Assessing the Midterm Elections and the Impact on the Trump Presidency

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Welcome to our panel discussion. We are, I should say, today, very much live. Facebook live, livestream, we are on record. So, I’m sure that all of you are also likely to be a part of this, so just be aware. Please put your phones on silent, if you haven’t already, but do please, for those of you who like to tweet, please do tweet. I’m Leslie Vinjamuri. I’m Head of the US and the Americas Programme here, also Dean of our Academy. I’m really delighted, not necessarily with the results, we’ll talk about that, but some of them, but I’m delighted to actually have the opportunity to host this panel today. It’s a really terrific set of people. There are a lot of us, there are a lot of you, I think everybody will have views. It’s our second discussion so far today at Chatham House. There will be a webinar tomorrow, I should note, for those of you, because again, there’s a lot to digest and I think it makes sense to return.

So, tomorrow, there will be a webinar that you can login to if you like, with Amy Pope, the Former Deputy Homeland Security Advisor under President Obama, who’s an Associate Fellow on the US Programme here, and with Peter Trubowitz, who is on the panel today. Peter is Director of the US Centre at the London School of Economics and also, Professor of International Relations and Head of the International Relations Department there and has written extensively, and not least with his two big books, on US domestic politics and foreign policy. To my left Steven Erlanger, who will be well known from – through his writings, to all of you in the room, the Chief Diplomatic Correspondent for Europe, based currently in Brussels, has been based pretty much everywhere around the world and it has been an honour and a pleasure for us at Chatham House, especially, because he turns up frequently, and we hope that that will continue to be case, because it really elevates the level of knowledge and debate and discussion that we have. So, thank you for being on the panel today. Ursula Hackett, who I’ve only just met today and I’m very interested to hear what you have to say, is currently a British Academy Scholar, is on the Faculty at Royal Holloway and an expert in US politics and domestic politics, especially. And Jacob Parakilas, who’s Deputy Head of the US and the Americas Programme and has been here for many years, following and writing and speaking and commenting and running very serious research on US politics and foreign policies.

So, we have a very interesting – some interesting moments. Those of you who – I don’t know how many – I’m tempted to have you all raise your hands, how many of you stayed up through the night to follow this? We all, sort of, ticked off at various times and woke up again at, I don’t know, 4:00am/4:30. So, if we, kind of, flag in the middle of the panel, that’s why. So, as we all know, we know the broad outlines that the Democrats will soon – will have won a majority in the House of Representatives that the Republics have gained. We’re waiting to see a couple of seats. There’s still an unknown result in Arizona, but have gained a – maintained a majority and have increased that marginally in the Senate. But a number of races, a number of Governors, have been – the Democrats have taken a number of Governorships. And – but there are a lot of really interesting specific results that I think that we are all tracking and that we’ll hopefully discuss in this panel.

We heard, for a very long time, two things, I think, about the midterm elections. One was that this, perhaps even more than in previous midterm elections, although this tends to be the case, that these midterm elections have been a referendum on the President, on President Trump. And when the Head of the Pure Research Centre came to Chatham House, just a few weeks ago, he said, “The polling suggested that 66% of Democrats and 48% of Republicans did view it as a referendum on the President, in this particular round of midterm elections.” And secondly, that “Turnout, that voter turnout, would really drive this result,” and we’ve certainly seen tremendous figures on voter turnout. The one that I really noticed, in the past few days, was that about four days ago, youth voter turnout in Tennessee, as compared to the last midterm election, was up by 715%, quite extraordinary, and in Texas, was up over 400%. So, a number of states, youth voter turnout’s been really remarkable, in a series of elections, you know, midterm elections, that not only does the rest of the world not normally take note of, but certainly, Americans don’t normally take note of, necessarily either, and not the youth. So, there’s a lot on the table.

Let me start with you, Steven Erlanger. Joe Biden was here, a few weeks ago, and he said that these midterm elections were a – would be “A battle for the soul of America.” I don’t know if that’s your read. Could you tell us your read. Do you have a reaction to that? What were your big takeaways from the last few weeks, but especially the last several hours?

Steven Erlanger

Thank you, Leslie, and nice to be here. In honour of Mr Trump and the elections, I’m wearing my Enemy of the People pin, which was sent to me by someone who I don’t think was a fan, somehow, of my newspaper. I’m not sure America has a soul, first of all. I mean, in Joe Biden’s mind, you know, he’s a great rhetorician, countries don’t have souls, they have lots of other things. The American – if it has a soul, it’s black around the edges. It’s very divided. I think we saw that. What strikes me, is the Democrats did, actually, really well, I think, particularly even in some Senate races, because so many of them were vulnerable. I mean, as everyone knows, a third of the Senate gets elected every two years and this was a year where a lot of Democrats were vulnerable.

In the House, some of the evil people lost, which is very nice. There’s a guy called Dana Rohrabacher seems to have lost. It will please many, many people. But what strikes me most…

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Explain why that’s the case.

Steven Erlanger

Well, just because Dana Rohrabacher is an extremely, kind of, loony conservative Republican. It’s not that he’s a conservative Republican, it’s that he’s a lunatic and he’s very pro-Russian and believes in conspiracies, and I’m just glad he’s off. The only quick thing I would say, beyond that, is how the – Trump will respond will be very interesting, we can talk about that, but also, what it means that the Republicans have such firm control now of the Senate. Because, you know, the Senate is the one that confirms all the Judges, it confirms Cabinet members. Basically, Trump will have no trouble, if he wants to fire Mattis or Jeff Sessions, of getting whoever he wants through the Senate now, because the Democrats can’t stop anything. I mean, not that they couldn’t in the House. We’ll see just how tough they are. Trump – you know, they can stop a lot of legislation, but frankly, except for the tax cut bill, most of what Trump has changed now, has been through regulatory changes and executive orders. So, it may not be quite the limit on Trump that some people hope it would be. I’ll stop there.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Okay, we’ll come back to you on this. Ursula, I’m curious, and you’ve done a lot of work on domestic politics in the US and we’re told, by the few people, that the number one issue in this race was, well, Supreme Court, healthcare and immigration. I know those moved around, over the last few weeks, and immigration perhaps rose to the top. But I’m curious, your take on what was really driving these results and again, what – which results, if any, really stood out to you?

