence.

Similarly, other democracies have more nonpartisan ways to pick judges and fixed terms for them. Unlike America's partisan mechanisms to appoint judges who then sit for life. Ironically, the world learned many of these checks and balances, such as a Supreme Court that has the ultimate power of review over laws from America. But then they fine-tuned them as they were enacted.

Steven Levitsky, one of the foremost scholars of democratic collapse, the co-author of "How Democracies Die," says that perhaps the most important reason for the institutional decay is that America has been so successful over the years that it has never seen the need to change.

It's a truism in business and life that one rarely learns from success, only from failure. And America has won the Cold War, pioneered the information revolution, and continues to stand atop the world by many material measures. So we don't see the need to examine our own system, consider its flaws, and improve it.

"American exceptionalism has blinded us to weaknesses in our constitutional and political system," Levitsky says. Alongside this lack of introspection, Levitsky describes as crucial the failure of leadership. "We have no memory of democratic collapse or authoritarian rule," he notes.

"In places like Poland and Brazil, generations know what it is like to have lost the rule of law and constitutional safeguards. But Republican leaders, business leaders, Supreme Court justices don't seem to think we could actually watch democracy decay and even die. This is America. They seem to think, we're different."

That failure of imagination is creating a complacency that might prove deadly.

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

In December 2024, after almost 14 years of a brutal civil war, Syrian rebels toppled the Assad regime, which had ruled for more than half a century. One of the rebel leaders, Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former al Qaeda militant, is now the country's president. Another is its foreign minister, Asaad al-Shaibani, with whom I spoke at the Council on Foreign Relations on Thursday.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Welcome, Mr. Foreign Minister. The first thing I think I have to ask you is something we're all fascinated by. Tell me what it's like to go from being a rebel, an opposition leader, people called you al Qaeda. You know, al-Nusra was allied with al Qaeda. How do you go from that to being part of the government?

ASAAD AL-SHAIBANI, SYRIAN FOREIGN MINISTER (through translator): This transformation you mentioned gives me the impression that you're talking about a robot or a machine. But we're not. We are a free people who's been patient for 60 years of totalitarianism and dictatorship.

There was no political life that we could look up to, and we chose our dignity and our freedom through peaceful protestation. And we continued on the side of the Syrian people in all the difficult phases we've been through since 2011 until 2024.

ZAKARIA: It doesn't surprise me that you were in opposition to the Assad regime, father and son. What I'm talking about more is you come out of an opposition that was very Islamic and politically Islamic. And in many ways, you know, the kind of -- the kind of governments that were started by groups like that tended to be like ISIS, you know, it's Sharia Law.

[10:10:04]

Here you are in a, you know, in a suit and tie talking about Syria being reintegrated into the world. This is very different from Khomeini. This is very different from Baghdadi. This is very different from the Taliban. Why? Why are you different from the other Islamic militant groups that came to power?

AL-SHAIBANI (through translator): We are a popular movement. We are completely in unison with the Syrian people. We participated in its revolution. We're not strangers to this society. We support all the aspirations of the people, when they chose to manifest peacefully, we joined them. And when Syria was liberated, we were at the level that they expected.

You wouldn't expect a model like Taliban in Syria. Every people, every country has its own experience and history. Our experience is in unison with what we aspire to, to the aspirations of the Syrian people, a civilized people that can ably represent itself without any -- without any resort to models like Daesh or Taliban or anything that does not go well with the Syrian nature.

ZAKARIA: If you look at Syria, roughly when the civil war started, there were about three million Christians in Syria. There are now 300,000. The population has literally been decimated. What will you do to try to protect Syrian Christians, this community that goes back, you know, to the beginnings of Christianity, and ensure that unlike so many Christian communities in the Arab world, they don't get destroyed or disappear? Again, look at Iraq, the Christian community there has essentially disappeared.

AL-SHAIBANI (through translator): Our population then was around 24 million. Ten of whom were dislocated. Many of them were Muslim, Christian and others. The war has driven many Syrians out. But now, by the end of the war, and according to you and census, I believe, about a million Syrians have returned. But I believe we need further improvement of the -- all the establishments and institutions that provide these services to the Syrians.

We wish for all Syrians, particularly also the Christians, to come back to Syria, to become part of us once again, as they have always been.

