How Iranians are Responding to War; Does Iran want a deal?

Summary

Fareed Zakaria GPS

Episode Title: How Iranians are Responding to War; Does Iran want a deal?
Date: August 2, 2026
Host: Fareed Zakaria
Podcast: Fareed Zakaria GPS (CNN Podcasts)

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Episode Overview

This episode tackles several major topics in global affairs, focusing first on Iran’s response to ongoing conflict and war, both domestically and diplomatically. The program features first-hand reporting from inside Iran, expert analysis on whether Iran actually seeks a deal to end hostilities, and a broad look at educational reform in America’s Deep South. The episode also features an investigation into Silicon Valley’s outsized influence on Stanford University and concludes with a commentary on regime change in Hungary.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

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1. Fareed’s Take: U.S. Tariff Policy and Institutional Integrity

[01:02–09:32]

• Zakaria critiques the Trump administration’s reimplementation of broad tariffs following a Supreme Court ruling that initially blocked them.
• Describes the administration’s use of obscure 1930s-era laws on "forced labor" as a pretext for broad tariffs, arguing these justifications are spurious and politically motivated.
• He warns about the long-term risks to U.S. institutions when official agencies are forced to “attest to the lie.”
• Zakaria discusses how U.S. manufacturers are being hurt by these policies—specifically using Falco, an Arizona aluminum parts maker, as an example.
• He positions the U.S. as shifting from decades of open trade leadership into “the most protectionist, major advanced economy in the world," with negative results: higher prices, weaker investment, fewer jobs, and growing institutional dishonesty.
• Quote:

  "It is the road to Orwell’s world... First they are asked to bend the truth, then to attest to the lie, and then the lies become routine so no one thinks they are even unusual."
  — Fareed Zakaria [06:22]

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2. Inside Iran: Social Divisions, Nationalism, and Life Under War

Fareed in conversation with Abdi Latif Dahir, Middle East correspondent for The New York Times
[09:33–14:42]

a. The Funeral of Ayatollah Khamenei: A Call for Revenge and Division

• Dahir describes the atmosphere at Khamenei’s funeral: “millions…calling for revenge,” urging leaders not to compromise or negotiate.
• Discusses "two Irans":
  • One publicly defiant, religious, endorsing the regime's hardline stance.
  • The other critical of government, suffering economic hardship, facing water shortages, blackouts, and inflation—all made worse by the war.

b. Shifting Social Controls Amid Crisis

• Observes a contradiction: alongside hardline religious displays, young women and men are openly flouting religious edicts such as the hijab, tattoos, and westernized behaviors.
• Dahir notes that the government appears “too busy with a much bigger problem” (the war) to enforce daily religious rules as strictly.

c. Nationalism & Survival in Face of Adversity

• Despite repression and hardship, there’s a persistent sense of Iranian pride and unity against foreign intervention.
• Even those critical of the regime express wariness about foreign-imposed regime change, insisting change must be “the job of Iranians.”
• Quotes:

  "We definitely did witness two Irans coexisting side by side."
  — Abdi Latif Dahir [10:47]
  "A deep pride in their country... Iranians were coming together to stand by each other."
  — Abdi Latif Dahir [14:09]

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3. Does Iran Want a Deal? Strategic Calculations Amid Ongoing Hostilities

Fareed interviews Dr. Sanam Vakil, Director of the MENA Program, Chatham House
[15:48–20:56]

a. The U.S.-Iran Negotiating Stalemate

• A June memorandum of understanding failed to curb hostilities or reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
• Zakaria frames U.S. aims as seeking a quick, transaction-focused exit, while Iran wants a broad long-term resolution.

b. Iran’s Strategic Posture

• Vakil explains that Iran’s leadership ultimately does want a “bigger deal” with sanctions relief and normalization, but recognizes it is unlikely under the Trump administration.
• Iran is preserving leverage via control in the Strait of Hormuz and its still-active nuclear program.

c. The Pain Threshold and Overreach

• Iran may be “overplaying its hand,” risking regional isolation as neighbors seek to mediate and form an “anti-Iran alliance.”
• However, Iranian leadership views this as an existential struggle, absorbing economic pain to retain negotiation leverage.
• Quotes:

  “They see this war as do or die for them. And they not only need to survive, they need to emerge from this war with cards in their hand…”
  — Dr. Sanam Vakil [18:57]
  “This adversary doesn’t only answer to pressure...incentives, inducements, and proper negotiations is the way through and the way out of this mess.”
  — Dr. Sanam Vakil [20:10]

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4. The ‘Mississippi Miracle’: Educational Reform in the Deep South

