Bronwen Maddox
Well, we’ve got a terrific panel here to discuss these questions of what these mid-term elections might mean, what the – who the immediate winners and losers are, but what this means as well for America’s place in the world, for its policy in the world and for – what it means for Joe Biden’s next two years, and what we should make of the kind of divisions that are inevitably written large across the world’s television screens about the United States, written for – out there for the visibility, if you like, of the rest of the world.
Well, let me – I’m going to ask my panellists to say a few brief words about why they’re here in this conversation. Let me start with Leslie Vinjamuri.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Hi, and thank you, Bronwen, and thanks to everybody for being here. I mean, I – it’s first of all, as Bronwen said, you know, this is very much an action, it’s maybe even more in play in certain ways than we thought it would be when we, kind of, chose the day and the time. I mean, and part of that’s because we were led by the pollsters, who we now know, once again, have not been accurate, and the media coverage of the pollsters.
I’ll say a word on that, but I guess, you know, a couple of things. First of all, I think, for me and probably for many people, the big takeaway is that, you know, this wasn’t a “Red Wave”, this wasn’t a Republican landslide, that all the news – I think many interviews that probably many of us undertook in the last several days started with, “Well, we know it’s going to be a landslide for the Republicans in the Senate and the House, right, and so therefore,” and we haven’t seen that. But I think for me the big take-home is, you know, this is the beginning of what is the future of the Republican Party? It’s a conversation that we’ve been trying to have at Chatham House and I – and it’s been a hard one to have, because it’s felt like Trump has been sitting very successfully on top of the Republican Party.
We saw, last weekend, you know, the separate rallies between Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump, and we’ve seen that now reflected, I think, in the polls, and so the question is, as the Republicans look set to take, you know, the House probably, but not by a very big margin, certainly not by a big margin by historical standards, do we begin to see real divisions in the Republican Party in a way that we just haven’t seen before? And what does that mean not only for 2024, but what does it mean, you know, for governance in the short-term?
The second thing I would say is, you know, the – a lot of the stories that, I think, we’re going to be hearing are, you know – here in Atlanta where I sit, you know, Stacey Abrams has lost, and it’s – we don’t know yet, but it looks likely that there will be a run-off and for the Senate seat, which could decide how the Senate goes. But there’s another story underneath that, which is that Stacey Abrams got a lot more voters to turn out. A lot of them were non-White voters, and those voters didn’t just vote for the position of Governor, they voted for the position of Senate, so, there’s a big turn-out story, which is really interesting and very exciting. We don’t know all the numbers, but I think that the, sort of, you know, the “failure of democracy” narrative isn’t being demonstrated on the ground. People are turned out and new voters have turned out, and young voters have really turned out.
Third and final thing I guess I’d say is on Dobbs, you know, there’s a lot of headlining about “The Democrats got the messaging wrong, they should have stuck to an economic message, they’ve made a mistake on Dobbs.” It’s not yet clear if that’s really the story because again, a lot of the voters who turned out were Dobbs voters, right? They were motivated by the pro-choice or protecting abortion story, so I think it’s a really complicated story. Some of the headline narratives that have captured the polls and captured the media just simply aren’t turning out to be true; lots more to say, but let’s hear from others.
Bronwen Maddox
Lots more and, Leslie, thank you very much, you’ve taken us straight into the heart of it. Let me introduce the other panellists, then, after that introduction. We’ve got Megan Greene, who’s the Associate Fellow of the US and Americas Programme here at Chatham House. Megan, great to have you with us.
We have Mark Landler, who’s the London Bureau Chief of The New York Times, and Peter Trubowitz, Director of the Phelan US Centre at the London School of Economics, so, we’ll be pulling apart lots of these questions. Thank you all for joining us, and please do let me say that it is on the record and livestreamed. Do start sending in your questions now, because I will keep a good eye out for them.
Well, Leslie’s taken us straight into the freshness of it, she’s there on the ground at the moment in Georgia. Peter, what is your first thought about the, if you like, the winners and losers of this?
Peter Trubowitz
Yeah, well, it’s great to be here with you, Bronwen, and everybody else. So, I mean, I’ll just pivot or move from what Leslie said. I mean, I think it is very clear that it wasn’t a Republican wave. Some people call it a ripple, and the best phrase I’ve heard so forth – so far was something of a riptide and, you know, not even a ripple. But it’s never too early to start taking stock of winners and losers, and I think already there are some clear winners and losers, even though we may not know the full composition of Congress until December 6th, because there’s a very good chance that Georgia is going to go into a run-off. And while it’s still early, I mean, it was a big break for the Democrats that Pennsylvania went to Fetterman and to the Democrats. It looks like they may lose Nevada, so, Georgia will then become, as it did last time in 2020, very, very significant.
Having said that, I think last night Ron DeSantis’s stock went way up. It was a big victory. I mean, it’s not just the margin of the victory. He beat Charlie Crist by, like, 20 points. It’s also where he won. DeSantis is the first Republican since Jeb Bush, this is 20 years ago, to win the heavily Hispanic Miami-Dade County. And that’s a big deal, because here we have a younger, Trump-sounding Republican picking up significant non-White support, and I think this matters if the Republicans hope to come back from this and to take the Presidency in 2024. So, the bottom line here, at least with respect to DeSantis, is that his coffers, already full, are going to increase quickly, and I think if you heard a huge sigh of relief, when you woke up this morning, it wasn’t only Democrats, it was those Republicans who are pining for an alternative to Donald Trump.
I look for investors to begin investing even more heavily in DeSantis’s potential run. Donald Trump clearly lost political altitude yesterday. Now, he wasn’t on the ballot, of course, but many of the candidates, flawed candidates that he handpicked and campaigned for, were. Some won, others lost, but I think by inserting himself into the election, he really made it less of a referendum on Biden than it might otherwise have been. And I think, you know, I mean, there’s already – everybody’s wondering who Trump is going to blame for the Republicans underperforming here, and, you know, Kevin McCarthy’s going to have a lot of problems on his hands, but this’ll probably be another one, and speaking…
Bronwen Maddox
Just explain to people who Kevin McCarthy is.
Peter Trubowitz
So, Kevin McCarthy is a Congressman from California, who won big last night, by the way, in, you know, in his campaign, but he’s currently the House Minority Leader. He is expected to be – you know, if the Republicans do take the house, which is likely, that he will be chosen as the Speaker. He might get a challenge, hard to say, but the main thing is, is that he will have a thinner – thinner margins to work with. And what that means is that he’s going to need to tread very carefully inside his caucus to avoid antagonising Trump Republicans on the one hand, and moderate conservative – there’s not that many moderates, but conservative Republicans on the other, and this is going to make it harder for him to get unity on important issues like the debt ceiling and aid to Ukraine.
Many Trump Republicans want to use the debt ceiling to extract concessions from Biden on social security and Medicare. They also want to slash aid to Ukraine, if only to get the Europeans to pony up more. And, you know, so, all of these things were already uphill climbs, I think, for the Republicans, but I think – and McCarthy, but I think they became a little steeper. And as of, you know, this morning, they’re steeper.
One thing I would say, we need to be careful here. Everybody looks for an analogue on elections, like, “Which one is this most like?” There’s a risk, you know, for those who think that, you know, it’s, kind of, over, in 2018 the Democrats ended up with a wave, but nobody saw it for weeks. First it was a trickle or a ripple, and it caught, you know, it picked up over time. Now, I don’t actually expect that to happen, but I think everybody should, kind of, take a deep breath.
