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Speaker 1: John Ferrell has made it clear we're stop saying Happy

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Speaker 1: New Year's. What day did we cut that off?

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Speaker 2: January fifth?

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Speaker 1: And today is January ninth, I believe, and what we

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Speaker 1: know for certain is Ian Bremer and all of you

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Speaker 1: raise your group have to rewrite their top risks for

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty four on January ninth. That's how fast things

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Speaker 1: are happening. He is here today with the top risk.

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Speaker 1: What a grim set of risks in an election year.

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Speaker 1: How uncertain is it to get to March or to

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Speaker 1: get to say, the middle of May.

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Speaker 3: Well, first of all, Happy New Year, Tom, and to

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Speaker 3: all of you here at Bloomberg Surveillance's so nice to

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Speaker 3: join you as we kick off twenty twenty four on

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Speaker 3: January ninth. No, I don't think we have to rewrite

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Speaker 3: these risks, but I think we have to recognize just

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Speaker 3: how incapable we, the United States and our present set

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Speaker 3: of global leaders are in trying to contain the geopolitical

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Speaker 3: risks and conflicts that we face today. You just saw

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Speaker 3: the entry we had Blinken standing there in the Middle

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Speaker 3: East saying.

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Speaker 2: They need to understand.

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Speaker 3: We need them to understand the Huthis need to understand

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Speaker 3: the need to stop this. He could have easily said,

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Speaker 3: the Hamas needs to understand they have to let these

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Speaker 3: hostages go. The Israeli War Comit Cabinet needs to understand

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Speaker 3: that they can't continue to expand the fighting in the region.

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Speaker 3: The United States has zero ability to actually make those

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Speaker 3: messages land with the actors on the ground who are

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Speaker 3: escalating this conflict.

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Speaker 1: Triangulate this right now with Freed Zakaria's essay and Foreign

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Speaker 1: Affairs Magazine. In his Post American World and the Bremer

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Speaker 1: Post American World, you say the US is battling itself.

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Speaker 1: That sounds a lot like Zakaria twenty years ago. Triangulate

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Speaker 1: right now the lack of confidence you have in our

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Speaker 1: US geopolitical strategy.

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Speaker 3: It was about twelve years ago when I first came

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Speaker 3: up with this idea of a G zero world where

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Speaker 3: the United States was not going to be willing and

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Speaker 3: able to be the global policeman, the architect of global trade,

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Speaker 3: and the promoter of global values, but that no other

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Speaker 3: country or group of countries would be able to step

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Speaker 3: into its place, and that as that geopolitical recession played out,

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Speaker 3: there would be more conflict, there would be more vacuums

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Speaker 3: that would be filled by rogue actors who take advantage

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Speaker 3: of the comparative chaos of the lack of leadership. Twelve

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Speaker 3: years of that gets you much bigger and unmitigated fighting.

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Speaker 3: We see that with Russia Ukraine started in twenty fourteen,

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Speaker 3: nobody really pushed back, and now we are here in

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Speaker 3: twenty twenty four and that war is turning trajectory in

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Speaker 3: a way that none of us are comfortable with.

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Speaker 2: In the West.

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Speaker 3: You see that in the Middle East, and that is

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Speaker 3: set to expand significantly. And we see in the United

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Speaker 3: States itself that we are increasingly a tribal, non functional

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Speaker 3: democracy and crisis.

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Speaker 2: Very simple point.

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Speaker 3: When you have the four Secretary of Defense under Trump

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Speaker 3: saying this man is a threat to democracy. He was

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Speaker 3: in charge of American national security under Trump. When you

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Speaker 3: have the person who is running having tried to subvert

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Speaker 3: a free and fair transfer of power, doing everything in

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Speaker 3: his power to do so. In a functional democracy, that

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Speaker 3: would be the number one issue of the election. Nothing

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Speaker 3: else would be close. So is it that we're somehow

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Speaker 3: getting our facts wrong, or is it that the United

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Speaker 3: States is not a consolidated functional democracy because there ain't

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Speaker 3: no other advanced industrial democracies. No one else in the

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Speaker 3: G seven is having the problems in legitimacy of its

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Speaker 3: political institutions at the United States is.

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Speaker 2: Experiencing in twenty twenty four. What do you think those are?

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Speaker 2: What do I think? What do you think it is?

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Speaker 2: Do you think it is a functioning democracy? No? No,

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Speaker 2: I think it's a hybrid system.

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Speaker 3: I think the US democratic institutions have significantly eroded over

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Speaker 3: the course of the past several decades. We have normalized

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Speaker 3: that because all of the things that are unprecedented as

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Speaker 3: they happen, and we still live here in the United States,

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Speaker 3: we're basically saying, well, okay, I guess that's.

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Speaker 2: The way it works now.

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Speaker 3: So impeachment doesn't work, and we can impeach someone twice

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Speaker 3: and they can still run again. I guess that's the

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Speaker 3: way it works. You can have ninety one indictments and

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Speaker 3: I guess that's.

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Speaker 2: The way it works.

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Speaker 3: You can post and say things that you never would

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Speaker 3: have heard. I guess that's the way it works now.

