Megathreats That Could Spark WW3: Trump vs Biden, Israel-Palestine & Russia-Ukraine | Ian Bremmer

You are living in a period of extreme geopolitical turbulence. Israel is at war with Hamas, Russia is at war with Ukraine, and today's guest believes that America is about to be at war with itself. In this interview, we cover chances of US Civil War, how you're being lied to, the major threats to democracy, the odds of World War III, the different ramifications between a Trump or Biden victory, AI, and more. So, join me in welcoming political analyst Ian Bremmer. You've called this year the Voldemort of years because there are three wars, three wars that we're going to be talking about. We've got Israel-Hamas ongoing, we've got Russia-Ukraine ongoing, and we've now got the United States versus itself, which you've said could kick off at any moment. So, what I want to ask is is it really that bad? Like, in modern-day America, could we actually find ourselves in civil war? Uh no. Uh in in fact, in fact, since since you're asking that question, I I literally just a few moments ago responded to someone. It was um David Rothkopf. I did not have full-fledged civil war on my bingo card for 2024. I think I need a new bingo card. And I wrote, I would definitely stick with your old bingo card. So, no. Uh I understand that we have like 25 governors that are all lined up saying got to defend the border and don't want to listen to Supreme Court. Uh this is not about civil war. This is about a democracy in crisis. Uh this is about two sides that are very antagonistic towards each other. Um the stakes are very high, especially for the leaders of both of these political parties. Um and there is no effort to engage in diplomacy. There's no effort to see things from the perspective of the other side. And in fact, they really don't even share basic understanding of political facts. And when you look at that and you compare it to Russia versus Ukraine or Israel versus Hamas, then you start to see that there is a real line through of comparison. Uh, and that that is unfortunate. It's It's not that we're going to start blowing ourselves up. It's more that we aren't capable of having a free and fair election that the entire country believes in anymore. And and that's kind of foundational to a a well-functioning democracy. Uh, but uh, but unfortunately, that's not where we are this year. Okay. Definitely what I was hoping you were going to say, but now set the table for us. Um, when I read the report that you put out, you list the United States against itself as the number one threat that we face. Um, why? Walk me through the when you talk about uh, you've said social media is an existential threat to democracy. Um, obviously, we've got Trump versus Biden as the likely race. What are the pieces that are on this, maybe chessboard is a better analogy, um, that have you listing this as the number one concern? Well, first, let's Let me explain what it means to be number one. So, what's the methodology behind my madness, right? Um, and uh, I you know, I what we're looking at, we're measuring likelihood, imminence, and impact. And and so, I mean, if you look at this year's report, Africa's not in it. Why not? I mean, all sorts of horrible things that are really risky are happening in Africa, the economic and diplomatic and security impact on the rest of the world is negligible. And and I'm you know, I'm sorry to have to say that, but it it is what it is. Like I can't make it other than what it is. Um and where it in the United States, you know, the the fact that the US democratic process is pretty broken and that that is having a significant impact on policies that the US enacts with massive implications for the rest of the world because the US is by far the strongest economy in the world. It's by far the strongest military in the world. Like that's why there's such outsized impact from the United States. It's a big deal. So, for example, Trump has not yet got the nomination. He will, right? I mean, I think that's pretty much 100% short of a really unforeseen health event. I There's really no mechanism for anyone to get for for Nikki Haley to get a single state. Uh I expect that she'll drop out before South Carolina because she's not going to want to lose her home state by 30 points. I think she's politically savvy enough to avoid that fate. Um but even before Trump gets the nomination, just by putting his thumb on the scale and saying, "I don't want a deal uh on the border in return for $61 billion of Ukraine aid because I want to run on that issue against Biden who's failing on the border right now." And Mitch McConnell, who is no Trump fan, but is now loyal because Trump now owns the Republican Party again, gets on board. And the Speaker of the House gets on board. And so, what happens to Ukraine? You're not getting that 61 billion. So, is that a risk of Ukraine or is that a risk of the United States? Oh, Oh, a risk of the United States. And you know, I spend a lot of my time talking to leaders of different governments around the world. They are maximally concerned about this Chinese leadership. Far more concerned about the US election than the than the election in Taiwan, for example, where so many people were saying, "Oh, it could be war. It could be confrontation." No, they're worried about the US. The Europeans are worried about the US. The Mexicans and Canadians are worried about the US. So, that that's why there are such major knock-on implications from this election. All right, when they say they're worried, what is the the doomsday scenario for people? So, there's assuming that you're right, there is Trump is going to be running against Biden. One of the two is going to win. Uh if you were to to play out the scenarios, uh one, let me ask you, if the election were held today, who would win? Uh I'd say uh Trump would win today fairly handily. Uh I would say for in November right now, my view is 60/40 Trump, but I have very low confidence in saying that because there's so much that can happen in the next 9 months. Mhm, fair. Okay, so uh let's run those scenarios. What one, talk to me about the lead-up because um that's the thing I think is is a huge litmus test. If you were to ask me what I've spent the most time thinking about, it's what does it look like in a world with AI at the level that it's at in uh an election that is so contentious and so high-stakes globally, what does that look like? Uh but then also, um I want to specifically walk through the scenarios of what does the world look like, say, in the immediate 6 months after a Trump victory? What does the world look like in an immediate 6 months after a Biden victory? Well, so first of all, um the stakes are so much higher for these individual leaders. If Trump loses, he's going to jail. Uh and I mean, we've got 91 indictments. There will almost certainly be convictions, at least in the Washington D.C. case, before the election, though he'll be out on bail. But, so the stakes for Trump are far higher than they were before. That means the implications of him losing are is something he needs to avoid at all costs. The efforts that he and many of his supporters will take to avoid that, and maybe even to interfere with that, um are far greater than they would have been in 2020 or in 2016. Um and uh certainly the impact, if Biden wins, of Trump then going to jail, and taking the government taking that action against him, after you will have heard the entire Republican Party saying that these cases are fake, and they're politicized, and they're trumped up, and they're a witch hunt, and they will say that because they will all be loyal to and endorsing Trump, has the potential to have far more disruption from saying that the election was rigged. So, assuming it's not a massive landslide where you can't get away with saying that, Trump would still say it, but that you can't doesn't make sense. Um then, you know, I do think there's a much greater likelihood that you will have civil disobedience, social instability, violence, um in a lot of red states and a lot of red cities, and unwillingness to accept a Biden administration as legitimate president in 2025. I think that's a very big uh and real possibility. Now, if if Trump wins, um there are several things that are really different this time around from 2016. Uh one thing that is different is his priorities. Uh he is His first priority has to be to end all of the investigations against him, to politicize the DOJ and the FBI and the IRS that he believes are already politicized against him. And and in impose um his own uh loyalists on those uh in the bureaucracies of those organizations uh so that he can go after his enemies that want to lock him up. He's going to want to lock them up. Um and and indeed there are many senior advisors to Biden that feel like they're likely to be imprisoned if Trump is able to pull that off. So we're talking here something that looks a lot more like Peru or Hungary um than looks like Canada or Japan or Germany, right? And and we're we're normalizing all of this because, you know, we're getting used to it over a number of years. We're like, "Okay, well, now we have presidents that get impeached a couple times and the impeachment's kind of broken. It's only political. So okay, that's the way it works." And, you know, we see what happened with the speaker of the house who's thrown out by a small number um of uh of of uh caucusing uh members of his own party and that means that you can't promote legislation that they don't like. That's the way it works now. That's not the way it's worked historically and it's not the way a functional democracy works, but in this environment if Trump wins, that is what we're looking at. And then there's also the international environment, which is very very different. 