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Fareed Zakaria GPS

Shots Fired at White House Correspondents' Dinner; U.S.-Iran Stalemate. Interview With The Former Commander Of U.S. Special Operations Command Retired Admiral William McRaven; Interview With Council On Foreign Relations Senior Fellow Sebastian Mallaby; "The Imperial Presidency," Airs Tonight at 8:00 P.M. Eastern. Aired 10-11a ET

Aired April 26, 2026 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:35]

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 live from New York.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ZAKARIA: Today on the program, we'll bring you some perspective on the shooting at last night's White House Correspondents' Dinner.

Then, will they meet again or won't they? Talks between the U.S. and Iran were supposed to be held this weekend. The U.S. delegation was ready to go, but then it was all called off. I'll talk about that stalemate with retired Admiral William McRaven.

Finally, what you need to know about Mythos, Anthropic's new A.I. that is so powerful and so dangerous, potentially, that the company refuses to publicly release it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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

I was recently in Shenzhen, the heart of China's industrial machine, talking to one of that country's legendary businessman. I asked him about the Iran war and his response surprised me. He said, quote, "For us, Trump's attack on Iran is less consequential than his threat to attack Greenland. When he did that to America's oldest allies, I knew that Europe would not follow America's approach to China," unquote.

In the U.S., Trump's periodic insults hurled toward Europe tend to get treated as routine tantrums. Part of the reality TV show that is now the White House. But in Europe, the accumulation of abuse has reached a tipping point.

Daniel DePetris recently wrote in "The Spectator," a conservative and usually ardently pro-American magazine, "The war in Iran has forced Europe to grow a spine. European leaders are no longer interested in dropping to their knees and groveling to stay on Trump's good side." Europe is moving from words to actions. The E.U.'s Re-Arm Europe

Readiness 2030 plan is to invest some 800 billion euros in defense in the coming years. The old model was that America took care of European security, and Europeans spent generously on American arms. Now Europeans want more of their money to stay at home, to build European firms and supply chains, and thus gain strategic autonomy from Washington.

The same logic is spreading beyond defense. The European payments initiative is building a continent wide alternative to Visa and Mastercard. European institutions are seeking alternatives to Swift, PayPal, and other U.S. dominated financial platforms. France has moved gold reserves from New York to Paris. Politicians in Germany and Italy have debated whether their country should do the same.

European governments are looking for alternatives to American software, fearing that U.S. firms might one day be ordered to cut off critical services. This can all be dismissed as posturing, but let's remember Europe is collectively the world's second largest economy, with the second most widely used reserve currency. Its actions matter.

Perhaps the most revealing change is on the European right. Anti- Americanism used to be a doctrine of the left, Paris intellectuals, student radicals, anti-war parties. The right was instinctively Atlanticist and Europe's populist right once saw Trump as its patron saint. But Greenland, Iran and Trump's general contempt for Europe have made him politically toxic across the political spectrum.

The "Washington Post" reported that figures such as Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen, Giorgia Meloni and Germany's AfD Party have all been distancing themselves from Trump and American policy. Even in Hungary, J.D. Vance's speeches for Viktor Orban may have hurt Orban's electoral prospects.

It goes beyond Europe. In Canada, Prime Minister Mark Carney has explicitly set out to reduce his country's dependance on the U.S. market. He has already signed more than 20 economic and security deals, including with China, to grow exports beyond the U.S.

[10:05:04]

Canadians, for their part, are buying less American and vacationing less in the U.S.. Europe and Canada are not about to embrace China. They have serious conflicts with Beijing over Ukraine subsidies, electric vehicles, critical minerals, market access. But both will play nicer with China where they can. They will hedge. They'll deal with Washington when they must, Beijing when it suits them, and others whenever possible.