Interview with Nick Kristof, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist
[22:23–28:01]

• Mississippi and other southern states have achieved remarkable improvements in student reading and math—especially for Black and low-income children, outperforming states with much higher funding like California and Massachusetts.
• Strategies have included:
  • Ensuring reading proficiency by Grade 3.
  • Tackling absenteeism directly, with schools helping address root causes like lack of clothes or haircuts.
  • Emphasis on high standards, accountability, early intervention, and strong community engagement.
• Kristof discusses the “willingness to make this a priority," with even shop owners donating bicycles for kids who pass the reading test—a community-wide commitment.
• He challenges liberal orthodoxies:
  • Emphasizes "accountability" is not unfair to low-income kids, but rather essential.
• Quote:

  "A black kid in Mississippi, for example, is two and a half times as likely to read proficiently as a black kid in California."
  — Nick Kristof [23:21]
  "The kids who have most benefited from that accountability have been kids of color and low income kids. I think there is an important lesson for liberals like me."
  — Nick Kristof [27:20]

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5. Stanford and Silicon Valley: 'How to Rule'—Corrupted Incentives on Campus

Fareed interviews Theo Baker, journalist and recent Stanford graduate
[30:04–35:33]

• Baker describes Stanford’s ascent into a “global powerhouse” driven by a “Faustian bargain” with Silicon Valley—billions in tech funding but at significant costs.
• Private VCs recruit students aggressively from day one, offering “pre-idea” funding (hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars) to unproven freshmen.
• A secretive course, “How to Rule the World,” exemplifies this elite, instrumental approach to education, teaching students to “extract value” and that “ends justify the means.”
• Baker notes that Stanford now runs its own internal VC fund; many students attend less for education than for enrichment, incentivizing “cutting corners” and eroding academic ideals.
• Cites continued occurrence of high-profile fraudsters tied to Stanford, suggesting deeper structural cultural issues, not just bad actors.
• Quotes:

  "This university, like no other institution of higher education, has had a meteoric ascent...because of this symbiotic relationship with Silicon Valley. Which pours in billions...and has also allowed for some of its corruption."
  — Theo Baker [30:29]
  "Many people are coming to Stanford University not to get an education, but to get rich. And that perverts some of the fundamental and core tenets..."
  — Theo Baker [33:36]

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6. Commentary: Hungary’s Attempt at Democratic Renewal

Fareed Zakaria monologue
[35:36–41:13]

• Explores Hungary's ongoing “regime change,” as Prime Minister Peter Madyar dismantles Viktor Orban’s illiberal, autocracy-leaning system.

• Madyar must tread between rapid reforms and constitutional legality—the risk being that reversing strongman rule often requires strongman-like tactics.

• Fareed warns that such reforms can risk either stalling (as in Poland) or replicating the very autocratic behaviors being dismantled.

• Hungary's success will depend on whether Madyar can institutionalize change and self-limit his authority to prevent a future iteration of autocracy.

• Quote:

  “To undo an autocrat’s damage, a new government must do three things: act quickly, effectively, and legally. But rarely can it do all three.”
  — Fareed Zakaria [36:40]
  "If we need to build a system of political power based on self constraint, then we are practically building a sandcastle."
  — Fareed Zakaria citing Daniel Hagedusz [39:53]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Abdi Latif Dahir on Iran’s Social Divide:
  “Two Irans coexisting side by side.” [10:47]
• Dr. Sanam Vakil on Diplomacy:
  "This adversary doesn’t only answer to pressure... the way out of this mess is proper negotiations." [20:10]
• Nick Kristof on Education:
  "A black kid in Mississippi is two and a half times as likely to read proficiently as a black kid in California." [23:21]
• Theo Baker on Stanford:
  “Many people are coming to Stanford University not to get an education, but to get rich.” [33:36]

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• [01:02–09:32] Fareed’s opening take: Trump, tariffs, and U.S. trade policy
• [09:33–14:42] Inside Iran: Eyewitness reporting with Abdi Latif Dahir
• [15:48–20:56] The diplomatic deadlock: Dr. Sanam Vakil on Iran's negotiating posture
• [22:23–28:01] ‘Mississippi Miracle’: Nick Kristof on education reform’s surprising roots
• [30:04–35:33] Stanford and Silicon Valley: Theo Baker on higher ed’s Faustian bargain
• [35:36–41:13] Commentary: Hungary in transition, can democracy be rebuilt?