2016 to 2020, there really weren't any major global crises going on while Trump was president. This time around, Trump will be president with a minimum of two major wars that are going on. Um and he's promised he will end the war in Ukraine on the first day. He says it it's a it's just a talking point. He says it all the time. What he means is that he will force the Ukrainians to accept the present delineation of land. And when they refuse, um they will be cut off. They'll say, "You get a ceasefire for that. Well, they say no. This is an existential crisis for NATO and for the EU because there are a lot of frontline countries that think that that is an unacceptable outcome. But there are others, like Hungary and Slovakia, as well as political movements inside Europe that are gaining in popularity, like the new National Front in France or like the Alternative for Deutschland in Germany, that will be aligned with Trump, not with their governments. And Trump will reach out to them in directly engaged foreign policy, something that absolutely isn't happening right now under the Biden administration. And And we've had for the last several years a very coordinated NATO and transatlantic relationship. This suddenly becomes an immediate crisis for the Europeans and for NATO. So, I mean, just to, you know, play out a little bit of what that means, that's that's some of what we should be thinking about and that's certainly a lot of what American allies are thinking about as we head into this election season. Mhm. Okay, so I want to go back to the civil unrest. So, if Biden is elected, um what do you like let's use 2020 as our benchmark. So, we had a lot of civil unrest in 2020 having lived through it in LA where a lot of it was popping off. It It was serious, um but certainly seeing that sort of move through the system, obviously we were nowhere near that spilling over into a civil war. That to me feels like peak sort of tinder pile given that we had all been locked down and so there was there was a just a a sort of screaming sense of injustice everywhere. And then you get to January 6th, which I guess technically was 2021. Um and again, now we've been locked up even longer. And there there's a real undercurrent of not only is there a massive amount of social injustice, but there's also um the government may actually be coming tyrannical. And so that felt like a a powder keg moment that I don't feel like we will have in 2024's election barring an economic turn. Um So, if you had to to gauge off of the instability that we had in that period versus what you expect after this election, um if if Biden wins, where where do you peg that level of reaction? Yeah, I think first of all, I think the global challenges are much greater than the domestic ones. So, you you you mentioned the point, you know, barring an economic uh unforeseen issue in the US. The US performance of the US economy is actually quite strong right now. Now, people don't necessarily feel that way because the the leading indicator that determines how you feel about the economy in the US is what your political affiliation is. Which is senseless, but is true. Um and and and that gets to the problem of democracy, the you know, completely different information environments. But you certainly do not have people locked down under the pandemic. You certainly do not have an economy that is in crisis. Uh but other economies around the world are going to get hit very badly by this. This is This is a US democracy in crisis is a much bigger problem for the economies in Europe for example, or in Asia for example, uh than they are for the United States. Uh and that is, you know, meaningful, but the report the risk report that we write is a global report. It's not just a report that looks at the United States domestically. So, I do think it is the geopolitical backdrop of this instability um and the erosion of political institutions in the United States that poses a big issue. I mean, remember Trump came in last time around and he pulls the US out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, this is ends those negotiations, pulls the US out of the uh the Paris climate talks, pulls the US out of the Iranian nuclear deal, um all of these things, but they happen in peacetime. And so it doesn't really matter that much. That happens in wartime when people are feeling crises and when other countries are feeling major economic stress after 3 years of pandemic, that's a very different story. So, if anything, this would make me more structurally bullish on the dollar. Um and on the US stock market because in a world that is much more unstable, you're going to the cleanest dirty shirt. And and that's not crypto. Right? I mean, it's not NFTs. Uh and it's certainly not China. I'm sorry. It's certainly not China, uh which is facing very serious So so serious economic challenges that they're they they really don't want Trump. And they they had no problem with Trump in 2016, and this time around they're saying we can't handle the chaos. We we just want a stable election. You know? So, that that is really interesting. I don't think there'll be another January 6th because everything will be locked down around that. They that the the preparations for that will be in place. Um I think it's much more likely the kind of instability we'll see will be much more like what we had in Portland, Oregon. Um but again, in red states uh where you have large numbers of disenfranchised MAGA types um who are many of whom um are armed, uh many of whom uh will see a Biden administration as a second Biden administration as an absolute destruction of everything that they see as holy. Um and and they will likely be supported by a lot of local police uh, and maybe some local members of the armed forces. Uh, and that uh, that's a fairly serious impact in my view. Uh, that's the biggest thing that I think is likely to come about, um, in a in a in a relatively narrow uh, Biden win. There will where there will be massive information that people that oppose Biden will believe that the election was stolen. And was stolen badly. And they'll be And that disinformation will also be magnified by artificial intelligence, which we already seen with those Biden fake Biden robo calls in New Hampshire. Just the tip of the iceberg. There were voters that were told with a Biden voice, uh, and they were targeted directly with their real phone numbers and their real names, you know, you are, um, not to go out. We don't want you to go and vote, uh, in the primary. Um, because that's we want you to vote in the general election, not in the primary. That's That's artificial intelligence, real cheap, and there are lots of bad actors in the country and outside of the country that would love to foment chaos, um, through through those mechanisms. Yeah, there there's no doubt about that. That, uh, in my layman's stance, were I putting out my report of risks, um, AI causing just a massive disinformation campaign in the build-up to the 2024 election continuing to bifurcate people into different camps, uh, where we don't share any facts. That that is the thing that freaks me out and I think that that's going to get better before it gets worse. Sorry, that's going to get worse before it gets better. Uh, and yeah, so But the the reason that we put that in the US risk and not in the AI risk is because, uh, it is the vulnerability of the US and the the the already the willingness to believe conspiracy theories, the the dysfunction and fragmentation of the political system that makes the US election so singularly vulnerable to those sorts of attacks. Those attacks would not work in Japan. They would not work in Germany. Like people would not go out onto the streets with pitchforks in response to that. The United States increasingly different. That's interesting. Uh tell me more about that. Why why are we more likely to be easily divided than Japan or Germany or anybody else? Yeah, well, I mean it's it's kind of the Trump question. See, I don't see Trump as the principal risk. I see him as a symptom. So why is the United States the country that has elected Trump and now might elect him a second time? Why isn't that happening in other advanced industrial democracies? Why do the Americans talk about stop the steal and none of that happened even after Brexit in the UK? The domestic political system basically runs the same way. What why is that happening? Um and there are a lot of things that people talk about. They talk about inequality. They talk about identity politics, but those things exist. Demographics changing. Those things exist in a lot of other countries. Maybe not to the same degree. The US is more unequal economically today than the rest of the OECD, but not by a massive amount. Um I think that the bigger issue is that the United States is the country where it's social institutions have most uh eroded. So I mean the US is a a country that historically has been by far the most religious and God-fearing. A- and and yet in the last 40 years, church membership has fallen off a cliff in the United States. Uh belief in the church, trust in the church has gone way down just like belief in in Congress. Um the belief in the public school system has gone way down in the US, just like belief um in the judiciary. Um and I think that the the fact that those institutions have really eroded in a country that is much more driven by