ZAKARIA: Can they rebuild their churches?

AL-SHAIBANI (through translator): They have reopened the churches in Aleppo and in Idlib. They are practicing their religious activities. They have celebrated Christmas. We make that available to the entire population. Every Syrian living in Syria should feel that he lives in his country with full rights and duties that the state protects their rights.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, in New York this week, Syria's president said we are scared of Israel. Why? I will ask Syria's foreign minister about the neighborhood relations when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:18:17]

ZAKARIA: When Syrian rebels seized Damascus last December, there was renewed hope for a shift in relations between Israel and Syria after decades of hostility. But Israel has struck Syria repeatedly since the fall of Assad, almost 500 times in a two-day period right after the fall according to the IDF, and on and off since then.

Some of the strikes have hit Damascus, including near the presidential palace and the Ministry of Defense. Israel says that its recent strikes are meant to protect the Druze, but Syria rejects that claim. The Druze are an Arab ethno-religious minority with a significant and influential community in Israel that is fiercely loyal to the state.

Since the fall of Assad, there have been multiple clashes in Syria between government-allied forces and the Druze. At the Council on Foreign Relations, I asked Syria's foreign minister, Asaad al- Shaibani, what he makes of all of this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Why do you think Israel intervened? Do you think Israel wants a divided and weak Syria?

AL-SHAIBANI (through translator): There is an Israeli position that they want one strong, unified Syria. However, Israeli practices run counter to that. I truly do not know what the real reasons behind that are. However, I could say that a unified and strong Syria will be in the interest of regional peace and in the interest of Israel as well.

ZAKARIA: When your government came to power, some of your officials talked about the possibility of normalizing relations in the context of an expanded Abraham Accords.

[10:20:04]

Is that possible now given what Israel has done, or is that idea completely dead?

AL-SHAIBANI (through translator): Perhaps we should talk about the Israeli position before and after the 8th of December. Before that date, the Syrian population was keen on toppling the Assad regime and establishing its state in which it can live in dignity. Also to rebuild the country after the ravages of war. Israel was not part of that equation.

After the 8th of December, the Syrian population was shocked by repeated Israeli attacks since the first day. Attacks that were unjustified and unwarranted. The Israeli threats as well that there are Iran militias, Hezbollah militias, that were in conformity with the former regime. But now they have all left. There's a new state. We have declared that Syria is no threat to anyone in the region, including Israel. However, these positive messages that reflect the new face of Syria was met with these threats.

Speaking of normalization and the Abraham Accords, at this time is difficult particularly since Syria remains threatened by Israel. The Golan continues to be occupied, and other Syrian territories were occupied after the 8th of December. The entire buffer zone was occupied by Israel.

ZAKARIA: What is your vision for Syria five years from now? Is it going to be a democratic country trading with the world? Are positions like yours are going to be democratically elected?

AL-SHAIBANI (through translator): Over the past nine months, we have been able to achieve a little of what we aspire to. We aspire to a real strong state in Syria, representing its population. With a loyal population that believes that investing in the country is what is required now, as opposed to fleeing the country. We aspire to an economically strong Syria, and we have the tools to be able to do that.

We have a cultured population that has wisdom and long and old heritage, as well as our strategic location that gives us an advantage as a country linking the east and the west. The Syrian population has a long political experience, and it is capable of achieving the political model that realizes the aspirations of the population.

A Syria that is developed, that is economically viable, that is capable, stable and developing economically with all its Syrians abroad coming back and investing in their country. A Syria that establishes friendly and cooperative relations with its neighbors. Syria that is open to the European Union and to the whole world and maintain strategic ties with the United States.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Russia has recently made incursions into the airspace of several NATO countries. I'll ask Poland's deputy prime minister about the stark warning he issued to Moscow this week.

We'll be back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:28:44]

ZAKARIA: Earlier this month, Russia sent some 20 drones into Poland's airspace. Then it sent a drone into Romania and for 12 minutes on September 19th, three Russian fighter jets lingered over the skies in Estonia before NATO mobilized F-35 jet fighters to repel them. At an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting this week, Poland's foreign minister and deputy prime minister Radek Sikorski delivered a sharp rebuke to Russia.