Dr Ursula Hackett

Well, thank you very much. I’d like to talk a bit about healthcare. I hope we’re going to get into the weeds about healthcare, because what I heard, as I was watching the early polls in Philadelphia, I’ve just flown in from Philadelphia about an hour and a half ago, was that healthcare was the pre-eminent issue. So, I hope we’re going to get into the weeds on that.

But I’d like to say a few things. Having, as I say, flown in from Philadelphia around about an hour and a half ago, this is the cradle of the American nation, the American democracy, this is the place where the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution were created. And so, I wanted to just say just a couple of quick things about how I – sort of, the state of American democracy, as it’s revealed through the midterms. And one thing I think we need to talk about here is, the extent to which this – these midterms were racialized and by that I mean, not only the use of explicit, but also implicit, racial frames, and particularly in the Florida and the Georgia gubernatorial races. And one of the things that my colleagues at San Diego show is that there is a phenomenon known as spill over of racialization. So, this is the process by which racial attitudes come to spill over into other areas of public policymaking, including healthcare, which we might not think of as having an explicit racial content. But in the era of Obama and also in the era of Trump, there is a racialization of that policy issue. So, I hope we’re going to come back to that on that healthcare.

I think there’s also something I need to mention here, which is that there’s an extraordinary number of women, historic numbers of women, running for Congress. 261 women were running for Congress in these midterm elections. That is a historic first. And one of the things we know, as Political Scientists, is that it – actually, one of the major problems with women getting, sort of, descriptive representation in legislatures, is that women tend not to want to run. They are discouraged from running at this earlier stage. So, it’s not necessarily we’re going to have a conversation about whether they get – they are disadvantaged at a later stage, but actually, a lot of the problems is deciding to run in the first place. So, it’s historic that 261 women are running, were running in these midterm elections.

And the third thing I want to just flag up, and finally, is that this is the most expensive midterm elections in US history. The latest projection is that $5.2 billion dollars were spent in these elections. And one of the things that I and my colleagues have been working on is, the extent to which organised interests, corporations, unions, have been increasingly involved in US politics, in recent years. S, I think my, sort of, my take home, really, would be that, just as when we think about the Constitution, the US Constitution, we think of a document that instantiates this great beacon, democracy, but it’s also a document full of contradictions and exclusions. And I think one thing we might say about the midterm elections is that it’s a very complex story, that there are lots of grounds for hope, but there’s also lots of things that we might be quite concerned about.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Okay and interesting, we will come back to that. I will just say anecdotally, that I was speaking to somebody from the State of Nebraska, which is where I went to high school, who said to me yesterday, you know, “Eight months ago you could walk around America and you would know, by looking at somebody, which way they were voting.” I’m not saying that this is true. This is very anecdotal, and this person’s comment was, “That has dramatically shifted. It’s no longer obvious.” So, I think one thing to watch, as we begin to analyse the results of these midterm elections is, that we might see a number of things that we used to take as truths, perhaps, so we might see divisions, within racial categories, certainly amongst White Americans, but it will be very interesting to, I think, watch the data un-spill. And on that, Peter Trubowitz, expert on partisanship and polarisation, domestic politics and division in America, can you say a little bit about this? Because it is your topic, it is your time. We hear endlessly, about a partisan party structure and a divided America. How has that played out in these elections?

Professor Peter Trubowitz

Well, first of all, let me just say it’s great to be here. Thank you for having me. Well, I think on that particular point, I really want to address the other questions, but I learnt – this is a good question too. What happened yesterday, in the US, reinforced the polarisation in the United States. It’s going to get worse. It’s not going to get better.

The way I view this midterm is that it was really voters were given a choice, or basically, they were – a question was posed to them: what do you fear the most? Is it people coming across the Southern border, or is it losing your pre-existing, the coverage for pre-existing conditions, that Obamacare put into place? If you look at those ads that Ursula just mentioned, those ads, Democrats ran ads over and over and over again about healthcare. Republicans ran ads over and over again about immigration. It’s interesting, the Democrats rarely ran ads against Donald Trump himself. These were the two big issues, and I think the reason that they began – we know that they were the big issues. Healthcare was the dominant issue in the run up to the actual vote and the exit polls show us that it was the big issue. Immigration was second, the economy was third, and the reason I think is, is because they speak those two issues to two very different views, or understandings, about what ails America and what’s the remedy.

You know, that one version of this is that the United States is suffering as a, kind of, you know, a white cultural grievance about what is happening to the identity, the kind of social and demographic identity of the United States. I think the other is really a concern about a loss of economic security, the kind of, gradual rolling back of the social safety net in the United States. And I think that in this election, partly because of Trump, or maybe, you know, we’re on about largely, but you know, he clearly played on this issue, he drove that wedge. And I think one of the things, it’s still early, but already, just looking at the exit polls, it is very clear that the way that this is playing itself out, kind of, topographically or geographically in the United States, is that the Democrats have become very strong. They were already strong in the urban areas. They have now, basically, eaten the Republicans’ lunch in the suburban areas. This is what happened last night, is they took a lot of suburban based seats, they were Republican seats, largely because a lot of educated white women decided to vote against the Republican Party, which is new.