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Summary Flow

Fareed Zakaria GPS presents an informative, nuanced, and at times sobering view of how complex international conflicts and domestic challenges intersect in today’s world—from the conflicting forces and evolving social order inside Iran, through the diplomatic and economic chess between Iran and the United States, to surprising stories of reform and distortion on the U.S. home front, whether in classrooms or on elite campuses. The program maintains Zakaria’s usual tone of measured insight, skepticism toward political spin, and attention to institutional integrity at home and abroad.

This episode will be illuminating for anyone seeking a comprehensive picture of the current geopolitical climate and the surprising places—Mississippi, Stanford, Hungary—where the world’s deeper trends are being both challenged and redefined.

Transcript

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[B]

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. Today on the program Divisions in Tehran While some Iranians work to negotiate peace, powerful hardliners want the war to rage on. We'll get the view from inside Iran with the journalist who attended the funeral of Ayatollah Khamenei, and we'll discuss the ongoing uncertainty in the region with a top analyst. Also, the Mississippi Miracle, a black fourth grader in that state is two and a half times as likely to read proficiently as one in California. Nick Kristof explains why the Deep south holds surprising lessons for the rest of the country on education. Plus, reporting by a student led to the resignation of Stanford University's president. I'll sit down with that young student who is the author of a new book that delves into Big Tech's influence on campus and how it has distorted the university's mission. But first, here's my take. For those who thought the Supreme Court had ended Donald Trump's obsession with tariffs, think again. In February, the court struck down his sweeping Liberation Day levies, ruling that the president did not have emergency powers to tax imports from almost every country on earth. Trump's response has been to search the statute books for ever more unusual, obscure and maybe illegal ways to restore very similar tariffs. First came a temporary global tariff. When that expired, the administration imposed tariffs on of 10 to 12.5% on 60 economies, more than 80 countries claiming unfair trade practices. For Canada, Trump reached back to Section 338 of the Smoot Hawley Tariff act of 1930, a provision that had never been invoked before for the new sweeping tariffs. The rationale, discovered suddenly in the last few months, is alleged forced labor. The administration has declared that countries ranging from Cambodia and China to Norway, Japan and have failed to keep products made with forced labor out of their markets, and that this failure burdens American commerce. The charge is so obviously spurious and sweeping Sweden is as bad as Cambodia that it gives away the game. It was almost certainly devised because the White House needed a legal pretext to subvert the spirit of the Supreme Court ruling against Trump. This is more than ordinary political spin. The president appears to be ordering the US Government to formally certify as fact something it knows is not true. Agencies must now publish findings, construct legal arguments and affix the authority of the American state to a falsehood manufactured for the apparent purpose of evading the nation's highest court. That is how institutions are corrupted. First they are asked to bend the truth, then to attest to the lie, and then the lies become routine so no one thinks they are even unusual. It is the road to Orwell's world. Incidentally, Walk Free, the human rights group that compiles the Global Slavery Index, estimates that America imports $169.6 billion worth of goods annually that are at risk of being made with forced labor, by far the highest total among the Group of 20 countries. That does not prove American enforcement is worse than that of other countries that Trump has targeted, but it makes the administration's moral posture look even more absurd than it is. The economic case against tariffs is stronger by the day as the numbers roll in. Spending on manufacturing construction, which surged under Joe Biden and peaked at about $250 billion at an annual rate in September 2024, had fallen to about 175 billion by May of this year. Manufacturing employment is down roughly 75,000 jobs since Trump returned to office. Factory output has risen, but the gains are concentrated in advanced manufacturing and AI, much of it reflecting investments planned before Trump took office and little related to tariffs. Consider Greg Fraley, whom the U.S. chamber of Commerce wrote about a few months ago. He helps run Falco, a small Arizona company that makes aluminum parts for commercial aircraft. This is precisely the kind of business Trump says he wants to help an American factory employing American workers. Falco's aluminum costs are up 72%. The company cannot simply buy American metal. Domestic production meets only about half of US Demand, and much of that output is not available on the open market. So Falco keeps importing aluminum, pays the tariff, and absorbs the damage. It has frozen hiring, postponed expansion, allowed its workforce to shrink by at least 20% through attrition, dipped into cash reserves, and added a tariff surcharge to customer bills, according to Frale. Meanwhile, even after the so called Liberation Day fallout, Trump doubled the tariff on imported aluminum to 50% and recently offered producers a discount if they built smelters in America. Rio Tinto, one of the world's largest aluminum producers, immediately said no. So the tariff has achieved a trifecta. Higher costs for an American manufacturer, fewer jobs and less investment there, and no new smelter from the foreign producer the tariffs were meant to entice. The logic is upside down. Aluminum smelting accounts for only a small fraction of America's aluminum jobs. The vast majority are in recycling and in the midstream and downstream industries that turn the metal into aircraft parts, cars, cans, machinery and building materials. Trump is protecting the tiny upstream slice by taxing the vastly larger industrial base that depends on it and employs many more people. For eight decades, the US Led the world toward open markets and open trade. In barely two years, Trump has transformed it into effectively the most protectionist, major advanced economy in the world. The result has not been a manufacturing renaissance. It has been higher prices, weaker investment, fewer manufacturing jobs, and a government increasingly willing to make falsehood official policy in order to defend a failed economic Creed. Go to fareedzakhariya.com for a link to my Washington Post column this week. And let's get started. The Whiplash War. Operation Boomerang, the Forever Negotiation. These are some of the ways the international media is describing the state of America's volatile conflict with Iran, which seems to lurch between sudden eruptions of fighting and fragile pauses for diplomacy. My next guest has just returned from 10 days inside Iran with a striking account of how that country is responding to the war. Abdi Latif Dahir is a Middle east correspondent for the New York Times. He was granted rare access to a report on last month's funeral of Ayatollah Khamenei, the country's former supreme leader, who was killed back in February. Abdi joins me from Beirut. Welcome, Abdi. Let me ask you, you were at a Shia funeral, and in general, the Shia are very big on martyrdom. Did Ayatollah Khamenei's funeral have the air of a kind of search for revenge for a martyr's death?

