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FILE PHOTO: U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S. August 20, 2024 and former U.S. President Donald Trump in Bedminster, New Jersey, U.S., August 15, 2024 are seen in a combination of file photographs.
Harris vs. Trump remains too close to call
Less than six weeks from Election Day, current polls suggest a razor-thin margin in the race for the White House. Aggregations of national polls (see examples here, here, and here) show a lead for Vice President Kamala Harris of 2-3 points. That’s small comfort for her campaign since most of the polling results that make up these aggregations are within their margins of error, and because national polls offer an imperfect estimate of the electoral college outcome. Harris knows that George W. Bush (2000) and her opponent, Donald Trump (2016), both won elections despite losing the popular vote.
That’s why both campaigns and most major polling firms are focused on the seven states that will decide the winner: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, North Carolina, Georgia, and Arizona. Neither candidate needs all these states to win, but the latest polls show tiny advantages for Harris in the first four states and minuscule leads for Trump in the others.
If the margins remain this close, the election will be decided by “undecided” voters. It’s important to remember that in most cases, these voters are undecided between the candidate they prefer and the choice not to vote, rather than being torn between the two candidates.
2022 Top Risks: US & China domestic dysfunction (not US-China)
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Happy New Year, everyone. Ian Bremmer here. And, starting off the year, a Quick Take, of course, with our Top Risks of 2022. It's a report that we've been doing every year, started the firm back in 1998. So what's changed? What's different this year?
One thing I should start off with saying, is the fact that in the early days, you would never see the United States on this list because the US had political institutions that were very strong, and leadership that was pretty unquestioned inside the country. And so whether that was for good or for bad, and of course, depending on the issue, you're talking about, people have different views across the board there, but, nonetheless it wasn't driving uncertainty and risk. The risks were either about broad geopolitical conflict emanating from the Middle East, or sort of, China, you name it. Or it was about country risk from individual developing countries and you know, the rest.
These days, increasingly the United States is not only on the list, but it's a fundamental driver of risk. And that is because the level of uncertainty, politically in the US is so great. The US today remains like it was when I started the firm in 1998, by far the most powerful country in the world. Indeed, the percentage of the United States and global GDP today, compared to 1998, is about the same. Europe and Japan have gone down. China's gone up. The US is pretty constant. And US power, military power, technological power, the role of its educational institutions, its energy production, its food production, its reserve currency, its banking system, I mean, these are all incredibly powerful. And yet, the United States is by far the most politically divided of the G7 economies. And as a consequence, its election process is increasingly seen as illegitimate.
I was literally stunned to see just this morning, a poll come out from NPR and Ipsos, that some 64% of Americans believe that US democracy is in crisis, and might indeed break. It's inconceivable in 1998 you'd have a number remotely close to that. It's inconceivable in 2001, after 9/11 attacks, that you would see anything remotely like that. But of course, in just a couple of days, on January 6th, we will see a response to a domestic US crisis, that does not bring the country together, but rather divides it more fundamentally. And that of course, is also true when we think about the US elections going forward, the midterms, where the former President of the United States has control of the Republican Party, and doing everything possible to take control of those that are able to certify 2024 elections. Secretaries of State in swing states, Governors in swing states, and of course, both the House and the Senate. This will be the most important midterm elections of our lifetimes, as a consequence.
And while it will not itself immediately drive a crisis, if the outcome is as expected, it will make 2024, a political crisis in the United States. One that both sides of the political spectrum will increasingly see as delegitimized. Very hard to stitch that together easily. So that's a big concern, and that's a big change from what we had before.
Another big change of course, is the pandemic, but this is a better news story. In the sense, that increasingly in much of the world, we are shifting towards living with the virus. Some of that is being driven by science, by the fact that we have a new variant that is very infectious, but is not as deadly. And as a consequence, is not as much of a problem for people that end up getting infected by it. But also, the backdrop in wealthy countries, far more vaccinated, far more boosted, and increasingly therapeutics, that will allow you, if you get tested quickly, to respond very effectively to a COVID case, and not be hospitalized. In the wealthy world, that means within weeks, we are moving from this explosive caseload, to life that feels much more normal than at any point in the last two years.