At the same time, the Republican Party’s base, in the rural area, has gotten stron – in rural areas in the United States, got stronger last night. That’s the reason that Republicans did so well in the Senate, because basically, they were competing against the Democrats on – in states where Trump won in 2016 and the Republicans, their message really resonates. So, I think what the election did is it further polarised the United States, and what I look for, over the next two years, I’m at – we can hopefully, kind of, unpack this. I think there will be some bipartisanship, but I think there will be greater polarisation, as we go forward.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Interesting on that, Theda Skocpol, a Harvard Professor, wrote a really interesting piece right after 2016, saying that “One of the reasons that the support in the rural areas for Trump and the turnout had been so strong, was because the Evangelicals and the NRA had really worked that vote.” And I don’t know, we probably don’t know yet what – how that’s played out in this election, but will certainly be interesting to watch the Evangelical vote and whether those two organisations were critical, in terms of voter turnout.

Jacob, what is your take, any particular races that you really watched? And Jacob tends to know as much as there is to know about every individual race and its consequences, so I’m going to leave it to you to draw out some key things here.

Dr Jacob Parakilas

That might be setting me up a little bit high. But I think the thing that really struck me about this election, well, two things, first Ursula talked a little bit about healthcare and I think that’s really important, because you saw a number of very, very red states, like Idaho, which is one of the most conservative states in the country, vote to expand Medicare, which was one of the things that was part of the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, in 2010. And this has been a very contentious issue, whether the Government will provide additional care for elderly, sick and disabled people. And you have, in states that continue to elect Republican Representatives who voted to repeal Obamacare, the population’s voting to actually expand it. So, there’s a real disconnect between Representative democracy and views of healthcare and amongst Representatives and public views of healthcare itself. But I’ll leave that to the side, ‘cause I suspect Ursula has much more to say about it than I do.

And I want to talk a little bit about the franchise itself, because I think that’s one of the, perhaps, undercovered, at least from an outside the US perspective, the issue of who actually gets to vote, what obstacles are placed in front of them, is absolutely critical. ‘Cause one of the biggest things that happened in this election, there was a lot griping on left leaning Twitter about Florida, where Andrew Gillum had been favoured to run – win the Governors match and for the Democrats for the first time in about 20 years, and Bill Nelson had been forecast to preserve a Senate seat for the Democrats and both seem to have lost. But the other thing that happened in Florida is, by an overwhelming margin of 60+%, a popular referendum to restore voting rights to felons who have served their jail time, previously disenfranchised under Florida State law, passed. So, in the next election, 1.4 million citizens of Florida will be able to vote. That fundamentally changes the demographics of one of the biggest and swingiest of all the swing states, if I can use the term ‘swingiest’, which I’m not sure is an actual word, but I got about three hours of sleep, so if I make up a few words, you’re just going to have to deal with it. But that – and because the – that population in Florida tends to be disproportionately African-American, Hispanic, those groups tend to be disproportionately Democratic voters. And every state-wide election in Florida in the last, well, 20 years, and I’m sure you all remember 571 votes, the hanging chads, the election that determined the course of the first decade of the 21st Century. That was an incredibly close election and Florida has returned incredibly close result after incredibly close result.

So, this question, not only in Florida, but in Georgia, where the Secretary of State, Brian Kemp, was purging people from the voter roles in the election in which he was running for Governor, and various other issues around the country of who gets access to the franchise and who gets to participate in democracy, was really centred in this election in a way that it hasn’t been in any previous election. So, I think that is one of the central battlegrounds to watch out for in the next few cycles of elections.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Okay, I’m going to ask one more question, and that’s going to take us to 1:30 and then I’m going to open it up. So, we will come back to healthcare and a number of issues, but probably through the angle of audience questions. And I guess the question that I’ll put out there for everybody, and we’ll let you jump in, in the order that you choose, is a lot of people – you know, it’s become quite, you know, conventional to say well, it won’t really matter because not much is going to happen through Congress in any case. But it seems like there must be – that this must be significant, it must be different, certainly, from what we had for the first two years of the Trump administration, which is Republican control of both Houses, Republican control of the vast majority of Governors and state legislatures. So, there is a shift here. Is it really not meaningful, or how – in what ways is it meaningful, is it – and how is it meaningful to Europe, since here we sit in Europe? What does it tell Europe about what to expect from America, over the next two years and beyond? So, who wants to start with that, Steven Erlanger?

Steven Erlanger

Okay, well, first of all, it does matter. I mean, it really is a restraint on Trump. I mean, if you remember the Obama administration, Obama basically got everything done in the first two years, when he – when the Democrats controlled both Houses. Now, Obama was more legislative minded, but that’s why, for example, the JCPOA was not put before the Senate and why climate wasn’t put before the Senate, because he couldn’t win, so there was no point doing it.

One of the questions I have, in terms of impact is, how reckless will the Democrats want to be in trying to tie the Trump administration up in investigations, in subpoenas, in even a possible impeachment? We’ll see what Mueller comes up with. I mean, all this is to play out and then, of course, you know, how Trump responds. My sense of Trump is that he’s not going to reach for a compromise. That’s, kind of, not the way the man lives. He lives on division and partisanship and my guess is, we’ll have more, actually, kind of, a Trump unbound, I’m afraid, when he can do these things, because he has his base to keep together if he wants to win again. So, those things I think about, I mean, I may be wrong about all of them.

For Europe, you know, it’s – Frans Timmermans has already, you know, welcomed the Democratic control of the House. I mean, I’m not sure it’s going to impact that. I think the Trump people have already, kind of, created a truce with Europe over tariffs and really are swinging the guns toward China. So, I’m not – you know, we’ll see what happens, but I don’t expect a lot of change in Trump administration policy toward Europe. I mean, there’s – you know, Trump’s ambivalent. He hates multilateral institutions, blah, blah, blah, blah. But at the same time, you know, we’ve put more money into NATO, we’ve put more troops into NATO. I mean, we’re – it’s like you’ve got two different Governments going on and, at least in defence and security terms, that Government basically ignores what Trump says.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Anybody have a specific comment in reaction to this? Everybody does, okay.