[C]

Yes. Thanks for having me, Fareed. Yeah, for sure. There were so many people, millions, who came from across the country who essentially were calling for revenge. They basically were talking about this revered leader, you know, who was central to Iran for almost 40 years and essentially were calling their leadership to basically not compromise, not negotiate, essentially to continue this war until his killing was avenged. And that's definitely a central message that we heard from so many people that we interviewed in the streets of Tehran, but also in Mashhad, the city where Khamenei was born and where he was eventually buried.

[B]

But yet, you know, we know that this is a regime that massacred tens of thousands of people, perhaps in a weekend that is unpopular by many, you know, many accounts. And you write about this. What can you tell us about, you know, dissent in Iran? Are there sort of two Irans, An Iran that came out for this funeral and an Iran that is still deeply critical of the government. And can you get a sense of the relative weights of these two Irans?

[C]

Absolutely. Yeah. We definitely did witness two Irans that were coexisting side by side. There was definitely the government that was out here and, you know, projecting defiance and endurance and a lot of strength. But on the flip side of it, yes, there were the other Iran that, you know, where many people talked about the economic hardships that they are going through, the water shortages, the electricity blackouts, the inflation rates and. And what was going on across the country. And also, of course, many people who talked about how this war has now complicated all of that.

[B]

There's something you wrote about which I was struck by. The fact that people were. Women were not covered, that people. People were in many ways flouting the kind of religious prohibitions that had been placed on them. And it is part of what some people have been reporting, which is the sense that Iran has moved from being a kind of hybrid regime where the religious clergy had a very central role, to a military dictatorship where the regime may now be more hardline and nationalist on foreign policy issues, but is actually less concerned about enforcing all these things like the veil and various Islamic edicts.

[C]

Yes, absolutely. This is something that we witnessed in many parts of the. You had these two Irans that were living side by side, which was like, you know, young women driving their motorcycles, not wearing the hijab, you know, young men, you know, tattooed, wearing shorts, smoking in the streets. And at the same time, you have, like, all the religious people who were, you know, not missing any of the prayers, who are, you know, chanting and celebrating Khamenei. So it was this contradictory Iran that was existing both at the same time and some of the people who, you know, were able to sort of, like, explain, like, you know, how this came about. We're talking about how the war had also created conditions in which they said that the government is definitely busy with a much bigger problem than, you know, right now enforcing these edicts on the streets on a daily basis.

[B]

Given that you had this rare opportunity to be in Iran, would you say that, you know, you got a sense of why the Iranians are being so defiant, why they are, you know, willing to brave these terrible conditions, bombings and such, you know, or is it just that it's a very repressive regime and the people have no. Have no say? I mean, you know, what kind of conclusion did you draw?

[C]

I go back to the sort of, like, restrictions that we had on us and the government minders that were with us all the time. And. But even with that, you know, people were able to talk about, you know, sometimes even say that, yes, we might not want this government. There are, like, a lot of issues that are, you know, not right with it. But so many other people that we also spoke to talked about, you know, being wary of foreign intervention and other people coming in to, like, bring down the government. They said that they felt that, you know, it was the job of Iranians to, like, do that for themselves and not some other power to come in and do that for them.

[B]

So a sense of nationalism above all else.

