Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Welcome to everybody. I love seeing the blue logo because it just – especially now, when the sky is actually blue and it’s lovely in London after such a grim, grim several weeks of rain, it now seems – it seems like it really captures where we are. I’m so excited to have you here today with us, Jon Sopel of the BBC. You don’t need an introduction, let me just say briefly to all of you, I’m Leslie Vinjamuri. I direct the US and Americas Programme here at Chatham House.
Jon and I, the origins of this, have been I think we spoke at the Defence Academy, at the Royal College of Defence Studies together, and it was so much fun that I decided that I needed to persuade Jon to come to Chatham House and speak about America. We’ve been watching you, Jon, for so many years cover the United States, and I guess you’ve been there as North America Editor for the BBC since 2014. You’ve covered 2016, which we thought was, you know, the election of – you know, that we’d never forget, and then we got to 2020 and it was the election that would never end. And I think I – as I was reading your book, which has come out just recently, if you haven’t seen it, I encourage you all to take a look, and I notice you said you’d written three books during the time that you’ve been in Washington, which, given how much time you spend informing us and the rest of the world about the United States, is quite something. And in addition to living through the Trump years, some of the Obama years, and through this election, you’ve also lived through COVID in Washington, D.C., so it’s quite extraordinary.
You’re back now, of course, to cover the G7, to Biden’s trip to London and to Cornwall, and I know that you also have a very special interview coming up later today, so we won’t keep you too long, but we’re delighted to have you. And I think what we’re going to do is talk a little bit about all the things that you have, you know, so much granularity and so much real understanding of, and really to get your sense of America at home and America abroad. And maybe we can begin by starting with America at home, because I think our audiences, you know, pay a lot of attention. America sometimes – I always like to say sometimes it gets above the radar screen, certain issues, January the 6th clearly, the elections, the Republican Party, and the economy, and then sometimes there are a lot of things going on that people don’t quite notice over here until America’s, sort of, you know, putting itself on the global stage. But maybe we could start with, you know, you’ve just arrived back in London and it’s been, what, how many days are we, 150, 130-something? I have stopped counting after we hit 100.
Jon Sopel
Yeah, no, once you get to 100, I lose count.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Yeah, after 100, we don’t count, but, you know, here we are, right? We’re several months out from the four years of Donald Trump’s leadership, and I guess the picture that we get seems to be very twofold. On the one hand, we hear, you know, America is on the move, we saw the jobs, the numbers in the jo – number of jobs created in May, well over 500 and – almost 550,000, unemployment coming down, still high, but coming down, a sense of, you know, the vaccine rollout being really quite extraordinary. And you get a sense of dynamism and foreign movement, lots of jobs available for young people, headline in I think it was The Wall Street Journal yesterday or one of the papers, but we still hear all the stories, right, about division, about the Republican Party, about the culture wars, about the demand for attention to race, and so it’s – sometimes, I think, sitting here in London, it’s a little bit hard to know which of those stories is true. So maybe, you know, I can start you out and say, you know, how different is it? You’re in Washington, you’ve clearly travelled America, but how different is it, several months out? Is America – you know, is it back, is it moving forward, is it pretty much a good news story?
Jon Sopel
Well, Leslie, first of all, thank you so much for inviting me to be in such august company. I’m not in the least bit intimidated to be talking to Chatham House, much, and thank you for such a warm welcome. Yeah, I’m in London now, I’m about to interview, straight after this, the National Security Advisor to the President, so that should be interesting, and it’s the only interview he’s doing, so that’s good for the BBC, which it hasn’t been a great couple of weeks for the BBC, and [laughs] so I’m, kind of, doing all of that.
America today, in some ways, feels entirely different. It’s like a different continent. You know, there are no longer Twitter storms, there are no longer, kind of, wild rallies and all the rest of it, that we had on a daily basis with Donald Trump. Joe Biden is very consciously trying to lower the temperature, Jen Psaki’s press briefings, one of which will take place in an hour ti – an hour’s time, are no longer covered by any of the networks live. And I, kind of, always have a suspicion in my mind that in the administration now, they think of that as a success. Let people get on with their lives and make politics the background music to their lives, and it wasn’t that during the four years of Donald Trump, where he wanted attention, he wanted to be the centre of every conversation. It was noisy, it was like a drumkit being kicked over every day, and Joe Biden, it’s just a little bit calmer.
I remember Paddy Ashdown, when he was the, sort of, Representative to deal with the post, kind of, conflict situation in Bosnia, describing the situation there as like a lemonade bottle with the lid tightly screwed on, and when you look at that lemonade bottle, it looks entirely normal, but if you were to unscrew the top, it would go everywhere. And I sort of feel that is not a bad metaphor for America today, because there are still millions, maybe declining a bit, who believe that Donald Trump was the true victor of that election, that it was stolen from him, that there was massive fraud, and they still feel angry. And the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, these, kind of, fringe groups that were key to the attempted insurrection on January the 6th, many of them have been arrested, but they haven’t all gone away.
