Top Geopolitical Risks of 2025 — with Ian Bremmer

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0:01:18 Episode 331
0:01:21 331 is the area for the West Suburbs of Chicago in 1931.
0:01:23 The Empire State Building opened in New York City.
0:01:27 It took a year to build the Empire State Building.
0:01:30 It took eight years to build an extension for the Seven-Line Subway.
0:01:37 And last night, it took one man about 17 minutes to pee.
0:01:47 Go, go, go!
0:01:50 Welcome to the 331st episode of the Prop G Pod.
0:01:56 The dog is back, it’s 2025.
0:02:02 Okay, onto today’s episode, we’re going to speak with Ian Bremmer, the president and
0:02:06 founder of Eurasia Group, the world’s leading political research and consulting firm.
0:02:10 Ian is to prop G what Alec Baldwin is to SNL.
0:02:17 Alec Baldwin has appeared on SNL 52 times and 17 times as a host.
0:02:20 By the way, I am the COVID Alec Baldwin of the Bill Maher Show.
0:02:26 During COVID, I was on Bill Maher four times, I’ve been on a total of five times.
0:02:28 I was on most recently, but technically, I guess it wasn’t COVID.
0:02:31 But I was sort of there, COVID ho.
0:02:32 That’s right.
0:02:37 Anyways, in today’s episode, we speak with Ian about the top risks for 2025.
0:02:41 These risks include a breakdown of the global order, Trump’s return to office along with
0:02:44 escalating tensions between major powers all over the world.
0:02:45 What’s happening?
0:02:46 What’s going on?
0:02:53 What’s the 411 in 2025, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued an advisory warning
0:02:58 that alcohol consumption is a leading cause of cancer.
0:03:02 The Surgeon General is calling for the U.S. to add cancer warning labels to alcoholic
0:03:04 drinks similar to the ones on cigarettes.
0:03:09 He said that alcohol is responsible for about 100,000 cases and 20,000 deaths annually in
0:03:14 the U.S. and ranks as the third leading preventable cause of cancer in the U.S. following tobacco
0:03:15 and obesity.
0:03:17 I bet obesity is number one now.
0:03:23 This is greater than the 13,000 alcohol-associated traffic crash fatalities that occur each year.
0:03:27 According to Surgeon General Murthy, even in small amounts, alcohol can increase the
0:03:30 risk of developing breast, colon, liver, and other cancers.
0:03:31 Oh my gosh.
0:03:38 So first off, Surgeon General Murthy is the most consequential Surgeon General in history.
0:03:42 And for all of the, I don’t know, consensual hallucination and narcissism that surrounded
0:03:47 the Biden campaign believing that he was the right guy to run again, you have to hand it,
0:03:52 I believe, to the Biden administration for appointing talented people, not people who
0:03:59 think that the polio vaccine is dangerous or that they write children’s books saying,
0:04:03 talking about retribution against political enemies and that they’re going to head the
0:04:04 FBI.
0:04:08 I mean, Jesus Christ, if Dancing with the Stars invited lower IQ, more dangerous people
0:04:09 on the show.
0:04:13 That could be the current Trump administration appointees.
0:04:14 What were we thinking?
0:04:15 Literally, no.
0:04:16 What are they thinking?
0:04:18 Anyway, no for that.
0:04:21 I always promised myself I’m going to be less political on the shows.
0:04:23 Broken promises to myself.
0:04:26 I also thought, I also said I’m going to be kinder to myself and I’m going to love myself
0:04:28 more and I’m going to allow myself to be happy.
0:04:34 Well, that shit hasn’t panned out either, although I’m doing the straw breathing method.
0:04:38 Yeah, that shit doesn’t work.
0:04:44 My method for anxiety is what I call pirony and Xanax or as I like to call it, panics.
0:04:47 By the way, I had a breathing coach last night and went to this place and this guy taught
0:04:48 me how to breathe.
0:04:52 I’m sitting there thinking, this is getting me fucking anxious and angry.
0:04:53 I used to know how to breathe on my own.
0:04:55 I used to not have to think about it.
0:04:57 Now it’s another thing I got to think about.
0:05:00 Seriously, breathing class made me angry, intense.
0:05:01 Enough of this shit.
0:05:04 I think there’s self-care and there’s self-love is more self-hate from rich people looking
0:05:09 for reasons, I don’t know, to punish themselves under the delusion or the illusion they’re
0:05:10 going to live to be 100.
0:05:12 No, you’re not Tom Cruise.
0:05:17 He is going to live to be 100 and he’s going to be sexy as hell, but not you.
0:05:20 You’re going to look like just an old person and then we’re going to die.
0:05:23 Anyways, back to dying early, alcohol.
0:05:28 This is fascinating and it’s causing huge ripples on a number of levels.
0:05:33 Some data, 70% of Americans consume alcohol, but a recent survey found that only 45% of
0:05:36 people believe alcohol can cause cancer.
0:05:40 The US has ranked 35th in the world in alcohol consumption per capita and fourth in the world
0:05:43 in age-standardized cancer rates.
0:05:49 According to Gallup, just 58% of Americans were drinkers in 2024, that’s a 28-year low.
0:05:53 Studies show Gen Z drinks approximately 20% less alcohol than millennials.
0:05:55 In other words, this is really fucking ugly.
0:05:57 This is like cable TV, right?
0:06:02 Look at the average age of an MSNBC viewer, they’re dead and as you go lower and lower
0:06:05 and lower, younger and younger and younger, people don’t even own TVs, much less watch
0:06:08 cable television, and it’s the same with alcohol.
0:06:12 The writing is on the wall here, folks, young people are not drinking alcohol.
0:06:17 You can see evidence of this shift on dating apps, I love this, 72% or almost three-quarters
0:06:21 of Tinder members said they don’t drink or only drink occasionally on their profiles
0:06:25 and 75% of global hinge singles say getting drinks is no longer their preferred first
0:06:26 date activity.
0:06:27 Wow, that’s wild.
0:06:32 One of my most popular TikToks is, “I think young people should drink more.”
0:06:35 I don’t see drunkenness, I see togetherness.
0:06:38 My advice to young people is to go out and drink more and make a series of bad decisions
0:06:40 in my payoff.
0:06:49 I think that we need more togetherness, more people, more sex, more random encounters,
0:06:53 and absolutely people need to be in the company of strangers more and more, and I think young
0:06:54 men are sequestering.
0:07:01 We’re turning into a different species of asexual, socially isolated, lonely people
0:07:06 who become shitty citizens, and when women don’t have a romantic relationship, they reinvest
0:07:10 in work and they’re friends, when men don’t have a relationship, they tend to just go
0:07:12 down a rabbit hole.
0:07:15 No, what do I mean by that?
0:07:19 If you have a problem in alcohol consumption and you need to be cognizant of any substance
0:07:25 intake, yeah, be thoughtful and ask your friends and you don’t use it as a crutch, but for
0:07:30 the most part, I think the majority of young people can process alcohol, can handle it,
0:07:35 and I believe, and I’ve said this, that my kind of tongue-in-cheek advice to young people
0:07:39 is that they should go out more, get out of the house more, drink more, and make a series
0:07:41 of bad decisions that might pay off.
0:07:46 Some of my, basically, the majority of my really strong relationships, my friendships
0:07:52 and my romantic relationships, have involved alcohol, and while doctors Atia and Huberman,
0:07:56 correctly you could argue, see drunkenness among young people, I see togetherness.
