[Cooper:] John King noted earlier Joe Biden is not just ahead, he appears comfortably ahead of fact confirmed by polls in the race for campaign cash. Yet few Democrats or analysts appear willing to make definitive predictions about the race just 11 days out for the ones when he made four years ago. Our next guest is the exceptions. CNN's Fareed Zakaria the headline of his new piece in The Washington Post, I was wrong that Trump would lose in 2016. I'm doubling down in 2020. He writes, quote, I will take my chances and once again predict that Trump will lose this election. Humbled as I am, after these four years, I would still rather bet on and believe in the best in America. Joining me now is Fareed Zakaria, host of "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS" here on CNN. He's written the new book Ten Lessons For A Post-Pandemic World. So, Fareed, why do you think that the President is going to lose this election? If you look at polls in, you know, key battleground states? Hillary Clinton, actually, you know, is about where Joe Biden is now in many of those states? Or was that at this time in the race?
[Fareed Zakaria, Cnn:] Look, Anderson, you can you can argue it many different ways, right? There's no question. It's a tight race. We're a divided country, I guess I refer to imagine an alternative narrative, which is borne out by a lot of data. Donald Trump has never been popular. He has always had a majority of the country against him disapproving of him. He has the lowest approval rating of any president in recorded history. In 2016, he happened to run against the second most unpopular candidate in modern presidential history. And in three states with 70,000 votes, he was able to pull off an Electoral College victory. I'm betting that that doesn't happen again. Obviously, I don't know. But part of it is, you know, as an immigrant, as somebody who came to this country and felt like it was magical and was welcomed to hear Trump and his, you know, what is frankly, just naked racism and racial appeals. I want to believe that's not America, I want to believe and I want to bet on the America I know, and I'm going to do it, and maybe I'll be wrong, but I'm willing to put myself out on the line.
[Cooper:] If the person does win a second term. What do you think that means for the United States at home and abroad?
[Zakaria:] Well, you know, I talk a lot about this in my new book, which is the, you know, the part of the problem has become, this is very different from any experience America has had in the past. Because this is not about what America does. It's about who we are. You know, in the past, people have criticized American foreign policy, the Iraq War, the Vietnam War, but that was about what America did. What Trump has represented for a lot of the world, for most of the world, is the idea that America is not what it what they had imagined it to be the shining beacon of, of democracy, of pluralism, of diversity. You know, at some fundamental level, what everybody admires about America around the world is we're somehow able to bring all these people from all over the world together and make this first universal nation. Well, Trump is stands in fundamental opposition to that. He begins his political career with birtherism, he begins his campaign calling Mexicans rapists he announces to during the campaign, the Muslim ban to you as I remember Anderson. That is something so different and so alien from the America that everybody around the world admires. So, I think it would be probably an irreparable loss.
[Cooper:] I spoke to Tom Friedman of the times, a couple of weeks ago. And I mean, he was really concerned about the potential of civil conflict in the United States that a that our he believes that our democracy is in terrible danger, more danger than has been in since the Civil War, more danger than after Pearl Harbor, of Cuban missile crisis. Do you agree with that?
[Zakaria:] Well, I think that one of the dangers of Donald Trump is that he seems to recognize no limits, right? He's willing to do things that nobody else has ever done. And so, it's really that fear that like, if you face this danger, what happens? What happens if the President of the United States, simply, you know, challenges 20 different state elections? What happens if he asked the army to do things? I am fundamentally more optimistic than Tom Friedman is. And one of the points I try to make in my book is, look at the end of the day
[Cooper:] Yes.
[Zakaria:] the United States is always a mixed, messy country. But it has incredible dynamism. And it has this incredible value, that it places on diversity. As I say, I'm going to bet on the America I know, not on the other side of America.
[Cooper:] I want to talk about your book, because despite the President saying that we're rounding the corners, it's nowhere near over cases are obviously rising, the U.S. and Europe. In your new book you write this ugly pandemic has opened up a path to a new world. What do you mean by that?
[Zakaria:] So, there's no question that you're right. This is this is the biggest pandemic in a century, this is the most consequential event in you know, in our lifetimes Anderson, it has affected every single human being on the on the planet. In a way that 911 didn't, in a way the global financial crisis didn't. But in doing that, it's dislocated everything. So, as a result change is possible. Think about how much we've all changed in our lives, right? We've, we've agreed to isolate ourselves, we've agreed to spend hours, you know, having deep personal conversations with our laptops, we have been willing to change if politicians lead us and tell us in this moment of enormous change, here's the way forward. I think we would we would get to a better place. But we need leaders who are willing to embrace that positive change.
[Cooper:] Fareed, I appreciate. The new book, Ten Lessons For A Post- Pandemic World. I'm going to read it this weekend. Still to Come. Thanks very much Fareed, appreciate it. Coming up, did the debate leave an impact with early voters in the polls today in the must win state of Florida? What with Randi Kaye find out? Next.