I talked to Sikorski on Thursday at Poland's consulate here in New York.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Radek Sikorski, welcome on the show. You gave quite a remarkable speech at the U.N. And at the end of it, you issued a threat to Russia, I think a veiled threat, but a threat which was, in effect, that were there to be other incursions, another incursion of Russian drones into Polish airspace, you might do more than shoot them down. There was an implication that NATO might take this battle to Russia.

SIKORSKI: No, that wasn't the implication. But, yes, we see Russian actions as a part of the spectrum of their hybrid war, which includes information warfare, arsons, assassinations, sending parcels with incendiary devices, pushing migrants across the Belarusian-Polish border, and now these drones deliberately sent into Poland.

And of course, we have the right to defend our airspace, the security of our citizens and their property. And there are procedures for it. You intercept incoming drones or aircraft. You try to send them home, or you try to make them land. But in the end --

ZAKARIA: But you said -- you said, you have been warned. That was your last line.

SIKORSKI: Yes.

ZAKARIA: What were you warning them about?

SIKORSKI: In the end, every sovereign country has the right to deal with intruders. You wouldn't tolerate Cuban MiGs over Florida. And we will, in the end, protect our citizens.

ZAKARIA: Do you believe that this is part of a Russian strategy of probing to see whether NATO is actually going to respond, if it were to do things in NATO territory?

SIKORSKI: Yes, we do. This was a deliberate provocation. Twenty-one drones were launched from a single location, different from the launch sites of the drones against Ukraine. And the composition of the drone swarm was different. If it was a sideshow of the attack on Ukraine, you would expect the same proportion of armed and unarmed drones.

All these drones were unarmed. Instead of warheads, they had extra fuel tanks. So, the Russians were trying to test us without starting the war. Test our air defenses. Test the resilience of our population, the unity of our government and our allies.

And I'm glad to say that our Dutch, Italian, German allies were there with us in the fight, which, by the way, lasted seven hours. And allies have also sent us additional anti-drone and anti-aircraft assets since then.

ZAKARIA: What do you make of President Trump's seeming reversal of policy on Ukraine? He now says, Ukraine can win the war. It can recover its territories.

Previously, he and Secretary Hegseth had said, there's no way they're going to get these territories back. The Russians will keep them and that's OK.

SIKORSKI: I think President Trump is seeing what we are seeing, namely, that the Russian offensive has petered out. Russia's size is playing against it because it is impossible for Russia to protect all its assets with anti-aircraft capabilities.

So, Ukraine has already attacked something like half of Russian refineries, which means that it's more difficult for the war machine to continue to attack Ukraine. And President Trump famously likes backing a winner.

ZAKARIA: But on the crucial issue of is he willing to put pressure on Russia, give more arms to Ukraine, put in place more sanctions against Russia, so far, there's nothing. Do you -- do you expect that to change?

SIKORSKI: We hope that the U.S. does that because Putin will only stop this war when he thinks he can't win. And for him to come to that conclusion there needs to be more pressure on the Russian economy and more help for the Ukrainians.

The American side, I think, is planning to buy some Ukrainian drones. I think it's testimony to Ukraine's achievement during this war. This war will likely end the way World War I ended. One side or the other will run out of resources to carry on.

ZAKARIA: So, you are looking at this war and you think that Ukraine can hold out, that Russia is weaker than perhaps many of us have thought. And so, the tide is turning in Ukraine's favor?

SIKORSKI: Putin started this war on hyper optimistic assumptions. He thought that he was going to have a coup in Kyiv, that it would take three days, that Ukrainians will welcome him with open arms because they are just misguided Russians. All of those assumptions proved to be incorrect. And he's mired in a war which is destroying Russia's future, which has already cost a million dead and wounded. And the trouble is that he can't admit the mistake to himself or to the Russian people.

You know, these colonial wars usually take about a decade. They only end when the aggressor concludes that he can't win. And usually, they are ended by a different team that started it.

ZAKARIA: Wow. Well, that means you're talking about many more years possibly? I mean, depending on whether you started in 2014 or 2022, and you're talking about possible regime change in Russia.

[10:35:01] SIKORSKI: Well, if you look at Russia's history, Russia lost plenty of wars, the Crimean War, the Russo-Japanese War, got knocked out of World War I, lost the invasion of Poland in 1920, lost the invasion of Afghanistan, and lost the Cold War.