A recent "Foreign Affairs" essay by Chinese scholar Da Wei argues that for Beijing, the great new geopolitical fact is there is now a deep Europe-America divide, ready to be exploited. In Asia America's allies have been hit harder than anyone. More than 80 percent of the oil and gas that passed through the Strait of Hormuz went to Asia. Now, many countries on that continent are reeling from their worst energy crisis in half a century, perhaps in history. As a result, American allies like Japan and South Korea have had to go

hat in hand to adversaries like Russia and Iran to negotiate for enough fuel to keep the lights on at home. Adding insult to injury, they have had to endure abuse from Trump, who has denounced them because despite never having been consulted, they have not eagerly jumped to join America's war. Many of them are now in talks with Beijing about energy security and green technology.

One of the recurring questions about Donald Trump's foreign policy has been, how permanent are its effects? Could the United States recover from the loss of trust with its allies? As we can see, countries have started making long-term policy shifts, and these will soon take on a life of their own. They realize that they had entrusted their security and well-being to Washington, and it has used this dependence to squeeze them hard.

So they've decided to buy insurance to protect themselves from an unreliable America. And who can blame them?

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

Last night, Secret Service agents whisked President Trump off the stage at the White House Correspondents' Dinner after gunshots rang out at a security checkpoint nearby. The president was unharmed, but a Secret Service agent at the checkpoint was hit. Trump said the agent was saved by his bulletproof vest. The suspect, a 31-year-old man from California, was believed to be targeting members of the Trump administration, according to acting attorney general Todd Blanche.

Joining me now to discuss is Tim Naftali. He is a CNN presidential historian and the former director of the Nixon Presidential Library.

Tim, welcome. What I was struck by in this terrible situation was actually the system worked, by which I mean, the gunman didn't seem to get close to the president or even to Cabinet members. My understanding is the security checkpoint at which he was stopped was not even on the same floor. It was quite far away, which is why when the shots rang out, many people in the auditorium didn't think they were gunshots.

Is it fair to say that the Secret Service seems to have actually done its job?

TIMOTHY NAFTALI, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Well, it's more than fair to say it. Not just the Secret Service, you think about the number of different law enforcement and protective services that were in the Hilton last night, because not just the president, but all the senior members of the Cabinet have their own security systems.

We're very fortunate that no member of the Trump administration was harmed and that no journalists were harmed and that no bystanders were harmed, and it's good news that the Secret Service officer is going to recover fully.

This is -- one of the things that's absolutely important as we piece together, as we learn about this attempt is to keep in mind that this was premeditated. Clearly, we know enough to know that this person wanted to circumvent metal detectors. So he took a train. We don't have metal detectors on trains. If you want to bring a gun, that's very sad, you can on a train. He checked into the hotel. He must have assumed there would only be one cordon, one set of metal detectors at the entrance to the hotel. He was already checked in.

Fortunately, the -- our system had a series of concentric circles, each of which had a metal detector.

[10:10:04]

And so the perpetrator didn't understand the level and depth of the security perimeter around the president. We're all very fortunate about that. But he tried. This man certainly tried to create havoc and mayhem.

ZAKARIA: And when you look at, you know, that man, it does feel like we are in a, I don't know, an age of political violence? These things have happened before. Gerald Ford was targeted twice. Obviously, the late '60s with Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy and Malcolm X and, you know, others. But does it feel to you like that kind of a moment?

NAFTALI: Oh, it certainly does. And when you think of the industry of hate that we have around us and the extent to which there are people who use social media to draw attention, and they have opted for conspiracy theories, for provocative comments, stirring the pot, our political parties also, if you get their e-mails, you'll see they -- everything is existential. Everything is apocalyptic.

And diseased, weakened minds can be provoked to do terrible things. We have seen this in history before. In the United States we saw it in the late '60s and we saw it in the '70s. Europe and the United States saw it at the turn of the 19th century. The president of France, the president of the United States, William McKinley, the king of Portugal, the empress of Austria. These were all people targeted, in some cases killed, by anarchists at the turn of the century.

What were the anarchists seeking? To disrupt the establishment. It was hatred towards those in power. And in the United States today we see this mindless hatred against those in power and those in power are Republicans as well as Democrats, conservatives as well as liberals.