Professor Peter Trubowitz

Yeah, but we’ll just go down the line.

Dr Ursula Hackett

You go for it.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Go ahead, Peter, we’ll shake things up again.

Professor Peter Trubowitz

So, I think partly, I want to reinforce some of what Steve said. I mean, I think the first thing is, there’s going to be a lot of tweeting, over the next few days. In fact, it started last night.

Dr Ursula Hackett

Hopefully by all of you, so…

Professor Peter Trubowitz

I was asleep. Anyway, I don’t follow him. But this was big what happened yesterday. A check was put in place. He was cut down to size. This was a pretty big wave, actually. Right now it’s looking like the Democrats won the popular vote by about 8.5%. For those of you who have got a memory and go back to 1994 when the Republicans swept the House in the Gingrich Revolution, they won with 7.1% of the vote. So, this is big in that way and it’s also big in another way, because what you’ve done is, you’ve basically put the speaker’s gavel in a pretty experienced hand, tough. I’m assuming Nancy Pelosi will be the Speaker. Donald Trump will be dealing – the rubberstamp is gone with right now. He’s going to be dealing with somebody pretty tough on the other side.

Now, I think the question here is, the Democrats, and Pelosi signalled this last night, actually, or maybe it was earlier this morning, that for example, she didn’t think impeachment was the way to go, that the Democrats would not go that way. She’s going to look for areas to co-0perate with Trump and I can think of some big ones right off the bat. I would look for a deal on Big Pharma that is cutting pharm – you know, prices on drugs. I would look for a deal on infrastructure, not Trump’s idea of infrastructure spending and so forth. It will require some big federal spending. And I think we might even see some deals on trade, because in some ways, what Trump has done is appropriated the Democratic position on trade. Granted, it’s Trumpian, his view of it, or the way he’s dealt with it. Nevertheless, there’s some closeness there. Nevertheless, Democrat – the Democratic leaders, including Pelosi, are going to be under tremendous pressure to investigate Trump, to investigate his personal and political affairs, as well as, you know, kind of, Russia dealings, and the Republicans are going to live to regret what they pushed through under Obama.

Under Obama what they managed to arrange is that Committee Chairmans no longer need a vote of the committee to subpoena. The Chairman can subpoena. So, Chairmen will subpoena and so, there will be a fair amount of that that goes on, I suspect, just to keep Trump on his backfoot. You don’t need to impeach. You can bleed him slowly through subpoenas. Are we live? And…

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Yes.

Professor Peter Trubowitz

…I mean, but the last thing to say here is that I think, on this, I think it’s only a matter of time before Donald Trump realises, this is to bring it back to the issue about Europe, that his main play – I consider Donald Trump a domestic policy President. I know it’s, kind of, weird over here, ‘cause it feels like he’s a foreign policy President, but I think he has really invested most of his capital on the domestic policy side. But his incentive structure is now going to change. He is going to see that he’s got more running room and discretionary authority on the foreign policy side. So, what I look for is, for him to double down on trade, on the China issue. I expect to see him toughen the position they already have, but I expect we’ll see more of it on Iran and also the Mexico border. So, I would say if you don’t already have your seatbelt on, buckle up.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Ursula, this might be a moment, also, for you to tell us a little bit about what the next two year – what it will mean for our healthcare going forward and also, if you do speak to that, could you give us some context? ‘Cause I know that we sort of understand over here why healthcare is such a big issue in the US, but it is different, isn’t it?

Dr Ursula Hackett

Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah, and, in fact, this – so, you very – you mentioned state legislatures, when you briefed us on this question, and I – we haven’t actually mentioned the state legislatures yet. And this is where the action happens, right, at the state level, especially when you’ve had an incredibly sclerotic Congress, you’ve had an incredibly polarised system at the Federal level, it’s been very difficult to get things done and so, a lot of the action and particularly on, obviously, on domestic policy, on social policy, welfare, health, education, a lot of the action is at the state level.

Now, one of the things that has been pretty eye popping has been the extent to which the Republican Party has dominated state legislatures up-to-date. So, we have half, fully half, of all the State Governments in the United States were controlled in a unified way by Republicans. So, that’s Governor, Upper House and Lower House, all Republicans and Democrats only had unified control of eight of these Governments. So, that is a vast disparity and it really, really matters, because whoever controls the State Government is going to have control over the redistributing process after – as – once – after 2020 Census happens and various – you know, the House seats get re-jiggled, whether the people move seats or gain seats, different states, it’s the state legislatures and it’s the Governors of those states that are going to have a lot of the control and the power there. So, actually, these things are hugely consequential down the line.

I mean, I think this – there have been some extraordinary things, as Jacob was saying, about the healthcare initiatives, that there – actually, there has been this, sort of, pushback in quite conservative states, that are – have been passing ballot initiatives, which expand Medicaid. So, I think we’re seeing a much, sort of – a much broader conversation, I think, about the healthcare. It has been – very much in the Republicans’ camp, one of the things that my colleague, Suzanne Mettler, at Cornell University, has done is to describe the way in which it’s very difficult to reform healthcare, because so much of American healthcare is delivered through privatised delivery mechanisms and through tax expenditures, and so on. So, it’s very – it’s not obvious to the man on the street, or the woman on the street, that the healthcare, for example, Medicaid, is indeed, a Government programme. And so, that’s been one of the big problems for Democrats, for liberals, is to try and, actually, get people informed, to inform people that indeed, these are Government social programmes. And so, you had all these extraordinary town halls during the, sort of, Tea Party waive under Obama, where people were saying, “Get your Government hands off my Medicare.” And you go, “Well, hang on a second, actually, there’s a fundamental misunderstanding here, which is” – and it’s not that people are stupid. I mean, I think that this seems incredibly complex. There are all these really, really complex privatised delivery mechanisms. So, that’s something that’s very different, I think, when we look at it from the British perspective, perhaps, looking into America.

