Preet Bharara:

From CAFE and the Vox Media Podcast Network, welcome to Stay Tuned. I’m Preet Bharara.

Ian Bremmer:

We’ve got Omicron, which is much more transmissible and it is much less lethal. And the Chinese are still focusing on zero COVID and cases, as opposed to hospitalizations and death. And their ability to respond with the same damn policy that worked in 2020 so well is going to really hurt them in 2022.

Preet Bharara:

That’s Ian Bremmer. He’s the founder and president of Eurasia Group, a political risk, research, and consulting firm. He also leads GZERO Media, which provides coverage of international affairs across a range of media platforms. Ian has the distinction of being the most frequent guest we’ve had on Stay Tuned, but it’s been two years since he joined me to analyze his firm’s annual Top Risks report that sizes up the most acute political and economic challenges facing the globe in the year ahead. We discussed the rough road ahead for China to contain the pandemic in 2022, the showdown between Russia and Ukraine, and why the US should brace for impact ahead of November’s midterm elections. That’s coming up. Stay Tuned.

QUESTION & ANSWER:

Preet Bharara:

Now let’s get to your questions. This question comes in a Tweet from Twitter user @baltosox, who says, “Happy New Year, Preet. How can the work of the January 6th Committee continue or be protected if Democrats lose the House? Can DOJ name a special prosecutor?” Well, that’s a good question. And I don’t have a great and optimistic answer for you. The short of it is the House is a very constrained place, and there are not a lot of minority rights. That was true when the Democrats were in the minority. That’s true now when the Republicans are in the minority. And so the assumption is, and I think it’s as safe an assumption as one can draw, that if Republicans take back the House, whoever the speaker of the House becomes will dismantle the January 6th Select Committee. They will not have any subpoena power. They will not have convening power. And they won’t even exist.

Preet Bharara:

Now, it is true that the minority party can do some things. They can’t decide what hearings to have. They can’t issue subpoenas. But they can do reports. So I suppose if some of the work lingers on, they can put together some things that they already had. They can get people to come and talk to them voluntarily. They don’t have any enforcement power. But they can, I guess, do something. The bottom line though, and the reason I’m not so concerned about that, is because everyone understands this assumption. And everyone understands the clock. Chairman Bennie Thompson and the others have been working, I think, with great speed. They worked through the holidays. They’re litigating points as they come up. They’re making referrals to the Justice Department, as with Steve Bannon, as they come up. And so I think they are fully, fully, fully on board with doing the interim report, as it has been reported, in the next few months, a final report before the election or certainly before the end of the year.

Preet Bharara:

As for your question about a special prosecutor, I suppose DOJ could do that. Two things. I don’t think it’s necessary. I don’t think you have the same conflict that you’ve had in other circumstances, where a sitting attorney general has to oversee an investigation of someone else in the executive branch who’s currently serving. Also, I think the time to have named a special prosecutor has come and gone. It’s been a year since January 6th, and a lot of time has been lost. And if that was going to happen, I think it already would have happened. Also, a special prosecutor has a different kind of agenda and scope of obligation than a Congressional committee. So I don’t think they’re the same thing. I don’t think that solves the problem. And we will see what the Department of Justice is doing on its own. And there has been some talk about whether they’re doing enough.

Preet Bharara:

I’m recording this on the late morning of January 5th in anticipation of Merrick Garland giving a speech to the employees of DOJ updating them on what’s happening with the January 6th various investigations. I don’t know what he will say. I will have a comment about that, I’m sure, in the coming days. But I think the January 6th Committee will do its work, will finish by November. And we’ll see what they say.

Preet Bharara:

This question comes from Twitter user @NastyWoman532. Query why I have not heard from nasty women 1 through 531. And the question is, “Does the fact that Don Jr. and Ivanka have been subpoenaed mean that the New York attorney general civil investigation is nearly complete? Why was Eric deposed earlier?” And there’s a related question on the same topic from LB3183, not as fun a handle, who asks, “Hey, Preet, of course, one of the biggest questions this week. What will happen if Ivanka and Don Jr. Refuse to honor their subpoena? It will be so bad for the country if they are allowed to no-show.” So let me take that one first.

Preet Bharara:

I want to distinguish a couple of things. We’ve had lots of conversations and you’ve heard a lot of people comment on subpoena power and enforcement power. But sometimes we’re talking about a Congressional committee. Sometimes we’re talking about a state prosecutor. Sometimes we’re talking about a federal prosecutor. And all of those mechanisms are different from each other. There’s another distinction too. With some of the subpoenas we’ve been talking about over the last couple of years, we’ve been talking about material that is related to the office of the presidency, and certain privileges apply.

Preet Bharara:

Here, there is much less opportunity and merit to the argument that Ivanka and Don Jr. can refuse to honor their subpoenas. We don’t have a separation of powers problem that you have sometimes with Congressional subpoenas. This is a garden variety civil investigative subpoena being served on two private citizens unrelated to the work of the presidency. It’s about their businesses and whether or not The Trump Organization inflated assets when they wanted to for some benefit, or deflated or downplayed asset value on other occasions when it benefited them in some other context. There is no executive privilege that applies here. There is no deliberative process privilege that applies here.

Preet Bharara:

There are certain kinds of privileges, like husband-wife marital privilege. But there is no parent-child privilege. So I don’t know what arguments they’re going to make. I haven’t seen the brief they were supposed to have filed any moment now. And we’ll see what arguments they make. But I expect that they will be ordered and directed to appear for depositions because they can’t get around it. So I don’t think it’ll be bad for the country, because I think they’re not going to get away with it, unlike we’ve seen in some other circumstances.

Preet Bharara:

As for the other question about whether or not this means that the AG’s civil investigation is nearly complete, it could mean that. I was wondering to myself why it’s taken so long to subpoena these folks. Sometimes it means that. And by the way, your question about Eric Trump is a very perspicacious one. And it goes to the other question as well, which was on what basis can these two children of Donald Trump refuse to testify? You already have one child, Eric Trump, who did reportedly testify before the AG because I guess he and his lawyers determined there was no basis not to, and/or he thought it would not be incriminating. But I think it’s a bad fact for Ivanka and for Don Jr.

Preet Bharara:

This final question is not substantive. But from time to time, people ask me about my viewing habits. This question comes in a Tweet from PhonyBologne, which I think you spell wrong. But in any event, PhonyBologne says, “#AskPreet, I have an important question. What is it about Yellowstone that you like so much? Been trying to like it….” Well, so I’m not sure that anybody cares. But from time to time, I binge watch shows, particularly in the last few weeks when I’ve been home with COVID for a bit of time. And there’s not much going out these days.

Preet Bharara:

And I watched Succession. It took me years to watch Succession. Lots and lots of people who I like and respect and whose taste I also respect suggested I watch that show. I tried over the years a couple of times to get through the pilot. Didn’t make it. But given how much people were talking about the show, I gave it another shot in December and made it through all the seasons. And I didn’t think it was perfect. I didn’t love it as much as some other folks. But I found it engaging and interesting, and so I liked it.

Preet Bharara:

But one of the most common comments I got when I Tweeted about Succession was that there’s this other show that I had not heard about, doesn’t get as much media attention, called Yellowstone, which people referred to as kind of like Succession for ranchers. So I gave that a shot. I’m not done yet. I’m in the middle of season four, which is a little bit hard to find on streaming services. And some people like phonybaloney have asked why I like it, because some people seem not to like it or have not gotten into it because it’s full of bad people. There’s a lot of violence. There’s a lot of gore. And so I take your point.