ZAKARIA: When you look at America, there is today the additional element, it seems to me, of, I mean, the widespread availability of guns, the mental health crisis and the polarization, as you said, there does seem more extreme, maybe because of social media and the way we use technology. I mean, because Europe has some of these political divisions, but, you know, it doesn't seem to have nearly the kind of political violence the United States does right now.

NAFTALI: Well, I don't want to make this political, but we have so many guns in the system here that people who want to make a political statement and be contrary to our Constitution and hurt someone can do it, can get access to guns. Look at the political murders that we have seen in the last few years. Of course, an attempted murders. Butler, fortunately, then former president Trump was hurt but not of course got killed.

But after Butler the killing of Brian Thompson, the health care executive, the killing of Melissa Hortman and her husband in Minnesota, the killing of Charlie Kirk in Utah. We have seen time and again these lost boys seeking to make their statement by using violence. And that is a product of our political -- toxic political culture today, I would argue, plus social media.

ZAKARIA: Yes, it's a long way to climb back from. And, you know, who knows, maybe this is a moment where there will be a bit of a reset.

Tim Naftali, always a pleasure to talk to you.

NAFTALI: Thank you, Fareed.

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, the United States and Iran are locked in a strategic and diplomatic standoff. What is the exit strategy? I'll speak to retired Admiral William McRaven next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:18:32]

ZAKARIA: Yesterday, President Trump canceled a U.S. delegation scheduled trip to Pakistan for a potential second round of talks with Iran, claiming there was infighting in the Iranian leadership and that nobody knows who is in charge. On the other side, the top Iranian negotiator has questioned whether the U.S. is, quote, "truly serious about diplomacy," unquote. This all comes amid a fragile ceasefire between the United States and Iran and a continuing blockade of the Strait of Hormuz by both sides.

Joining me now to discuss this stalemate is a man with deep expertise in military strategy and tactics, retired U.S. Navy Admiral William McRaven. He has a new book out "Duty, Honor, Country and Life: A Tribute to the American Spirit."

Admiral, welcome. Always a pleasure to talk to you. I want to first ask you just so that people understand, what is the situation as far as you can tell, and you are on the outside, at the Strait of Hormuz? Because, you know, in a sense, the Iranians say that they have blockaded it and the Americans say, no, no, no, we have blockaded it just outside the Strait of Hormuz.

There are reports that Iranian tankers are getting by through a very intriguing scenario where they essentially hug the coastline of Iran, which is not international waters. And then they hug the coastline of Pakistan, which is the next neighboring country, and then hug the coastline of India all the way to get to an Indian refinery.

[10:20:07]

Is that plausible? And as far as you can tell, what is the state of play? Are all ships blocked? Are non-Iranian ships blocked? How would you describe it?

ADM. WILLIAM MCRAVEN (RET.), FORMER COMMANDER, U.S. SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND: Yes. Well, first, Fareed, great to be with you. Let me say at the outset, however, that I think, you know, I'm not a big fan of President Trump, but I am very happy, very happy that he and the first lady and the members of his Cabinet and the members of the White House Correspondents' Dinner are safe and that the Secret Service and law enforcement just did an incredible job under very chaotic situations. So very thankful for that.

You know, to get to your question, I mean, the fact of the matter is we're at an impasse here. You know, from the Iranian standpoint, you talked about coming to the table. I don't think the Iranians want to come to the table, the negotiating table, until President Trump lifts the blockade. And, of course, the blockade really is about blockading, you know, any and all cargo oil that is coming into or out of Iran. and, frankly, globally.

So Trump feels like the blockade is his leverage. And of course, the Iranians won't come to the table until the blockade is lifted. If I were advising President Trump, I would say, look, take this opportunity to expand and open the ceasefire. Make it go a little longer. Tell the Iranians that you will lift the blockade if they will open the Straits of Hormuz. I think that would get them to the negotiating table.

Once they are at the negotiating table, then you have time to be able to deal with all the other issues, the enrichment of uranium, et cetera. But until you can get them at the table, then I don't think, you know, we're going to make much progress here. And so lift the blockade because you can always flip a switch and put the blockade back in play.