So, I, kind of, feel that what you describe, as jobs coming back, true, the greater demand in the economy, economic growth, all those things are true, and all the division is true, as well. And if I was to put it in a soundbite, Joe Biden had three goals when he took over, shots in people’s arms, holes in people – holes in the ground that show people are digging and there’s work going on in the economy, and money in people’s banks, and he’s, sort of, done those three things and that has helped, but, my word, is there a long way to go.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
So, there’s a long way to go, clearly, and I guess, you know, you’re in Washington and you’re also presumably back and forth between, you know, the White House and Congress. We know that there is – it looks like there’s some good news coming tomorrow, that the Senate’s likely to vote and pass this big bill on investing in the US with, you know, the motivation of competing with China right behind it, but investment in all the big technologies. There are a lot of spending packages on the table, whether it’s families or jobs, infrastructure’s obviously critical to all of that, and there’s – you know, there’s been a lot of bipartisanship between that. But, again, we’re hearing still these stories of, you know, the Republicans, with the exception of the – you know, tomorrow’s vote, Republicans are going to push hard and it’s going to be tough, and even on things like infrastructure, which that was Donald Trump’s thing, right?
So, what is your sense on – you know, the other story we hear is, but if anybody can make it work, it’s Joe Biden. He knows how to build coalitions, he’s worked in the Senate, he, you know, works across parties, this is what he does, but he’s been in Washington a long time, and, you know, he’s – and he’s inherited a very different context from, you know, when he was Vice President, even. So, are you optimistic that he’s going to be able to forge the kind of compromises and bipartisanship, or is it – you know, is that division that you’re talking about, is that, sort of, it’s just there and it’s endemic and it’s also obstructive?
Jon Sopel
Well, it – look, the division is there, but I do think that, actually, we’re getting back to a more conventional, sort of, politics, and a more conventional, sort of, political argument. I think we all laboured under a misapprehension about Joe Biden to some extent, that he was this consensual figure who would be keeping the seat warm for whoever the Democratic candidate was in 2024, wouldn’t be doing that much, and we would then, kind of, just be looking to 2024.
Actually, what he’s already done is really fascinating in that it is a recasting of a political argument that looked like it had been settled 40-odd years ago when Thatcher was the Prime Minister here and Reagan was the President there, and it was Reaganomics in the US and Thatcherism in the UK, and it was all talk about Laffer curves and Milton Friedman, and the more you tax, the less revenue you get, and that was the orthodoxy. And if you look back to when Bill Clinton ran and Tony Blair ran, they were defined by the fact that the – you couldn’t be tax and spend, you had to support small government, you had to accept the limitations of government and support deregulation, and that has been the – and you go forward to Barack Obama introducing the, kind of, TARP measures after the financial crash. Again, he had the tea party in the back of his mind limiting what he thought he could do.
Joe Biden has come in and he clearly believes in the role of government. He’s introducing some of the – you know, the headline was the $1,400 going into people’s bank accounts, but look at the tax credits for children, and these are things that are, kind of, more like a European welfare policy than we are used to seeing in America, and he is not only doing that, he is coming out and making the argument. Yeah, the highest paid should pay more tax, corporations should pay more tax, he’s not resiling from that argument. So, I think that something quite dramatic is happening, and instead of it being a mudslinging, kind of – just the hatred, I think you’re back to an old-fashioned argument about the role and size of the state, the role of government, how much taxation there should be in people’s lives, and I think that’s an interesting debate to be having, compared to some of the culture wars debates that have marked America, to some extent, over the past four years.
So, I think, actually, Biden is attempting to do something quite radical, and I think that the Republicans, I’m sure, will go back to – I mean, look, you know, Donald Trump didn’t follow any, kind of, economic orthodoxy. You know, Donald Trump supported big spending, as well as supporting big tax cuts, and that was – kind of, that was – there was a problem of balancing a budget when you’re pursuing policies like that. But I think Joe Biden is turning out to be something much more interesting than maybe we thought at the outset.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
So, I want to ask you one more question on that, but then I want to take us back a little before we eventually come forward to, you know, the trip that Joe Biden’s doing this week, and through the weekend. And I guess it’s – you know, the one more question is, sure, I mean, clearly, this is a very different kind of economics for the United States, but it’s far from clear that it’s going to sell. I mean, what we tend to hear about the most recent election, 2020, is that the only reason Joe Biden was elected was because of COVID, but, in fact, you know, plenty of wealthy Americans didn’t want a President who would raise taxes, who would reregulate the economy, who would adopt some of the more progressive agenda from the – you know, that wing of his party, and that, as the economy recovers, as America opens up – I mean, America feels really good right now, much of it, right? It feels very vibrant, I think people are travelling, they’re moving around, it’s dynamic, and so how long does that, kind of, goodwill last when it doesn’t seem necessary in the same way?
And I guess that also, you know, takes us into tell us – you know, we hear all these horrible stories of just rupture and takeover in the Republican Party, fake facts, disinformation. How much of it – you know, how – what is your sense of that? I mean, you know, is it just – the combination of those two forces, right, sort of, moderate – small and liberal Americans not wanting this progressive change, and then the Republican Party just being in a very specific place, does that mean…
Jon Sopel
Yeah.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
…that, you know, we get to the midterms and we get to the next election and it’s, kind of, game over for this President?
Jon Sopel
Well, if you take a historic look at this, you know, normally, if you control the Senate – you know, the person who controls the White House, if they control the Senate and the House, it’s very, very rare for them to still control the House after midterm elections. So, you know – and history would suggest there is going to be some drifting away, but you’re also getting some really astonishing projections of economic growth and the untapped potential in the US economy coming out of COVID.
If you do get – I mean, Joe Biden – if you say to Americans, “Do you like what Joe Biden’s doing?” “Well, maybe not that much.” “What about putting $1,400 in my bank account?” “Ooh, I quite like that, actually.” And I don’t know whether that will affect voter behaviour. So, on the macro level of, you know, what does the country think of Joe Biden? I think that his approval ratings are not as historically high as some others who’ve been in that position, but they’re certainly higher than Donald Trump’s. I think that the way he’s handled the pandemic is a box ticked. I think the COVID rescue package is a box ticked, let’s see what happens on infrastructure.