individualism and entrepreneurship and unfettered capitalism, which has driven incredible growth in the US and it's why the US is leading the world in AI and other countries are behind. I mean, we we're we're the country with Elon Musk and and he wasn't even born in the US, but he knew that this was the place he could make it. And Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates and we have those people. But we're also the one where so many Americans feel unmoored. They feel like nature got them. They've got they've got genetics, but they don't have nurture anymore. Whether it's the atomized family um or it's the lack of national service um or it's just the civic institutions all falling apart. And now in the last 10 years, nurture has been replaced by something. It's been replaced by algorithms. And we have we know we're the country that has all the influencers, we're the country is where everybody wants to be a personal brand. Um but we're also the country that has so many of our young people uh wanting to engage in self harm uh and even suicide um because they're spending all their time on social media where they're they're being algorithmically disintermediated from the rest of society and only engaging with people that they already agree with um or things that make them angry. Um both of which you know are great for the corporate business model but our an anathema to creating civic adults to raising a nation that connects with each other. I think if I had to point to one thing that has really eroded American democracy, it would be that. I think that that's where the US is going. Are are we just ahead of the curve or do you think that there's something unique about either the cultural fabric of America or something else that has governmental policies that have made us more vulnerable than somebody else? I I think it's both. I mean I mean you see this happening. I mean Canada, it's definitely happening too. You know, you saw Ottawa and the truckers riots and Rebel News and there's a lot of misinformation in Canada, too. And democracy in Canada has eroded somewhat, nowhere near as much as the US. Um Japan, uh almost not at all. Sense of community in Japan is so much stronger. It's basically a single-party democracy. Um I There was a very interesting uh um event in Japan that you may have seen. It was a couple of months ago. There was a Japan Airlines um aircraft uh that uh hit um a I think it was a Japanese Coast Guard smaller plane that was routed right in front of where this plane was about to to land or take off and and and the plane caught on fire. 330-plus people passengers were on the plane. Every single one of them got off within like 5 minutes. And not only did they follow the instructions uh of the stewards um and and stewardesses like literally immediately, not one of them took a bag off the plane because they were told not to. Now, yeah, you that is inconceivable to me on a United flight. I I mean, is it Should I Is it unpopular for me to say that some of this is cultural? I mean, am I going to get canceled for that? I travel to Japan all the time. I know that is different. I mean, the Americans we're we're just a really individual-oriented society. And so, I do think that some of this is different. Some of this is actually unique to what make what makes Americans tick. Um and and as a consequence, when the social contract starts eroding, and when the American political and economic system starts doesn't work as well for a lot of Americans, they feel left behind, they feel forgotten, it's going to hurt American society a lot more. Right? Because you just Because that that safety net and some of that safety net is cognitive. Some of that safety net is emotional. Um it's just not there for people in a way that I think it is in a lot of other countries. I think it is in a more collectivist Germany, for example, than it is in the United States. How often are you checking your credit score, afraid of identity theft or account breaches? We all use the internet every single day for important things like personal banking and remote work. So, why not protect yourself with our sponsor, Aura. Aura is an all-in-one cybersecurity service that keeps you safe online. Aura identifies data brokers exposing your info and submits opt-out requests on your behalf. Aura also monitors your credit, tracks your passwords for data breaches, and secures your online activity with VPN and anti-malware protection. You can try Aura for free for 2 weeks by clicking the link in the description or scanning the QR code. Mhm. Yeah, so if you're going to get canceled for that, let me join you in the cancellation. It is self-evident to me that culture plays a huge part in um everything, just life full stop, period, in general. When we talk about nature versus nurture, that's effectively what we're talking about. The nurture being the culture. Could be the culture of your family, the culture of your city, town, whatever. Or the thing nobody is talking nearly enough about, the culture of the class that you were born into and thusly raised in. Um, if I were to and I admittedly have not thought about this before, so I'll be very interested to get your take on this, but as I was listening to you talk, the thing that jumped to mind as to why uh, Japan, which I I am I am just a a literal file. I could not love them anymore. They are a hyper conservative culture. So, I think that speaks a lot about that. They're also a more collectivist culture. You see yourself as integrated into the whole more than somebody that's going to stand out. What I think is happening in America right now, and again, this is I'm thinking through this in real time, is that we are an individualistic culture that has really done extraordinarily well with, um, capitalism, but the Gini coefficient is real. And as the gap between the poorest among us and the richest among us grows wider, you are going to get people, even though by global standards, uh, lower-income people in America are still way better off than lower-income people elsewhere. But it doesn't feel like that if you're broke and you are cleaning Jeff Bezos' third mega-mansion. And so, that that reality is what I think we're watching play out now. And you have some people that are crying out for collectivism, and you have other people that are still staunchly individualistic. Now, you've talked about something I've I've not heard anybody else talk about, which is that one of the big concerns on the global stage for what's happening in America, the division in America, and why it's so problematic, is all of a sudden, uh, identity politics is steering a lot of the policy and the the sort of how you can expect America to behave versus economics. And previously, the rest of the world could just go, "America's going to do whatever's in their economic best interest." Easy enough to predict. Cool. I know the script and I may hate it. I may be violently opposed, but at least it's predictable. Whereas now, the instability inside of our own country is causing our politicians to really have to look inward to be very cognizant of an increasingly divided um constituency. And they now have to make policies that maybe are not economically the best policy, but they soothe the most people that vote for them. Absolutely. I mean, industrial policy is has become a much greater driver. And it doesn't matter if it's helping or hurting the American economy. And even that's even true when you talk about American consumers and taxpayers. I mean, think about how many folks have been behind higher tariffs on Chinese goods. And Trump said, "They're paying for that. They're paying for that." No, they're not. American consumers are paying for that. But it is politically completely toxic to talk about reducing tariffs against Chinese exports to the US. And it doesn't matter what the economic sensibility of that happens to be. And and we can play that through in all I'm all in favor of investing in American human capital and infrastructure. I think the Chips Act was great. I'm glad we're rebuilding bridges again. You know, I mean, Lord knows we need to be, you know, have have a high-speed rail system. I I'd I'm I'd like it to be private sector, but if the public sector can help make it happen faster, God bless. Uh those things are happening, but at the global level, the Americans are now politically throwing all sorts of wrenches into globalization. And in part, that's because a lot of Americans feel like they didn't benefit from globalization. So, why should we support that? You know, you're going to take my job and my livelihood and you're going to send it to China? Screw you. I'm not going to support that. And and it is true that if the American economy grows like Topsy, uh but the middle class and the working class is treated like cannon fodder, um then they're not going to be very interested in promoting your policy. So, globalization is absolutely great for the United States, but globalism sucks for the average American. And and that is where you see policy makers like Trump and Bernie Sanders, frankly, and AOC, it's both sides of the spectrum making bank in this environment. Because people out there, so many people say the system doesn't work, they're lying to me, so I want someone who's going to break things. I want someone who's going to take the fight because otherwise, it's never going to get fixed. And Trump is someone who you know, just by dint of the fact that he drives the establishment so insane. He drives the media so insane, he drives the political leaders so insane, that you know that he's really fighting