The collapse of Lehman Brothers. Since the financial meltdown, we havent had a crisis or a crash. Are we overdue for one . And more importantly, are we ready for it . Ill bring you the troubling truth. And pope francis, the vatican and child sex abuse. Can the church heal . Can it survive as is . Ill talk to the New York Times ross douthad who has a new book out on pope francis. But first, heres my take. For several years now, scholars have argued that the world is experiencing a democratic recession. They also note a general hollowing out of democracy in the advanced industrial world. When we think about this problem, inevitably, rightly, we worry about donald trump, his attacks on judges, the free press, his own justice department. But there is also a worrying erosion of a core democratic norm taking place on the left. It has become commonplace now to hear cries on the left to deny controversial figures on the right a platform to express their views. Colleges have disinvited conservative speakers like Condoleezza Rice and charles murray. Other campuses were unwilling or unable to allow conservatives because to actually speak with protests overwhelming the events. A similar controversy now involves steve bannon who has been making the rounds in air waves and in print, including an interview i did with him on cnn. Some have claimed bannon is simply unimportant, irrelevant and, thus, shouldnt be given a microphone. If that were the case, surely the media, which is a forprofit industry, would notice the lack of Public Interest and stop inviting him. The reality is that the people running the economists, the financial times, 60 minutes, the new yorker and many others who have recently featured bannon or invited him know hes an intelligent and influential ideaologist. A man who built the largest media platform for the new right, ran trumps successful campaign, served briefly as his chief strategist and continues to articulate and energize the populism thats been on the rise throughout the western world. He might be getting his 15 minutes of fame that will peter out, but for now, he remains a compelling figure. The real fear many on the left have is not that bannon is dull and uninteresting, but the opposite. That his ideas will prove seductive and persuasive. Hence the solution, dont give him a platform and hope this will make the ideas go away. But they wont. By trying to suppress bannon and others on the right, liberals are likely to make those ideas seem more potent. Did the efforts of communist countries to muzzle capitalist ideas work . Weve been here before. In 1974, william shockley, the nobel prizewinning scientist who in many ways was the father of the computer revolution was invited to by yale students to attempt to discuss his views about blacks that are an inferior race and should be sterilized. A campus uproar ensued and the event was canceled. It was later rescheduled with another opponent and that was disrupted. The difference from today is that yale recognized that it had failed in not ensuring that shockley could speak. It commissioned a report on free speech that remains a landmark declaration of the duty of universities to encourage debate and dissent. The report flatly states that a college cannot make its primary and dominant value the fostering of friendship, solidarity, harmony, civility or mutual respect. It will never let these values override its central purpose. We value freedom of expression precisely because it provides a forum for the new, the provocative, the disturbing and the unorthodox. The report added, we take a chance as the First Amendment takes a chance when we commit ourselves to the idea that the results of Free Expression are to the general benefit in the long run. However unpleasant they may appear at the time. It is on this bet for the long run, a bet on freedom of thought, belief, expression and action that liberal democracy rests. For more go to cnn. Com fareed. And read my Washington Post column this week. Lets get started. 46 years ago this summer, two young reporters at the Washington Post were assigned to report on an unusual event. A breakin at the Democratic National committee headquarters. Much of bob woodward and Carl Bernsteins reporting relied heavily on confidential sources. Most famously the man who came to be called deep throat. Their work eventually helped bring down president richard nixon, forcing him to resign. Woodward has written books about every president in almost half a century. But none like his latest. Fear tells an extraordinary story about the trump administration. Bob woodward, pleasure to have you on. Thank you. Lets first explain why you began all those years ago when reporting on the watergate breakin. To use what was then a fairly unconventional technique, which was these confidential sources, sometimes called Anonymous Sources. Well, theyre not anonymous to us. I mean thats very important to understand. The reason Carl Bernstein and i used those confidential sources, its the only way you can get people to tell you the truth. They were not going to go out and if you said, gee, this is on the record, youre going to get the press release version, the official version. Of course in watergate, there were so many secrets that were buried and hidden. So how are you going to do that . You have to find people who will be Truth Tellers where you can establish and this is the key a relationship of trust where you are going to