Hello everybody, I'm Helen Walters,
I'm head of media and curation at TED,
and I am delighted to welcome you
to another episode of TED Explains
the World with Ian Bremmer.
Ian, of course, is the president
and founder of Eurasia Group.
He is the head of GZERO Media,
and he is here to talk to us
about what just happened
in the United States.
Today is November 7,
the election was on November 5.
President Trump was reelected
in handy terms.
So, Ian, please tell us what you make
of what is happening right now.
Ian Bremmer: You’re right,
it is not just the electoral vote
but also the popular vote
that Trump was able to win.
I mean, it's close,
you know, 51-49, so half of the Americans
went against him, pretty much.
We always knew that was
going to be the case.
So it's not as if the polls
were radically off.
That's not the issue.
One thing that's quite useful, of course,
is the fact that a popular vote win,
which doesn't always line up
with the electoral vote,
creates more legitimacy for Trump.
And the fact that this wasn't just
a matter of one or two states,
and that it’s clear that there was
neither significant internal
nor definitive external interference.
Clearly, there was a lot
of disinformation and, you know,
bomb threats mailed in,
called in by the Russians.
But nothing that would have
changed the outcome.
And so you were able to not only get
Kamala Harris to concede in short order,
but Democrats across the board,
whether or not they're happy with it,
recognizing that Trump
is indeed their president.
So unlike in 2020,
where Trump himself precipitated
a very significant challenge,
saying that the vote was rigged
and undermining the legitimacy
of the outcome,
here, we do not have that.
Furthermore, the Republicans have,
as of now, taken the Senate.
Of course, conservative justices
have a majority on the Supreme Court,
and the Republicans, in short order,
are very likely, overwhelmingly likely,
to have a majority in the House as well.
And what that means
is that the Trump administration
will be able to pursue the agenda,
both domestically and in foreign policy,
that they have said
that they wish to pursue.
For example, on tariffs or on taxes,
or on immigration.
All of these things
that Trump was running on
and now will have a mandate to pursue.
So that is the long and short
of what happened on Tuesday.
HW: So you talk about tariffs,
you talk about taxes.
A lot has been said about the fact
that Americans were voting
related to the economy
and how they felt about the economy.
Do you agree with that?
And what do you think
that Trump will do with fiscal policy
when he actually comes
into the presidency again?
IB: Well, let's talk
about what Americans voted on.
They voted on a country
whose direction they did not agree with.
Over 70 percent of Americans, Helen,
say that they did not agree
with where the country was heading.
And when that happens,
it is very, very hard to win
as an incumbent.
And vice president Harris
may not be the president,
but she certainly had accountability
for alignment with the policies
of her Biden administration.
And when she was asked on the media,
when she started doing her media tour
after the debate with Trump,
you know, "What would you do
differently from Biden?"
Her response, and this is
the most important question
that you could ask her in this campaign,
her response was, "I can't think
of anything that I would do differently."
So most important question,
worst possible answer.
And she tried to amend that
in various ways later on,
but she was never able to really get away
from what she would do
differently from Biden
and why she would do it differently.
I mean, she moved a number of her policies
in a more centrist direction,
but she didn't really explain it.
She didn't really disassociate herself
from previous iterations of her policies.
So pretty much everybody out there
that was unsatisfied with where
the United States is going
felt like she did not represent change.
I mean, she's younger, she's different,
she'd be the first woman.
From a policy perspective,
they didn't believe
that she represented change.
And of course, Helen,
this is what we have seen
around the world.
In the developed world,
every democracy that has had
an election this year
has voted against their incumbents.
Canada is probably about to have one.
They will also throw out Trudeau
unceremoniously.
A lot of developing countries, India.
Modi was doing pretty well,
now he's in coalition.
South Africa, the ANC,
for the first time since Mandela,
now in coalition.
Mexico, is the only country of note
that had an election this year,
in the year of elections,
that actually returned the same party.
And, you know, in many ways,
because the Morena party and AMLO
are still seen as the outsiders
against a deep, entrenched,
you know, sort of power
of existing oligarchs, business,
you know, and the like.
But if anything,
they're the exception
that proves the rule.
And so, you know, you and I know,
we've talked about this before,
I expected that Trump would win.
