Trump Orders Airstrikes on Iran-Backed Houthis in Yemen

Summary

Podcast Summary: Fareed Zakaria GPS

Episode Title: Trump Orders Airstrikes on Iran-Backed Houthis in Yemen
Date: March 16, 2025
Host: Fareed Zakaria
Main Guests: Ian Bremmer (Eurasia Group), Zanny Minton Beddoes (The Economist), Noah Feldman (Harvard Law), Derek Thompson (The Atlantic), Ezra Klein (NYT)

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Overview

This episode of Fareed Zakaria GPS dives into several urgent and intertwined global and domestic issues:

• President Trump’s order for airstrikes against the Houthi militia in Yemen and its broader geopolitical implications
• The Trump administration’s adversarial policies toward American universities and research
• The evolving dynamics of US-Europe relations under Trump 2.0
• The prospects for a ceasefire in the Russia-Ukraine war
• Alarming trends for free speech on US campuses and the legal boundaries of protest
• A crisis of confidence in Democratic governance—and a new prescription for liberal reform

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. America's Assault on Its Own Universities

Fareed Zakaria’s Opening Take ([00:30]–[09:00]):

• Zakaria laments the Trump administration’s financial and cultural attacks on US higher education, considered a "crucial American competitive advantage."
• Research funding cuts (notably NIH overhead reduction to 15%) threaten ongoing projects and students, potentially causing long-term harm to US scientific leadership.
• The government’s campaign against “woke” language—like diversity, equity, or inclusion—hampers campus programs and suppresses speech.
• Zakaria compares the current situation to China's Cultural Revolution: "The fury with which the Trump administration has turned on academia resembles nothing so much as the early days of the Cultural Revolution." ([08:12])

2. Trump’s Airstrikes on the Houthis and Regional Implications

With Ian Bremmer & Zanny Minton Beddoes

• Justification and Efficacy ([09:02]):

  • Ian Bremmer: The US has “escalation dominance” but faces a “tit for tat” dynamic as Houthis are "by far the most autonomous from Iran itself," limiting Iran's ability to rein them in ([09:09]).
  • The strikes likely signal a start to a prolonged, repetitive engagement—a strategy akin to “mowing the grass” ([09:38]).

• European Reaction to Trump’s Foreign Policy

  • Zanny Minton Beddoes ([10:21]): Describes an “accelerated version of the stages of grief” among Europeans, moving from shock to anger to acceptance that the transatlantic relationship is fundamentally changed.
  • She notes three key European responses:
    • Attempts to maintain relations via flattery and damage minimization
    • Significant increases in defense spending (notably in Germany)
    • Growing push for European autonomy, with talk of nuclear options and defense assets
  • Memorably, she characterizes Trump’s view as “a kind of mobster mafia view of the world where you basically bully people who you can bully” ([10:38]).

• Allies in Asia and Elsewhere

  • Bremmer ([12:37]): Asian states like Japan and India feel less directly threatened than Europe does; Trump’s hostility seems uniquely focused on Europe.

• Risks to Dollar Dominance

  • Zakaria ([13:44]) asks if Europe might challenge the dollar’s supremacy.
  • Beddoes ([14:01]) says it’s possible, but slow; the crisis could prompt necessary European reforms and unity.

3. Russia-Ukraine: Ceasefire Prospects

With Ian Bremmer & Zanny Minton Beddoes

• Trump’s administration has promoted a 30-day ceasefire proposal ([15:54]).

• Putin employs a strategy of ostensible agreement while carving out loopholes: "[Putin] said, well, in principle I agree, but then laid out a whole bunch of reasons why he didn't agree." (Zakaria, [15:54])

• Bremmer ([16:37]): Despite Trump’s pro-Russian hawkishness, "he is the guy that has gotten the Ukrainians to accept a 30 day ceasefire.”

• Beddoes ([17:50]) cautions that Trump is pressuring Zelensky and that the real test will be whether Trump will actually pressure Putin if he drags his feet. For now, time favors Putin, but Zelensky remains popular domestically.

• Broader Unity Against Trump

  • Bremmer ([19:21]): “Trump is a great unifier. I mean, Mexico, Canada, Europe, Ukraine—not the United States. But other countries are becoming more unified because of Trump."

• Is Trump’s Administration Pro-Russian?

  • Beddoes ([19:57]): Some around Trump admire Putin’s “anti-woke” stance: “[Putin is] a kind of strong man who believes in Christian values and is anti woke. To that extent, I think these people are definitely more pro Putin than they are pro Europe.”