But speaking of – let me go on to just maybe two other winners and losers. Joe Biden: Joe Biden, I mean, Joe Biden beat expectations and, you know, this is not the first time that Biden has beat expectations. He’s – which was true in the Democratic campaign; he came back from the dead. A lot – there were – it was not certain that he was a lock on the Presidency in 2020, and I think he won’t be travelling to Bali next week with a strong tailwind, but he’s going to have fewer political headwinds as he goes there, and I think that is an important thing.
When we think about Biden dealing with international leaders and so forth, he is not going to be – he’s not going – he’s not going to be going to meet them the way that Obama had to, or the way that Bill Clinton did in 94, where they had just taken a drubbing from the opposing party. So, he’s going to be in a strong position in a sense, in that way.
I do not…
Bronwen Maddox
Okay.
Peter Trubowitz
…want to leave just the impression that it’s, kind of, a – you know, he’s not – that he’s home free. He’s not, because McCarthy is going to need to find a common denominator…
Bronwen Maddox
Yeah.
Peter Trubowitz
…to unite his caucus, and that’s likely to be investigations of the Biden administration.
Bronwen Maddox
Peter, really good points, and I know we’re going to come back to the Biden points, and I can see coming in on the questions already questions about Trump, and what this means for Trump. Mark Landler, how do you see this, do you agree with Peter’s and Leslie’s take on this and, apart from anything else, less bad for Biden than it looked a week ago?
Mark Landler
Well, first of all, thanks for having me, Bronwen. I do, I agree with all of what Leslie and Peter just said, and they both covered a lot of ground, so, I guess what I would do is zero in on just a couple of points. One is just the fact that, at least at this point, it looks like this was an efficient, clean, relatively well-handled, there’s only one or two reports we’ve had of screw-ups at polling places or in tabulation centres. So, you know, for all of the justifiable fears about the state of American democracy and the democratic process, I think you’d have to say that yesterday was a real, you know, a real positive development and a suggestion that these institutions are perhaps more resilient than we thought they were.
You know, remember, it was just a few days ago that we were all writing about how the Russians had planned to interfere with this mid-term, much as they had interfered with previous elections. Well, if this is what interference got them, they’re not very good at it anymore. This is not the outcome that Vladimir Putin would have looked for, to have Donald Trump, you know, measurably weakened and Joe Biden measurably strengthened. So, I think that’s one point I would make.
On the question of the wider…
Bronwen Maddox
And Mark, may I just stop you just at that point? Because of course we don’t have all the results yet, and one of the things that have led people to question, in the past, of whether the institutions in America are holding up is whether or not the elections are contested. I don’t mean just the procedures of run-off, but whether people accept the results when they are very close.
Mark Landler
Yeah, and that’s a fair point to make, and I’m sure that one or two of the candidates that appear to be on the losing side, or perhaps more than that, will try to contest them, Kari Lake in Arizona being probably the most conspicuous example of that. But I guess what I’m talking about is the pure running of the election. I – there just seems to be not much reporting or evidence of foul-ups in the system, and we will just have to see whether the results are accepted or not by the major candidates.
The point I wanted to make about the White House is, there is a – you know, there’s a slightly contrarian argument on Joe Biden that in fact the good performance, or the relatively good performance, or unexpectedly good performance of the Democrats may make their lives a bit more complicated in the long run, because if there had been a Red Wave, it probably would have forced a much more immediate discussion about Joe Biden’s viability as a candidate in 2024, and to the extent that this emboldens Biden and the White House for another run, there probably will be people in the Democratic Party that will find that, you know, less welcome news.
You know, one of the things that did come out of this election already, even at this early stage, is there are one or two new stars in the party. Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania was elected Governor over Doug Mastriano, who is a conspiracy theorist who attended the January 6th rallies in Washington, and would have been a potentially very pernicious influence, had he gotten control over some of the electoral mechanisms in Pennsylvania. Well, Shapiro won that race; he’s another overnight star in the party.
Gretchen Whitmer won very strongly in Michigan, the Democratic candidate, that raises her profile. And so, you know, for the first time in a while, last night you were hearing people say, “Well, maybe we do have more of a bench than we thought on the Democratic side. There are some interesting new faces, fresher faces.”
At the same time, the very strong performance of the party as a whole will buoy Joe Biden, and should the White House decide that they want to, you know, make that more of an official push, it makes him a much harder candidate to – for anyone in the party to stand aside for. And that brings with it a whole second set of questions: is he in fact too old? Should an 80-year-old be running for a second term in office? So, that’s, sort of, the, you know, maybe the slightly unexpected outcome of a very successful day for the Democrats. So, why don’t I leave it there for now, and I can…?
Bronwen Maddox
Really good points, and we’re going to come back absolutely to this question of the next Presidential contest, partly because many of the questions coming in, I can see, are about that, or about Trump, or about Biden. Please do keep the questions coming in, we’re going to be – talk ‘til just a bit after quarter-to, and then come to these excellent questions. Do keep them coming.
Megan, we were chatting just before this as warm-up, about your views of the markets and what they’re – you know, how people more widely are going to take this. What’s your take on it all?
Megan Greene
Yeah, so, on the basis that there will be some form of gridlock, whether that means that the Republicans take the House and the Democrats take the Senate, or the Republicans actually take both, I think the former is more likely, for what it’s worth, there will be a bunch of gridlock, and that means not a whole lot will get done, in terms of policymaking.
So, in terms of how the markets might be viewing this, I think it’s actually both positive for equity and fixed-income markets. So, investors generally don’t like uncertainty. So, in the short term, while we wait to figure out the results, that might be market-negative, particularly in equity markets, but actually, if we end up with gridlock, equity investors will like that a lot because that will decrease uncertainty, because very little will get done legislatively. So, I think this is positive for the mar – for equity markets.
For fixed-income markets, it’s also positive. If there’s gridlock, then the Democrats can’t get through more of their spending agenda. Then arguably, that will be less inflationary than if the Democrats had been able to take the Senate and the House again. And so, that means that the Fed should in theory have to hike a bit less, and that would be good for bond markets. So, I think overall, from a markets perspective, this result is pretty good, related to the idea that the Democrats won’t be able to get any kind of major spending package passed.
It goes further than that, and that brings me to my third point, which is that there is going to be a showdown over the debt ceiling. And there is going to have to be some kind of deal whereby the Republicans demand not just no additional spending, but spending cuts in order to be able to come up with some agreement on lifting the debt ceiling.
I think this is probably underappreciated by the markets right now, in part because it’s a bit further out, it won’t happen ‘til spring/summer, but next year I think we’re going to have to contend with this, and so, not only will there not be a big burst of spending, there will be spending cuts, I think. So, effectively, there will be austerity when the US is already in recession, and that’s growth inhibiting them.
Bronwen Maddox
Right.
Megan Greene
So that will offset some of the positive implications of certainty for the markets.
Bronwen Maddox
Of the sheer amount of money in the system, and I must say, what you’ve said is, by a long way, the most cheerful thing I’ve heard about what the Fed might do for some time. What kind of spending cuts are you thinking of?
Megan Greene
So, yeah, it depends on what deal gets done. I think there might be spending cuts, some of the, kind of, unfunded contingent liabilities, and the pensions, you know, pension system, social security in particular, Medicare maybe. It will just come down to horse-trading at the time, so, it’s hard to say exactly what spending cuts, but I think there will be some.
Also, you know, I think there’s increasing reticence on the Republican side to finance this whole Ukrainian aid situation. So, there might be some sort of defence spending cuts along those lines as well, I think that could come into it.
Bronwen Maddox
Alright.
