Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Hello and welcome to Chatham House. I’m Leslie Vinjamuri. I direct the US and Americas Programme here. It is a true pleasure, a privilege and honour. I have to say, Peter and Susan, I am top of your fan club, so, I’m really delighted that you’ve been able to join us. Next time it will be in person. For those of you, I’m sure there aren’t many but I’ll say it anyway, Peter Baker, Susan Glasser; Peter Baker, you are Chief White House Correspondent for The New York Times, a Political Analyst for MSNBC. Susan Glasser, your writing’s very well-known to us as Staff Writer for The New Yorker and Global Affairs Analyst for CNN.
I was, sort of, going back through all the many things that you’ve done and reminded you were Moscow Bureau Chiefs together; you wrote after that Kremlin Rising, a co-authored book. You then later, recently actually, wrote a book about James Baker, “The Man Who Ran Washington,” only a couple of years ago. And now we’re here to talk to you, the title of the event American Democracy in 2022, but it’s really occasioned by this phenomenal book, “Trump in the White House, 2017-2021: The Divider.” I mean, this is really – I recommend it, it’s a big book. I recommend it highly to all of you.
I was saying to the two of you – by the way, we are on the record today, we are not under the Chatham House Rule, but I was saying, you know, “The last few months in the UK have – you know, there’s been a lot going on here, and we are about to return to a conversation prompted by, of course, the US midterm elections that are in just eight days, but we’re about, I think, to return, in quite extraordinary fashion, to a conversation that really dominated the news for many years, even here in the UK, across the world, about Donald Trump.” So, no two better people to take us back to that than you did.
Let me start with, you know, those four years that you covered so – in such great detail and, I guess, ask you an opening question, which is, you know, to many of us Donal – or it felt like we knew everything we needed to know about Donald Trump. He was on Twitter, he was all over the newspaper, it was 24/7 hours coverage, but you went back and you managed to really, you know, write a very significant piece of work about those years. What did you find out that you didn’t already know, what really surprised you? And I’ll let you choose, sort of, who goes first, ‘cause you’re in this deeply together.
Peter Baker
Well, listen, Leslie, thank you so much for having us. We’re really delighted to be with you. As you say, we would like to do it in person next time, of course. Doing London from Washington is not quite the same, but we’re very glad to have this chance to talk to you today and to answer any questions.
I mean, look, you’re right, there are obviously – you know, Trump lived in all of our heads, in some ways, for four years, and we all felt like we knew everything, but the truth is we didn’t. And the reason we decided to go back after he left office to do this book was to try to figure out what we didn’t know at the time, actually to go back and re-report, in effect, those four years to come up with a bigger story. And I think what we found was how much more of a story it really was, that we talk a lot about January 6th 2021, rightly so, but to understand it, we really have to understand January 20th 2017, and every day in between. This is the only book that covers the full four years of his presidency, that tries to make sense of it all from beginning to end, from “American carnage” to “fight like hell.”
And I think to – for – what surprised us, or at least what struck us more than anything else, was how much there was an inexorable move towards January 6th. If you go back and put it together you see, in hindsight of course, with great clarity, how we were always, and almost inevitably, heading to this clash over power and the Constitution at the end of his presidency, because he was waging a four-year war on institutions and traditions of American democracy.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Susan, let me ask you, you know, a version of the same question, you know, what surprised you most, as you’re, sort of, going through these four years? I mean, it’s interesting what you’ve just said, there was a sense of there being – and there’s clearly more people in these books, or maybe animals – that there’s this inexorable move towards January 6th. I mean, that, in and of itself, is really quite an extraordinary statement because it does ask us, you know, what comes next? But what, you know, what, for you, what really, sort of, jumped out?
Susan Glasser
Well, I think Peter’s right that, you know, it really was the impetus for the project – sorry about our co-worker, Ellie. You know, when someone comes to the door with a delivery, there’s really no – but she was accompanying us all along the way of the book, so, I suppose it’s appropriate she’s here to promote it as well, Ellie, yes.
What I would say is that we really found that many of the – even some of the episodes that we knew some things about, when you actually were able to debrief many participants who had not even spoken, you know, even, you know, on background to anyone before, what you came up with is a much more systematic challenging of institutions than we even understood. For example, the seriousness of Trump’s efforts to pull out of NATO, I think, were not – you know, it was understood at the time, of course, you know, he had this sort of public rhetoric, you know, but there was always the clown show aspect to the – always the clown show aspect to the presidency, right, you know, and so, that often tended to obscure.
The clashes with the leadership of the Pentagon and America’s national security apparatus was something that I do not think that we understood, the gravity of that situation. Arguably, that was the most serious conflict between a President of the United States and the leadership of the Pentagon, ever. I mean, you know, we obtained in the course of reporting the book, a letter, a resignation letter that Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Mark Milley, wrote but did not send to Donald Trump after the June 1st Lafayette Square photo-op. That was when Trump marched – you know, cleared the square in front of the White House, was cleared violently of protesters, and then he marches to a church with a bible that he holds upside-down.
Milley was marching in that without, he says, knowing what it was. That caused a huge kerfuffle in the US. He writes this resignation letter that says the President of the United States is “a grave and irreparable harm to the country,” that he is “ruining the international system,” and that “he does not subscribe to many of the values and principles which the United States and its allies fought for in World War Two.” This is surely, I think, you know, probably the most extraordinary document I’ve ever seen, you know, by a senior official of the United States, and it underscores a level of gravity that I certainly did not understand until we worked on the book.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
So, there’s a lot in there and I want to come back to some of those things, but first, let me, again, come back to this question about, you know, the inexorable drive, but also the title of the book, right. You call it, it’s a brilliant title, right, “The Divider.” As you probably remember, for four years we had this, like, headline question that many people were trying to answer, which was, you know, “Was Trump a cause – is he a symptom or is he a cause?”
Now, you know, the book suggests that you have a view on this. The data suggests – if you go back to the Pew data, it says we are at around 20% of registered voters who thought the other side were a fundamental threat to America’s democratic values in 2014. By 2020, that number goes from 20% on both sides of the aisle, to 80%. 80% of registered voters thought the other party, those voters are a threat, a fundamental threat to America’s democratic values, so, something changed.