protect them. You are going to check out the information from other sources. And so you present a version that is authentic and real rather than something that is manufacture manufactured. And in the case of the nixon presidency, just peppered with lies and deceit. Just to explain to people your process. When i was at newsweek, i was cautious about Anonymous Sources because you dont want to create the opportunity for something that cant be checked. If you Say Something happened at a meeting and you have a quotation where say the president said something or the secretary of defense said something, how do you arrive at that quotation . From somebody who is there, you lots of people keep diaries. There are extensive votes. And in many cases, documentations of this. You can find other people in the room, and check it and then go back to the original source. This is the joy of having time so you can maybe work on one meeting or one event and youve done a great number of interviews. And checked it and you get to a point where you have the best obtainable version of the truth. And you have notes on all of this which include the sources, which eventually go into, i think its yale university, right, where somebody at some point will be able to figure out from your notes, from your documentation who told you what . Yes. And most specifically, i tape recorded these interviews with nearly everyone. I have thousands of pages of documents, hundreds of hours with people who were participants. And the agreement with the sources was, im not going to name you, but im going to use this information if i can verify it. So i was able to do that. And you are exactly right. Somebody is going to be able to go back and do an archaeological dig as theyve done on watergate, Carl Bernsteins and my papers are at the university of texas. All the notes. All the data. All the story drafts. And people have gone and looked at that. And its fair to remind people that your most important source, mark felt, publicly denied he had leaked going to you. Yes, and he was number two in the fbi. And he was quite clever about it because he said im not deep throat and if i was deep throat, i would deny it. And so he was able to have it both ways for a long time until 33 years later, he came out and identified himself as that source. When i read the book, what im struck by is the degree of chaos that you describe. All of which centers around a president who seems, you know, somewhat impulsive to listen to the person who last talked to him. He pits his advisers against each other almost deliberately. How much of that is normal . Pitting one adviser against another is absolutely acceptable. Lots of president s do this. They want to have the debate. What happens in the trump white house, and i think the book shows in chapter and verse, its trump against the facts. And the experts will come in, for instance, only you could probably write a long paper about the world trade organization. But trump, in one session, says this is the Worst Organization in the world. We lose all of the fights. This is where we go and make complaints about unfair trade practices. And the experts, the aides come in and say, oh, 85. 7 of the cases we win. And trump says, no, no, thats thats wrong. And they say call your trade representative. These are the facts. No. Trump is just he closes down. Will not listen. It is the absence of an open mind. I mean, you know so well that anybody in any business or institution, its very important that they grow and learn and listen. The capacity to really listen is very important in a leadership decisionmaking role. Stay with me. Next on gps, bob woodward will tell me why trumps senior most officials describe something as the big problem with president trump. What is it . And is there a solution . When we come back. 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Food as it should be. And we are back with bob woodward, the author of the runaway bestseller fear. Bob, you describe jim mattis, among others, but jim mattis principally, as saying there is a big problem with donald trump. And this recurs through the book. Describe what mattis and gary cohn see as the big problem. What is really important and has not been reported until this book that there was an alliance between the secretary of defense, james mattis, and gary cohn, the chief economic adviser. And they had lunch in the pentagon and said weve got to get the president in some environment off site, away from television, away from the chaos of the white house and give him an education about this old world order. So they call him over to the tank, which is the Meeting Place of the joint chiefs of staff. What mattis describes to the president is the great gift of the greatest generation to americans, and that is this rules based international order. You have trade. You have the security agreements like nato and the secret intelligence partnerships. And thats the old framework. You cant just ignore it and destroy it. And trump wants to do that. And you see everyone fighting him on it. And at the end, mattis is just depleted. Feels totally frustrated. In the case of secretary of state tillerson at that point, this is when, as nbc reported accurately, he calls the president said the president was an fing moron. This is a big problem, but it doesnt get solved. So is this sort of web of alliances, the trade deals, the nato, security relationships that undergurds the