The problem, China. China is not moving towards living with the virus. In fact, they're moving towards harder, zero-COVID policies, that worked incredibly well, best in the world, among a large economy, back two years ago when the pandemic started out of China. And allowed them to get their economy back up and moving faster than anybody else. But in 2022, it's the least effective policy, in responding to a different pandemic, the omicron pandemic, which is much, much more transmissible, and the Chinese vaccines don't work well against it at all. Furthermore, few people in China have gotten COVID, so their antibody levels are low.
And, the fact that this is all about Xi Jinping, saying, this is our policy, at a time that he's about to get a third term, means he's not going to back away from it. So, you're going to have a policy that is going to lead to far more lockdowns, will lead to much more dislocation, will create more supply chain challenges. And, with China as the country that was the most important driver of global economic growth before the pandemic, is increasingly a big uncertainty in 2022. It's also a diplomatic problem for China, because Xi Jinping has not left China, since January of 2020. And yeah, that makes it harder for China to influence countries and create stability in its relations with countries all over the world. So this is going to be a really tough one for China. The good news that comes out of that story, is China's not looking for a crisis with the Americans this year, certainly not before Xi gets a third term, and the US administration understands that.
So despite the fact that politics are increasingly driving nationalism, because it's expedient in both countries, the reality is that the economic interdependence of that relationship, is doing more of the driving in 2022. So no big crisis over Taiwan, no US-China Cold War. But instead, big problems, because the Americans are very domestically focused, the Chinese are very domestically focused, and there's lots of dysfunction in both places. I'd much rather be the Americans economically, than the Chinese. I think that from an authoritarian perspective, you'd much rather be the Chinese politically this year in terms of stability, than the United States. But both are deeply problematic, when we think about the global environment going forward.
Now, a couple more points I would raise. Russia is high on the list this year. And that's because, unlike the US-China relationship, President Putin sees opportunity in both, the level of division, and the vulnerability, especially of the Europeans, in the next coming months. They need energy, and the Russians see an opportunity to change the status quo, in their relationship with Ukraine, as well as the European security environment.
It's very interesting in the last few hours that Olaf Scholz, the German Chancellor came out and said, he wants a meeting with Putin. Let's see how that goes. It has the potential to be difficult. Because it may not be completely aligned, with that of the United States. Will be very important. It's not that Putin is about to invade Ukraine. I think that's actually quite unlikely. But, the possibility of the Putin administration, deciding that they're going to take action against the Ukrainians committing genocide, as they say, which is false, against Russian citizens in the Donbas. What if they formally annex it? What if they move troops in? Will the Europeans support the kind of sanctions the Americans are talking about then, I don't think so. And yet, Biden will be in a very vulnerable position, if his bluff has been called, and he's not able to stand up in a multilateral way, to the Russians, and Putin surely knows that.
Putin is not going to make this easy for Biden. Easy for Biden would be sending troops, Russian troops into Ukraine, and taking more territory, overturning the Ukrainian government. That is not the likely outcome. But short of that, especially with asymmetric warfare capacity, something that Putin is very capable of doing, and very aware, those are possibilities. So, I think that's a danger too.
Plenty to chew on, in this. I hope you take a look at it. Feel free to send me questions. And I hope everyone's doing well. Take it easy. Talk to you soon.
- Top Risks 2022 - GZERO Media ›
- Cliff Kupchan: We need a national dialogue to save US democracy - GZERO Media ›
- Jon Lieber: What’s different about the 2022 midterms is 2024 Trump threat - GZERO Media ›
- Democrats hope to use Jan 6 Trump focus to gain edge in midterms - GZERO Media ›
- Climate action: an "oasis of diplomacy" for US/China, says Energy Secretary Granholm - GZERO Media ›
Evaluating the Biden administration
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take:
Hi everybody, Ian Bremmer here and a happy week to everybody. A little Quick Take, thought I would talk a little bit since we're closing in on the first year of the Biden administration. How do I assess it? And as you all know, I don't pull punches on this stuff. I say where I think they're doing a good job, where I think they're doing a bad job.