But, you know, you were part of those conversations every single day, every single week. What – you know, now that you’ve written the book, you look back on it, was it – you know, where would we be? I mean, it’s very hard to ask the counterfactual, so maybe I won’t ask the counterfactual, but, you know, where do you draw that calculation on, kind of, you know, America’s divided because of Donald Trump or, you know, there were lots of other things going on and we were heading in this direction, it was, sort of, ripe for the picking?
Peter Baker
Well, I think the way we tad to – the way we tend to put it is, Trump is both a manifestation of the polarisation that was already happening and an accelerant of it. In other words, he didn’t start the fire, but he threw fuel on it. And I think that you – it’s all – it’s a marriage of man and moment, literally in this case. A person like Trump would not have succeeded in a different era, and this era wouldn’t be as divided as it was without Donald Trump. You know, these – you can’t separate those two, he is of this moment. He practises the politics of division, which is why we did call it The Divider, as a tool of success.
Now, look, all Politicians, to some extent, are dividers. That’s – you have to win an election by saying that “The other guy is no good, their party has terrible ideas, you have no character, you have to vote for us because they’re bad.” That is traditional, that’s fine, but usually there’s something that comes after that, right? The idea that once an election is over, there is a shared understanding that, first of all, that the system has worked and we accept the results, and second of all, that there is some greater purpose to winning office than simply insulting the other side for another four years, and that was never Donald Trump’s aspiration.
You know, I think of the Presidents I’ve covered, you know, Donald – you know, Barack Obama said there wasn’t “a red America, a blue America, there’s a United States of America.” You know, George W Bush said he wanted to be “a uniter, not a divider.” Bill Clinton said he wanted to “repair the breach.” Now, all three of these, and other Presidents as well, were divisive in their own ways. None of them lived up to those aspirations, but they understood that they were at least supposed to give voice to it. They understood that at least there was a obligation on the President of the United States to, at least at some point or another, lead the country as a whole and not simply, you know, serve your own personal and partisan, you know, as – you know, ambitions, and that was never Trump’s ambition.
In fact, his own Chief Ideologist, Steve Bannon, said it perfectly after the election: “We didn’t win this election to bring the country together,” and that was the mission statement of Donald Trump throughout his presidency. And that’s one reason why the poll numbers, I think, have changed, as you noted, because it’s not that he created it, but he definitely encouraged it and exacerbated it.
Susan Glasser
Well – and I would just add that as far as, you know, why did we call it The Divider? What’s striking about Donald Trump is that it’s not just a political style for Donald Trump, it’s not just a calculated method of running for office or of governing once you’re in office, but it also happens to fit who he is. And there’s this – I think that’s, you know, one of the reasons for his success, in fact, is that there’s this incredible convergence between who he is as a person and the persona that he has created in the public space. Because he uses division in his life, in – and long before he was a Politician, that’s how he ran his business, that’s how he runs his, you know, family. He pits people against each other in order, always, to come out ahead.
And that – you know, what’s striking in fact is, like, the levels of in-fighting and chaos that were at the top of the Trump Organization, his family business for decades, in the White House, from day one, right? It was all about pitting people against each other. In fact, you know, aides would say he had an almost gladiatorial view of the Oval Office, where he literally wanted people to be almost at fisticuffs, screaming, yelling, swearing at each other in front of him. He said at one point as he was busy purging the first round of his national security appointees in order to make sure that no-one got too much power, he said, “Well, I like conflict.” And I think that it’s both a personal descriptor in our use of it, as well as a description of what he did to the country.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
So, you know, as I listen to you, the other thing that, sort of, comes to mind is that one of the other tropes, it’s a very important one, is that people talk about Trump and they talk about Trumpism. And we all know that the, you know, that a lot of people feel, and I’m curious where you are on this, that it’s – it doesn’t matter if Donald Trump comes or goes, you know, he may or may not come back, and I do want to hear your views on that, but even if he doesn’t, even if he doesn’t, you know, stand for election and win, or maybe not, that it doesn’t matter. We have Ron DeSantis, we have people around him, we have, you know, Elon Musk over the weekend tweeting fake news about Paul Pelosi, shamefully.
And so, he’s, sort of, embedded a number of people that, kind of, you know, mirrored his views and his beliefs, perpetuated the problem of disinformation, but your book is really about Donald Trump, and it’s about tactics as well as policies and platforms and disinformation. I mean, you know, Trump and Trumpism, they’re not the same thing, or are they the same thing? And if you take – I guess my question, and maybe we’ll start with you, or whoever wants to start – if you take Donald Trump out of the equation, is Trumpism as – is it the same thing, or does it become an entirely different thing? How much of this is, you know, how much of this is really Donald Trump?
Susan Glasser
Yeah, I mean, I think, obviously we will begin to get some answers to that question over the next few years, you know, as we see what is the fate of the Trump mini me’s. You know, certainly it is a style of politics, and he has – that’s part of his accelerant quality in American politics, in fact, is to convince a whole generation of Republican Politicians that there are votes to be gained and benefit to be gained by crashing through norms and even laws. You know, that once you are outrageous, you become progressively more addicted to it.
Look at the road travelled by some of the Republican Politicians, not just the Ted Cruzs of the world, but even somebody like Marco Rubio, who was a Republican Senator from Florida, ran as, sort of, the establishment, national-security-minded guy back in 2016 primaries against Donald Trump, eviscerated by Trump as “Little Marco.” He’s now running for re-election, saying the most extraordinary, trollish kind of things. There is no other lane for Republican Politicians, they think right now, because whether it’s they themselves who have become addicted to the Trumpian style, or they believe that their electorate is addicted to it, you know, the outcome, in some ways, is the same.