And they all have one thing in common. Only after the war have there been reforms in Russia. And in fact, reforms only happen after a lost war. So actually, to lose this war for Russia it would not only be good for Ukraine and for Europe, but also for Russia.

ZAKARIA: And in almost all those cases, there was regime change in Russia.

SIKORSKI: After Russo-Japanese War which was brought to an end, actually, by the president of the United States, Teddy Roosevelt, with the Treaty of Portsmouth, Nicholas II bought himself 12 years.

ZAKARIA: Radek Sikorski, always a pleasure.

SIKORSKI: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: The memorial for political activist Charlie Kirk highlighted a religious revival in the Republican Party. Is it spreading beyond that, when we come.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:40:46]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Charlie Kirk, who was, of course, tragically assassinated earlier this month, was a 31-year-old conservative activist whose political message was infused with his Christianity. We see the same co-mingling between politics and religion from leaders in the White House. But it isn't just happening there.

Young men in America are now more religious than young women, bucking decades of statistics showing it has been women who made up the majority of those sitting in the pews. Ross Douthat of "The New York Times" calls this a masculine religious revival. Is it?

Joining me to talk about all of this is Ruth Graham. She covers religion for "The New York Times." Welcome, Ruth.

I want to first ask you your reaction to that remarkable memorial service to Charlie Kirk, which was watched by tens and tens of millions of people outside of the stadium, 100,000 inside the stadium. And it felt like you had major political figures in the United States, the vice president, the secretary of state, the secretary of war, speaking openly in religious terms, even theological terms, reciting the Nicene Creed, talking about Christ's resurrection.

That does seem different from the way of what was, at the end of the day, a publicly televised somewhat political event would have taken place. What was your reaction?

RUTH GRAHAM, RELIGION REPORTER, NEW YORK TIMES: It was a fascinating event. I mean, it was a blend of -- a political rally with, you know, the highest leaders of -- you know, political leaders in the country speaking but also often speaking, as you said, in distinctly theological terms and distinctly Christian terms and distinctly conservative Christian terms. And then also you have, you know, Christian worship music being played and prayers happening.

You know, a moment that I thought was really fascinating was Erika Kirk getting up there and, you know, speaking really emotionally about how she and in Christian terms, again, about how she forgave her husband's killer. And then followed almost immediately by President Trump saying that he could do no such thing. And, you know, that he couldn't forgive his enemies. And his enemies were his enemies.

And so, you know, you see this kind of like push and pull between the Trump political, you know, kind of moral framework and then the Christian framework. But more often than contrast, you saw them really blending in ways that, you know, it was a space in which it was almost impossible to disentangle those two streams. So, a really fascinating artifact.

ZAKARIA: When you go to the White House and when you talk to people who are involved in the administration's policies, do you find that this mingling of religion and politics is true, you know, kind of privately in quite the same way that we saw it publicly at that -- at that memorial service?

GRAHAM: Yes. And that's something that feels different in this second term of the Trump administration. I mean, when President Trump came in, he kind of made an argument to Christians, to evangelicals specifically, that he would be their defender, that he was on their side, someone who was promoting their interests, not necessarily putting himself out there as one of them.

But in the West Wing -- I mean, Trump has brought the White House Faith Office into the West Wing for the first time. That's a historical first, this term. There are pastors coming in and out of that space all the time. So, you can hear the sounds of, you know, Christian worship music and prayer happening very enthusiastically, like, at the White House now very often.

You have some cabinet meetings opening with, again, very emotive forms of evangelical prayer. So, there's a kind of blending and empowerment of this particular version of conservative Christianity that it feels new to me this term even compared to his last term.

ZAKARIA: Is there a specific agenda, policy wise that many of these evangelicals hope the administration will follow?

GRAHAM: I mean, I think you can see it in things like, you know, the push for school prayer, the 10 commandments where -- I'm here in Texas, so we're talking about that a lot.

[10:45:02] You know, I would say broadly there's -- it would be a push to dismantle the separation of church and state. But I also think it's about a sort of cultural battle. And again, people who feel that they have not been able to articulate or have, you know -- yes, not been able to speak publicly about their views about -- you know, things like gender, sexuality, all these kinds of things that people say they have felt afraid to talk about and now feel empowered to talk about more directly.