Maybe start with some things that I'm pretty aligned with. I certainly appreciate the high line focus on the American middle and working class, I mean, to the extent that there is going to be a big accomplishment, a signature accomplishment of the Biden administration in their first couple of years. Barring an unforeseen crisis beyond the pandemic we're already dealing with, it will be the trillions of dollars spent on infrastructure and on expanding the social contract. And when you look inside the bill and no, I haven't read all 2,400 pages, but yes, I've looked at all of the line items that the spend is being made on. I'm probably 90% aligned with the trillion plus in infrastructure, and probably 75% to 80% aligned with the spend on the social contract. That's pretty good. Does that mean no wastage? Of course not. It's the United States government. There's massive waste in everything that you spend, but there's massive waste in all sorts of different places. And that bothers me a little bit less given how large and how wealthy the economy is, how well the markets and the companies are doing, and even how comparatively low right now effective and real tax rates are in context of other G7 advanced industrial democracy. So it feels to me like we can certainly do more, and that's presuming he gets it done. Though I think he will get it done.
I'm not particularly concerned about the fight between the progressives, in the House on one side, and Senators Manchin and Sinema on the other, precisely because this is the one area where Biden's team is spending the most time. They understand, they know the people, they get how important it is, and they're prepared to make compromises. And they will. Now, those compromises will probably include the fact that the United States will not have anything that looks like an effective carbon tax. That's going to create a big problem with the Europeans going forward, who are planning on rolling out their own carbon border adjustment mechanisms. It means the Americans aren't going to look very good when it comes to a path to net zero in 2050, no matter what we say. It means that some of the gimmes are not going to get paid for, in terms of taxation, and you're going to need to use all sorts of gimmicks, and the effective deficit will continue to go up.
But those things happen all the time with Republicans and Democrats and on balance, assuming he gets it done, I think this is significant. It's not quite the new deal, but it's a big deal. And I think it will help to actually reduce the level of animus and political dysfunction that is being experienced by the average American citizen. Won't happen immediately. It'll take a long time to play through. We've been ignoring this for decades. This is really a work of a generation, but I think it matters. I will also say that I appreciate the pro-vaccine approach. It's very clear that because Delta variant was not yet around at the beginning of the Biden term, Republicans who had supported Operation Warp Speed quite successfully didn't feel like saying we're all in on vaccines. Instead felt like saying, "Well, yeah, vaccines are fine, but it's personal liberty. Take it, not take it, whatever," which is what Trump has done.
And then of course, Delta variant hits and it gets much worse as a consequence. I'm definitely on Biden's side of that equation. I want everyone taking vaccines. I think it's amazing that we have them and I want them rolled out as fast as possible. I like the mandates. I think he was too late on them, by the way, most of the private sector privately agrees with that even if they don't want to say it out loud, because they want to get everyone back to work as fast as possible. They hate these lockdowns. Now, I'm not so crazy about the masks at the same time. I think it should be everyone gets vaccines and everything is open. And yeah, you'll have some breakthrough cases, but you'll have relatively few and almost nobody getting sick, seriously sick, or dying. And that's a big deal.
That for me, would be having your cake and eating it too. And the Biden team has not communicated well on this. They've not coordinated well on this. Certainly there's been damage done to the CDC that now looks much more politicized. I don't think Biden's helped on that front, frankly. And there's been too much caution and conservatism around shutdowns, mask wearing and virtue signaling from Biden and his team in my view, but still I would on balance give them reasonably high marks.
I liked the pivot to Asia, the Quad, which started under Trump, but has rolled out more significantly under Biden. And China's putting pressure on for the Quad, not even to meet, but actually I thought that the announcement recently made on vaccines where the Americans offer the vaccines J&J, which we don't particularly need when we've got all the mRNA vaccines, which are two shots but more effective than J&J. The Japanese offer financing, the Australians offer logistics, and the Indians who finally have been able to produce enough vaccines for their own population, which is incredible given where they were a few months ago, are going to provide the production capacity.
You put those four countries together, all of which are basically responding to a growing China that wants to change the rules, and no one's really happy about that. And it's the most significant piece of US leadership under Biden. By the end of this year, you're going to have hundreds of millions of vaccines being produced and exported mostly to Asia, driven by the United States and increasingly allied countries in the Quad. That's a big deal. I'm very supportive of it. I am glad that there's a statement that we're not in a cold war, because we're not. Because the fact is that the economies of the United States and China are massively integrated and interdependent, even though there's no trust between the two countries and the relationship is getting worse.