ZAKARIA: So in a sense, you know, isn't it fair to say the Iranians are betting that they can take the pain more than the Americans can? And I don't know, historically, it seems to me when we've been in these situations, Vietnam, Iraq, that's a -- you know, for the country involved or for the regime involved, it's existential. They are willing to take more pain than the United States, for whom it is not existential.

MCRAVEN: Yes, absolutely. You know, Maureen Dowd had a great piece in "The Times" this week where she talked about the O. Henry story, "The Ransom of Red Chief", you know, where a couple of hapless crooks kidnap a 10-year-old boy, and then they find out he's more trouble than he's worth, and they have to return him, and they have to pay $250 to the father.

I think we are in a very similar situation right here. When we talk about escalation, dominance and who holds all the cards, you know, it's difficult to say we hold all the cards now. The fact of the matter is the Iranians can hold the Straits of Hormuz at risk because of the fast attack boats. They still have the drones. They still have a fair number of ballistic missiles. But they can also hold the Bab El Mandeb at risk through the Houthis. So the Iranians, I think, can put up with the pressure a little bit

longer than President Trump can because the global economy is suffering greatly as you pointed out in the first part of your piece here.

ZAKARIA: And do you think that there is a deal to be had? I mean, it feels like, you know, the Iranians basically are at a certain number in terms of how much enrichment they can. The U.S. is at zero. Unless these are kind of theological positions, there is a -- there are numbers in the middle where you can compromise.

MCRAVEN: Yes, I do think there is a deal to be made, but it's going to take time. The fact of the matter is it took 18 months to negotiate the JCPOA, and that was with people who really understood negotiation. I saw Bill Burns' article, and I think he laid it out very nicely. But you have to get them to the table. And I think the only way they come to the table prepared to truly negotiate is if we lift the blockade.

And I realize that is difficult for the president because he feels that is his best leverage at this point in time. But take that leverage and use it as a carrot rather than a stick.

ZAKARIA: Do you -- what lessons have you drawn from watching this war? I mean, a lot of people are pointing out that even for Iran, which fundamentally had an asymmetrical strategy, the most cheap weapons they had turned out to be the most effective. The ones that kind of ended up terrorizing the, you know, the world and shutting down the Strait of Hormuz are $15,000, $20,000, $30,000 drones. Not even their big ballistic missiles, almost all of which were intercepted.

What do you think that tells you? You're a guy who was in charge, you know, was in charge of these carrier strike forces that, you know, God knows how much money they cost to build and then how much they cost to maintain. Are they all vulnerable to a whole bunch of cheap naval drones?

MCRAVEN: Yes. Well, I think we've been looking at this for a while, Fareed, when you take a look at the war in Ukraine.

[10:25:03]

I mean, this Ukrainian war is I would say it's two things. You know, people think of it as the 21st century war. It's about A.I., it's about drones. But frankly, it is also World War I, when you look at the casualties across both the Ukrainians and the Russians. But as we begin to look at the future of the naval force and probably the future of the military, certainly we are going to look at drones, we're going to look at autonomous warfare, but our carriers are still very, very important, and we can protect our carriers with a bubble from the destroyers and the cruisers that are out there.

It is still a very, very viable tool in the president's national security chest. So we don't want to discard the carriers, but we also have to recognize that, yes, drones and certainly drone swarms can be very effective against, you know, large combatants. ZAKARIA: Stay with us and stay with us, General McRaven, we're going

to talk next about your book, "Duty, Honor, Country and Life," and how does that apply to our present times.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:30:25]

ZAKARIA: And we are back with Admiral William McRaven. His new book "Duty, Honor, Country and Life: A Tribute to the American Spirit" is out now. Admiral, your book -- this one in particular is a collection of your speeches. And your speeches are often quite powerful and go viral because you capture sort of essence of the subject you're trying to talk about. And I want to draw your attention to one of them, which was a speech at West Point, where you say, the great army officers are risk takers, and the greatest risk is not on the battlefield, but is in standing for what is up for what is right. And you go on to describe, you know, how they have to have a higher loyalty to the country and the constitution.

