Helen Walters: Former US President Donald Trump was shot at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in what FBI officials are investigating as an assassination attempt. Obviously, the hot takes are flying, but we wanted to talk to Ian Bremmer about the bigger picture of the state of American politics and democracy.
As we all know, the US election is coming up in November. So how pivotal a moment is this, and what do we need to both do and watch for in our capacity as invested humans, wherever we are? Ian, thank you so much for joining us.
Ian Bremmer: Helen, it is great to be with you.
HW: So let's get right to it. How significant a moment is this, and what should we be paying attention to right now?
IB: Well, maybe for a second, let's recognize that it was this close to changing the course of history. Former President Trump could easily have been assassinated. And it's a staggering failure of the Secret Service that is, you know, on scene, given the incredible amounts of security that are around a president, a former president. This is a big rally. That was what was staggering to me, not that we were going to see violence and social discord in this election cycle. That seemed pretty certain. But the potential for the president to have been assassinated, that is quite staggering.
Having said that, this is an enormous issue because it does change the course of the campaign. Number one, for example, it makes it much less likely, far less likely, that Biden is going to stand down. For the last two weeks, that is almost all anyone could talk about. And even though he did not want to go, and in my view, he shouldn't have been running and neither should Trump for over a year now. I think they’re both far too old. But it was increasingly likely that he was going to be under more and more pressure. That's gone. That's gone. It's gone from the news. And certainly, if Biden doesn't want to go, he doesn't have to. And instead the focus is going to be on a uniquely polarized US electoral cycle, an enormous amount of disinformation, an enormous amount of tribalism, an enormous amount of political anger. And can the country come together? Can any good come from this extraordinary tragedy at all? For the near term, I am skeptical, but we should always hold out hope, and we can talk about that. But those are a few of the things that we're looking at in terms of what just happened.
HW: So what do you think the campaigns do now?
IB: I think that Trump appears in Milwaukee, the Republican National Convention, as Lazarus. I think it is extraordinary. The political instincts and the human instincts that Trump had after he was shot and he is bleeding on his face, and he has no idea if that shooter is still out there, no idea. And and he gets right up and he strains against the Secret Service and he doesn't want to be covered. He wants his followers, he wants the world to see him with fist raised saying, "Fight, fight, fight." And we've already seen that this is the Time magazine cover, it's the lead, it's the iconic image of the campaign and will be for a long time. And for a campaign that has been much less about the party and much more about him, about Donald Trump, the man, I think that level of fervor in supporting him, especially by his core base, is going to grow dramatically. And the campaign, I think, will reflect that.
If I were to make a bet, and I recognize that this is a very quickly moving target, so I could easily be wrong, I think this makes it more likely that Trump goes with the vice presidential candidate that is very much aligned with him and that message. And so to me, that feels more like JD Vance than anyone else. There are obviously lots of other considerations, but Trump is someone that relies more on his personal judgment and gut and instinct than he does on a lot of those other considerations, so that's why I think it's worth mentioning.
And I also think that if you're Biden, you are trying to unify. It is going to be a lot harder in this environment for Biden to talk about Trump as an existential threat to democracy. Irrespective of the fact that he feels that way, it must be recognized that some in the Democratic Party who have talked in that way and have used, you know, sort of the more visceral Trump as orange Hitler, that is the kind of thing that makes it feel patriotic to engage in violence. And by the way, we saw a lot of that around January 6. That if you convince your followers that this incredible injustice is being done and you're going to lose your democracy if you don't stop the rigged election, and if you don't march down and occupy the Capitol, that’s how you get people chanting, “Hang Mike Pence.” That's how you get people calling for violence against their members of Congress, House and Senate. So I do think that that component of Biden's campaign, which has been a significant component of his campaign, is going to be far less effective. And I think he's going to be more careful about making it, and so will a lot of his supporters. So that's one more thing I think that this is going to really change, the way the campaign is going to be run.
HW: Do you think this changes anything for Trump and for his campaign, or do you think that he just now stands on this, as you say, as Lazarus, kind of emerging triumphant from this really terrifying moment?