ZAKARIA: So, it almost legitimizes a certain degree of the backlash against some of these trends that have taken place. But it's not clear. It's gone as far as to say they want to undo them. So, for example, gay rights or gay marriage.

GRAHAM: That's right. I mean, you do hear -- you know, I do hear people talking more directly about hoping to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges which made same sex marriage legal nationally. So, you know, I think that's a ways away, and would have to work its way through the courts. And so, I -- you know, I don't want to be an alarmist about that, but I do hear people talking about that in these circles as a sort of long-term possibility.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Stay with me. Next, I will ask Ruth Graham if there really is a religious revival happening in America, and if so, why, when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:51:11]

ZAKARIA: More now of my interview with Ruth Graham, a religion reporter at "The New York Times."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: So, let's talk about the generational thing.

GRAHAM: Yes.

ZAKARIA: Ruth, when people look at the polling data, what is emerging, and you've written about this, Ross Douthat has talked about it, is there seems to be a religious revival, Douthat calls it. Describe, first of all, what the polling says, and is it a religious revival?

GRAHAM: Yes. I mean, I'm not in the business of declaring something an authentic revival or not. But if you look at the statistics, it is really remarkable because for generations you had basically every new generation being slightly less or sometimes substantively less religious than the generation that came before it.

And, you know, you could see or imagine this kind of, you know, steady march toward European secularism in the U.S. And Gen Z has really, really complicated that narrative. They are not meaningfully less religious than millennials before them. So, they've at the very least, kind of stopped that slide.

And then when you kind of drill down among, you know, Christians and Gen Z, in particular, you see young men coming back to church, coming to church, being more religiously observant, reading their Bibles more often than their -- than young women who are their peers, which is a really sort of counter -- it's almost unprecedented. You know, like all the scholars are really baffled by this and really fascinated by it.

And so, there is some energy and there have been -- you know, I will call them revivals on college campuses, especially in the south over the last few years, like really large sort of semi-impromptu religious gatherings of, you know, worship and preaching and, you know, thousands of young people coming together for these events. People traveling a long way for them.

And then you also see -- I mean, even in the week after Charlie Kirk was assassinated, you had pastors saying that they had record attendance in their churches, you know. So, this idea that this might be sort of supercharged by this moment, you know, one week is too soon to know exactly what effect the Kirk assassination will have, but it's building on some genuine momentum. And, you know, particularly seeing young men come to these churches.

ZAKARIA: Yes. When you when you -- when you listened to Charlie Kirk, he often made a particular appeal to men. You know, you need to go out there, take responsibility. He goes and says, you shouldn't be drinking. You shouldn't be at the bar. You should be picking up the Bible. You should support your family or think about a family.

So, it feels like at a time of, you know, enormous uncertainty and anxiety and particularly uncertainty and anxiety about what men should do, what role men have in this new post-industrial world, he was giving them a charge. And it seems like that's -- that's -- that's been working. That, you know, it gives men a sense of purpose and dignity.

GRAHAM: That's right. He was doing much more than telling them how to vote. It was a much more kind of holistic lifestyle pitch to come to church, find a good woman, get married, have children. Kind of calling them to a higher purpose and a really substantive adult life.

And, you know, again, at least that's what his supporters and followers would say that they -- that they were getting from his messages. It was a -- you know, a kind of whole vision of how to be a conservative adult man in America.

ZAKARIA: Now, you do point out that this is not really a religious revival. It is -- I think, maybe Douthat also said it's the -- it's the -- it's a break in the secularization.

[10:55:06]

In other words, the line is not moving up. It just stopped moving down, right? To a certain extent, what we're seeing is still a fair degree of secularization and such. GRAHAM: That's right. I mean, the sort of broader trend line of the decline of religiosity in American life has not, you know, turned around and is, you know, skyrocketing upwards. But I think even to see that line stop, you know, and hesitate for a bit is a really fascinating moment. You see, a real intense search for meaning right now. And that will be really interesting to watch over the -- over, you know, the next few years.

ZAKARIA: Ruth, pleasure to have you on.

GRAHAM: Thank you so much.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

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