And, you know, look, you know, Trump has, sort of, given a permission slip to, kind of, all the worst impulses in American politics. He didn’t invent them. You know, if you had told me in 2015, before Trump became the nominee, there was a third of the country that would support a right-wing, nationalist, populist demagogue, I would say that’s probably correct. I mean, you know, America has had a long tradition of this, we had Joseph McCarthy, we had, you know, the entire resistance to the civil rights movement. We had candidates like George Wallace. So, it’s not shocking, you know, that percentage of the country supported Richard Nixon until the very end. And, you know, the shocking thing is that we had someone in the White House, and now he’s taken over the whole party.
Now, the question mark – and it is, I think, still a question mark – is whether anyone else could be as effective at Trump. You know, like, he has a showman’s quality, he has a unique connection with these voters, who may not be as tolerant or forgiving of this in someone else. And conversely, by the way, some of these people who are, kind of, cynically or opportunistically following Trump may not have the same zeal for breaking laws and norms that Trump did. You know, so, people like Ron DeSantis or Mike Pence, we just don’t know the answer to whether they have quite the same willingness to smash up the Constitution or not.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
So, as we look ahead, you know, we’re eight days away from these midterms, people are already voting, we’re looking at probably record turnout, maybe not amongst those 18 to 29-year-olds. That’s, sort of, a big and very important question. But can you give us a sense of, you know, where is Trump in all of this? You know, how much do you feel his presence as you are in your conversations, in Washington? Is he, sort of, hovering, you know, over the Republican Party? We hear about the election deniers in safe seats or, you know, seats that seem to be safe, standing for election. We hear that – you know, we know that there are some in contested, sort of, seats that are really battleground seats. But what is the tenor of conversation, of rhetoric, of, you know, his presence as a divider in these midterm elections?
Peter Baker
Yeah, if you’re here in Washington, the conversation at the office and over Zoom and at dinner parties, is still 2:1 Trump over Biden. You would think that Trump was the incumbent President for how much attention he gets here, and it’s nothing – we’ve never seen anything like it, really, in, certainly, our lifetime anyway, in which a former President, a former President who lost, by the way, could still be such a dominant force.
And so, yeah, these midterms are going to be a good test of that, right? So, you’re right, that basically, you can – you know, there’re different numbers, depending on whether we write it or The Washington Post writes it, but basically, hundreds of election deniers are on the ballot right now for Congress, Governorships, Secretaries of State and so forth. And basically, almost no matter how the election turns out, you can say that a majority of the Republican caucus in the next Congress will be at least ostensibly election deniers. Now, some of them may not really believe it and may only be paying lip service to it, because they know that’s the only thing you’re allowed to do in the Republican Party today. It is a litmus test for success. If you somehow deny the fact that Trump, you know, lost, that’s the only way you get ahead. So, that starts off with a very, very different caucus in the next Congress than in the current one.
Secondly, though, what we’re going to be looking at are particularly some individual states, individual candidates, Herschel Walker, Mehmet Oz, J. D. Vance, Ron Johnson, the incumbent in Wisconsin, Blake Masters, Kari Lake. A number of these candidates who are hand-picked, or at least embraced by Trump, will be tests as to whether or not he still can translate his power within the party to a general election, or not.
And for a while it looked like a lot of these candidates were going to go down and a lot of people have said, “Ah, this may be the beginning of a, you know, a breaking point for the party with Trump, if he leads them to disaster in an election that, historically, they should win.” But today it doesn’t look like that. Today it looks like even some of the more fringy and most, you know, outlandish characters, who never would have normally won an election, you know, a decade or two decades ago, may actually pull out in some of these states like Pennsylvania and Georgia. And so, that will actually invigorate Trump, that will – he will claim that as validation, and it may encourage him to run again.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
And this is, of course, one of the questions we all want to know, and – because it matters so much domestically, it matters, you know, for the Federal Bench, it matters for questions of abortion, or all sorts of issues. It matters even before the question of the presidential election. But there’s also – you know, in your book you have some really – you have, I think it’s a chapter, Russia Russia, or is it Moscow Moscow?
Susan Glasser
Russia Russia Russia.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Russia Russia, it’s a great chapter, it’s about Helsinki, that moment when we realise that Donald Trump is, you know, more aligned, well, maybe we already knew it, but with Putin, than he is with his own intelligence agencies. And you, sort of, say – I think, somewhere in that chapter, you know, it’s – it just raised that big question, like, what did Putin have on him?
And so, I guess, you know, one of my questions is, you know, what did you get out of – you know, you also talked with Donald Trump directly after the election, I know, but, you know, what did – what is your take-away? You know, what – where do you come down and how do you explain, I guess, first of all, how do you explain, you know, his affection, his affiliation, his connection and commitment to Putin, and how is that going to shape things, right? If the Republicans, you know, get a majority either in the House and/or the Senate, if Donald Trump decides to stand for election, even if he doesn’t, like, you know, how – what kind of, not only his view on Putin, but that – you know, his part of the Republican Party, maybe he has all the Republican Party, you tell us, but where is that Russia question going? Where is the direction of travel?
Susan Glasser
Yeah, I mean that, obviously, is a super timely and relevant question, not an academic or historical one, at all. I do think, by the way, that, you know, history will continue to go back and back at the question of just what exactly does, or did, Vladimir Putin have on Donald Trump? Which, by the way, is how it was articulated by none less than Dan Coats, who was Trump’s hand-picked Director of National Intelligence. And, according to our reporting for the book, that is exactly what Dan Coats – with all his access to the most secret information of the United States Government and 17 different intelligence agencies, when Dan Coats saw Donald Trump take Putin’s word over that of his own American intelligence agencies at Helsinki, that’s what Coats said when he spoke with his own Advisors. And I just think that is such a revealing statement, that even the Director of National Intelligence didn’t feel that he knew, you know, what Putin might actually have on Donald Trump is remarkable.
To the question of going forward, I do think that, you know, even when Putin launched the invasion in February of Ukraine, Trump publicly called him a “strategic genius.” He has not backed away, he has publicly opposed the massive $40 billion aid package, military assistance package, that the United States Congress passed. Now, US Congress has been overwhelmingly bipartisan so far in its military assistance, voting for Ukraine throughout the conflict. And that unity, I think, surprised Putin, it surprised Trump himself, to a certain extent, and is consistent with the fairly remarkable unity you’ve seen so far with the US and its Western allies.