And I'm wondering when you -- when you think about some of the situations that we have witnessed now, whether that line of yours is being tested. For example, I read a certain amount of discussion among former army officers about what to do when the president of the United States says, my goal is to destroy Iranian civilization, and I am going to execute a military strategy to do that.

Do soldiers have a duty to think about that in the context of, is this a legal order? How should I think about it? Or do they just salute and do it?

MCRAVEN: Well, of course, you know, the soldiers, certainly the senior officers out there. And I will tell you, the senior officers, that we have kind of running the show today, General Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, is a good friend. He's a fabulous officer. You got Brad Cooper at CENTCOM. I mean, these are wonderful patriots and they are also men who will give the president their best military advice.

So, the military doesn't get into policy. And the military tries to stay away from the rhetoric of the president, whether it's President Trump or President Biden or Bush or anybody else. At the end of the day, if the order is given, not the -- not the rhetoric that comes out of the White House, but the order that is given if it is a legal order, we have an obligation to follow that legal order.

And I have told soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines time and time again, even in this -- in this time when I have been critical of the president, that they swore an oath and they need to follow legal orders. However, if the order is not legal, then they also have an obligation not to follow it and to raise that as an issue.

ZAKARIA: And how do you determine whether one is legal? So, for example, to say we're going to take out every bridge and every power station in Iran. There are many bridges and power stations that presumably have no conceivable dual use and therefore could not be considered military targets.

So, you're targeting civilian bridges and civilian power stations. As I say, the order is all of them, some of them surely are not dual use, then it is, by conventional terms, a war crime. How would a -- how would an officer determine what to do?

MCRAVEN: Well, I can tell you that these discussions are going on, Fareed. The senior military officers are talking with the secretary of defense and kind of laying out their concerns about which of these targets are legitimate military targets.

You know, we would never, you know, target a school. We would never target a church. We would never target, you know, buildings or facilities where civilians are not part of the military apparatus that we're trying to defeat.

So I guarantee you, these conversations are going on. And the judge advocate generals that are part of the discussion in the military will also voice their opinions to both the military leaders and the civilian leaders.

So these conversations are happening, which may be one reason why you didn't see after the president said he was going to bomb him back to the stone age, we didn't end up doing that. So we'll see how this plays out going forward. But I know that these senior officers are having these conversations with the with the political leaders.

ZAKARIA: A number of them have been fired at the very highest level, many more than is usual. Do you think some of that is this you know, they have taken the risk of speaking truth to power. And you know, the secretary, Hegseth, or whoever decided they didn't want somebody that that -- who's going to push back?

MCRAVEN: Yes. Well, I don't know the nature of the discussions that went on between some of the senior military officials that have been fired but it is concerning. I mean, there have been over 30 senior officers that have been fired or asked to resign here in the last year.

[10:35:00]

And the problem is this creates a little bit of a moral dilemma for the officers that are working for them. Did they speak truth to power? And now does this, you know, express concern on the part of the officers that want to come forward and say, hey, I'm worried about bombing a power plant, I'm worried about these things?

The tempo and the temperature and the -- you know, the tone has got to start at the top. It's got to start with the president. It's got to go down to the secretary of defense. But at the end of the day, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dan Caine, will make sure that the American soldiers, sailors, and marines do their job and do it consistent with the constitution and the law.

ZAKARIA: Well, as always, this is a great book, a great collection of speeches. Whenever I read your speeches, the only question I have is why you're not running for president. Admiral McRaven, pleasure to have you on.

MCRAVEN: Thank you, Fareed.

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, Anthropic says its new A.I. model, called Mythos, is so powerful that it can't be released to the public. What are they so worried about? And how worried should you be? I'll ask an expert.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:40:44]

ZAKARIA: The San Francisco based technology company Anthropic says that its new A.I. model Mythos can identify cybersecurity flaws far beyond regular human capabilities. Anthropic has therefore refused to release the model to the public, fearing it could be abused by hackers. Only a handful of major companies and organizations have been given access. Does this make sense?