The sums of money being spoken about, you know, a trillion here and a trillion there, and you soon start talking about serious money, and he is very much of the mood, you know, going back to Barack Obama’s, you know, First Chief of Staff, “Don’t let a crisis go to waste,” and he is not letting this crisis go to waste, so he’s trying to do these things. But look at the arithmetic if – of Congress. Look at the arithmetic in the House, where he’s got a narrow majority, and in the Senate, where it’s a 50/50 split, and to get a lot of these meas – I don’t want to get too granular into the detail of, kind of, you know, the filibuster, but there’s not much he can do, unless he tries to get rid of the filibuster.
And there’s a joke that I can use to an audience like this, which wouldn’t work to an international audience particularly, but to a British audience it does. Joe Biden, every day, has to pay the Manchin tax, by which I mean Joe Manchin, the Senator from West Virginia, in a very, very Conservative state, he is a Democrat in a very Conservative state, and he is going to do nothing that will allow the filibuster to go. Is he going to vote for the voter rights’ legislation that Biden is trying to pilot through and that Kamala Harris has been given, you know, he’s point person on? And I think so you’ve got to understand that Biden’s room for manoeuvre is extremely limited. So why haven’t we seen action on gun reform, which he promised on day one? ‘Cause he knows he hasn’t got the votes. And I think that, you know, Biden has a choice to make about the extent to which he is trying to reach out across the aisle to hug Republicans and bring them onboard, which I suspect he knows will be a futile effort because Mitch McConnell is not – he’s not interested in that.
Mitch McConnell will be calculating what Republican interest is, and working with Joe Biden, probably doesn’t help him in the midterms, and all the focuses for the Republican Party on how do we take back control in the midterm elections? So, I think that, although Biden has spoken the language of reaching out across the aisle and bipartisanship and accommodation, I think he knows he’s got to go it alone and that is incredibly difficult because of the fine margins in both the House and the Senate.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
I want to take you back just for a minute to January 6th, before we move to where we are, in part because I think it’s – it was an extraordinary moment. It was an extraordinary moment for Britons and for Europeans and for the rest of the world to watch. It feels like it’s been forgotten, the Congress voted against having a commission. Joe Biden – you know, when you speak to the constraints he faces, he’s very pragmatic. When there was a conversation about impeachment, before that…
Jon Sopel
Yeah.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
…could go ahead, he wasn’t really jumping up and waving the flag and saying that this was the right thing to do. I think, in fact, he might have preferred that it didn’t distract from the Presidency that he was inheriting. But you covered – you were the – were you there?
Jon Sopel
Yeah.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
You were there, so you were there, were you – you went across to The Capitol?
Jon Sopel
I was there in the morning, when Trump held the rally at the Ellipse, that, kind of, area of lawn South of the White House that goes down to the – across Constitution Avenue and up to the monument, and it was absolutely clear to me, the moment I arrived, and I have covered dozens of Trump rallies over the, you know, four, five years that I’ve been covering Trump, and the mood was sulphurous. It was bitter, angry. There were people who – and previously, when I had gone to Trump events, the thing that had struck me was the, sort of, fiesta atmosphere, people dressing up, and there was a, sort of, party atmosphere. Donald Trump was a rogue, but he was a lovable rogue, and he was our rogue, and we loved him, and there was just anger and fury that the election had been stolen, that there’d been widespread fraud. Of course, none of it having any evidence in reality at all, but they felt that, and I just knew that this was going to end badly.
And I remember interviewing this guy who was wearing a Robocop style body armour, and, you know, I said, “Are you here looking for trouble?” He said, “No, but if trouble finds me, I’m ready.” And later that day, I would see a picture of him dangling down from the balcony of the Senate, about to jump onto the Senate floor, and he had driven from Idaho, from Boise, Idaho to Washington to be part of that thing. So, the mood was really, really angry, and it didn’t su – I mean, it was simultaneously the most astonishing thing I have ever reported on in my 35 plus years as a Journalist, and simultaneously, the most predictable, because for month-after-month-after-month, Donald Trump, and with a slavish section of the media repeating it, saying the election was stolen.
I had to do a live the next day on the six o’clock news, and we got as far – close to The Capitol as we could, and the Presenter cues over to me, and I start speaking, and I’m – suddenly, all the Trump supporters that were still in town started heckling me, while I’m trying to do this live, you know, it was kind of uncomfortable. But I was really struck by a few people chanting at me, “You lost, go home, you lost, go home,” and I’m thinking, “I lost? What on earth are they talking about?” And I thought they meant I’m a – you know, because I work for the BBC, I’m a Democrat, “You lost the election, go back to where you came from.” So I said, at the end of it, “Look, you know, I’m doing my job. Not very cool to be” – I said, “What did that chant mean?” And the guy just jabs me in the chest and says, “1776,” and I thought, “Holy moly, I’m being blamed for George III and the Redcoats?” I didn’t like – I thought I could open up a diversionary narrative to say, “I think my family were peasants in Poland then,” but I just thought, “Just leave it go.”
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Yeah, that’s extraordinary. I mean, it’s – it feels like, you know, an era ago, January 6th.
