Transcript: Chris Cuomo Interviews Ian Bremmer

I think you’re just entering.

[IAN BREMMER:] You say that for kind of a bad reason, right? Which is that the information environment is so falling apart.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] Yes.

[IAN BREMMER:] For people in this country. Yes.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] But there’s a reciprocal, right? There’s a reciprocal need. So people are looking for good faith actors. And there’s so few people that they can look at and say, so what is Ian selling? Where is he coming from? You know, he doesn’t seem to bash one of these sides enough for me to know his type.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] And I’m happy. I’m happy.

[IAN BREMMER:] Well, you don’t belong enough to understand that. Like I mean, I’ll get it wrong plenty, but I am a good faith. I’m telling you what I actually think.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] And so when you look at where we are, one, is it remarkable? Do you believe historically we’re in a special place?

[IAN BREMMER:] Oh, yeah.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] Just because of Trump?

[IAN BREMMER:] No, no, no. Trump is the principal symptom and beneficiary of a breakdown in how people think about the U.S. political system.

But I mean, much more broadly, this is a unique global moment because the United States is now undoing its own global order. It’s saying the things that the Americans historically built up and believe in, like collective security and alliances, like global free trade and globalization, like rule of law, like the promotion of democracy. All of those things we think have either been corrupted or don’t work for us or we’re spending too much. Other people are free riding, whatever the constellation of reasons, we’re done with it. And we’re now unwinding that order. That is utterly unique.

That has never happened in our lives before. And it’s going to create enormous chaos all around the world.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] The basic assumption is less involvement, more resources at home, less exposure, better for America.

The Appeal of Disruption

[IAN BREMMER:] Absolutely. You know that what we’ve been spending all of this and our corporations have gotten super rich. But what about the average American? And, you know, this goes back to you look at the people that voted in November and they voted on issues.

They voted on immigration and abortion and inflation. And some of them even voted on Gaza. Very few of them voted on democracy as their top issue. But of those that said democracy matters, most of those people voted for Trump. And the reason they voted for Trump is not because they all thought he was such a paragon of American virtue, but because they thought that over the course of decades, the U.S. political system had been captured by special interests, by big money, Democrat and Republican, and that it wasn’t helping them. So they wanted someone who was going to disrupt that system.

And Trump was the great disruptor that was available on the stage.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] So what’s the answer for you? What’s so bad? What’s so bad about what he wants to do?

[IAN BREMMER:] Well, there is a core of truth, as you know, Chris, in so much of what he says. There’s a core of truth. It’s very rare that Trump makes a big statement and it’s 100% wrong.

My problem is that when you take a chainsaw to things that you have built up over a long period of time, like NATO, and take a chainsaw to the support that you’ve given Ukraine for three years, take a chainsaw to USAID, and you shut down 87% of it, that will have significant, long-term, unintended consequences, which will hurt us, won’t just hurt the world.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] Level of confidence in that?

[IAN BREMMER:] Very high, very high.

And by the way, it won’t just hurt us. It’s also going to hurt lots of other people around the world who I actually care about as a fellow human being. I understand that we should care more about Americans than people that aren’t American, but I also feel like being American is kind of a roll of the dice, kind of random chance that you and I are so lucky that we happen to be Americans.

And I feel like, at least for those of us that are in a position of power, that we have some obligation to do things for more than just Americans. But I wouldn’t make this argument with you on this show if it were only about helping people outside this country. I think that we are doing things that will damage us long-term.

Damaging International Relationships

[CHRIS CUOMO:] Like?

[IAN BREMMER:] Well, I mean, so many examples. Trump just made these latest announcements on the new tariffs we’re going to hit the Canadians in the face with. Our closest friends, the most integrated economy with us globally, and we are making them into an adversary.

Canadians don’t trust us the way they used to. They’re angry with us, and we are undermining our own ability to conduct normal business with, to attract them as tourists, to engage with them in education. All of these things that long-term, I think it is good for us to have friends that we don’t have to worry so much about.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] Agreed. So the counter is, you know, Ian, you, Cuomo, you’re soft. And you’re-

[IAN BREMMER:] No, you’re smarter than I am. You’re not softer.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] I might not be softer in the head, but you know.

[IAN BREMMER:] The head, very strong, very strong.

The Counter Argument

[CHRIS CUOMO:] So they say, you know, you guys, you care, you just care about us more. Canada gets it. Carney, he’s a banker. These are tactics. You guys are wringing your hands about tariffs. One, they really haven’t been put in place yet. They’re not going to be long-term. This is just how Trump gets into the table. You may not like it, but he won the election and making his words reality is a mistake.

And it’s a gratuitous mistake because you know, he doesn’t mean it that way. It’s not Bill Clinton saying he’s going to put tariffs. It’s a guy who uses hyperbole the way, you know, you use oxygen. So don’t worry so much. That’s the counter. I get it from all of his people.

[IAN BREMMER:] It’s a useful counter. It applied in a much greater way in his first term, where he was surrounded by people that he needed, who were sensible adults and who were willing and capable of pushing back on him, giving him good information that sometimes he didn’t want to hear and adapting his strategy over time. That is not true this time around.

He’s 78. So he’s a lot older. He was shot in the head a few months ago. That affects you, right? I mean, when someone tries to assassinate you and it’s this close, changes your view. So he thinks he has very little time. He has to get things done fast and he’s much more powerful.

He’s surrounded by people, some of whom are very capable, some of whom should never be in cabinet, but they all are yes men and women. They’re all like, you are right about everything, sir. They’re not willing to push back.

And it’s not just cabinet. We see this with CEOs around him now. We see this with a whole bunch of even global leaders, many of whom are scared to push back because they recognize that they don’t want to get hit in the face by the most powerful man in the world right now.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] Right. And he is that. He is that.

