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Will the DNC momentum take Democrats all the way?
Watch full episode: Kamala Harris makes her case
GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, the award-winning weekly global affairs series, airs nationwide on US public television stations (check local listings).
New digital episodes of GZERO World are released every Monday on YouTube. Don''t miss an episode: subscribe to GZERO’s YouTube channel and turn on notifications (🔔).
Kamala Harris makes her case
Vice President Kamala Harris closed out a historic week at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago that rallied Democrats around themes of freedom, joy, and unity. Harris used the DNC to try to show US voters that she can unite all Americans behind a ‘new way forward,’ but did she succeed in making the case for a Harris-Walz ticket? On GZERO World, former Congresswoman Donna Edwards and presidential historian Douglas Brinkley joined Ian Bremmer to give their take on a truly unprecedented DNC that capped off one of the most extraordinary months in modern political history. Joe Biden and Democrats passed the baton to a new generation of political leaders, showcasing the talent and diversity within the Party. While the energy in the United Center was like nothing Dems have seen since Barack Obama led the ticket, Harris will be the first to point out that she is still very much the underdog in this election. And with polls showing the presidential race is essentially tied between the two parties, will any convention bump be too little too late to defeat Donald Trump?
GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, the award-winning weekly global affairs series, airs nationwide on US public television stations (check local listings).
New digital episodes of GZERO World are released every Monday on YouTube. Don''t miss an episode: subscribe to GZERO’s YouTube channel and turn on notifications (🔔).
Kamala Harris' big moment — Rep. Donna Edwards and Douglas Brinkley weigh in on a historic week at the DNC
Listen: Vice President Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic nomination for president after a historic week at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, which focused on messages of freedom, optimism, and unity. On this episode of the GZERO World Podcast, former Congresswoman Donna Edwards and presidential historian Douglas Brinkley join host Ian Bremmer to share their insights on a truly unprecedented DNC and history-making month in US political history. Harris pitched herself as a pragmatic leader who could unite all Americans behind a “new way forward,” but how successful was she in making her case for a Harris-Walz ticket? From powerful speeches on the convention floor to a dance party roll call, the four-day event showcased the talent, diversity, and optimism within the Party. As the dust settles, the challenge for Harris will be maintaining that enthusiasm all the way to Election Day. With the latest polls showing the presidential race is neck and neck between the two parties, the biggest question will be whether the DNC won over a crucial demographic: the undecided voter.
Subscribe to the GZERO World Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published.
DNC unites around 3 key themes
Jon Lieber, Eurasia Group's head of research and managing director for the firm's coverage of United States political and policy developments, shares his perspective on US politics from the DNC in Chicago.
What we're watching in US Politics: The running themes at the Democratic National Convention.
I'm here in Chicago for the third night of the Democratic National Convention, where Tim Walz, the vice presidential nominee, just spoke this evening at the United Center.
A couple of key themes have jumped out to me so far in this convention. The first is the attempt to turn the focus on Donald Trump thinking only of himself. This is something that you heard Pete Buttigieg talk about, it's something you heard Bill Clinton talk about, and it seems like this is an emerging major theme for Democrats to hit on, is that Donald Trump doesn't actually care about America all that much. He cares about himself. So, that's going to be one thing you hear about a lot going forward.
The second thing is the Democrats trying to reclaim "freedom" as a concept and as a term that actually it fits more with their values than what they say are Republican values. And this has been something that Tim Walz has talked a lot about, you heard Michelle Obama talk about it, and you heard Oprah Winfrey talk about it. That freedom is about people being free from the government messing around with what's going on inside their bedrooms or what's going on inside their doctor's offices, obviously references to social policies where Democrats and Republicans have large differences; and attempting to flip the script on several decades of political rhetoric about who actually is the party of freedom. So, that's another thing you'd expect to hear a lot about in the coming weeks and months.
The third big theme of this convention so far has been celebrating Kamala Harris's background as a prosecutor. Now, this isn't really something we heard a lot about in the 2020 campaign; perhaps because of the George Floyd riots that were happening at the same time, and the fact that many Democrats were turning openly skeptical of police and policing. But now, fast-forward four years later where crime is a growing issue in the political discourse, and you have a lot of focus on Harris's background as a prosecutor; they talk about her prosecuting transnational drug gangs, her prosecuting people like Donald Trump, who of course has felony convictions now in his background.