0:08:00 I think a bigger threat to younger people is not alcohol.
0:08:02 It’s sequestering from each other.
0:08:03 Look at what’s happening.
0:08:09 Molson Coors is down 10% their stock price, ABM Bev is down 25%, they’ve lost a quarter
0:08:10 of their value.
0:08:13 By the way, ABM Bev is one of the best-run companies in the drinks industry.
0:08:14 These people are smart.
0:08:17 Heineken is down 29%.
0:08:23 This is in the face of 23% up in the markets, right?
0:08:29 London’s spirits company Diageo is down 12%, US whiskey maker Brown Forman is down 34%.
0:08:30 They make Jack Daniels.
0:08:35 I used to drink Jack and Coke and then I figured out that all that sugar and all that alcohol
0:08:36 is probably not very good for me.
0:08:39 God, just saying that, I’m salivating.
0:08:40 I love Jack and Coke.
0:08:42 And then I got fancy and I started ordering makers and Coke.
0:08:44 Anyways, enough of my alcoholism.
0:08:45 What are they doing about this?
0:08:48 They’re leaning into the growing trend of non-alcoholic beverages.
0:08:49 These are smart people.
0:08:54 Global sales of non-alcoholic drinks hit nearly 20 billion in 2023, doubling in size over
0:08:55 the last five years.
0:09:00 The non-alcoholic market grew about 20% last year compared to just 8% for alcoholic drinks.
0:09:05 Big brands, including Diageo and LVMH are getting into the alcohol free market.
0:09:08 Diageo made a non-alcoholic Captain Morgan.
0:09:09 Jesus, that sounds awful.
0:09:15 And about Ritual, LVMH has taken a minority stake in French Bloom, a non-alcoholic sparkling
0:09:16 wine.
0:09:20 Actually, that’s probably a pretty decent idea for a startup, some sort of cool, well-branded
0:09:24 non-alcoholic drink that feels aspirational or has some sort of, whatever, NAD or something
0:09:27 that makes you younger, faster, smarter.
0:09:30 Non-alcoholic beer leads the market, though, with brands, including Heineken.
0:09:33 It’s paying off, according to the economists, non-alcoholic drinks are more profitable than
0:09:35 alcoholic drinks.
0:09:39 That’s because their price nearly the same as regular drinks, but taxed at a much lower
0:09:40 rate.
0:09:43 I love the thought that bars are really being sympathetic to people who are not drinking
0:09:45 by offering them $14 mocktails.
0:09:50 Anyways, let me just finish where I began here, and that is you need to constantly take an
0:09:56 audit of what substances or what behaviors you’re engaging in that are damaging the other
0:09:57 parts of your life.
0:09:58 That’s kind of the definition of addiction.
0:10:02 You continue to do something despite the fact that it’s bad for the other parts of your
0:10:03 life.
0:10:10 We do believe that young people need to get out and engage in some bad decisions.
0:10:16 We’ll be right back for our conversation with Ian Bremmer.
0:10:18 Support for the show comes from Nerd Wallet.
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0:12:50 Welcome back.
0:12:54 I’m Ian Bremmer, the president and founder of Eurasia Group, the world’s leading political
0:12:56 risk research and consulting firm.
0:12:59 Ian, where does this podcast find you?
0:13:01 I’m in New York in our new headquarters.
0:13:03 Okay, let’s bust right into it.
0:13:07 Eurasia Group’s top risk report for 2025 is out.
0:13:10 In the report, you say we are heading back to the law of the jungle.
0:13:11 That’s dramatic.
0:13:15 We’re the strongest do what they can, while the weakest are condemned to suffer what they
0:13:16 must.
0:13:18 What did you mean by that?
0:13:26 For the last 35 years, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the fall of the wall,
0:13:33 we talked at least nominally about the idea that we’re living in an increasingly globalized
0:13:40 world, that the United States is a democracy that supports rule of law around the world,
0:13:45 supports other democracies, collective security, all of those things.
0:13:48 And yet the reality is that order is breaking down.
0:13:51 It’s breaking down for a lot of reasons.
0:13:56 It’s breaking down because the Russians are not a part of the West.
0:13:58 They’re in decline structurally.
0:13:59 They’re really angry about it.
0:14:05 They blame the U.S. and they’ve now alliance up with North Korea and Iran, and they’re pretty
0:14:07 friendly with China too.
0:14:10 So that’s an incredibly dangerous place for the world to be.
0:14:12 It’s not something we had to deal with 10 or 20 years ago.
0:14:13 Now we do.
0:14:18 We’ve got China, second most powerful country in the world, but they’re not aligning with
0:14:20 the United States.
0:14:26 They’re actually becoming, in many ways, a more consolidated dictatorship under Xi Jinping.
0:14:28 And they’re putting more pressure on the private sector.
0:14:34 They’re supporting more privately owned national champions and state capitalist state-owned
0:14:35 enterprises.
0:14:40 And so that’s causing much more conflict in the most important geopolitical relationship
0:14:41 in the world.
0:14:49 Most importantly, the U.S. in particular has just fundamentally rejected the idea that
0:14:55 we’re going to be global leaders supporting rule of law and multilateral institutions.
0:14:56 It’s America first, baby.
0:14:59 It’s our way or the highway.
0:15:03 And we’re going to tell other countries that you’re going to work with us and do the things
0:15:07 we want our way, or there’s going to be hell to pay.
0:15:14 And so, yeah, that sounds a lot like a reversion to the law of the jungle, that the powerful
0:15:18 and strongest countries and people get to do what they want.
0:15:24 I think Trump is much more of a winner than he is a leader.
0:15:28 I think that Elon is much more of a winner than he is a leader.
0:15:29 What do you mean by that?
0:15:34 Well, leaders are people that in their organizations, they bring people together.
0:15:38 So if you’re the leader of the United States, all American citizens look and they say, this
0:15:42 is my leader, your leader corporation, all of the all the people in that corporation say,
0:15:43 this is my leader.
0:15:47 If you’re a winner, right, you divide your winner.
0:15:50 There are other winners and then there are losers, right?
0:15:57 And I really think that that is a fundamental challenge that American democracy has and
0:16:04 American capitalism has, that we’ve moved away from being a country of leaders that
0:16:10 are trying to make a difference for their fellow man and woman and fellow citizens in
0:16:11 the world.
0:16:16 And instead, we’re winning individually, but we’re very tribal.
0:16:22 We’re very divided, including inside our own country and with our allies.
0:16:25 And that makes the world a much more dangerous place.
0:16:28 And if you’re a loser, you got to suck it up.
0:16:32 You got to accept the rules that the winners are making, right?
0:16:33 Because they won.
0:16:37 So, I mean, you know, if you’re Mark Zuckerberg, you know, you better, you better change your
0:16:42 attitude, my friend, because it’s not about how successful you’ve been.
0:16:44 It’s about are you on board with the winners, right?
0:16:46 I mean, and that’s true for everybody.
0:16:50 If you’re, if you’re the French, the Germans, the Brits, you know, you better get on board.
0:16:53 If you’re the Canadians, right, I mean, Trudeau just resigned.
0:16:55 And he resigned a little faster because he screwed up with Trump.
0:16:56 Yeah, I think so.
0:16:57 I think Trump pushed him.
0:17:02 I mean, he was shot in the face by, by Christian Freeland, his deputy prime minister, but
0:17:08 he was still on life support until Trump shivved him, and, and now he’s out, you know.