[IAN BREMMER:] Oh, yeah. All day. All day.

Predatory vs. Transactional

[IAN BREMMER:] And so I think that for those that are saying, don’t worry, he’s actually not going to be that disruptive. He’s really transactional. I think he was transactional in his first term.

I think this time around, domestically, he’s not transactional. He’s revolutionary. He’s actually really trying to fundamentally change how business gets done in this country and in our political system.

And internationally, he’s not transactional. He’s predatory, where he’s stronger than other folks, because it’s not about a win-win for everybody. It’s about I’m making the rules and you’re going to either accept those rules or I’m going to punch you in the face.

And you can ask the Canadians, the Mexicans, the Panamanians. You can ask the Danes. You can ask the Germans. Ask them if they believe that Trump is transactional or is he a predator. And they’ll say, oh, no, we know what he is right now.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] Why do you think he doesn’t go after big dogs, strong guys, people who can also punch in the face?

[IAN BREMMER:] For that reason, I think he would like to avoid getting punched in the face. That’s not a stupid guy. Right. I mean, I think he’s much so, for example, on Europe, when you talk about trade, which they have in their core competency and they coordinate as the EU, as a bloc, which is comparable size of the U.S. and we know they can regulate the hell out of things and they got a lot of red tape.

And he’s much more careful with them on trade collectively than he is with the Canadians or the Mexicans. Why? Because it’s very easy for him to take a sledgehammer to the Canadians and the Mexicans. So it is a straight bully play. It’s a straight power play. I mean, call it what you want. But I mean, and it frequently works, by the way.

I mean, he’s gotten to where he is. Right. I mean, not only a billionaire, not only president once, but also the greatest comeback story in the history of American politics, Donald Trump. How many people have written this guy off?

The Systemic Failures That Enabled Trump

[CHRIS CUOMO:] Me. I must have said it a dozen times that you can’t overcome this. Now, I think that that’s what he has going for him most, which is this is the fault of everyone else. Our political system, there has been such a miasma of bullshit and inaction and incrementalism that this is what you get when you have a political system that is inherently corrupted by money. And was well before Trump became president.

[IAN BREMMER:] True.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] And an inside game. And a lot of things don’t get worked on and everything is talk and they’re all kind of on the take one way or another. And there is a chasm between Main Street and Wall Street.

This is what you get is a guy who comes from Wall Street metaphorically and is an elite. Knows the establishment and hates it as much as everybody else who’s not part of it does. This is what you get. It’s not his fault.

[IAN BREMMER:] But isn’t the only thing you get? I mean, you also get Bernie Sanders, right, who is like fundamentally not a corrupt human being, way too old to be president, but nonetheless was someone that, in my view, was much more standing up for the average person, for Joe Worker. But it wasn’t the look they wanted.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] I know. Not the orange face. But the thing that we know about Trump.

[IAN BREMMER:] Doesn’t believe in God, doesn’t believe in capital.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] But the thing that we know, Trump believes in God, who knows? But I mean.

[IAN BREMMER:] He’s got a very tight relationship with God.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] I understand. I understand. Believe me, it’s his favorite book.

[IAN BREMMER:] I mean, even more than Art of the Deal. He loves it. Loves all the stories.

The Problem of Kleptocracy

[IAN BREMMER:] But I mean, we know that if there’s one thing that is really true of Trump, it’s that you can pay him with money. He will do what you want if you give him cash, which is not something that, frankly, the average American can or will benefit from.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] Right.

[IAN BREMMER:] That’s the real problem is that the level of kleptocracy, which is already at staggering levels in the United States, has just become greater. If you really want to understand the majority of Trump’s moves in policy, you should figure out, OK, who are the folks that have managed to get him a bunch of money and what do they want? And that’s why he’s doing it.

That’s why the crypto industry is doing so incredibly well right now, because that was the sector that gave everything to Trump. And so he’s going to give them what he wants. And this is not helping the average American, like not at all.

If you really believed, I mean, he’s great on circuses. Right. Don’t get me wrong. He’s incredibly entertaining. He’s funny. And he drives a lot of people insane. And he makes you if you’re someone that wants to see a whole bunch of people that you disagree with politically lose their collective shit, then Trump is your guy.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] See, that’s… I get that. But see, but that’s a lot.

[IAN BREMMER:] You say it’s a lot, but you asked me, the question you asked me wasn’t that. The question you asked me is whether I think this is good for America long term.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] Right.

[IAN BREMMER:] And the answer is no, because I don’t think the average American is well served by this. As someone who grew up in the projects.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] Right.

Trump’s Return and Global Power Dynamics

[CHRIS CUOMO:] Right. I just see these people getting constantly disrespected and ignored. And people that come in, you know, that have a circus show, when the circus leaves town, what’s left? I’m with you. And it’s my concern also. I have no idea how to address it, how to bridge it, how to fix it. Any metaphor you want to use, I don’t know what to do about it. But I share the concern because I share the interest.

[IAN BREMMER:] Well, what you do about it is you don’t turn the knob to 11 on every perceived slight. What you do about it is when there is something that is truly going to damage the country, that’s when you actually train your fire.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] Says you’re a red pilled apologist. That’s when you train your fire. I don’t care what the left says. You and I are big boys. I know. Well, listen, I signed up for this, but I’m saying it’s hard not having a team in a team-based media business, which is what we’re in right now.

Understanding Trump’s Appeal

[CHRIS CUOMO:] So the movie Snatch, there’s a great line that really was the moment that I realized, this is what Trump is. He is going to win. And I had him winning against Hillary early. I won a lot of money on that election, $1 bets. But I had just gone to like covered four or five of the rallies.