Megan Greene
Related to that, the US’s role in the world will be affected by this a little bit, from an economic standpoint. It won’t be affected, in terms of trade, I don’t think that that’s going to change, regardless of the make-up of the government. But in terms of both Ukraine and climate, I do think that the US’s position could shift, just in that on the climate side, it will be, I think, impossible for the Democrats to get much through on climate, on the green transition if the Republicans are controlling the House. And again I mention, the Republicans have been increasingly reticent to finance Ukraine, so, we might see more resistance on that front. And then, obviously, with one…
Bronwen Maddox
Okay, hang on, ‘cause I want to pick up some of these excellent points you’ve made and bounce them off the others, if that’s alright? Let’s come back…
Megan Greene
Well, that’s my biggest worry, and it’s one sentence.
Bronwen Maddox
Alright, go on.
Megan Greene
But I have to get it out.
Bronwen Maddox
Go on, I can’t resist, then, your biggest worry.
Megan Greene
According to a report by The New York Times this morning, you know, 200 Republicans have been elected who either outright contested the results of the last election or, you know, indirectly suggested they might not be true. That, I think, suggests institutional degradation. That really worries me in two years. I’ll leave it there.
Bronwen Maddox
Alright, that’s brilliant, no, no, so, you’ve taken us across a whole lot of things that I want to dig into. One is the potential paralysis of the domestic agenda of Joe Biden, and I’d love to hear what the others think of that. You’ve begun to take us, which I’m absolutely going to dig into, what happens about Ukraine, American support for Ukraine. I was in Washington a couple of weeks ago, exploring this point, among others, and then the point about the institutions, about how much confidence everyone should have on these things.
Let’s start with what happens at home, what happens to Joe Biden’s programme, what happens potentially about these spending cuts. Who’d like to leap in on that? I think, wave at me. Okay, I’m going to go to Leslie and then Peter. Go on.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Okay, Bronwen. I really want to say one thing, though, before – I will answer that, but I really want to say one thing to follow-up on Mark’s excellent point that – but it’s, sort of, a – it’s a more – it’s a nuanced turn, it’s a bend on Mark’s really headline, excellent point that it is impressive in light of, you know, where we’ve been that this appears to have been a non-violent, pretty well-conducted set of elections, and there were a lot of elections.
But, you know, I’ve spent the last two days going around and meeting with a lot of voting rights groups and ac – people who are, you know, doing the operational side of the voting in Georgia, and there is a headline below the big headline, and it’s not to undercut the big headline, but there’s a lot of, you know, there’s a lot of different ways of doing voter suppression, and it’s definitely gotten harder to vote.
And this is a state, Georgia’s a state where voting matters a lot, it might determine the – who controls the Senate. And to give you one concrete example, if you want to vote in a run-off that may or may not take place on December 6th, that may – and if it takes place, will determine, most likely, who controls the Senate, you had to have registered two days ago, to participate in an election that, we don’t even know whether it will take place.
Okay, there are a number of stories like that; polling booths not, you know, being nearby anymore, lots of stories, so, there is – it’s not been violent, it’s not been overtly violent ‘cause the conduct has been smooth, but at an operational level there’s all sorts of things going on, and it’s happening across…
Bronwen Maddox
Alright, and we will come back to that. On the question of the, kind of, integrity and the constitutional standing of elections.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
[Inaudible – 23:26].
Bronwen Maddox
Leslie, I want to come to Peter now.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Well, okay.
Bronwen Maddox
I’m going to read out a question from Peter Kellner. I’m going to bring in other people live, but it’s so pertinent to what we’re talking about now. Peter Kellner saying, “Do you see any chance of the Democrats passing important bills in the remainder of the year, e.g., doing away with the constant need to raise the debt ceiling and so on?” Peter, I’d love your thoughts on that and the, kind of, implications at home.
Peter Trubowitz
Well, what I said in my opening comments is I – the Democrats chances of – Biden’s chances of increasing the debt ceiling have gone up as a result of the outcome, and what we see already. It’ll be harder for McCarthy to stop that, and it’ll be easier for – easier, not simple, for Biden to pick up Republican support. And I think what’s key here really on the Senate side is whether McConnell, assuming he’s still the Minority Leader, which I think he will be, he breathed a sigh of relief last night because a potential challenge from Rick Scott has gone, I think, is that, you know, whether or not they’re willing to, kind of, take a few hits to push this forward. And the question will be whether it happens in the lame deck – lame duck session or whether it’s held back until January – well, really February.
But let me say, I think, just to go to the larger question about here – Democratic – Joe Biden’s agenda, Joe Biden, on purpose, front-loaded his domestic agenda, and that’s ‘cause they knew that the chances, given history and so forth, they were going to lose control of one or both chambers of Congress. And so, you had to get it through, and this is why there was a lot of flurry about the filibuster and getting rid of it and so forth, and they got – I mean, he got a lot through. He didn’t get everything he wanted, but he got a lot through.
This administration is not in a position – if the House is taken by the Republicans, it’s not in a position to push through a lot of Democra – domestic legislation, and that’s not what it’s going to do. What is key is whether or not they control the Senate, because there’s a lot of Court positions still to be filled, and those will be done with if the Republicans control it. I’m not talking about the Supreme Court, although there’s a possibility that there would be a vacancy there, that Biden would not be in a position to do anything.
So, what Presidents normally do, under these kinds of circumstances, is go international as much as they can, right, to show competency and efficacy and all those good things, that they’re delivering. I just don’t expect a whole lot on the domestic front with these conditions.
Bronwen Maddox
And there’s a question later anticipating all that. Anyone else want to come in on this question of what the next two years at home for the US are going to look like? Leslie.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Yeah, but I don’t want to cut over Mark and Megan, but, you know, I agree with much of what Peter said, but again, I think the big story is going to be watching the Republican Party descend on itself. And so, you know, with a – with not the kind of majority that they would have expected to have in the House, it’s true, Biden’s going to struggle to get new legislation through, but the Republicans are going to have a harder time, kind of, pushing back in the way that they have.
I don’t think we’re going to see a straightforward transition from, you know, Trump as hero to DeSantis. I think that by moving away from Trump, it opens up the playing field for all sorts of things to happen in the Republican Party, and I – and, you know, and to Megan’s point about election deniers being re-elected, it also opens up the space for maybe some people not to deny elections. I just think that the game totally changes when Trump doesn’t have that lock on the party.
So, yes, in terms of legislation, it’s going to get tough, but I think the big story, over the next, well, several days, several weeks and potentially the next two years is, “How does the Republican Party dig itself out?” And we’ve been talking about the Democrats a lot, but now we…
Bronwen Maddox
Okay, so, that’s a really good pitch for the problems of the Republican Party, but I want to come back to Mark’s point about how Biden’s success may actually have given the Democrats a problem in being – I’m not going to put words in your mouth, Mark, but stuck with him. Do you want to expand on that?
Mark Landler
Yeah, I will, but let me just add one…
Bronwen Maddox
Yes, go on.
Mark Landler
…point to the issue of what Biden can do with the next couple of years. It is worth remembering how Obama dealt with a similar set of circumstances, which was by really trying to make use of Executive Actions, things that he could do that he wouldn’t need to get a vote for Congress.
We, sort of, discovered the limitations of Executive Actions, which is that when a Repu – President from an opposing party comes in, you can dismantle them, which is largely what happened in the case of Obama. But I wouldn’t be surprised to see Biden, you know, investigate that option. That’s something that Obama – really it, kind of, drove his domestic policy in the second half of a – really much of the rest of his Presidency after he lost control of the House.