0:17:12 So, I think there’s a lot of that happening in the world today, geopolitically as well
0:17:13 as in your world, Scott.
0:17:18 So, just a couple of theses I want you to respond to or get your reaction.
0:17:22 In terms of the law of the jungle, my sense is we’re the king of the jungle, we being
0:17:23 the U.S.
0:17:26 And that is, I look at our enemies slash adversaries.
0:17:32 So, let’s start with Iran, Russia and North Korea.
0:17:33 And so-
0:17:34 You can throw China in too if you want to.
0:17:37 Well, I think of China, I’ll come back to that, but I think China is what I call an
0:17:38 adversary or a competitor, but not our enemy.
0:17:39 I completely agree.
0:17:42 It’s a different category, but it’s interesting because they’re weaker now than they were
0:17:43 a couple of years ago.
0:17:44 A hundred percent.
0:17:47 So, this is your, this is the thesis and you respond to it.
0:17:50 In terms of our enemies, we’re kicking their ass.
0:17:54 And that is, Iran’s air defenses have been penetrated by Israel.
0:18:00 Their proxies, the Houthis, Hamas and Hezbollah have had their hands cut off.
0:18:01 Ben Assad’s gone.
0:18:02 Ben Assad’s gone.
0:18:09 Basically, kind of the ally of Russia has had to flee to Russia because of a collapse
0:18:10 there.
0:18:15 Russia is bogged down in a war, they were not expecting to go this long with these types
0:18:16 of results.
0:18:21 And let’s move to, as you said, our competitor/adversary, not our enemy.
0:18:27 Their economy has just been underwhelming the last 10 years whereas ours has accelerated.
0:18:29 I mean, it’s better to be lucky than good.
0:18:36 I see Trump as inheriting the strongest hand he could have in America on almost every dimension
0:18:39 other than the fact we hate each other.
0:18:43 And a lot of our prosperity is not being distributed equally.
0:18:48 On a balanced scorecard, on a relative scorecard, we are kicking everyone’s ass.
0:18:49 Your thoughts.
0:18:55 First, let me add to your list, because you mentioned enemies and adversary/competitor.
0:18:58 And I do think that’s the right way to put it.
0:19:05 I think China is not the axis of evil or a pariah state the way that the North Koreans,
0:19:07 Russians, and Iranians are.
0:19:11 Those are chaos actors that want to destroy the international system, they want to defeat
0:19:12 the Americans.
0:19:16 And the Chinese actually need a stable global economy to prosper themselves.
0:19:20 So even if they would like to defeat the Americans, they know that that doesn’t actually work
0:19:21 with their system.
0:19:28 But in addition to that, America’s allies are also weaker, technologically much weaker.
0:19:32 I mean, you think about where the Americans are in terms of entrepreneurship and semiconductors
0:19:36 and AI and all these new companies and the markets and the strength of the dollar.
0:19:37 Where are the Europeans?
0:19:38 Where are the Japanese?
0:19:39 Where are the South Koreans?
0:19:40 Where are the Canadians?
0:19:42 The answer is nowhere.
0:19:47 And the governments are so weak, the U.S. has just elected Trump.
0:19:55 And unlike last time around, with Biden winning on January 6, I mean, Trump has a mandate.
0:19:58 And unlike 2017, Trump has coattails.
0:20:02 I mean, the Republicans see that they need him, not the other way around.
0:20:04 So he’s appointed a whole bunch of loyalists.
0:20:10 You don’t have any Rex Tillerson’s in this group, no Jim Mattis in this group, no Nikki
0:20:12 Haley in this group.
0:20:14 So no Mike Pence in this group, right?
0:20:18 So he’s consolidated, he’s strong.
0:20:20 He’s willing to use American power.
0:20:24 And America’s allies are incredibly weak.
0:20:25 Their governments are falling apart.
0:20:30 South Korea, Germany, France, Canada, all of these countries.
0:20:35 So everywhere you look, the United States is stronger.
0:20:42 Now I also think at home, the U.S. is not in decline.
0:20:44 Not at all.
0:20:45 People still want to come to America.
0:20:47 The American economy is doing very well.
0:20:48 America military is doing well.
0:20:51 It’s technology is doing very well.
0:20:55 But of course you said, except the fact that we hate each other, not just that, not just
0:21:00 that Scott, except the fact that our political system is increasingly not representative.
0:21:04 It’s increasingly captured by money and special interests.
0:21:10 The U.S. system is increasingly a two-tier system, and it’s not Democrats versus Republicans.
0:21:14 It’s access to power versus no access to power, right?
0:21:22 And that is uniquely dysfunctional in the context of advanced industrial democracies.
0:21:28 So you’ve got a political system that is not working, that is arguably in crisis.
0:21:34 I mean, if Narendra Modi, who is the most popular democratically elected leader of
0:21:40 a large country in the world today, okay, Bukele and El Salvador, hasn’t beat.
0:21:47 But in a big country, if he were to have a phone call or meetings with heads of state
0:21:55 and CEOs and bring in Gautam Adani, you and I would rightly state this country is an oligarchy.
0:22:01 It’s a kleptocracy, and yet that’s precisely what’s happening with Trump and Elon right
0:22:03 now, and it’s completely normalized.
0:22:09 So I do think that we can’t just say, well, with the exception of the fact that we hate
0:22:14 each other and the political system doesn’t work, actually, that’s a pretty cool thing
0:22:18 about the United States is the fact that the U.S. has a political system that other countries
0:22:21 are supposed to admire, are supposed to be more aligned with.
0:22:25 They’ve got values that set the standards for the rest of the world.
0:22:29 Rule of law is something that the rest of the world wants to be a part of.
0:22:34 Our worldview is supposed to be the dominant collective worldview.
0:22:36 That’s not true anymore.
0:22:38 So we’re very powerful.
0:22:43 And in the law of the jungle, we’re the big ape, absolutely.
0:22:51 But the law of the jungle is a much more brutal, nasty and dangerous place than a world that
0:22:58 has laws and accountability and responsibility and institutions and architecture that the
0:23:03 United States is leading with its allies and trying to get other countries to increasingly
0:23:04 align with it.
0:23:05 It’s a radically different place.
0:23:10 You bring up an interesting thought, and that is, we’re now 50% of the world’s market
0:23:12 capitalization, our stocks.
0:23:15 There’s one company in the U.S. that is more valuable than every stock market, with the
0:23:18 exception of Japan.
0:23:23 But if there is a global crisis that emerges, as strong as we are, we just can’t go it
0:23:24 alone.
0:23:25 We need allies.
0:23:32 And I don’t care if it’s World War II or repelling a Saddam out of Kuwait, whatever it might
0:23:35 be, even addressing COVID.
0:23:37 There needs to be global cooperation.
0:23:39 There needs to be a certain level of goodwill.
0:23:41 There needs to be alliances.
0:23:46 And I think first and foremost, I think of how successful NATO has been keeping the peace
0:23:48 since World War II.
0:23:53 Is it fair to say that those alliances have been dramatically frayed thereby making it
0:23:57 a more dangerous world for America despite its strength?
0:24:00 That’s an interesting question, Scott.
0:24:07 On the one hand, the level of trust of American allies for the United States that the U.S.
0:24:13 would be there when push comes to shove has eroded dramatically.
0:24:24 So there, if a collective security is in somehow fundamentally based on the notion that you
0:24:31 believe in each other, you’re accountable for each other, I think it has weakened.