In Snatch – and I didn’t, by the way. Last one, I definitely thought he was going to win. First one, I didn’t think. The rallies, the disconnect of, because we kept saying, ah, 20,000 people, 30,000 people, 50,000 people, 60,000 people, whatever. We’re talking about tens of millions. But he connected. But they were the same everywhere in the country. They were all saying the same things.

The guy says in Snatch, “Do you know what nemesis means?” And he comes up with the definition of a righteous infliction of retribution manifested by the appropriate agent. That’s Trump.

If you’re mad at the system, if you feel that they don’t give a damn because they don’t respect you because you’re not part of what they need, he will make them pay. He will punish them. He is not a cure. He is a virus to the political corpus to make it sick and vomit and get febrile. And hopefully when it comes out of it, its new state of health will be more fair to people. Because it will now fear them because they will have whooped its ass. That’s what people are banking on.

[IAN BREMMER:] That’s what, yeah, I get that they’re banking on it, but they’re okay with that not happening as long as there’s a lot of pain and damage done to their enemies.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] Yes.

America vs. China on the Global Stage

[IAN BREMMER:] And that, of course, is the problem because I would bet on the pain and damage, but I would bet against what happens as we come out of it. What happens is that the Chinese are in a far better system. They’re in a far better position.

And why would we want that? They’re our principal adversary. They run a system that as bad as the American system, as hypocritical as the American system, as challenging and kleptocratic as the American system, the Chinese system is worse. And we don’t want a world where their lack of accountability, their complete lack of transparency, their surveillance state actually has far more influence all over the world.

That is precisely what Trump is setting up to do for them over the long term. That’s precisely what he’s doing. Why? Well, because the United States, think about the billions of people around the world, they have Belt and Road. They understand that soft power matters. They understand that economic investments matter. And the United States takes all those countries and hits them in the mouth.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] So what Ian is describing right now is an important point that I only know observationally. Every time you go to a major crisis around the world, the Chinese are there building something. I kid you not, whether it’s, and I don’t say this, I don’t say this so that you think bad things about the Chinese. It’s not my point. To me, it’s all about advantage. I’d rather have it being built than nothing being built. Like when it was the tsunamis, like people are still pulling people, the earth moving machines, all Chinese. 20 years ago, by the way, that wasn’t true.

[IAN BREMMER:] Yes. They learned that because they recognized that just having their power wasn’t enough, that we actually got a lot by having our place in these international organizations. So we’re going to pull out of the UN. You saw Elon. So we’re going to pull out of the UN. You know who becomes the most important? China. Immediately. All day long. All the appointments, them. They’re the ones coming out saying we’re multilateralist.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] Absolutely.

[IAN BREMMER:] We love these organizations. Climate change, transition energy. We’ve got people saying there’s no climate change. We’re pulling out of Paris Climate Accord. You know who’s going to drive all of that? You know who has the best technology at scale for post-carbon energy? China. Who’s going to be aligning with them? Everybody. Why would we want that?

[CHRIS CUOMO:] We can’t. Why would we give that to them? I understand Trump’s 78. He’s not thinking about what’s going to happen in 10 years, but you and I are, we’re still going to be around. And why do we have to pick up the trash globally for someone that doesn’t care about where our country is going to be in five or 10 years? That bothers me. I’m a patriot. I don’t like seeing that.

America First vs. Global Leadership

[CHRIS CUOMO:] Why isn’t this a first step towards getting our shit together and making us a more formidable adversary against China because we’re stronger at home?

[IAN BREMMER:] It should be if you don’t, at the same time, destroy everything that is important that you’ve built around the world. You can’t only focus on the United States when China’s focusing on everything else. Doesn’t make any sense.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] Why isn’t it excused as just temporary, shaking everybody up, letting them know they’ve been on the tit for too long and he’s going to reset everything. This is just how he does it. He doesn’t play the game. He messes with everybody’s head, but he’s not going to shed our allies. He’s just going to make them earn it.

[IAN BREMMER:] Well, again, so look at USAID, right? And we spend, the Americans spend 40% of the world’s humanitarian aid comes from the United States. They have shut down 87% of it. And I will tell you, Chris, there were absolutely programs that should be shut down. There was stupid stuff that 99% of the taxpayers would say, why the hell is my money going for that? But there was also combating malaria. There was also fighting AIDS. There was also dealing with children hunger. And in all of those countries, we are out and people are dying because of us. And it’s completely unnecessary, unless you’re saying the cruelty is the point. And I don’t even think that.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] Well, they’re keeping the 13%. Let other people pay more. They will let these countries come back to us and ask for it the right way and give us something in exchange.

[IAN BREMMER:] We get all sorts of things in exchange. We have better relations with these countries because we’re on the ground. We have political influence.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] Give us the minerals, give us the oil, give us something because that’s the, although I got to say, the mineral rights deal with Ukraine is smart because it’s going to put a corporate footprint in places that Russia now can’t bomb. Because if you bomb and you hit DuPont, you’ve got a real problem.

[IAN BREMMER:] You tell me how many years before a single dollar and a single actual investment goes in. I mean, it sounds like you’re getting something better. Yeah, of course. I can understand that that is what the marketing is going to be. And Trump is a great marketing guy. He’ll make this sound great. Just like he makes the Riviera out of Gaza sound great. It’s never going to happen.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] Well, that’s not going to happen, but the mineral deal will happen. You’re saying it doesn’t happen anytime soon.

[IAN BREMMER:] I’m saying that the mineral deal will, over the course of a Trump presidency, there will be no money invested in minerals on the ground in Ukraine. I would make that very strong bet. I think that is all smoke and mirrors.