[C]

Yes. And a deep pride in their country. That's one of the things that I came up with, came out with from almost all the interviews that I did. There was this sense of, like, standing by Iran and being very proud of their culture and their history and, you know, this moment in time that is really difficult. Nobody talked about this being easy at all and all the ways in which Iranians were coming together to stand by each other.

[B]

Well, fascinating reporting. I really enjoyed reading all your stuff. So stay safe and thank you.

[C]

Thank you for having me.

[B]

Fareed. Next on gps. Given what we've just heard is going on inside Iran, what is the way out of this war? We'll explore with an expert.

[A]

I'm CNN tech reporter Claire Duffy. This week on the podcast Terms of Service, more than ever, algorithms are changing what we decide to share and how writer Katherine Jezzer Morton decided to dig into this. She talked to people all over the country about how social media has changed what they decide to post and how they live.

[D]

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[C]

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[A]

Listen to CNN's terms of service wherever you get your podcasts.

[B]

In June, the United States and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding to cease hostilities. But it hasn't helped. Both sides have continued to exchange fire. The Strait of Hormuz has hardly reopened. So does Iran want a deal? Joining me now is Dr. Sanam Vakil, Director of the Middle east and North Africa Program at Chatham House. Salam. Welcome. So, first, will it be fair to say that we're sort of fundamentally where we are? Because the United States is looking for a kind of quick exit, almost a kind of quick transaction to get the strait open, and the Iranians are looking for some kind of long term resolution to the broad issue of the hostility between the United States and Iran.

[E]

Well, President Trump has always celebrated the fact that he is a dealmaker, a transactional president, if you will. But what we have observed and learned since he's come into office, particularly in the second administration, is that the quick transactions are not delivering sustainable peace processes or even sustainable MOUs. And that is what's problematic. The problems of the Middle east can't be resolved in a quick transaction. They're all interconnected, they're transnational, and they require deeper negotiations that this administration, but perhaps also the international community today, is not really prepared to invest in.

[B]

So what kind of a deal does Iran want? What does Iran want here?

[E]

I ultimately still believe that Iran does want the bigger deal. It does need to unlock sanctions relief and frozen assets and come to a modus vivendi with the United States. But I think it recognizes that in this Trump administration, there are divisions within Trump's circle. The president, of course, is increasingly frustrated, and it recognizes that it probably cannot get that bigger deal out of this administration. So it's seeking to preserve its leverage, and that includes the Strait of Hormuz, which is, you know, what it got out of the war. Secondly, of course, it still has its nuclear program, which is unresolved, of course, buried, to use President Trump's words. So it needs to maintain this leverage and try to achieve something at the negotiating table. When the time is right, when both parties are, are actually willing to concede

[B]

in a meaningful way, can they take the pain? The economy is in terrible shape. You know, these bombings must have destroyed it further they're being sanctioned, you know, are they, Is it possible Iran is overplaying its hand? It's, it's in some sense, tactically one. Right. It has, it has achieved what it was trying to do. Should they not be searching for a way out more, more than they are?

[E]

I personally believe they should. I think they are overplaying their hand. And I think that the longer this war goes on, it will boomerang back on them, the region. Iran's neighbors wholly oppose this war and have worked very hard diplomatically to mediate and to find off ramps. And the longer this goes on, the more Iran and Iran backed groups go, continue to spread the conflict around the region, the more there will be a sort of anti Iran alliance developing. And I think that's problematic for Iran. But the Iranians, to answer your question, don't make existential decisions based on macroeconomic indicators. They see this war as do or die for them. And they not only need to survive, they need to emerge from this war with cards in their hand that they can play at the negotiating table. And they don't want to be cowed by President Trump or forced to submit like the Venezuelans were.

[B]

So if there was one thing you would tell American policymakers to understand right now, to get out of this mess, what would it be?

[E]

I would say that they need to understand their adversary. This adversary doesn't only answer to pressure that incentives, inducements and proper negotiations is the way through and the way out of this mess. The United States and President Trump can be lured into a two week bombing campaign and that can damage and destroy Iran's territory further. But Iran is willing to absorb those hits and absorb those costs if it means that it can still retain its leverage at the negotiating table. So I think the President should be focusing on the diplomatic track, not just the military track.

[B]

That is good advice. Sanam, thank you so much. Always a pleasure.

[E]

Thank you.

[B]

Next on gps, black fourth graders in Mississippi now score higher in reading on average than those in Massachusetts. For a state with historically weak education rankings, how did they make this happen? I'll ask the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Nick Kristof.

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[B]

See terms American high school seniors. Reading and math test scores fell to historic lows in 2024. That's according to the most recent report card from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which is full of grim statistics. But my next guest says some students have actually made remarkable gains in recent years and in surprising places. Nick Kristof is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and an opinion columnist for the New York Times. Nick, thanks for being with us.