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Speaker 3: As set against the context of the world's most powerful,

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Speaker 3: very functional economy and the world's most functional, very powerful

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Speaker 3: global defense capacity, you'd say, well, maybe It's okay that

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Speaker 3: the United States isn't a functional democracy, but it will

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Speaker 3: be different. And so yeah, I think we can't normalize

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Speaker 3: the dysfunction of the US political system, the illegitimacy of

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Speaker 3: its institutions, and the fact that democracy in twenty twenty

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Speaker 3: four in the United States is in crisis. That is

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Speaker 3: the reality, and our allies know that they're deeply worried

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Speaker 3: about it, all of them around the world, and our

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Speaker 3: adversaries see this as potentially a huge opportunity for themselves.

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Speaker 2: So when do you see us twelve months from now,

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Speaker 2: what do things look like?

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Speaker 3: Well, first of all, let's talk about March April May.

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Speaker 3: Tom said, you need to completely rewrite this. Then when

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Speaker 3: Trump gets the nomination, which is very very likely, he

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Speaker 3: will overnight become far more powerful on the US and

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Speaker 3: the global stage. All of the Republicans will be loyal

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Speaker 3: to him in a way that right now they still

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Speaker 3: have hedging capacity and the media that is following and

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Speaker 3: supporting Trump and the ability to raise money to drive

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Speaker 3: that campaign. And that means his policy pronouncements like there

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Speaker 3: would never be a war against Israel if I was president,

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Speaker 3: because I showed the Iranians I announced that assassination of Cosumsulamani. Well,

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Speaker 3: that's going to be the policy for Trump and therefore

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Speaker 3: the Republicans Zelenski correct.

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Speaker 2: I'd end this warrant to day. I'd show him what's what.

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Speaker 3: I'm not going to give him billions and billions of

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Speaker 3: dollars on the back of the American taxpace that.

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Speaker 2: Becomes the policy.

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Speaker 3: So the Overton window right of what is an acceptable

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Speaker 3: policy framed debate in the United States is going to

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Speaker 3: change very dramatically when Trump becomes the nominee. Again, assuming

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Speaker 3: that it's not given, but assuming that in twelve months time,

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Speaker 3: the stakes are a lot higher for both leaders than

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Speaker 3: they ever have been before. Right, So, if Trump wins,

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Speaker 3: Biden and many many people around him believe that they

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Speaker 3: will face legal jeopardy, that Trump will politicize the FBI,

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Speaker 3: the DOJ, the irs and go after them, and a

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Speaker 3: McCarthyite prioritization of policy, where Trump, of course faces potential

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Speaker 3: prison time. So the stakes are much much higher than

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Speaker 3: we saw in twenty twenty just.

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Speaker 4: Quickly, and is Biden the antidote to this at a

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Speaker 4: time where they're real questions around the Defense secretary and

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Speaker 4: his absence, his undisclosed hospitalization in the sense that President

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Speaker 4: Biden is not very popular and isn't really addressing that.

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Speaker 3: I was a little surprised that we had no idea

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Speaker 3: where the Secretary of Defense was for several days in the.

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Speaker 2: Middle of the war.

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Speaker 3: That usually happens in China, that doesn't happen in the

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Speaker 3: United States. Yeah, and I discussed that with an official

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Speaker 3: yesterday and.

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Speaker 2: He kind of had a chuckle over it. It's exactly

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Speaker 2: what I said yesterday. Yeah, is it really I missed that?

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Speaker 3: You said, man, no, no, this is a Chinese official.

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Speaker 3: But it was pretty funny. We all had a good

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Speaker 3: chuckle over it, and not what you want to see. Look,

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Speaker 3: I think that Biden has the intention of being the antidote.

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Speaker 3: He wants to follow rule of law. But I mean,

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Speaker 3: we're in the fourth year of the Biden administration and

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Speaker 3: the country. The reality is the country is more politically divided.

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Speaker 3: Our institutions are weaker today than they were when Biden

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Speaker 3: became president, So he does not have the ability.

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Speaker 2: To resolve the divisions in the United States.

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Speaker 3: Look, you look at Russia and Ukraine today and you'd

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Speaker 3: say that it's a would like to end the war,

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Speaker 3: but he doesn't have the ability to do that right.

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Speaker 2: And that's the problem.

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Speaker 3: We have these major conflicts geopolitically between Russia and Ukraine,

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Speaker 3: between Israel and Hamas, and between the United States and itself,

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Speaker 3: and in none of these cases is diplomacy and option.

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Speaker 3: And in none of these cases do the principles have

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Speaker 3: the ability and the willingness to stop the fighting. That

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Speaker 3: that's what twenty twenty four is. That is when I

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Speaker 3: look ahead in twelve months time, that's where we are.

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Speaker 3: That's what jiz era means.

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Speaker 2: Always an interesting rate. Thanks for Johan miss. It's going

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Speaker 2: to catch up in Premidt. If you write a group,

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Speaker 2: the biggest risk is the United States itself. You won't

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Speaker 2: come back. Now, That's okay. I will in February. I'm

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Speaker 2: gonna say happy New Year.

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Speaker 3: I'll make sure next week in Davos I'll see a

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Speaker 3: happy new Year.

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Speaker 2: That's what I'm going to keep doing. I'm thinking with

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Speaker 2: us in Dallas. I'll make sure that's not okay.