The Ukraine Paradigm Shift

[CHRIS CUOMO:] So how do you see what Tucker and I were chewing on about this, to me, 180 degree turn in what Ukraine is through the lens of America’s interests?

[IAN BREMMER:] Well, first of all, I want to thank you, Chris, for your service, for chatting with Tucker so that I don’t have to. I think that’s very important.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] You should. It’d be hard for you because, you know, I’m much more of a mouth breather. So, you know, he and I, you know, there’s a different level of it. You’re so sophisticated, although, you know what, Ian hints to it every once in a while. There’s a lot of street in Ian’s background. I know you get overwhelmed by the architecture and the decorative hose, but there he is. That’s H-O-S-E, by the way, just want to be very clear, Chris.

[IAN BREMMER:] He is the American dream. He is somebody who showed that this system can work and create greatness if you have it inside of you and the desire to work it, which is why I’ve always been such a fan. And I can now be myself. And it turns out this is me.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] Yeah, there’s zero artifice. There’s no artifice. Ian must have had a hard time in the hood, but I’m telling you, he got out.

[IAN BREMMER:] That’s absolutely. I needed to get out because I was going to get my ass kicked. That’s very clear.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] So the Ukraine paradigm shift, I’m probably oversimplifying, but I really believe it came down to that phone call.

[IAN BREMMER:] That’s right. Trump was in there.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] The perfect phone call, absolutely perfect phone call. So he hated Zelensky because of that. So then he leaves and America, I get fired. America falls in love with Ukraine as the new Americans who are fighting the oppressor in Russia, the way we did with England. Everybody’s got a blue and yellow on. I become so dislocated and so discomfited by what’s happening. I actually go to Ukraine on my own dime just to, because it was the first conflict.

[IAN BREMMER:] I remember that.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] Since 2000. And I get it when I’m there. Like, wow, these people are really coming together. Like they’re willing to put it all on the line to be free.

[IAN BREMMER:] Yeah, they are really good. And they have a cultural connection to these guys and they still, they will fight to the death for this. This is very brave. And now Tucker Carlson is one of a host of influential people, including our president who look at Ukraine and see Russia.

[IAN BREMMER:] Well, so I understand, first of all, the United States has spent about $115 billion. On American firms and contractors. So it’s, you know, Americans are benefiting from it, but it’s the military industrial complex. The fact that that money could have been spent on other things. Instead, it was spent on defending Ukraine, which is far away. And the Europeans have spent about 130 billion, 135 billion, which is like roughly parity. They’re slightly larger population. Shouldn’t they be spending a lot more given that it’s right there in U.S.?

[CHRIS CUOMO:] Yes.

[IAN BREMMER:] So that’s number one. Number two, over the course of the last two years, the lines of the front in fighting have virtually not changed. And like a lot of people are dying. We’ve gone through Afghanistan for 20 years. We recognize like we spent trillions and so many people died senselessly. Why don’t we stop this? Right. I mean, you don’t need to say that Zelensky is a dictator and he’s not.

Trump’s Approach to Ukraine and NATO

[CHRIS CUOMO:] You don’t need that argument to say we should put some pressure, real pressure on ending the war. And yes, ending the war means Ukraine is not going to get all their land back. Not because we think it’s right, but because there isn’t a plausible way to get Russia off of that.

Now, the problem is not that reality. You and I can have that conversation. And by the way, we can have a conversation with Mike Waltz and Marco Rubio.

That would be a smart conversation. The problem is that when you go from there to acting by yourself, not with your allies, because NATO is more important than Ukraine. And one thing I give Biden credit on, he didn’t end the war, didn’t push to end the war, but he did keep the allies together with the United States in lockstep.

We didn’t do stuff away from them. Trump calls Putin for 90 minutes. Allies don’t even know he’s doing it.

Trump gets Ukraine in a room, right? He beats him up, calls him a dictator. Europeans are spending just as much money. What the hell’s happened to the alliance? So why wouldn’t we want to do this with our friends? If you want to end the war, let’s end it together.

And we have more influence. We can do that. We can get our friends in a room privately and say, we’re going to end this war.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] Why do you think he’s doing it that way? Because he promised to in the campaign. He doesn’t understand their need for them, or he believes they want to keep it going.

[IAN BREMMER:] Number one, he doesn’t care.

I think he thinks the allies are expendable. It’s exactly what he did when he pulled the troops out of Afghanistan. You had allies of the United States that were fighting shoulder to shoulder with Americans for 20 years.

And Trump ends the war, pulls out the troops, right? He doesn’t deal with the Taliban. He doesn’t engage the Afghan government that were our partners on the ground. And he doesn’t even talk to the Europeans or the Gulfies or the rest that had sent those troops to fight with us.

Now, the stakes are a lot higher for Ukraine because that’s in Europe, but it’s the same playbook. It’s not like he hasn’t done this before. He doesn’t care about allies.

He’s bigger. He’s more powerful. He doesn’t need to talk to you.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] He also gets the cover of it being someone else’s mess. Afghanistan, Biden all day. Botched, terrible.

He had to fix it. He had to save it. Ukraine, Biden, let it go on too long.

Tucker has this line that I’ve heard from a lot of these guys. Russia won. Russia beat us.

We couldn’t beat Russia. And it’s a really interesting flip of the reality. And I had to remind him in the interview, although I didn’t really have to, he knows this, we all thought Russia was going to blow through in about 72 hours.

In like three days. And he does not see it that way. He sees it, and Trump does also.

Even his own kids, I’m telling you, they believe this. Russia can end up like that. They’re not because they’re just trying to let us know that NATO can’t expand.