IB: So, Helen, let me say, I do think there's an opportunity here for Trump. This election for the past months has been Biden's to lose. And it increasingly was looking, especially after that horrible debate just a couple of weeks ago, that he was indeed preparing to lose it. With this near-assassination, with the president, the former president being shot, this election is now Trump's to win. Remember when Biden said, "When they push me down," you know, sort of, “You get back up.” Nobody pushed him down, he fell. He self-immolated. That debate was not won by Trump. It was lost by Biden. And the response and lack of response for days, didn't even talk to the press until Stephanopoulos, a full eight days later, those were self-owns, right? That was, you know, Biden not ready, not up for it, his people not wanting to risk it. This is different. Trump's future is now in his hands. And he did an extraordinary job of showing that he wasn't going to get knocked down. When they knocked Trump down, he got back up. That, he got back up.
But the question is, is Trump just a winner, or does he want to be a leader? Because, you know, right now I worry that the United States increasingly is becoming a country of winners but not a country of leaders.
You know, winners are people that do absolutely everything they can to get to the finish line. And it doesn't matter how they do it, it doesn't matter, you know, sort of who's kind of knocked down in their way. Doesn't matter what the tactics are, as long as you win. We're number one, right? I mean, the United States is known for that and in many places admired for that, but also disliked and frequently loathed for that. And Trump has shown that he is one of the most extraordinary winners out there. And he talks frequently in that language. He doesn’t like you? “You’re a loser. You’re a loser,” right? And so the question is, can Trump not only win the election, but can he lead? Can he -- I mean, the Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, came out and used the same language hours after this assassination attempt that Biden did. Unifying, language of unity, language of political violence is wrong in all contexts, and we must now work together to abhor it. That was the language that we were hearing after 9/11. So the question is, might Trump do that? I will tell you, I think that it is in Trump's power to be able to do that at the Republican National Convention and going forward. It is not his inclination, it is not his instinct, and it's not his history, right? I mean, especially because this is a man who has been impeached twice. This is a man who has been indicted dozens and dozens of times, convicted 34 times of felony charges. And he believes that his political enemies are responsible for that. He believes that the reason that he was shot and almost killed is because of his political adversaries. He believes that. That's a horrible thing for the country. And the question is, does he see any desire, any utility? Is he willing to try to step out of his instincts and impulses, many of them not serving the country or the world well. Just his team, just his base. And instead become a leader of the entire American people. Because I will tell you, Helen, again, I think he's going to win, at this point. I wouldn't bet everything on it. It's still four months away, but I think it's a safe bet. And if he wins, he'll be my president. And I will say that, he'll be my president. But will he believe that he is actually the president equally of all Americans?
In the United Kingdom, just recently, we saw a transfer of power between Rishi Sunak from the Conservative Party and Keir Starmer of the Labour Party. And they both spoke in terms of unity that both of these men fundamentally believe in. They believe that public service is about the public and it's service. They believe that, they actually, they don't just say it, they actually believe that. And the UK is a far more functional democracy today for that reason. And when we look at democracies all over the world this year, and so many of them have been having elections, in France as well, and across the European Union and Parliament and in Mexico and in South Africa and in India and in Indonesia. We have seen that democracies all over the world are capable of having free and fair elections, with leaders that lead for the country. Not all equally well or effectively, and frequently using divisive rhetoric, but at the end of the day, they still think that.
That is not where we have been heading in the United States. It is not true today. This is a country where 25 percent of Americans now say that patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save the country. That's what Americans say. Twenty-five percent agree with that. That to me, sounds like a democracy in crisis. Seventy-five percent of Americans say that American democracy is at risk in the 2024 presidential election. But of course, those 75 percent do not agree on why it's at risk. A lot of them believe it's because Trump is an existential threat to democracy. A lot of other ones believe that Biden has already rigged the election and has destroyed democracy with special interests and the deep state. Again, that is not a sustainable path to democracy. And right now, there's honestly only one person in the United States that could make a really big difference in that trajectory. And that's the man that right now just escaped death and is set to become the next president.