But I think that, I mean, perhaps with this – with these midterms, the tide is changing. I mean, maybe – a lot of the concerns have been clearly about healthcare. It absolutely outstripped immigration, as the number one issue that people were mentioning in the polls as to why they were voting. So, it’s something like 41% of people saying healthcare is the number one issue and immigration it was like 23% or something. So, it’s a really big issue for people and the Republicans got a hammering about their con – the concern, as Peter was quite rightly pointing out, the fear that people will – with pre-existing conditions, for example, will have their healthcare taken away, and so on. So, I wonder whether the wind now is at the Democrats’ back.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Great. Jacob, what does it mean for Europe?

Dr Jacob Parakilas

One – well, I – it means – I mean, to, sort of, pick up on Peter’s point about the regulator – the, sort of, investigative and Oversight agenda, because I think that really does shape how Trump reacts to the world. When we talk about the investigative agenda, mostly people just assume, well, it’s the Mueller investigation and the Mueller investigation is, kind of, a closed shop. It occasionally comes out and does a big flashy prosecution of Paul Manafort, or releases a series of indictments against GRU operatives. But mostly they just, kind of, go about their business and we don’t know what they’re doing and we don’t know whether they’re going to come up with some massive bill of particulars or just quietly close up shop and go away one day. But that’s not the investigative agenda and I think, in some ways, we’ve been done a disservice by this overwhelming focus on Mueller.

For example, how many of you remember Michael Cohen? President’s Personal Lawyer, who stood up in a Manhattan federal courthouse, about three months ago, and said the fed – “The President committed a federal crime, he violated electoral laws.” Now, an accusation isn’t a conviction, obviously, let’s make that clear, but there is a huge amount of stuff that the Democratic Congress could, and probably will, put itself to investigating, using these new found subpoena powers. Everything from Ryan Zinke, the Interior Secretary, who’s facing 14 separate investigations into his use of office, the resigned Health and Human Services Secretary, Tom Price, and the resigned EPA Administrator, Scott Pruitt, both resigned under a cloud for similar things, as did the Head of the VA. These are just things that happened because of press oversight, not because they were, you know, operating in a difficult regulatory environment. And the regulatory environment for the Cabinet, for Jared Kushner, who had to update his security clearance forms dozens of times for Wilbur Ross, who has been accused of pretty significant undisclosed financial conflicts of interest for his position. There’s a huge, sort of, target rich environment for Democratic investigators, which will make it very, very difficult for people, in the administration, to go about their daily business without, sort of, spending their time with their Lawyers, fending of subpoenas and public appearances. And that is a fundamental change to the political environment and it increases Trump’s incentive to go for big, flashy, one-on-one type meetings. He did this with Putin, he did this with Kim Jong-un. I would expect for him to try to detra – distract from, or detract from, or undermine, the impact of all these investigations to come, with some more big, flashy world-straddling type summits.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Okay, we’re going to open it up to the audience. I will take a couple of questions at a time and you can only choose – one person can answer one question, so that we stick more out there than up here, for at least a little while. Put your hands very high, please. I’m going to give you a moment to think about your questions, and we have a gentleman here, you can go first.

Mike Harvey

Thank you very much. My name is Mike Harvey. I’d like to look forward two years. If one accepts the premise that the midterms were a referendum on Trump, therefore, there’s been a shift to the Democrats, come the Senate elections in two years’ time, presumably Republican Senators will be more vulnerable than the Democrat Senators.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

And then we…

Mike Harvey

To what extent would the results of this midterm impact on the attitudes of Republican Senators, their voting and, of course, their allegiance, or less allegiance, to Trump for the next two years?

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

And then here in the front row.

Derek

Derek [inaudible – 34:41], Chatham House Member. At the end of the day, voters vote for individuals, not for policies, most of the time. Can you detect any common theme between the candidates who have been successful by making a big upset? Are the combative ones more successful, or the ones who will be following on a bipartisan policy, and of course, how will that be reflected in the 2020 elections?

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Who would like to take one of those? Peter, go for it.

Professor Peter Trubowitz

I was pouring water. I’ll go with the first question there. So, when it came to the Senate this time, the Democrats were playing defence, because they had – it was very unusual, they had many seats. Of the seats that were up, they were disproportionately seats the Democrats had and they happened to be in rural states. In 2020, it’s all reversed. So, it will be the Republicans that will be playing defence in the Senate. So, I think that matters a lot.

I think, though, your question is, like, how much distance do they put between themselves and Trump in these next two years? I think a lot of that is going to depend, to tell you the truth, on how – what the take is, or the interpretation, of what just happened, you know. So, if it is viewed as a, kind of, split decision and it wasn’t a really big thing, that, I think, will – you know, that leads to one, kind of, set of positions early on. If it’s viewed as I think it should be viewed, that, in fact, Trump was just dealt the same kind of defeat that Bill Clinton was, that George W Bush was, and that Barack Obama was, i.e. he’s pretty ordinary in that sense, then I think you might see some distancing. And there’s a limit to this, because Republicans have basically made themselves, kind of, Trump’s party, so, yeah.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Ursula, you had a comment?

Dr Ursula Hackett

Yeah, I wanted to come to the second point, actually, which is that I mean, I think there’s actually an asymmetry. You asked, “Is there something that unifies the individual candidates that were successful in these races?” And I actually think that the answer is dep – is heavily dependent on party. I think that for Republican candidates, actually, it’s those who wrapped Trump the closest that tend – seem to do pretty well. Whereas, on the Democratic side, actually, I think, as Peter’s been mentioning and that there hasn’t – that those who made a positive case, that didn’t necessarily make a huge deal out of their opposition to Trump and the, sort of, the combative side of things, that actually did the best. So, I think there’s an asymmetry, actually, with respect to the kinds of individuals that did well, with respect to both parties, yeah.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Question right back there in the very back, the gentleman with his head down. That one, James, next seat. Sorry.