Preet Bharara:

First of all, as I’ve written about before, no show, no book, no band is for everyone. It’s a matter of taste. I don’t mind violence in movies. I watch a lot of movies with violence, and I don’t mind watching outlandish drama unfold where all the characters are bad in some way, violent, or criminals, or mendacious, or unethical, or whatever the case may be. That didn’t stop me from enjoying Goodfellas. That didn’t stop me from enjoying Pulp Fiction, so that’s not a problem for me. I think it’s an interesting if outlandish story about a family trying to maintain power over their ranch in Montana. I think the acting is pretty good. Kevin Costner I think is excellent. I think the writing is good. Some of it is over the top. And I think the scenery from all the vistas in Montana is quite stunning. So check it out if you want. No big deal if you don’t like it. Stay tuned. There’s more coming up after this.

Preet Bharara:

What are the top political and economic risks facing the world in 2022? Well, that’s an important question that my guest Ian Bremmer has thought about a lot over the last several months in preparing his firm’s annual list of trouble spots across the globe and why you should care. Ian Bremmer, welcome back to the show.

Ian Bremmer:

Preet. This is such an honor.

Preet Bharara:

It’s like every few months, we have you on.

Ian Bremmer:

It’s such an honor for me, Preet.

Preet Bharara:

And we don’t pay you a dime.

Ian Bremmer:

It’s a privilege. It is. The funny thing is it’s something I actually look forward to.

Preet Bharara:

Oh, good. Me too, most of the time.

Ian Bremmer:

Most of the time?

Preet Bharara:

But, so sometimes we have you on to discuss things that are going on in the world at the moment. But we have a traditional of having you on because you and your Eurasia Group, if that’s its real name, come out with a report called Top Risks. This year it’s called Top Risks 2022, which seems right because it’s 2022.

Ian Bremmer:

It’s right on the money for that one.

Preet Bharara:

It’s right on the money. So can I tell you, we have a lot of really substantive things to talk about. We can’t get to all 10 of the risks that you list here, but we’ll get to a number of them. I don’t know if I mentioned this to you before. What makes me happy and pleased and relieved every year when I look at the risks that you guys list in your report, I don’t see asteroid colliding with Earth.

Ian Bremmer:

Did you see that meteor that blew up over Pennsylvania the other day?

Preet Bharara:

Well, that’s why I mentioned. That’s why I mentioned it. Do you think we have our focus on that enough? Do you know anything about that stuff?

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah. We don’t have a space practice yet, so it could be that I’m just really missing the target on that one. I also hated that movie. Hated that movie.

Preet Bharara:

Don’t Look Up? I haven’t seen it.

Ian Bremmer:

Oh, no. I meant the original one where we actually blew up the asteroid.

Preet Bharara:

Well, there were two. There were two movies. I think they both came out in 1998. There was Armageddon.

Ian Bremmer:

Armageddon. That’s what I’m talking about.

Preet Bharara:

Which was, you’re wrong, it was an excellent movie.

Ian Bremmer:

The space Western.

Preet Bharara:

The space Western.

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah. And Bruce Willis was excellent.

Ian Bremmer:

He was not. He was not excellent.

Preet Bharara:

And then there was the other one that was directed by a woman, Mimi Leder, where they split the asteroid into two. Or maybe it was a… I don’t know. In any event, I don’t want to get carried away on the asteroids. But that is a deep concern of mine. I was trying to say when our friend Lisa Monaco, who’s now the deputy attorney general, was working in the White House under Obama, she had in her remit among other things natural disasters, which included asteroids. My first question to her was always, “Are we clear on the asteroids?” Make sure you don’t take your eye off that ball, so to speak, either.

Ian Bremmer:

And Elon has a plan for that.

Preet Bharara:

Can you use his last name? He doesn’t deserve one name.

Ian Bremmer:

He doesn’t? He’s the wealthiest man on the planet. That makes him the wealthiest person on the planet.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah.

Ian Bremmer:

I think he deserves a first name.

Preet Bharara:

So before we get to the risks, the last time we had you on, there was a lot of controversy in the country and discussion about the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah.

Preet Bharara:

And it was all anybody talked about for that period of time. We covered it a lot on Stay Tuned. Here we are a few months later. When was the last time you heard anybody talk about that withdrawal?

Ian Bremmer:

Well, I mean, given the people that I talk to, probably yesterday.

Preet Bharara:

Oh. Well, okay.

Ian Bremmer:

But, you know.

Preet Bharara:

But in the public consciousness, in the media, is that story and the political consequences of that conduct… Have they just evaporated?

Ian Bremmer:

Domestically, yes. The White House view is, “We are well beyond Afghanistan. We have other very serious problems that are hurting our popularity to focus on right now.” Outside the US, in Europe, you hear about it a fair amount. In the Gulf, you hear about it a lot, a lot. And I think the knock-on consequences for the way the US handled that and did not handle their allies are going to persist. They really are. It’s one of many hits to credibility of US leadership and commitment that did really hurt. Has lasting effects.

Preet Bharara:

You think it has? Do Americans have… I mean, I guess isn’t… As I was about to say it, it sounded too obvious to say aloud.

Ian Bremmer:

The answer is no. Yes.

Preet Bharara:

Do Americans have an attention span problem?

Ian Bremmer:

Oh, yes. Yes. Yes, we do. Don’t Look Up. We talked about that. We don’t. We’re not interested. But we don’t always have an attention span problem. I mean, climate is one that young people are increasingly decisive on. It matters to them. It matters to them consistently. It matters to the brands they buy. It matters to the people, in terms of the people they vote for. And it’s moving the needle. I mean, you’ll notice in the Top Risks this year climate is not-

Preet Bharara:

Well, it’s number seven. It’s number seven, Ian. And so we’ll jump to that. I was going to go a little bit more in hierarchical order. But you have as risk seven two steps greener, one step back. And you make a lot of good points. But what’s interesting to me is in the preface to the report, you talk about the vacuum of leadership.

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah.

Preet Bharara:

And the two most powerful countries in the world by your reckoning are the United States and China. I think few people would disagree with that.

Ian Bremmer:

Few people disagree with that.

Preet Bharara:

And you write in the report, “While the inward turn of the two most powerful nations lowers the odds of war, it also means less global leadership and coordination to respond to the world’s challenges.” And then you say-

Ian Bremmer:

Despite that…

Preet Bharara:

But you say that’s bad news for a year that will be dominated by two crises in desperate need of a coordinated response. And you name the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah.

Preet Bharara:

And then second, climate change. And yet your climate change risk is number seven.

Ian Bremmer:

And then I say the good news is that other actors, less powerful countries, corporations, sub-national governments, and-

Preet Bharara:

Are stepping into the vacuum, you think.

Ian Bremmer:

And they are. And on climate, that’s the amazing thing. China is the world’s largest carbon emitter by a long margin, by more than 2X the US. The US is the second-largest carbon emitter. We are not leading on climate. We are not coordinating on climate. And despite that, we have as a world made extraordinary progress in the last 12 months in responding to a transition to renewable energy.

Preet Bharara:

And is that why the risk is only seven?

Ian Bremmer:

In fact, the only reason the risk is seven is that so much has been done politically that we don’t quite have the infrastructure on renewables to meet the political commitments. And that’s going to cause… That’s the one step back. That’s the we’re heading on net zero. We’re increasing the cost of doing business in fossil fuels. No one’s investing in fossil fuels. But we haven’t met the gap yet, so there’s going to be shortages. Prices’ll go higher. And some countries aren’t going to be ready to make the transition as fast as they promised. So that’s the challenge this year.

Ian Bremmer:

But it’s really in a much better… Given the GZERO, as I call it, the lack of global leadership, given where the US and the Chinese are not in terms of political governance and leading by example, we’re in a much better place on climate change today than you would have expected.

Preet Bharara:

That’s a pretty optimistic note.