And generally, appreciate the more intrusive regulations on industry, in an environment where special interest tend to capture the regulatory environment. I don't think they're going to last. It's all executive order. The next time you get somebody else in, they're going to undo it all. And none of this is happening through legislation, and big legislation pieces aside from the two to three trillion, really can't move. In that regard, role of special interest, growing role of the country, feeling like it is increasingly in the hands of those special interest, that's something that's been growing for decades now. Certainly since the 80s and the 90s, and I don't see that changing particularly under this administration. I also really don't like the American unilateralism, particularly with Europe, particularly with the Middle East, the idea that America knows best even when we don't, the pushing forward on human rights issues even when other countries would be a far better place to do that. The Americans need to be allowing allies that are more effective to have much more of a say and much more leadership, and we should be promoting them, but it's just not the way the US foreign policy establishment works. And the Biden demonstration is the foreign policy establishment.
I want more decisive leadership and more effective and consistent communications. And if it can't be from Biden because he's losing a step, then it needs to be from members of his cabinet. And that's really hard because they're all loyalists who, if they're not getting their marching orders directly from Biden, don't necessarily have a lot to say. And on the upside, you don't get any leaks and you got leaks all the time under Trump, but you're also getting less leadership, and I think that's a problem. So if I were to roll all of that up, it's okay. It's certainly not an A. It's probably about a B minus, right? That's probably where I am overall on Biden. Now, there are a lot of people out there that will give me hell for criticizing this president and they'll do it specifically because the last president was so horrible.
They'll do it because they think the country is in peril. I have a different view. My view certainly of Trump is that he was by far the most unfit leader of any democracy that I personally have encountered in my lifetime. And by the way, I'm kind of annoyed that people think that, saying that makes you a crazy committed anti-Republican, a partisan. I've thought that Trump was completely unfit as a human being when he was a Democrat. I was public about that. I leaned into that. This has nothing to do with Trump's ideology. Trump has no ideology. He's a narcissist who has no business running a country, but the fact that he won and was president and now is out there and is probably going to run again, and will probably be back at least on Facebook and who knows? Maybe on everything. And the media is still talking about him. And he's not acting like any other former president in withdrawing from political life and not making comments about existing presidents. No, he's doing the opposite. He's saying that the election was stolen, it was rigged, and we've got to take action. All of this crazy stuff that hurts the country. I mean, the next step that many people take is: Well that means that you have to support Biden no matter what. And I think that's a fair point if I thought that the country was truly on the precipice of dictatorship, of tyranny, and there's a real debate to be had over that. I don't actually believe that. I think the country, to the extent that there are serious things that are wrong with the country, they have less to do with Trump individually and more to do with decades of a small number of individuals, very powerful, very wealthy, doing their best to run the country for them.
And that's how we ignored climate change for 30 years with companies that knew exactly what they were doing and didn't care. Didn't care about the average human being, either in the US or around the world, didn't care about the state of the planet because they were making a lot of money. And that played out over a host of different policy issues across the entire country for decades is what is presently wrong. And I would say that becoming a partisan and throwing out suspending critical judgment of when you think that there's a good policy being put forward or a bad policy being put forward actively is a disservice, if that's the fight that's happening. Now, I do believe that if Trump runs again and he wins, this is going to get a lot worse. And even if Trump runs again and he loses, but he pretends he wins, which he will do, because that is the playbook, and does everything he can to undermine the electoral process, which is easier in the United States than many places because it's not a federal election system. It's state by state.
And many Trump supporters are now in positions of electoral oversight in key red states. At the state level, that's a problem and that can lead to violence and it will lead to a much uglier election process. And there could be a big fight over who the next president is, having nothing to do with who actually wins. I accept all of that. And yet I still don't think we're talking about the potential of the United States becoming a dictatorship. Instead, we're talking about the US becoming a more poorly-governed place, a more kleptocratic-oriented, poorly representative democracy. And in that regard, my bet is still, the important thing to do is be out there and be honest. It's call balls and strikes and say what you think. And I admit that if Trump had never been president, it would be much easier to say on balance Biden isn't doing all that well.
And you see that in the opinion polls, which are the lowest at this point in his presidency of any president other than Trump is since they started taking these polls. So certainly post Carter. And that I think is an objectively rigorous way to talk about this president. But you can't ignore that we just went through four years where there was basic insanity and complete partisanship and no middle in the country. And that is not something that we have suddenly put past us. It's still there. And the fact that Biden himself has been a moderate Democrat, centrist-oriented senator for decades, and that shows in his governance orientation, every day today is president. Whether it's he still wants Powell to run the fed, or he's not interested in defunding the police, or he hasn't done much with the green new deal. I mean, you can play these things out.