4. Crackdown on Universities and Campus Free Speech

With Noah Feldman ([22:21]–[25:52]):

• Trump administration has canceled $400M in grants to Columbia over accusations of permitting antisemitism and arrested a protest leader with a green card.
• Feldman, on constitutional protections:
  • “If you explain your views in the classroom or in a conversation, you are protected under the First Amendment and you're allowed to say them. ... If you discriminate or harass or bully... then you can be punished.” ([22:21])
  • Merely espousing political or even repugnant views in protest is protected speech unless it crosses into targeted harassment ([23:27]).
• Deporting a green card holder solely for protected speech is "an attack on the First Amendment... There's no difference constitutionally between a citizen and a non-citizen with respect to free speech.” ([24:15])
• Supporting a terrorist group is only actionable if it is "material support," not mere advocacy ([25:15]).

5. How Liberals Can “Make Government Work” Again

With Derek Thompson & Ezra Klein ([26:59]–[38:59]):

• Zakaria frames the problem: Democrats are losing key states and voters due to unaffordability and governmental dysfunction, especially in blue states.
• The Liberalism That Builds:
  • Derek Thompson: Democrats must move beyond “the tragedy... [of] associat[ing] success with how much money they spend and not what they actually [build].” ([28:56])
  • Billions for high-speed rail or broadband remain unspent or unbuilt.
• Obstacles to Progress:
  • Thompson ([29:58]): The modern left is "bureaucratic," embedding countless opportunities to veto needed projects—a shift from the ambitious building of the New Deal era.
  • This NIMBYism and regulatory gridlock stifle needed housing and infrastructure, driving residents out of blue states.
• The Abundance Agenda:
  • Thompson: “We want to cut the tax on building things. We want to make it easier to overcome the ‘vetocracy’... that makes it hard to build in the physical world.” ([34:50])
  • Democrats should combine an agenda of speedy building with an ethos of government efficiency and innovative invention.
• Vision for 2050:
  • Thompson ([37:16]) lays out an energizing future of plentiful clean energy, affordable housing, technological marvels, and a government that delivers.
  • “Liberals, Democrats, we have for over 100 years been the party of government. But if you love government, you should be obsessed with making government work.” ([38:49])

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Notable Quotes

• “The fury with which the Trump administration has turned on academia resembles nothing so much as the early days of the Cultural Revolution, when an increasingly paranoid Mao Zedong smashed China's established universities, a madness that took generations to remedy.” — Fareed Zakaria ([08:12])

• "The Houthis are by far the most autonomous from Iran itself... this is the single biggest military escalation that Trump has engaged in in the two months of his presidency.” — Ian Bremmer ([09:09])

• “This administration has a transactional view of the world, as we put on our cover a couple of weeks ago, a kind of mobster mafia view of the world where you basically bully people who you can bully.” — Zanny Minton Beddoes ([10:38])

• "[Putin] will never say no. He will say yes, but the nuances need looking at and he will kind of roll this out." — Zanny Minton Beddoes ([17:50])

• “If you are a non citizen who's present here lawfully... you have full First Amendment rights. So... deport[ing] him... solely because of his expression of views... is an attack on his First Amendment rights. And so by extension, it's an attack on everybody's First Amendment rights.” — Noah Feldman ([24:15])

• “The tragedy of the modern Democratic Party is that they associate success with how much money they spend and not what they actually [build].” — Derek Thompson ([28:56])

• “If you love government, you should be obsessed with making government work.” — Derek Thompson ([38:49])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• US Universities Under Attack: [00:30]–[09:00]
• US Airstrikes Against Houthis/Regional Impact: [09:02]–[14:40]
• EU & Asian Response to Trump: [10:00]–[14:40]
• Russia-Ukraine Ceasefire & European Politics: [15:54]–[20:50]
• Crackdown on Speech & Legal Limits: [22:21]–[25:52]
• Liberal Reform & Governance Crisis: [26:59]–[38:59]

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Conclusion

This episode offers an incisive tour through America’s global and internal crises—from military escalation in the Middle East, to a cultural battle over higher education, to the future of Western alliances, speech freedoms, and democratic governance. Guests provide deep analysis and prescribe bold, sometimes urgent remedies for a political environment in flux, keeping the language sharp and the stakes vivid throughout.

Transcript

[Narrator/Advertiser]

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[Fareed Zakaria]

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. Today on the program, President Trump orders airstrikes on the Iranian backed Houthis in Yemen. Meanwhile, at home, fears of trade wars and a recession grow and Doge continues its chaotic cost cutting. I'll talk about all that. Plus Russia, Ukraine with Zanny Minton Beddoes and Ian Bremmer. Also, Trump vowed that the ICE arrest of a Columbia University graduate who led student protests was the first of many to come. What does this mean for free speech on campuses and across Americ? I'll ask the Harvard Law professor Noah Feldman. And how can Democrats counter Trump's MAGA movement? In a new book, the Atlantic's Derek Thompson and the New York Times Ezra Klein say liberals must make government work again. I'll ask them how. But first, here's my take. There is no area where America's global dominance is more total than higher education. With about 4% of the world's population and 25% of its GDP, America has 72% of the world's 25 top universities by one ranking and 64% by another. But this crucial American competitive advantage is being undermined by the Trump administration's war on colleges. Hat tip to the New York Times Michelle Goldberg for for raising this issue as well. Listen to what JD Vance said at the National Conservatism Conference in 2021 we.