Ian Bremmer:

I mean, I’ll go farther than that, Preet. I think that in the next 20 years, a majority of the world’s energy will come from renewables. I’m not sure if that’s going to be 2035 or 2040. But I mean, it’s coming. The amount of money, it’s incredible.

Preet Bharara:

When and how do you think we turn that corner, if we have?

Ian Bremmer:

Depends on the countries. Germany, 40% of their electricity is renewables now. They’re committed to 80% by 2030, which is incredibly ambitious. The Green Party, you probably know, is part of the new coalition government post-Merkel. And they’re not a service-based economy. They’re an industrial economy. So I mean, that’s the fourth-largest country economically in the world. And they’re almost at that transition now. So I mean, other countries are going to take longer. And the Indians and the most of the sub-Saharan Africans will take a lot longer. But the United States is on a path of net zero for 2050. And other countries are moving. Japan has made that commitment. China says 2060. They’re less credible. But there’s no question that the money that is being spent on solar and wind at scale, on electric vehicles and infrastructure and supply chain at scale, is past the tipping point. This is going to happen.

Preet Bharara:

Are you going to give Elon Musk some credit there too?

Ian Bremmer:

Yes. I mean, as an entrepreneur, Elon Musk is pretty much without compare in the United States right now. The problem is that as a political strategist, he’s one of the least effective I’ve ever encountered with a position of power. And he also seems to be a truly problematic human being. So how do you square those three things?

Preet Bharara:

I mean, you can separate them. When we get to the first risk, which relates to COVID, what strikes me about Elon Musk is that here’s a guy… And there are lots of guys like this, right, who have lanes. And I don’t like to say to anybody, “Stay in your lane.” I think musicians and actors can have political viewpoints and should express them, and they’re citizens too. But Elon Musk gets invested with, I think, a lot of authority and intelligence that he doesn’t have in other areas. He said-

Ian Bremmer:

Robinhood, for example.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah. He said I think in March or early April of 2020 that COVID cases would go to zero by the end of April 2020.

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah. I remember that.

Preet Bharara:

I think that was wrong.

Ian Bremmer:

I think we should short that call. I think that’s right.

Preet Bharara:

You should short that call.

Ian Bremmer:

I think Aaron Rodgers should not opine on COVID, frankly. I would be-

Preet Bharara:

Yeah. There are some people who maybe are not qualified to talk about various things. But I do think that everyone can say what they want to say. And the fault may sometimes lie more with their stans who think that because someone did something great in one field, that they’re geniuses and brilliant in every other field. And you see that happening a lot. So I guess I’m making contradictory points, that people should not need to stay in their lane, and they should also stay in their lane. Is nuclear power green?

Ian Bremmer:

I think it is. Bill McKibben, who is one of the great environmentalists of our time, thought that it was not, and changed his view. It is, in my view… The Europeans are having this debate in a very big way right now. The Germans are opposed. The French are in favor. It’s not clear which way it’s going to go. It is clear that the future of global renewables, nuclear will play a significant piece. The question is where? And the Chinese government that doesn’t need to worry an awful lot about domestic public interest is investigating the most heavily and will have the most success as a consequence.

Preet Bharara:

Well, good to hear that there’s some optimism about the environment and about climate change. Let’s go back-

Ian Bremmer:

I mean, it’s taken us a long time to get here. And the biodiversity impact, the impact of two-plus degrees centigrade of warming, the extreme climate conditions, I mean, all of these things are going to cost humanity a lot. But it’s not existential. And frankly, if you were reading books even five years ago, never mind 20, from the top experts in the field saying, “Here’s what five degrees of warming will look like,” that is not going to happen. It’s just not going to happen. We’ve broken the back of that. And I think that’s extraordinary.

Preet Bharara:

I was just thinking. Do you think about the degree of alarm with which you should talk about things so that people take risks seriously? In other words, you are a very rational guy. Your report is very rational. But do you think that political actors… Put you guys aside for a moment. Do you think political actors should sound the alarm on some things louder than deserved because that’s what it takes to get people’s attention and that’s what it takes to get people to change their behavior?

Ian Bremmer:

I think it’s a great question, Preet. So I’m very close friends with the secretary-general of the UN, António Guterres, who is in my view probably the singular political actor on the planet who in the last several years has done the most to advance the climate agenda. And when we get together privately, we have an extraordinarily open conversation about the state of play. And I would say that when he is giving a public speech, he is somewhat more alarmist about where we are and what needs to be done. And I think that’s completely appropriate, because if he doesn’t do it, we wouldn’t be where we are today. I mean, he’s literally as an individual and with his institution, which doesn’t have a lot of power and doesn’t have a lot of money, is helping to drive us to the place that we need to get. God bless him. God bless him. But I don’t think I-

Preet Bharara:

But you don’t feel the need to do that? You can come on this podcast and say, “Eh, we’re good”?

Ian Bremmer:

Precisely because I think that people with a hell of a lot more power than I have actually listen to me and take me seriously, because they know that I will tell them what I really, honest to God, think. And I think that that’s where most of my power comes from.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah. That and your astounding physical strength.

Ian Bremmer:

Well, I mean, there’s a bit of that. But I’d say still 60/40 the former, Preet. There’s a little bit of that. There’s a little bit of that.

Preet Bharara:

Have you figured out how to move things with your mind yet?

Ian Bremmer:

No. Can you do that?

Preet Bharara:

Yeah. It depends on the thing.

Ian Bremmer:

You know the funniest? Yeah. You know the funniest thing? I shouldn’t admit to this. So when I was a young kid, probably from reading too many comic books, I was kind of convinced that if I concentrated hard enough on a light bulb in my hand, I could make it glow.

Preet Bharara:

Wow.

Ian Bremmer:

Did you ever try anything stupid like that?

Preet Bharara:

No. Never.

Ian Bremmer:

Never? You lying to me?

Preet Bharara:

I wouldn’t have admitted that. I’m not going to admit it-

Ian Bremmer:

Why wouldn’t you admit it?

Preet Bharara:

… on my own.

Ian Bremmer:

You’re so unwilling to open up aside from when we’re having private time, you and me, Preet.

Preet Bharara:

You introduced me to a new drink. I wrote about that. What was that drink again? District 9?

Ian Bremmer:

No. District 9 is a movie that was made by a South African director. It was somewhat dystopian. The Ward 8-

Preet Bharara:

The Ward 8.

Ian Bremmer:

… is the cocktail.

Preet Bharara:

Forgive my confusion.

Ian Bremmer:

No, I understand how you could get those two things slightly mixed up.

Preet Bharara:

I think District 9 would be a very not fun nor tasty drink. When you put this list together with your team… Because I’m going to disagree with some of their rankings in a moment.

Ian Bremmer:

Okay.

Preet Bharara:

But were some of these close calls? Were there debates and controversies?

Ian Bremmer:

Oh, God, yeah.

Preet Bharara:

And then do you decide, because you’re authoritarian?

Ian Bremmer:

I decide. If we have an analyst that’s writing about an area of their expertise, they get to make any veto. They make the final call. That’s why they’re in that position. But I mean, this piece has my name on it. And it’s our big macro piece to kick off the year. And I’m ultimately responsible for it, so I have to make that call.

Preet Bharara:

Okay. So we had you on two years ago at the end of the month, January 30th, 2020. And I asked you a question about something that was not, and understandably, not on the list of risks for 2020. But early on, given how little was known about the coronavirus back then… And on January 30th, 2020, we had a brief conversation about this thing we were hearing about in China. And you said a few things in talking about the seriousness of this and what was looking like something that would be problematic. You said, “If this same coronavirus was happening in Japan or in the United States, first of all, probably wouldn’t have happened because they would have had much better ways to have stopped that disease from transmitting itself from animals to human beings.” And then you said secondly, “If it happened, we,” meaning the United States and perhaps Japan, “we’d have much better capacity to identify it, recognize it, and stop it. And we don’t with China.” Do you want to revise that statement in light of the last two years?