I'm joined by Sebastian Mallaby, who is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He's just written a fascinating biography of Demis Hassabis called "The Infinity Machine." Hassabis, of course, being the most important person in some senses in the world of A.I., the head of DeepMind.

A fascinating look and you're a great biographer. But now that I have you here, I want to hear your views not Hassabis' views about so much of this, Mythos. Doesn't this issue bring up the whole problem of A.I. governance, which is here you have a handful of companies that have these incredible powers, the power to allow you to have this, you know, almost superhuman machine. And they decide who gets to use it, who doesn't.

I just read that Britain has been given access, but Germany has not. Should Anthropic be deciding? And if not them, who?

SEBATIAN MALLABY, SENIOR FELLOW, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: Yes. It feels crazy that a five-year-old start up in San Francisco gets to look over all of the internet and say, you know, you 40 people can come into my protective castle, and the rest of you are just out there in the wilderness. You're going to be eaten by the lions.

I don't think that's a tenable position for a private company. And it shows you that we need governments to get involved in governance.

ZAKARIA: And when people talk about governments, they often say things like, oh, but they'll be too slow. This field is changing so fast. How they don't even understand the regulation. Look at the Europeans. They've -- they've blocked their progress on A.I. because they have done some regulation. What do you say?

MALLABY: Well, I would say actually that after ChatGPT came out at the end of 2022, there was a series of quite sort of encouraging developments with national A.I. security institutes being set up in the United States, in Britain, in Japan, in the European Union, and so forth. About six or seven of these. And so there was the emergence of a potential kind of, you know, FDA type institutions that would vet models, and if they were dangerous, would not allow them to be released, and a coalition internationally. So it wasn't there yet, but it was at least there was progress. And then it stopped in 2025. But the technology didn't stop, right? So now we're in 2026 --

ZAKARIA: Under the Trump administration the idea is, basically, no regulations whatsoever, right?

MALLABY: Yes, accelerate, compete, deploy it as fast as you can. Regulation is for sissies.

ZAKARIA: And Anthropic whose CEO Dario -- I mean, these are serious people. Google, DeepMind, the person you profiled very serious, both of them very ethical, and talk about the reasons to be very concerned. But there are a lot of people in the world of A.I. It's not just the two of them, right?

MALLABY: Right. And we have a global race dynamic with multiple labs in multiple countries. And you can't make the technology safe just by having Anthropic or DeepMind doing the right thing, because there are going to be other labs that release their technology, open weight, where anybody can use it and take the guardrails off. All of the Chinese labs are structured that way. So this is a global governance challenge, a little bit like nuclear material in the 1960s.

ZAKARIA: You were just back from China. You had a long trip there, and you wrote a piece in the "Times" saying, basically, the American effort under both parties to stop China from being able to move ahead in A.I. by restricting the chips, has not only not worked, but backfired. It sort of they've had an incentive to go out and make their own chips. So they now are getting better and better at that.

MALLABY: Yes, there's a bit of that. I mean, it hasn't stopped China from getting very good A.I. models. They're probably six months behind the U.S., but not more than that.

[10:45:00]

It has encouraged them to build their own chips. They're still not great at that but they're making progress. But the other thing I think is important is there's an opportunity cost. If you hit China with these export sanctions and you turn China into the enemy, the villain, you may forget that actually, you also need to collaborate with China about securing A.I. models.

We don't want terrorists to get this stuff. We don't want criminals to get this stuff. You know, there's two kinds of strategic objectives, right? First is there's the U.S.-China competition. But second, there is the proliferation danger. And I think we need to keep our eye also on the second thing.

ZAKARIA: In the portrait that you paint of Demis Hassabis, he's this -- he's this child prodigy chess player becomes a scientist, has now won the Nobel Prize. Dario Amodei, the head of Anthropic, another PhD. These are both scientists very deeply concerned about, you know, science and the ethical issues. And it all seems very genuine.