I didn't have strong
confidence in that call
because Trump was himself very unpopular.
But to the extent that anyone
you would think would win
an election in this environment globally,
it was Trump's to lose.
And, you know, he was able
to pull it through.
So I think that's the backdrop
for what people were voting about.
And specifically what it is,
it is inflation, which is high
and it's been coming down,
but the overall prices,
it's not like the prices are lower
than they were a year ago,
just because the inflation
rate is coming down,
those prices are still very high
and you can't get away,
run away from that if you're Harris.
Immigration, something that, frankly,
the Biden administration
was very late to recognize
was a problem not just in red states
but in blue states, too.
And those numbers are coming down,
but the illegal immigrants
that came to the US
are largely still in the US.
And then also disinformation,
a large amount of disinformation
that has made it almost impossible
to have a national debate
on policies and issues.
And an awful lot of people,
even that align with Harris's policies
didn't necessarily believe
that she was implementing them
or Biden was implementing them.
A lot of people in America think
that the inflation rate
is still the highest ever,
think that unemployment
is a lot higher than it has been.
And the people that say that
and believe that
were far more likely to vote
against the incumbent.
So I would say, you know,
in descending order of importance,
what drove this election was inflation,
immigration and disinformation.
And that is something that we have seen
all around the world this year.
HW: I think it's all
incredibly interesting.
And you said something interesting
that I want to just double click on there,
which is this idea that people
have feelings about the way things are,
and they don't necessarily know
what the actual facts
about a situation are.
So this is also an election
in which there has been plenty
of disinformation, as you say.
Elon Musk wrote yesterday on X,
“You are the media now.”
And I think we can argue a lot
about how the media
has covered the election,
about the way that the media
reports things, the horse race,
all of that vapidity,
all of that type of thing.
But am I alone in finding that type
of statement both facile and alarming?
And isn't that driving us even further
into a future where there are these
kind of fractured narratives
or fractured truths that people have,
that actually don't coalesce
to reality or accuracy?
IB: Well, when I saw it from Elon,
I mean, I'm like,
I thought he was talking to me,
and saying, "Ian, you're media now."
I'm like, about time, right?
I mean, here I am, a political scientist,
I'm talking to a lot of people.
So yeah, they should be thinking
about me as media.
Of course that's not what he was saying.
What he was saying
is that the mainstream media,
CNN, MSNBC, Fox ...
You know, and by the way,
he never includes Fox,
even though Fox is every bit as much
mainstream media as the other two
because he likes one ideologically now,
he doesn't like the other two,
but you might as well have some
intellectual consistency around it.
His view is that all of those
publications, cable news,
that they are fake news
because, you know, of course,
he's not making money out of those.
And that Twitter/X is real news
and that citizen journalists
are the real media.
Now, I have a lot of things
to criticize mainstream media for.
I believe that they have gotten
way too high on their own supply,
focusing on their own interests,
their own clicks, their own news,
they're less trusted than they used to be.
We see that across the country.
They're more politicized.
They're more for their own candidate,
whether it's Fox on the right
or CNN and MSNBC on the left.
But at least the journalists on Fox
not, you know, Hannity,
but the journalists during the day
that are writing the stories
and bringing you the news,
the journalists during the day
on CNN and MSNBC,
the journalists that are working
on the Wall Street Journal
and the New York Times,
not the opinion leaders,
but most of the people
that are actually doing the reporting,
they have expertise, they've been trained.
And of course, the big difference
between citizen journalists,
if you want to call them that,
in other words,
people that are posting random
information that they think about
on social media,
number one,
they tend to have stronger biases
because it is not their professional job
to try to mitigate them
when they present things.
Number two, they aren't
professionally trained,
so they don't have as much expertise
in how to deliver that message
and how to ensure
that a headline is a headline,
and you follow through with arguments
and you actually properly cite things
and there's research.
And then number three,
a lot of the so-called
citizen journalists,
the verified citizen journalists
that have blue checks,
are bots
and are anonymous
and aren't actually people.
Or are bad actors
that are actively pursuing
and displaying disinformation
for their own purposes.
And that is, of course, the antithesis
of what information,
political information is necessary
to run a civil society.