0:24:37 On the other hand, the Europeans are spending a lot more on defense now than they were.
0:24:41 And the Japanese are spending a lot more on defense now than they were.
0:24:47 And Mark Rutte, the new Secretary General of NATO, former Prime Minister of the Netherlands,
0:24:54 is now working with the Europeans to move to 3 percent GDP spend on defense, which they’re
0:25:00 doing outside of the EU mechanisms so that the Hungarians can’t veto it, which means
0:25:01 they are moving.
0:25:06 I think that’s going to happen, which means that they’re going to be in all likelihood
0:25:11 by the end of the Trump administration, the Europeans will be paying about as much percentage
0:25:14 of GDP on defense as the Americans do.
0:25:16 So that’s a stronger NATO.
0:25:22 And I mean, when Trump demands that NATO allies spend more on defense, that’s not a pro-Putin
0:25:23 message.
0:25:27 That’s the exact opposite of what Putin wants them to do.
0:25:29 So it’s kind of interesting, right?
0:25:34 I mean, in the same way that America is not in decline, but its political system is, the
0:25:42 alliances, like the soft power, the willingness to engage with each other on the basis of
0:25:47 we like you, we trust you, this matters to us, that has eroded a lot.
0:25:52 And yet with America as a much more powerful country that other countries have to align
0:25:57 with or else, you know, actually the Americans can drive a lot more.
0:26:03 And so, you know, you saw this in our risk report, we have red herrings at the end, things
0:26:07 that people think are going to happen that we think will not.
0:26:09 And one of our herrings was Trump fails.
0:26:15 And, you know, you see this a lot in the mainstream media, this guy’s a buffoon, he’s incompetent,
0:26:16 you know, he only cares about himself.
0:26:18 So of course, he’s going to fail all over the place.
0:26:19 We don’t think so.
0:26:23 We think that Trump is going to say a whole bunch of stuff and people are going to get
0:26:24 on board.
0:26:25 They’re going to align with him.
0:26:29 I mean, if you think that Facebook and Apple are kissing his ass in Mar-a-Lago, that’s
0:26:34 nothing compared to how foreign governments who are aligned with the United States and
0:26:38 know they can’t afford to do anything else, the Mexicans, you know, the Europeans, they’re
0:26:42 going to want to find a way to ensure they don’t have a crisis with this guy.
0:26:47 So he’s going to have a lot of wins in the early stages.
0:26:54 It’s interesting because to be fair, I think what you’re saying is Trump’s, I don’t know,
0:27:02 I wouldn’t call it a middle finger, but his rolling his eyes or his lack of fear of saying
0:27:08 aggressive things about allies has resulted in an increase in spending, which should,
0:27:14 if you will, we still might be the world’s policemen, but other people are now buying
0:27:20 their own squad cars, that this has been a direct positive result of Trump’s actions
0:27:25 or adversarial tone of complexion with our allies, do you agree?
0:27:30 I do, I do, but also I would say that the gap is big.
0:27:37 It’s going to take a long time for them to spend at that level to get close to capabilities
0:27:38 to really defend themselves.
0:27:44 This is not going to get resolved in four years, even if their level of spending at that point
0:27:46 percentage-wise is equivalent to the U.S.
0:27:50 And some countries are already there, the Baltics, Poland, you know, some of the Nordics,
0:27:51 that kind of thing.
0:27:57 But also there’s a question of the fact that the Americans have the capacity to be a global
0:28:01 policeman, even with support, Trump has no interest in doing that, right?
0:28:07 I mean, Trump was the one that cut the deal with the Taliban that Biden then executed on.
0:28:13 Syria, you know, you’ve got a government that’s now in place in Syria that’s very unlikely
0:28:21 going to be able to stabilize that incredibly complex and volatile territory.
0:28:24 You’ve got over 2,000 U.S. troops stationed in Syria right now.
0:28:26 Trump doesn’t want to keep those troops there.
0:28:30 If Trump pulls them out, it’s not like France is going to send those troops.
0:28:32 It’s not like the U.K. is.
0:28:36 It’s much more likely that the Turks are going to be on the ground.
0:28:40 They’re going to hit the Kurds hard.
0:28:47 No longer jailing ISIS on the ground, and the potential for that to become fertile for
0:28:49 a new caliphate is real.
0:28:58 So, I mean, the absence of the U.S. as a willing policeman will save American taxpayers.
0:29:05 It will put fewer lives at risk, but it will lead to more ungoverned spaces.
0:29:10 It will lead to more depredation, more forced migration, that will affect other countries
0:29:15 to a much greater degree to the U.S. because the U.S. is geographically very well located
0:29:21 and between Canada and Mexico and two big bodies of water, but the world will become
0:29:23 more dangerous and more unstable.
0:29:25 So, you know, there’s that.
0:29:30 So, and I don’t know if this is a function of living abroad now, but when I come back
0:29:36 or I don’t feel as I’m as in touch with America’s, which is a good and a bad thing, and I’d like
0:29:42 to think it’s offered some perspective, but I am mildly horrified minus the mildly.
0:29:51 What I see is this in full embrace by not only our leaders, but by acceptance by our
0:29:59 media and the general public of what is just an obvious naked, unafraid, unashamed kleptocracy
0:30:05 that if you look at the inaugural campaigns, I think of all the big 10 or the magazine
0:30:11 10, there was like a couple of $200,000 donations to the inaugural campaign or inaugural celebration
0:30:12 of Biden.
0:30:15 And now every one of them is lined up and put in a million bucks.
0:30:19 I mean, this feels like literally an episode of the Sopranos where they walk into the local
0:30:23 retailer and say, you know, it’d be a shame if your windows got broken and this place
0:30:24 got robbed.
0:30:26 We need protection money.
0:30:32 And this has now gone full kleptocracy where Musk increases his wealth by 150 or 200 billion
0:30:33 for no other reason.
0:30:37 As far as I can tell that they assumed that because he put in a quarter of a billion dollars,
0:30:41 that the largest, deepest pocketed customer in the world will throw money at him and anybody
0:30:44 else who decides pay for play.
0:30:45 Have we gone?
0:30:50 Is it unfair to say we have gone full kleptocratic?
0:30:58 This trajectory is very strongly in that direction and it was already bad before Trump.
0:31:04 I mean, you know, three billion plus spent on our presidential election over two years
0:31:07 doesn’t need to be that way.
0:31:13 You know, the incredible willingness of special interests in the U.S. to capture the regulatory
0:31:20 system to write their own policies, you know, that’s not a competitive free market.
0:31:28 A competitive free market is one where you’ve got regulators that represent the public interest
0:31:31 and companies have to compete against each other.
0:31:35 It’s not about who has more access to power and who has the ability to write regulations
0:31:37 that support them and get subsidies.
0:31:41 It’s about who has the best product, who’s the most competitive.
0:31:44 We’re very far from that in the United States right now.
0:31:50 We still have, you know, a great environment for small enterprises that start up with plucky
0:31:56 entrepreneurs like you and I have experienced and benefited from through our lives.
0:31:59 But in America is still great at that.
0:32:07 But in terms of big corporations and billionaires, now we’re talking about a country that is
0:32:13 open to the highest bidder and our allies see that and they’re worried about it.
0:32:15 They don’t like it.
0:32:19 And it’s not the way their systems run, not the advanced industrial economies anyway.
0:32:26 It’s closer to way a lot of emerging markets run and we should worry, I think, a lot about
0:32:27 that.