In terms of just the – again, the calculus for Democrats, the, sort of, strange paradox of this election is that the Democrats have had perhaps the best mid-term election – well, they’ve certainly had the best mid-term election that anyone’s had since George W Bush in 2002. But they’re doing so with a President who has a low-40s approval rating, and if you look at his approval rating over time, he’s been almost consistently unpopular, from very close to the beginning of his term, so – and I think that’s really unprecedented: a President who’s enduringly not particularly popular, and yet, for this odd coalescence of factors, has managed to have a surprisingly successful first mid-term election.
But that’s got to be preying on Democrats because that 42%, 43% is still there today, it’s probably still going to be there a month from now. Maybe he will find a way to turn things around, but facing a hostile Congress, it’s, kind of, hard to see how he does that. You know, remember, one of the things that having Jim Jordan as the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee means is that we’re probably going to face a relentless stream of investigations, as Peter alluded to earlier. I would imagine there’ll be a Hunter Biden investigation that will probably be getting into all sorts of insinuations about how much money Joe Biden made off Hunter Biden’s investments in China, and that’ll just be one of probably several.
So, it’s hard to see exactly what the next very positive set of headlines are that would turn around Joe Biden’s personal popularity. And so, that’s why I think this whole question of being emboldened or buoyed by the mid-terms is a little bit of a qua – it puts the Democrats in a little bit of a quandary. Because had they had a different outcome yesterday, and I’m not sure they, by the way, they would have traded this for that, but had they had a negative outcome yesterday, the next few weeks would have been about “Okay, how do we bite the bullet, recognise that Joe Biden should be a transitional figure, and begin to identify this new generation?” I mean, the existing alternatives to Joe Biden before yesterday were, kind of, weak tea, if you’re going to be blunt about it, right?
I mean, it was Kamala Harris, an underperforming Vice President, and Pete Buttigieg, who’s, I guess, a fine Transportation Secretary, but had problems before this happened that would not have gone away. And so, I guess what yesterday did is, it provided some new and interesting names. Whether those new and interesting names will now be treated the same way they would have otherwise, it’s hard to know and, you know, some of it – a lot of it will depend on what Joe Biden chooses to do with this somewhat unexpected turn of events. But if you believe the very early signals out of the White House, they at least are indicating, you know, “It’s full steam ahead, he’s running, he’s interested in a second term.”
You know, there had always been a school of thought that Biden would have very clear criteria. If Donald Trump runs, he would feel compelled to run. If Trump didn’t run, he might be open to hanging it up after one term, which I guess is, to come back to what, you know, we were talking about at the beginning, why this newly empowered Ron DeSantis and somewhat weakened Donald Trump is also very interesting. I mean, none of us have yet mentioned the fact that by his own pre-announcement, Donald Trump’s supposed to be declaring his run for the Presidency on November 15th. It’ll really be interesting to see if that happens or not.
Bronwen Maddox
Really, really interesting, and we’ll come back to some points about the next Presidential campaign when we come to questions in full. But I want to stir, at this point, stir one question in, which I’ll read out for the sake of the flow of this. It’s from Andrew Payne, and he’s saying, “Could the speakers say more about the foreign policy implications of divided government?” And goes on to say, “Presidents have – tend to have more room for manoeuvre in foreign affairs than domestic policy, with the exception of issues, which require Congressional approval, such as treaties. Should we therefore expect an increase in Presidential activity on the world stage, as we saw with Obama’s second term, for instance? Which priorities can the White House still pursue in this changed political context?”
Megan, do you want to – you were talking about Ukraine, and began to take us in that direction. Do you want to start with this?
Megan Greene
Yeah, sure. I mean, I’ll start with trade actually, ‘cause there I don’t think anything will change at all. The Republicans and Democrats have actually taken a remarkably similar line on trade under the Biden administration but, you know, the Biden administration is using cuddlier language, and a slightly different strategy, of course, than what the Trump administration had used. But ultimately, there’s quite a lot of industrial strategy, industrial policy and protectionism involved.
So, I think things like a trade war between the US and the EU is quite possible. The Europeans are really upset about the green incentives and the Inflation Reduction Act, so, I think those trade tensions will just go up from here. I think trade tensions between the US and China will go – will increase from here, we’re seeing that in semiconductors, for example. So, that’s not going to change off the back of this election result.
In terms of the Ukraine, I’ve mentioned that the Republicans seem increasingly reticent to finance what’s going on in Ukraine. There’s also an interesting discussion globally about how to reconstruct Ukraine, which I’m glad we’re talking about now, but the Europeans seem to think that they’ll go ahead and take point on that, while the Americans will fund it. If you talk to the Treasury Department already, they’re not particularly in line with that deal, and so, I think that there will be tensions there as well.
As I mentioned, you know, I think that we’ll – the US will be in recession next year, probably in the middle of next year, where we’re also facing a debt ceiling. So, trying to drum up political support to finance a war in Europe is going to be even more difficult than it is now.
Bronwen Maddox
And this has been, a you know, a fact for many, many years, and a refrain, but I was really struck a couple of weeks ago in Washington about hearing this on both sides on the Hill. Not overwhelming, but definitely there, and definitely “Well, why should we, if Europe won’t stump up?” A call that has been there for a long time, but absolutely getting louder.
What about the other three of you? And the word we haven’t really mentioned, China, in all this, approach to China, and Megan just brought in the environment as well there. Who’d like to – and Mark – Leslie, go on, with the…
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Yeah, I mean, I think…
Bronwen Maddox
…the foreign flank.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
…China’s a, you know, is a – seems like a good place to move forward. Again, we don’t – we still don’t know who has the Senate, but regardless, we’ve seen the direction of travel, you know, we know the headline story is a bipartisan consensus on being tougher on China. We’ve certainly see the Biden administration make strides on that with the export controls, which are seen to be quite a serious measure.
But I do think it matters, you know, at the – there are differences still in the parties, and I do think that it, you know, it matters who takes control and – of the Senate, and it also matters, you know, how the Republicans come out of this, not only in terms of the number of seats they have, but again, to go back to, for me, what one of the big stories is, how much do they descend upon themselves, because they’re battling it out? You know, McConnell, DeSantis, Trump, a number of people, on who’s going to be in charge, and therefore, maybe that gives Biden more leverage to pursue his China agenda and keep it away from what it would otherwise be. And this is, I think, the big distinction with the Republicans, is a much more ideological debate about China and away from – you know, as strong as Biden’s policy is on China, it’s still pragmatic and it’s still aiming for these two tracks, right?
Co-operating on climate has been tough to do, but it is there as a, you know, front headline, and competing on everything else. So, I think Biden – and, you know, Biden gets more leeway if the Republicans are struggling amongst themselves, and to Mark Landler’s point, you know, Executive Orders. But the, you know, the final thing I would say is, you know, the power of the Executive, we know this, has been growing for quite a long time on foreign policy. So, at some level, you know, this is less of a – a mid-term election is less – you know, given bipartisan consensus, given the power of the Presidency, given the strength of the foreign policy team, there’s still a lot of, you know, leverage that the President will have in the next two years.
Bronwen Maddox
Very good point. Peter? Would you like to make a…?
Peter Trubowitz
Well, maybe – I agree with much of what I’ve heard. I’d maybe just add just a couple of points. With respect to China, I mean, what I’ll be looking for – Biden has been, it seems to me, very careful not to leave his right flank open in the United States on China, and his position changed considerably from when he first threw his hat into the ring for the President – for the Presidency, for the Democratic nomination.
What I’ll be looking for, when he goes to Bali, if he does meet with Xi Jinping, is whether he not exactly pivots away from that, but whether he looks and tests Xi Jinping for the possibility of dialling down some tension in that region. I think he’s got scope to do it, and, you know, and it’s a way to test where Xi Jinping is after having consolidated power.