However, and this is, I think, a significant caveat, there has remained a genuine and actually growing, chunk of the Republican Party that you might call the pro-Putin, pro-Trump wing of the Republican Party, about two-thirds of the House Freedom Caucus, that’s the most, kind of, ultra-MAGA, if you will, faction in the House Republican Conference. That’s the group that Mark Meadows headed, before he then became Trump’s fourth and final White House Chief of Staff. About two-thirds of the Freedom Caucus did vote against that big assistance package for Ukraine in the spring, and one would expect that caucus to grow even further with the kind of election deniers and, you know, very pro-Trump candidates that we’re likely to see elected this year.
So, there would still be votes, presumably, you know, in the next Congress, to keep supporting Ukraine, because you would have support from Democrats, as well as from a large bulk of Republicans, even if not as many of them as previously. But I think it indicates where the momentum is in the Republican Party, swinging back even further toward Trump, and they don’t seem to be ashamed, by the way. You call Trump or Tucker Carlson on Fox News, or others, you know, pro-Putin, anti-Ukraine and, you know, they’re embracing it. They’re doubling down on it, which is quite remarkable.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
It’s – you know, the other thing that I think surprised all of us here in the UK – and just to say to the audience, please be ready with your questions. I know some of them are already in the Q&A function, but if you put them there, I’m about to turn to you. But before I do, I have a few more questions. I’m only going to ask one right now, and I guess it’s the question about Brexit. I mean, why – you know, Donald Trump, he kept returning to the UK, he really liked the UK, he loved the Queen, we all did, and he had tremendous respect and affection for her, and the respect part is unusual. He really did, I believe, have deep respect for the Queen, but he didn’t have much respect for most other things, I think, in the UK. And he was very willing to, you know, cross that taboo and intervene directly in, you know, the biggest and highest stakes question in the UK during his presidency, which was, you know, in one form or another, Britain’s relationship with Europe, and, you know, why? I mean, do you have a view of this, why did it matter so much to Donald Trump?
Peter Baker
Well, I think he – look, in – at heart he is a disruptor. He doesn’t believe in the system, he doesn’t believe in the globalisation, he doesn’t believe in the integration, he doesn’t believe in alliances. He doesn’t believe in, sort of, the direction that the world has taken, or had taken for a generation or a couple of generations before he came to office. And he represents that, sort of, you know, gravitational pull that’s, you know, now pulling us apart again. He would just as soon, as Susan said, have gotten the United States out of NATO. He would’ve just as soon gotten America out of its defence commitments in South Korea. He would’ve just as soon gotten America out of NAFTA. He did get America out of the Paris Climate Accord, he did get America out of the Iran nuclear deal, he did get America out of the INF Treaty with Russia.
His view of internationalism is, you know, really as simple as that America First slogan that he adopted, and so, to him, Brexit is simply a manifestation of that. Why should Britain be part of Europe? In fact if he were – if it were up to him, the EU would break up and he’d be perfectly happy with that, too. so, he is just a, he’s a china breaker, and I don’t mean that as a country, I mean that as a – the larger sense of his predilection toward disruption, and I think that’s how he viewed Brexit.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
You know, it’s funny, ‘cause I think that for many years, certainly here in the UK, but also across Europe, I think people were thinking very hard, or at least they were certainly headlining the need to think very hard about what happens, right, if Donald Trump is re-elected. What should Europe do? There was a whole, sort of, strategic autonomy question. The fear of what would happen to NATO, and I would say, and maybe, you know, maybe others on the call will disagree with me, but that conversation, and – has largely gone quiet. In part because the US has been so strongly engaged in supporting Ukraine and working with NATO and, you know, really – and profoundly multilateral and heavily engaged, with the exception of, you know – again, our memories are short, of the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
But I think now people are beginning to quietly realise that they need to return to some of that conversation and I think, you know, it depends on what happens in the midterms, and this is part of why we’re all, sort of, looking to the two of you and looking back to find out, you know, can you tell us what’s going to happen? And, also looking to see what’s going to happen, because if, you know, if it looks like election deniers gain more traction, gain more seats, and the tenor of the debate begins to change, then I think that there’s going to be a real – hopefully, a very serious – and maybe there already should be, a very serious return to that conversation.
I don’t know if you want to say something about that, but I want to turn to Duff Mitchell, who’s put several questions up, and actually, I want to ask you, Duff, to unmute yourself and ask your question, and maybe if you want to say anything about that while Duff is unmuting, please feel…
Susan Glasser
Yeah, I think it’s a fascinating thing. I think we see the equivalent here, to a certain extent, in our own politics, is that, once again, although arguably, this was both predictable and predicted, the human nature is such to want to, sort of, you know, minimise the, you know, potential future threats, just to, you know, kind of, see the moment and not look around the corner. And, you know, it’s not an if, whether there will be more election deniers in the Republican Congress, it’s a fact, and it’s already a fact. As the, you know, The Washington Post and The New York Times have both analysed the number of Republicans who are running for office, and not only are there hundreds of election deniers who secured the Republican nomination, many of them are in safely Republican seats. So, we are already looking at a significant influx of those people.
That’s not a question, historically speaking, it’s very, very likely that the Republican Party comes out with one or both Houses of Congress. Obviously, it’s – nothing is fore-ordained but, you know, both history and the weight of the current evidence strongly argue in that direction, at least in some way. Now, you could say, “Well, the degree of it will matter,” but I think that this issue of America as a superpower, consumed by its own uncertainty about itself and its own inward problems, and therefore, that, in and of itself, is a risk factor on the international stage.
Like, all of that is just as true today as it was in 2020, right? Because any international agreement the US makes, anyone would, you know, be wrong not to look at it and to say, “Well, you know, what are the prospects that it will still be in force in two years or four years?” And I think that, you know, essentially, America is its own international crisis and will be for the foreseeable future, because this fundamental, kind of, gridlock and division in our politics isn’t going away.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
I’d say great, but it’s not great, but it does – you know, Meet the Press last night, they put those great slides up of what would happen if 18 to 29-year-olds got out and voted. They got out and voted in 2018. It looks like it’s going to be down. Some of the polls – you know, Harvard’s done a poll that suggests that actually they’re going to turn out and vote again, but if they did turn out and vote, it, you know, it – I think things would look quite a lot different.