I deeply worry that we are
in an environment
where almost everyone I know,
educated people in the United States
that voted for Trump and voted for Harris
believe things, believe
some fundamental things
about the political system
in the US that are not true.
I mean, the number of people
that I have spoken to
that believe that large numbers
of non-citizens vote in the United States,
which has been, you know,
assertively researched and audited,
and you're talking about less than
100th of one percent of Americans,
non-citizens that are on the rolls.
It is not an issue.
And yet you wouldn't know that
if you read Elon's posts,
because he actively has worked
to promote that lie
as strongly as he can.
And I think that's a horrible thing.
And I have seen that,
I mean, I saw it most recently,
I know a lot of Democrats that believed,
a lot of Harris supporters that believed
that Trump actually called
for Liz Cheney to be executed,
to be in front of a firing squad.
And if you had watched
what he said in context --
that was taken out of context --
you know, he was not saying that.
He was saying that she's a neocon
who supports wars, like in Iraq,
for example, and Afghanistan,
and that how would she feel
if it was her that was facing the firing,
as opposed to the people
that they are sending off,
the soldiers they're sending off to die?
Something I've heard many Democrats
and Republicans that are antiwar,
far left and far right, historically say.
So that environment,
the fact that information is being used
in service of a political agenda,
and that is what matters to you,
is one of the most damaging things
I see facing democracies today.
It is an unsustainable trajectory.
We will not maintain our democracy
if we continue with it.
I get things wrong all the time.
You know, I'll make an analytic call.
And I thought Trump
was going to win and he won.
But back in 2016, I thought
Trump was going to lose.
And I had reasons to believe that.
And I was wrong.
And I came out and explained
why I thought I was wrong.
I get things wrong all the time,
but I do it honestly.
It's not in service of a political agenda.
I work my ass off,
as do all the analysts at Eurasia Group,
to try to help people
understand and explain
what is happening in the world.
And, you know, not just from
a left or a right-wing perspective,
or an American or a Canadian
or a Russian or a Chinese perspective.
And I travel all over the world
and talk to people
from all over the world
to try to help inform that.
That is a tiny, tiny,
tiny fraction of the information
that people digest
today politically,
and particularly today politically,
in the two-year run-up
to a 10-billion-dollar
national US election.
And that is no way to run
a representative democracy.
And all the people out there
that are saying that they
don’t believe in their media,
and they don't believe in their elites,
they don't believe
in their political leaders,
their Congress, their executive,
even their business leaders,
even their scientists,
they don't believe in them,
that's why they're saying that.
Is because they're existing
in an environment
that they can no longer
ascertain truth from fiction.
That's not a sustainable place to be.
HW: It seems like a deeply
dangerous place to live in.
You floated something yesterday
that I hadn't heard
and thought was really interesting.
It was that potentially Musk
might buy Truth Media.
Have you thought any more about that?
Do you think that might happen?
And what does that mean
if that does happen?
IB: So first of all, I have a hard time
imagining that Trump is going to,
as president, be able to continue
to own and and post on Truth Media.
Now you know, unprecedented
things can happen.
And Trump has said that, you know,
you cannot, as sitting president,
commit a crime.
So, I mean, in principle,
that means that rule of law,
as applies to him, is what he says it is.
The Supreme Court has punted on that
in terms of what an official act is.
So, you know, we'll see where that goes.
We're going to be
in an unprecedented place.
But certainly I could easily imagine ...
First of all, I believe that Musk's
75 million dollars in favor of Trump
is probably the smartest
strategic political bet
that I have seen made by a billionaire,
by an oligarch in the United
States in my life.
I've never seen one that I think
is likely to pay off better,
than what Elon just did.
Remember, this was a Biden supporter
and he turned off from Biden
when Biden decided not to invite him
to the electric vehicle summit.
Because, you know, Tesla, even though
it’s way in front on electric vehicles,
isn’t a union shop,
and Biden decided he was going
to play politics with that,
as opposed to lean into ensuring
that the US has the best possible
electric vehicle future in the world.
Elon took exception to that,
turned against Biden.
And the rest, as we say, is history.
Big own goal by the president.
And I hope he's reflecting
on how that was a really dumb thing
for him to do.