This is not social democracy under Biden, but the divisions, the core divisions in the country are still there. And not only are they still there, but they're much worse than any other wealthy democracies in the world today. And for all of those reasons, I think as much as it is understandable that I want to be able to be as objective as humanly possible when I'm talking about what I think about the Biden administration. I also think that you have to do that, being conscious of the context, both of what has just happened, but also what 2022 and 2024 are likely to look like. In other words, we are increasingly not just observers of international politics, but also truly participants because the American order and the global order are changing reasonably dramatically, far more than any time in my lifetime.
I talk a lot about the "GZERO" on the global space. I don't think that there is a "GZERO" inside the United States. There's no sort of US-Zero in terms of politics, but the institution certainly have eroded. And I think to criticize Biden, without being aware of those things in your head would also be a problem. So it's getting tougher. It's getting tougher to both appear on MSNBC and CNN and Fox, and talk about the same issues in the same way. It's getting harder. It's getting harder to discuss these issues with my followers and not alienate a significant proportion of them, no matter what you say.
But I've got a thick skin and I've been doing it for a long time, and I'm not particularly worried about the money. So that makes it a lot easier than someone who is just trying to make it for their first job and could get fired by somebody. So in that regard also, I think makes it more important that I try to lean into on the side of objectivity. But of course, objectivity is what I believe it to be. And that's different from your views. You can call me out on that too. Anyway, a few moments just on where I am right now. Hope everyone's doing well. And I'll talk to you all real soon.
What does Brexit mean for the UK, London, and NYC? Will McConnell allow a US stimulus payment vote?
Brexit will be here on January 1st. What big changes are coming?
There are a lot of big changes coming. Most important for the average Brit is the fact that you no longer can work or have education access in the European Union. You have to apply with normal immigration patterns, as you would outside the EU. That's going to change the way people think about their future. But otherwise, a lot greater regulatory impact, declarations of customs for goods being transmitted, so the cost of trade is going to go up with the world's largest common market. You know, the idea of I mean, for financial markets is very important because you have financial groups that are losing automatic access to the single market in the EU as well. They're supposed to be new deals cut around that, but we aren't there yet. It's not a disaster, but the fact that all these changes are happening immediately, and they are a significant cost primarily on the smaller economy of the United Kingdom and that they're going to have to be borne at a time when the economy's not doing well, when coronavirus hasn't been handled very well, when global demand is already depressed, this is a big hit, and it's a big hit also on the back of almost five years of uncertainty around the UK.
I think one of the most interesting things is London is not going to be seen as as much of a global city. As someone who loves London personally, I think that's sad. But it's also really interesting because when you think about truly global cities in the world, I've thought Hong Kong, for example, certainly not any more with what's happened from the mainland and the introduction of the national security law. London really hard to say given what they've just done in the UK to limit connections with the European Union. There's in general lots of fragmentation in the world, globalization and globalism has taken it on the chin. I think this helps the United States, the world's largest economy, and it helps New York City because there is still a desire for financial markets, for global creatives, for talent and wealth to come together in places. Tokyo is an incredibly well functioning, really big city, but it's so much more homogenous. Beijing is an incredible place with a massive amount of dynamism, energy and wealth, but it's also in an authoritarian system and a reasonably closed marketplace. It just can't be global. So, I actually think that New York City is comparatively speaking, going to do a lot better as a place in terms of energy, momentum, ideas and wealth, even though in the coronavirus period, people have been leaving New York, L.A., Silicon Valley for places that are cheaper. I would be betting long on places that are global, especially in an environment that's going to be more unequal going forward and first tier cities doing well.
Are $2000 stimulus payments back on the table in the United States?
If McConnell decides that he is willing to put it to a vote, the answer is maybe, but I have a hard time seeing him do that personally. Keep in mind that that would be a gift to the Democrats who have been supporting this without taking away any of the other bits of the bill, the rescission that President Trump has demanded, the pork and spending that has come somewhat from Republicans, somewhat from Democrats. I think McConnell still believes that the way he exercises power is by determining the political agenda and only providing opportunities for things that he and his party supports. Now, there is the complication of the Georgia by-election and both of the GOP senators who are running in that by-election, Perdue and Loeffler have come out surprise, surprise, in favor of the $2000 stimulus, the checks, individual checks, for again, for everybody that that makes under a certain amount, and that's useful for them because they're running, it's politics as usual, but I don't think that necessarily makes McConnell any more likely to put it on the agenda. In fact, given the fact that politics are generally local, they get to say they supported it, they're not going to take a hit from the fact that it doesn't actually pass. So, I think it is effectively a nothing-burger. It's Trump saying that he pushed hard for those checks, for people's money in their pockets, and it was taken away. And if he wants to have a fight with McConnell, he certainly can.