Jon Sopel
Yeah.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
And yet, if you ima – I mean, you must see this, you must feel this, that when people go to work on Capitol Hill, they remember they were in their offices, they were hiding, they understand the threat, they’re in the middle of the intense, polarised politics on a daily basis. And they’re also, you know, coming off of a summer of – it now feels forever ago, the Black Lives Matter protests, and Joe Biden travels to Europe with this, right, with these, sort of, contending understandings of America, of, sort of, pushing forward on anti-racism, ignoring, right, refusing a commission for January 6th, but trying to be the moral leader, turning up at the G7 really reinvig – trying to reinvigorate a group that Donald Trump, you know, bashed time and time again. So, as we – you know, as we look to America’s role on the global stage, what do – I mean, the domestic side of this, right, are Americans paying any attention, do they care? Is there a domestic story behind Joe Biden’s first trip to Europe?
Jon Sopel
Have you read my interview plan with Jake Sullivan? Because you’ve just read my first question to him, which is how do you convince the world that America is indeed back and a healthy democracy when you look at what’s happened in just the months since the election? It must be hard to offer lessons of leadership, given what happened on January the 6th. So, you are exactly asking what is my first question to the National Security Advisor, and I think it is pretty problematic for Joe Biden to be saying, “We’re back, we’re leading the world.”
I mean, you look at the, sort of – it has not been his focus. His focus has been America, and although, of course, he’s not – you know, he wants the bumper sticker for this trip to be, “America is back,” but I th – I still think there are all sorts of areas where America has not worked out. I mean, look, has it – it’s re-joined the climate change agreement, you know, tick, it’s going to be more supportive of NATO than Donald Trump certainly was on that first trip, which I accompanied the, you know, President on, so that’s a box ticked, you know, more supportive comeback to the World Health Organization.
So, you can see the various moves that the Biden administration is making to show that it’s a good citizen and it’s back in the game, but there are still huge numbers of questions about what its intentions are, what it actually means. And if you look at some of the granular detail of, you know, different countries who are going their own way to the fury of America, I mean, you know, what is Britain going to do over the Northern Ireland protocol? Is it going to say, you know, that – is it going to bow to Joe Biden’s demands that nothing be done to jeopardise it when it seems clear that the British Government is looking for every way it can to get free of some of those commitments? What about Germany and the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia, you know, which, again, the Americans would like to scupper, and, you know, isolating China? How much is Europe and the rest of the world signed up to those things?
So, although he can talk about diplomatic leadership around the world and setting an example, I still think there are formidable obstacles. Of course, you know, will the other G7 members welcome Joe Biden with open arms and say, “It’s great to have America back in some kind of leading role?” Yes, but is there a good deal of scepticism, given the state of America at home? Also yes.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
I’m going to come to the audience in just a moment, so if you can write your name in the chat – in the ‘Q&A’, but I’ll also call on you to ask your questions, but before I do come to the audience, Jon, I want to ask you another question, which is, surely, you know, the easy and big play for America, if it wants to really signal to the rest of the world that it’s the global leader that has the rest of the world’s interests in mind, and given that we now see, you know, 12 to 15 year olds double vaccinated’ in many places across the United States and a very significant supply, surely the big play is to vaccinate.
You know, Anne-Marie Slaughter has called for – with her co-authors for America to vaccinate the world, and there’s been conversation of the US getting behind, you know, lifting the IP waiver of the WTO, I mean, there’s all sorts of, you know, was – and there are some limited numbers, but surely Americans must think that this is the thing to do. I mean, is there…?
Jon Sopel
When we say Americans, I mean, you know, the thing that is worth underlining, and I’m sure the audience is aware of it, America is a vast continent, and it is very inward-looking. The rest of the world doesn’t really impinge – you know, I mean, how many Americans have I met who’ve talked about the special relationship with the United Kingdom? I mean, in Washington, on Massachusetts Avenue, where the embassies and the think tanks are, yeah, they do that a bit. Has anyone ever raised it with me in the rest of America? No, it’s something the British like to talk a huge amount about. So, are Americans focused on what is happening in India or Vietnam or Africa, in terms of what is the percentage of the population that have been vaccinated? Not so much.
But this is where I – you know, when I talk about the limitations and why people are sceptical of American reasserting its leadership, is look at what has been happening in China and Russia during this time, where they have been stealing a march in vaccine diplomacy on America. And so, America finds itself quite often left behind, and although it can now say, “Look, we’ve got to vaccinate the world.” Well, yeah, but, you know, China and Russia have already been in there exerting influence and winning friends by offering the – you know, the Sputnik V and the Sinovacs to populations that America has not been – seemingly been that interested in.
And, again, the pressure on Joe Biden is to lower the political temperature within the United States of America, and he doesn’t talk about Donald Trump, but nearly everything he does is a response to Donald Trump and how to take some of the air out of the bubble, the balloon, that Donald Trump inflated. And so, the focus has been very domestic, there are still elements of America First, you know, there could have been a trade deal done with the UK in the first weeks of the administration, but Biden didn’t want that. Biden didn’t want to be thinking about trade deals with the UK, he wanted to be talking to the American people about their concerns, about jobs, about investment in the US, about taxation, and so I just think that there is an inward-looking America at the moment, with Joe Biden trying to respond to what’s happened, whilst at the same time trying to assert global leadership, and that’s tricky.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
That is tricky, and yet, you know, you, sort of, think but there are all of these diaspora communities, right, that you would – that are becoming increasingly – you know, America’s multicultural, it’s very diverse, it’s very – there are many immigrant, migration populations, and many of them still have a very strong attachment to their parts of the world, you think about Indians in the United…
Jon Sopel
Yeah, of course.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
…States, you think about many Latino Americans, so it seems like there must be something in there. But before I come back to you, I’m going to open it up. I think Brian Westly had a question. Brian, would you like to ask your question [pause], to unmute and ask? I can read it, but I thought I’d give you the opportunity. There’s Brian.