HW: That's so interesting to hear you describe things in that way. And I'm curious, do you see anybody else coming up? Are there any emerging leaders from either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party who you see actually may be able to help build bridges or foster relationships or actually do things in a different way because, as you say, kind of the spectacle and the theater of American politics has become overweening, and the public service has really seemed to take second place to grandstanding. But who else, like, are there any other emerging leaders that you're watching that actually bring you hope?
IB: Oh, absolutely. There are a lot of younger people coming up that I think reflect that kind of sensibility. I mean, I look at some of the governors, for example, you look at a Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan, or you look at a Glenn Youngkin in Virginia and you see, you know, sort of in their 50s, robust political leaders that certainly have an ideological tilt and policy preference. But at the end of the day, they're bridge builders. They want to work with other people. In the Senate, I see Chris Coons from Delaware. I see Mitt Romney from Utah. These are people that are very interested in bipartisan legislation and working together and working with each other. I think there are a lot of people like that, and I think there are a lot of young people in America whose names we don’t know yet who are like that.
But that is not this political cycle. That is very far from Trump versus Biden redux. And, you know, I think that there are other people as well. There are sports stars, there are entertainers. I mean, there are a lot of Americans that are, you know, soft-power types but wield real power and have real influence and have a lot of money, who inspire all sorts of young people. But you wouldn't say that they're playing a significant role in the political space. And when they are, they typically do a little more partisan damage than they do good, right? And that's particularly true when we talk about the most powerful individual Americans, right? I mean, the Elon Musks and the Jeff Bezoses, who you and I have spoken about before, who care a lot more about themselves and self-aggrandizement than they do about their fellow citizens.
HW: Interesting that you bring up Elon Musk. Obviously, he came out right after the attempted assassination and endorsed Trump, which was something previously he had said he wasn't going to do. Does that matter? Should we pay attention to that?
IB: Well, it matters, especially since I think Trump's going to be president. I mean, right now, Elon is, you know, the wealthiest guy on the planet. He wields probably more power individually than any other American. And the fact that he has aligned himself with MAGA ideology and has algorithmically been promoting that on his social media platform is a big deal. He certainly, you know, he's been speaking with Trump regularly. He seems to want to have some form of advisory role with a Trump presidency. And were he to do that, you know, for example, Trump owns Truth Social. It's not doing very much, not clear how Trump would be able to own it as president. It's very clear that Elon could buy it. And it could then be Elon's Voice of America, which would give those two men an awful lot more power together. And would also help entrench political power in the individuals that occupy the position of president and the positions of power around them, and make it much harder to displace them. I mean, part of the issue in the United States right now is whether or not rule of law and democracy are sustainable on the present trajectory.
And I am not someone who believes that the US is on the precipice of dictatorship at all. I don't believe that. I don't believe the US is about to have a civil war. And I didn't believe that on January 6. And I said that at the time, and you and I talked about it. But I do believe that we are seeing an erosion of rule of law that will create far more power for sitting incumbent presidents and their parties and their fellows. So, I mean, for example, the Supreme Court ruling that any official act of a president has impunity gives more power to the executive. The fact that we are in an environment where the filibuster in the Senate, we no longer have the moderates that were really, really convinced it needed to stay, like Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin. And so were the Democrats or Republicans to take a majority of 51, 52 -- again, this cycle looks much more like the Republicans -- I think the filibuster is gone. That's a lot more power for the incumbent, the sitting party, right? We have a media environment that is far more politicized and suffused with disinformation, social media even more so, algorithmically. Now, if you take that and then you weaponize the Department of Justice, the FBI, the IRS, which, again, Trump and advisers have claimed that the Biden team is already doing, right? If that were to happen in dramatic form under a Trump presidency, you are permanently eroding rule of law. And then the United States still has the best economy in the world, still has the reserve currency, still has the biggest, most powerful military. But its political system starts feeling much more like a hybrid, not a functional democracy, but more like a Hungary or a Serbia or a Turkey, where it's actually structurally much, much harder for opposition parties, individuals, media, to function and certainly to gain power. I think that is the question of where the United States is going to fit on a spectrum of open to closed systems that we presently see around the world.