So, those are three themes we've heard so far at the Democratic National Convention, and I think those are things we're going to hear a lot of over the next 74 days. On night four, Kamala Harris is set to make her own pitch for why she should be president. And of course, the crowd in Chicago will be euphoric and jubilant listening to her. But the real question here is, do any of these messages resonate with moderate voters that they need to win?
So, thanks for watching. We'll be here tomorrow in Chicago, and we'll see you then.
- Why Project 2025 is getting so much attention at the DNC ›
- Night one of the DNC: Goodbye Biden, hello Harris ›
- DNC Night 2: Obama set to rally support for Harris ›
- Kamala Harris on foreign policy ›
- Defining Kamala Harris at DNC 2024 - GZERO Media ›
- Will the DNC momentum take Democrats all the way? - GZERO Media ›
DNC Night 2: Obama set to rally support for Harris
Jon Lieber, Eurasia Group's head of research and managing director for the firm's coverage of United States political and policy developments, shares his perspective on US politics from the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
What we're watching in US Politics: The Democratic National Convention Day 2, where former President Barack Obama is set to speak and rally support for Kamala Harris ahead of her Thursday appearance.
We are here in Chicago on day two of the Democratic National Convention, where tonight, former President Barack Obama is set to speak. Yesterday's, opening day at the convention was all about turning the page on the old guard of the Democratic Party, with Hillary Clinton giving a speech and Joe Biden giving a strong endorsement of Kamala Harris. And today is all about handing that off to her, with Obama, who's considered the Democrat's best speech giver and one of the most exciting figures that unifies the party set to speak tonight in order to send a message of Democratic unity rallying around a Harris. Kind of a quieter day here in Chicago. There are some protests going on related to Gaza that aren't really affecting the proceedings at all.
The big build-up is, of course, leading up to Harris's appearance on Thursday night. So lots of delegate activity, lots of side meetings going on about how to campaign, how to deliver the message the Democrats want to hit on this year. Lots of stuff going on inside the hall focusing on issues of freedom, access to abortion, and the diversity of the Democratic Party on display with a lot, of course, of union representation representing a contrast with former President Donald Trump. So should be an interesting, exciting night as Democrats try to unify around Kamala Harris and make the case to the American people that she is worthy of their vote.
So we'll be here all week. Thanks for watching and stay tuned for more of what we're paying attention to in US politics.
- What to expect at the 2024 Democratic National Convention ›
- DNC protesters urge Harris to stop sending arms to Israel ›
- Night one of the DNC: Goodbye Biden, hello Harris ›
- Will Kamala Harris’ momentum last in the race against Trump? ›
- Kamala Harris on foreign policy ›
- Why Project 2025 is getting so much attention at the DNC - GZERO Media ›
- DNC unites around 3 key themes - GZERO Media ›
- Defining Kamala Harris at DNC 2024 - GZERO Media ›
Harris, Trump and the hypocrisy in US politics
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: A Quick Take to kick off your week. Today the Democratic National Convention kicks off. The second of the big party conventions. We are waist deep, neck deep in the US electoral cycle at this point, and, you know, the funny thing is how both of these parties have coalesced with such extraordinary enthusiasm around candidates that most of the leaders, and when I say the leaders I mean the party elites, I mean the leaders in Congress, I mean the donors, and I mean the media, had been saying privately, and some publicly, that they strongly opposed.
So the hypocrisy in the system at the high levels is very apparent. And you know I think it's worth talking about both of these because it doesn't reflect the way the people think about the candidates but it does help to explain why so many American citizens are fed up and think the political system is broken. On the GOP side, of course, the Republican Party has lost three electoral cycles with Trump on top. They have privately said that they wanted anyone else but Trump. They'd back anyone else that was big, big money behind DeSantis and behind Nikki Haley and anyone else they could find. And you had J.D. Vance, who was saying that Trump was an opioid for the masses until he got addicted himself.
You had Nikki Haley saying that they'll definitely lose if Trump is the nominee. And now, of course, she's a full-throated endorser, supporter of his. Fox News refused to put Trump on their news. Rupert Murdoch basically banned him from interviews, and now, of course, they're fully behind him again. And it is, of course, a reflection of the fact that not only is he the nominee for the party, but he is the person that the vast majority of the Republican electorate not only wants but wants strongly. They're not interested in listening to the so-called leadership of their party telling them what they want.