But I want to come to you, Derek – to Duff Mitchell, and then I’ll come to Derek West. Duff, if you please go ahead and share your question with us.
Duff Mitchell
Yes, I’m Duff Mitchell and I’m talking to you from Ottawa, Canada, where, as a Canadian, we think about the United States every day, even – during the good times as well as during the bad times. And my question is about political violence. Political violence, long a part of American politics and life to some extent, seems to be on the ascendant in the United States. Why has violence been so widely embraced by both Trump supporters and the GOP at the national and state levels as a legitimate path to power?
Peter Baker
Yeah, it’s a good question. It is – it’s, in fact, one of the central questions, really, and it – part of it is because it’s encouraged at the top. You know, this attack on Paul Pelosi over the weekend drew plenty of Republicans who said, “This is outrageous, this is terrible, this is wrong.” Guess who didn’t say a thing; Donald Trump. What – who takes that as a signal? Donald Trump’s supporters, of course they see what he does say and doesn’t say. The documentary evidence on January 6th was strong that the people who were storming the Capitol were watching and listening to the tweets and the videos that he put out, and they were taking direction, to some extent, from what he said and didn’t say. And so, when he failed to say stop this, this is outrageous, do not do this, this is – you know, go home, and when he failed to aggressively, you know, put an end to it, they were taking their message from it. They took their cue from it. They heard him, or at least what they thought they heard from him, in a very visceral way.
So, you know, he can pretend that maybe when he says things like, you know, that “Mitch McConnell has a death wish,” all capital letters, that he doesn’t mean that in the literal sense, but his people – he knows, at least some people, maybe the most unhinged people, but there are some people out there who take these things quite literally. And he is not, obviously, playing the role of the responsible leader that members of both parties have, historically, over the years.
But you’re right, the trends are worrying, are – we looked at the numbers over the weekend. The number of threats against Members of Congress has gone up ten times since Trump’s arrived on the scene, ten times what it used to be. We analysed 75 cases that led to indictments. About 33% of them were Trump supporters or Republicans who were angry at Democrats. About a quarter of them were Democrats who – or Trump critics who were angry at what – things he had done, and then, a lot of them were, sort of, un – inchoate, and you really couldn’t necessarily discern what the politics of it was.
And about 10% of the ones that we looked at were against Pelosi personally. You know, he – she has been personally demonised and vilified in a way that makes it appropriate or acceptable on the part of some of these, you know, fringe characters, to target. What were they saying when they went through the Capitol? “Where’s Nancy, where’s Nancy?” Obviously, they did that with Mike Pence as well, “Hang Mike Pence.” Anybody who gets in Donald Trump’s way is, you know, at least to some extent, you know, subject to possible threat.
We had dinner the other night with a leading member of Congress, who came with two giant Chevy Suburbans and a passel of security, because you can’t assume that there won’t be violence. And the only reason why this guy got into the house is because Pelosi herself was not there. They don’t protect the house, they protect her. But that’s where we’re at right now in Washington and it’s very disturbing, and it’s hard to see where the, you know – how the path away from that is.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Okay, we’ve got a couple of, I mean, a couple of things that, sort of, build on that, and that – let me first read out Derek’s question and have Xenia Wickett ask her question as well, and then we’ll come to you. Derek says, “Does the lack of trust in the integrity of elections make insurrections more likely? How do we restore trust in elections in America?” Really important question, as you know. Xenia, let me come to you, ‘cause I think you have a related question.
Xenia Wickett
Thanks, Leslie, and thanks, Peter and Susan, really nice to hear your thoughts. I wanted to talk about the state-level elections, so, what’s happening at State Attorney-General, at Governor, at State Secretary level. ‘Cause it seems to me that there was a long conversation, about four or so years ago, or two years ago, that America’s democracy was crumbling. There were a lot of people who were nervous about what was going to happen going into the 2020 election. But we’re back there again, and arguably, it’s worse, for all of the reasons that you’ve cited in terms of the election deniers that are up for the Senate and the House, but also up at the state level. And it’s the state level leaders who have control over what takes place, the kind of votes, how those votes are counted, who is eligible to vote. It’s – that’s measured at a, or that’s led at a state level.
So, I’d love you to say a word about how you think America’s institutions at the state level are going to withstand these mid-terms and what the cons – what the likelihood of a breakdown in American democracy is coming out of them. Thanks.
Susan Glasser
Yeah, well, thank you so much for both of those questions. I think they are interrelated. One thing I would say is that it helps to answer a previous question that we’ve already touched on in this discussion today, which is, how much is Trump himself responsible? Because the truth is that the Republican Party followed Donald Trump down this path of madness, and, you know, there would not be a campaign, one of whose major issues was denying the results of the previous election, were it not for Donald Trump. And I think that’s very important.
Again, would there still be divisions, would there still be questions about democracy to a certain extent? Yes, the Republican Party has a long history of vote suppression when it comes to African Americans in the American South for example. So, that would be an issue regardless of whether Donald Trump had ever been born or not. But you would not see the Republican Party making it a foundation, essentially, of its reimagined ideology to be assaulting these institutions and to be against the basic principle that the outcome was the outcome of the previous elections. So, that sustained assault on American democracy, you have to say, is a direct consequence of Donald Trump, and is not likely to have been a pillar of the Republican Party’s ideology had Donald Trump not existed, never won.
Looking ahead, they have been very organised, I have to say. They have not just used this as a rhetorical thing in the campaign, but they have used the two years since the 2020 campaign to recruit fellow election deniers and people who may be willing to transfor – you know, like, overrule the election results in interests of their own party or candidate in the future. And so, there are, especially in key battleground states – and remember, most American states are not battlegrounds, they’re not really up for grabs, they’re either pretty solidly Democrat states or Republican states. And part of the increasing polarisation of the country is that, you know, when Peter and I were growing up, when we were kids, as many as half of the US states were actually competitive at the national level. That’s not true anymore and, you know, back before Trump, there was something like maybe only ten or 12 American states. In the end, there were six states that Donald Trump was most focused on 2020, and those are the states that they focussed on to try to get election deniers on the ballot for Secretary of State or Governor.