Brian Westly
Oh, hi, yes, I thank you, and really interesting discussions, thanks, Jon and Leslie. Yeah, I just have a question about the G7, talking about this international taxation for rich corporations. We’re finally going to get tax out of these guys, right? And my question, as an American abroad, living in Manchester, England, is do you think that this’ll have – will open the discussion for international taxation on Americans that live here? So, we’re – we currently have citizenship-based taxation, and we’re the only country in the world, bar a very small country in Africa that does this. Will this open the conversation to residency-based taxation or do you think we’re going to actually have more taxes as residents that live abroad?
Jon Sopel
I hesitate to go into the area of what the IRS might be doing next, but, you know – and I’m also conscious of the fact that I pay my taxes in the United States of America, which, kind of, limits what I’m able to do in terms of, you know, property sales in the UK, which I – if I was just UK-based, I wouldn’t have any tax issues whatsoever. So, look, I think that they are making a first step, and I don’t – I mean, look, it is a first step, the agreement on the corporate tax rates. Set at 15%, given that I think that the UK tax, corporation tax, is 25%, America is 28%, I mean, you’re still going to have countries very able to undercut what people are being asked to pay compared to what America is charging, but it might lead to some. And, you know, how do you bring countries into line? I mean, Ireland I think the corporation tax rate is 12.5%. Okay, it could go up to 15%, but then they could find other exemptions and reliefs and whatever else, but still make it very, very competitive. So, yes, it is progress in itself. I’m not convinced that it will – you know, that it’s a whole new dawn. It’s a step in the right direction. As for what America is going to do, in the taxation of its citizens abroad, I feel that’s above my pay grade.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
I’ll add something on that. I think – DeAnne Julius is on the call, so maybe she can correct us, I think Trump brought it – corporate breakdown to 21%. Biden’s, kind of, had different numbers that…
Jon Sopel
Yeah.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
…he wants lifted up to, but on the – you know, my short answer, Brian, ‘cause I’m like you, you know, taxes are incredibly complicated if you’re American and living abroad, no. I mean, I think there’s probably exactly zero room for that to actually change, if that was part of your question. But the other thing I would add to Jon’s comments is, my understanding is that on your recent announcement, which, of course, is far from being, you know, fully agreed and – or anywhere close to the implementation, that the US is selling it at home by not talking too much about the entire deal. In other words, the fact that a lot of these taxes will be captured in Europe by European governments on American tech firms is not something that American leaders are saying very much about, and perhaps hoping that, you know, the broader electorate doesn’t really cotton onto this too quickly.
So, tax is really – it’s funny how, you know, people, Americans, their interests and their awareness of their interests tend to be quite well-developed on certain trade issues, and then you get into other economic issues, and it’s – you can get away with a lot among certain constituencies. So – and we’ll see. I’m very, you know, glad to see the announcement, very sceptical about where it’s going to go next, but we shall see.
But we have, let’s see – Frasier Cameron, I think, had a question. Frasier, would you like to ask your question?
Frasier Cameron
Oh, yeah. Well, it’s simple. I think Biden response to Jon Sopel famously said, “I’m Irish,” so how – given Boris Johnson’s previous support for Trump and his criticism of leading the Democrats, how is Biden going to approach Johnson next week?
Jon Sopel
That’s a great question. I – look, I think that, you know, if you were to get the private, unvarnished view of Joe Biden, I think there would be a good deal of scepticism towards Boris Johnson, particularly over Brexit, particularly over what’s happening with the Good Friday Agreement and where he stands on that. And also, Joe Biden, remember, is – you know, he has absolutely – kind of, plays his Irish roots to the absolute maximum and sees himself – I remember one of my colleagues, Nick Bryant, trying to say, “Hi, I’m from the BBC, can I ask you, Mr Biden?” and Biden stopped him and said, “Yeah, and I’m Irish, so no, thank you.” And so, you know, he clearly doesn’t feel automatically that he’s got to do certain things, but you can see an alignment taking place. And, you know, who would’ve thought that Tony Blair would have then forged the close relationship he did with George W Bush, which he did in the w – you know, when – after Bill Clinton left office, and I think Boris Johnson, to use the Yiddish word, is a schmoozer, and I think he will be doing his best to charm and cajole Joe Biden, and I think that he will be trying to do as much as he can to convince Joe Biden that they are – can be partners in the future.
And I think there are some areas, which go beyond party and difference, and I think in terms of national security, in terms of intelligence sharing, in terms of armed forces, there is that commonality of interest. I think the big prize for Boris Johnson is to get a free trade deal, and I think that’s what he will be hoping for, and that, of course, gives Joe Biden plenty of leverage, not only in the terms of what the free trade deal should be, but also, what Boris Johnson can demand of him. And I think that Boris Johnson is aware enough of history, you know, having tried to compare himself to Winston Churchill, or would like to be seen as a future Winston Churchill, to note that, you know, lend and lease and all the rest of those things that took place in the Second World War were not exactly done on the most favourable terms to the UK, and you’re not equal partners in this relationship. And I think that, look, there is too much that they have in interest in common.