The others involved, one has to say, are all businessmen are in it for the money. Does that worry you?

MALLABY: You know, it's true what you say that the two PhDs in this race are Demis Hassabis and Dario Amodei. But one should remember that the OpenAI founding story with two of the other players, Elon Musk and Sam Altman, began with claims about safety, which I take to be sincere at the time, and they've moved away from that.

They've become -- both of them in their separate labs now become much more opportunistic, more race oriented, but they at least have, you know, a lot on the record saying that safety matters. And I think the Biden administration's experience was that when they wanted to do, you know, the executive orders about safety, there was not resistance from OpenAI. So, I think even the non-PhDs are going to understand that safety matters.

ZAKARIA: Sebastian Mallaby, we are going to have to have you come back because this is very serious stuff. And I think we're just at the beginning of a long journey.

MALLABY: Pleasure to be with you.

ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, I'll bring you a sneak preview of my latest documentary, "THE IMPERIAL PRESIDENCY," airing tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on CNN.

Executive power in the U.S. has grown steadily for decades and ballooned under Donald Trump. And that poses a very real threat to American democracy. We'll be back with that in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:52:05]

ZAKARIA: From dismantling government agencies, to prosecuting political enemies, to unilaterally launching a war, President Trump's actions in his second term have tested the limits of executive power. But America's system of liberal democracy was carefully designed with checks and balances meant to prevent any one of the three branches of government from gaining too much power. So, how has Trump been able to accomplish all of it?

Tonight, I'll examine this question in my new special, "THE IMPERIAL PRESIDENCY," airing at 8:00 p.m. eastern, right here on CNN. It explores the dangerous rise of presidential power well beyond what the founders intended. A trend that actually began long before Donald Trump. I want to show you a clip from the documentary that examines an extreme theory of presidential power. It is what some experts call the legal pathway to American autocracy. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The American presidency in action. Riding up to Capitol Hill. ZAKARIA (voice-over): On a warm January day in 1981, President Ronald

Reagan declared the dawn of his revolution.

RONALD REAGAN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.

ZAKARIA (voice-over): He was determined to drastically roll back the federal government.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: President Reagan's budget cutting blade is hanging over the federal government.

ZAKARIA (voice-over): But Reagan's new hard core conservatism, a historic departure from moderate Republicans, faced a challenge. How could it possibly defeat a massive government bureaucracy that had been lawfully created by Congress?

LEAH WRIGHT RIGUEUR, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY: He makes a lot of promises, but he is faced with a congressional body that is very hostile to his agenda.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president of the United States.

ZAKARIA (voice-over): The solution? A new imperial presidency. As political scientists Terry Moe and William Howell described in their book "Trajectory of Power," it was the rights' fervent desire to slash big government that led to a novel and ultimately dangerous legal theory, the unitary executive theory. The godfather of this new doctrine was Reagan's close advisor and second attorney general, Edwin Meese.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The framers did not envision a weak executive.

ZAKARIA (voice-over): Meese recruited talented young conservative lawyers and turned Reagan's justice department into a kind of right- wing legal think tank, churning out new conservative ideas, out of this transformed Department of Justice came the unitary executive theory.

[10:55:06]

In a radical departure from 200 years of precedent, the justice department argued that the president enjoyed complete control over agencies within the executive branch and could ignore laws passed by Congress, which had created and shaped these agencies in the first place.

CHARLIE SAVAGE, THE NEW YORK TIMES: There would later be attempts to say, well, it's kind of been there since the dawn of time. But no, this was a thing that was invented right at that moment in the mid- 80s.

ZAKARIA (voice-over): Justice department officials even suggested that the president could defy the Supreme Court.

RIGUEUR: Suggests that the president is beholden to no one but the president.

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ZAKARIA: Don't miss "THE IMPERIAL PRESIDENCY" tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on CNN. Thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. I will see you tonight for the special and back here next week.

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