Ian Bremmer:

Not at all.

Preet Bharara:

No?

Ian Bremmer:

Not at all. I feel-

Preet Bharara:

Because your point… Okay. So explain to folks. I’m jumping ahead a little bit. Your first risk is no zero COVID.

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah.

Preet Bharara:

Which as I understand it describes a policy that initially worked very well in China of no tolerance for COVID. Get to zero COVID, which involved lots and lots of lockdowns. And as you have been saying a lot in the last two days, that’s a terrible policy now. But you still stand by the statement from two years ago, even though it’s been kind of a disaster in the US?

Ian Bremmer:

I don’t think I put it this way, but I think it’s an interesting way to think about it. The Chinese are really good at some things in terms of responding to COVID. But if you look at the entirety of the pandemic, it’s kind of like a U-curve. Right? They really screwed up in unprecedented fashion in the first month. They lied about this to themselves and to the world. They covered it up. They said there was no human-to-human transmission. They told the World Health Organization, then went and did their bidding internationally even though they couldn’t confirm it. And as a consequence, we had massive spread inside China. And we had hundreds of thousands of Chinese from Wuhan traveling around the world while this pandemic was raging. And the Chinese told no one.

Ian Bremmer:

Now, if that same thing had happened in Japan or the United States, again, in terms of the basic health, we probably wouldn’t have had that pandemic emanate from the US or Japan because you wouldn’t have had the wet markets. And you wouldn’t have had the bio labs without security and oversight. You wouldn’t have had all of those challenges, irrespective of knowing definitively where it came from explicitly right now. And you also, once it happened, you would have been on top of it immediately. Everyone would have known. You would have tried to get it, nip it in the bud before it becomes a national disaster. We didn’t have the chance of that. The world didn’t have a chance.

Ian Bremmer:

Now, once it became a big deal, the Chinese in 2020 had the best response of any major government in the world. They had the ability to track and trace and quarantine and lock down. They shut their economy down and so effectively, and their borders, that within a few months, by May or June of 2020, the Chinese economy was back up and running. And that was really effective in 2020 with the early variant of this pandemic, and no vaccines, and no therapeutics.

Ian Bremmer:

Now here we are in 2022, Preet. And we’ve got Omicron, which is much more transmissible. And it is much less lethal. And we have lots of vaccines. We’ve got lots of therapeutics. And the Chinese are still focusing on zero COVID and cases, as opposed to hospitalizations and death. And their ability to respond with the same damn policy that worked in 2020 so well is going to really hurt them in 2022.

Preet Bharara:

Don’t we have in this country, meaning the United States, a constituency of people who are advocates of zero COVID?

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah. I think there are several. You see them-

Preet Bharara:

And are they problematic?

Ian Bremmer:

Well, they would be problematic if they could effectively run anything. But they can’t, because the US is a very decentralized, fragmented federal government.

Preet Bharara:

This is going to be the second note of optimism that I’m going to cite from in your report.

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah.

Preet Bharara:

I’m sure you had to do a lot of rewriting. I’m sure you don’t write this thing on New Year’s Eve.

Ian Bremmer:

Oh, no.

Preet Bharara:

And Omicron came along in the middle of December. But you say that, “Notwithstanding Omicron, the pandemic will become endemic for advanced industrial economies by the end of the first quarter.”

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah. Within weeks. Yeah.

Preet Bharara:

You really think that?

Ian Bremmer:

I really think that.

Preet Bharara:

You have experts who believe that?

Ian Bremmer:

We do. We have a global health practice at Eurasia Group. So I mean, I’m not whistling out of school here. But look, we have enormous case spread with considerably lower hospitalizations, considerably lower ICU hospitalizations, and quite low death. And at the same time, we have lots of people that are vaccinated and boosted. And we’re going to be rolling out in very short order COVID pills that really work that the developing countries won’t have access to. So yeah, I think… And we also have a population that is really sick of lockdown. Very opposed to it not just in Florida and Texas, but even now in New York City. They want the kids back in school. They want the country back to normal. They’re sick of panicking. And the science increasingly is leading towards that. So yeah, I really think that this is going to feel a lot more like flu in relatively short order in the developed world. And even if Biden wanted to be more cautious, I just don’t think the politics of the country will allow him to take that on.

Preet Bharara:

Explain the terminology of transformation from pandemic to endemic.

Ian Bremmer:

Endemic is really living with the virus. It’s something that we know that, like the flu, is around. People are going to get it. We can’t stamp it out.

Preet Bharara:

I think part of the problem here, tell me if you agree, has been terminology. And there’s been a thing available for a long time called the flu shot. Nobody calls it the flu vaccine, at least I have never heard it called the flu vaccine.

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah.

Preet Bharara:

And everyone understands, and the expectations are set with respect to the flu shot. Not the most serious thing in the world, but some people do die of it.

Ian Bremmer:

Yep.

Preet Bharara:

Thousands of people every year. I try to get one. I was not good about that when I was younger. I’m a little bit more pragmatic now that I’m a little bit older. But everyone understands you might still get the flu. But if you get the flu, there’s a chance that it’ll be milder. And people have a reasonable expectation of what that shot does. And it seems to me that the COVID “vaccine or vaccination” is like the flu, is like the flu shot. But I believe experts sort of led everyone to the expectation that we were going to use the vaccine to get to zero COVID, like smallpox. How big an error in leadership or messaging was that?

Ian Bremmer:

Well, I think what’s really hard about this is that the disease is fundamentally different today than it was two years ago, and nobody knew that was going to happen. I mean, you knew-

Preet Bharara:

You point out in the report in a way that actually caused me to get the chills, imagine if Omicron had come about-

Ian Bremmer:

Before vaccines.

Preet Bharara:

… before vaccines.

Ian Bremmer:

Oh, yeah.

Preet Bharara:

Just think about that for a moment.

Ian Bremmer:

I mean, I don’t know if you’d call it apocalyptic or not. But it’s going to be close to that. Right? Because the vaccines in the first order, we were trying to not get this damn thing no matter what. That’s why we were so, “Don’t touch your face.” Turns out that touching is not how you get it. But the first couple months, “Don’t touch your face. Don’t touch anything. Wipe down your vegetables before you bring them in.” I mean, people did not… This disease was new.

Preet Bharara:

Use toxic cleaners on your food.

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah. Nobody knew what this thing was all about. People didn’t understand long COVID. They didn’t understand who was getting it, how long it was going to go. The vaccines, you’re giving people vaccines that have just gone through emergency testing. You don’t know how long they’re going to last, how long the antibodies persist. And I think when doctors and then government officials are in a position to provide leadership on something completely new and uncertain, they’re going to have to… On the one hand, you want to show a level of confidence to convince people to act. But you also have to show some humility that this is new and changing and things are going to be different. I think Dr. Fauci in particular, who is extremely media-savvy and, I mean, has never seen a media show he doesn’t want to be on-

Preet Bharara:

Well, I can name one. I can name one.

Ian Bremmer:

Really?

Preet Bharara:

Stay Tuned with Preet.

Ian Bremmer:

Wow. I’ve had him on. I’m surprised.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah. Go look. I don’t have the pull that Ian Bremmer has.

Ian Bremmer:

I don’t think that’s true. I think you’ve got a lot of pull, Preet.

Preet Bharara:

Okay.

Ian Bremmer:

But nonetheless, for some reason, not with Fauci. Maybe you said bad things about him. Look, I think that he really did do a disservice in coming across as too confident on a bunch of things. And he ended up getting caught out. And of course, the politics made it all worse. And he’s done a lot of damage to the ability of Americans to believe in the CDC and believe in our health authorities. And that’s a real problem.