And they’re not using any of their real military that they could, or their citizenry. They’re using the prisoners because they don’t really want them to have to sacrifice for them. They have had over 850,000 casualties in this war.

The Russians have. And it is absolutely, they’ve had to orient 40% of their GDP towards destructive, non-productive assets in a war that just get chewed up and wasted. So this is horrible for them, but they believe that they can outlast the Americans and the Europeans.

And you know what? They’re right. They’re right. Right now.

European Response to Ukraine

[CHRIS CUOMO:] I mean, because it seems that we want out. Now, my understanding is that Europe won’t continue it without us. That if he doesn’t cut a deal, but the deal is, look, I’m getting out.

So that they will continue it with us, without us. Do you believe that?

[IAN BREMMER:] I think that’s probably right.

They, the problem is that who’s they? My mother would also say, who’s they? You got a rat in your pocket? And, you know, there are lots of people in Europe that will continue to stick with the Europeans no matter what the Balts, the Nordics, the Poles. Right. And I mean, because this is, this is all in for them.

The Poles are now saying we need nukes. Poles are like already spending, they’re moving to 5% of GDP defense spend. That’s a lot more than the U.S. spends.

Right. And Poland’s a real country. It’s a real economy.

And they’ve taken, I mean, millions of Ukrainians. He’s an impressive leader, that guy. I’ve gotten, I got to watch him a little bit up close and they really have borne the brunt of this.

They brought all those people in there. People weren’t happy. The Polish economy is not killing it.

The farmers don’t like it because, I mean, you know, Ukraine’s needs to be able to like get exports out, that kind of thing. It’s a huge problem. So he stepped up.

So that’s why it’s hard to say, I don’t want to say the Europeans won’t without reflecting the fact that there are people, there are countries in Europe that feel like this is existential for them. They really do. But the Europeans as a whole, I think are not going to send meaningful numbers of troops on the ground to act as a backstop unless the Americans are there.

I think that’s true. Having said that, the Europeans in that environment will spend vastly more on their own defense in order to be independent from the United States.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] So explain the downside to that, because where we are now with it is, to your point about core of truth.

Sounds good. You know, they have really been riding on us for a while. Like we have to be the muscle in every situation.

Why don’t they build it up? You know, the Germans, the French, you know, all these other guys, why don’t they build up their armies? Let them go in there and let us be the money for a change. Let us be the ancillary support, especially when it’s incontinent for them. What’s wrong with that?

The Value of the Transatlantic Alliance

[IAN BREMMER:] Well, first of all, I would argue that Trump and Biden and Putin have all been successful in getting the Europeans to ramp up their defense spend without throwing the alliance under the bus over the last 10 years.

That’s been meaningful. Trump pushed on this in his first term and he had some success. Putin then invaded and that got them to do a lot more.

And that was successful, right? That’s different from doing so much that you break the relationship. Now, I understand that sounds like a nuanced sort of argument, but there’s a big difference between spending more and working together and urgency, doing everything you can because you recognize you can’t rely on the Americans anymore and breaking it. What do we get from coordinating with the Europeans, even if they’re comparatively weak? Well, when we want a joint policy on something like when the one time that we actually used Article 5 in NATO collective security, when we were attacked in 9-11, who came with us? Everyone did.

Everyone did. They won’t do that again. Does that matter to us? I think it should.

Secondly, when we have issues because the Americans are technologically dominant, the Chinese are technologically dominant, no one else is, we go to the Europeans first and foremost. And we said, we want you to coordinate with us on our semiconductor policy. And the Dutch stand up immediately and they’ve got world-class capability.

So yeah, we’re going to work with the United States. Are they going to do that next time? I’m not so sure they are. So you’re not going to get the coordination from the world’s largest common market.

They will see us as adversaries, not friends.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] And when Trump says, you know, the media paints it one way, but you know, all these people love me. They’re my friends.

These European countries, you know, I know all the leaders, they’re my friends. We worked just fine. Do you buy that?

[IAN BREMMER:] 1%.

Not even 1%. No. I mean, of course, there are people in Europe that there are absolutely people around the world that are supportive of Trump.

And I really do believe that there is a populist upswell. Yeah. We were like five years behind here, right? There was populist to the right movements through Europe and Eastern Europe five years before.

But again, and understandably so. And I get why Brexit happened, even though I think it was economically really damaging for the UK. I get why you’ve had this, you know, sort of resurgence of that sort of Euro skeptic sentiment.

But on the back of the pandemic, people realized they actually needed Europe on the back of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. They recognized they need Europe on the back of Trump. People recognize they need Europe.

And so I think he’s wrong that you’re going to suddenly have in five years time a whole bunch of people that want to break Europe apart and that making Europe great again with populism will not be. We all want to follow Trump. It won’t be a bunch of Victor Orban’s.

Georgia Maloney, for all of her friendship with Trump and Elon Musk, is first and foremost pro-EU. And she’s trying to act as a bridge with the Americans so that they don’t get really undermined and fragmented. But she has been very, very strong.

Her policy on Russia, Ukraine completely aligned with EU. Her economic policies completely aligned with EU, even though on migration, she’s with Trump. But frankly, everyone in Europe is with Trump because there it hit Europe before it hit the United States.

Remember Angela Merkel, right? I mean, she got it wrong. She’s like, no, we’ll let in all these Syrians. And everyone said, no, we won’t.

We don’t want those people here. We’re not ready to integrate those people. That led to a much earlier sense of populism than we had in the United States driving those policies.

Trump’s Impact on US-European Relations

So it’s complicated. But the point is that the most important alliance in the world of countries that in principle trusted each other or aligned with each other did, you know, built that trust into something that was greater than just the relationship on security, on the economy, on peace and stability around the world has been the transatlantic relationship. And I know I’ve never seen any level of damage close to what Trump has managed in his first 50 days.