You could make an argument that Xi Jinping has more room to manoeuvre right now himself, and so, I think that’s – would be an interesting place for Biden to test. This is not pulling any of his legislation, backing away from it. It’s, I think Biden should try to walk and chew gum at the same time on this issue.
And secondly I would say that, you know, just to go back to the trade issue, I would be – I’ll be dumbstruck if he spends a nanosecond on trying to push trade. This is just a non-starter politically, so, this is – for those in the UK looking for a trade deal, not happening any time soon.
If you’re a Biden Advisor, you advise to do it after he’s re-elected, not in these two years, it seems to me, especially after Fetterman demonstrated in the Pennsylvania campaign, and this is not getting enough attention, that a Democrat can go into blue collar areas still and win voters. And, you know, that was a clear electoral strategy, so, you know, there’s a space there.
I think the Iran Contra deal, I would also be – and I mean, not Iran Contra deal, the Iranian nuclear deal. I think there’d be a – I was lecturing on Reagan recently, so, the – I would be surprised if he spends much time on that, too. It seems to me, Ukraine is going to just suck up most of the international oxygen, and he’s got to continue. He’ll feel like he’s got to continue to invest in that, but he also needs to see this thing come to some kind of a resolution, some kind of a settlement, because at some point, Americans will tire of the thing and want to pullback.
Bronwen Maddox
Mark, how do you judge it? You’re sitting here in the UK and hearing, I presume, these, you know, huge concerns about Ukraine; it feels very close to home. Sometimes to me it feels closer to home than it does if you sit in Berlin, but that’s another – that’s a whole other seminar in that. How do you judge the American appetite for this?
Mark Landler
Well, I guess, just to pick up on one thing that the questioner said, which is true, which is that Presidents tend to pivot to foreign policy when they’re feeling hemmed-in on domestic policy, which is correct. I think that what we should remember, though, here is that President Biden is going to – is heading into a General Election period. So, far from feeling freed-up from electoral pressure, he’s going to feel pretty immediately either the pressure on himself, if he chooses to run again, or the pressure on his party.
So, I don’t think we’re in a, sort of, a second-term scenario where, you know, he could set a few legacy issues that he wanted to test, knowing he doesn’t have to face the voters again, you know, a la Richard Nixon after 1972, or Barack Obama in his second term. This is going to be a very politicised period, and particularly if Donald Trump throws his hat in the ring fairly soon, it will be immediately politicised, and we’ll be very much in a Presidential election mode. And I think that if you look at the way the Biden administration has approached foreign policy, particularly on the international economic policy side of it – you know, Jake Sullivan has long said that “You can’t divorce international economic policy from domestic economic policy,” hence Peter’s correct prediction that there’s no way that the – Joe Biden’s going to do a trade deal, probably with really anybody, let alone with the UK.
So, I actually don’t think we’re going to see any bold initiatives. You know, remember, Presidents are also constrained by the people we’re dealing with, and I think he’s in a particularly difficult moment where, you know, he has to solve Ukraine, as Peter correctly said, he’s got a Chinese leader who is as formidable and difficult and antagonistic as any American President has faced in a couple of decades. He’s got no relationship at all with North Korea, nor any apparent desire to open a relationship.
The Iranians are in a very interesting moment because of their own domestic upheaval and a protest movement that may actually prove to be more lasting and meaningful than previous ones. But it’s maybe too soon to say, and I agree that the – absent some big change there, it’s hard to see the Iran nuclear deal really going too far.
So, if you think about – you know, I often think about these things, in terms of the Obama Presidency, which I covered, and, you know, President Obama had several big buckets of issues where he thought he could test – either test a regime, an existing regime, see if a new leader was who he thought he was, try to change American thinking on certain issues. I don’t really see Joe Biden in a position to do any of that with most of these big relationships, whether it’s Russia, China, Iran. So, you know, even though it is true to say that when he goes out to a G20 or a G7, he’ll go out as a somewhat stronger figure. I don’t think it necessarily gives him that much more room to manoeuvre and I’m not sure, frankly, he’s going to be that interested, since the last thing he needs is an unforced error on foreign policy.
I mean, in a way, the Democrats are going to feel like they dodged a bullet with this mid-term. So, I’m not sure I see him taking on a, sort of, a dramatic or bold initiative in the foreign realm, certainly not before the 2024 election.
Bronwen Maddox
Okay, thanks. Let me – I’m going to come to questions in just a second and, just to give a heads up to people, I’m going to come first to Natalie Porter, and then to Maximilian Enders, if people want to come back in, but I – and there’ll be lots of chance for the panellists to make their last points. But I want to put to you all this question that hangs around the election deniers, if you like, of the state of United States, because that is one of the big questions that people ask, particularly from outside the US, you don’t hear it as much inside, about whether the country is so divided, and people are questioning and challenging the institutions, that we should, you know, worry about whether or not it is going to work as a country.
On the other hand, you can’t sit in a country like the UK and not observe that the economy may be heading for a recession, but is doing better than the UK economy at the moment. Megan, your take, briefly if you like, on, you know, the health of the United States.
Megan Greene
Yeah, so, that was the worry that I cited, it’s my biggest worry, and I think there’s a very good chance that the next election could effectively be stolen, with all of the social implications that would underpin that. So, you know, that’s my biggest concern, the biggest risk out there, I think, in the medium-term globally, is the precedent that that sets for the rest of the world.
The degradation of our institutions has been profound, although, you know, for many, they’ve held up better than expected. So, that’s the silver lining in it, but I still think it’s a deep worry.
So, the economy has worked, yes. In fairness, given that, you know, the government won’t be able to do much of anything as a result of gridlock, the economy will be steered mostly by the Federal Reserve, which is independent anyhow, so, the economy’s held up. It will hold up longer than Europe’s, for example, but that’s nothing to do really with the government or these elections. I think the big medium-term worry is that elections will be stolen.
Bronwen Maddox
Really interesting point. Mark.
Mark Landler
Well, you know, I think Megan’s absolutely right in the broadest sense, that just because we may have had a non-violent and relatively efficient electoral process yesterday, doesn’t mean that five years of sustained assaults on the legitimacy, integrity of the system just go away. And, you know, Donald Trump, you know, created an army of 200 new Representatives who were elected either entirely or partially on the notion that they didn’t recognise the results of the last Presidential election.
I am somewhat encouraged that in a couple of the key battleground states, where a Republican Governor would have meant immediate problems, in terms of naming elector – Election Commissioners, Secretaries of State and other officials who could do direct mischief with the results of a Pre – of the next Presidential election, we seem, in a few of these states, to have dodged that bullet. Certainly, it looks like it in Wisconsin, in Michigan and in Pennsylvania, so, that’s all to the good.
But the underlying threat to democracy certainly doesn’t go away. Donald Trump is still the odds-on favourite to be the Republican nominee, even with Ron DeSantis’s landslide victory yesterday, and he’s going to run explicitly on a platform that calls into question his loss in the last election, and will no doubt threaten to defy any rigged election in the future. So, I do think that we may have gotten through this one, without the worst possible outcome, but all the underlying rot is there and we shouldn’t fool ourselves that we’ve remedied this.
Bronwen Maddox
Yeah, thank you. Leslie.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Yeah, I mean, you know, yeah, there’s no doubt about it, there – across a number of institutions, the judiciary being one that we haven’t had a chance to talk about, you know, there – the norms that we took for granted have been unsettled, and that’s a big problem, because what we learned in 2016, between 2016 and 2020, wasn’t about the law. The real damage to democracy with, you know, expectations of appropriate behaviour, i.e., norms, were taken down by Donald Trump and many of those around him. But I do have a slightly different response, which is, first of all, you know, the entry ticket to being a Republican during Donald Trump’s, you know, reign was denying the election. If Donald Trump ceases to be the number one figure in the Republican Party, it’s not obvious to me that you have to deny elections and contest elections to stay in the game as a Republican.