And, you know, I was speaking – I spoke to Ben Rhodes last week, the former Deputy National Security Advisor, and he was saying to – you know, and I was asking him about the, kind of, endless, sort of – the British obsession with the special relationship, and he said, “Actually, you know, there is something there. That there are so many of the same values, that when the British and Americans get together, what it is that needs to be discussed is agreed upon. How you get there, there may be differences, but what – the framing of the issues, there is a commonality between the US and the UK,” and I’m sure Boris Johnson will be doing his best to, kind of, harness all of that when he has his first meeting with Biden, I think on Thursday, when they sit down for their first bilateral.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Let me come to Oded Meyer. Oded, would you like to ask your question [pause]? And I think if you unmute, then you’ll be ready to go.
Oded Meyer
[Pause] Can you hear me now?
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
We can hear you, yes.
Oded Meyer
Yeah. No, I just wanted to ask about, you know, Mr Sopel talked about the fury and anger on the extreme of Trump supporters. I do get the feeling sometimes that the extreme end of what is called progressive liberal are equally driven by anger and indignance. I’m not suggesting that we’ll go as far as Jan 6, but they equally can drive a certain element of society to some form unrest. What is Mr Sopel’s view about that?
Jon Sopel
It’s a very interesting question. I suppose the one distinction I would make, and it’s this, that there was the con – there was the people who were convinced, the millions who were convinced, that the election had been stolen, was based on no evidence. And that’s not me saying that, that is the fact that I think on 63 occasions, the Trump campaign or Trump supporters challenged the results of the election, caused – called for a regular – said there were irregularities, or that there had been fraud or electoral malpractice, and on all but one occasion, and then it was only a partial, the cases were thrown out.
And if you accept that America is a country of laws, and that laws are interpreted by Judges, then the Judges found that there was no case to answer, that the election had been fairly won, and then you look at the Head of Election Security that Donald Trump had appointed, a Republican called Christopher Krebs, he said it had been the safest election in history. You look at the Attorney General, William Barr, hardly a, kind of, acme of the liberal left in the America, who said there had been no fraud. 50 Secretaries of State in the 50 states certified the election results as fair, and then you had Mike Pence, the Vice President, also saying he was going to certify the results. So, tell me where the evidence was that the election had been stolen.
Now, are there people far to the right who, kind of, are racist, are homophobes, are xenophobic, whatever? Yeah, of course there are, and are there people to the left that want to defund the police, that want to, kind of, take America in a radically different direction? Yes, there are, as well. And you look at some of the anarchists that turned up on the streets of Portland, yeah, they were pretty wild, and there were pretty wild scenes, and on the fringes of Black Lives Matter, there was obviously, you know, burning and looting that took place, which is unforgivable, and no-one should give any quarter to.
The difference was that some of the extremists on – you know, on the, kind of, right if you want to say, or – of American politics were given succour by the President, who said, “We’ve got to fight and we’ve got to do all these things.” And I do think that that is an important distinction, and that’s not me saying – I, kind of, don’t like the, sort of – the equivalents of guilt, like, oh, they’re all as bad as each other, which I think sometimes, in, you know, conventional BBC reporting, oh, the Bosnian Serbs and the Bosnian Muslims, they’re all as bad as each other, and, you know, I think there are things you have to say is, actually, to this charge that the election was stolen, where is the proof? And it’s – you know, and as I say, this is just – the American checks and balances kicked in and found that the election had been fairly delivered.
And when people are being encouraged towards acts of extremism by the political leadership, that, I think, is very dangerous, and I don’t think Joe Biden is encouraging – you know, Joe Biden was pretty firm in condemning the extremes of what happened after Black Lives Matters protests and what was happening in Portland, as well, and I think that, you know, violence is to be condemned in all shapes and forms equally, but there are differences between the two.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Really important point, I think, and, of course, the concern now is that even though the election was very clearly certified, the fight, as you mentioned earlier, is now – the battle is now over who gets to vote, it’s about voting rights, and who controls who gets to vote? Is it going to be, you know, Washington, or is it going to be the States, and that’s a very important difference. And, I mean, my concern, looking at it, is that, you know, voting is simply going to be much more restricted going forward. It was – you know, it’s been opened up through mailing ballots, and any other number of measures, and now the push to try and restrict, and that’s where a lot of the fight is at the local level and at the federal level, too, and it looks pretty toxic.
Jon Sopel
It really…
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
But, again, it doesn’t necessarily rise – you know, it’s one of those things that’s incredibly important, but it doesn’t necessarily get the same amount of – it doesn’t get a lot of attention over here.
Jon Sopel
No, and I – so – and it’s a really important subject, to look at all that is happening and, yeah, you’re right that this hasn’t been covered enough, but, you know, so many states, Republican controlled, are taking active measures to – now, they would say, “How can anyone be opposed to stopping people voting illegally? And if we need to seek people’s identity, that’s absolutely reasonable.” And, of course, you don’t want fraud in any election, but when you see that you can’t give a bottle of water to somebody queuing up, and the people that are likely to be queuing up are the people who have – you know, who are African-American, who’ve come from church on Sunday, who’ve been bussed over to some polling station, or whatever, you start to think, “Well, is it just about making sure there is no fraud, or are you deterring a certain segment of the population from voting?” And that is the very profound suspicion that you have to have, given what you see – you know, why are you closing mailing places, why are you restricting the places where you can drop off a ballot early? What was – I think that those are the serious issues that probably are very troubling about some of the changes that are coming.