Leaving that aside,
I think that Elon is now
in a unique position
to help formulate
what the values of the United States are,
and to distribute those
algorithmically from himself
with his hundreds of millions of followers
and from the president
of the United States.
And there are ways that that could be
used to promote American interests.
There are ways that those could be used
that are inimical to US interests.
And again, I promise,
if Elon does things
that I think are useful,
you'll be the first to hear it from me.
So, for example, I was in China recently.
I met with the leadership
and I met with Wang Yi
and members of the Politburo,
many others.
And Elon Musk had recently been to China,
and he travels there frequently.
And they all wanted to know from me,
while Elon is presenting himself
as the guy that can help ensure
that US-China relations
don't become maximally confrontational
if Trump becomes president.
Is that true? Is he the guy?
And of course, Elon has very,
very strong business interests in China,
developing artificial intelligence
with Chinese scientists,
Tesla on the ground manufacturing
and selling into the Chinese market.
China is very important for Elon.
And certainly,
Elon would not want there to be
a decoupling between the US and China.
And I think that he's going to have a lot
of influence over US tech policy,
especially because Trump
didn't really have a technology policy
in his first term.
He had a tariff policy on China.
But the CHIPS Act and the export
controls on semiconductors,
that was all done under Biden.
And so, Elon, to the extent
that he cares about anything,
it's going to be technology policy.
He's going to have, I think,
a very strong position
to be able to help determine
who's appointed
in those key technology
positions under Trump,
and also what kind of regulations,
subsidies, stimulus will be enacted
by a Trump administration
for technology, broadly speaking,
and of course, for Elon's own companies,
which I expect he'll benefit
from mightily.
Now the question will be,
is Elon going to be able to facilitate
a more functional relationship
between the US and the Chinese
in advanced technologies?
And the answer to that may well be yes.
And if Elon helps avoid a cold war
between the US and China,
I will absolutely say that.
Now we know that Trump
has had a strong view
on wanting to enact much stronger tariffs
on China for a very long time,
well before he got involved in politics.
He's thought the tariffs were, you know,
a critical component of US economic
and foreign policy.
Trump's "America First" means
more capital in the United States,
more jobs in the United States.
It means, you know, bringing back,
reining in free trade and market access,
and instead using the power of the dollar
and of the size of the American market
and the strength of industrial policy
to get other countries around the world
to nearshore with the Americans.
And Lighthizer in particular,
who I expect will run trade
in some manifestation under Trump,
has said he wants to see 60 percent
tariffs on all Chinese exports.
Well, I mean, is Elon going
to be able to, you know,
help facilitate a deal on that
with a China that is facing very serious
economic challenges right now?
And the answer to that is untested.
That's a very interesting proposition
that the Chinese are hoping
Elon will help with.
And he has said,
"I'll be able to help with."
Now if it turns out
that he’s able to help with that,
this guy is absolutely golden
in the United States and in China.
He could become the most powerful
person on the planet.
If he is not able to do that,
then he will be in a personal position
of having directly disappointed
the Chinese president
and their leadership,
and I would not want
to be in that position.
That strikes me as a challenging
position to be in
for someone who does
a lot of business in China.
So that's going to be an incredibly
interesting thing to watch, Helen,
I mean, we're going to see this play out.
Again, we have a lot of pieces
that are moving geopolitically
around the world.
This is only one,
there are other really big ones,
Europe, the Middle East.
But this is one that's really,
really interesting.
HW: Super interesting
and some very big personalities
that will be arguing constructively
about it all, I'm sure.
OK, so let's talk about foreign policy.
Let's get into it.
Zelenskyy obviously reached out
to Trump almost immediately
that he won the election
and was very complimentary to him.
So what is going to happen
with Russia, Ukraine?
What are you seeing there?
IB: And how could Zelensky not, Helen?
HW: Totally.
IB: You know, he is a master communicator.
He's been out there marketing himself
and his cause with everybody.
Trump has even called him, like,
doing the best sales job
on the United States.
And on the one hand, that's critical
because Trump thinks that the US
is spending far too much on Ukraine.
On the other hand,
it's begrudging admiration
because Trump sees himself
as the best salesperson out there, right?
So, I mean, you know, as my mom would say,
"Don't shit a shitter."
And she used to always say that
when she was alive.
I saw a flash of my mom
in Trump's comment there.