[F]

Good to be with you.

[B]

So the big news that everybody has heard about I think is the sort of Mississippi miracle. But I want to, you know, give people a sense of just how miraculous it is. I'm going to just, I have to look at the statistics are so extraordinary. So spending per pupil in Mississippi was below 12,000 last year, whereas in New York it's almost 30,000. And now if you do it on an adjustment for demographics, which is usually a way you'd look at it, Mississippi ranks number one in America in both four fourth grade and eighth grade math. What you're seeing is black fourth graders in Mississippi are on average better readers than those in Massachusetts. Massachusetts is thought to have the best public school system in the United States and it spends twice as much per pupil as Mississippi does. So big picture, give us a sense what has happened.

[F]

So, you know, we're used to looking down on these deep south states for good reason. And you know, they really did fail their kids and especially poor kids and especially black kids. But over the last 20 years or so, beginning with Mississippi, they have begun to lead the way. And you cited some of those results. I mean, you know, a black kid in Mississippi, for example, is two and a half times is likely to read proficiently as a black kid in California. A low income kid in Mississippi is twice as likely to be proficient in reading as a kid in my home state here in Oregon. And I think they did this in a couple of ways that other states can learn from. And the fact that Mississippi's model was then followed by Alabama and by Louisiana and they had success too, I think is encouraging. One thing that Mississippi did was make sure that kids could read by the end of third grade. Another thing it did was to crack down on absenteeism. A kid can't learn if they're not in school.

[B]

So it feels to me like what you're talking about in some ways is a kind of return to basics, which is, you know, kids have to attend school, but in some of these places where the kids were embarrassed to go to school was they didn't have clothes to wear or, you know, they hadn't been able to afford a haircut, the schools have actually stepped in and helped them with those kind of things. So it's sort of high standards, accountability, but then also a real focus on what is it that teachers need to make this happen. Is that the kind of combination that seems to have worked?

[F]

Yeah, in some ways I think you're right that it is. You know, there is a back to basics element of it and the science of reading gets a lot of emphasis, but there's a much, much greater emphasis on metrics and measurement and, you know, carefully seeing how each student is progressing, identifying those kids who need that help. And you know, I think more broadly we just see this, these schools fighting for their kids.

[B]

How possible would it be for other states to apply some of the lessons?

[F]

You know, I think it's eminently possible, but it will require eating a little bit of crow and acknowledging that the places to study are states that frankly we, you know, often look down on. But little things like, you know, making sure that every kid reads by the end of third grade and identifying their progress and pulling out those kids who are lagging and giving them special instruction and kind of bringing in the community. I was in one school in rural Mississippi, and they were about to take the third grade reading test and all the parents and members of the community and siblings were lining the hall as the kids went into the test and cheering them on. It was like, you know, seeing a championship football game. And then the community shops had donated bicycles for the kids who passed on that first test. And so, you know, there is this real push, this willingness to make this a priority. You know, look, I'm a liberal. I deeply believe in liberal outcomes. But I think that we have some shied away from accountability with the idea that it's unfair to low income kids. And I think what we've learned is that it's unfair to not to have metrics and accountability that we fail these kids.

[B]

When George W. Bush pushed a certain set of these kind of reforms, he had a line which was he said, let's not fall prey to the soft bigotry of low expectations. I feel like that that line now rings true.

[F]

I think it does. You know, I was a little, I wasn't sure about that line at the time, but, you know, In Oregon, we reduced high school graduation requirements on the theory that they were holding back kids of color. For example, when you don't make sure that kids graduate with the skills they need, you're not doing them favors. And, you know, the kids in Alabama and Louisiana and Mississippi have been held accountable. And the kids who have most benefited from that accountability have been kids of color and low income kids. I think there is an important lesson there for liberals like me.

[B]

Nick Kristof, always such a pleasure to have you on the program.

[F]

Good to be with you, Fareed.

[B]

Next on gps. Stanford University attracts the best and brightest minds in the world. But my next guest says that Silicon Valley's influence on the university has reached a troubling and tipping point. That story when we come back. I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, host of the Chasing Life podcast. My guest is Dr. Dhruv Kullar. He has seen firsthand the effects GLP1s can have on addictive behaviors. Today we're gonna talk about how GLP1s are changing us, changing us as humans. And when the cravings go away, sort of trying to figure out is there something else that we're losing as well.

[D]

People who had cravings for opioids said that those were being diminished. And so, you know, we thought about these as kind of digestive medications, maybe diabetes medications, but they're actually psychoactive medications, or so it seemed. What was so interesting about that is if you're playing with the reward system, that can have real implications for people's maladaptive behaviors, all sorts of addictions, but also a potential downside.