0:32:28 Absolutely.
0:32:33 And that’s where the Elon thing really bothers me.
0:32:38 Less about freedom of speech and more about, you know, what does it mean?
0:32:44 What does he get for his quarter of a billion dollars with Trump?
0:32:46 I mean, we see how much access he has.
0:32:51 We see that he, I mean, he has a position that’s a non-governmental advisory position
0:32:52 in Doge.
0:32:58 We see his ability to talk directly with competitor CEOs while he’s sitting with the
0:33:05 president or heads of state while he’s sitting with the president to functionally even veto
0:33:09 legislation when he speaks out against it, get people aligned.
0:33:11 I mean, that’s a pretty unique position.
0:33:14 We’ve not seen anyone like that before.
0:33:19 He’s certainly the most powerful individual in the private sector that the US has experienced
0:33:22 since the Gilded Age.
0:33:23 What does that mean?
0:33:26 What does that mean for the United States domestically, its political system?
0:33:30 What does that mean for the US with its allies in the global order?
0:33:32 I don’t think it’s a good development.
0:33:59 It’s January 6th and Congress met today at 1 p.m. to certify Donald Trump as the winner
0:34:02 of the 2024 election.
0:34:06 Four years ago, you may recall, Congress was meant to do the same, but the certification
0:34:10 was delayed when thousands of Trump supporters marched on the Capitol.
0:34:15 The president-elect has said repeatedly, and he told NBC again last month that he’s going
0:34:19 to pardon at least some of the insurrectionists.
0:34:25 Those people have suffered long and hard, and there may be some exceptions to it, I have
0:34:26 to look.
0:34:32 But if somebody was radical, crazy, there might be some people from Antifa there?
0:34:36 I don’t know, because those people seem to be in good shape.
0:34:37 Whatever happened to Scaffold Man?
0:34:38 You had to be there.
0:34:43 Antifa was actually not there four years ago, but members of several extremist groups were
0:34:45 at the Capitol on Jan 6th.
0:34:49 And today on Explained, we’re going to ask, “Whither American extremism on the eve of
0:34:52 a second Trump administration?”
0:34:55 Today Explained, every weekday, wherever you get your podcasts.
0:35:03 So, you touched on Syria, and risk number nine, you called ungoverned spaces.
0:35:07 Do you think, and you did begin to outline this, do you think what’s happened in Syria
0:35:11 is a net positive or negative for the West?
0:35:19 I think the fact that Assad is gone is a net positive for the West, because Assad was an
0:35:29 utterly brutal dictator who allowed for more people around the world to believe that they
0:35:34 could act with impunity in their own backyards and get away with it.
0:35:38 He was an ally to not just Russia, but Iran.
0:35:46 He facilitated the illegal transfer of weapons from Iran into Lebanon, strengthening Hezbollah,
0:35:53 which is seen by the US as a terrorist organization, as a principal adversary of Israel.
0:36:02 He was the principal, oversaw the principal production of Captagon, an incredibly addictive,
0:36:08 enormously debilitating illegal drug that was being exported all over the region and
0:36:11 Europe, and some to the United States.
0:36:17 I am delighted that he’s gone, and I don’t shed any tears about him getting poisoned
0:36:22 in Moscow within a couple of weeks of the Russians accepting him in quotes.
0:36:29 What has replaced him is at best, at best uncertain.
0:36:39 I mean, this new government came out of ISIS-connected folks, and they are certainly showing that
0:36:45 they want to be more inclusive, that they’ve turned over a new leaf, but does that really
0:36:51 mean that they’re going to be either capable or willing to run a more stable, more inclusive
0:37:00 government that won’t either collapse or won’t launch a war against large numbers of its
0:37:01 own citizens?
0:37:03 We’ll have to wait and see.
0:37:09 But no, it’s clearly a positive, a net positive for the West and for everyone that Assad has
0:37:10 gone.
0:37:15 So, one of the few places I think we have a bit of a differing viewpoint is on Israel
0:37:17 and the conflict there.
0:37:22 And I’ll put forward another thesis that Israel’s bold and courageous actions taking out more
0:37:27 terrorists in six weeks than we took out in 25 years on our most wanted list, cutting
0:37:36 off the hands of the proxies of Iran, incredibly bold, the most precise anti-terrorist action
0:37:41 or operation in history with the Pagers and Hezbollah, that Israel has demonstrated not
0:37:48 only tremendous power expertise and strategy here, but they, in my view, their actions
0:37:54 are going to make the Middle East a safer, more stable, more pro-West place because of
0:37:56 their actions.
0:37:57 Your thoughts?
0:38:06 Well, first of all, the only risk that shows up in our report on the Middle East, one is
0:38:11 that oil prices are likely to be low, which means less money for the Gulf states, both
0:38:16 for themselves as well as to help countries in the region that need and have benefited
0:38:21 from their aid, like Jordan, for example, Egypt, for example, Tunisia, for example.
0:38:29 And secondly, Iran, which is a significant risk in part because they are, their regime
0:38:35 is on life support, they’ve lost their empire, and the Americans and the Israelis might well
0:38:38 decide this is the opportunity to really hit them hard.
0:38:39 Those are the risks.
0:38:46 So I mean, we didn’t have in the report Hezbollah or the West Bank or Gaza, because the Israelis
0:38:53 have shown that they are militarily dominant, they, they determine the nature of escalation,
0:38:59 and their enemies can’t do anything to them, and that includes, frankly, the Iranians.
0:39:07 So I certainly accept the fact that the Israelis have defeated their enemies to in a pretty
0:39:14 spectacular fashion over the last year and a bit, following October 7th.
0:39:16 I agree with that.
0:39:22 Where you and I probably disagree, and we’ve had discussions about this in the past, Scott,
0:39:29 is that I don’t believe that you can resolve the Palestinian problem by blowing them all
0:39:30 up.
0:39:31 I just don’t.
0:39:37 I mean, I think that, you know, if Hamas is an army, they’re defeated.
0:39:42 If Hamas is an ideology and an idea, you’ve probably made them stronger because you’ve
0:39:45 radicalized people for generations.
0:39:56 And what I see in Gaza, and the lack of humanitarian support, and the comparative breadth of bombing,
0:40:05 and lack of willingness to be accountable for the risks of the civilian population.
0:40:11 And I’m not in any way trying to say that Israel shouldn’t want to blow up Hamas.
0:40:14 I absolutely accept terrorist organization.
0:40:18 They’ve done horrible things to the Israelis and to their own population.
0:40:25 But ultimately, the fact that as a result of this war, the Palestinians are facing far
0:40:30 greater depredation than they were on October 6th.
0:40:34 And also the Palestinians in the West Bank have lost a lot more territory.
0:40:36 They’re living under more of a security state.
0:40:39 They are much farther from having a state.
0:40:43 I believe that will lead to more radicalism.
0:40:50 I believe that will lead to more violence against Israel, against the United States,
0:40:52 and more broadly in the region.
0:40:53 I believe that.
0:40:57 Now, I mean, how do you balance those things?
0:41:00 Because again, at the end of the day, Israel’s a tiny country.
0:41:01 They’re very wealthy.
0:41:03 They’re incredible in terms of surveillance.
0:41:08 If they keep their eyes on the ball, as Netanyahu did not before October 7th, they will have
0:41:11 great control over their borders.
0:41:18 So I think in the context of that, maybe they can effectively occupy Palestinian territories
0:41:22 and the Palestinians will just live as an imprisoned people.