Preet Bharara:

So explain to folks, then, given this optimistic prediction for advanced industrial economies that will basically be in an endemic phase by the end of the first quarter, why is COVID your number one risk?

Ian Bremmer:

Well, I said no zero COVID. And the second-largest economy in the world is not anywhere close to that. They’re the country that we thought was done with this, and they can’t be because they can’t open up. They won’t open up. The politics are going to resist that very strongly. And that’s not just a problem for China’s own economy, of course. It’s also a problem for supply chain for stuff that comes out of China, not to mention the fact that they were pre-COVID the most important single driver of global growth of the global economy. So that matters.

Ian Bremmer:

And then, of course, everything I just told you about why I am more optimistic about the advanced industrial economies. You don’t have the same level of therapeutics or shots and boosters in many of the poorer countries around the world. And so it’s going to take them longer to get to the place where the Americans and Europeans are very quickly getting to. And the economic impact of COVID, they don’t have the money. And they don’t have the political capacity to explain their fiscal accounts the way the Americans, who can just print money with our reserve currency, can. And so I do think from a global perspective… If we were looking narrowly, if this were just top risks for the United States, I’m not sure COVID would break top five.

Preet Bharara:

Really? That’s interesting.

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah. If it were just looking at the United States. But because this is a global report, then we’re looking at the global economy. And China’s the second-largest economy in the world. I know that Americans don’t like to think about stuff outside the US, but jeez, we’re kind of all interconnected here.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah. We’ll be right back with more of my conversation with Ian Bremmer after this. I’m going to skip number two.

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah. That’s cool.

Preet Bharara:

Because I think it shouldn’t be number two. I think it should be number three or lower.

Ian Bremmer:

Okay.

Preet Bharara:

Technopolar world. We’ll talk about tech in a moment and jump right to the third risk, which is… Doesn’t have a cute name. It’s just the US midterms, by which you’re referring to the midterm elections, which will be a precursor to the 2024 presidential election, which people are debating and wondering whether Donald Trump will run. And you say a few things here that strike me as internally inconsistent. So you say something here that some people would disagree with. Among them, you say that if Trump wins the race outright, many Democrats… Or he could cheat. But in either event, “Many Democrats would refuse to accept a second Trump term, rejecting the legitimacy of his election to an extent that would rival Republicans’ rejection of Biden.” I’m not sure that’s necessarily true.

Preet Bharara:

But before you address that, I want to read another sentence in which you say, “I’m not sure I agree with this. Another Trump presidency would not mark the end of American democracy, which is heartening to some people. But it would bring a weakened and ineffective federal bureaucracy, large-scale civil disobedience in the US, return to his erratic, isolationist foreign policy.” But in the very next column after saying in a way that is reassuring-

Ian Bremmer:

It gets worse.

Preet Bharara:

… that another Trump presidency would not mark the end of American democracy, you also say that Trump could steal the election and that the 2024 US presidential election can be stolen, leaving the nation with a president who was not chosen by the electors. And the impact would be profound. A nationwide crisis of political legitimacy could provoke domestic terrorism, create autonomous zones of protest around the country. Secessionist movements would gain steam in states such as Florida. But just going back to the core of this, if the 2024 US presidential election can be stolen, how do you square that with a Trump presidency not marking the end of American democracy? Wouldn’t it at least severely damage and undermine American democracy?

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah. I mean, look. I think that there’s a question of how far you want to go. I doubt that you and I disagree with the overall statement. It’s a question of shading. There is, I think, a big difference between Trump legitimately winning an election where a lot of Democrats say, “It was because of redistricting, because they changed a bit of rules, and there were some states that we don’t like the way they were handled,” and one that it’s clear that he lost, but it was stolen. I think those two things are very different in reality.

Preet Bharara:

But who’s going to be the… Is there going to be a neutral arbiter of that? Or it’s all going to be perception?

Ian Bremmer:

No. There won’t be a neutral arbiter. But there’s a big difference between the… I mean, if you look at 2016 and 2020, and we know that this has gotten worse over time, in 2016 you had a lot of people, a lot of Democrats that thought that the election was stolen and that didn’t want… Even though Hillary said she conceded and she called Trump and she congratulated him on the win.

Preet Bharara:

But that’s a huge difference.

Ian Bremmer:

Yes. As I said, it’s getting worse. I said even given that, there were still a lot of Democrats that said it was stolen. It was Russian disinformation. Stop.

Preet Bharara:

But they were not threatening violence. They didn’t-

Ian Bremmer:

No. That’s right. It got worse.

Preet Bharara:

… engage in insurrection.

Ian Bremmer:

That’s right.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah. Because their leader… I mean, look. There’s always going to be, or at least for the time being, a subset of people who think a particular thing, whether it’s that someone is legitimate or not legitimate, whether the Earth is round or flat. And you can extend that to a lot of different things. What’s different in the last couple of years from my perspective is you have people who have real power at the top levels of government who are embracing the crazy shit.

Ian Bremmer:

Yes. And that’s a big piece of why this is the number three risk, or you think the number two risk, in the report. No. My point is that even what happened in 2016… Before we get to 2020, what we had in 2016, I think a solid percentage and maybe a majority of Hillary voters believed that Trump was elected illegitimately, in large part because of Russia. I think they really believed that. They weren’t prepared to engage in violence. They weren’t prepared to support sedition. For me in my lifetime, that’s unprecedented until 2020.

Preet Bharara:

It’s a different sort of… Maybe these distinctions don’t matter except to people like us who appear on podcasts. But I don’t think people were arguing that Donald Trump got fewer votes electorally, right?

Ian Bremmer:

No. That’s right.

Preet Bharara:

That he won the states he won, but because he had an unfair advantage, an illegitimate advantage in some way. That’s quite different.

Ian Bremmer:

Because he colluded with the Russians. All I’m saying is that was itself unprecedented. I’m saying that the unprecedented territory for the de-legitimization of elections started in 2016. That was, if we were having the conversation then objectively-

Preet Bharara:

Do you think a lot of Democrats in 2000 thought that George W. Bush was elected legitimately?

Ian Bremmer:

No. No. 2000 was also pretty unusual, given that it came down to hanging chads and the partisan vote of a Supreme Court. But the country was so much less divided as a consequence of that that in relatively short order the country got through it, where in 2016, of course, this led to impeachment proceedings and the Muller hearings. And it went on and on for years. Right? So I do think that this was fundamentally a different thing because of the extant underlying politics and dysfunctionality that describes the US system in 2016, 2017. And then we get to 2020, which is yet another logarithmic step change in this issue. Right?

Preet Bharara:

Then you say this other crazy thing.

Ian Bremmer:

Okay. So we’re agreeing on this other point? Okay. Good. Good. Glad we’re done with that.

Preet Bharara:

I mean, I don’t think… It’s a matter of shading, as you said.

Ian Bremmer:

No. No, no, no.

Preet Bharara:

But you say this thing. And I get where you’re coming from. But it kind of hurts the ear. You say, “But what if Trump loses the election?”

Ian Bremmer:

It might even be worse. Yeah.

Preet Bharara:

“This outcome could be worse for the country.”

Ian Bremmer:

I hated writing that.

Preet Bharara:

“Because Trump would not go down without a fight. The US could end up with an election that’s either broken or stolen.”

Ian Bremmer:

I hated writing that.

Preet Bharara:

Well, you didn’t have to write it.

Ian Bremmer:

No, but it was my least favorite-

Preet Bharara:

You could have written it differently.

Ian Bremmer:

It was my least favorite sentence in the entire report. I agonized over that sentence, Preet.