Happy New Year. What does the world in 2021 look like?
I will not tell you that right now. I will tell you that next week you should all tune in for our top risks. We do it every year. And it is well in place. There is an enormous amount of work that goes into it. We will be putting it out on Monday, January 4th. And there's going to be a livestream to talk about it at 12:00 noon Eastern Standard Time. You can watch on gzeromedia.com and all of our social media accounts. I look forward to seeing all of you then. Happy New Year to everyone.
Countdown to the (possibly contested) US election
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take:
Normalcy is incrementally coming to the United States, if not yet to a lot of developing markets, but certainly to Europe, certainly to China. And I haven't spent a lot of time talking about the US election yet, certainly nothing close to the media coverage. I thought I would today because we've got 99 days until November 3rd. You say 100 days yesterday, sounds like a bigger deal, but that's only because we have a base 10 numeric system. If we had a base three numeric system, 99 days out would be pretty meaningful, right? But no, I thought let's finally, right, we've got these massive, incredibly expensive, billions of dollars spent, a year and a half of the entire process, I mean, by far a greater subversion of democracy, the way the US elections are held than any other advanced industrial democracy in the world. We all know it. Democrats, Republicans, people sick of the party system. We all recognize nothing can be done about it. It's fantastic for special interests that spend an immense amount of money trying to ensure that candidates do their bidding. But now that we are only 99 days out, political polls really do start to matter. We know who the candidates are on both sides. We don't yet have the V.P. on the Biden side. But still, I mean, we're pretty close. 100 days out, 99 days out, you feel like you can start paying attention.
So, what do I think? Well, first, you know, on the Trump side, it is very obvious that he is well behind in the polls. Let's keep in mind he was generally well behind in the polls in 2016. But this time around, not only do you have a candidate running against him that is not nearly as controversial or as toxic to a part of the population as Hillary Clinton was, but also just the general backdrop, conditions for an incumbent are really challenging. The economic contraction going on longer than a lot of the bankers and the economists have expected. You're talking about an 8% contraction likely or more of the US economy this year. Certainly, double digit unemployment, meaningful double-digit unemployment at the time that we have the election. Challenges in continuing to get stimulus in place, though, I do think this latest round four of a trillion plus is going to happen and Congress will go nowhere, they won't leave session until they get something done.
And also on the coronavirus situation, you still give 30% of people approving the way Trump is responding to coronavirus, the numbers of deaths, the numbers of hospitalizations, the view that it's been mishandled. Yes, at the federal as well as at the state and at the local level. But ultimately, the buck stops with the president. Whoever the president is, if those things go badly, it tends to hurt them. And then on top of that, you have all of the the protests, the social discontent, Black Lives Matter, the anti-government demonstrations happening in Portland and other places, and the response from federal authorities increasingly, all of that bodes badly for Trump. It's why he is under water, not just in national polls, which don't matter very much, but also in swing state polls, which really do.
So, if you look at those polls, like in 2016, you expect Trump is going to lose and lose pretty big. And I will say that almost all of my Democrat friends have been telling me they're more than willing to bet not only that Biden will win, but most of them are willing to bet that Biden is going to win by a landslide. I am not there. And I'm not there, not just because it's still early, because increasingly 99 days, you can't say it's that early, these polls, you know, do start to hold to a greater degree. So, if you're betting person, you would be betting in favor of Biden against Trump right now. But the big, big difference between 2016 and 2020 is that this coronavirus and the level of crisis, the extraordinary level of crisis domestically in the US, means that the ability to hold an election is itself more challenged. And President Trump, who continues to post regularly that it's rigged and that there's all sorts of problems with the primaries and problems with mail-in ballots and the rest, in 2016 he wasn't president, in 2020 he is, which means his ability to use, to leverage the power of the presidency, to change the way the election is conducted, and to also make lots of people feel that the election has been rigged and mishandled is vastly greater than it would have been in 2016.