0:41:25 It’s possible and that that won’t be a threat to Israel.
0:41:27 I don’t believe that that’s humane.
0:41:29 That’s not a world I want to live in.
0:41:32 But I also don’t think it’s true.
0:41:37 So I mean, even if you don’t care about the Palestinians as people, and there are a lot
0:41:43 of people that don’t, I believe and I do, but I understand that there are people that
0:41:47 just have decided that’s my enemy and I don’t care.
0:41:53 But I actually believe that these are people that are industrious.
0:42:00 They are capable and with advanced technologies, they will increasingly find ways to make their
0:42:02 voice heard.
0:42:04 And I worry about that.
0:42:09 I mean, I worry about that in the same way that I worry about when the CEO of United
0:42:15 Healthcare is assassinated by some pretty boy idiot, that a whole bunch of people on
0:42:20 the Internet, and by the way, some establishment Democrats, seem to lionize the guy.
0:42:22 Oh, I understand what he did.
0:42:23 That’s what happens.
0:42:25 You radicalize people.
0:42:27 They do crazy shit and they have supporters.
0:42:34 And I worry that the Palestinians are increasingly going to be prone, larger numbers of them.
0:42:37 To do crazy shit with supporters.
0:42:41 This idea and a lot of people hold it that you, even if you kill, you can kill people
0:42:42 but you can’t kill an idea.
0:42:46 I would push back and say, we for the most part killed communism.
0:42:49 We for the most part at least we saw killed fascism.
0:42:52 And at the end of World War II, we were bombing Hamburg.
0:42:57 We killed 40 service or military and killed 40,000 civilians.
0:42:59 And we had already won the war.
0:43:03 And when asked the generals and Eisenhower asked why they continued to devastate Hamburg,
0:43:05 they said they need to know they lost.
0:43:07 And I know that sounds brutal.
0:43:13 But I would argue that we would have done worse had we been as viciously attacked.
0:43:19 And two, when you actually look at the data, specifically the deaths of combatants relative
0:43:26 to civilians, that the Israelis are prosecuting this war more humanely than any Western nation
0:43:28 has prosecuted another war.
0:43:29 Your thoughts?
0:43:40 So, I accept the fact that the United States in the war in Iraq and in Afghanistan also
0:43:47 saw massive amounts of civilian damage and brutality, except it completely.
0:43:54 But let me, I was focused when I said I take exception to the way the Israelis have proselytized
0:44:00 this war, I’ve talked about the utter lack of humanitarian aid getting in to Gaza.
0:44:06 And I also talked about taking more land and the greatest security state in the West Bank.
0:44:08 And again, I think those things matter.
0:44:16 Now, I don’t think you need, you can blow up Hamas and still allow food in for the Palestinians.
0:44:22 I mean, my view is that if you’re a friend of Israel as I am, you want Israel to do well
0:44:24 in sustainably long-term.
0:44:28 And that means criticizing Israel when you think it’s fucking up.
0:44:33 The United States, which has been the strongest supporter of Israel, bar none.
0:44:41 No one else is close over the last year, has been incredibly critical, mostly privately,
0:44:44 of the fact that not enough aid has gotten in.
0:44:50 So, again, my point here is simply that I believe that there’s going to be greater radicalization.
0:44:57 And we need to move to thinking about how after they’ve lost.
0:44:58 And do they know they’ve lost?
0:45:00 It’s not like just the war since October 7th.
0:45:05 The Palestinians have known that they’ve lost for decades now, right?
0:45:10 I mean, like they have less and less territory, they’ve been moved farther and farther out.
0:45:15 There are opportunities, economic opportunities, educational opportunities are more and more
0:45:16 constrained.
0:45:20 A lot of that is on their own poor governance.
0:45:21 Don’t get me wrong.
0:45:23 It’s not just all about Israel.
0:45:25 A lot of that is because they were forgotten by the Gulf states.
0:45:27 A lot of that is because the Americans don’t care about them, the Europeans don’t care.
0:45:31 I mean, no one cares about the Palestinians, except the Palestinians.
0:45:32 They do.
0:45:34 The Palestinians care about the Palestinians.
0:45:38 And ultimately, I think that’s going to cause a problem.
0:45:42 Hasn’t Qatar sent over a billion dollars, which they decided to spend on tunnels and
0:45:43 rockets?
0:45:46 And the beneficiary of a tremendous amount of aid?
0:45:53 Qatar has been the single biggest supporter on the ground in Gaza over past years.
0:45:55 And of course, that’s now been cut off, absolutely.
0:46:02 But if you look at what kind of support the Palestinians have had on the ground to build
0:46:08 their economy compared to other countries, actual countries in the region, the answer
0:46:10 is very, very little.
0:46:13 And look, you know that my mother’s side of the family is Armenian.
0:46:20 I mean, 125,000 Armenians just ethnically cleansed from Nagorno-Karabakh.
0:46:21 And no one’s talking about it.
0:46:22 You’re not going to ask me about it.
0:46:23 It’s not in our top risk report.
0:46:24 We didn’t write about it all.
0:46:25 Even in ungoverned territories.
0:46:28 We didn’t bother to mention it because nobody cares.
0:46:31 And that’s what I’m saying, law of the jungle.
0:46:39 The fact is, we could have a very long conversation about why it got to this situation where 125,000
0:46:46 civilians got tossed out of their homes, left with nothing, places blown up, occupied
0:46:49 all their historic monuments, their churches blown up.
0:46:50 Nobody talks about it.
0:46:52 It bothers me as a person, you know.
0:46:55 But the fact is, I mean, look, we talk about the Palestinians because it gets a lot more
0:47:01 attention, but we could, there are so many places where these are the same conversations.
0:47:05 But again, I love this because I want to stop you because I feel like I’m sitting across
0:47:08 the table from someone I respect immensely and I can have a civil conversation around
0:47:13 things I recognize, I feel strongly about, but I don’t know what I don’t know.
0:47:19 And that is, you talk about, we’re not having these conversations around the 120,000 people
0:47:24 who have been disappeared in Syria under Assad or, you know, what’s happened in Yemen, isn’t
0:47:30 it mostly because when Jews kill people, it’s seen as a different crime against humanity
0:47:32 than when other people kill people.
0:47:34 Isn’t there just a tremendous double standard here, Ian?
0:47:39 Look, I think that there are all sorts of double standards, Scott, but they don’t just
0:47:40 go one way.
0:47:47 I mean, the Holocaust has been seared in the imaginary, the collective historical memory
0:47:54 and the imagination of everyone that lived at that time and since.
0:48:01 And you know, for a long time, the Jews were seen to be like the principal global victim
0:48:05 and we all had to ensure that never happened again.
0:48:08 Today, that is not true.
0:48:15 Today Israel is the dominant military actor in the entire Middle East, not just vis-à-vis
0:48:19 the Palestinians, and they are the ones that get to decide.
0:48:23 Now we in the United States love an underdog.
0:48:29 I think that there has been a shift for a lot of young people in the United States that
0:48:34 suddenly don’t see support for Israel as support of the underdog.
0:48:39 They think that we’re somehow the bad guys because we’re in favor of the powerful and
0:48:41 not in favor of the oppressed.
0:48:46 And the Ukrainians are in the position that the Israelis used to be in.
0:48:48 So I think there’s some of that.