[Ian Bremmer]

Have to honestly and aggressively attack the.

[Derek Thompson]

Universities in this country.

[Ian Bremmer]

The professors are the enemy.

[Fareed Zakaria]

The administration has put those words into action. The most dramatic assault has been financial a freezing or massive reduction in research grants and loans from from the federal government. Some of these efforts are under court review, but the cumulative impact could be billions of dollars in cuts to basic research, much of it disrupting ongoing projects and programs. High quality research in the United States has emerged in a unique ecosystem. The federal government provides much of the funding through high quality institutions like the National Institutes of Health and the National Science foundation, and private foundations and companies account for most of the rest. Professors at universities, both public and private, use these funds to conduct the research. No other country has a system that works as well, what is at risk now is what Holden Thorpe, the editor in chief of Science, calls the social contract that the federal government and institutions have had to enable the scientific research enterprise in America in the last 80 years. Take a university like Duke, which ranked 11th in total grants received from the NIH last year. Of its $1.33 billion research budget, $863 million came from Washington, according to the AP. That includes funds for critical research projects on cancer and other diseases, but also Support for over 630 PhD students at the medical school. Those projects and students will have to be pared back substantially if the cuts go through. One crucial mechanism to cut funding is through a massive reduction in the overhead or indirect costs that universities get reimbursed for from the federal government. Overhead often makes up up to 40 or 50% of a grant, but last month the NIH ordered that it had to be capped at 15%. This sounds more rational than it is. Universities often divide their costs on science grants into research costs, the salaries of the professors and graduate students and overhead, the costs of the buildings, labs, energy and utilities, and administrative staff. When you are building a complex lab to conduct experiments, the structure and equipment is often more costly than the salaries and stipends of the researchers. Michigan State University has declared that these cuts could make it stop construction of a $330 million research building for cancer, cardiovascular disease and neuroscience studies. Government funding plays a unique role. It often supports basic research, the kind that companies have less incentive to do, and its results cannot be hoarded by any one company, but rather provide it free to the entire scientific and technological community so that all can use it to experiment and innovate. The mapping of the human genome, for example, cost less than $3 billion and took 13 years. Because it was government funded, one of its key requirements was that the research should be made publicly available for all within 24 hours of being generated. The other assault on the universities is a strange new attack on free speech. It began from a principled critique that bureaucracies, universities and elites had all become woke. True, but the government's response to this problem has been Orwellian, searching through these institutions for any mentions of the word diversity or identity or inclusion, and then shutting down those programs without any review. Worse, it now punishes universities for having on their campuses people who might espouse certain views on topics like Israel and Palestine. And now is punishing the protesters themselves. Now, I have long argued that universities have a huge problem. They have far too little intellectual and ideological diversity, which is the most important kind of diversity on a campus. But the way you fix that is not to restrict radical left wing speech, but to add voices and views from other parts of the spectrum. The answer to censorship by the left is is not censorship by the right. The fury with which the Trump administration has turned on academia resembles nothing so much as the early days of the Cultural Revolution, when an increasingly paranoid Mao Zedong smashed China's established universities, a madness that took generations to remedy. Meanwhile, in Beijing last week, the Chinese government announced its intention to massively increase its funding for research and technology and so that it could lead the world in science in the 21st century. So as America seems to be copying the worst aspects of China's recent history, China is copying the best aspects of America's striving to take the edge as America goes through its own cultural revolution. Go to CNN.com fareed for a link to my Washington Post column this week. And let's get started. Yesterday, Trump launched what he called decisive and powerful strikes on the Iran backed Houthis in Yemen. Do they threaten to tip the Middle east into further chaos or will this work? And how is Europe handling Trump 2.0? Joining me to answer these questions and more are Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group, and Zanny Minton Bedders, editor in chief of the economy. Ian, with Yemen, it does seem to me that the Trump administration has every justification to do this. The Houthis have been blocking all commercial shipping going through the Red Sea. The question, of course, is the Saudis tried to do this. You know, the Houthis have this ability to do asymmetrical strikes. They launch these cheap drones. I'm sure the American strikes would kill lots of people, you know, Houthi leaders. But will it, do you think, will it work at the end of the day, or will this have to just be a continuous tit for tat?

[Ian Bremmer]

Well, I mean, on the one hand, the Americans have escalation dominance in the region. Nobody else has any military to really threaten them in a serious way. On the other hand, as you say, these are, you know, very inexpensive missiles, little gunboats. And also the Houthis are by far the most autonomous from Iran itself. In other words, the Iranian government, which has, you know, not been looking for a big fight with the Americans, either under Biden or under Trump, they have more influence over a lot of the proxies that have taken big hits.

[Fareed Zakaria]

The Houthis.

[Ian Bremmer]

That's not really the case.