stability, creates the open world economy. And trump, in the book, is constantly lashing out at it because he sees that were paying too much. Why dont we bring the troops home . Is it your sense that, for example, on south korea, when people explain to him, if you brought the troops home, youd still have to pay for them and it would cost more because south korea subsidizes the cost, unless you intend to disband those troops in south korea. Is there any indication that he learns in office . Well, thats part of the problem. But then he gets see, this is, at times, driven by his anger. There is a Missile Interceptor system called thaad. It costs a billion dollars per year but its the best in the world and no one has anything like it. And trump asks about it and they tell him, oh, its a good deal because we have a 99year lease. And trump says, well, who pays for it . And they say, oh, we pay for it. And trump goes, you know, why are we doing this . Take the fing thing out. Put it in portland. Portland, oregon. And this makes no military, strategic or intelligence sense. You point out in one very telling anecdote which i assume you got from steve bannon that bannon tries to point out to him that hes going to have a problem running for the primary for the republican nomination because he really has never voted in a primary. And he says, no, no, i voted for 30 years in every one. And bannon says to him, no, you havent. He says, yes, i have. He said its a matter of public record. Youve only voted once in 1988. And then he says, yeah, i guess thats right. Its not only steve bannon, but its dave bossy who is another Campaign Aide but he makes all sorts of sweeping declarations. They point out that hes given all this money to democrats. He said, no, its not true. They said here the records are and it proves it. Well, thats okay. Ill just power over that essentially, which, of course, is the trump style. And when your president in the end, i think that there are about two or three moments where youre making really critical decisions. What are we going to do with the financial crisis in 2008 . Whats the response going to be . What are we going to do about the 9 11 terrorist attack . And you go to process. Process really matters. Its almost funny if it didnt make you cry that general kelly when hes he comes in as chief of staff last year, he wants to write out certain rules. And one of the rules is you cant make decisions on the fly, by the seat of your pants. And they say to the president , they write it out. If youre going to make a decision, we have to have a formal decision memo that you will sign and seat of the pants decisions dont count. Theyre not considered final. And this is a Management System which and this is why i call it a nervous breakdown of the presidency. Bob woodward, always a pleasure to have you on. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Yesterday was the tenth anniversary of the collapse of the wall street bank Lehman Brothers. It was a watershed moment in the Global Financial crisis. What would happen if a crisis of that magnitude happened today . The news isnt so good. Ill explain when we come back. This is not a screensaver. This is the destruction of a cancer cell by the bodys own immune system, thanks to medicine that didnt exist until now. And today can save your life. You wouldnt accept an incomplete job from any one else. Why accept it from your allergy pills . Flonase sensimist relieves all your worst symptoms, including nasal congestion, which most pills dont. And all from a gentle mist you can barely feel. Flonase sensimist. You can barely feel. Okay, kevin, usaa bank is here to help you stay on track. Budgets looking good. Clear for a fillup card . Thank you. We are a go on the beef jerky. You know what, green light some hydration, too. Thanks, chief. Usaa bank helps you take charge of your everyday spending so you can stay a step ahead. Lets rock and roll find help at every turn with usaa bank. Have you lost weight . 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That exercise is morimportant in this case because another one is sure to come. After the 2008 crisis, many condemned the speculation in mortgagebacked securities and believed that its crucial that we identify and pop such bubbles much earlier. But speculation is part of capitalism. Recall the south sea bubble. The dutch tuna boom. The railroad craze. The dotcom boom. And today the number of people speculating on bitcoin probably well exceeds the number of people who can explain what bitcoin actually is. There will always be hard markets and people will pile into them. There will be another crisis. The real question is, when and how can we respond to it . The three architects of the 2008 recovery, hank paulson, Timothy Geithner and ben bernanke raise an alarm in the New York Times. They write the economic crisis was mitigated by Emergency Powers that the fed, the fdic and the treasury no longer fully possess. The post crisis dodd frank act limits certain emergency loans or guarantees on assets that agencies can make. In some cases requiring congressional approval. Their diagnosis is right, but it only hints at the real problem. The political consensus that allowed for washingtons speedy response to the crisis in 2008 has since been destroyed. Look at t. A. R. P. , the 700 billion bank bailout passed by the house and senate and signed into law by a Republican Administration within three weeks of l