I really, really think we are in for a period of dynamic change in the Republican Party in the hours, days, weeks and months ahead, that will fundamentally change all of the things that we’ve been debating recently. I think it’s a big deal that the elections have been, even with the voter suppression, that they have been free, fair, non-violent and so far uncontested. But watch what happens in Georgia on December 6th if that race goes to a run-off, for two reasons.
One is, you know, for the obvious reason that the stakes will be so high, and this is where we would ex – and the vote will be close, and this is where we would expect to see, you know, how much is, you know, the practice of democracy at the basic level of elections problematic. But two, this is where, you know, what we thought we would see, and what people on the ground here have been saying is, “We don’t want to go to a run-off, because DeSantis and Trump and McConnell, they’ll all come down to Georgia, they’ll all be campaigning, they’ll all be aligned and they’ll make sure they get that seat.”
But now, with DeSantis’s big win, maybe that doesn’t happen. So, you know, the bottom line, and I guess I pushback against “America’s polarised, democracy’s over, it’s two countries.” I think it’s a dangerous narrative, and in fact a lot of what’s happening is being driven by people at the top who are trying to turn democracy, you know, into a negative game, and it’s about leadership, we’re getting new leaders.
And final point, the young people are turning out to vote in spades, and people are turning out to vote in spades, so, there’s a huge amount to play for. I would caution against any kind of destructive American democracy…
Bronwen Maddox
Excellent, thank you. I was fishing for exactly this, disagreement, because – and it does look different both if you are American and if you are in the United States. Peter, briefly on this, and then I’m coming to questions, beginning with, as I said, with Natalie Porter.
Peter Trubowitz
Well, I agree – I mean, so, on the election denier issue, denial issue, I find myself in agreement with Mark’s position, which is that in a lot of the very high-profile races those deniers have either been defeated or they’re about to be defeated. And this is not just at the Governors’ level, but also in the Secretary of State races, which arguably matter even more, when it gets down to actual – the actual mechanics of counting the votes.
So, it’s mixed because there were so many of them. Many of ‘em were incumbents that were taking that position. I guess where I want to go is, and I would say, one very hopeful sign is, turn-out was very high. We don’t know exactly, but it looks like it’ll be at about the level of 2018, and for people that don’t know what that means, that turn-out was as – higher than any turn-out for a mid-term election in the United States going back to, I think it was 1914. So, the – I mean, Americans are showing up at the polls.
I want to just deal with the division issue, because I don’t fully – I hope Leslie’s right and the Republican Party is, kind of, more diverse and disunited and, you know, and then on both sides, there’s, kind of, more play. But I think, when all is said and done, the United Sates emerges from this election deeply divided, both regionally and demographically.
I mean, the main takeaway from the exit polls that I’ve looked at are that education and race remain big drivers. Republicans draw their support disproportionately from older, White, non-college-educated voters. Democrats from younger, college-educated voters, White, Black, Hispanic, Asian-American. If there was a change, and it wasn’t much of a change, but it is worth noting, Republicans actually deepened their support among White, non-college-educated voters in this election, and also made inroads with Asian-Americans, you know, which is – I mean, that’s an interesting development.
Democrats did better with independent voters than people thought, with educated independent voters, than people were expecting going into this. But overall, I think the demographic divides co – you know, on top of or underneath the regional divisions mean that not a whole lot changed, in terms of the, kind of, polarisation of the American polity. We were there before this election and we’re still there.
Bronwen Maddox
Okay, thank you very much indeed for that. Alright, let’s go to questions and let’s, as I said, start with Natalie Porter, and do we have Natalie live?
Natalie Porter
Hi, everyone. Can you guys hear me alright?
Bronwen Maddox
Yes.
Natalie Porter
Thank you very much for your comments today, it’s been really interesting to listen to. Obviously, as well as the elections for Governors, House and the Senate, we’ve got a number of amendments going through in a number of states’ Constitutions. On both sides of the argument for abortion and contraception rights, we’ve got Vermont, Michigan and California enshrining the right to abortion and contraception, but also, Kentucky going the opposite way.
I’m expecting obviously quite a lot of protest potentially on that front, ‘cause it’s always been a very divisive issue in America, but how much potential legal backlash with the Roe versus Wade decision getting overturned could we potentially be expecting on a Federal legal level?
Bronwen Maddox
Really good point. Who wants to start [pause]? Absolutely no-one.
Peter Trubowitz
No, no, I mean…
Bronwen Maddox
Peter.
Peter Trubowitz
…neither party is in a posi – I’ll start. I mean, if I…
Bronwen Maddox
Yeah, great.
Peter Trubowitz
…understand the question correctly, I don’t think either party is going to be in a position to push national legislation on this issue right now. I mean, they may try to frame it and so forth. I think it’s significant that those – you know, in Vermont, in Michigan and in California, Vermont, you know, the ballot initiative won. And I think when you’re looking for causes of why the Republicans didn’t do better, this goes back to a point that Leslie made at the outset, and I agree with. I mean, the exit polling shows that the Supreme Court decision last June to overturn Roe v Wade, that mattered. It helped Democrats energise their base, it hurt Republicans, not as much as Democrats were hoping, but enough to put a ceiling, I think, on voters’ concerns about inflation, about crime, about immigration.
I mean, the exit polls indicate that more than a quarter voters listed abortion as the critical issue, the primary issue, that’s just behind inflation, and ahead of the others, and over 60…
Bronwen Maddox
Alright.
Peter Trubowitz
…% said they were [inaudible – 56:26].
Bronwen Maddox
So, much, much stronger than it looked for the polls in running up to this. Megan, were you signalling on this that you want to come in?
Megan Greene
Yeah, I mean, more broadly, I think we can expect a whole bunch of litigation. That’s the playbook that we see, you know, every time there’s any kind of turnover in the mid-term elections. So, whether it’s an attempt to litigate on the basis of abortion and Roe v Wade, or on Hunter Biden, or on Biden generally, there’s just going to be a bunch of litigation going forward. I think we can expect that.
Bronwen Maddox
Yeah, but I – Leslie, I do want to come to you, and I’m sure you’ll make your point anyway, but I want to put…
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Yeah.
Bronwen Maddox
Given the pitch you made for, you know, that the American project is still working, in a way, what I wanted to explore with you is, doesn’t this take us into the, kind of, state-versus-state legal battle? And, you know, that the whole US relies on states in some sense accepting that they work to common laws, but if you’ve got some saying “Abortion is illegal, not only within our borders, but we want to, you know, make it illegal for our residents going to other states,” and you’ve got other states saying, “No, we’re going to protect any procedure that happens within our borders, even if someone’s come from another state where it’s illegal,” haven’t you got something that really strains the system?
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
I mean, yeah, extraterritorial reach by states over…
Bronwen Maddox
Thank you for the term, yes.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
…other states, super – I mean, it’s super fascinating. We usually talk about, you know, America’s extraterritorialism beyond its border, but the internal story, yeah, it’s super interesting. I guess – and I think your broader point about states’ rights, I mean, this is the age-old story of America, who owns governance, the centre or the states? And Americans don’t want it all to be in the centre, so, in some ways, you know, the abortion decision tracks a certain part of it, you know, of America’s way of thinking about itself.