[Fareed Zakaria]

So they have the least influence probably over the Houthis compared to Hezbollah Syrian.

[Ian Bremmer]

Military, any of them. That's right. And so, I mean, you know, the Americans are going to now be. And this is the single biggest military escalation that Trump has engaged in in the two months of his presidency heretofore, I suspect, in the same way the Israelis have talked about this historically, as mowing the grass. This is something that Trump is probably going to have to engage in for a very long time.

[Fareed Zakaria]

Zanny, let me ask you the sort of big question I think everyone has is we've seen all the Trump moves towards Zelensky, to Denmark, towards Canada, questioning NATO. What is the European response? You live, breathe. You live in London, live and breathe the European world. How are the Europeans perceiving all of this?

[Zanny Minton Beddoes]

So I think in the last couple of months, it's been a kind of accelerated version of the stages of grief, you know, shock followed by anger. And now, I think, acceptance that a relationship, a transatlantic relationship that has lasted for 80 years under this administration is going to be fundamentally different because this administration has a different attitude towards its allies than its predecessors. This administration has a transactional view of the world, as we put on our cover a couple of weeks ago, a kind of mobster mafia view of the world where you basically bully people who you can bully. And I think the Europeans are recognizing that this has three, I think, big consequences. Firstly, because we rely so much on America, there is a move, particularly amongst the prime ministers and the heads of state, to try and keep the show on the road. Keir Starmer was here, Emmanuel Macron trying to work with President Trump, flatter, cajole, to minimize the damage. But secondly, the Europeans are really finally at last realizing they need to spend a lot more on defense. And you saw the biggest transformation in Germany, where Friedrich Merz, the incoming chancellor, has basically agreed with his coalition partners, a huge increase in defence spending. But I think the third consequence, which is only just beginning to become clear, is a recognition in Europe that if you can't rely on the US and worse, if possibly it's hostile, Europe has to not just spend more on defense, but it has to think more autonomously. And this is a huge change for a Europe that has believed in the transatlantic alliance. So whether it is, you know, the Polish prime minister talking about nuclear weapons, whether it is the Portuguese now no longer wanting to buy F35, there is a sense of an autonomy needed in Europe. And actually, if things get worse, and we haven't got here yet, but if things get worse, I think Europe will start thinking in Trumpian terms. We'll start thinking about what assets does it bring to the table and what is its leverage. So it's a. It's been an unbelievably tumultuous six weeks.

[Fareed Zakaria]

What do you think this does for allies in Asia who look at this and think, well, if the Americans can discard their closest allies, the Europeans are we, the Japanese, the South Koreans, the Australians secure. You know, the former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turner is saying, we're never going to get these subs. We should go back to the French. The Americans are not reliable.

[Ian Bremmer]

So everything Zanny just said I agree with, but I think it applies to Europe. So you look at other countries around the world, Canada and Mexico, it's a big fight right now, but ultimately they have nowhere to go. And I would expect that USMCA will get back together over the course of 2025, 2026. The Middle East, Gulf states, Israel, they prefer Trump to the Biden administration. No problem there at all. The Asian states, I mean, you look at someone like in Japan and a recognition that even though he is weak, he nonetheless had a pretty good meeting with Trump. So did Modi. These are countries that know that the U. S. China relationship is bad and that it's not as dramatic, it is not as unprecedented, it's not as permanent as what the Americans are doing to Europe. I think the Europeans uniquely are facing what's going to be permanent damage because they're being hit on trade, they're being hit on Russia, which is their top adversary, and they're being hit on their own democracies. Trump administration is saying, no, we think you're the enemy. They're not doing that to Japan or South Korea. So it is very different with Europe right now.

[Fareed Zakaria]

Do you think the Europeans could do the ultimate thing which is the only place that can challenge the dollar's dominance in the world economy would be the euro. If they were to do serious euro bonds that would effectively rival the dollar's treasury bills. Is that possible?

[Zanny Minton Beddoes]

Look, I think it's possible eventually. I think we shouldn't exaggerate how quickly reserve currencies take a very long time to shift. And I'm not for a second thinking that the US Is about to lose its position as the world's reserve currency. But I do think that if Europe uses this opportunity of the increased defense spending to create more joint assets to develop a European capital market, which is hugely needed, and also to use this process to kickstarter start the economic reform that Europe desperately needs, I mean, I've been on this show before talking about how awful Europe, how feeble it is at reform. If it does all of that, it could be much, much stronger than it currently is. And so I think there's a huge benefit to Europe amongst this.

[Fareed Zakaria]

Stay with us. When we come back, we're going to talk about Russia and Ukraine and will a ceasefire actually break out? When we come back.