And also there is the whole battle over redistricting, which is essentially the fixing of the electoral district, so you make it as safe as possible for one party or the other, and the Republicans have been very effective at doing that in, sort of, winning redistricting battles. And so, there are things that are taking place, changes that are taking place, that are, sort of, below the surface, but could affect the outcome of future US elections, and you almost feel that you need another 1965 Voting Rights Act again, so that you can assu – ensure that the – you know, surely the goal of any democracy has to be to maximise turnout, not minimise turnout, and I, kind of, worry about the trend there.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Yeah, great point and great thing to be concerned about, too, as you well know, and you put so well. DeAnne Julius, would you like to ask your question? And while you’re unmuting, I’m going to read out John Sergeant’s question. DeAnne has a great question. John’s is one of the questions that we all want to know, how is Kamala Harris doing as a VP as prep – and as preparation for 2024? I think we’re all making an assumption there, but it’s probably a somewhat accurate one. How’s she doing?
Jon Sopel
Is that from Ser – John Sergeant?
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Yes.
Jon Sopel
Sergie? Good Lord, how lovely to hear from John Sergeant. How’s Kamala Harris doing? Kamala Harris is doing fine. She is not projecting herself too much into the – you know, she’s not trying to outshine or, you know, kind of, do anything to upstage Joe Biden. She has been in the background and she finds herself in the position of so many previous Vice Presidents, where if there is a steaming turd that needs to be dealt with, you hand it to the Vice President, and the President doesn’t deal with it. And she has been handed, maybe I should just stop with this metaphor, two steaming great big piles, in terms of what to do about voting rights, which we were just talking about, and what to do about the border. And I, kind of, can’t help feeling that Trump supporters absolutely are buying the narrative that Donald Trump was tough about illegal immigration and Joe Biden doesn’t care. And I think that the problems of dealing with the border are huge, and should not be underestimated, and the potential damage it could do the Democratic Party is immense, and that they’re not doing enough as things stand.
Now, Kamala Harris is, I think, about to go on her first trip out of the United States to deal – to look at some of these issues, and, you know, she’s not framing it, and it’s quite interesting. Joe Biden has talked about stopping this – dealing with this crisis on the southern border. Kamala Harris has, sort of, reframed it, saying, “Well, we’ve got to deal with some of the push factors and what are the” – you know, it’s not just tough on – to use the Blairite, not tough on crime and she’s got to be tough on the causes of crime. What are the causes of these people coming up from the Northern Triangle of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, what can we do about it? As if to say there’s nothing we can do immediately to stop the 1,000s of people who are poring towards the southern border. And what you do about that is very, very difficult, and it does seem that the change of administration has led to many more people thinking, “Oh, well, Joe Biden’s now the President, there isn’t the hostility towards us that there was with Donald Trump,” and I think that that is a really vulnerable flank for the Democratic Party to have. And I don’t get the feeling that it’s being grasped with quite the urgency that it should have been in the early days, and I think that this could be a real festering sore for the White House, unless it deals with it.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
I think that a truer word could not be said. Talk about a tough issue that’s become politically so…
Jon Sopel
Yeah.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
…divisive, and, you know, it wasn’t easy before Trump, but it’s certainly become much harder.
Jon Sopel
But just…
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
DeAnne Julius.
Jon Sopel
…to go – let me just go back to it, just to say that obviously, you know, peo – the other thing, the other assumption that we have made, is that Biden will not run again, he would be 82 in 2024, surely he can’t run again. I’m hearing from people that Biden is absolutely clear that if he is well enough, that he wants to – he doesn’t want to just do one term, he wants an agenda, you know, and so I don’t think he thinks he is keeping the seat warm for Kamala Harris. But obviously, if Biden doesn’t run again, then Kamala Harris is in pole position to be the democratic candidate for the Presidency. And – you know, and it’s worth just underscoring again that she has already got her place in history. First woman Vice President, first person of colour to be Vice President. These are big achievements in themselves, and so far, she’s conducted herself with dignity and aplomb, and – you know, but she’s got some really difficult dossiers that she’s been handed and we’ll see how she handles them.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
So much to unpick in that, but I’m going to come to DeAnne Julius. DeAnne.
Dame DeAnne Julius
Thank you, Leslie, and thank you, Jon, for a fascinating discussion. I’m afraid I’d like to take us back for a minute to the January 6 issue. As I understand it, the Senate has rejected the idea of having a bipartisan commission. Is there any appetite in Washington or elsewhere for an independent non-political commission to conduct such an investigation? You know, something similar to a Royal Commission in this country for – by the Law Society or the Brookings Institution, or whatever you can find, if there is such an outfit that’s non-political in the US.
Jon Sopel
DeAnne, and my question to you would be is anything non-political in the United States of America? Is anything seen as acceptable to both sides that this would be a proper free and fair analysis of the issues? I just don’t think America is in that place. Look, if America can come bitterly divided over whether we put this piece of tissue over our mouth and nose when there is a global pandemic and 100s of 1,000s of people are dying, I think, you know, you just have to see the narrow calculation of the Republican Party, and possibly the narrow calculation of the Democratic Party, where the Republican Party think, “Whoa, how does anything good come out of a commission into what happened on January the 6th? We don’t want to go anywhere near it,” and Democrats probably thinking, “Of course, yeah, you know, this was the most shocking assault on American democracy,” you know, the mob taking over Congress. And so, that when I went on the ten o’clock news on January the 6th, the mob was still in control, the result had not been certified, and it looked like a precarious moment for American democracy, and something I could not believe I was saying on the television. But how do you get people to believe that there is the fair impartial umpire at some kind of cricket match, where you will decide whether it was leg before wicket or not? I just don’t see any means possible. So there will be reports, and the Republicans will dismiss them as partisan because they had a democratic chair or democratic majority, and I just don’t see that you’ll make any progress.