But the – I just wanted to, kind of, throw in this really – this example, which I find, kind of, puzzling, which is Georgia, right? So, Georgia, we – you know, it looks like we might have a split ticket, we don’t really know, but, you know, Brian Kemp did very well, a Republican Governor, defeated Stacey Abrams, and yet the Senate race is, kind of, neck-and-neck, and the abortion rule here in Georgia is six weeks. It’s tough, right, they’ve got legislation from the state that you hit six weeks and you’re out of luck.
Apparently, the corporate – we – you know, series of conversations, the corporate community has gone quiet on this issue. Atlanta’s a very diverse, very, you know, international city for business, and they’re not saying anything about it. They’re accepting the six weeks quietly, so, what does that mean?
I mean, you know, to Peter’s point, like, the one state versus another state, Republicans versus Democrats, we’ve seen split tickets in states where abortion rights are severely restricted. I don’t really know what that tells us, but it does tell us that this is not a straightforward story, this is not a linear story, it’s a very, very complicated story. And, you know, the big thing, I think, for all of us, certainly, I’m sure, people outside of US borders, but also inside is, it is a phenomenally complicated map, and it is – there are headline stories. But for every headline there is so much that is driven by local and state-level politics, it’s very, very difficult to, kind of, extract from.
Bronwen Maddox
Great. Mark, do you want a brief…?
Mark Landler
Well, I just want to make a couple of observations. One is that Lindsey Graham made that, kind of, misbegotten effort to introduce Federal abortion legislation and left a lot of fellow Republicans looking at him askance, that he, sort of, wished he hadn’t brought it up when he did.
And the other thing is that Ron DeSantis, though, you know, pro-life and as Republican as anyone else, you know, actually pushed for 15 weeks rather than six weeks in Florida. And some people have said that that may have contributed to some of his – of the landslide nature of his victory, that, you know, this is all relative, right? I mean, he’s not going to be the pro-choice person’s choice, but he’s maybe not as draconian as some Republicans, and that worked to his benefit.
So, I do just, sort of, wonder what lessons the party will take from – the Republican Party will take from this, kind of, much less positive outcome and, you know, there was this point of view that well, when the Dobbs ruling came out, there was a flurry of interest and energy was galvanised, but it then began to fade away over time, and that turned out to be wrong. You know, as Peter said, abortion was, after inflation, the second-top issue for voters. And in a Presidential election where the President directly names the Judges that could sit on future abortion rulings, it will be even more central probably than it was in the mid-terms.
Bronwen Maddox
Okay, thanks very much indeed for that. We’re going to come to Maximilian Enders now, and then I’m going to read out a second question on that theme. Do we have Maximilian? Max.
Maximilian Enders
Yes, can you hear me alright?
Bronwen Maddox
Yes.
Maximilian Enders
Hi, thanks so much for the panel, for your remarks. I just have a question about a bit of messaging in the recent weeks that many prominent Democrats like Barack Obama, President Biden, Vice President Harris have made, as the election begin by far the most important in a generation, as democracy itself being on the line, attacks on democracy itself, etc., etc. Given that by many metrics you’ve mentioned, such as voter turnouts, a lot of split tickets, people generally choosing competent candidates over necessarily party membership, and very few interferences, don’t you think this, kind of, dramatic messaging might have been a bit overblown and might hurt the Democratic Party in the long run, since, presumably, you can’t make such dramatic claims a second time in 2024? Thank you.
Bronwen Maddox
So, that’s about the elections, and then I want to bring in as well Emily Harding from Chatham House, if she’s here. She has said kindly I can read out the question, but if she’s here, much better that she does. Okay, we may not have Emily live, so, I will read it out, and she says, “According to OpenSecrets, the total cost of the 2022 Federal mid-term elections is projected to exceed $9.3 billion. This is a staggering sum,” she says rightly, “and another major hindrance,” she would argue, “to the health of American democracy. Might we see any new approaches to the pernicious problem of campaign spending?”
So, two – a pair of questions about the quality of this election. Where shall we start? Mark?
Mark Landler
Well, I guess what I would say to Maximilian is, every election is the most important election of our lifetimes, and just because they said it in 2022, doesn’t mean they won’t say it again in 2024 and 2026.
But, you know, you raise something that was much debated in the closing weeks of the mid-terms, which is whether it was right for Biden and Obama and others to talk as much about threats to democracy as they did. There were voices in the Democratic Party that were saying, “Look, this is – talk about kitchen-table issues, but voters care about inflation and gas prices and they don’t really want to have a discussion right now about the sanctity of the democratic system.”
I guess all I would say about that is, the Democrats did pretty well. I mean, this turned out to be a good election for the Democrats. So, I guess all I would extrapolate from that is that perhaps the message that they went out with in those final weeks wasn’t the wrong message. It obviously resonated with some voters and, as we pointed out, a number of the most flagrantly unfit candidates, candidates who ran openly on the idea that “If you vote for me, we’ll never lose another election again,” i.e., Kari Lake in Arizona, those people didn’t do so well.
So, I guess I would slightly argue that perhaps pushing that message and dramatizing it did have some value in the closing days. I mean, it’s hard to argue with success, and they did pretty well, so – and I’ll leave the financing one maybe to Peter or someone else, or Megan.
Bronwen Maddox
Okay, a quick response on this.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Yeah, off the back of that, it’s just worth pointing out how much the deck was stacked against the Democrats. The economy is not looking good. Sentiment indicators suggest both businesses and consumers feel the economy is really poor. Most Americans asked, would say we’re in a recession; even though we’re not, it feels like that to them. So, the fact that the Democrats did this well does suggest that something in the messaging was right. We’re not sure what it is yet, it’s too early, the dust hasn’t settled, we don’t even know the results. It may have been this focus on democracy, which I’ve highlighted again and again as a huge concern of mine.
On the campaign finance issue, I’m not sure you can point to either party really, losing out or missing out on opportunities because of campaign finance. So, to expect, you know, legislators to vote to reform that, I think, is a bit like asking turkeys to vote for Thanksgiving or Christmas, depending on where you’re from, so, I just don’t see any change on that.
Bronwen Maddox
Okay, and, Peter, did you have a small – we’ve had to lose Lesley for travel reasons.
Peter Trubowitz
Let’s go ahead.
Bronwen Maddox
She was glad to make it home now.
Peter Trubowitz
These were great answers, let’s move to the next question, yeah.
Bronwen Maddox
Alright, great. Let me just slide in one from Nick Greenstock on a specific point of foreign policy, and then I’m going to come to a batch of – big batch of questions about the next Presidential race, and if we have time, to someone on crime. Really interesting questions coming in, thank you.
The one from Nick Greenstock is – do we have Nick [pause]? You never know as Moderator of these things. Alright, I’m going to read it out. You’ll forgive me, Nick, if you’re suddenly there. “Does a slightly stronger Biden change the calculus for Bibi in Israel and/or MBS in Saudi Arabia?” Mark.
Mark Landler
Well, I think the operative word here is “slightly stronger.” I mean, in my years of covering Bibi Netanyahu and Middle East diplomacy, you know, I watched him deal with weaker Presidents and stronger Presidents, and he always, kind of, took the same tack, which was not to give an inch and to be every bit as tough as he could.
So, I guess, candidly, I don’t necessarily see it leading to a big change, in terms of Middle East peace. I think, in a way, I’d pick up on that point – on a point I made a bit earlier, which is, it also depends on what room there really is to have a breakthrough in that area. I mean, I think Netanyahu is going to come in himself and be very hemmed-in by his own far-right. He’s going to be leading the most right-wing coalition in recent history in Israel, and so, he’ll probably come in with very little appetite to even talk about anything involving peace with the Palestinians. He’ll probably want to make sure that the Iran nuclear deal doesn’t go anywhere. There’s not much evidence it is going anywhere fast, so, I’m not sure he’s got quite the battle on his hands he did when he faced Barack Obama on the same issue.
