Trending Now
We have updated our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use for Eurasia Group and its affiliates, including GZERO Media, to clarify the types of data we collect, how we collect it, how we use data and with whom we share data. By using our website you consent to our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy, including the transfer of your personal data to the United States from your country of residence, and our use of cookies described in our Cookie Policy.
{{ subpage.title }}
Ian Bremmer on Trump second assassination attempt
Now, it's not going to have much impact on the election, in part not just because so many unprecedented things get normalized these days in U.S. politics, but also because there's no video that suddenly... The last assassination attempt you had Trump literally escaping with his life less than a fraction of a second, and the blood on him and the rest. Here, the Secret Service did what they should have. They shot at the perpetrator well before Trump was in the sights of this would-be assassin. The U.S. did what it was supposed to, and he's in custody, so one assumes that we're going to learn a lot more about him as a consequence of the interrogations and the rest. Trump can and will fundraise on the back of it, but I'd be very surprised to see any movement in the polls as a consequence or any change in policy, so really not going to move the needle on the election itself.
And yet I think we have to ask ourselves, if Trump had actually been killed, can you imagine how much different the environment today would be? The political environment, the social environment, the violence, the reprisals. This is already considered to be an illegitimate election by a lot of Americans. Many, many Americans believe shouldn't be allowed to run because he's a convicted criminal. He was twice impeached, not convicted, but impeachment is broken as part of the political process. Many of Trump's supporters, a large majority, believe he should be president now, that he won the election in 2020, and that they're going to do everything possible–them, the deep state, the political opposition, the Democrats–to prevent him from becoming President again, to jail him, and even to call for violence against him. And that means that if we did have Trump assassinated, I think it would be much worse than January 6th in the U.S. It would be much worse, more saliently perhaps, than January 8th in Brazil, where you would have George Floyd-style riots, but larger and also much better armed.
A lot of people, including militias, but even Trump supporters in police forces in low-level positions in the military and National Guard that engage in protests that could easily become very violent, certainly in red states across the country. And I think that because it hasn't happened, even though it's been very close, we're not talking about it, we're not thinking about it. But the lack of resilience, the vulnerability, the frailty of U.S. political stability in this environment, I think is remarkable and deserves more focus, more attention because it would prioritize the steps that Americans need to take and political leaders need to take to rebuild that resilience, rebuild that trust, which is nowhere on the political agenda right now. I have to say, we have to give Trump and the GOP credit in the sense that they oppose all gun restrictions as a matter of policy, and that hasn't in any way changed even after both of these assassination attempts of Americans that are unhinged, that have access to these powerful weapons.
And that doesn't happen in other countries. That is a huge difference between the U.S. There's vastly more gun violence in America, not because there's so much more mental health issues, not because there's so much more economic inequality, but because there's so much less restrictions on assault-type weapons, on military-type weapons. The United States has more guns per capita than any country in the world except for Yemen, and Yemen is in the middle of a civil war. The United States is not, and yet there is no feasible capacity politically in the near term to do anything about that. No political will. Very relieved that this series of headlines does not include an actual assassination. Very relieved that former President Trump has survived this. Deeply concerned that it continues to happen. And of course, everything about U.S. politics promises you that you're going to see a lot more of it.
That's the state of play today and this election, and in the broader context that we talk about. So I hope everyone's well, and I'll talk to you all real soon.
Harris wins debate
And it's not that Trump didn't have points to make, but he largely didn't make them. The only significant time that I saw a misstep that Trump was able to hit against Kamala was when she was complaining about his tariffs against China and more broadly. And, of course, these were policies that Trump put in place, which Biden stuck with and claims he's succeeded in China, and they were Trump policies and said, well, if you want to change them, why didn't you? And through the debate, his message was, well, if there are all these great things you wanted to do, you've been vice president, why haven't you done them over the last 3.5 years? But on balance, what Trump did was lose message, lose discipline, and attack Kamala Harris in ways that seemed incoherent and all over the map from the opening question when he was asked about the economy and couldn't stay on target on the economy instead immediately started talking about immigration when he threw in this nonsensical and false claim that immigrants, Haitian immigrants in Ohio are eating household pets. When he was asked about foreign policy and said I'm loved around the world and used Hungary's Viktor Orban as his respected character witness on and on, he seemed defensive and angry and not on message and not disciplined and was rattled by the fact that Kamala Harris was landing punches against him.
I don't think she was fantastic, but she was good. And good is a significant accomplishment given the fact that coming into this, she was not taking interviews, one exception over the last six weeks with the media. Certainly, nothing that was confrontational or hostile, that she's frequently spoken in abstractions and generalities, and not shown policy chops on a range of issues with depth and detail, that she frequently laughs a lot, you know, sort of out of timing and in ways that seems not to make sense, and out of defensiveness. None of that happened this evening. Today, Harris was responding coherently, not always with every fact at her fingertips, but certainly seemed to be a normal politician with a message to put across. Was particularly strong on issues like abortion, where she has that capacity, and on pieces of economic policy. Also, in being able to land blows against Trump and his unfitness, inconsistency, lack of support for democracy, other related issues.