Preet Bharara:

I paused on that sentence. I have underlined it. I have a star next to it. And that’s why I’m asking you about it. What are you talking about?

Ian Bremmer:

Well, you know what I’m talking about.

Preet Bharara:

Yes. But explain it a little bit more.

Ian Bremmer:

Oh, okay. You’re not confused. This is just for the audience.

Preet Bharara:

I’m not confused.

Ian Bremmer:

Okay.

Preet Bharara:

I’m just in some disagreement.

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah. I worry if we believe… And again, none of these are happy outcomes. But a legitimate Trump win, as dysfunctional as that would be, as problematic for US democracy, we know how uninterested he is in rule of law and in Constitutional norms-

Preet Bharara:

Not just uninterested. He’s violently against those things.

Ian Bremmer:

Yes. He strongly opposes them insofar as they work against his personal interests. So I mean, that’s unprecedented in US history. But an election that he loses but is able to effectively steal I think is clearly worse, because then you have… Not only is Trump president, but you’ve actually done enormous damage to the process and the institutions to get to that point. So you’ll have Trump as president without the institutional legitimacy, without the balance, the buffers, the constraints that came for his last four years. And I think that this is a plausible outcome. In the 24 years since I’ve had the firm, I’ve never written about anything that felt so dystopian and science fiction as a fully plausible 2025 scenario for the United States political system. And I know you and I worry about this a lot.

Preet Bharara:

I worry about it more than anything else. And you also include in this risk, as I alluded to a moment ago, the possibility of actual physical violence at a substantial level in America. Right?

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah. I mean, look. I think that part of the reason we had violence on January 6th is because a lot of Americans actually believed that the election was stolen. They believed Trump. They may not have been that bright. They may not have been that educated. But when their president and his party and the media, that’s all they listen to, is saying the election was stolen, and Mike Pence refuses to recognize that and is going to certify a fake outcome, they went and they marched. I think some of those people were legitimate patriots. They were very, very misled. And I absolutely believe that there are a lot of Americans on the Democratic side too that if they were to believe rightly that the election was physically stolen, they would take action. They would take action on state capitals. They would take action in Washington. And I don’t for a second believe that those demonstrations would stay peaceful. Not at all.

Preet Bharara:

We could talk about this for the rest of the show, but I want to jump to risk number five.

Ian Bremmer:

But you surely agree with that.

Preet Bharara:

I’m not sure I agree with the way you characterized some portion of those people as being true patriots. I think that’s a much larger debate, because patriotism to me requires learning about what’s going on in your country and not being beholden to BS that’s being spoonfed to you by one particular network. That doesn’t strike me as patriotism. But overall, the idea that there might be future violence and there’d be violence on the other side, depending on what the outcome is, yeah. That’s one of the things I’m afraid of.

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah. I mean, look. I agree with you on the one network thing. The problem is that I also think that generally speaking, we were brought up to say, “Yeah. You respect the office of the president.” And when the president is speaking, you generally pay attention to that. You put stock in those words. You don’t think that your president could be a pathological liar that would call on you, to exhort you to do things that would be anti-patriotic.

Ian Bremmer:

So it’s hard, right? We’re in unprecedented political landscape.

Preet Bharara:

I haven’t seen anybody write about this. But if you look at the evolution over the Trump presidency of how journalists described Trump, when they started using the word lie, when they started using the word mendacity and other things like that, it wasn’t at the beginning. It wasn’t. It took a while for traditional media to break with traditions. But those traditions existed because there was a certain tradition of behavior in the Oval Office.

Ian Bremmer:

That’s right.

Preet Bharara:

And so when someone at the outset tramples on that tradition, on those norms, it sometimes takes a little while for the other institutions to absorb that and to adapt themselves to the new reality. And that inured to the benefit of Donald Trump in a very big way.

Ian Bremmer:

And there were some people in institutions that decided to adapt in a different way.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah. No. Absolutely true.

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah.

Preet Bharara:

I want to get to Russia quickly.

Ian Bremmer:

Sure.

Preet Bharara:

The number five risk. So is Putin going into Ukraine? And if he does, what happens?

Ian Bremmer:

Well, Putin’s in Ukraine. He’s there right now. I mean, not personally, but he is. And so I think that we have a problem precisely because Putin, if he decides to escalate, is very unlikely to make the response easy on Biden. So here you have Russia saying that the status quo was unacceptable. NATO’s threatening him. Ukraine has invited NATO in. He wants security guarantees around Europe. He demands a meeting. And before we give him that meeting, we sit down with the Europeans and we say, “Okay. If he invades Ukraine, we’re not going to defend Ukraine. But here are all the bad things we will do to Putin.” So that pretty much says, “Putin, if you roll tanks and take more Ukrainian territory, that’s it. We’re going after you.”

Ian Bremmer:

Okay. What if Putin doesn’t do that? What if he does something else that looks like a win for him and is really problematic for us? What I’m thinking specifically is in the last few weeks, Putin has said that the Ukrainian government is committing genocide against Russian citizens in the Donbas. Now, the Donbas is a part of Ukrainian territory that has been occupied by irregular little green men, who are really Russian troops. But the Russians deny this, implausibly. What if the Russian government says, “Look. These citizens of Russia are being… They have passports. They’ve applied for citizenship, legally according to us. They’re being attacked and killed. And so we’re going to go in and defend those people.”

Ian Bremmer:

Now, would that be considered an invasion if Russia decides to formally annex Donbas after having a quick vote that they organized there the way they did with Crimea? The United States… I think the Biden administration would say yes. I think the Europeans who rely on Russia for trade and gas and investment and the rest, many of them would say no. And then we have a big problem. And I think Putin knows this. He knows that he has leverage in escalating, short of ways that would allow NATO to come together multilaterally with an extreme response that would hurt Russia. And that’s why I think this is a big risk.

Preet Bharara:

How quickly do you think this will play out?

Ian Bremmer:

Winter. If it happens, it happens in winter, first because the topography of Ukraine gets really hard for Russian movements once the ground gets soft. Secondly, because the relevance of Russia’s energy advantage when the weather is really cold and the Europeans have shortages makes them much want to avoid a crisis in the next couple months.

Preet Bharara:

Taking a step back, how do you evaluate the way that Biden has handled Putin and managed Russia in his first year?

Ian Bremmer:

I would probably say about a B. He recognizes that China’s the bigger issue. He sat down with Russia and gave him a significant red line around cyber attacks on critical infrastructure, particularly following the Colonial Pipeline hack. You’ll remember that.

Preet Bharara:

Yep.

Ian Bremmer:

The response to that from the Russian government was actually somewhat successful. It was clear that they told some of these criminal networks, “Here are things that you shouldn’t be attacking.” And I don’t know that we heard that from Russia. But I know that our signals intelligence got that from communications among those criminal networks themselves. So we did see those attacks get ramped down, and that was useful.

Ian Bremmer:

And frankly, since then, there haven’t been very significant challenges between the Russians and the United States until this Ukraine thing. Once the Ukraine thing came up, they… With the Russians clearly seeing an opportunity. Energy prices were higher. The Afghanistan debacle made the US look a little weaker. Had Merkel gone, so the potential for a Germany that might not be as willing to lead on the Ukraine issue. And indeed, Olaf Scholz, the new chancellor, just a couple days ago reached out to the Kremlin and suggested a direct call. I hope that will be well-coordinated with Biden, but this is… We haven’t seen this happen before, so we’ll see how Scholz acts. I think Putin has very good reasons to test all of this stuff.