I think that the fact that Zelenskyy said,
"Congratulations, great win."
You know, "We had
a wonderful meeting together
in the United States in September,
and I want to work with you."
That is not likely to be reciprocated
by the great man,
the president-elect.
I suspect that he wants to end the war.
He has said he will end it in 24 hours.
Now Trump does exaggerate.
It might not be 24,
it could be a long weekend.
There could be bathroom breaks in there.
But he has repeatedly said,
“I’m going to end this war.
Don’t even need to be president,
I can just do it in the lame duck.”
What does that mean?
Well, it means he wants
to stop the fighting.
He really does.
And to be fair,
I know a lot of people
in the Biden administration,
running the Biden administration,
that want to end the war
because they think
that the Ukrainians are losing,
and it's going to get harder
and harder over time.
But you’ve got to convince
Zelenskyy to do that.
Now what I expect Trump will do
will be call Zelenskyy,
call Putin and say,
"You've got to freeze
the conflict where it is,
no more fighting.
That means Russia,
you basically are occupying
the territory you're occupying,
but you don't get to keep bombing
the rest of Ukraine.
Ukraine, you've got to take it.
But you don't have to worry
about defending your cities.
And then we'll sit down
and we'll have negotiations
on what that's going
to look like going forward.
And if you don't accept that,
Ukraine, I'm cutting you off,
and Russia, I'm putting
more sanctions on."
That is the opening gambit
that Trump intends,
mano a mano, to end the war.
So, Helen, there's a couple of very
interesting things that then happen.
One is, is Zelenskyy prepared
to accept that to begin negotiations?
Can he get to a limited ceasefire,
a freezing of the conflict?
Under a Biden administration,
the answer would have been clearly no.
His position is much worse
in a Trump administration.
We will see how he responds.
The consequences would be
very negative if he says no,
but he could say no.
Politically, it's very hard
for him to say yes.
You know, he could lose power if he does.
He will certainly undermine his position
with a lot of Ukrainians
that had been bravely fighting,
supporting those
that are bravely fighting.
The Russians,
you know, much easier for them
to say yes if Ukraine says no.
If the Ukrainians say yes,
you know, I've been speaking
to some folks advising the Kremlin.
I've also heard from others
in the last 24 hours
that have said, well, Putin
wouldn't be prepared to accept that
unless there were other things
like Ukraine is disarmed,
can't join NATO, all of that.
Would Trump put any of that on offer?
Would he be capable of putting
a lot of that on offer,
given where the Europeans are?
How does Putin react?
If Putin says no,
what's Trump going to do?
That's an interesting question.
But Helen, the most important question
is that the Europeans are not likely
to be consulted by Trump.
And if they are consulted by Trump,
he certainly doesn't worry
about coordinating a united policy
with them and Ukraine
before he contacts the Russians.
Biden wouldn't even talk to Putin,
and he wouldn't consider
a negotiation with the Russians
until the Ukrainians
and the Europeans were all onboard.
That is absolutely not
what Trump's position is.
So what we have to look at here
is whether the Europeans
are going to take a more united front,
confronted with a Trump that most of them
really don't agree with.
Will Europe be stronger together,
facing not only Trump giving
the Ukrainians an ultimatum
and talking directly with Putin,
but also doing things
like threatening tougher sanctions,
tariffs against the Europeans?
I mean, we already know
that Viktor Orban in Hungary
is more inclined to work with Trump.
He's made the Mar-a-Lago
pilgrimage and all the rest.
Well, what about Giorgia Meloni,
who's quite close to Elon Musk,
ideologically oriented to Trump,
but has been very anti-Russian
and has a lot of popularity
in Italy right now?
Might she shift away
from Ukraine towards Russia
in support of a Trump policy?
We don't know.
What about Germany?
They're about to have new elections.
What's a new German chancellor?
We don't even know who that person is.
We don't know how well the far right
in Germany would do in those elections,
how much more aligned
they might be to Trump.
So one of the most important questions
geopolitically will be,
do the Europeans hang together
in support of Ukraine
with a much tougher set of relations
with the United States,
or do they fragment with a meaningful
number of them embracing Trump,
flipping on Russia and saying,
"We don't care about Ukraine anymore"?