Now, ABC is going to come into the crosshairs here because certainly the questions that they asked, and the follow-ups, were more hostile towards Trump than they were towards Harris. Would you say that they were biased against Trump? Well, I would say that they were more focused on fact-finding, and Trump, more frequently than Harris and more frequently than any politician at that level, is making up his own facts. And they were doing a fair amount of fact-checking in real time. I would say there was a little bit of bias in the sense that there were a couple of places they could have been fact-checking Kamala Harris, and they didn't. And I think they could have done a better job of that. I also think that they gave Trump much more time to follow up when he wanted to, and they typically cut off Harris at the end of her time. You could say that that's bias in favor of Trump, except it didn't help Trump. It actually hurt Trump because the longer he was speaking, the more rattled and unhinged he appeared to be.
So, I'd certainly say if you were looking at this debate, in terms of who you thought actually came across as a winner, and you had uncertainty as a potential voter, in the way that Biden/Trump would have been 95%, Trump, Harris/Trump would be 80% Harris. Now, if you're a partisan on the Harris or Trump side, it didn't matter what was going to happen, and you're going to say that your side won, no matter what. If you're trying to defend Trump tomorrow on air, you're going to say, “This was three-on-one. This was an ABC dogpile. They're the fake news. They should be shut down.” And I suspect Trump will be saying that, both directly and with his proxies tomorrow.
But the fact is, he did not perform, and he is a 78-year-old man. He has not been particularly on point or on message in lots of his rallies recently, if you've watched them, or at the Economics Club in New York last week, if you watch that speech, he has vulnerabilities. And Kamala Harris, who had not been tested at this level before, this is, you know, a presidential debate, she's the nominee., it's the biggest spot of her life, and she gave the best performance of her vice presidency, in my view. Was she, you know, Obama in terms of masterful and soaring rhetoric? No. was she Reagan? Same, no. But was she capable of sounding presidential, sounding like a leader, and thumping Trump pretty hard? Absolutely, yes. I think this is an incredibly tight race. It's essentially a coin flip. I think this will probably give Harris a little bit more momentum that had tapped out after the convention. But it's probably not going to move her 2 or 3 points. It might move her half a point or a point.
It's very, very tight. And I still think this election is very much open over the next couple months. But Harris did herself significant favors, Trump did himself none, over the last couple of hours, and that's the news going into tomorrow. That's my view. Best I can do. You can disagree with it, but you know, I at least try to tell you what I think is going on honestly, and I'll talk to you all real soon.
- How Harris and Trump plan to tackle America’s housing crisis ›
- Trump vs. Harris: A high-stakes election and its risks to democracy ›
- GZERO presidential debate scorecard: Rate the debate! ›
- Trump-Harris debate: What to expect ›
- Muted mics, amplified impact: Harris and Trump debate for razor-thin margins ›
Why Project 2025 is getting so much attention at the DNC
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: Project 2025 is getting a lot of attention at the DNC, and you're probably going to hear a lot more about it even after the convention in Chicago ends.
You may have heard a lot about Trump’s Project 2025 in this election cycle, and you're probably going to hear a lot more about it in the coming weeks. And one of the reasons these kinds of Democratic activists have spent a lot of time educating the public through paid media and also some sessions they are holding inside about what's in the 2025 platform. And the point they want to make is that the Project 2025, which is a project of The Heritage Foundation, designed to be sort of a governing guide for President Trump and anybody filling out the executive branch agencies in a second Trump term, is also the Trump agenda. Trump himself has, of course, distanced himself from Project 2025, but there's all kinds of overlap between former Trump administration officials and people who are writing this thing, people who are likely to serve in a second Trump administration. Why are the Democrats spending so much time talking about this? Because it's not that popular. The individual items in 2025 don't poll that well, and it's actually become a major liability for President Trump. So much so that the person at the Heritage Foundation who ran the project actually stepped down from his job because it had become such a liability for the Trump campaign, which is not exactly what The Heritage Foundation donors were hoping for when they launched this project. So stay tuned for a lot more on Project 2025. It's going to be a message every night here at the Democratic National Convention, and there's going to be a lot of fodder for attack ads to draw a policy contrast with former President Trump
- Project 2025 head steps down as Trump distances himself from policy blueprint ›
- Will Project 2025 become Trump’s 2.0 playbook? ›
- DNC Night 2: Obama set to rally support for Harris ›
- What to expect at the 2024 Democratic National Convention ›
- Night one of the DNC: Goodbye Biden, hello Harris ›
- DNC unites around 3 key themes - GZERO Media ›
- Defining Kamala Harris at DNC 2024 - GZERO Media ›
- Will the DNC momentum take Democrats all the way? - GZERO Media ›
- Kamala Harris makes her case - GZERO Media ›