The Democrats have gone through a similar process. We've heard for a couple of years now from the Democratic leaders, from the elite, from the media how Joe Biden was great and he was the only person that could be the nominee. And everyone needed to get behind him no matter what. And that Kamala Harris would be a disaster and the country wouldn't vote for her. They wouldn't support her. That she couldn't beat Trump, that her popularity ratings were too low. She was unpopular. Her staff turned over too much. The whispering campaign against Kamala Harris was extraordinary not just from Biden insiders but from leadership of the Democratic Party. From Democratic donors, and of course from the media. And now that Biden, under a lot of pressure after that disastrous debate performance and lots of other missteps, showing that he was way too old to run.
Now that Kamala Harris is the nominee, you could not find more loyalty, more engagement, more promotion of how Kamala Harris is a godsend, is the savior of the party, is going to be the next president no matter what. And you know, it's kind of painful to see that we have a group of people that have delegitimized themselves by being willing to say whatever is necessary to get in line behind the leadership. But I don't think that reflects the parties as a whole. Certainly not the rank and file.
I think that Kamala Harris is young. She's smart. She's charismatic. And she's much more popular among a lot of people. Among women. Among Hispanics. Among Blacks. Among young people in the country. She's much more personally in tune with what they want in terms of the economy. In terms of the world. In terms of Israel-Palestine, for example. I think you can say the same thing for Trump.
Also, on abortion for Kamala Harris. I think you can say the same thing on Trump. Different populations, different priorities, but same sort of sick of the party leadership and sick of the media telling them what to do. And much more in line with what he says about immigration. What he says about bringing jobs home. About tariffs internationally. Anti-trade message. Much more nativist. Much more promotes the rank and file American. Now, did that reflect what Trump actually did when he was in office? Not that much. Would that reflect what Kamala Harris would do as president or what she has done as vice president? Not that much. But nonetheless we are talking about, in my view, two candidates that frankly are now much more in step with the populations in the United States.
And I say populations. I wish I could say one population, but it's not. It's two very different groups of people that are being divided and made more and more separate every day by the media landscape. By the algorithms in particular and by the politics. But I don't think that there is much of an enthusiasm gap now. I do think you have an awful lot of people that are very excited about Trump being their president. You have an awful lot of people that are very excited about Kamala Harris being their president, and it's going to be a close race. And it's going to turn out on the basis of a small number of states. A small number of districts that could go either way. But it's going to be really interesting as a consequence.
The thing that worries me the most, and I've said this for a long time but I will restate it, is that I think there's one candidate here of the two that is not prepared to accept a peaceful transition or a loss, and that is Donald Trump. We saw that in 2020. And I fear that if he loses in November, that we're going to see it again in 2024. And I think that's dangerous. I think it's dangerous to have someone say that it's rigged if he loses and calls for his supporters to do everything they can to overturn it. That is not where we want to be as a democracy. It is a sign of a democracy in crisis. I worry specifically that the most powerful individual in the United States, Elon Musk, is fully on board with that message. Is talking a lot about illegal immigrants that are voting in large numbers, even though that's not true. Is talking a lot about the election in the US being rigged. Is promoting and enhancing that message. And on the basis of what we just saw in the UK, was promoting disinformation that led to a lot of violence and riots and saying that civil war in the UK is inevitable.
And if we see that in the United States, we're going to see the most dangerous political environment in generations. So I am very concerned about the state of US politics, about the state of American political elites, the media landscape, the social media landscape. I am less concerned about the state of the average American citizen and how they engage with politics in the country. But of course, the potential for this outcome to be manipulated and the potential for it to lead to more division, I think, is something we all should be paying a great deal of attention to. So that's it for me, and I'll talk to you all real soon.
What Tim Walz adds to Kamala Harris' campaign
Jon Lieber, Eurasia Group's head of research and managing director for the firm's coverage of United States political and policy developments, shares his perspective on US politics from Washington, DC.
What we're watching in US Politics: Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, has chosen her running mate: Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota.
Walz is a moderate to center-left Democrat who has presided over a trifecta in Minnesota, meaning the Democrats have controlled the state legislature for several years now. They have passed several “wins” for progressive policy, liberalizing the state's marijuana laws, expanding gun control, and expanding access to abortion. This has made Walz a popular choice with many progressives. He’s also been endorsed by several labor unions as a good pick for Kamala Harris. In reality, though, he probably doesn’t make that much of a difference in the presidential campaign.