And then, one other issue I would flag for you, ‘cause I don’t know how much it’s being noted in the UK, is that there is actually a case that is going to be argued before the US Supreme Court that is very risky when it comes to this question of how future national elections might be manipulated. And it is a case that is about what is called the “alternate electors’ theory,” and it’s the idea that state legislatures might have the power, essentially, to overrule the popular will of their own state’s voters. And you could have a situation, say, where there is a Democratic vote at the state level, but then a Republican-controlled state legislature that decides to go ahead and approve an alternate slate of electors to the US electoral college, that would pick the Republican Presidential candidate, even though the will of the voters in that state was to pick the Democrat. And that is going to be argued before the Trumpified Supreme Court, that now has a 6:3, not only Conservative, but activist, conservative majority, so, it’s a high risk. Do you agree?
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Peter, let me ask you a question, a follow-on to that, and then, I’ll come to Sam Martin. You know, you – it’s everything that Susan has said, right? This is in the party and it’s pervasive in certain parts and quite large parts, but it also – you know, what you’ve, sort of, alluded to is it depends on people, right, the American public, or a substantial part of the American public believing in the big lie. Because if they didn’t, right, if the vast major – you know, if we had 90% plus of Americans believing that Joe Biden was legitimately, fairly and freely elected, it’s hard to imagine how, you know, people could, kind of, take over with the – this rhetoric, and we could see the kind of politics that we did. It really, it rests on that public base, presumably. I mean, can you say – you know, maybe you disagree with that, or maybe – can you say a little bit more about where the people are in all of this?
Peter Baker
Yeah, no, I agree with that. I – you know, I’m reminded that Barney Frank, the Congressman from Massachusetts, was once, you know, talking about how much everybody hates the Politicians and he says, “Well, the voters ain’t no great shakes either.” And, you know, you’re right, I mean, we’re getting the government that we have asked for, you know, that we the public, to some extent, have, you know, accepted, or at least, you know, countenanced. And the voters in this case, you’re right, a lot of them have subscribed to this con – it’s not even – conspiracy theory is just too nice a word for it, because it’s not a conspiracy theory.
Susan Glasser
It’s just the lies.
Peter Baker
It’s a, it is a flat-out lie. There’s no there there of any sort, and yet 30-some percent of the public, some 60 to 70% of Republicans have agreed that the election, in some way, was stolen or illegitimately won. And, you know, I mean, in fact, all – by all indications it was the – it was probably the cleanest election, you know, in, you know, American history, because in fact, the systems do work, and every audit, every recount, every look at this confirmed that, every single one. And every nonsensical, far-fetched, outlandish fantasy that was put out by Trump and his people were disproved and disavowed, and not just by – debunked by Reporters, not just debunked by, certainly by Democrats, debunked by Republicans.
You know, what – you talk about people. I think what I come away from this experience the last couple of years is understand that institutions are fragile. You know, we talk about, “the institutions held.” Well, the institutions held because a handful of individuals held them, mainly Republicans, by the way, who resisted the pressure of their own President to do what they knew or believed to be wrong. Including his own Vice President, his own Attorney General, actually two Attorneys General, his own campaign, you know, Lawyers who decided to get out of it. And more importantly, Governors and Secretary of States and County Clerks in various important places across the country, who otherwise had been allied with Trump, who had voted for Trump, who wanted him to be President, who said, “No, this is not right.” And had one of them – had a handful of them done the other way, had gone the other way, would have created a whole lot more of a murky situation that might have justified action that we – you know, even beyond what we already saw.
And so, I think that the lesson of 2020 is not that, you know, our institutions are strong and they held, but our institutions are really dependent on individuals. And now what you’re seeing with, as Susan points out, all these people being, you know, elevated to key positions is a real test of whether those individuals are going to change the system as we have known it for 250 years.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
And as I come to Sam Martin, I’ll just say as an aside, and now we have Elon Musk owning Twitter and tweeting really extraordinarily dangerous and toxic fake news about the attack on – the violent attack on Paul Pelosi, just shocking. And even as I understand it, he takes it down and then retweets a piece that your paper put up, The New York Times, with a comment suggesting that, you know, it was mis-accurately reporting what had happened, as well. So, I think many of us are pretty concerned about what comes next on Twitter, and does Donald Trump come back? One of the many questions out there. But Sam Martin, why don’t you speak your question? I’m sure you’ll both have something to say about Elon Musk and respond to Sam, as well.
Sam Martin
Yes, thanks so much, Leslie, and it does follow on perfectly from your comment there. Thank you, Peter and Susan, for a fascinating talk, as well so far, and I wanted to ask whether you think you’ve seen this increasing celebritisation, that’s a made-up word, I admit, but of US politics. And with the likes of candidates, like Herschel Walker, the American Football Player, obviously beforehand, and as Leslie mentioned, Elon Musk fraying into this area, do you think they’re following into this path that Donald Trump has set when running for Congressional seats, based off a past in celebrity status? And what effect do you think this has on the health of American democracy, going forward? Thanks very much.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Yeah, I mean, you know, look, there have always been celebrity candidates for office. You know, the thing that’s so remarkable, as an outlier, about Donald Trump is that we’ve had, you know, racist right-wing demagogues for a long time, we just haven’t had them as the United States President, in, at least in modern times. We have had unqualified celebrity candidates before, as well, but, you know, it’s like everything in this era, you know, sort of, on steroids and exacerbated, and, you know, taking it to the next level in terms of, you know, Donald Trump showed that, you know, the only qualification for being President is getting elected, right? And that has long been true of the United States Congress.