Ian Bremmer:

Biden so far, he did a good early job in getting coordination with the Europeans. But I don’t think he’s done enough of it. And he certainly needs to make it more explicit about the kinds of escalation that I think is much more likely that we would see from Putin. That hasn’t happened yet. And maybe it hasn’t happened because they can’t get it. They’ve tried with the Europeans, and they’re not quite there. So I mean, I think this is a tough win to get right. In other words, Putin senses an opportunity, an advantage here in the near term. And that’s why he’s taking the decisions he’s taking. I think he’s acting quite rationally.

Preet Bharara:

Let me try to do one or two more risks before we run out of time.

Ian Bremmer:

Sure.

Preet Bharara:

Just quickly explain what’s number two and how the tech world is not governed properly, which I take to be the gist. And these mammoth tech companies have no interest in governing. And they are in direct competition with nation states, which is something we’ve never seen before. What’s the risk?

Ian Bremmer:

Well, let me first say that the reason why it’s number two and US midterms aren’t number two is because this report only focuses on 2022. So if we were focused on… If it was a three-year outlook, US would definitely be number two or even number one. Right? Because that’s when the risk plays out. But most of the midterm risk plays out after 2022. So you have to kind of be logical with the rules that you set.

Ian Bremmer:

The technopolar world is this idea that tech companies are functionally sovereign in the digital spaces they operate in, the virtual world. And I mean that in terms of personal and national security, with sanctity of data and cyber attacks. I mean that in terms of the digital economy and how we act on it and how money’s made. And I also mean in terms of the information that we receive on politics and on healthcare and the rest. And clearly, everyone is angry about the fact that these tech companies are not regulating this space well, and so democracy is getting weaker and people are getting angry. And we’re living in a constant state of low to high anxiety being driven and magnified by these companies.

Ian Bremmer:

And what we’re saying is that in 2022, this gets worse despite the fact that everyone is trying to rein in the tech companies and regulate them, even in China. The gap between tech company capabilities and power and what the governments are able to do as a rear guard action to restrain them, that gap is going to grow. That will cause more disinformation. It’ll cause more dangers in terms of cyber vulnerabilities. And it will weaken the legitimacy and effectiveness of government authority in big spaces that historically, they were dominant in.

Preet Bharara:

That’s a big topic, and I want to spend more time on that next time we have you on. But this is an interesting risk that maybe would be controversial in some circles. And I’d like you just to touch upon it and explain what you mean. It’s risk number nine, just ahead of Turkey, which you have at risk number 10. And risk number nine you’ve entitled Corporates Losing the Culture Wars. What are you talking about there?

Ian Bremmer:

It’s all of the political demands that are increasingly being put on CEOs to take a stand on the culture wars, the identity fights, diversity, human rights, free speech. I mean, when you’re in a world that is as divided as the US and China today, you’re in a country that’s as divided as red state versus blue state today, you’re a corporate CEO. You want to sell to US and China. You want to sell to red states and blue states. But suddenly, you’re being told that you have to be woke if you’re the MLB, and you got to move your All-Star Game because of what the politicians are doing in Georgia. Or you’ve-

Preet Bharara:

Why is that a risk?

Ian Bremmer:

It’s a risk because if you say yes, then the other side of the political aisle doesn’t want to work with you. They’re going to boycott. You say no, and the other side… I mean, so are you going to be the CEO-

Preet Bharara:

Isn’t that just capitalism?

Ian Bremmer:

Capitalism is saying that you’re going to pick red state or blue state and only sell to them?

Preet Bharara:

Capitalism is the preferences of customers and the preferences of investors. If they reach a certain threshold, we can decide to go along with their preferences or not. And there’s a cost in the market depending on the circumstances of offending a certain level of customer base or otherwise.

Ian Bremmer:

Well, sure.

Preet Bharara:

Right?

Ian Bremmer:

But if you’re in a position that you are going to… You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t for your basic product. So I mean, you think about a company like Walmart, which, big brand globally. Lots of sourcing of goods from China. Stores there. A critical employer of Americans in the United States. Iconic brand in the US. Do they not do any business in China? But if they do business, that’s a country that commits genocide against the Uyghurs. And so centers and the-

Preet Bharara:

There are some countries that don’t do business in China.

Ian Bremmer:

There are. But it’s the biggest-

Preet Bharara:

There’s a big tech company… A CEO told me a few years ago, and I respect, he’s like, “I will never do business in China because…” One problem is, and we’re seeing this play out in a lot of areas. And some athletes are having issues with this. Once you play in China and China gets worse and worse and worse-

Ian Bremmer:

It gets harder.

Preet Bharara:

… it gets harder. It gets harder.

Ian Bremmer:

What I guess I’m saying is what’s happening with the US and China, which is not new and is getting sharper and more difficult to do, even though the integration and the interdependence of the global economy is only growing, and the trade between the US and China is only growing. So it’s a bigger risk as a consequence. But this is also happening inside the United States. And that’s kind of new. American corporates didn’t usually have to decide between Starbucks and Black Rifle Coffee. You’d decide on the basis of what coffee you prefer the service of. Who’s more convenient? Who charges more? All of that kind of stuff. And now, it’s increasingly this is at least as much about how you navigate are you giving money to any of the congressmen that did or did not participate in certifying, not certifying the elections on January 6th? Huge problem.

Preet Bharara:

Part of the problem I have with the analysis in nine, it bites off a lot.

Ian Bremmer:

It does.

Preet Bharara:

And depending on the issue on which people are engaging in boycotts, it runs from the frivolous to the very, very important. Right?

Ian Bremmer:

Yes.

Preet Bharara:

So imagine another risk you’re talking about, climate change. If consumers decided that they don’t like the anti-green policies of a particular company that are… And imagine a situation which is very egregious. Those preferences may serve to mitigate a difference risk that’s of global consequence. And a company can decide to go along with it or not. You know what I mean? I feel like it’s sweeping too much into it.

Ian Bremmer:

Well, look. There’s no question that a lot of the risk comes out of legitimate social pressure for change. But that doesn’t make it any less of a risk in terms of how those businesses are going to operate and be successful over the course of the year.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah. I think we need to debate this a little bit more. But one final point on the China-US thing. You know who one of the worst Tweeters is on that platform?

Ian Bremmer:

One of the worst Tweeters? Ric Grenell.

Preet Bharara:

Well-

Ian Bremmer:

I know how you feel about Ric.

Preet Bharara:

I don’t even get into debates with him anymore. Yes. But someone who’s-

Ian Bremmer:

Give me another word so I can guess more at who you were thinking of.

Preet Bharara:

SOS.

Ian Bremmer:

SOS. SOS.

Preet Bharara:

State. State.

Ian Bremmer:

Oh, Department of State. What? You and Blinken?

Preet Bharara:

Pompeo.

Ian Bremmer:

Oh, Pompeo. Swagger. If you just said swagger, I would have said Mike Pompeo. No, now that he’s lost 75 pounds, he’s a new man. It’s like him and Kim Jong Un are competing this year. It’s extraordinary.

Preet Bharara:

He looks like… Who’s the guy who ran for president? Rhodes Scholar and general. Wes…

Ian Bremmer:

Clark?

Preet Bharara:

Wes Clark, some people say.

Ian Bremmer:

He looks a lot better. I mean, there’s no question there.

Preet Bharara:

But, so let’s stick to substance, Ian.

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah.

Preet Bharara:

He Tweeted the other day-

Ian Bremmer:

It’s a lot less substance.

Preet Bharara:

He Tweeted the other day, “China is our adversary and has every intention of taking down our republic,” which, whatever. I don’t even know how to characterize that. You replied, “Which sounds horrifying until you realize this would also destroy China’s own economy.” I found that to be not clever, but profound.

Ian Bremmer:

Thank you, I think.

Preet Bharara:

Is that why we’re safe? Is that why we’re okay?