HW: Let's talk a little bit more about the media, because obviously we’re all watching this, and we've all watched, for many years at this point, the increased kind of polarization that we see in the media, kind of the fracturing into us versus them, where they are coming for us, they're coming for our families. They are always someone else. They are not people who agree with us or believe our ideas. And things have become so inflammatory and so inflamed that it seems like the media itself has fractured and fragmented. How should we be thinking about that right now? How should we be thinking about ways to actually understand what's happening and maybe take the heat out of the conversation and actually talk about the ideas that matter, rather than the increasingly violent rhetoric?
IB: Well, Helen, I do think that the media is a big part of what is broken right now in American democracy. I mean, if you watch MSNBC or Fox, you are getting two completely different sets of facts about what is and is not reality. And that didn't used to be true, not only when you and I were kids, but even when you and I were going to college and starting off our professional careers, it wasn't true. It really is true now, that has caused an awful lot of damage. And it's worse than that because most people don't watch those shows, right? I mean, actually the average age of someone that watches cable is well over 60. Most people get their news from those shows and those networks through social media, which means they're seeing the headlines. And the headlines are far worse than the content. They're far more polarizing. And that's not only true for the cable news, which is much more infotainment, but it’s also true even for The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, which are supposed to be respected journalist institutions that are really reporting on what is and not what they would like to be.
And there's so many times that, I mean, you know, the vast majority of people that promote information on politics in the United States of any sort, whether it's politicians or media or individual influencers, their analysis is literally not distinguishable from their personal ideology and preference. They're the same things. And I mean, the one thing I can guarantee you is when that is the case, it is useless as analysis. It's useless as analysis. That should be obvious. I mean, I've had this experience a bunch of times, and there are so many things out there that I see happening that I wouldn't want, but it doesn't change the analysis. And I even see people reacting saying, "How can you say that?" Implying that the fact that I'm writing it as analysis means that I must actually want it. For example, the likelihood that Ukraine is going to be partitioned and lose a significant piece of their land, which I strongly oppose, but I also strongly feel it's going to happen. And the same thing is true on things around the Middle East. The same thing is true when I talk about, you know, sort of how Biden versus Trump is going or how Trump is going to react and how Biden is going to react. And whether Biden's going to step down again. I told you, I think he should, I don't think either of them should be running. But that didn’t mean I thought they weren’t going to. And so I think that that is a fundamental problem, and it is made worse by the fact that the business model for the media is not about getting good information out there. It's about maximizing the attention economy, and it's about generating clicks for data, which turns citizens into products. Those are deeply, deeply anti-democratic business models. That's not the intention. It just happens to be the negative externality that nobody wants to pay for. And as you know, Helen, when you've got a business model that has a negative externality that no one wants to pay for, we end up paying for it, not them, we do.
It's kind of funny, you would think that the problem in the United States is that we have too much capitalism. It's not. It's actually that we don't have enough capitalism. We have people that are very, very, very strongly capitalist when they are making money. But when their business model loses money, they stop being capitalists. Then they want state intervention, then they want socialism, then they want everyone to pay for it. That is so anti-American. It's so anti-American. And I wish that more people would recognize that what made America truly great are people that take accountability for both their profits and their losses. That's not what winning is. That's what leadership is. That's what leadership is.
HW: Back to that theme again. So what are the world leaders saying about this moment and what are they watching for?
IB: Well, you know, Helen, I just came from Washington, where we had the 75th anniversary of NATO, the strongest military alliance in the planet's history, led by the United States, capably led by the United States, recently expanded to include Finland and Sweden. And all of the 32 members there are committed to the future of that alliance, even Hungary's Viktor Orban, who has many different views about how they should spend their money and resource. But he doesn't want to go anywhere. They are spending more money on defense; 23 of them are now at the two percent minimum or more of defense from GDP spending. And they recognize that they need more resource and capacity and coordination because of an increasingly dangerous planet. So, I mean, that was a real success. The summit was a real success.