Professor Peter Trubowitz

That one who’s crying out in the corner.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

If you can say who you are that would be good.

James Nixey

Sorry, yeah, my name’s James Nixey, Russia and Eurasia Programme…

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

And then in the front row.

James Nixey

…Chatham House. Could I ask for an expansion of Jacob’s point about the Mueller investigation, please? As you said, Jacob, there’s – it’s, kind of, a wildcard and there’s been no leaks, but there are also rumours of indictments and perhaps if there were indictments on – towards a family, or close to a family, then my question would be, to anybody, how much of a headache, on the basis that we can’t impeach, as you said, Professor, how much of a headache can indictments on the family be to Republicans? Thank you.

Dr Jacob Parakilas

Yeah, indeed.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Not yet.

James Nixey

Well…

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Front row here.

Dr Ursula Hackett

Classic.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Front row, yes, if you say who you are.

Cinzia De Santis

Yes, my name is Cinzia De Santis from a charity: Healing Venezuela and my question is, do you think there’s going to be a change in – with this political landscape towards Venezuela and Latin America in general? No changes in Europe, China, but what about Latin America?

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Great question, and we’ll take one more. Hmmm, many possibilities. And tight here in the middle, the woman in the middle here.

Brooke Witt

Hi, Brooke Witt. I have a quick question about the NRA and gun control, were they as powerful as they have been in the past, and is there any changes to gun control laws, moving forward?

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Okay and sorry, and also the one – the gentleman right here. You, yes. That way everybody can choose the one question.

Abdullah

You’ve made the – my name is Abdullah, I’m a student of American politics. You’ve made the point that a Democratic house will act as a check against Trump, but looking forward to 2020, how does having a foil, Nancy Pelosi as Speaker, bode for Trump’s re-election?

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Okay, let’s start with Russia and Venezuela, who wants to tackle those? Steve Erlanger.

Steve Erlanger

Okay. The Mueller investigation, you’re right, it’s a black box and it’s very impressive, actually, how leakless it’s been. You know, even for a non-Lawyer, you can see how the net is closing, trying to get people to testify. I mean, most people think Don Junior may be in trouble. It’d be interesting, but of course, you know, from Mueller to indict the President’s son would be quite a thing. I don’t rule it out, but I think politically, he’d have to think pretty hard about it and make sure that he can actually convict, ‘cause it would actually be a disaster for his investigation if he indicts and can’t convict. You know, Mueller’s delivering a report, but delivering a report to a Congress that now is one half controlled by the Democrats is very different than a report yesterday. So, that I – you know, we’re all going to have to wait and see. I mean, Trump is not seeing Putin much this weekend. Instead, they’re going to see each other in Buenos Aires. and I’m sure we’ll all be watching that very, very carefully, to see if we have Helsinki round two.

On Venezuela, you know, I don’t really know. I mean, it’s such a tragedy. I think in America, it’s viewed as a bipartisan tragedy and, you know, Trump – you, kind of, ask yourself, does he have a Latin American policy, does he have an African policy? Who knows, right? I mean, I certainly don’t know of one, so, I don’t know how to answer the question.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

But it is a really important question and actually, Jacob, you might want to speak to the Latin American/Venezuela question.

Dr Jacob Parakilas

Yeah, I think – I mean, the Trump administration hasn’t really articulated a Latin America policy on a regional basis. It’s looked at Latin America through the lens of immigrant flows and laterally drug and crime flows, but it hasn’t really – and the President’s occasional musings about sending the Military into Venezuela, which I think were rapidly shot down by regional partners of the US, not least Colombia, which would not like to see the American Military intervention next door. There’s no real attempt, beyond the, sort of, general view, as Steve rightly points out. The general view of this is a tragedy and a disaster. There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of, sort of, a coherent forming policy around that and I wouldn’t expect that to change, as a result of the midterms.

Can I talk to the NRA for a second, as well?

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Yeah, great.

Dr Jacob Parakilas

‘Cause the NRA question is really interesting. The answer is they didn’t do that well, but the second part of the answer is they didn’t have to do that well. The NRA is basically where it wants to be on American gun policy. There are a few things on their wish list. They want to have arrest and porosity, so if you had a concealed carry permit in Alaska, you can take your gun on a plane and take – you know, use your concealed carry licence in Maine or New Hampshire or anywhere else. But that’s not a major priority. Their major priority is blocking new gun control legislation at the national level and with between 52 and 54 Republican Senators, they will absolutely be able to do that. They will probably see some defeats, as a result of newly unified Democratic controlled state legislature. So, there’ll probably be some new state level bans on high capacity magazines, assault weapons and a few other things, but national level gun control is probably not going move, in the next two weeks.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

And did you want to come to the Pelosi question, or the NRA, or…?

Dr Ursula Hackett

Oh, sure, well, I’ll just jump in. Just a quick thing on this point about the states and gun control, because actually, a lot of the big – a lot of the problems for guns – control activists has been that, actually, State Governments have been pre-empting, localities and cities that have been trying to mostly – most of which are more liberal, out – on this issue of gun control, that have been trying to try and limit guns and it’s actually at the state legislature level where, of course, the Republican strength has lie – has lain and that pre-emption has occurred. So, they’ve been, actually unable to make regulations, because they’ve been pre-empted by the State Governor above them.

I mean, I think the Nancy Pelosi question, what was the Nancy Pelosi question, we have a…?

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Whether that…

Steven Erlanger

Is she good for the Democrats or bad?

Dr Ursula Hackett

Is she good for the Democrats? Well, she has very high unfavourability ratings. I mean, there is no denying – it’s something in the region of 33% favourability rating for Pelosi, but I mean, it seems to me that she – it would be very difficult that – to imagine someone else actually stepping up as speaker. I think that it’s very likely that she is going to assume that role.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Do you want to add to that?