And if the latter happens,
what happens to the front-line
states in Europe
that see Russia as an existential threat?
Poland, the Baltic states,
the Nordic states?
I mean, these are questions
that we will have answers to
in very short order,
but right now we are completely
in no-man's land.
These are unanswered questions right now,
and they could go any which way.
And all of the European leaders
I've spoken to in the last 72 hours,
they are mightily concerned
about exactly this issue.
This is priority number one for them.
HW: Alright, so we are more
than a year into the conflict
in the Middle East
between Israel and Hamas.
Obviously there's a lot going on there.
We have talked before
about how you thought
that Netanyahu would be holding out
until Trump got elected,
was hoping for that to happen.
It has happened.
So what do you think happens
next in the Middle East?
IB: Yeah, I thought
it was very hard to imagine
that he was going to agree to a ceasefire
where Biden would be seen as the broker,
he had no interest in that.
He wanted Trump.
By the way, the Israeli people want Trump.
There was a “Jerusalem Post”
survey recently.
I think it was over 60 percent of Israelis
say they wanted Trump
and 12 percent said they want Harris.
That's the biggest gap
we've seen with the US ally.
And it's because Trump,
when he was president,
he did the Abraham Accords.
He recognized the Golan Heights,
occupied by Israel, as Israeli territory.
He moved the US embassy to Jerusalem
after many presidents promised to do it,
Trump actually did it.
So, I mean, Trump's bona fides
as a very strong pro-Israel president,
even stronger than the pro-Zionist Biden,
is a really big deal.
Remember, Trump's first trip as president
was to the Middle East.
No American presidents do that.
He went to Saudi Arabia,
then he went to Israel.
So I'm not surprised that the Israelis
and that Netanyahu in particular
are very, very comfortable here.
I think that the question, first of all,
I still think there is room for Biden
to get a negotiated settlement
with the Israelis and Hezbollah.
They are close.
If you made me bet right now,
within two weeks, maybe three,
in other words, in the lame duck,
I think that there will be a settlement
between Israel and Hezbollah.
They'll stop the fighting.
The Israelis, and particularly
the prime minister,
are not looking to destroy Hezbollah
the way they have Hamas.
They are looking to push Hezbollah back,
get the Israelis that have been evacuated
back into their homes,
back to their schools,
and then stop the fighting.
Netanyahu understands
that this is a much bigger fight
that would cause a lot more damage
to the Israeli economy,
that he doesn't necessarily want
over the long term.
He's also done a lot to destroy
Hezbollah's leadership
and degrade their military
and communications infrastructure.
So that is a narrow win
that I think can be taken off the table
in the Middle East.
Gaza is very different.
I don't see any change
in Israel's policy on Gaza.
I think the humanitarian crisis
for the Palestinians living in Gaza
will actually get worse,
if you even believe that it can, it will,
particularly in the occupied north,
and especially as UNRWA,
which is the United Nations agency
that actually is responsible
for the infrastructure
and for bringing humanitarian aid in,
has been just voted by a large majority
of the Israeli Knesset as illegal.
They will no longer work with it.
So, I mean, really anything that looked
like it was the potential
to build infrastructure
for governance in Gaza
has either been bombed away
or is being unwound.
And so I think this is even
more of a disaster for the Palestinians.
I don't see any move
towards a two-state solution,
towards independent governance
by the Palestinians,
towards anything that would
stabilize in the near term.
Iran is the big question.
So Trump has criticized Biden
for constraining the Israelis
in their response to the Iranian strikes
of 180 ballistic missiles against Israel.
Didn't kill any Israelis,
but they did launch those missiles.
And they did actually strike
Israeli military targets.
And Jared Kushner
has recently written some notes
that he's circulated around
on how this is a unique
opportunity for the Israelis
to rid themselves
of the Iranian nuclear threat
once and for all.
So unlike Biden,
who has worked to prevent the Israelis
from striking Iranian energy
and nuclear targets,
it appears that Trump is goading them
to do precisely that.
Now there's a very big question.
Is he getting them to do it
while Biden is still president?
And then they end all of that
and Trump can say,
"I ended the war, I came in,"
or would he rather wait
until he's president
so he can coordinate militarily,
provide the intelligence, all the rest,
between the United States and Israel
to together "handle" the Iranian threat?
