Behind Trump’s public theater: real attacks on US standing

Behind Trump’s Public Theater: Real Attacks on US Standing | GZERO World

Right before Donald Trump was elected US president in 2016, Peter Baker and Susan Glasser were about to get overseas correspondent gigs at The New York Times and The New Yorker, respectively. Both turned it down, deciding to stay in America to cover the Trump presidency.

But what ensued was so crazy that "we got to be foreign correspondents in our hometown," Glasser tells Ian Bremmer on GZERO World, for the first time in front of a live studio audience.

Trump was something no one had ever seen before in US politics. He was "from another planet in terms of Washington," says Baker. And he didn't change his style right to the very end: the Jan 6. Capitol insurrection he spurred.

For Baker, Jan. 6 was "not an outlier" but rather the result of Trump's four-year war on American political institutions.

Watch the GZERO World episode: US votes as democracy is under attack

More from GZERO Media

Ambassador Robert Wood of the US raises his hand to vote against the ceasefire resolution at the United Nations Security Council, on November 20, 2024.
Lev Radin/Sipa USA, via Reuters
- YouTube

Ukraine has launched US-made long-range missiles into Russia for the first time. Will this change the course of the war? How likely will Trump be able to carry out mass deportations when he's in office? Will there be political fallout from Hong Kong's decision to jail pro-democracy activists? Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.

A man rushes past members of security forces during clashes between gangs and security forces, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti November 11, 2024.
REUTERS/Marckinson Pierre

The UN Humanitarian Air Service is scheduled to restart flights to Haiti on Wednesday, a week after several planes attempting to land at Port-au-Prince airport came under small arms fire.

People hold signs reading "Trump, we will not pay for the wall" and "Trump, stop the mass deportations" near the border fence between Mexico and the U.S., in Tijuana, Mexico March 13, 2018.
REUTERS/Edgard Garrido

Donald Trump responded “TRUE!!!” to a post on Monday predicting that he would declare illegal immigration a national emergency in order to deploy the military to deport migrants.

Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting on the situation in Belgorod, Kursk, and Bryansk regions following an incursion of Ukrainian troops, in August 2024.
Sputnik/Gavriil Grigorov/Pool via REUTERS

The long-prepared move came just hours after Ukraine launched US-made ATACMS long-range missiles into Russia for the first time. Are we headed towards a major escalation?