And yet all of those leaders were deeply concerned about the state of American democracy, deeply concerned about what was going to happen after US elections and whether they could continue to count on the most powerful military in the world and also their most powerful ally. And that was before the assassination attempt. And the notes that I've gotten just in the past hours from many of those leaders have been, “Oh my God.” Like, yeah, "Number one, we think Trump is going to win. Number two, we’re really worried about the future of your democracy. This isn't sustainable. Is anyone going to be able to pick up the pieces to build it back?” You know, “Can you have a 9/11 response?”
And right now, near term, my sense is no. My sense is no. I think this is going to look a lot more like January 6 than 9/11. I think in the early days, you have a lot of people that are condemning it. And just as you did after January 6, the early days, a lot of people condemned January 6, Democrats and Republicans. But then in short order within, you know, just weeks and months, and it'll be faster this time around because of the election cycle, in short order, you had it politicized and weaponized. You had the Democrats saying, this is why Trump is no good and these people need to go to jail and it's horrible. And you had the Republicans saying they're patriots, and you had Trump actually playing a bunch of January 6 insurrectionists singing the national anthem. And that he salutes while they do that. And I fear that the follow-on from the assassination attempt will be more like that, where Democrats and Republicans perceive it radically differently. And that that is something that the Russians and other enemies of the United States are only too happy to promote with disinformation, to weaponize. The Russians have already talked about that. We can get into that if you want.
But the rest of the world, the allies of the United States, are deeply concerned because they need a strong and stable America. They don't just need a powerful America, they want a powerful America. They need a strong and stable America, and they don't have one. America's adversaries want a weak and divided America, and they're getting one. This is an opportunity for America's enemies. And it is a deep structural concern, possibly a crisis for many of America's allies.
HW: I mean, it's been extraordinary to me just watching this morning and seeing the conspiracy theories emerge on both sides. So you have Democrats worrying that, in fact, this was all organized by Trump and his people. And you have Republicans who think that this was a Democrat-organized assassination attempt. The rhetoric is really intense. And I think I fear, as you do, that it doesn't seem like anyone is going to emerge to make this into a 9/11 moment of unity, but in fact, that we should fear more violence.
IB: I mean, if I were in a position to really do something about it, I would do everything I could. And I do know some Americans at least that are trying. But I will tell you honestly, I mean, in the grand scheme of things, the wind, the currents, they're in the other direction. This is something that is probably going to have to get worse before it gets better, because people are not taking it seriously enough. There are too few people that are willing to risk their careers, risk their ambitions, risk even their personal safety to speak up for something greater than them that they believe in, for a sense of comedy and nation that brings the country together as opposed to divides it. I don't think we're at a point where that is going to happen.
HW: Let's talk about guns for a moment. America surely knows it has a problem. The US Surgeon General has declared gun violence a public health crisis. Yet other countries have passed gun-reform laws quickly after a devastating attack. If you think about Dunblane in Scotland or Christchurch in New Zealand, and yet America seems to experience far deadlier shootings than yesterday's on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. And yet, the shooter in this attack wasn't old enough to legally drink, but he got his hands on a semi-automatic rifle. Do you think this moment will make any difference, given who was involved? Do you think we will see anything related to gun control other than hopes and prayers?