Damage, not just change. Damage. I think that this is now, I think the single thing he has accomplished on the global stage in his first 50 days that really matters, that’s permanent, has been helping destroy the US European relationship.

That’s been his signature accomplishment of his first 50 days. He’s done other things. He’s gotten a ceasefire in Gaza, Hezbollah, Lebanon, right? He started a trade war with the Canadians and the Mexicans, which will probably lead both of them to ultimately do a whole bunch of things the Americans want.

Much easier with Mexico, much harder with Canada because they’re in an electoral cycle. Easier with Mexico because she’s getting 85% approval ratings, the president. But the really impactful thing that he’s done on the global stage in the first 50 days has been against Europe.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] And you see no value in the counter that, well, he’s disrupted it. He hasn’t destroyed it. They’re more responsive to us now.

They know they have to give more. They have to pull their weight. These are positive changes.

[IAN BREMMER:] Permanent damage. Permanent damage. So you got to understand that the Europeans are getting hit by Trump in three different ways at the same time.

First is the trade stuff. And they know that. They’ve dealt with it before.

Not surprising. And they’re strong and competent on trade. They can handle themselves.

But that’s one issue. Secondly is on Ukraine. And Trump not just saying, I want to end the war, saying he wants to end the war, according to the Europeans, they would get that.

Trump saying, I want to build a relationship with your principal enemy, and I’m going to do it without talking with you. Right? That that was fundamental to undermining how the Europeans think about the U.S. And then third is Trump and Elon and Vance actually saying that you aren’t democracies, that you’re our principal national security problem because you refuse to work with these anti-Europeans, particularly in Germany, the AFD, who the Germans see as a neo-Nazi party. So, I mean, just core, core to their identity for rule of law and for democracy.

And instead, the Trump folks saying you guys are a bunch of woke libtards and that we’re not going to tolerate that. So again, it is true that America now is run by a leadership that actually has some fundamentally different values than a lot of Europeans leaders do. But the reality is those three things together at the same time have convinced the Europeans that they cannot rely on the United States.

Trump’s Relationship with Russia and Putin

[CHRIS CUOMO:] What do you think motivates Trump’s disposition towards Russia and Putin?

[IAN BREMMER:] Well, I think there are a few things. One is that I don’t think Putin disrespects Trump in a way that European leaders do. I remember when Trump went to the first G20 back in 2017 when he was first president, and you’ve got all these well-educated elite Europeans that don’t respect Trump, that snigger about him when he’s not around, and sometimes even within earshot. And he gets the intelligence. He knows what they actually think.

And Trump takes that very personally. And Putin treats Trump the way MBS does from Saudi Arabia, treats him just like a normal guy. So number one, I think Trump has a level of affinity with someone who he believes treats him with a level of actual respect.

Secondly, I think that Trump sees Russia as willing to play ball with him commercially in the way that the Saudis do, in a way the Europeans won’t. The Saudis have done all sorts of business with Trump family and other priorities that are interesting. They are super transactional in ways that—I mean, corruption is not a thing. It’s that the family owns Saudi Arabia. It’s an extended family. So they’re more than willing.

Putin, same thing. So I think that there will be significant—I think the cash register will be open for Trump et al if a deal with Russia is done. And how transparent will we be? How much will we find out? I have no idea. But I suspect that that plays into this.

And then thirdly is the fact that Trump sees himself as a dealmaker. He doesn’t like Ukraine for reasons that you and I have already spoken about. And Putin has reasons to want to do a broader rapprochement with the United States.

He hates—there’s an alignment between Trump and Putin on Europe. The biggest difference between Trump and previous American presidents is that Trump thinks that a strong EU is bad for the United States. I happen to think a strong EU is good for the US. In a fragmented world, I think having large countries that are powerful that are basically aligned with rule of law is good. Trump thinks, no, no, no.

I don’t care if you’re aligned with rule of law. I want a whole bunch of weak countries around there that I can deal with individually so I can beat on them and get what I want. It’s a very Chinese approach to rule of the jungle approach to global affairs.

So Trump wants a weaker, more fragmented EU. When Trump used to meet with Macron, he’d always say, when are you doing Brexit? Always do that, right? He liked Brexit. Thought Brexit was a good thing. He wants France to do a Frexit. He wants all of them to fall apart. Well, by the way, Putin loves that.

Putin doesn’t want a strong Europe. Putin wants Europe to fall apart, right? Who’s Putin’s best friend in Europe? Orban. Who’s Trump’s best friend in Europe? Orban, right? So some different reasons behind it, right? Because, I mean, for Putin, it’s actually my backyard and I want to be able to control more of it.

For Trump, it’s just these guys are competitive with me and I don’t want them to be competitive. But either way, there’s real alignment. So I think that there are actually a number of reasons. I wouldn’t call them good reasons if you think about U.S. strategic influence on the global stage long term. But I understand why Trump feels that way, why Trump would want to spend a lot of time with and do a deal with Putin.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] Being unburdened by principle is an interesting X factor here.

[IAN BREMMER:] It really is. Trump doesn’t care if Putin’s a bad guy. Absolutely not.

And that’s unusual for us, because really, we’ve been, our leaders have been overweighted on that one consideration, right?

[CHRIS CUOMO:] I now have—you know, it’s not my theory, but reading more and more about the Cold War, I feel we got duped. I feel that it was a way to build up the military-industrial complex. Sure, they have nukes, but not really tactical nukes. And they were never going to be formidable against us. And it was just a way for us to build up against them and create 50 years of stupidity that were unnecessary.