Harris herself is running as, sort of, a generic Democrat. She’s been avoiding media interviews, running a lot of campaign ads, and giving a lot of set speeches where she can basically read off a teleprompter and carefully curate the image that she’s putting forward to the American people as the candidate in what’s actually going to be a truncated campaign of only about 100 days.
Walz probably helps her with that. He looks like a pretty nice guy. He delivers a lot of great attack lines on President Donald Trump that have Democrats excited, but the evidence suggests that vice presidential picks really don't make all that much of difference in presidential campaigns. Usually, it’s the person at the top of the ticket, and that person is Harris. She continues to benefit from a couple of great weeks after Biden stepped aside from the nomination, and this race is starting to look significantly more competitive than it did right after the disastrous debate for Biden.
A couple of interesting watch points coming up: One will be a potential debate between Walz and the significantly younger Republican VP candidate, Sen. JD Vance, and then whether or not Harris and Trump themselves will debate. Probably, Trump wants the debate to happen so that he can disrupt Harris’ momentum.
Kamala Harris on foreign policy
The first thing I should say, though, is that she does have a level of foreign policy exposure and experience, which is significant. So, it's not just a nominal conversation. We can talk about the meetings that she's had, the exposure that she's had, the experience that she's had in ways that should allow us to talk about her with more substance and depth. And first of all, the fact that she has served as vice president for a president that knows a lot about foreign policy, ran point on many foreign policy issues as vice president for the Obama administration, and before that ran the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has meant a lot of exposure for Kamala Harris. But also the fact that she sits in the presidential daily briefs every morning, that she's in the situation room when there are significant national security issues being discussed, she attends most of the meetings that Biden has with heads of state. Occasionally, she asks questions and participates; sometimes, she doesn't, but that's a lot. And in addition to that, she's also made a lot of trips herself, about 21 countries that she has visited as vice president, including five trips to Asia, four to Africa and the Middle East, and over 150 foreign leaders that she has met with herself. So, if you compare her to others, others talked about as potential Democratic party nominees or Republicans that were running against Trump, she actually has a lot more foreign policy exposure than them. And that's particularly important because, of course, when she became vice president, that wasn't the case at all. She had been a first-term senator, and before then a prosecutor and not someone that had had significant exposure to responsibility for of any sort for national security foreign policy. But now she certainly does. So that's the first point. That's the backdrop of all of this.
I've seen her now running three delegations of the Munich Security Conference for the United States, the most important national security event that the Americans attend. And that means meeting with, aligning policies with, all of the top US allies. Also, when she was running point, though Biden was also there, but she was very important because it was her back- hometown, California for the APEC Summit. And we spent a lot of time there when meeting with all of the APEC members and leaders that had come in. And that was particularly important for the meeting between Biden and Xi Jinping and trying to get that on a more stable trajectory without giving away the store for the Americans. The meeting that she led, the delegation for the Bletchley AI Conference, one of the more important for international, though not global, but international governance of AI, certainly among the US and its allies. So again, a lot of exposure.
So given all of that, where would I say there are significant differences? First and foremost, when I see Biden, I see someone who was very much someone that came of age during the Cold War and sees foreign policy actors in much more black and white. The idea of democracies versus autocracies was a Biden formulation, not a Biden administration formulation, a Biden formulation. A lot of his own advisors didn't like it. Vice President Harris certainly doesn't like it. It doesn't really reflect reality in the world in 2024, and it doesn't necessarily help the United States, which needs to have useful relations, and in many case does have very stable relations with countries that are hardly democratic themselves, and the United States is hardly a great example, a shining example of a functional representative democracy, especially in the context of its core allies in the G-7. Rather, I would say that ... and also in addition to that, Biden also sees the "Great Man" policy formulation, that you know, if you sit down with another great leader and you work a personal relationship, you can get things done. So a lot of the most important things are done bilaterally.
I would say that Kamala's inclinations are very much opposed to that, that they support rule of law and they support international norms and standards. Some of that is her prosecutorial bent and background. Some of that is just being much younger and coming of age in a very different post-Cold War time, much more multipolar and the Americans needing allies in multilateral structures, and also needing to work with countries that aren't allies in multilateral structures to get them to do the right thing. And frequently the American experience and policy is hypocritical. But if you want to uphold the right thing globally, you need to stand for those norms and you need to uphold those norms in institutions, even in places where occasionally the United States is really going to disagree on individual policy.