those guys. So, if you really feel like things are broken in the US and all it you only thing you see is a small small pocket of people that keep benefiting, it's never hitting you, you're willing to have roll the dice on someone that's going to be a chaos agent. And and Trump is that. Trump is that. Is the system broken and are they lying to us? Um I think that the American system in many ways, um is unrepresentative of the average American. I mean, just the fact that um the the US is now of all of the OECD economies, the US country the US is the country where you can best predict a person's wealth as an adult on the basis of their parents' wealth. More than any other OECD economy. And when you and I were kids, that wasn't true. That is that's a sign of a broken system. Um the I thought that the the Varsity Blues case when we saw all of these entitled adults doing everything they could to make sure their kids were getting into Ivy League schools and thinking they were doing nothing wrong because that's the way the system works, that is in my mind the sign of an unrepresentative system. Um you know, I I we see examples of that all the time. And and I I do think the fact that the average American doesn't trust their political institutions anymore um is not the fault of the working class. That that's the fault of the people that have been leaders, and it's not just a communications failure. It is an execution failure. They just haven't made it work for enough Americans. And people are taking advantage of that, and there's a lot of disinformation. Um and I I do believe that I mean a number of policies we've seen in the last few years are going to move the needle over time. I was a big fan of the Inflation Reduction Act, and by the way, more red state jobs than blue state jobs under the Inflation Reduction Act, which was a bipartisan piece of legislation. But that will take 10 or 20 years before it actually starts to change the way people think about their opportunities. It doesn't happen overnight, not when for 40-50 years they've been on the wrong side of that. So, you know, I I do think that there are big things. You look at how much money there is in the American political system, the billions of dollars that are spent on election cycles that go for more than a year, and they are spending that money, and a lot of that money is dark money. We can't even find out who's behind it and where it's going, and we know that the purpose of that money is to perpetuate special interests in their ability to capture the regulatory process and make politicians work for them and not the average American. I mean, when we see things even like the NRA, and and we know that the average American wants a different policy, but it can't happen because there's too much money that pays to ensure that it doesn't. And that happens, by the way, with teachers unions and police unions, too. Uh you know, and ensuring that the system is broken and doesn't work properly for their kids. Yeah. I That is for me a sign of a system that is deeply sclerotic, that is unrepresentative. It's It's not completely unfunctional. And and and partially because we're so wealthy, and we have so much entrepreneurship, and we're in such a wonderful location geographically, and we have so many natural resources. I mean, there's so many things that America has going for it that you can tolerate a lot of things that are really broken in your political system, and and the country can still work. But honestly, is America's political system in crisis? Yes. I think it is. I think it is. Um and and I say that as someone who has a lot of friends in government, Democrats and Republicans, who I think are trying to do the right thing. But the system is pretty broken right now. Yeah, I think it is. All right. So, are they lying to us? Who's they? Mhm. People are going to say the elites, the the government, uh mainstream media. We'll start there, those two. Uh I think that a lot of the we must consume um the the presumptions of what goes behind capitalism. Let Let me give you an example. You know how how much young people care about climate. You know how much they care about the environment. They've been lied to. We've been lied to for decades by very, very powerful organizations that had a lot to lose by admitting that climate change was happening, that it was transformative in bad ways, and that they were responsible for it. Yeah. Are they lying to us? Yeah. And then by the way, when they finally admitted it, they still did everything they could privately to prevent us from taking action that would have made this a lot cheaper to deal with, a lot less costly to deal with. Are they lying to us? Yeah. Did the tobacco companies lie to us um about the fact that the products that they were selling, they were trying to addict us to, um were going to kill us? Yeah, they lied. They lied to us. Were the food companies lying to us when they did everything possible to ensure the production of salty and sweet and fatty, because that's what we would buy more of for our short-term interest, and sell them in bigger and bigger quantities? Were they lying to Yeah, they were lying to us. They're not taking care of us. They're treating us um as products. They're treating us as things that are useful to them. And were there members of government that happily went along with that because they were on the payroll of those lobbies? Yes, of course. Absolutely. And I think that like my mom raising me, she was aware of that. She wasn't going to make a sophisticated argument. She wasn't going to develop a documentary. But at base level, she understood that the advertisements that we were seeing and the campaign speeches that we were digesting were not good for her kids. She I think she fundamentally understood that and she was angry about it. She accepted it. That's the way the system kind of worked but they were all trying to screw each other. But she also recognized and you said it yourself how how you were born in terms of class as people who didn't have the education, didn't have the network, didn't have the money that we were going to get screwed. That's not what America's supposed to be about. America's supposed to be the country where everyone can make it. That's the American dream is. And fewer Americans believe in the American dream today. Now, that's accurate. It's harder to actually have upward mobility in this environment. People a country that has been very optimistic that historically large majorities of Americans when pulled would say, "I'm going to make it to the top 10% and if I don't, my kids will." I mean, so many people saying that if it wasn't conceivably true, but they believed it. And and that made you happier. And and it made you happy in part because you did kind of trust a lot of those people that were elites. And and that has gone away in my view. Absolutely, it has. Do you think the same they lied to us about things like um masks because they really believe that we have to get people to believe this to protect them? I really really was disappointed with Fauci. Um I mean, it was pretty clear that he was marketing to Americans because he thought he knew better and that we couldn't handle the truth. Um and of course when you do that in the near term and you find out in the long term what that does is it helps the conspiracy theorists. Right? I mean, it's true that there was a lot that Americans really didn't know about this disease in the early stages. But I mean, you know, saying, "Hey, an N95 is the best thing to do, but we don't want you wearing those because we really need those for the people that are in, you know, sort of critical hospital care and the rest." Like, I think that's what he should have said. I I I don't think he should have lied to Americans um in the early days because I think it did enormous damage, especially because of the political divisions in this country. I think the CDC has taken a massive hit of trust and has become politicized in the United States, and we need to be able to believe our doctors and our scientists. We need that. So, yeah, I I I feel like um you know, other you know, Fauci, I've been to Fauci's office. I interviewed him a couple of times for my own show. And he's a very charismatic guy, and he's friendly, and he's smart, and he touches you when he talks, and but I mean, his office was a shrine. I I can't remember the last time I had seen an office that had so many commendations and photos with him and every political leader from every walk of life that he had had like on every wall, floor to ceiling. And, you know, I look I that I've seen that, you know, that that the fact that you want to show off the fact that you have a lot of access uh can can serve many purposes. And um you know, if as long as you're focused first and foremost on content, first and foremost on the science, but I fear uh that at least the Fauci that I met um was focusing more on the media, the attention, the brand, the power, and less on the outcomes. And I think that did a lot of damage. I I This is just my personal impression. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a scientist, right? I'm just being honest with you and telling you what I think because you asked me the question. Um I mean, we went through this pandemic, and that should have been an opportunity for us to invest more in early stage warning. Um and in education. Um and in strengthening the World Health Organization, for example, and none of that happened. It it all it did was breed more mistrust. Now, thank God we have some extraordinary scientists in the private sector uh like in Moderna and like in Pfizer and others that were able to develop vaccines like with incredible speed and are now using those technologies to do all sorts of new things that are helping us with cancer and Alzheimer's and you name it, but but the government um and and the mistrust that average Americans, average citizens have in in what the doctors are telling us, especially those that are like on TV and that have some level of, you know, we're we're the elite doctors that you're supposed to listen to, I think that you'll listen to your own GC, uh but you you won't uh I mean GP, but you you won't listen uh to those guys. I think it's a horrible thing. Yeah, one of the things that I I talked to people about a lot is, "Hey, look, you lying is a powerful tactic, uh but be careful because if you use it, it will work sometimes and then other times you will just become known as a liar. And when I look at the division that we're going through right now and what is it, you know, about this moment? And I can't speak to whether the rest of the world is falling prey to the same thing or not, but um in in a world where anybody can pick up their phone and live stream to the rest of the world, your lies are going to be found out terrifyingly fast and that is going to absolutely erode your credibility. And on top of that, um now you get into a position where there's just the level of disdain and distrust that people are going to have creates the the level of animosity towards the government that we're seeing now. And that's where you get that powder keg where all of a sudden a country which has a host of problems just all come together at one moment really starts to be super unnerving. But when I look out at at what I would want people to take away cuz I I have a I'm very much an individualistic thinker in that I think at the level of the individual. So I'm not good at what you're good at which is global geopolitics. Like you see how all the puzzle pieces add up. What I understand is is the person. And so I will say look everybody of course you know that people are lying to you. It it is a tool in everyone's arsenal and the vast majority of humans are going to deploy that tool even if only to make you feel like your ass doesn't look big in those jeans, right? It's just the it it is going to be used. So the thing that you can do is not be as gullible. I never thought I would be interviewing people on geopolitics. But once I started feeling like society's beginning to fray and it's beginning to fray because people are not building their own internal model of what they believe the world is. They're letting the algorithms do that for them. They don't understand how they're being manipulated and therefore they become easy to manipulate. And so the thing that I'm hoping to do with the show because all I've ever wanted to do is empower people to make decisions to make their life better. And I suddenly realized that people really need to understand how the game works. Once you understand how the game works, hopefully you can stop being mad about it and just start doing something about it. But speaking of doing something about it, when you look at so we've got two wars that are happening right now, one potential war in air quotes cuz you made it very clear you don't actually think that America's going to be in a hot civil war. Right. Um but how does this all play out? Like I've heard you talk about Ukraine is just going to have to accept that that they are partitioned. But also I felt like you had some anxiety about Trump coming in and just being like you're going to have to accept that you're partitioned. Um what is what is the Oh man, you you talk about uh the risk assessment that you guys do is based on fact not preference. So knowing that you're not about to lay out your preference Yeah, yeah. what do you think is is the actual path forward? And and and this also I mean that last point and Israel, Hamas. That last point just links so much with what you were saying before. Like I I have no problem with being wrong. At the end of the year we go back and we see how we did on all this stuff and we you know see like how that affects when we do get stuff wrong, what do we why did we get it wrong, what do how what lessons do we take away from it. But the authenticity is absolutely critical. You know, I mean for someone who's not a part of a political party and and who travels all over the world, I I feel like you know 5 10 years ago I spent most of my time talking with and engaging with elites because I thought well those are the people with power and that's going to have the biggest impact in affecting change. But in an environment as you say Tom, where so many people are being you know driven by misinformation, becoming angry, becoming polarized, I feel like I have to spend a lot more of my time just talking to people. Right? Just like being authentic about what's happening in the world. And you know, it's not easy to you know sort of ball that up into pro-Trump or pro-Biden or pro-American or pro-anything, frankly. But we need more of that. And we we need people that are prepared to like meet people where they are, listen to them, and talk about what we think is really happening in the world. And it's okay if you don't agree with all of it because it's not about agreeing, it's about understanding. That's all it is. And so there, you're right. I mean, I I don't want Ukraine to be partitioned. I don't think it's fair. I mean, I'm an American. I support the underdog. Like I like the 16 seed for March Madness. That's who I root for, right? The Ukrainians is the little country that didn't have much of a military. And the Russians just invaded them, tried to take out their leader. So I don't want them to have to lose their country. But it's going to happen. I mean, at the very least, I I don't see the territory that Russia's occupying now, I see no way that they're going to be able to get it back. Now, no one's going to force them to accept that publicly. But the reality is they're having a harder time fighting. When they started the war, um the average Ukrainian recruit was 26 years old. Today, it's mid-40s. Whoa. I don't think they're going to be able to keep fighting for another couple years this way. If the Russians, assuming the Russians keep piling and piling and piling, you know, people at them. Russia's a much bigger economy. They have a much bigger population. Um and the Ukrainians are going to get more desperate. They already see that they're not getting the additional support from the US. They're running out of like ammo. They're running out of missiles. They still have air defense, which is really important. Uh but, you know, so at a minimum, they're stuck with 18% of their territory that the Russians are occupying. And and potentially, they could get a lot worse than that. Potentially, the Russians cuz the Russians have not said we're prepared to sit there. They're still able to attack Russian ships in the Black Sea. Russians can say, "We're moving to Odessa. We're taking that. We're securing the Black Sea for ourselves. We're going to take more potshots at the Ukrainian leadership until Zelenskyy's gone." And Zelenskyy might well go if he's not able to keep fighting. Uh you already see the fraying of the Ukrainian political system, opposition to Zelenskyy from the mayor of Kyiv, from the head of the armed forces, because things aren't going so well. So, I mean, the the risk is that. The risk is that this war that the United States has taken the lead and has consolidated all of its allies to provide support for Ukraine, and Biden said, "We will be there as long as it takes." And within months, he he changes that to well, well, we're going to do as much as we can. That is a very different message for Zelenskyy. It's also a very different message for the Europeans, the front-line Europeans who are going to have to deal with Russian disinformation, um and infrastructure attacks, and cyber attacks, and and have all of these troops that are right there on their border. So, this is a very dangerous thing. I don't think it's going to it it's not World War III. It doesn't lead to Russia attacking NATO, but it could lead to NATO starting to fragment, becoming much weaker, especially if Trump becomes president. But even if he doesn't, if if Biden is no longer able to provide leadership that the Europeans can rely on to ensure that Ukraine can defend itself, they're going to start falling apart on this stuff. So, that's that's the Russia-Ukraine side. The Middle East side is kind of a different story, because here Israel, you know, is is the more powerful country. Like, um Palestine's not a country. Um and and but Israel's the more powerful uh player. They're they're by far the most powerful military player in the region, both offensively and defensively, not to mention their 100 nukes that they've never formally admitted to, but they have. Uh and so, the question here is to what extent is this war going to expand, because a lot of people are getting angry, because there's an axis of resistance that the Houthis are leading and they're continuing to take shots including just a couple hours ago against like a British vessel this time around. And so you can't actually have shipping through the Red Sea and the Americans are now hitting them in Yemen. And that's expanding as a separate kind of auxiliary war. And then you have the Iranians providing military support um to militants in Syria and Iraq who are hitting American bases. And so far there haven't been any American servicemen or women killed, but if they do that's a