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[Fareed Zakaria]

This week the Trump administration endorsed a 30 day ceasefire proposal between Ukraine and Russia. But peace looks uncertain as Vladimir Putin set out his own terms, which are known to be unacceptable to the Ukrainians. Russia has suggested limits to troops training and importing arms. Meanwhile, fighting rages in the Russian region of Kursk, which Ukraine seized in August. Russia is attempting to claw back. Back to discuss all this is Annie Minton Beddoes and Ian Bremmer. Ian, is the ceasefire proposal going to go anywhere? Putin did something very clever. He sort of said, well, in principle I agree, but then laid out a whole bunch of reasons why he didn't agree. So it's, you know, and interestingly, the Americans are not criticizing Putin for rejecting their own proposal.

[Ian Bremmer]

They're criticizing him a little bit, right? I mean, they are saying ultimately if he doesn't accept even Trump, even Trump, ultimately, if he doesn't accept it, we know who is responsible for continuing the war. Which means that Putin couldn't just say no. He has to say yes, but but is dragging it out and seeing how much he can get out of Trump. Look, Zelenskyy is in a better position today than he was a week ago. That's not saying much, but it's important. And, and I think we have to recognize that as much as Trump has been willing to align with, give concessions to the Russians in advance of all of this, he is the guy that has gotten the Ukrainians to accept a 30 day ceasefire with the Europeans now backing it. Biden did not do that. Kamala Harris in all likelihood would not have done that. So let's also recognize that we've made a step towards winding down this war. They have to now be willing to punch the Russians in the face if Putin decides to be too cute around it. I'm not sure they will be.

[Fareed Zakaria]

Yeah. The puzzle about the Trump administration is, you know, when they look at the Europeans and the Russians, they do seem, I mean, Vance goes out there and criticizes Europe, not Russia. How do you think Europeans look at that?

[Zanny Minton Beddoes]

Well, so far I think I agree with Ian, but I think so far any progress that's been made has been by the Trump administration putting pressure on the weaker party, on Zelensky and on Ukraine. And Vladimir Putin is an absolute expert at this. He's an expert. He will never say no. He will say yes, but the nuances need looking at and he will kind of roll this out. And I think the real question, and it's going to be clear in the next few days, is whether the Trump administration is willing to say, listen, unless you agree to this, we are going to put extra sanctions on, we are going to push up on the pressure. And so far I have seen very, very little evidence of that. That will be the real test. Meantime, you know, for Putin, time is absolutely on his side. He's essentially pushed the Ukrainians out of Kursk now, you know, that enclave where they took some territory in a hope of using it as a bargaining chip. But I think the other thing that the Trump administration underestimates, and you're right, this has been a good week for Zelenskyy after the terrible mauling he got in the overall office. But he's much more popular at home. We, we commissioned a poll from Ipsos of Ukrainians and it showed that seven out of 10 Ukrainians approve of what he's doing. Eight out of 10 say there should not be an election because there is war. But it suggests, our polling suggests that if they were, there were an election, he would handily win it. So he is in a much stronger, he's in a strong position domestically. And I think the Ukrainians have sort of, you know, played a bad hand well in the last week or so. The question now is really what does the Trump administration do towards Vladimir Putin? I've seen no evidence yet that they're.

[Ian Bremmer]

Going to go Trump is a great unifier. I mean, Mexico, Canada, Europe, Ukraine, not the United States. But other countries are becoming more unified because of Trump.

[Fareed Zakaria]

Let's go through the numbers. Claudia Sheinbaum, 85%, 85% approval rating. Mark Carney has moved up in the polls where The Liberals were 25 points.

[Ian Bremmer]

They were dead in the wild.

[Fareed Zakaria]

They're now ahead. You know, I suspect that all the Europeans who are facing Trump's wrath are all going to rise in the polls. But again, back to do you think Trump, do you think Europe thinks that Trump is basically or the Trump administration is pro Russian or is that going to be.

[Zanny Minton Beddoes]

Well, some elements are clearly pro Russian. I think there isn't. I don't think you can characterize the entire court, if you will, because I think this is best described as a court rather than an address administration. And it's a court where the king, it's not quite clear what the king's position is, but there are definitely some people around President Trump who are very, very skeptical, perhaps because of their sort of culture war origins of what they see as a kind of effete liberal sort of, you know, liberalism in Europe that is not it's much too progressive, much too woke, much too keen on migration. And you see it, you see it from Vice President Vance's speech in Munich. You see lots of elements of this. And for them, Russia under President Putin weirdly, in my view, represents something admirable. He's a, he's a kind of strong man who believes in Christian values and is anti woke to that extent. I think these people are definitely more pro Putin than they are pro Europe.