[B]

Listen to Chasing Life streaming now, wherever you get your podcasts. Theo Baker, the son of respected journalists Peter Baker and Susan Glaser, enrolled in Stanford University. Passionate about coding and excited to be in Silicon Valley, he ended up following in his parents footsteps and joined the campus newspaper, the Stanford Daily. As a freshman, he broke a story about problems with the university president's academic research, which would ultimately lead that president to resign. Theo became the youngest ever recipient of the prestigious George Polk Award for his reporting. And he has written a new memoir called how to Rule the An Education in Power at Stanford University. He joins me now. Theo, welcome.

[D]

Thank you for having me.

[B]

I want to focus on the picture you paint of Stanford, which really in many ways is the world's most important university now. So you get there, you're determined to be a computer science guy. And Stanford is, of course, in the Bay Area, but it's also one of the great universities in the world with great departments in every area. What did you find? Yeah, yeah.

[D]

Well, I describe in this book something of a Faustian bargain that Stanford has made. Right. This university, like no other institution of higher education, has had a meteoric ascent in the last few decades. It went from a regional university servicing the wealthy children of San Francisco and Californian elites, into now this global powerhouse with an annual budget higher than 116 countries. And that happened because of this relationship, this symbiotic relationship with Silicon Valley, which pours in billions of dollars on campus, has also allowed for some of its corruption.

[B]

And so you get there and you quickly discover that at the point as a freshman, if you are in computer science or AI or electrical engineering, there is already a massive recruitment effort by Silicon Valley to fund people to hire them. Describe what it was like.

[D]

Well, we're in the middle of this massive gold rush right now and the resource to mine is talent. I mean, look at these AI researchers who get $200 million signing bonuses. So these adults are hunting for a meal ticket. They treat these students as a commodity and especially the youngest ones. Youth is fetishized in this system because you're getting the fresh, raw, unadulterated product. And so I learned that for a select few students, those who are tapped on the shoulder and identified as the next trillion dollar startup founders, there are yacht parties and slush funds and something called pre idea funding, which was the newest new thing when I arrived.

[B]

Explain what a pre idea funding.

[D]

Pre idea funding. I mean it's what it sounds like, even though it sounds absurd. It's that before you even have a concept of a company, a VC will hand you a two page agreement and say, hey, here's a few hundred thousand dollars, Here's a million dollars. Go make something with it. If you make a company, call me. Otherwise it never has to be paid back.

[B]

This is to a 17 year old freshman.

[D]

To a 17 year old freshman. And it's remarkable because you take these young students and you tell them to make very big promises and then you teach them that when things go wrong, when deception comes out, it will not be followed up on.

[B]

And there is a class, the title of the book comes from a class called how to Rule the World. Explain it, because not most people even know it exists at Stanford.

[D]

Well, this is where it's great to write nonfiction because I think if you told someone that there's a secret class with 12 students a year called how to Rule the World taught by Silicon Valley CEO where they learn how to extract value from people. I think if you told someone that In a novel, they would say, oh, it's too unrealistic. Right? But what they learned effectively is how to deceive to get their way, that the ends justify the means. According to the seven people I spoke with who were in the class, you know, when I arrived at Stanford, this class was so cloak and dagger, so secret, that even to know it existed was a status signifier. You were rule adjacent just to have heard of the existence of the secret class. And that, to me, really said something, you know, about this cult of exclusivity.

[B]

So, you know, given the sums of money you're describing, and it feels like this must distort what is meant to be one of the West's great intellectual, you know, repositories where learning is prized for its own sake.

[D]

Yes. Look, I graduated from Stanford in June. I'm delighted to have gone to the university. There are so many excellent professors. But this is also a system that rewards cutting corners to get ahead of where students are taught that they are to follow in the example of the countless billionaires who have emerged before them. You know, where there's a guy on campus who's known by the moniker of professor billionaire because he made $20 billion by investing into students companies. You know, this is a school, right, that actually operates its own venture capital fund on campus to fund students as new companies. So this integration has become so complete that at this point, many people are coming to Stanford University not to get an education, but to get rich. And that perverts some of the fundamental and core tenets that have been articulated time and again by leaders of higher ed, including at Stanford.

[B]

What's your parting thoughts as a graduate now? What would you wish the university would do to kind of refocus?

[D]

You know, it's an interesting question. I think what Stanford faces is a concentrated version of the challenges that have beset higher education in the last few years, namely the question of identity. What does Stanford actually stand for?

[A]

Right.