But I do believe the likelihood
of an expanded military confrontation
between the US and Iran
is relatively high.
Now remember, when Trump was president,
he ordered the assassination
of the head of the Iranian military,
Qasem Soleimani,
and the Iranian response
was to do virtually nothing.
And there were those, like the head
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley,
who at the time were saying
that Trump wanted to go
even much harder against Iran
than he ended up actually doing.
So I mean, Trump, I think,
probably does believe
that the Iranians are a paper tiger
and that this is a great
opportunity for Israel
and or the United States
to take care of that problem.
That's a very interesting point.
Also, let's keep in mind
that the Iranians,
who have been involved
in interfering in the US election,
like China, like Russia,
but unlike Russia, who wanted Trump,
the Iranians want Harris.
And the Iranians have tried
to assassinate Trump
and Mike Pompeo and others involved
in the Trump administration,
something that I'm honestly very surprised
hasn't gotten more attention
in the US media.
So I think for many reasons,
Trump and a Trump administration
would feel like it is time to hit
the Iranians back pretty hard
and show them that you don't mess
with a Trump-led America.
So yeah, again, I think
that this is a big deal.
And from a global perspective,
if that were to happen,
that would lead to much higher oil prices,
at least for a period of time,
because the Iranian capacity
to disrupt the Straits of Hormuz
and prevent a lot of oil
from being transited globally
is significant.
HW: So you talked about Milley,
you talked about Lighthizer.
Who do you see as making up
Trump's cabinet?
Who do you think
is going to be appointed?
We know a lot of people have said
they wouldn't come back.
What are you hearing
and what should we be watching for?
IB: Well, certainly not Milley,
who ran the Joint Chiefs,
since he's recently said
that he thinks Trump is a fascist.
So I think that's probably table stakes
for you're not getting a position.
I don't think he wants one either.
The funny thing is
that so many of the people
that were in the previous
Trump administration
now consider Trump to be an enemy
and it is mutual, right?
I mean that is --
One of the interesting things will be
to what extent Trump decides
to go after them as president.
Will he launch
investigations from the DOJ?
You know, might they be more likely
to face an IRS audit?
Will Trump-influenced media
go after them to a greater degree?
I mean, those are all
interesting questions,
and we don't know the answer to it.
In many ways, I think that Trump
actually does hold a grudge against them,
people that he thought were loyal
and then turned against him,
more than against leaders
in the Democratic Party.
But, you know, again,
that is right now a hunch.
That is not in any way borne out in fact.
But in terms of people
that I think will be around Trump,
I do think that they're going
to look for adults.
They are going to look for people
that are capable of doing their job,
but they will not go for independents
that Trump doesn't have control over,
even though their Republican
bona fides are strong.
They did a lot of that
the first time around.
So, you know, you had Rex Tillerson
appointed as Secretary of State,
who Trump had never met before
and who his own advisers said,
"This guy is not aligned with any
of what we want, any America First.
He's CEO of ExxonMobil."
And Trump says, "Yeah, but look at him.
He looks like a Secretary of State."
That is not what we will see
this time around.
I think that loyalty
will be very, very important.
He will want people that will not
turn coat on Trump
in three and six month's time,
in a year's time,
in a future administration,
in a future election.
There are some people that I continue
to hear time and time again.
So people that were heavily
involved in the campaign
that were seen to facilitate Trump
and make him successful.
Howard Lutnick, who originally said
that he didn't want a position,
he just wants to help Trump.
But now that he's spent a lot of time
with Trump is feeling like,
“I really do want a job,
I’d like to be Secretary of Treasury.”
Well, I think he has a good chance
of getting that job.
I think Linda McMahon,
same, from the World Wrestling
[Entertainment].
Very close to Trump, very good friends.
For a long time now she wants
to be Secretary of Commerce.
Good chance she would get that job.
I think that on State,
there are a lot of names.
Bill Hagerty, the senator,
former ambassador to Japan,
steady, capable pair of hands.
Certainly interested in that job,
would be in the mix.
But frankly, lots of people,
will be in that mix,
I think Ric Grenell, the former
acting head of national intelligence,
before that, ambassador
of the US to Germany,
well-known on social media and on Fox.