red line. And the Americans will hit back very hard and maybe Iran. And the Israelis are are more likely to get involved uh in a war with Iranians. They just engaged in strikes that killed five Iranian members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps um in Syria. And the Iranians said that's unacceptable, we're going to hit you back. So, you know, Netanyahu knows if he leaves office he's going to jail. So he'll do a lot to keep the war going. And the Americans are trying to get them out. So I mean there're just lots of ways that this can get worse. Not to mention the fact that we're radicalizing millions and millions of Muslims around the world on the basis of all of this violence that is happening. So I mean this is this is a tough one. And and by the way just just so we don't only have a negative conversation. I mean the report is about top risks, so of course the bias is to focus on the risks. But there are ways that both of these wars could be resolved more sustainably. On Ukraine if the Americans and Europeans take the assets that have been frozen of Russia and seize them and use them to rebuild Ukraine, helping Ukraine get into the European Union, which all 27 members approved, and the Americans and Europeans provide some hard security guarantees for the remaining 82% of the territory that Russia has, um before, let's say, the 75th NATO anniversary happening in Washington in July, then nothing is going to make Ukraine whole. They won't get their land back, but the Ukrainians in that rump state will have a better future than they would have ever had before Russia invaded. Again, it doesn't make up for the war crimes and the Ukrainians dead and displaced. Nothing will ever do that, but Ukraine will have a future. That will be a win, ultimately, ultimately, long-term for Ukraine. And with Israel and Hamas, I mean, the Saudis still want to normalize relations with Israel. Israel is in a very strong geopolitical position. If you can get rid of Netanyahu, who opposes a two-state solution, and you can degrade Hamas, and Israel will have a buffer zone with security inside Gaza, small, but they'll focus far more on defense than Netanyahu ever did, and they promise the Palestinians have the ability to get a state, even if they don't have an army. So, the security will be provided by a multinational force funded probably by the Gulf states, but they'll get a state. They'll be able to govern politically West Bank and Gaza, and in return, the Saudis normalize their relations with Israel. And Israel becomes stronger and wealthier, and there is more peace across the region. Now, I don't, unfortunately, Tom, I don't think either of those are the baseline scenarios. And the timing, the window for those things to happen, is narrow, right? Because the more the violence happens, the more the likelihood is that it spirals out of control. Um but both are possible. And and and even better, people involved in these conflicts at the highest levels know that these things are possible and are working to try to make them happen. So, all is not doom even when we talk about these two major wars that are causing so much hardship um and and sorrow um in in the Gaza think the odds are? What What do you think the odds are that the um the Israel-Hamas conflict spills outside of Gaza? Oh, I mean, it's already happening, so that's 100%. Give me a Give me a narrower question that I can answer. Uh so, do you think that the US is going to attack Yemen over the Houthis? They've already done that. Um the Americans are now attacking Yemen directly, but they're not yet attacking the leadership. By the time this comes out, so today is what? We're taping this on the uh 26th. So, they may well start attacking the leadership by the time it comes out. That is on the Deterrence is not working, so it is escalating. Um the real question, I think, is what's the likelihood that the Americans and Iran start getting involved in a direct shooting war of some sort. Will there be American attacks on Iran? And, you know, also will American servicemen and women get killed on the back on the back of attacks that Iran is supporting? Those are the Those are the big tripwires. That That's what gets you $150 oil, global recession, Trump becomes president no matter what in that environment, right? What's the likelihood of that? Let's put it this way, it's not 50%, it's not 5%. Uh if I were handicapping it, I'd probably say right now 20. And but it's gone up in the last 2 months. Cuz we've taken these incremental steps in the region that have brought us closer to that kind of conflict. That's That's I guess the best way I can say. You can reboot your life, your health, even your career, anything you want. All you need is discipline. I can teach you the tactics that I learned while growing a billion-dollar business that will allow you to see your goals through. Whether you want better health, stronger relationships, a more successful career, any of that is possible with the mindset and business programs in Impact Theory University. Join the thousands of students who have already accomplished amazing things. Tap now for a free trial and get started today. What do you How do you see this playing out? So, um young people the world over seem very much to be on the Palestinian side, very much uh an aggressor-victim mentality. They're going to take the side of the um the oppressed people as they perceive it, no matter what, right, wrong, indifferent, doesn't matter. You've got a bully in in the I'm obviously generalizing, but you you have that narrative playing out and it's really captured the imagination of a lot of people around the world. Um do you see that playing out where every day young people are gaining more power, every day the governments are having to um to offer concessions to them? How does that play out in the US? Cuz I have to imagine if the the US's support of Israel faltered, that would have huge consequences in terms of how that plays out in the region. Do you think that read is right? Um do you think anything like that could actually happen? Uh I It is inconceivable to me that Biden would materially reduce support for Israel. Uh US support's about 12% of Israel's defense spend in peacetime. So, it's important, but it's not existential. Um Biden uh is a pro-Zionist and has been for decades. So, I mean, he's personally very committed to the state of Israel. Uh though he can't stand Netanyahu, that's a different story. There is um a lot of reason for the US to have that relationship that has nothing to do with this war. Intelligence sharing, for example, that's very important and uh engaging in mutual efforts against would-be terrorist organizations, rogues, and the rest. I mean, that is the Israel is not an an unuseful ally to the United States. It's not all take. Um but you are right uh that the young people in the United States uh are much more strongly supporting the Palestinian cause. And that the Democrats are more inclined to support the Palestinians, not Hamas, but the Palestinians, than they are to support Israel. And that is new. Um and and Biden is losing support, especially among Arab Americans um voters in in states like um Ohio and Michigan and Pennsylvania. Um and that really matters because in some of those states um the the support he has lost is greater than the margin of victory he had in 2020. Just from that constituency. So, he he knows this is a problem for him. So, he wants the war to be over soon. Uh uh over. He at least wants it to move to a much lower intensity of day-to-day fighting. He's not calling for a ceasefire, but but he is calling for a shift in operations. And he also doesn't believe that the Israeli government has a strategic goal in mind when they say destroy Hamas. He's trying They're trying to figure out, well, to what end? Like, what does it mean to destroy Hamas? And the Americans dealt with this after 9/11. It's a war on terror. What does it mean to win against terror, right? I mean, just it's very hard to destroy an idea. And Hamas is as much a movement, a political movement, as it is a terrorist organization. Um and it's really hard to destroy. You can kill the leaders, though they haven't yet. Um but it's really hard to destroy Hamas and not have something come up that is just as problematic with even more supporters a year later or 3 years later. Um Now, I I look, I I also understand that part of the reason that there's so much um opposition to Israel is because there's just a lot more Muslims than Jews in the world. I mean, you've got well over a billion Muslims and you've got a, you know, what is it? 20 million Jews or whatever. I mean, it's just not It ain't close. And I mean, you know, you look at the algorithms in TikTok and you see what the young people are digesting on social media and it's overwhelmingly pro-Palestine. It's overwhelmingly anti-Jewish. And anti-Semitism is a thing and it was growing significantly even before all of this. And Yeah, so you tried to report before before October 7th that I was like, what what? Uh it had not made my radar. Why do you think it was going up before their response to the attacks? I I think social media um was a big component of it. I I think media though push an anti-Semitic stance? Tr- traffic in white nationalism, traffic in um anti-Semitism, making it so much easier. You're not going to a physical meeting. You're digesting this information yourself. A lot of people don't want to do this sort of stuff publicly. You're making it so much easier for people to blame the Jews for stuff. People that might have some of those thoughts occasionally