[Fareed Zakaria]

All right. We gotta leave it at that. Ian Bremmer, Zanny Mittenbergs pleasure. We will have you guys on. This is always such a fascinating conversation. Next, the Trump administration has targeted universities and pro Palestinian activists over alleged anti Semitism. Is this a crackdown on free speech? Harvard law professor Noah Feldman will tell us. Last Friday, the Trump administration announced it was cancelling $400 million in grants and contracts for Columbia University, accusing the Ivy League school of condoning antisemitism on campus. The administration says dozens of other schools are also under investigation for failing to stop anti Semitism. And last week, authorities arrested Mahmoud Khalil who helped lead student protests at Colombia over Israel's war in Gaza While he was a graduate student. He holds a green card and now faces possible deportation. Khalil's supporters say all he has done is espouse pro Palestinian views that are not anti Semitic. To explain the legal dimensions of the administration's actions, I am joined by Noah Feldman, professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard. Noah, welcome. This gets to the sort of central question that in some ways was part of that hearing with the university presidents right, which is, does a university have the right to combat anti Semitism or are those views protected by the First Amendment?

[Noah Feldman]

If you explain your views in the classroom or in a conversation, you are protected under the First Amendment and you're allowed to say them. And that means the government can't punish you. And if you're at a private university, most private universities have rules of academic freedom that also protect your expression of your view. However, according to university rules and according to federal law, as it's been interpreted by various relevant actors, if you discriminate or harass or bully somebody as part of an act of discrimination, then you can be punished for expressing anti Semitic or racist views as part of that harassment.

[Fareed Zakaria]

So you've defined it very well. And then we get to the hard test here, which is suppose you're not in the classroom, it's not a private conversation. You are publicly espousing anti Semitic or racist views. There are other people around there. Does that count as speech or does that count as intimidation and harassment?

[Noah Feldman]

When you are standing, let's say, in a protest, you should in principle, both under the university's rules and under the First Amendment, be allowed to say what you believe, no matter how repugnant it might be. When you're targeting what you're saying at particular people and you're, let's say in their face in such a way that it could be described as bullying or harassment, then you've crossed the line. And both the law and university regulations prohibit you from doing so.

[Fareed Zakaria]

And when you take a look at what the administration is doing in trying to deport Khalil and things like that, now, you know, it's a different situation where you have every right to revoke a green card or a visa. But what do you do? You worry about the fact that this could be interpreted as an attack on the First Amendment.

[Noah Feldman]

It is an attack on the First Amendment. It's not close to an attack because the US Supreme Court has held all the way back to World War II so for 80 plus years that if you are a non citizen who's present here lawfully and you're living in the United States as Khalil was on a green card, you have full First Amendment rights. So for the administration to deport him if it's the case that they're doing so solely because of his expression of views that are protected by the First Amendment, then that is an attack on his First Amendment rights. And so by extension, it's an attack on everybody's First Amendment rights because there's no difference constitutionally between a citizen and a non citizen with respect to free speech.

[Fareed Zakaria]

What they say is, the administration says is this is not free speech. This is he supports a terrorist organization. Is that a legitimate distinction? Or, you know, is one allowed to espouse support for a political organization?

[Noah Feldman]

When the U.S. supreme Court has addressed this issue in the past, what they have said in a famous opinion by the current Chief Justice, John Roberts, is that if you are materially supporting a terrorist organization, that is, you're working alongside them, then that could be prohibited by law. But if you're engaged in what is called uncoordinated advocacy, that is, you're just expressing your view that you think terrorism is great and you support terrorist organizations, that is fully protected by the First Amendment. And so unless Khalil were to be shown to have materially supported terror, which is a crime, his speech is protected by the First Amendment.

[Fareed Zakaria]

Noah Feldman, this was incredibly clarifying. Thank you.

[Noah Feldman]

Thank you.

[Fareed Zakaria]

Next on gps, Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson have a plan for liberals to make government effective again. They'll join me to discuss their new book when we come back. Gatorade is the number one proven electrolyte.

[Ian Bremmer]

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[Fareed Zakaria]

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[Narrator/Advertiser]

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[Fareed Zakaria]

Donald Trump's November victory has left Democrats scrambling for answers. A major reason for his win was, of course, the rising cost of living in America. This is especially evident in Democratic run states where housing costs are sky high, homelessness is soaring. It has led many to leave places like New York And California for red states like Florida and Texas. My next guests say the Democrats need a paradigm shift. Ezra Klein is an opinion columnist at the New York Times and hosts the podcast the Ezra Klein Show. And Doug Thompson is a staff writer at the Atlantic and hosts the podcast Plain English. In their new book, Abundance, they lay out a vision for what they call a liberalism that builds. This is really wonderful. And the timing could not be better because this is what the Democratic Party needs to think about. So Biden thought he had the answer right. He comes into office and he says, unlike Obama, I'm not going to be skimpy, I'm not going to be cheap. I'm going to build like crazy infrastructure, green, all kinds of stuff. What happens?

[Derek Thompson]

So there are a couple of problems here, and it's not all within the Biden administration's control. There was a huge global inflationary crisis, which they had some responsibility for by putting too much demand into the economy. But it mostly was not their fault. But behind that crisis were two things. One was a decades long movement in liberal governance towards it being very slow to build anything. So many of the things that the Biden administration was most proud of, like $42 billion for rural broadband did not actually reach any homes homes by the end of his term.