A little more incendiary,
more like, willing to be
a bomb thrower in public.
More of a populist, Trump likes him a lot.
He really would like
to be Secretary of State.
He'll certainly be interviewed
for that position.
I think there are others, you know,
I'm hearing Mike Waltz,
member of Congress,
very smart guy, very capable,
potentially for Secretary of Defense.
Pompeo, Mike Pompeo does not look
to be an insider right now.
He took a long time before he was
willing to endorse Trump.
And I think the loyalty
is open to question.
Hasn't gotten as much access
at Mar-a-Lago and with Trump
as a lot of other people have.
Some of the key questions
will be what happens
with the so-called power ministries,
as we define them around the world
the Department of Justice,
the FBI, the IRS.
Will they be politicized?
Will they be weaponized?
I do think it's very hard to imagine
someone like Bill Barr,
who is very conservative, very smart,
but not a Trump loyalist.
At the end of the day, someone
that was going to ultimately, you know,
vote and act according
to his values and ideology
as opposed to Trump's all the time.
I think that is not acceptable
for an Attorney General
in a second Trump term,
in the same way that Mike Pence
was not the selection for VP,
it was JD Vance.
And a lot of people say, oh,
JD is like, really powerful
and he knows politics
and he's going to run the shadow cabinet,
and he's going to be in charge
of appointing everyone.
No he's not.
Trump will not tolerate someone
to have his star power working for him.
I think there will be
priorities that are Trump's.
And when he has priorities,
he will be in charge.
And I think there will be lots
of different centers of power
that will fight and compete over areas
that Trump doesn't really care
as much about,
and then we'll see that play out.
So in that regard, it is likely
to look very different
than the first Trump administration.
HW: This is the Trump show.
So just to wrap things up,
I guess a very simple
but profound question,
which is, how are you feeling
about the future?
IB: I think that the United States
continues to be the most powerful
country in the world.
It has the reserve currency,
it has the most powerful global military,
it's producing the most energy,
it dominates the field
of artificial intelligence,
which is the most important set
of new technologies
that humans have ever been able
to have their hands on.
So I mean, there’s a reason why people
are betting on the US markets,
on the US dollar in this environment
after a Trump victory.
But the global order
is in very deep disarray.
There is an absence of global leadership,
and that absence will be felt
more strongly and more profoundly
in a Trump, America First
second administration.
You know, a lot of allies
of the United States
around the world are allies
because they have shared interests
but also because they perceive
that they have shared values.
And those values include commitment
to democracy and rule of law
and the promotion of democracy
and rule of law around the world.
Commitment to a multilateral architecture
where norms and values
are largely agreed to.
Collective security among allies
and to the extent possible globally.
Free trade and market access
through multilateral agreements
that become more committed
and higher standard over time.
I think that what we have just seen
with this election
is that the American people
do not actually accept those values,
and that the American president-elect
does not accept those values.
So US allies around the world
have to recognize that they still may have
a lot of shared interests
with the United States,
but they no longer have
those shared values.
Biden, to the extent that he had
a core global principle,
it was really about autocracies
versus democracies,
the bad guys versus the good guys.
Trump completely rejects that.
Trump's view is,
"I don't care what kind of a political
system you have internally.
I want to know, can I do a deal with you?
And if you're Putin or Kim Jong Un,
or if you're Trudeau or Claudia Sheinbaum,
if I can do a deal with you,
I will do a deal with you.
And by the way, I'm going
to do that deal unilaterally,
where I have a lot more power.
I'm not going to do it
in a multilateral setting
where a bunch of you think
you can gang up on me
and force me into constraints."
So I think that we're in an environment
where our challenges
are increasingly global,
where our ability as human beings
to affect the world that we live in
are increasingly systemic and structural.
And yet the availability of global
leadership is not only absent,
but is decisively rejected
by the American people
that have most upheld it
over the past decades,
for good and for bad,
and by its president-elect.
So that’s probably the thing
that I am most concerned about
and that I think will cause
the greatest uncertainty,
volatility and danger in the coming years.
HW: Ian, it is always
a pleasure talking to you.
Sobering but fascinating.
Thank you so much for your time
and we will speak again soon, I'm sure.
IB: My pleasure, Helen.