Ian Bremmer:

Of course. I mean, the fact that… One of the reasons why the US-Russia relationship in the near term has much more crisis baked in is because there’s very little interdependence. So we can threaten to really destroy the Russian economy with no consequences to us, unless they actually escalate and hit us back. I mean, why Trump could decide to assassinate Soleimani the head of the Iranian defense corps was because we don’t care about Iran. We couldn’t do that to China. And China can’t do that to us, because it’d be cutting off our own foot. I think that actually creates much more stability in the relationship. And people that talk about the necessity of decoupling really don’t appreciate the importance of a level of interdependence in ensuring stability in the relationship, the most important geopolitical relationship in the world, by the way.

Preet Bharara:

Ian Bremmer.

Ian Bremmer:

Yes.

Preet Bharara:

Eurasia Group.

Ian Bremmer:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Preet Bharara:

Top Risks 2022. We are going to hold you to these. And we’ll have you on later in ’22. But next year, we’re going to see how you do.

Ian Bremmer:

Most importantly, the most frequent guest.

Preet Bharara:

Oh, yes. You are the most frequent guest we’ve ever had. I call you our Regis Philbin.

Ian Bremmer:

Which makes me so happy.

Preet Bharara:

Ian Bremmer, AKA-

Ian Bremmer:

Isn’t he dead, though?

Preet Bharara:

Yeah, but he lived a very long time.

Ian Bremmer:

He lived. Lived. He’s dead now. I don’t want to be the Regis Philbin now. That sounds horrible. Can’t I be someone else that’s still alive?

Preet Bharara:

No. You can’t. You can’t.

Ian Bremmer:

No? Okay.

Preet Bharara:

You’re Regis Philbin. I’m sorry.

Ian Bremmer:

Okay.

Preet Bharara:

Thanks for being on the show, Ian. Have a great year.

Ian Bremmer:

All right, Preet. Love you, man.

Preet Bharara:

My conversation with Ian Bremmer continues for members of the CAFE Insider community. To try out the membership free for two weeks, head to CAFE.com/Insider. Again, that’s CAFE.com/Insider.

Preet Bharara:

So we’re a few days into the New Year, and I wanted to say I hope you all had a safe and enjoyable New Year. I want to spend a minute talking about this somewhat stressful tradition we have called New Year’s resolutions. In years past, I have made resolutions. The first time I was Tweeting from my personal account at the end of 2017, I even shared some of my resolutions with the public.

Preet Bharara:

This is one that the team reminded me of. December 31st, 2017, I said, “Happy New Year, everyone. Still trying to come up with resolutions. My daughter just suggested, ‘How about write better Tweets?’ Point taken.” So I have tried. I don’t know if I have succeeded. Then in more earnest fashion, I made a resolution as follows. “Don’t let anyone else tell you how to love America.” I also resolved to, “Respond to stupidity with humor, not anger.”

Preet Bharara:

At the end of 2018 after I handed in the draft of my book, my first New Year’s resolution was, “Do not write a book in 2019. Rest on your laurels.” I had a very specific resolution as well in 2019 relating to this podcast that you’re listening to, which was to, “Find, read, and interview more great historians like this extraordinary gentleman.” And I posted a picture of Robert Carroll, who I interviewed that year.

Preet Bharara:

I made some resolutions again in 2019. One of them was, “Never become a political columnist.” I also Tweeted this. “Here’s an overlapping and also contradictory cluster of New Year’s resolutions. Be more zen. Be more angry. Be angry about the right things.” I still believe in that one.

Preet Bharara:

And then in early 2020, a little belatedly, I made another resolution following the loss of my friend the iconic Knopf publisher Sonny Mehta, who I was supposed to get a drink with, but we never got around to it. And so I said, “My chief resolution for the New Year is never to have that type of regret again. Make time for people. Nobody lives forever.” And then of course, the pandemic came. And so that became a resolution hard to live up to.

Preet Bharara:

So fast-forward to the end of 2021 a few days ago. And I thought to myself, “What resolutions might I make?” And maybe some of you were in the same boat. And I just wasn’t feeling it. Maybe it’s a function of all the things that are going on, COVID, the state of our democracy, and just some kind of exhaustion. So I put the question to my Twitter followers. “Are we doing resolutions this year or skipping?” And 2,000 people replied, and the response was a little bit surprising to me. The clear, strong consensus was skip. The legendary Nancy Sinatra summed up the collective mood quite well. She wrote, “I’m too tired.”

Preet Bharara:

Some people had lazy suggestions. One of the first people to reply was Ian Bremmer, who said, “I hereby resolve to kick off the year with a Preet podcast.” Well, that was cheating because he was already scheduled, as you know. Comedian Kathy Griffin had this kind of resolution, which was, “I think we should cohost.” And by we, I think she meant her and me. “I think we should cohost New Year’s Eve on the roof of the Supreme Court.” I don’t know how many eyeballs that would draw, but it would certainly draw Capitol security.

Preet Bharara:

Many, many people said simply their resolution was to survive. Notably, though, a lot of folks focused on, I think, what is the most important thing going on right now in our country, the importance of getting involved in the upcoming election. One person Tweeted, “My 2022 resolution is to be boots on the ground for the 2022 elections to find others that share that goal.”

Preet Bharara:

This week on the CAFE Insider podcast, I asked my cohost Joyce Vance if she was tired of making resolutions. Or had she made any? And she said, “Just one.” And I found what she said pretty eloquent, and so let me share it with you. She said, “I actually did make a resolution. I’m not a huge fan of resolutions. I’m not a, ‘Oh, I’m going to lose 30 pounds this year and run a marathon,’ kind of person. But seriously, all joking aside, something that always troubles me is when we talk about democracy, the future of our country, and talk about the need to get to work.

Preet Bharara:

“And a lot of people will have the question of, ‘Well, what can I do? I’m sitting in Birmingham, Alabama. What role can I play?’ And so one of my goals for this year is, specifically when it comes to voting and to election rights, is to try to help connect people with opportunities to play a role, whatever role they’re interested in playing and wherever they are, but to think about how we can all be more active participants in democracy.” And on the spot, I joined her and adopted that resolution for myself.

Preet Bharara:

I learned a couple of things about resolutions and this tradition. They’re apparently very difficult to adhere to. The University of Scranton found at least 40% of people in the US set New Year’s resolutions, while 22% in the UK aim for self-improvement with a resolution. And this research will not surprise you, that 80% of people break their resolutions by the first week of February. So resolutions I think are good if you’re up for it. But keep your expectations reasonable. If you chose not to make a resolution this year, know that you’re not alone. And if you did make a resolution and you follow through on it, that’s something to be pretty proud of.

Preet Bharara:

I have one more resolution as I think about it. We at CAFE are going to keep making this show every week and cover all the ups and all the downs. And as long as you are listening, we’ll keep producing. On behalf of all of us at CAFE, we wish you a meaningful, peaceful, safe, and healthy 2022. Well, that’s it for this episode of Stay Tuned. Thanks again to my guest Ian Bremmer.

Preet Bharara:

If you like what we do, rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Every positive review helps new listeners find the show. Send me your questions about news, politics, and justice. Tweet them to me @PreetBharara with the hashtag #AskPreet. Or you can call and leave me a message at 669-247-7338. That’s 669-24-PREET. Or you can send an email to letters@CAFE.com.

Preet Bharara:

Stay Tuned is presented by CAFE and the Vox Media Podcast Network. The executive producer is Tamara Sepper. The technical director is David Tatasciore. The senior producers are Adam Waller and Matthew Billy. And the CAFE team is David Kurlander, Sam Ozer-Staton, Noa Azulai, Nat Weiner, Jake Kaplan, Chris Boylan, Sean Walsh, and Namita Shah. Our music is by Andrew Dast. I’m your host, Preet Bharara. Stay Tuned.