But I do think that after January the 6th, there is a view that – it is a minority view, that it was justified, and it was – it’s very much a majority view, and, you know, that is where the el – next election is going to be won and lost. I mean, election redistricting, and voter suppression notwithstanding, is on what happens to the independents who voted for Biden in 2020, who felt that Donald Trump’s time was up, the White, college-educated women, the White men in the suburbs, professional middle classes, who just thought, “Enough of Donald Trump, it’s time to move on,” but I just don’t see that you’re going to get an impartial voice that everyone says, “Well, whatever the verdict, we’ll accept the outcome.”
Half the American people didn’t accept the outcome, or under half, of the election result, the most sacred thing in a democracy, the peaceful transfer of power. There was a peacefulish transfer of power, but when millions are denying it, even though there is no evidence, what chance is there of anyone agreeing and signing onto whatever the outcome would be of a 6th of January commission?
Dame DeAnne Julius
Well, you’re probably right, Jon, but I have a second idea. Why don’t you write the book, the definitive book on this, take a break from the BBC, and have it come out before the midterms?
Jon Sopel
Will you publish it?
Dame DeAnne Julius
‘Fraid I don’t have the opportunity to do that. Good luck.
Jon Sopel
Yeah.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
I’m going to take one more question, but I do have a comment on this. I mean, you know, America, we like to think that the – or America likes to think that America is exceptional and many people that study and watch America think that America is exceptional, but very few countries, even democracies, have commissions on things that are so intensely, you know, subject to political polarisation in the short-term, and they tend to do this, you know, with quite a bit of delay. And so, I think – you know, I do think DeAnne – to DeAnne’s point, it’s critical, and I think it’s critical for one reason in particular, it’s just critical for what goes into the history books, right, ‘cause this is going to be the history as – and as we know, there’s a lot of messing around with history books state-by-state, city-by-city, across the country, and so getting that official, kind of, accounting of what actually happened will be important. But it’s not going to happen soon, we’re going to need distance from this, the people who, you know, feel some affiliation to perhaps those who stormed The Capitol are going to need to be less powerful, and their political futures are going to need to be less contingent on that kind of commission. So, I think it will happen, but it’s not going to happen soon, but it doesn’t happen soon in most places, which isn’t an excuse, but it’s a political reality.
I want to come to this really great question, I think great question because very few people could answer it except for you, Jon, and it’s asked by Fernando Herrero, and then I know you really do need to leave ‘cause you’re interviewing the National Security Advisor, which we will all watch, but the question is, “When Jon mixes with his international press colleagues, what is he sensing? How different is their reading of the United States, if at all?” What do – not only what does the world think of America, but what do your friends, Jon, what do they think of the United States?
Jon Sopel
Oh, I think most of us who are there love America, and, you know, I, kind of – I’ve always loved America and a lot of the Correspondents I meet do think – if they’ve come from countries around the world where, you know, things are not as vivid or as – and politics is great to cover in America ‘cause it is so big. I mean, when John Sergeant and I were at Westminster, it’s – you know, it’s quite a small community of people that you needed to know, and it didn’t feel quite as muscular and as abrasive and as confrontational as it does in America, so it’s fantastic to be in America.
I think that if I was to give a flippant answer, I would think we have never had so much times – if I was interested in a manicure and a pedicure, I’ve never had so much time to get them as now, that Joe Biden has taken over, because it’s much quieter. And the demand to be on the air every minute of every day, which it was during the Trump period, has gone, so there is a calmer period in America, and I think we all wait to see.
I think that Donald – and it’s very interesting, we haven’t really talked about the – Trump himself that much. I thought it was very interesting, last week, that this big social media platform, which was essentially a blog post, website, has shutdown, because there was so little engagement. Taking Donald Trump off Facebook and off Twitter has had a profound effect, and although Donald Trump’s grip on the Republican Party is still vicelike, and I think that this speaks very well to the point you were making, Leslie, about, you know, the passage of time is – no-one – Republicans – Mitch McConnell, who, you know, was absolutely scathing about Donald Trump in the wake of what happened on January the 6th, is not going to support a commission because he sees it as too narrowly political and therefore detrimental to his party’s interest. Whereas I think with the passage of time, maybe that will change, and I think Donald Trump’s grip on the Republican Party at the moment is very tight.
The nearest I would compare it to is the Thatcher period, after she fell, and the Thatcherites were still trying to corral John Major and his government into what they should be doing, but Donald Trump is going to exert power for some time to come yet, even if we don’t see him running again in 2024. I’m sure it will be somebody who is Trumpian running in 2024.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Well, we – the time will tell, and hopefully you will help us understand that as it unfolds, and we look forward to the interview that you’re doing…
Jon Sopel
It will air on Wednesday.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
…in London, on Wednesday.
Jon Sopel
It will be embargoed until Joe Biden takes off.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Okay, fabulous. Good luck with that, enjoy.
Jon Sopel
Thank you.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
And good to have you back in the UK, we’ll – we will all be continuing to watch you. Thank you so much for doing this…
Jon Sopel
Leslie…
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
…Jon and thanks.
Jon Sopel
…thank you so much and thanks, everybody.
Dr Leslie Vinjamuri
Bye. Have a great evening.