I mean, I – my first job out of university was writing about the US Congress and there were – you know, there was, like, a tax-dodging, you know, kind of, crazy former Sheriff from Ohio who was famous for, you know, making racist, crazy rants on the floor of the US House of Representatives. There was a guy who was elected as a Congressman from Iowa, when I was first out of college, who was – who played Gopher on the Love Boat, and actually he was, kind of, a serious figure, you know.
You know, so, I don’t want to, like, you know, be too, kind of, history begins right now about this, but I would say that, you know, somebody like Herschel Walker or Mehmet Oz, the Republican Senate nominee in Pennsylvania, who is, you know, best known as a quack TV Doctor, you know, this is a whole new kind and level of celebrity. And they are, in that sense, very Trumpian, and they are embracing, not just their outsiderness, but doubling down on lies, misinformation, disinformation, in a way that is something different in American politics. Because they see that as something that is attractive to their own voters, and that goes to Leslie’s important point, you know. everybody – individuals don’t take enough responsibility. If they didn’t, you know, tell posters that they believed, you know, in the big lie about the election, then it would be very hard for candidates to chase after that vote. So, it’s, unfortunately, a kind of, negative reinforcing cycle, I think, that we’re seeing.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Peter, let me add onto that before I come to Cerin. What are the Democrats getting wrong? Why don’t people just naturally trust the Democrats more?
Peter Baker
Well, I mean, look, you know, a lot of what’s happening is tribal. You know, there is just a broad sense in parts of America right now that “The elites,” and you can define them how you will, “are getting away with something, and I’m getting shafted,” right? And that can be racial, that can be gender, that can be economic, that can be cultural, that can be ideological.
You know, people aren’t supporting Donald Trump because they necessarily agree with his particular position on healthcare or taxes. It – they agree with him, the ones who do, because they see in him giving voice to their sense of grievance and frustration, and what the Democrats have not been able to do is somehow channel that. They’ve lost their connection to the working class that they once – was the foundation of their political appeal. They lost states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Ohio in 2016, that were the backbone of the Democratic Party forever, and instead of being the party of the working class, they’re now perceived, anyway, as being part of elites and moneyed interests.
Now, that’s rather remarkable for Republicans, who of course, have always been a party of moneyed interests, but somehow Donald Trump, the billionaire with gold-plated fixtures, has transformed himself into a clarion, you know, avatar of the working person. Which makes, of course, no sense on an intellectual level, and yet his success in tapping into that has been remarkable, and the Democrats don’t have anybody who has come close to presenting an alternative in a big way. Biden was seen as a safe-hands alternative, but not loved by his party. Certainly, did well enough to beat Donald Trump, may do well enough to beat him again if they both face off again in 2024. But he doesn’t have the same sort of magnetic resonance among voters that Trump has with his minority voters.
Let’s keep in mind that Trump has never had the success of most Americans – never had the support of most Americans. He lost the popular vote in 2016, he lost the popular vote in 2022 by even greater, he never for a single day in office, not a single day in office did he have the support of 50% or more of the public in the Gallup polling, unlike every President in the history of polling. So, he has always been a minority President in that sense, but he has translated a weak hand strong and the Democrats haven’t figured out how to counter it.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
So, the Democratic candidate in Ohio, as I understand it, for Senate, is trying to focus on the workers, on the working class, in a way that, I guess, is standing out, ‘cause some of us over here are really watching this and thinking this is exciting, potentially, or interesting. Can you say a word about that before, again, before I turn to Cerin, who’s going to speak his question? Is it close?
Susan Glasser
Yeah, I…
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
[Inaudible – 51:18] your comment.
Susan Glasser
You know, it’s very – the Ohio Senate race is a very interesting example, in part because Ohio used to be the bellwether state in American national elections, although in recent years, it’s just trended strongly enough Republican that it’s not really been as competitive as it, you know, historically was. And yet they still have a Democratic Senator already, they have Sherrod Brown, and his formula for success is the one that Tim Ryan, the current nominee, is trying to replicate, and that is, basically, a kind of, a left-wing populist appeal to working-class and middle-class voters across the state. That’s the only way to put together a coalition.
I think, you know, national Democrats have been wary of investing in that race in Ohio, in part because they think that what Peter is saying about the extreme tribalism of this moment in American politics will ultimately override even a very strong campaign by a very credible messenger. Ryan is a very credible messenger for that particular Democratic message. The worry is that there is a relatively popular Republican Governor, Mike DeWine, at the top of the ticket. He’s coasting to re-election and the view is that probably just too many Republicans, who purely vote on the basis of party, will come out in order to elect a very flawed Republican candidate.
J. D. Vance is this author of the “Hillbilly Elegy,” this book that was very critical of Donald Trump, and that sought to explain, in effect, Trump’s appeal to the white working class in America, in Appalachia, which is a big part of the Ohio geography. And yet, then flip-flopped spectacularly on Trump as many Republican aspiring Politicians have done. In fact, he, J. D. Vance, has become so slavishly sucking-up to Donald Trump that even Trump mocked him at one of his rallies and basically, like, you know, laughed in his face for how much J. D. Vance was desperate for Trump’s approval. Nonetheless, it works and it’s – you know, you, kind of, see the same thing with Ted Cruz in Texas, and some other politicians. It’s an amazing – the extent to which people will debase themselves in order to get Donald Trump’s approval. I have to say, even, like, six years into this phenomenon, it never ceases to amaze me.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
You know, you just touched on something really big, and we can’t go there in this talk, but, you know, money in politics, and it feels like, watching it again, without all the numbers from the outside, that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It doesn’t look like it’s good to invest. This is potentially a very wise strategy, but if it’s underfunded – and this is, again, you know, something that really – you know, America just stands out, why – the, sort of, money in politics thing that is not new. But it really continues to just, kind of, astonish foreign and international audiences, no matter how well-versed, like ours, no matter how well-versed they are with the United States.
Cerin, and please forgive me, people botch my name all the time, but I hate botching others’, so, Cerin Lubky, I believe, but correct me, please.
