TRANSCRIPT: Trump’s 2024 Election Win — and What’s Next: Ian Bremmer 

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.

Fiscal Policy and the Economy

HELEN WALTERS: 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?

IAN BREMMER: Well let’s talk about what Americans voted on. They voted on a country whose direction they did not agree with. Over 70% 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 in many ways, because the Morena party and AMLO are still seen as the outsiders against a deep, entrenched power of existing oligarchs, business, and the like. But if anything, they’re the exception that proves the rule. And so, 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 U.S. are largely still in the U.S. 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, 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.

The Role of Disinformation

HELEN WALTERS: I think that’s really, I think it’s all, it’s all incredibly interesting. And you said something interesting that I want to just double click on that, 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, that vacuity, that 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?

IAN BREMMER: Well, when I saw it from Elon, I mean, I’m like, I thought he was talking to me and saying, “Ian, you’re a media now.” I’m like, well, 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, and by the way, he never includes Fox, even though Fox has 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 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, MSNBC on the left. At least the journalists on Fox, not Hannity, but the journalists during the day that are writing the stories and bringing you the news, the journalists during the day on CNN, 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.

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 this information 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 that are, believe some fundamental things about the political system in the U.S. 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 assertively researched and audited, and you’re talking about less than one hundredth 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 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. That’s something I’ve heard many Democrats and Republicans that are anti-war, 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 national U.S. 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. And the reason why they’re saying that is because they’re existing in an environment that they can no longer ascertain truth through fiction. That’s not a sustainable place to be. It seems like a deeply dangerous place to live in.

HELEN WALTERS: You floated something yesterday that I hadn’t heard and thought was really interesting, 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?

Elon Musk’s Influence on U.S. Politics

IAN BREMMER: Well, first of all, I have a hard time imagining that Trump is going to, as president, be able to continue to own and post on truth media. Now, you know, there are unprecedented things that 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. And 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 that.

First of all, I believe that Musk, Musk’s $75 million 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 of electric vehicles, is in a union shop. And Biden decided he was going to play politics with that as opposed to lean into ensuring that the U.S. 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 assume 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 U.S. interests. And again, I promise when 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 for me, well, Elon is presenting himself as the guy that can help ensure that U.S.-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 U.S. and China. And I think that he’s going to have a lot of influence over U.S. tech policy that that might be, 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 U.S. 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 U.S. 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 thought the tariffs were a critical component of U.S. economic and foreign policy.

Trump’s America first means more capital in the United States, more jobs in the United States. It means 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 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.

The Future of Russia-Ukraine Conflict

HELEN WALTERS: 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. Zelensky obviously reached out to Trump almost immediately that he won the election and was very complimentary to him. But what is going to happen with Russia, Ukraine? What are you seeing there?

IAN BREMMER: And how could Zelensky not, Helen? 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 U.S. 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.”

She used to always say that when she was alive. I saw some of a flash of my mom and Trump’s comment there. I think that the fact that Zelensky 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. 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 Zelensky to do that. Now, what I expect Trump will do will be call Zelensky, 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 Zelensky 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. He could lose power if he does.

He will certainly undermine his position with a lot of Ukrainians that have been bravely fighting, supporting those that are bravely fighting. The Russians, much easier for them to say yes if Ukraine says no. If the Ukrainians say yes, 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 on board. 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?

Europe’s Response to Trump’s Foreign Policy

IAN BREMMER: 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 frontline 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.

Implications for the Middle East

HELEN WALTERS: All right. 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?

IAN BREMMER: 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 U.S. 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 U.S. 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 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 the legal will no longer work with it. So, I mean, 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. 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 goading them to do it while Biden is still president? And then they end all of that and Trump could 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.

Trump’s Cabinet and Power Dynamics

HELEN WALTERS: 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? Also, we know a lot of people have said they wouldn’t come back. So what are you hearing and what should we be watching for?

IAN BREMMER: 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. You know, I mean, 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? And so, 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 independence 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, I mean, you had Rex Tillerson appointed as Secretary of State, who Trump had never met before, and who his own advisors said, “This guy is not aligned with any of what we want, any America first, he’s CEO of Exxon Mobil,” and Trump said, “Yeah, but look at him, he looks like a Secretary of State, right?” 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 months’ 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, from the World Wrestling Federation, 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, a senator, a 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 Rick Grenell, the former acting head of national intelligence before that, ambassador of the U.S. to Germany, well-known on social media and on Fox, a little more incendiary, more of 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. I’m hearing Mike Walz, a 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 was very conservative, very smart, but not a Trump loyalist. At the end of the day, someone that was going to ultimately 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 J.D. Vance.

And a lot of people say, “Oh, J.D. 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.

Perspective on the Future

HELEN WALTERS: 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?

IAN BREMMER: 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 U.S. markets, on the U.S. 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 U. S. 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 wanna 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 gonna do that deal unilaterally, where I have a lot more power. I’m not gonna 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.

HELEN WALTERS: 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.

IAN BREMMER: My pleasure, Helen.

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