[IAN BREMMER:] The CIA estimates of Soviet strength were massively overweight. I remember when Sam Nunn and Dick Lugar were cleaning up the nukes and they contacted somebody at ABC and they wound up sending me to outer Siberia, which may have been just the goal all along, to go to this place called Shucha and to survey the nukes that they were collecting.

And I remember showing up there and this was in, I don’t know when it was, late nineties or early 2000, something like that. And they’re keeping them in a barn that has a wax seal on the door. And I noticed that the soldiers had mix-matched uniforms and very few of them were armed.

And I was talking to the guys, I was like, is this because we’re in outer Siberia and who’s coming here? And he’s like, no, they sell their weapons because the economy is so bad. They haven’t gotten paid. And the uniforms were ragtag. And I remember coming back and being like, this is who we’re afraid of? We’re afraid of these guys?

[CHRIS CUOMO:] How did we not have intel on that?

[IAN BREMMER:] Yeah, they did. It’s about how you use it.

America’s Position in the World Today

[CHRIS CUOMO:] So how do you see what’s happening in our country right now? Where are we? How is this going to be remembered?

[IAN BREMMER:] Well, the U.S. is the strongest economy in the world. That’s still true. I worry that a China that actually isn’t the Soviet Union, their smaller economy than we are, and they’re only middle income, but their ability to actually create world-changing technology is at our level.

So we have a serious competitor now. Very different than the Soviet Union was. And that we need to take more seriously. And that means that we need to invest intelligently in our country and also globally because that’s what they’re doing.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] But do you see any indication? We seem to be criticizing ourselves right now. We seem to be re-evaluating.

I do believe that there’s a mistake, which I may be part of, by the way. I have a new personal practice that I started when I got fired. So it’s like a few years in the making. It’s still in the laboratory phase where let me consider the criticism of me through the lens of it being true. Let’s start that it’s true.

So on an easy level, personally, it’s way stickier, but on a professional level, all right, so I’m part of the problem. I’m part of a media establishment that has stilted narratives and kept information from people to protect the elites, to protect the power structures, to protect the institutions. Okay. That’s what I am.

And looking at it that way, to try to understand the reaction formation that’s going on in the country. When you do that. So what do you see when you look at the lens of what’s happening in this country? Staying within the borders of it. What do you think is happening here? And what do you think it means?

[IAN BREMMER:] I think we’re not unified, right? We increasingly don’t in any way agree on basic truths.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] Because we never did. And now it’s just out in the open.

[IAN BREMMER:] No, no. I think that we actually to a much greater degree did. And I do think that media and algorithms are a big part of that problem. I think that most Americans, when I was growing up, had a general shared sense of a lot of what was happening. Okay, not Vietnam, right? But in terms of like basic, like whether it was a vaccination, right? Or whether it was what the Soviets were all about, or the Iran hostage crisis.

Like we didn’t have vastly different narratives about the headlines. You could read growing up in Chelsea, the Boston Herald, or if you were more educated, the Boston Globe, we got the Herald. My mom got the Inquirer, okay? But the Inquirer was not news. The Inquirer was crazy stuff on the weekends. And the Herald was like, okay, we sort of figured that out. That isn’t true anymore.

And Trump is a unifier, by the way. He really is, just of other countries. He’s unifying populations of other countries together. The Canadians are far more unified today than they were before Trump became president. The Mexicans are far more unified. The Europeans are far more unified.

I don’t like that. I want a president who is not just a winner, but is a leader, a leader of our country. I mean, Trump is a winner. He’s always been a winner for him, right? And for him to be a winner, others have to be losers. And the people that are primarily losers around Trump are people in the United States. They’re principally fellow Americans.

We need better than that. So I understand that we can all look at ourselves and say we’re part of the problem. What can we do better? But ultimately, Trump is my president. He’s your president. And we need our president to be more than a winner who’s looking for losers. And we need to call that out.

Leadership vs. Winning

[IAN BREMMER:] We need leaders. We need leaders. We need our industry, top industry people to be leaders, not winners. And when I look at Elon and Zuck and Bezos, I see winners. And we’re great. We produce the most extraordinary winners in the world.

But that means that we have a society that also feels incredibly polarized and hard done by and angry constantly. And these algorithms are making money off us because of that. And that’s not good. We got to stop that. I don’t know how to stop it. I devote my life to stopping it. I devote my life to engaging with people.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] I know. You’re good. That section 230, I don’t know what to do about it. Citizens United, got to get rid of it.

[IAN BREMMER:] Well, Citizens United, good luck with that.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] I know, but I’m saying we know what the problems are. We know what the problems are.

[IAN BREMMER:] But we had the problem before Citizens United also.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] But this PAC money now, it’s gotten worse. It’s so crazy. But I don’t know how you do that. I mean, that’s easy. It’s just a different case. But section 230, I don’t know what to do about it. They’re not publishers. I get that. They’re not News Nation. They’re not the Wall Street Journal. But the idea that they have no responsibility for what happens on their sites. It’s crazy.

When they are obviously able to manipulate and understand where to put their ads. And Elon, I don’t know this, but my heavy suspicion is that he absolutely knows how to weight narratives. Because when I talk in a way that he would like, I get one level of reach. And when it’s not what he would like, it’s a different level of reach.

[IAN BREMMER:] You and I experience exactly the same thing. So maybe it’s a coincidence.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] I don’t think so. I don’t think it’s a coincidence. But there are two things that I can’t figure out that I’d love your take on.

One is, I believe that the pod people are the ones spreading the division, making money off of the division, not doing any real reporting, getting information wrong for profit, and making people angry with no end point other than their own growth of the following. And they’re blaming what they call legacy media, mainstream media, establishment media, whatever you want. It’s meant as an insult for something they’re actually doing. But maybe the media was doing it first and maybe the media deserves it. I don’t know. But that bothers me.