[Fareed Zakaria]

Like literally none.

[Derek Thompson]

Maybe a couple dozen depending on how you look at it. But no. Or the $7.5 billion for electric vehicle chargers. It did a couple dozen electric vehicle chargers by the end of his term. Right.

[Fareed Zakaria]

So just let's take that specific. How do you explain that? Like what happens? You have billions of dollars to build electrical chargers and you literally have a few dozen at the end of four years.

[Derek Thompson]

Why?

[Narrator/Advertiser]

I think one of the tragedies of the modern Democratic Party is that they associate success with how much money they spend and not what they actually. And that's how you get a world where California authorizes more than $30 billion to build high speed rail and they do not build it. A dollar amount that's written on a law doesn't help anybody's lives. What helps someone's lives is what's actually built in the physical world. And there's a story that we tell in this book about a change within liberalism where in the New Deal era, between the 1930s and 1960s, liberals built in the physical world and something around the 1970s shifted and, and liberals made it much harder in cities and states where they had power to actually change the physical world. So if you want to build houses and you want to build clean energy, both of which Involve actually putting things up, changing the physical environment. Progressives have made it harder to do so. And I think that's why they're losing not only people, to your point, but also an argument as to who can run the country better and why.

[Fareed Zakaria]

What are these obstacles? And don't they exist now at every level of government?

[Derek Thompson]

They do. And it's not that there are none of these problems in red states, but one of the signal problems of our politics is that the personality type of the right is autocratic and the personality type and government of the left is bureaucratic. We think of liberalism as being the party that believes in government. Right. New Deal liberals, they want the government to do big things. In the back half of the 20th century, though, they were dealing with the problems of building too much. We had despoiled forests and street. We had choked. I grew up outside of Los Angeles. We had choked the city in smog. We created a lot of very important statutes that allowed people to jump in front of the government, sue it for not sufficiently considering the cost of its actions. And then over time, like always happens, the solutions of one era become the problems of the next. So if you take energy, for instance, the problem of the 2010s, the 2020s, is not that we have to stop things from being built. It said, if we are going to decarbonize, we need to build green energy infrastructure at an unfathomably torrid pace. And so an entire environmental movement that was designed to block bad things from happening now needs to shift on a dime and make good things happen much, much, much faster. Or in California, again, where I'm from, you have just a terrible housing crisis. We are building for as bad as California's housing crisis is, privately, fewer homes in January 2025 than in January 2015. And the reason is that people there, and these are liberals with lawn signs about how kindness is everything and no human being is illegal. They got real used to seeing their housing prices appreciate real fast. They like Prop 13, which makes it really advantageous to own your home for a long time. And if you build a bunch of housing, it can inconvenience you in certain conditions. It can drive down your home prices. But ultimately that is selfish. You're driving the working class out of your communities. There is a variant of liberalism that has become selfish, that has what it wants and is symbolically for everybody to have more, but in fact doesn't want to give anything up for that to happen. And people notice they're leaving California, they're leaving New York, they're leaving Illinois, they're going to Florida, to Texas, to Arizona. If you're losing people, you're losing power and you're losing the argument.

[Fareed Zakaria]

So if you're losing people, you're losing power. What that suggests is the next census you're going to have fewer Democratic states and more Republican states. Right? If this continues.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Absolutely. Yeah. If you look at California and New York and Illinois and Minnesota and you look at how much population they're losing, they're likely to altogether lose seven electoral votes by the 2030 census. And there's a bigger thing at stake here. Right. Democrats should be able to say, look at California, vote for us and we'll make America like California. But instead, now it's Republicans that see advantage in the saying vote for Democrats and they'll make America like California. It's so important, I think, that a political movement make itself an advertisement for itself rather than an anti advertisement. And that I think is what's happened when you look at the record of unaffordability in places like California and New York and, and other states and cities that are run by Democrats.

[Fareed Zakaria]

And Ron DeSantis is clearly going to say, look at Florida. It's cheap and easy to build. Here you have low taxes, no taxes. That's my advertisement.

[Derek Thompson]

But here's the thing that is going to give the Wrights real trouble. There's a lot you could export from the Texan or Florida policy structures. That's not what Donald Trump is doing. He's not creating an abundance based national government. He doesn't say, hey, we're going to take what has made housing so successful in Houston, in Austin and Dallas and bring it nationally. Instead, him and J.D. vance all over the campaign used the housing crisis as a reason to keep immigrants out. You look at Elon Musk, that man is a walking advertisement for abundance focused public private partnerships. What are Tesla? What is SolarCity? What is SpaceX? They are all companies built on the backs of government grants, of government subsidies, of government loan guarantees. Is he going into government and making it possible to do more of that? Is he going into government and making and reimagining what government can do? No, he's chopping what government can do. Right. So there is a way in which the populist right thrives on scarcity. It is built on the suspicion of other people taking what you have. They are not creating an abundant future. Democrats can.