IB: Well, I mean, the funny thing is that the United States has had gun reform in the past in response to a presidential assassination attempt. This was Reagan back in '81, who was almost killed, but the White House press secretary, James Brady, was struck and he was confined to a wheelchair. After that, he devoted his life to gun control, gun reform. And that's what got you the Brady Bill back in, I think it was '94 or something like that. But that is not where we are now. That feels like ancient history. And right now, the United States has more guns per capita than any other country on the planet except Yemen. And Yemen is having a civil war. So arguably they need those guns in Yemen. The United States, at least so far, not so much. So you've got a very serious issue. You have people that are politicized and angry and prone to believe conspiracy theories. We're talking about, like all the media and social media landscape promoting that. And you have this enormous number of weapons, military-grade weapons in many cases, that are available to any average wacko. And they get them and they use them. And how many times have we heard about AR-15, AR-15? I mean, the Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, was shot. And, you know, I remember what that was like for that country. And it was astonishing because it was a guy that had to make his own weapon, because it is impossible to buy a weapon to do that kind of damage in Japan. And in the United States, the mass shootings are just something that we've come to normalize and live with. And it's not just that. It's not just the political environment. It's also the mental health environment, which is worse in the United States with less effective treatment than in other advanced industrial economies. It is the fentanyl and the drug addictions and the sense of ennui, it's the homelessness and the helplessness, the perceived helplessness of the working classes who have been hollowed out. So when you put all of that together, you expect a lot more violence. Now, there hasn't been much political violence in the United States thus far in this electoral season despite all of that, why not? Well, the main reason is because the US may not take guns and mental health very seriously, but my God, they take domestic security, homeland security very seriously. We saw this after 9/11 when Homeland Security was stood up. And I mean, anyone that sees the Secret Service that is around the president and former president, there's no other country in the world that has anything remotely like that. And it's not just that, it's the background checks and it's the surveillance. It's the intelligence. It's, you know, the FBI and the domestic security that is trying to ensure that any potential, you know, violent vector in the United States is neutralized before they can execute on a plan. And that's true whether we're talking about terrorism coming from Islamic fundamentalists or white nationalists, homegrown in the United States, you name it. And so in that regard, the US has put an enormous amount of resources in trying to contain this problem.
You and I, I think, would agree that a more effective way to combat the problem would be to get the root causes, as opposed to waiting until you've got the wackos with the guns and the motivation, and then try to contain them. But it's not as if the United States is doing nothing. And the big surprise, I think, if there was a surprise, for me, it was not that there are people out there that want to try to assassinate Trump, you know, or Biden for that matter. It is the fact that the Secret Service so clearly fell down on the job. And that this man was able to get off six to eight shots and actually shoot the former president in the head. Like, I mean, heads will roll, quite literally, for that one.
HW: So you you brought up the shooting of Ronald Reagan, and Patti Davis, his daughter, actually just published an op-ed today, remembering the events of that weekend back in 1981 and trying to think about how we can learn from that and how we can move forward. And I just want to quote something that she said, which is that she hopes "that the events this weekend change us as a country, shock us into remembering who we are supposed to be, who we are capable of being, not people riddled with rage and reaching for weapons. Not people who try to influence elections with gunfire." So how do you rate America's chances on that?
IB: The United States is a very resilient country with an enormous amount of wealth, with enormous amount of human capital, situated geographically in the most peaceful and prosperous part of the world. That provides great capacity to turn this around and get it right. But it also makes Americans, average Americans, feel like they're not facing much of a crisis until it gets really, really hot. And we've seen this before. I mean, you know, again, there have been plenty of assassinations and near assassinations. And remember the softball game, for example, where, I mean, that easily could have been like, large numbers of senators, members of Congress getting killed. And, you know, they got lucky but didn't change anything. Not only did it not lead to gun reform, didn’t lead to any more civility or bipartisanship in the US. And I fear that her call will be unheeded. That the time is not yet ripe in the United States as much as with every sinew of my being, I want to say that we can do this. I'm telling you that it feels to me like the US doesn't really believe that this is a crisis yet. That, you know, they can elect Trump or they can elect Biden, and they can keep getting, you know, kind of worse and screwed up. But their own lives aren't really going to be all that affected. And that's a worry because it means that what we will need to actually eventually make a change and a change will eventually come, will need to be much more disruptive, I fear, and I do not hope. I fear it will be much more violent. That's where I think we're headed.
HW: That is a sober note to end on, but thank you so much, Ian, for your time. It's great to know that you are tracking all of these things and that we will talk to you again, I'm sure, soon.
IB: Thank you.