Professor Peter Trubowitz

Yeah, I mean, on that – before I get to that question, just quickly on Mueller. I think Donald Trump’s hand, with respect to Mueller, just got a whole lot more complicated, because it’s going to be harder now to get him fired. It’s going to be harder to bury the report. I think there’s going to be a lot of gamesmanship right now about whether that report – I don’t think Donald Trump controls this. I think Mueller controls his timetable, but whether that report gets issued before the new Congress, or after, but even if it gets smothered, there’ll be a lot, because of the subpoena power inside the House, there are other ways to get to that story.

What I took your question to be is, well, is, are we going to see a repeat of Harry Truman and the ‘Do Nothing’ Congress and running against Congress? And possibly, but it – I think it’s more complicated, because if you – if you’re using Congress as a foil, partly because it’s divided, because Republicans do control the Senate, so it’s a little bit harder there. And a lot of this, I think, really depends on how clever the Democratic leadership is. If they’re smart enough – I mean, and I – this is where I expect them to go, they will deal on policy issues with Trump and investigate the hell out of them.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Okay, next round of questions. Right back there in the back, we haven’t had anybody from that section. And then just over here in the back.

Spencer Shia

So, Spencer Shia, I’m currently a student at University College London. So, with this larger Senate majority and given the fact that in the past a few Republicans dissenting have actually resulted in certain District Court nominees actually being withdrawn by the Trump administration, including this one corporate guy, who was simply unqualified to on a district court, never done anything in litigation at all, would it be a possibility that the Trump administration could, kind of like, brute force a bunch of candidates that are really conservative, or, kind of, federal society guys, into the appellant or district courts?

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

And then we have one in the back, right there with his hand up, light blue, right – yes?

Graeme McMillan

Hi, Graeme McMillan. You mentioned that there was a possibility of some bipartisanship, in terms of pharmaceuticals and healthcare on the one hand, and infrastructure on the other, which is very interesting. What kind of policies would you see coming out of that and how would that impact people on the ground, business and communities?

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

And here in the front row. Gentleman right here in the front row.

Richard Sanders

Richard Sanders, a member of Chatham House. I mean, I felt somehow that the Democrats did really quite well last night, given the fact that the economy does – seems to be going incredibly well. I mean, there seems to be lower levels of unemployment and faster rates of growth. I mean, I know the growth rates have been going up for about ten years, or ten years, but nonetheless, the flowering of the economy is – has been this year and that consequently, for the Democrats to do so well in a period when the economy seems to be running so fast, seems to be quite a good thing. I mean, the – was it – it was Clinton who said, “It’s the economy, stupid,” wasn’t it? And to that extent, in a sense, that was completely bypassed, I mean, the importance of the economy. In two years’ time, as far as I understand from all the trends, the economy’s not nearly going to be so strong. Isn’t that, to some extent, a really favourable feature for the Democrats in two years’ time?

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

And we’ll take one more, just to make it really complicated. Right here. We’re going to start with the economy question.

Alex Folkes

Thank you, Alex Folkes, Member of Chatham House and an election observer. I note that Trump’s just tweeted that he would welcome Nancy Pelosi as the Speaker and offered to lend GOP votes to make sure that happened. Now, my point is, just following on from the last speaker, I note that Trump didn’t really want to campaign on the issue for tax cuts. He would rather campaign on immigration, which, as Ursula has noted, was one of the big issues, but perhaps only for a certain section of the population. Suburban people, residents in districts, didn’t take that message. They would rather perhaps have been interested in the boring issues of the economy and taxes and things that Trump didn’t want to campaign on. So, just to follow on from the last speaker, what will Trump campaign on in two years’ time? Will he be forced to talk about the boring issues that he doesn’t like talking about? Will they be forced to come up with a new angle on healthcare that actually gets the GOP back in the game on that?

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Okay, really great questions. Let’s start – and sorry, one more right here in the front. Right, right at the front, second row, the woman, yeah, right there. Yes, exactly, and if you say who you are.

Caroline Hale

So far we’ve…

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

If you say who you are.

Caroline Hale

…talked about – am I?

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

No, if you say who you are.

Member

Do you mind giving your name?

Caroline Hale

Oh, Caroline Hale, I’m a Member here. All politics being local, and that’s what we’re talking about now, I would actually like someone to talk about the, what I would call realignment of the geographical sphere, where we look at the world from the international dateline, looking instead from the Greenwich Mean Time as the focus of economics being out in the China area. And one of the big problems, I think, facing the American Government is its policy regarding the growth of the naval capacities in the trade routes along the South China Seas. And I think that’s a very big question, because all this local stuff, healthcare and who likes who and who’s a bad guy and all the rest of it, I think the real thinkers are focusing on the way we look at the world, not through the Decatur map, but a whole new Mackinder map, which is about Eurasia, with Europe as a, kind of, rump state and then all these maritime nations surrounding it. I would like a comment on that. That interests me, in terms of Chatham House.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

That’s great. Okay, so, let’s start with that, geopolitics, China, economics, and then we’ll come back. But who wants to take on the really tough question of China? Peter, since you’ve lived in China? Steven Erlanger, since you’ve written…

Professor Peter Trubowitz

Because I’m a…

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

…about China.

Professor Peter Trubowitz

…fan of Mackinder. So, that’s a great question and what I would say is, Donald Trump hasn’t had his Mackinder hat on. ‘Cause what Donald Trump did is, Barack Obama, for all his many limitations, did something pretty clever geopolitically that would’ve made Mackinder proud, in fact. TPP and TTIP really should be understood as two attempts to re-tether Asia and Europe to the United States, and what Donald Trump did was take those two chess pieces off the table. So, in other words, as a response to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, that that’s really what the – you know, from a geopolitical standpoint, that’s what was going on, and those had been taken away.

Now, that doesn’t mean that Donald Trump can’t come back with something else, but like I said, I think Donald Trump is principally a domestic policy President and not a foreign policy President. So…

Caroline Hale

He may resort to that.