We already see that with federal authorities and the Department of Homeland Security going in in Portland against the interests and desire of local elected political officials, very different than what we've seen with coronavirus. Coronavirus. You know, they mishandle it. Trump blames them for mishandling it, but says, not my responsibility. I'm not doing anything. You mishandle local demonstrations and there's a little bit of violence. Trump says, "I'm going in. This is horrible. And I'm going to send those authorities to other cities, too." Why? Because if there's greater violence and the protests become riots and they're seen as out of control, Trump believes that he has a better shot of getting those swing state voters that want law and order wants security, even if they don't like Trump all that much right now, and they're more willing to turn out. But also a greater chance for the president to be able to claim that the system, that the elections need to be held in a more secure fashion, giving the electoral authorities more control over those elections, more ability to say that it's rigged credibly, if the election goes against President Trump. All of those things are happening.
So, yeah, I expect we're going to see more violence because I think that plays into the desire of the incumbent to make people question how this election is actually going to be run. Now, you know, will anyone go along with him? I mean, I think it's virtually guaranteed that if Trump loses, he will say it's rigged. But will anyone go along with him? And I think it's important to recognize two things, the first is that his popularity among Republicans remains very high. There aren't as many people that identify as Republicans as used to. By the way, there aren't as many people identify as Democrats either. Both party affiliations have been going down, as people get more disgusted with the system, though, it's decreased a bit more on the right side of the spectrum, demographic changes in the US also matter in that regard, but the fact that you have a number of Republicans that I mean, you know, well over 85%, well over 90% in many polls, saying that they support Trump even now, no matter what, is very powerful. And it means that Republicans in Congress and Republicans in state legislatures are unwilling to go against the president. You think about the impeachment process, which passed easily in the House but was opposed easily in the Senate because only one Republican senator voted against him, Mitt Romney. Why was that? When you're talking about President Trump interfering politically in the election, trying to get the Ukrainian government to open an investigation against Trump's rival, Joe Biden, he wasn't the nominee the time but there was a decent chance he was going to be, and the answer is, because no matter what Trump does, as long as he's president, the Republicans are supporting him. So, the interesting question will be, if the election occurs and the Democrats say they won and the count shows that the Democrats won, that Biden won, but Trump says, "no, it's rigged," do the Republicans stick with him? And the answer, I think is, it depends on how close it is. I think if it's close, the Republicans are going to stick with him just as they did during impeachment. Even if it's pretty clear from an objective view that the Democrats probably won, I think they would be willing to say, no, it's rigged and make it partisan, make it polarized.
And so you've got a number of swing states where you have Republican legislatures and Democratic governors, and if it's close, you could easily imagine Trump says, "I won, I won those states." He's tweeting it, "I won." Irrespective of what the mainstream media is saying, right? And then you can imagine the legislature's reporting to Congress saying, "that's right, Trump won." While the governors report, "no, actually, Biden won." Now, that has to be decided by Congress. The judiciary, the Supreme Court has ruled on many other sorts of cases that internal voting of Congress is decided by Congress and the Supreme Court judiciary has no ability to weigh in on that. Well, this is the same thing. This would be a question of how Congress decides to handle it. And in the House. It's run by the Democrats. So, in that case, the Democrats would say Biden won. But in the Senate, the Republicans would say actually Trump won.
Well, then what happens? Historically in the United States, that's only happened once. It happened in 1876. There is no legal outcome. You have to create a political outcome. You need a deal. You would need both sides to come together and figure out an agreement on, someone becomes president, in return, there's a give to the other party. Back in 1876, the Republicans got the presidency but the Democrats got a lot of patronage, key slots, to allow them to hand out pork and also had the removal of US troops from the south. Basically ending the reconstruction. The funny thing is, I mean, depending on where federal troops are at that time across the United States, that may well be part of an agreement. I mean, we're not we're not faced in the aftermath of the civil war in the United States, but we are facing something that from a political, from an electoral perspective, only happened once in the history of the US. And I think people are underestimating just how unprecedented the next 99 days are going to be politically in our lifetimes in the United States.