So that I think is a pretty big difference between the two. And I think that, for example, the vice president's approach on Russia is very much aligned with this, where Biden is like, "It is the evil Putin doing horrible things," and Kamala much more, "Sovereignty needs to be upheld." The policies are very aligned, but the reason for the policies, I think is a little bit different.
I think that Harris would not be inclined to push the Ukrainians for a shift towards negotiations in a way that I think Biden intrinsically would like to. Biden doesn't really trust Zelensky. The first time he met Zelensky when he was president, Zelensky was blaming Biden for not getting Ukraine into NATO, even though it wasn't in Biden's capacity to do so. There were lots of allies that were supported, and Zelensky's perspective was, "Yeah, but if you would pushed, it definitely would've happened." I think that Kamala Harris's view on Zelensky has been someone whose country has been wronged and their position needs to be supported because you have to uphold these norms and values. And certainly in that regard, when she met Ukrainian president Zelensky for the first time before the invasion and was delivering intelligence to him about the impending attack, that really helped forge a much warmer personal relationship between the two. And I think Zelensky is much more comfortable with a Harris than he has been or would be, would've been with Biden. So, that's interesting.
I would say that on China policy, they're very well aligned, especially when you talk about areas of common interest coordinating with allies on national security issues, which broadly include key strategic industries. The fact that the US has been able to bring down the temperature somewhat with China while maintaining and building strong relations across Asia is something that's important. Harris has made a lot of trips, meeting with President Marcos of the Philippines, that's a very strong relationship. She certainly feels that that's an area that the Americans need to pay a lot of attention to, need to prioritize. I would say the "pivot to Asia" concept is very strong under Harris in a way that perhaps less so under Biden and certainly not under Trump.
Maybe one of the biggest issues of differentiation is on Israel-Palestine. Very hard for Harris to talk about that because she's the vice president sitting, with Biden still running the policy, and Biden being very deferential to Netanyahu. I think that Kamala Harris would try to be considerably less so and would focus much more on the abrogation of human rights of the Palestinians while at the same time recognizing that Israel is the most important defense partner of the United States. That would lead to a lot more pressure. And I think that that pressure would be out of step with the US relationship with Israel over the past decades but much more aligned with where America's allies are with Israel going forward.
The big vulnerability that Harris has, of course, is on immigration and the border, and that is one that she is not going to be able to jettison. She had responsibility for the policy with the Northern Triangle. She was given that because Biden doesn't really have much background with immigration, and Harris is from California, and Biden expected she'd do a better job with that. She was generally seen as not doing a good job with that. And, of course, the numbers have been rising and rising and rising. Some of that is post-pandemic. Some of that is not paying enough attention to border policies that can work, and to security, and to get the resources that are necessary to process the cases, all of these things. And I suspect that Biden and Harris have come late to the recognition, the realization that talk is cheap when it comes to sanctuary cities, and you need to actually have a more effective border policy. And I think that she's going to be continually very vulnerable on that issue.
Final thing I'd say between Biden and Harris is that, again, as someone who's only 59, I say only that's not exactly young, but certainly in the context of Biden and Trump, it's quite young, does look more to the future in terms of setting foreign policy. That is part of why Harris has been more focused on Silicon Valley than Biden has been. And certainly, I've seen that with the prioritization of AI. I think that's also Harris's focus on Africa as the place where you're going to see the greatest demographic growth. Some of the greatest potential challenges if it's not addressed with the United States, that Chinese of course having a big lead in engaging economically, engaging commercially and having political leverage. But the United States wanting to do much more in terms of human capital, also in terms of climate. I think that comes much more naturally to Harris to focus long-term on what it means if the Americans don't take a leadership role with allies and with countries that are adversaries on climate than Biden has.
So there are, I think a lot of places where we can talk about differentiation. She's going to have to set out a lot of that in much clearer and stronger form than she's had the ability to as vice president. And the media is going to need to pay a lot more attention to it going forward because it hasn't really been a priority to cover it. But I do think that there is enough to begin with to start asking some good questions, and hopefully she's also going to be taking some significant interviews with media, which she hasn't done since Biden has dropped, to answer them.
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- Kamala Harris narrows the enthusiasm gap. But will it last? ›
- What Tim Walz adds to Kamala Harris' campaign - GZERO Media ›
- Harris, Trump and the hypocrisy in US politics - GZERO Media ›
- DNC Night 2: Obama set to rally support for Harris - GZERO Media ›
- DNC unites around 3 key themes - GZERO Media ›
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