Professor Peter Trubowitz

What’s that?

Caroline Hale

He may resort.

Professor Peter Trubowitz

He may be forced because the incentive structure, it changes. But that kind of big think, maybe there’s somebody in the administration, I don’t know, Steve might know of somebody in the administration.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

More in China on the…?

Steven Erlanger

Well, I mean, we are now calling China not just an economic competitor, but a foe, right? A rival. That’s a change. I mean, the two big changes Trump’s made is in the Middle East, where he’s just thrown all our support to the Saudis, including Mohammad bin Salman and his ilk, and in – with China. We’re not pretending China’s going to, as Bill Clinton tried to do and Bob Zelek tried to do, to drag China into the, you know, World Order. China has its own view of the World Order and it’s setting up a separate one and it may want to try to – and you can see it even with the Iran sanctions issue. You – we might start denominating oil in some places, in other currencies. The hold of the Americans on the international financial system, you have the EU trying to break it. That’s what’s going on, right, over Iran? China may help with that.

I think that’s the thing to watch, which is how strong this competition becomes, because, you know, Xi Jinping is anxious, I think. The trade war is real and China’s hurt more by it than the United States is. And at the same time, he’s pulling back help on North Korea. I mean, he’s using all kinds of leverage. North Korea seems to be going nowhere. So, China’s very interesting.

The other thing that seems to be extremely interesting, and I’ll just say it very briefly, is the economy, just because, you know, we’re heading for a trillion dollar deficit. I mean, that’s extraordinary. I mean, the United States is really going into the red, like, full-time and that’s a Republican responsibility, and we’ll see what happens. I mean, debt to GDP is getting up over 85%, that’s a lot, and I think there’s a consequence to that that we’ll see down the road.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Jacob, would you like…?

Dr Jacob Parakilas

Can I follow-up on the economy question? ‘Cause I think there are two ways of thinking about the economy and Trump’s, sort of, next two years politically. One is that this is the peak. He’s at 42% approval, give or take. He just lost the House and they managed to pick up between two and three seats in the Senate, thanks to an extraordinarily and probably unrepeatably positive Senate map. And given that the odds are the economy won’t be as strong, I’m not an Economist, I’m not going to prognosticate about whether there’ll be recession, whether there’ll be a slowdown, any of that, that’s all above my pay grade, but I know enough to know that the odds are that the economy will not be as strong, in November 2020, as it is right now, in November 2018, and so, Trump is in real trouble.

The other possibility is that the economy just doesn’t actually matter that much. That it may have mattered in history, you may be able to draw either causative or correlative inferences about the economy and the performance of incumbent parties. But in an era of social medial driven partisanship and polarisation, at a time when straight ticket voting has increased, when people just vote down the line for the party that they are ideologically affiliated with and there are very, very few true swing voters, that actually, it’s just about base mobilisation. And Trump has proven to be pretty good at that, so it doesn’t really matter whether the economy goes well or poorly, because he’ll probably do fine in 2020 anyways, and I don’t, at this stage, have a view. I mean, you can go down through history and name any number of Presidents who took what George W Bush called a ‘thumping’ and Barack Obama called a ‘schlacking’ in their first term midterms and went on to fairly comfortably win re-election. So, I’m going to defer judgment on the question of Trump’s odds, until we have a sense of how this works, for the next couple of years.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

A final comment from you?

Dr Ursula Hackett

Yeah, I mean, I think you’re probably right, actually, Jacob, about this point about the economy. I mean, the numbers speak for themselves. I mean, 68% of people saying that the economy is doing well, but 56% of people saying that we’re on the wrong track as a country, right? So, there’s a huge disconnect there, and so – and I think the thing that I would emphasise here is the extent to which opinions about Trump are extraordinarily stable, right? That actually, there’s this really low approval rating. He hasn’t ever got above 45, as far as I understand it. It’s incredibly stable and it’s incredibly stable with particular subgroups, so I think that reinforces, perhaps, this idea that maybe it – maybe we’re disconnecting a little bit. All those political science models that have so accurately predicted various results, on the basis of the economy, the extent – the great of the – the state of the economy, but actually, I think that that is a countervailing datapoint, the extent to which these attitudes are very, very stable.

I just wanted to make a great – there was a question about infrastructure and the prospects for an infrastructure deal. I mean, I just wanted to really quickly address that. I mean, there is a reason why Donald Trump has, in the Oval Office, a portrait of the President he admires the most and that is Richard Nixon, right? He has a portrait of – and, you know, there is a certain – you can draw certain analo – we can draw a certain analogy, a certain, sort of, willingness to utilise, for example, implicit racial appeals, or explicit racial appeals, in campaigning. But also, I do think a certain ideological flexibility, perhaps, that might – we’re going for something here, but might leave some space for that kind of infrastructure deal with Democrats.

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri

Okay, we are at 2 o’clock. What I would say is that, as you can tell, from listening to us, and as we can tell, from listening to you, none of us are quite sure, entirely, what the implications of this particular election is. Nor are we really entirely sure what the implications of the rise of China are for, in the context of the next two years of a very different kind of America, or at least a different kind of politics. So, you should dial in tomorrow, because we’ll be more sure, when we get to the webinar with Amy Pope and Peter Trubowitz and, in fact, Peter is also hosting his own discussion of this. I will be speaking on that panel tonight at the LSE. That will also be livestreamed. So – and I think it is actually important, across London, to have these conversations. They do all build on each other. We are all talking offline as well as online and it’s a lot of datapoints, it’s a lot of analysis, it’s a lot to reflect on and build on and mull over. So, I also hope that you will continue to come back to Chatham House. We will be talking about this a lot, over the next weeks and months and years. So, this will only be the first of many, many conversations in what is a new American context. So, thank you very much and thank you to all of our panellists [applause].