The Real Fight: Corporate Responsibility

[CHRIS CUOMO:] The other thing is, the real fight is against the corporations, not to destroy them. Capitalism is the way for America. That is it. Capitalism is great. But we have reached a situation now where Walmart gets to make its money, distribute it to its shareholders, and we are subsidizing their workers because of how dependent they are on food stamps and social programs because they’re not paid enough.

That has to change. That’s the fight. I wish there was a Trump for that fight. I wish Trump had done that. I thought in 2016 that was his fight. People understand what these problems are. They understand. They understand that corporations should not be able to write their own regs. Capitalism is great. Great.

And the reason it’s great is because you have companies that are competing against each other. They can win. They can fail. And in an environment where the regulations are actually independent of them, they’re not written by them. They’re not captured by them.

And by the way, capitalism means that you can fail. Capitalism means you need to pay when you are creating costs. You’re not just capitalists with your profits. You’re capitalists with your losses. So if you pump carbon in the atmosphere and there’s a cost to that, or if you take water for free and it belongs to the taxpayers, there’s a cost to that, you know, those costs need to be on your books. That’s what capitalism is.

We don’t have that. What we have are capitalists with profits and suddenly they become socialists when there are losses.

[IAN BREMMER:] Yes.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] Right. That’s not capitalism. So, and people are angry about that.

The Disconnect Between Trump and Corporate America

[CHRIS CUOMO:] That’s what I wanted him to fight. And he’s not fighting that. And Bernie’s answer… He’s not remotely fighting that.

Bernie’s answer was socialism. That doesn’t work. You can’t even use the word.

Even though social security and other entitlement programs are socialistic in their nature and design, you can’t use the word. I agree. Okay.

So you can’t use that word. And the Democrats have made that mistake many times over. But that’s what I hoped he was going to take on, is that you don’t get to have me support your workers while you’re dividing profits.

Look, if Trump wants to get rid of all of these illegal immigrants, which is very, very popular in the United States, let’s make it a serious problem for the corporations that are hiring them. Yes. Let’s actually go in.

Why is 98% of Trump’s invective focused on the people who are doing everything they can to get in because big corporations are very happy to pay them illegally? It seems to me that if you really wanted to solve the problem, you’d go after the driver of the problem. I thought he was going to do that because when you talked about, to the extent that Trump is completely responsive to flattery, those guys think he’s a dope. Nobody attacks Trump more than the corporate class.

[IAN BREMMER:] They think he’s a joke. He’s even more responsive to money than he is to flattery. I guess that’s it.

Turns out, and that’s why he’s such an effective businessman in this environment. Because nobody disrespects him the way those guys do. You talk to guys on Wall Street, they think he’s a joke.

They think he’s a clown. You talk to the tech bros when he’s not around. Musk is different because his personality disorder, his autism makes him a tough read, but they think he’s a joke.

He doesn’t understand. I mean, you know, you’re around those guys all the time. They are intellectual snobs.

They want to be better than one another. They want to be more fit. They want to be smarter.

They want to say that they’re in Mensa. They want to play stupid games that they send to each other to see who solves it faster. They think he’s just a complete zero to them.

And I thought that that would have harnessed his inner drive to bring them to heel. I haven’t seen it. I haven’t seen it.

The Shift in Trump’s Administration

I mean, look, there’s obviously a fight between the globalists around Trump, Elon Plus, the tech bros, and a lot of those that have spent a lot of money to get access, and the original core MAGA types, Steve Bannon et al. And, you know, Bannon said in the first term that he was a damaged vessel. And I think that’s an appropriate way to look at him back in 2017.

2025, when Elon is driving, like, all of these outcomes, then, I mean, you would have to argue that the globalists that are capturing the environment are doing a lot more and they’re having a lot more impact than core MAGA. And in that regard, again, my expectation is what my mother would have always expected. You can’t trust any of these people.

It’s not just you can’t trust the establishment. You can’t trust the people who come in and tell you they’re not the establishment because they become the establishment really quickly and they forget about us. And that’s why a lot of these people don’t vote.

The Crisis of Faith in American Institutions

That’s why a lot of people don’t care. That’s why a lot of people believe a lot of young men. I saw a stat the other day, really bothered me.

42% of young men in the United States believe that it is fully justified to break the law as leader of the United States in order to get the outcomes you want. Because they think you can’t actually, the system is so broken that you can no longer work within it. When you have that number of young men that feel that way, you got a problem.

We created that problem. We are hurting young men in this country in a big way. I am not the most articulate person on that problem, but I see it all the time.

[CHRIS CUOMO:] Well, it’s hard to get more polished on it because every time you say it, you have a significant part of the media culture attack you. You’re lucky if you just get an eye roll and a little baby violin playing that, oh yeah, poor men, they’re just in control of everything. But I got to tell you, as a father of a young man and of two young women, it is way easier to empower the young women than the young man.

He is doing okay, but I see it in him and his friends. They do not see bright futures for themselves. Anyway, Ian Bremmer, you are just value added.

Thank you for helping us understand the world around us. Thank you for the food for thought. Thank you for what you’re doing with your companies.

Thank you for what you’re doing with your social media. And thank you for the gift of your friendship. We’ll do it again soon.

[IAN BREMMER:] Look forward to it. Appreciate it.

Closing Thoughts

[CHRIS CUOMO:] Smart guy, knows smart things, and helps make it understandable to the rest of us.

What do you think of what Ian Bremmer sees about the potential fallout from Trump pushing America within its boundaries, within its borders, and away from its alliances? What do you think about it? I’m Chris Cuomo. Thank you for subscribing. Thank you for following.

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