So, I guess I don’t necessarily see Netanyahu treating Biden much differently. Remember, when Biden was Vice President, he famously visited Netanyahu once and talked to him about the importance of halting settlement construction in the Occupied Territories, and Netanyahu nodded and appeared to be in full agreement. And then Biden’s plane took off from Ben Gurion Airport and about 25 minutes later the Israelis announced they were building 1,200 new settlements somewhere.
So, I don’t think Netanyahu’s going to worry too much about whether it was a good mid-term or not for Biden. And I now confess the second part of that question was about – and maybe someone else wants to pick it up.
Bronwen Maddox
Yeah, go ahead, Megan.
Megan Greene
Yeah, I just heard MBS.
Bronwen Maddox
Sorry, traffic noise here.
Mark Landler
Yeah, yeah.
Megan Greene
Right, I just don’t think that this result will convince MBS that Saudi Arabia should produce more oil and therefore reduce prices for the global market. So, I don’t think this’ll move the needle. That’s the short answer.
Bronwen Maddox
Okay, thank you. Sorry, I’ve got helicopters going overhead in otherwise peaceful Central London. Peter, any brief [inaudible – 69:04] peaceful?
Peter Trubowitz
No, no, I agree with everything I just heard.
Bronwen Maddox
Great. Well, let’s come to a whole batch of stuff on the next Presidential race. Stephen Cooney, if we have Stephen. There was this expectant pause. Do you know what? I’m going to read them out, because we – bring them altogether. Stephen Cooney says, “Do you think Trump will run for President again? Does he need to run to fend off legal problems? Will he split the Republicans?”
We have one from Dimitris Monioudis, saying, “Assuming Ron DeSantis, 44-years-old, stands as the Republican Presidential candidate, can the Democrats stick with octogenarian Biden?” And we have another one from Peter Kellner saying that “Biden couldn’t possibly have said before the election that he wouldn’t stand for re-election, but now time has moved on. What about going out in style?” So, how about taking those three together? And it’s really about who runs. Megan, do you want to start?
Megan Greene
Yeah, I can start on whether Trump will announce his candidacy. Absolutely, and it’s, I think, largely down to legal problems. It’s highly unusual to indict a running candidate. It’s not impossible, but it’s highly unusual, and I think Trump is probably betting on that. So, I think that will be a big motivation.
I think Leslie spoke to some of the new – Leslie or Mark might have spoken to the new, kind of, talent that we’ve seen emerge in the mid-term elections on the Democratic side. So, two years is an absolute lifetime in politics, I guess it’s worth pointing that out. So, right now we feel like we know every – all the candidates on the table but, you know, over the next year or so, I bet a bunch of new people will come out of the woodwork. Whether they’ll be suitable candidates or not, it’s too early to say.
Bronwen Maddox
Okay, thank you. Peter.
Peter Trubowitz
Yeah, I mean, I think there’s a very good chance that Trump will throw his hat in the ring. He may hit the pause button. I think Mark alluded to that in his opening comments, to get a better sense of what the narrative is and so forth. But I think the indict – the expected indictment is an incentive to throw his hat in the ring, and even if he weren’t interested in, ultimately in running for President, I think he’d like to put himself to – in a position where he could be Kingmaker, I do believe. So – and I – so, I think it’s a little bit like a moth to a flame. I think, you know…
Bronwen Maddox
But, Peter, I’m sure we’re all sure that that’s what Trump would like, but do you think actually that would happen?
Peter Trubowitz
That he would…
Bronwen Maddox
Given the results that we are seeing at the moment.
Peter Trubowitz
Yeah, I think it’s really unclear. It’s not obvious to me that he won’t put his name in, and he won’t go after DeSantis, and try to pull the party. I mean, people have counted Donald Trump out before, and I think it’s…
Bronwen Maddox
They have.
Peter Trubowitz
That’s unclear. Let me just say something on, you know, what we haven’t touched on, is, I think we’re likely, as a result of this election, to see a change in the House leadership on the Democratic side, and this is a good moment for them to pass the baton to younger people inside. So, Mark has talked about this with respect to Biden and so forth. There’re some very obvious people to become the, you know, Minority Leader on – in the Democratic side, and I think that would go a long ways to bridging some of the divisions that currently exist among, kind of, moderate Democrats and progressive Democrats. So, I would look for somebody like Hakeem Jeffries to be the next leader, possibly Adam Schiff, but, you know, I think there’s just going to be movement in that direction.
Bronwen Maddox
Great, and Mark.
Mark Landler
I guess I’ll just address Ron DeSantis briefly. I agree that Trump has every incentive to run, and it would, sort of, be the biggest shock if he didn’t at this point, and, no, it’s a fair question to ask. 44-year-old Ron DeSantis squaring up with 80-year-old Joe Biden would be a difficult race for Democrats, and so, I think that a lot of the Biden calculus necessarily hinges, like the rest of the political world seems to, on what Donald Trump decides to do.
I think a Trump/Biden match-up is much easier to contemplate and, you know, and he’s officially the Trump-slayer, he beat him once, and I think that he would have right to feel like a – or a valid case for why he could beat him a second time, but I think you introduce a much younger Republican.
Now, I just say, by – you know, parenthetically, I think if Leslie’s right and we’re in for this period of tremendous ferment in the Republican Party, I think one of the all-time great rivalries that we could be witnessing, over the next year-and-a-half is, Ron DeSantis versus Donald Trump. And, you know, I think we can all agree that calling him Ron DeSanctimonious was, you know, just a, sort of, a weak attempt, but there’ll be a better one down the road, and many more after that, so, that could turn out to be the circus to end all circuses.
Bronwen Maddox
Okay, well, that’s great, and I think we don’t have Leslie, not for the traditional technical reasons in webinars, but because she’s travelling, but, Leslie, do we have…?
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Hey, Bronwen, I think I am here. Can you hear me?
Bronwen Maddox
Yes, I do. Yes, sorry. I didn’t to mean leave…
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Yeah, so…
Bronwen Maddox
You’re heading to airports within the US.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
My, you know, my – yeah, yeah. So, yeah, just arriving at Atlanta Hartsfield Airport. So, I would say, I think it’s going to be very dynamic on both sides. I don’t think this is going to be Trump versus DeSantis. I think once DeSantis puts his hand up, others consider it too. I would put the chance of Trump ending up as the candidate as less than 5%, and then I think that Biden and his team will be watching this very, very carefully.
The one question I have, and I don’t know, is, you know, “What is the timing, you know, how late can you drag this out?” If you’re a Democrat, you really want to wait and see, but equally, you don’t want to, sort of, stamp out the opportunity for others to emerge.
Bronwen Maddox
Well, thank you for that. Thanks for being able to come back into that. Thank you, all of the panellists. Thank you for terrific questions still coming in. There’s a whole cluster of ones from Richard Oblath and others on crime, others on immigration, thank you, and yet more on – there from – one from Kieran O’Meara on migration, and thank you. I’m sorry we couldn’t get to those in this one, but we perhaps can in the many others that we will hold as these things unfold. But thank you all very much indeed for joining, and thank you to my terrific panellists, who’ve made the best of this moment of uncertainty and the many, many questions it raises. So, thank you all, thank you to the terrific Chatham House team who’ve organised this, with many, many people…
Mark Landler
Thank you.
Bronwen Maddox
…reaching this at the same time. Thanks, goodbye.
Peter Trubowitz
Thanks.
Megan Greene
Thanks.