0:48:57 I think there has been a massive surge in anti-Semitism around the world, very disturbing,
0:49:00 and that certainly has to do with the fact that there are a hell of a lot more Muslims
0:49:06 than there are Jews, and a lot of them are on TikTok, for example.
0:49:10 And so you see that performing algorithmically, not because TikTok is nefarious, but just
0:49:14 because it performs with those eyeballs, there’s some of that.
0:49:19 And also the fact that there’s just a lot of media occupying that space.
0:49:24 You know, I mean, this is an area that has a lot of journalists on the ground and covering
0:49:25 it.
0:49:29 There’s no journalist in Sudan or Yemen writing about it.
0:49:32 This part of the world matters economically, technologically.
0:49:33 It doesn’t.
0:49:34 Sudan, nobody cares.
0:49:35 Right?
0:49:36 It doesn’t have a market impact.
0:49:39 There’s no one that’s going to school there that’s going to come and talk about it.
0:49:41 There’s not as much of a diaspora in the West.
0:49:46 There is when you talk about the Israelis and the Palestinians.
0:49:52 So I think there are lots of reasons, and to simplify this to just one factor, you and
0:49:55 I would not do that about any other discussion we’d have.
0:49:59 We certainly wouldn’t want to simplify this in that way.
0:50:01 Let me first pros again.
0:50:02 First comment.
0:50:04 I absolutely love these conversations.
0:50:05 So thank you too.
0:50:10 You said that TikTok, not because TikTok is nefarious, another thesis.
0:50:16 TikTok is largely influenced, if not controlled by the CCP, who has a strategic reason to
0:50:19 deposition us or make us weaker.
0:50:23 If they can’t beat us economically or kinetically, why wouldn’t they put their thumb on the scale
0:50:28 of content that polarizes us, resulting in 52 pro-Hamas videos for everyone pro-Israel
0:50:33 video, which according to the research I’ve seen is taking place on TikTok.
0:50:40 In some, I would argue TikTok is nefarious and purposely trying to delegitimize or create
0:50:43 polarization amongst our public.
0:50:45 So I think social media is nefarious.
0:50:56 And I agree that TikTok is certainly influenced by the CCP, the Communist Party of China.
0:50:58 And we should not trust that.
0:51:02 They have said that they are not giving any information to the Chinese Communist Party.
0:51:03 That has been proved in many investigations.
0:51:06 Wall Street Journal, other reports to be not true.
0:51:13 So I’m not comfortable with the idea that TikTok is just a free market corporation that’s
0:51:19 only seeking profits and nothing matters, but to the extent that the Chinese have been
0:51:26 involved in cyber operations to influence U.S. elections and the Russians have been
0:51:32 involved in the Iranians and the North Koreans, the Russians are actively promoting information
0:51:40 that is trying to increase a sense of racism, rage, violence, hostility, maltreatment.
0:51:43 I mean, they’re flooding the zone with shit.
0:51:50 In ways that really is trying to disrupt and undermine U.S. democracy and stability.
0:51:58 China’s cyber influence on the U.S. elections was overwhelmingly intelligence seeking.
0:52:03 It was get inside the systems to figure out what they’re really doing so that we can take
0:52:05 advantage from it.
0:52:11 It was also get inside critical infrastructure so that just in case things go badly, we might
0:52:13 be able to blow these guys up.
0:52:18 So I’m someone that believes that I don’t know what I don’t know, I know what I know.
0:52:23 I am not inside, I know the CEO of TikTok, I’ve met him many times.
0:52:25 I’m not inside their decision-making process.
0:52:28 I don’t know what they’re saying to the Communist Party.
0:52:33 But I know what I see, the evidence from what the Chinese have done in other areas.
0:52:37 There’s no reason for me to believe that that would uniquely and somehow be different with
0:52:44 TikTok than it is with their entire national strategy, which has been risk averse and influence
0:52:47 and information maximizing for them directly.
0:52:52 It has not been breaking and blowing up the United States.
0:52:59 And I also think that there’s a much simpler Occam’s razor explanation for why young people
0:53:07 would get a lot more pro-Islam and pro-Palestinian content than they would get pro-Israel and
0:53:08 pro-Jewish.
0:53:14 And it’s because TikTok is a global platform with enormous numbers of people from Pakistan
0:53:17 and Indonesia on it.
0:53:23 And also oriented towards younger people that are already, even in the West, much more pro-Palestinian
0:53:26 than they are pro-Israel all over the world.
0:53:28 And that’s just being driven algorithmically.
0:53:30 I think that’s the simplest argument.
0:53:33 So that’s how I feel about that.
0:53:36 Let’s talk about Ukraine.
0:53:38 Give us your state of play in Ukraine.
0:53:43 So you’ll remember back at the beginning of 2024, you and I talked about this.
0:53:44 And I said, and I wasn’t happy about it at all.
0:53:47 I said, I think Ukraine is going to get partitioned.
0:53:49 You were one of the first people that ever said that out loud.
0:53:52 I want to point that out.
0:53:56 You said, look, this land, they’re never getting it back is essentially what you said.
0:53:57 Yeah.
0:53:59 And I mean, I want to be very clear.
0:54:02 I really don’t want that outcome.
0:54:06 But it’s not for me to be telling everybody what I want.
0:54:10 It’s much more about where you think things are going.
0:54:18 And the Ukrainians, I think, increasingly understand that they’re now trying to position
0:54:24 themselves for the best possible negotiation where they are going to have to lose most,
0:54:28 if not all of the territory that the Russians presently occupy.
0:54:32 They’d like a little leverage, which is why they’re continuing the offensive in Kursk,
0:54:35 which is inside Russia, so that they have something to trade that’s going to make the
0:54:41 negotiations more fraught, but does give them leverage.
0:54:46 The Russians also are, they’d benefit from a breather.
0:54:53 I mean, yeah, they’ve got 15,000 North Korean troops that are not fighting well and are
0:54:58 dying in large numbers, but they’re having a harder time raising significant numbers
0:55:00 of troops for the war effort.
0:55:06 And their economy is increasingly performing badly under strain of sanction and lack of
0:55:08 human capital.
0:55:13 So I think that Trump is going to succeed in getting a ceasefire.
0:55:18 I don’t think it’s going to take a day, and it’s going to be hard of any thought.
0:55:22 But when he tells the Ukrainians, you need to accept what I’m telling you or else.
0:55:26 First of all, he’s creating some cover for Zelensky to say, look, I’ve got no choice
0:55:30 now because of the Americans, which is helpful to Zelensky, frankly.
0:55:34 But also he does know that the Americans will cut off aid if he doesn’t.
0:55:35 So that will move.
0:55:40 And the French McCronev has also delivered that message just yesterday to Zelensky.
0:55:41 He’s heard it from the Germans and others.
0:55:44 So he’s getting that pressure.
0:55:48 And the Russians also know, though it’s harder to pressure them in this environment, the
0:55:49 US has less leverage.
0:55:54 They know that if they don’t accept negotiations in a ceasefire, that they’re going to get
0:55:57 tougher sanctions from Trump.
0:55:58 I do believe that.
0:56:00 And Trump has delivered that message.
0:56:02 I also thought it was very interesting.
0:56:05 I mean, Trump’s tweets aren’t always interesting, but sometimes they are.
0:56:11 And there was one he put out a couple of weeks ago that said about Russia, Ukraine, that
0:56:14 also China can help.
0:56:17 And it was very interesting that Trump would say that.
0:56:19 I fully agree with it.
0:56:23 China does not benefit from this war continuing.