[Fareed Zakaria]

All right, when we come back, we will ask the two of you exactly what the Democrats do. How do they build that abundance economy? When we Come back. I'm back with Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson, talking about that terrific new book called Abundance. So, Derek, what is the answer here? Because in a way, your critique is so powerful and persuasive, and it feels like liberalism has embedded these vetoes into so many elements of governance. City, state, national. There's environmental reviews, there's local housing. Can you unwind all that?

[Narrator/Advertiser]

You can certainly try. I think right now you have Donald Trump saying that he wants to cut taxes on corporate income. I think one way to summarize our message is that we want to cut the tax on building things. We want to make it easier to overcome the vetocracy, the democracy by veto that exists in so many of these cities and so many of these states, that makes it hard to build in the physical world. And I think we can do it. I think you can do it by changing laws like single family zoning and housing by right. I think you can do it by changing attitudes. But there is one more point here, right? Our book is not just about building what we know. We can build things like housing and solar. It's also about inventing what we don't yet know how to build. And I think it's really important for Democrats to offer not only a building agenda, but an invention agenda to demonstrate that we're the party of the future and we have ideas about how to unleash science and technology in this country. I think there's great power in not only being a movement that has a negative identity of we are not Donald Trump, but also having a positive identity.

[Fareed Zakaria]

If you had a magic wand and were czar, if you were Elon Musk, what would you do? What are the key things you would change?

[Derek Thompson]

I think that it depends on what level of government you're talking about. At the national level, we have a lot to do actually in the civil service. This is one of the most complicated things about what Doge has done in dumping poison into a bunch of ideas of government reform. I wish they cared about government efficiency. I truly do. But firing people at random, indiscriminately firing probationary employees, who are often the young people who just came into government, the people who just got approved promotion. But we do make need to make it easier in the civil service to hire, to fire and to act. We one of the cuts that we're used to making in American politics is around deregulation. Republicans like to deregulate. Democrats want to regulate. What we want to do in many cases is deregulate government itself. We want to make it easier for Government to act. We actually want to give government the power to deliver on people's behalf. Instead, we've tied it up in rules and regulations under the fear that it would abuse power, which is fine, but, and in many cases warranted. But you also need to make it possible for government to use power.

[Fareed Zakaria]

Well, you talk about an abundance agenda and you paint this picture of what America would look like if you guys had your way. So what would America look like?

[Narrator/Advertiser]

The year is 2050. We have an abundance of solar and wind and geothermal and nuclear power. We have not just as much energy as we have now, we have five times more. But that energy doesn't involve burning things that we find in the ground. It involves lighting our homes and powering new technologies with absolutely no emissions. Right. You walk outside and there are fleets of drones that are dropping off in your front yards, pills that are manufactured in low orbit because there are certain materials that can be low, that can be manufactured in zero gravity conditions that are incredibly, and could be incredibly life saving. AI exists in a way that is where the profits are broadly shared. It is helping us achieve knowledge, especially in the sciences, that we can't access today. We have the ability to use new technologies we can't imagine right now, like supersonic air travel. And all of this. All of this exists with an abundance of housing so that the housing share of people spending is so low that they can afford all sorts of things in their life that doesn't feel like they are shackled to their rent or their mortgage. This is a world of affordability. It's a world of technological splendor and marvel. And it does require that we get very, very good at several things. One is building what we know. Two is getting much smarter at science and technological policy to invent what we don't, what we don't know. And number three, as Ezra said, is getting better at government. Liberals, Democrats, we have for over 100 years been the party of government. But if you love government, you should be obsessed with making government work.

[Fareed Zakaria]

All right, I think after hearing this interview, people are going to try and recruit the two of you to run for the Democratic primary or something. Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson, pleasure to have you on. Thank you.

[Derek Thompson]

Thank you very much.

[Fareed Zakaria]

A terrific book. And thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. I will see you next week.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

This week on the assignment with me, Audie Cornish. My guest is Larry Wilmore. He's a writer and producer whose work on some of the most successful shows of the century. In Living Color, the Bernie Mac show, the Daily Show, Blackish, Insecure. We're just naming a few. But in his heart, he's still a comedian. I'm getting back into doing standup again, which I really haven't done full time in a while.

[Fareed Zakaria]

So.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Wait. What? Wait a second. Like, you're going. You're doing open mics? I'm going up Saturday night. I'm gonna start working on a new hour.

[Fareed Zakaria]

Yeah.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

So it's a little scary.

[Derek Thompson]

Audie, don't give me your.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

I can imagine. What do you think is pulling at your chest here?

[Noah Feldman]

I feel like I have to say something.

[Fareed Zakaria]

I can't stay silent anymore about just.

[Ian Bremmer]

The world that I'm in.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Listen to the assignment with me, Audie Cornish. Streaming now on your favorite podcast, Apple.