[D]

What is the point of coming to this place? What does a chemistry major and an Olympic athlete and somebody who's building a startup in their dorm, what do they have in common and how can the school articulate that? I think the communication around the school, the lack of transparency and accountability for bad actions have allowed for, you know, the Elizabeth Holmes of the world to replicate. You know, the same day that we announced this book about fraud in Stanford and Silicon Valley, Another Stanford alum, Do Kwon, was sentenced to 15 years in prison that day for his role in a $40 billion, I believe it was crypto scammer. And so the reason that these outcomes continue to happen isn't just that there are a few bad apples. It's that the set of incentives have gone awry. And it will require some very, very intentional maneuvering to get us off that course.

[B]

Theo, terrific book. And about lots more. If people want to learn about your breakup with your girlfriend growing up, it's all in the book. Thank you.

[D]

Appreciate it. Thank you so much.

[B]

Next on GPS. Hungarian strongman Viktor Orban spent 16 years building one of the world's most infamous illiberal democracies. Now the country's newly elected prime minister is trying to tear it down. Can he do so and still maintain his democratic credentials? I'll tell you. And now for the last look. For nearly three months, Hungary has been undergoing what its new prime minister has called regime change. In April, Peter Madyar defeated right wing populist incumbent Viktor Orban in a landslide. But as Madhyar is now finding out, winning at the ballot box was the easy part. It is far harder to dismantle the whole system of urbanism that the strongman spent 16 years building, especially if you want to play by democratic rules. Until this year, there was a sense of permanence to Victor Orban's rule. Since 2010, he had swept four elections, rewritten the constitution, packed the courts with loyalists, and according to some watchdog groups, handed some 80% of the media to his friends. By 2014, he was proudly calling Hungary an illiberal state. Many believed that no opposition could realistically defeat him. That changed this year when Madyar, a fellow conservative and former member of Orban's nationalist party Fidesh, united the opposition around a patriotic vision of Hungary. Today, Madyar is trying to undo the damage Orban did. His government calls the changes Operation Cleansing Fire. Madhyar has fired Orban loyalists from major state companies, including state tv, in a purge that he compares to rooting out the Italian mafia. Last month, Hungary's parliament amended the constitution to force out the pro Orban president of the nation. He was in a largely ceremonial role, but he could have slowed down the new government's agenda. Madyar has also been giving tours of the lavish, publicly funded offices of his predecessors, including gold plated bathrooms. He put them on social media to show the country what he calls the former regime's Great Gatsby lifestyle. But moving forcefully means making uncomfortable choices. The political scientists Stanley Bill and Ben Stanley say that to undo an autocrat's damage, a new government must do three things act quickly, effectively and legally. But rarely can it do all three. They use Poland as a warning. In 2023, that country voted out the right wing populist Law and Justice Party. After eight years in power, Prime Minister Donald Tusk's new centrist coalition promised repair. He played strictly by the rules, but thus sacrificed effectiveness. Lacking a big enough majority in Parliament, his reforms were stalled by the vetoes of two populist presidents. Hungary faces a different problem. Madyar's Tisa party now has a two thirds supermajority. That's the same dominance appointment that Orban once used to remake the country his way. Madyar has pursued speed and effectiveness, but this comes at the cost of due process. For example, Human Rights Watch has criticized Mahdyar for how he removed former President Solyuk by rushing to rewrite a line in the constitution rather than a formal impeachment process. The group labeled the move as reminiscent of the Fidesh era, an echo of Orban's old playbook. To his credit, Madyar has passed a bill to cap a prime minister's term to eight years, constraining himself or any future autocrat. But as Daniel Hagedusz of the Institute for European Politics warns, Hungary's future now depends largely on one single man limiting his own authority. If we need to build a system of political power based on self constraint, then we are practically building a sandcastle. Constitutional scholar Kim Lane Sheparle observes that since the fall of the Berlin Wall, no country has reversed populism for more than five years without the populist pendulum swinging back, a strongman's movement usually outlives him and can survive as an alternative ecosystem of media, donors and loyal courts. When President Trump lost in 2020, Trumpism came back stronger in 2024. Hungary, though, could be a rare exception of democratic repair. This is because of the breathtaking speed at which Orban's coalition appears to be vanishing. Many of its leaders are already quitting, defecting and leaving the country. In the coming months, Madhya has said he will begin to draft Hungary's new constitution, which will be put to a public referendum. This will be the clearest test yet of what Madyar calls regime change whether he can really build institutions strong enough to prevent a return of urbanism while also having the discipline to limit his own powers. If he does, he will have given Hungary a second democratic revolution. Thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. I will see you next week.

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