0:56:28 They would like the Russians to have a ceasefire.
0:56:33 It is undermining China’s relationship with Europe, which especially the front line states,
0:56:35 which they would like to be more stable.
0:56:38 It is making it harder for the Chinese to have flexibility globally.
0:56:41 They really don’t like the Russian North Korea relationship.
0:56:43 They want this war over.
0:56:47 As you said before, the Chinese need stability, the Russians are chaos actors, so they’re
0:56:48 not fully aligned in this.
0:56:55 If I were Trump, I would absolutely reach out to the Chinese to be a part of this solution.
0:57:00 And the first Trump-Sijian pin call is going to be utterly fascinating for so many reasons,
0:57:02 but this is one of them.
0:57:07 So just as we wrap up here in, we have a lot of young people who listen to this podcast
0:57:11 and are very focused on trying to develop their own careers.
0:57:15 And I think a lot of people listen to this and hear about your background in GZERO Media
0:57:19 and think, “God, that is just such a cool job in business.”
0:57:25 What it just gives us, just the cliff notes, I would imagine your business is booming.
0:57:27 And what is the friction right now in your business?
0:57:34 When you look at 2025 as the founder of this consulting firm or media company, what are
0:57:39 you most excited about and most worried about as it relates to being an entrepreneur and
0:57:41 building your business?
0:57:47 Well, I mean, it’s kind of funny because, of course, given that we try to help people
0:57:51 understand the world when there’s more uncertainty, more people need us, and that’s true both
0:57:55 in terms of the companies that pay us to do consulting and advisory work and also in terms
0:58:02 of just the members of the public that engage with our media channels and the rest, I mean,
0:58:07 we did a lot better growth-wise in the Trump administration than we did in Biden.
0:58:12 I mean, leaving aside the fact that tax rates went down, so all the corporates did well
0:58:18 under that, but just generally speaking, much more uncertainty driven by the Trump administration.
0:58:25 We already see that starting now, he’s certainly acting as president with Biden doing much
0:58:26 less.
0:58:30 I expect that’ll be true again, so that’s not a point of friction.
0:58:33 The point of friction, and I think you’ll appreciate this.
0:58:37 So we’ve got almost 250 employees, right?
0:58:41 For me, that sounds amazing because I started as a kid from the projects and it was just
0:58:42 me.
0:58:43 Sounds like a headache.
0:58:44 Well, I’ve got a CEO.
0:58:48 It’s not like I’m running it, but I mean, 250 people is a small company.
0:58:55 In the grand scheme of things, it’s a small company, and the biggest point of friction
0:59:02 is that we need to ensure that the bets that we make in a given year, there are so many
0:59:07 places that we could go and engage and build the firm.
0:59:11 Different types of businesses, different geographies, different sectors we can invest
0:59:15 in, different kinds of staff, all sorts of things we can do.
0:59:21 And yet as a firm with 250 people, you can only make four or five of those bets in a
0:59:24 serious way in any given year.
0:59:28 So it’s not about who your competitors are globally.
0:59:35 It’s much more about marshalling your resources intelligently yourself and making those bets
0:59:41 so they’re not singles, but a couple of them are actually home runs, that they really do
0:59:43 your constraint.
0:59:48 I mean, it’s kind of like you and I have so many hours in the day, you’ve got so many
0:59:52 hours with the kids before they don’t want to talk to you anymore.
0:59:55 How are you going to spend that time with them that maximizes it?
0:59:59 We’ve got only so many people and so much money we can deploy.
1:00:03 How do we do that in a big world that’s rife with opportunity?
1:00:05 There’s too much opportunity in the world.
1:00:12 And there’s only one of me, and there’s only one Eurasia group, only one GZero media.
1:00:13 How do you do that?
1:00:18 And I’m an optimist, my eyes are always bigger than my stomach, everything can work out.
1:00:26 The people around me are meant to ensure that there is structure and reality around all
1:00:27 of that.
1:00:29 And I think they do a real good job.
1:00:35 Yeah, the charge of any leader is not what to do, but what not to do, how you allocate
1:00:38 capital to its greatest return.
1:00:41 Ian Bremmer is the president and founder of Eurasia Group, the world’s leading political
1:00:46 risk research and consulting firm, and GZero media, a company dedicated to providing intelligent
1:00:49 and engaging coverage of international affairs.
1:00:54 He’s also the author of 11 books, including The New York Times bestsellers, Us vs Them,
1:00:59 The Failure of Globalism, and his latest book, The Power of Crisis, How Three Threats and
1:01:02 Our Response Will Change the World.
1:01:07 Ian, Alec Baldwin has hosted SNL 17 times, you have now been on Prop G seven times, we
1:01:08 are catching up fast.
1:01:13 You are hands down our favorite guests, you’re thoughtful, you’re civil, you’re creative.
1:01:17 I just love these conversations, really appreciate your partnership and friendship.
1:01:31 All right, brother, take care, happy New Year.
1:01:32 Algebra of happiness.
1:01:37 This guy, I think his name is Tyler, I found him on TikTok or Instagram, kind of obsessed
1:01:38 with him.
1:01:41 He’s this former financial advisor that takes these long walks in the woods, it looks like
1:01:45 he’s in a work camp in Vladivostok and gives financial advice, and I just think he’s fantastic
1:01:46 what he does.
1:01:51 And he said something that impacted me, he said that here is the definition of success,
1:01:55 a series of small actions every day.
1:01:59 And it just, it struck me as so simple, but this is what I hope we’re all going to do,
1:02:03 or I’m going to suggest you do, and I’m going to try and do the same thing.
1:02:08 And that is every day this year, do one small thing, one small thing that’s going to add
1:02:12 up to something great at the end of the year, 15, 20, 30 minutes of exercise, it might be
1:02:17 a long walk, a text message every day to someone you care about, telling them that you care
1:02:22 about them, and it might not be, I care about you, but just checking in, hi, how are you?
1:02:26 You’re going to aggregate those, those text messages are going to compound something for
1:02:30 yourself, create one or two minutes of content every day.
1:02:35 I’m going to write a blog post or 100 words of a blog post every day, I’m going to put
1:02:39 out a minute or every three days, I’m going to put out a video, I’m going to put out interesting
1:02:42 content on a social media platform to try and garner my following.
1:02:46 I’m going to save 10 bucks a day, I’m going to not, I’m going to not take an Uber, I’m
1:02:51 going to take the subway, and I am not going to buy that latte from Starbucks, and I’m
1:02:58 going to invest 10 bucks every day in Vanguard and ETF or on the Acorns app, whatever it
1:02:59 might be, right?
1:03:06 A series of small actions every day that add up to something great, especially around relationships.
1:03:09 This is our year, it’s 2025.
1:03:14 Everything behind you is gone, it’s done, it’s immutable, but 2025 is immutable.
1:03:17 Let’s start now.
1:03:21 This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez, our intern is Dan Shalong, Drew Burroughs is
1:03:25 our technical director, it’s so nice to see Drew again, so nice to see Drew, he comes
1:03:29 over to my house, he sets everything up, he’s this nice presence.
1:03:32 Thank you for listening to The Prof. G Pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network.
1:03:37 We will catch you on Saturday for No Mercino Malice, as read by George Hahn, and please
1:03:41 follow our Prof. G. Markets Pod wherever you get your pods for new episodes every Monday
1:03:42 and Thursday.
1:03:49 Woohoo!
1:03:51 (gentle music)