Cerin Lubky
Yeah, that’s close enough, thanks very much, and thank you for the comments. I was wondering whether you could maybe predict a little bit, perhaps on the basis of the research you’ve done for your book, and predict, if Trump wins in 2024, how do you reckon his administration will look? And will it – how different will it be from the last one? Who will be, sort of, the people who will populate his administration, and will it be Trump unleashed, and if there’s an ideological core to his administration? And it would also be interesting if you could speak to that in terms of foreign policy, as well. Thank you.
Peter Baker
Yeah, I think you put your…
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
That’s such a big question that before you answer it, I’m going to take one more and then let you both close, ‘cause I know you have a finish at 3 o’clock. So, I’m going to come to Dai Wyn Griffiths, and get your question, and then we will turn back to the two of you, because that’s a, that’s – I mean, if you can answer that one then we, sort of, we know what we’re doing for the next several years. Dai Wyn, are you there with us to speak your question? Del – sorry, Dilwyn, Dilwyn Griffiths.
Dilwyn Griffiths
Hello, there. I – my question is that at, sort of, glacial pace, various criminal prosecutions are facing Trump; 6/1, Georgia, the misappropriation of documents. Can you say whether you think those will actually proceed, and what are the implications for US politics if they actually do? Thank you.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
And can I say, as you answer these questions, can you just say one word about, you know, what the stakes are for climate? ‘Cause it is the number one, it’s the number one thing, we’re heading up to COP, another COP.
Peter Baker
Yeah.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
So, over to the two of you.
Peter Baker
Well, real quickly, I – on the first question, on what comes if he wins again, I think that’s a really important point, because our book, we thought, was a book of history, but I think now that we’ve done it, is also, potentially, a prologue, right? And so, I think one thing you think from – about Trump is all the things he didn’t get done, he didn’t get to do in his first term, that he wanted to do, but was frustrated because Advisors said, “No, that’s illegal, no, that’s inappropriate, no, I won’t do it,” and resisted him along the way, that’s what he’s going to try and do in his second term. Because he has learned, if not about policy, he has learned how to turn the levers of power.
And the great example a national security official gave us was to compare him to the velociraptor in the movie Jurassic Park, who learned how to open the kitchen door, right, to get at the kids that the velociraptor’s hunting. And Trump has figured out how to appoint people who are not going to resist him, who are not going to tell him, “No, you can’t do that, sir, ‘cause that’s illegal,” or “You don’t have the authority,” and only appoint people who are going to go along with what he wants. And that’s what a second term will be, you know, like the first term but on steroids.
The point about the criminal investigations, do you want to…?
Susan Glasser
Yeah, I mean, look, first of all, I think the default assumption should be that it is very likely that Trump is going to run again, and we might not have said that in the immediate aftermath of his departure from office, but, you know, there are two reasons. Ironically, these court – these potential court cases against him and the investigations may make it likelier for him to run, in part because Trump seems to think that that would offer him some protection. That having the status of being an active presidential candidate might make the US Justice Department, you know, think twice before proceeding with an unprecedented indictment of a Former US President, so, that’s one thing.
The other thing is, it’s – Trump is a grifter, and this has become his business model in the last couple of years, is to raise money off of his continued presence in American politics. And the second that he announces he’s not running for President, you know, that money would go away, his relevance to constantly being in the middle of the story would go away. And of course, we all know enough about his personality at this point to understand that this is not someone who voluntarily relinquishes the spotlight. And it’s hard to imagine that he will be content simply to fade away and to say, “Well, you know, Ron DeSantis really represents Trumpism, so, you know, I’m happy to endorse him,” quite the opposite. He’s already publicly clashed with DeSantis and, essentially, said, “Well, I made him, he’s nothing in politics without me.”
And so, you know, there are a lot of strong arguments to be made for why Trump will wan – will run. Of course, we don’t know the results of the midterm elections and, you know, one scenario that would – might make it slightly less likely would be if Democrats were to pull out an upset and to hold on to one or both Houses of Congress. That might be seen as somewhat of a repudiation of the Trumpified Republican Party and it’s possible, you know, that that could affect the calculus one way or the other. So, you know, Peter and I do not have a crystal ball and, of course, all of us have stumbled at various points when trying to predict Donald Trump, who is a very volatile figure in American politics, in part because his calculus is not the same as most other people’s.
Now, the calculus of the Justice Department and the cautious US Attorney General, Merrick Garland, in the end, you know, that is a very tough decision, especially on the documents case. That’s the one I would pay attention to. They appear to have Donald Trump pretty much cold on that one, at least for obstruction of justice, and what do you do if you have the guy cold and you can’t cut a deal with him? So, I think there’ll be a lot of pressure to see a very unprecedented indictment of Trump soon, but, you know, we’ll see. Peter and I don’t know, but we’re very grateful to all of you for these smart, insightful questions, and…
Peter Baker
Thing about climate.
Susan Glasser
Climate, yeah, that’s the whole deal, because it’s not just Donald Trump. If the Republicans retake the White House, they’re headed right back in that direction. There is no indications that they would appoint – that they would name anyone as President who would not be anything other than a climate denier, period.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
This has been extraordinary. We are going to release you, ‘cause I can imagine you are in tremendous demand, not only because of the book and the books and the papers, but also because the elections are coming. How many days will it take for us to know the results?
Peter Baker
It will not be election night. You should not assume we will know election night, that the – some of these will take days, and if Georgia doesn’t get a majority, remember that, they’ll have a rerun, and a run – second…
Susan Glasser
Run-off.
Peter Baker
…run-off, the way they did two years ago, so, that could go weeks into December.
Susan Glasser
And that could decide the Senate control.
Peter Baker
Yeah.
Susan Glasser
So, you know, if there’s a Georgia run-off, you’re not going to know the Senate result for a long time.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Peter Baker, Susan Glasser, this is tremendous. You must come back and you must come back in person, and we’ll have a great talk. Hopefully, our politics will be heading in a really good direction, we’re not going to bet on it, and please stay for dinner when you join us.
Peter Baker
We’d like that, for sure.
Susan Glasser
Thank you so much.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Thank you so much.
Peter Baker
Thank you, guys.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Thanks to everybody.
Peter Baker
Thank you for taking us on.
Susan Glasser
Have a great day.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Bye.