internally that they don't share and suddenly they have a Reddit board that they can connect on. Suddenly they have memes that they can post and listen to. They're people they can follow. I I do think that matters a lot. So, I mean clearly, um I think that's a big piece of it. And I mean you look at, you know, the the the uh that crazy person behind the Tree of Life massacre and and what these what he was digesting. Uh you look at, you know, whenever you see um the manifestos that are being put together uh by by so so many of these people that are engaging in mass shootings. And you find that their their minds have been filled with this incredibly horrible disinformation, great replacement theory and all of this stuff. And okay, it's not all social media. Well, I guess Tucker Carlson's on social media now, but before that he was on Fox. Uh he was part of it, too. There were a lot of people that were traffic trafficking um in in incredibly anti-human um and and truly dangerous um information um and and and motivating angry young people um to become far more toxic. I I I I think that's what we're looking at. Mhm. Okay, so then um I have a really uh simplistic take, but I think this is bulletproof on um not how you get to um stopping the current conflict between Israel and Hamas, but uh what the solution must be. I think by its nature the following statement is true. The only way you're ever going to end that conflict is to create a situation where Palestinians have so much economic opportunity that they believe their children's future will be brighter than theirs. And I have a feeling I have a belief a base assumption that the way the human mind works, when you believe that to be true about your kids, all of a sudden your focus just goes to that. I'm going to help make sure that my kids' life is better. Now, when you believe that the only way to do that, because you don't have economic opportunity, is to kill the person that's holding you down, then all of a sudden the ideology of the religions and all that stuff comes into play and and you use that as a galvanizing force, but it actually isn't thinking through this in real time. Bear with me, everybody. Uh that actually isn't the cause. That is the the thing that you use to um the story that you use to bring everybody together to galvanize on. But what's what's actually going on under the hood is that you don't believe your children have a future, and you need a thing you can do to get you that. And when the when the right answer is educate my kids, work really hard, give them an opportunity, you do that. When the answer is attack uh the person you believe to be the oppressor, then you do that. And so um I'm I read this book called Silk Roads. I don't know if you've read it. Man, you'd have a way better uh take on it than me. Uh but it it lays out a really fascinating look at history, and it goes through this period, I forget what years, but I think before a thousand AD, uh where um Jews and um Muslims got along just fine. And the way the author explained it, and forgive me, I'm forgetting his name, but the way he explained it was when a when a society is confident in its own identity and secure in its future, it's completely welcoming and tolerant. And it is only when it loses its sense of who they are, what they stand for, and they become insecure about their future, that now all of a sudden you need somebody to hate. Man, I really feel like that's right. Now, I get it that that is so simplistic from a this is all we have to do. Doing it will be brutally difficult. But my thing is if you put a plan on the table that does not involve economic opportunity that allows people to really feel like, "Oh my god, if I really work, my kids' life will be amazing." If you don't do that, you will never solve this problem. Yeah, I look I I I think that there were a lot of people that believed that the Middle East was getting resolved uh because Israel had peace and broke through with the UAE and Bahrain and Morocco, the Abraham Accords, and then the Chinese facilitated Iran and Saudi Arabia opening and normalizing. And then the fight that happened between Qatar and the UAE and the Saudis, the Gulf Cooperation Council splitting up, that got fixed. So, I mean, people were feeling, "Hey, the Middle East is like, you know, we're seeing momentum. We've got peace." And of course, the problem was that those millions of Palestinians were feeling like everyone had forgotten about them. They had no future, no opportunity, uh hunger in Gaza, no proper education, no ability to travel, no ability to have a proper employment, certainly no opportunity for the kids. And in the West Bank, the Palestinians losing more and more and more territory illegally settled by the Israelis. Um and so, you know, we may have stopped talking about the Palestinians, but the Palestinians didn't stop hurting. In fact, they were getting angrier and angrier and angrier. And that does not in any way justify anything that has happened uh in terms of Hamas. Uh I mean, that the the acts of October 7th were heinous. And Hamas is a terrorist organization, and I agree they should be destroyed. But you're it's not surprising that lots of Palestinians will turn to violence when they have no opportunities afforded to them and their children. So, the the future requires that the Palestinians have a place that not only they can govern, but that they can make lives for themselves. And and that means the West is going to have to invest, and most importantly, the Gulf states who are super rich are going to have to invest, but the politics have to be made feasible for that investment to take place. And the Israelis have to have security that allows that investment to take place. So, there are a lot of moving pieces, and there's a lot more incentive now for the Americans and the Gulf states and even a lot of Israelis to take that seriously in a way that everyone hadn't bothered. I mean, the Saudis were about to normalize with Israel before October 7th, and they didn't demand a two-state solution. They just wanted some window dressing. Let's just give the Palestinians some money because the view was, "Hey, it's not urgent. So, as long as we show our people that we're we're care about the Palestinians, we don't have to fix anything." They're not saying that now. Now they're saying, "No, we we've actually got to do some serious work so that this doesn't happen again." Like, the Saudis are saying never again, right? And that's important. So, if you get everyone in the region saying never again and they put their money where their mouths are, and they're willing to expend some political capital, then you have a solution. But but you know, let's also keep in mind that the Israelis have themselves been super radicalized by October 7th. A lot of those young people that were tortured and raped and killed were the most progressive. They were in a dance rave. This wasn't These aren't the settler populations. These are the people that most wanted peace with the Palestinians. And now you killed them, and you killed their kids. And so, they're they They super angry, and they are very strongly in favor of more military action against the radicals. And if a bunch of a bunch of civilians get caught up in it, well, that's the fault of Hamas, too. And and the Palestinians, I mean, when you've done what you've done to them over the last 4 months, right? I mean, we're talking about tens of thousands that have been killed. We're talking about, you know, over a million that have been displaced. Um I mean, you've leveled big pieces of Gaza completely unlivable. It's going to take a long time to get over that. Uh it's going to take a It's not just about investing in Gaza. It's also about finding a way to build trust um and connect bridges that have been completely blown up. So, this is a That's why I'm saying I'm not I think there is a path, but I don't pretend to be optimistic about that path. Mm. Yeah. Yeah, that that makes too much sense. The Ukraine situation is very similar. Like, even if you give them a state that works with and it's reconstructed, they're still going to hate the Russians for a very long time. And I mean, like, hate in a genocidal kind of way. Hate the way the Armenians hated the Turks after the genocide, right? And that's a dangerous when you radicalize that many people, that's a dangerous environment. Like, what's the likelihood that in 5 years' time there's going to be an IRA type Ukrainian paramilitary organization that's just trying to blow up Russians. I think it's fairly high that that's going to happen given what's just occurred over the last 2 years. Yeah, so uh and then I share that concern. Um I try to be optimistic. I think things rarely work out as poorly as you fear they might. And so, um I will pose a question knowing that somehow, someway, I believe that we're going to avoid it, but I'd love to hear a thoughtful take. How What are the potential guardrails that if um you get Israel just will not back down. Uh Ukraine, let's say Trump comes into power, Ukraine it gets divided. Uh NATO begins to back off cuz they realize the US is no longer um going to be the the big dog there. Uh the Houthis keep going and so we end up bombing directly uh Yemen. Uh we get into an open conflict with Iran. Uh China sees their opportunity to if the the I I don't know if he got elected or not, but I know that there was a pro-independence person running for election in Taiwan. Like there there are so many things on the table right now that speak to instability. What are the guardrails that stop us from ending up in World War