Now, I think that is true if it's close. If it's not close, Trump will still say it's rigged but at that point, the difference is the Republicans no longer need to be with him because he's no longer going to be president. And whether or not Trump is not president still has a lot of influence is an interesting question that we should explore. Otherwise massive number of followers, unlikely Democrats would try to proceed. And actually, you know, indict him on anything in that environment. I think they want to move on and govern. And there are a lot of Trump-light types that are, you know, pretty significant lights in the Republican Party, senator Tom Cotton, you know, certainly Mike Pompeo, and the impact he'll have on the media and social media. So, I'm not someone also that believes that Trump has just gone from the political spectrum. I think Trumpism is going to be here for a while because the anti-establishment sentiment is very significant across the political spectrum in the United States right now. And I don't think that goes from Republican Party if Trump loses. But in any case, a big win by Biden, a sweeping win would mean that you wouldn't have the claims of a rigged election from Trump metastasizing across the Republican Party and therefore that election would get resolved pretty quickly
COVID vaccine development could be damaged by politics, says former US Surgeon General
"When we already have enough challenges with people understanding the science behind vaccines, we cannot afford to allow the development and approval of a vaccine to be further politicized," Dr. Vivek Murthy told Ian Bremmer on GZERO World. The former US Surgeon General expressed concerns that politics could hurt the process of development and distribution while shaking public confidence. He also discusses the current state of development for a COVID-19 vaccine, and possible scenarios for its efficacy once available.
US-China relations all-time low; federal troops in Portland; Biden's pick
Jon Lieber, managing director for the United States at Eurasia Group, provides his perspective on US Politics In 60 Seconds - this week from in front of the Emancipation Memorial in Lincoln Park in Washington, D.C., which is currently behind barricades because some protesters want to tear it down.
First question, with the tit for tat escalation of closing consulates between the US and China, are US-China relations at an all-time low?
Well, they're certainly not very good. And probably the most important marker was a really tough speech given by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the Nixon Center in California. Perhaps important for its symbolism, that this is an end of an era of engagement that began with President Nixon in 1969. You've got a lot of escalating factors. You've got these closing embassies, accusations of espionage by the Chinese, the potential banning of TikTok. And WeChat in the US. You've got the potential banning of Huawei. And, of course, you've got the ongoing trade war and sanctions. Now, the trade war may become less important as a factor, along with the other worsening parts of this relationship. The Chinese have retaliated so far proportionately. They don't want to be seen as the ones escalating this advance of a presidential election.
Next question, with the presence of federal troops in Portland, does this blur federal state authorities and what's the line here?
Well, the president is well within his rights and means to enforce federal law inside the United States. And that's what he claims he's doing by sending troops in to protect the courthouses in Portland. However, his tactics have been controversial. For one, there's the use of unnamed-unidentified police officers, unmarked police vehicles. There is also accusations that the executive order under which he's doing this target's constitutionally protected speech. And, of course, there's the fact that the Portland mayor doesn't want the federal support. However, this isn't the case everywhere. The president has announced he's sending federal support to Chicago and Albuquerque and probably later in the summer, you're going to see federal support show up in Cleveland, Detroit and Milwaukee, the three large cities in swing states. And this is an obviously important electoral issue as the president continues to try to make his pitch to suburban voters.
Last question, who will Joe Biden pick as his running mate?
Well, I think this really depends on if Biden thinks he needs to pick an African-American woman or not. If he does decide to pick an African-American woman, he's so far ahead in the polls right now that he probably just goes to someone safe. The safest bet is a well-known Senator, Kamala Harris, who already ran for president. He also is looking at Representative Karen Bass, the head of the Congressional Black Caucus, and Susan Rice, President Obama's former national security adviser. That's less likely, though, because since 1972, there have been no running mates in the US that lack electoral experience, which she does not have. If he decides he doesn't need an African-American, then I think probably he goes with one of the governors that's available to him, Rhode Island and Michigan and perhaps New Mexico. These people have credible governing experience, could potentially run for president in four years, could step in if needed. But I think he's not going to do is pick a mayor or a progressive. Mayor because anything that happens in that major city becomes an issue on the campaign. He does not need that. And a progressive because that person is going to have a competing policy base inside the White House. And he knows as a former vice president, you've got to be on the same page.
Florida skyrocketing COVID rates show lessons not learned: former US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy
In a new interview with Ian Bremmer for GZERO World, former US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy discusses how Florida went from a relatively low number of cases to the epicenter for the outbreak. Dr. Murthy says many states where cases are currently climbing did not heed "the lessons that we learned from New York." In this portion of the interview, Murthy also discusses new therapies and treatments that are helping the most severely ill. The complete interview begins airing on public television stations across the US on Friday, July 24. Check local listings and visit gzeromedia.com for more.