III? Well, I mean, first of all, um one guardrail is that the Russians are very uninterested in getting into a fight with a NATO country directly. And and that's how you get real conflict between nuclear-armed powers. Um when, for example, uh when there was a uh a a rocket that went just across the Ukrainian border into Poland and killed two Polish um villagers. I think they were farmers. Um the it turned out that it was um a Ukrainian uh defense air defense missile that that misfired. But the Russians did everything they could immediately to show photographs and whatnot to say, "Hey, hey, hey, hey, this wasn't us. This wasn't us." Where you can imagine the Russians who are angry that the Poles are facilitating all these weapons to be sent to Ukraine um to use against Russians, you know, might have said nothing or might have even, you you said said, "Well, so what?" I mean, you know, that this is what happens. If you're going to send all these missiles and kill our citizens, then you know, you're you're basically a belligerent in the war. They didn't do that. They they've been very careful not to get involved in a direct war against NATO. So, I mean, you know, the lessons should be learned is Ukraine not in NATO? That's why they're vulnerable to the Russians killing them. That's why Finland and Sweden wanted to join NATO is because they understand that that actually means something that after 2014 when the Russians came into Crimea, you know, maybe the West should have responded more seriously than they did. You know, so that's a guardrail. Um a second guardrail, the two most powerful countries in the world, US and China, really don't want a crisis. They just don't. They're trying very hard to keep uh a a any any conflict limited from escalation. That's why you're seeing all the military-to-military engagement that has recently started up again. Um that's why since mid-October the uh Chinese decided to stop with all of their near miss overflight next to American aircraft uh that were doing exercises and uh freedom of navigation patrols uh off of the Chinese border in international airspace uh avoiding the potential for direct conflict. Um part of that is because the US knows that they're dealing with two wars and they don't need any more fighting. Part of it is because China has economic problems and it is trying to ensure that not everyone leaves China in terms of investment and geopolitically in Asia, uh they're driving a bunch of countries towards the United States on security. India, Indonesia, uh Japan, South Korea. I mean, all of these things. So, um I think that's a guardrail. Um but those guardrails do not prevent these wars from getting worse. They prevent World War III, but they don't prevent the wars from getting worse. So, the US conflict US versus itself in 2024, there's nothing preventing US institutions from continuing to deteriorate. There's nothing stopping US democracy from experiencing a much worse crisis. We don't have guardrails against that. Unfortunately, we should, we don't. Um there are no guardrails that are preventing uh Zelenskyy from losing power, from more of Ukraine being taken over by Russia. There are no guardrails right now that are preventing the war between Israel and Hamas from spilling over more broadly into the Middle East. So, as much as I think the likelihood of global war is thankfully actually very low, the likelihood that these serious conflicts are going to continue to intensify is actually very high. Yeah, that is uh that's very nerve-wracking and uh I am reminded why you call this the Voldemort of years. Um so, let me ask if Trump gets elected, is that an existential threat to democracy? Um I think that if Trump is elected, there will be a permanent amount of damage done to the US political system that will be very hard to come back from. Uh I do not believe the US will become a dictatorship. I certainly don't believe we'll see civil war, but I think the US political system will look more like something between Poland and Hungary. And what I mean by that is that rule of law will take a structural hit. Um the party in power will end up with structural advantages that will make it very hard for the opposition to come back. It will make it very hard to have free and fair elections um that can be contested effectively. So, right now we can have a free and fair election but the majority of American people have questions. And a significant minority of the American people think it's fake. The people that lose. But we can still have them. I think if Trump wins there is a reasonable chance that it will be materially harder to have a free and fair election in the United States. I think that's a big problem. Do you think that the government is being um weaponized against Trump right now? Um I think that there are some decisions that have been made um that are politically unjust against Trump. Um I think that it is that does not describe a strategic effort of the Biden administration across the board. But for example, um I believe that the uh felony case in New York on financial charges brought against Trump is an illegitimate case. And I've had that conversation with high-level Democratic attorneys who agree. Uh a politicized case that would be a misdemeanor if it was a regular US citizen, but because it's Trump, it has been raised to a felony. I think that is unjust. I think that is a weaponization of the US judicial system against the former president. Um I think the Washington and Georgia cases are completely just and have merit. Um I think that uh there has been a level of disinformation um against Trump from some political figures on the Democratic Party um that run with headlines without doing research and then end up looking stupid as a consequence. Um and I think that unfortunately, like if you've got 91 indictments and most of the cases legitimate, but one of them really isn't um that really hurts your ability to make the argument on the other cases. It's like you said before, you know, if you're caught in a lie once in this environment, people are going to mistrust you on all of those other cases, even though your reputation has been sterling in those other cases, right? Um I think that the Colorado decision um Supreme Court decision to try to throw Trump off the ballot and Maine as well, I think was illegitimate. Um I mean, it'll be overturned in the Supreme Court in my view uh but I mean, Trump whether or not you consider Trump an insurrectionist he was he's was indict he was impeached for insurrection. He was not convicted. That was overturned. And there are none of the indictments that he is presently facing are charging him for insurrection. So, I don't understand what the taking him off the ballot for me, that was politicized um by the Colorado Supreme Court. And I I I I I if I were a Trump supporter um that would seem unfair to me. That would seem like a witch hunt to me. That would motivate me to fight against these guys, right? Um but I also believe that Trump did everything he could to actually overturn a free and fair election. Did everything he could. And he failed. But if he could have succeeded, he would have succeeded. And I I cannot I mean the fact everything I just told you does not compare. These are not, you know, apples and apples we're talking about. I mean, you've got a guy, the former president, that tried to overturn a free and fair election. That's foundational to American democracy. And in any well-functioning democracy, if that guy is trying to run for president and looks like he's going to win, that should be the number one issue you're discussing. Right? Because it that's a bigger deal than anything else. It's a bigger deal than the economy. It's a bigger deal than the border. It's a bigger deal than abortion. It is literally the biggest deal in a well-functioning democracy. There's only one problem, and that is that the United States is not a well-functioning democracy. So, it is not the biggest deal because people don't think it's the biggest deal. That's a problem. They don't value the facts or the democracy the way they need to. Yeah, that's a that's a big can of worms with uh in terms of what we value. Do you think that when Nixon uh was caught doing something illegal that the way that they handled that by pardoning him so the country could move on was the right answer? Yes, absolutely. And I would hope that if um Biden wins and Trump is going to jail uh that he would pardon Trump. I think that would be the right thing to do for the country. Yeah, that's really, really interesting. I I only have the question, I don't have an answer, but I will just say off-ramps, everybody. Off-ramps, whether you're talking about Putin, whether you're talking about the Palestinians. Got to have them. Got to have them. Yep. Ian Bremmer, it is always a pleasure. Where can people follow you? Uh they can follow me Ian Bremmer on Twitter, uh gzeromedia.com with like our regular newsletter that comes out every morning. You can see it and subscribe. Um anywhere Any other friendly social media site, if you look me up, you'll probably find me someplace. I love it, man. Thank you so much for taking the time. Everybody, if you have not already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. Peace. If you liked this conversation, check out this episode to learn more. When when I hear people say it doesn't feel like World War III has started. World War II, when it started, also didn't feel like World War II had started for America. If you recall, America didn't get involved in World War II until after all of Europe had basically been involved.