Drezner Dixon: Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here. Let's see. There we go. just to get this right out of the way, I am not going to give you a definitive answer about what's going to happen in November. And anyone who tells you they have a definitive answer about what's going to happen in November is lying to you or trying to sell you something. , I will say that this job would have been much easier if it was a thousand years ago, because a thousand years ago I could have said, look, we just had an eclipse. We just had an aurora borealis that stretched all the way down to the Caribbean. Clearly, the answer is the world is going to end and you should sacrifice your children now. Okay, I can't do that. We're we're, you know, a slightly more modern age. So I'm going to sort of talk about the current state of play. What explains it? You know, what could change between now and then? The wild cards, what might happen if Biden wins and what might happen if Trp wins? So when we think about how we would analyze who's going to win in November there usually at this point three ways you can do it right, there's the sort of political science fundamentals, models which are not bad. There is looking strictly at the polling, which also is not, you know, been terribly bad or there is asking folks inside the Beltway sort of political pros, you know, presably people who know this better than anyone else.
Drezner Dixon: If you were to do a fundamentals model. Joe Biden would win. That would be the primary answer you would get, because generally speaking, these models look at things like incbency, a couple of key economic data points in terms of GDP growth, unemployment, inflation and so forth, whether or not we're in the middle of a shooting war, , those would tend to predict that the incbent would win. And the incbent is Joe Biden. Now you can take a look at the polls. This is from 538. Obviously that shows that it doesn't happen right now. The polls show a toss up. This is from I think last week. , and that's basically been the constant throughout most of 2024. I don't expect it to change necessarily much for the next couple of months for a variety of reasons. But if you're relying on the polling, it's definitely a toss up. Now, if you want to rely on sort of DC folks, and this is what I will warn you also not to do, because in DC the answer is very clear. Everyone down there thinks Donald Trp is going to get reelected. , and that was when the lights came on. Thank you very much. You've been a wonderful audience. I'm done. but, to be fair, you know, and you can see that in sort of things like the betting markets. Now, this is not a great data point.
Drezner Dixon: I want to be very clear about this for a couple of reasons. First of all, prediction markets for presidential campaigns are ridiculously thin. And furthermore, because campaigns are aware that, like prognosticators look at it, they will often intervene in those markets, so they often really don't provide much useful data. Similarly, people in DC would not provide you with much useful data. And the reason for this is they all got burned in 2016. They didn't think Trp was going to win in 2016. They were shocked beyond belief about this. And so as a result, ever since then, they have always been convinced that Donald Trp will win. They were convinced about this in 2020, and they're convinced about it this time as well. Mostly because, to be fair, Donald Trp as a candidate does things that you would think would wound mortally wound most candidates. And yet he just keeps ticking. So why is it like this? In other words, why is it that the fundamentals predict Biden should win but he doesn't seem to be winning? Why is it that the vibes are what they are? I'm sort of going to try to get into this. I think there are four things going on. The first is there's no real incbency advantage. The second is the way that voters currently think about 2020. And third and fourth are the way that voters currently think about the economy in the state of the world. So in terms of incbency, it's very simple.
Drezner Dixon: Normally, the incbent has an advantage when they run for re-election. Only for incbents in the last century have not been reelected. Right. Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush and Trp himself. And the reason is incbency has massive advantages. You know, name recognition, if nothing else. But that's not the case with 2024, because Trp is also an incbent. And if anyone has name recognition or cares about it as much, it is certainly Donald Trp. And so Biden's traditional advantage as an incbent doesn't exist. Another thing that's going on, and this is not terribly unusual. It's a little unusual given what 2020 was like. But essentially, voters, if you ask them what the world was like in 2020, wind up giving an answer that is not actually the way the world was like in 2020. In other words, they think that that 2020 was far better than it used to be, than it actually was. Now, part of this, again, is the pandemic. But in their mind, the Trp years was not all that bad. And to be fair, if you look at things like the Misery Index up until March of 2020, things didn't look bad. The misery index in March of 2020, which is inflation plus unemployment, is lower than it is now. All right, so voters aren't insane when they think this. But generally speaking, if you talk to them about this, you know, beyond the sort of partisans on on both sides, voters tend to think life wasn't that bad during Trp.
Drezner Dixon: And we're going to give them a mulligan on the pandemic because no one handled the pandemic well. Is the logic all right? And to be clear, this amnesia about 2020 is not just a feature of Republicans or MAGA folks or what have you. This also applies to Democrats, and you can see this in terms of how swing state voters, you know, viewed Trp in 2020 versus how they view him now. And if you now ask these voters about the perceived state of the US economy right now. A majority of Americans believe that the US economy is currently in recession. A majority of Americans believe that inflation is increasing. And a majority of Americans either believe we are in the middle of a stock market crash or going to experience one. I'm not exaggerating by this. All right? This is the, you know, one pole. This is from, you know, the Harris poll showing, you know, currently believing we're in a recession. It's a majority. If you aggregate this now, partially. What's going on is that and this is a traditional sort of polarization story. Republicans think it's the worst economy of all time. Democrats are less likely to. But you still see 49% of Democrats think we're currently in a recession. Which is a little weird. Now, to be fair, when political scientists talk about how voters think in terms of voting, we use a term that is not exactly complimentary of them, but perhaps is not meant to be as insulting as it really is.
Drezner Dixon: And the term we use is rational ignorance. Which is to say that voters, as a general rule, are busy people. All right. They've got lives to live. They've got mortgages to pay. They have children to take care of. I'm sure there's a new season of The Bachelor that's out. All right. They want to watch that. They don't really care about elections all that much. And to be fair to them, in their mind, it doesn't affect their daily lives. So why should they care? All right. So when you ask them questions about the economy or politics, they're going to use whatever bits and scraps of information that they can collect and sort of try to form an answer, even though they're radically uninformed. They're not stupid, but they are radically uninformed. But in some cases, their assption not that the US is in a recession, let's say, or even that inflation is increasing, but that something is off isn't entirely wrong. Because when you ask Americans about inflation, they don't think about inflation, they think about prices. And the fact is, the price level is now 20% higher than it was when Joe Biden was inaugurated. And that is not an insignificant difference. And again, going back to those four incbents who didn't get reelected, two were Hoover and Trp during, you know, extraordinary economic shocks. The other two were Carter and George H.W.
Drezner Dixon: Bush. And what they had in common was that inflation spiked during their terms. And so part of the issue here is that voters remember the inflation of 2022. And they are still tend to tend to blame Biden for it. And for most of these voters, particularly young voters, this is their only memory of inflation. And so even if it's better now, and even though wages now exceed price gains for something like 15 months, the fact is, again, if you take a look at the other poll, Americans still don't feel you know terribly well off, even if their wages have gone up, their prices, you know, for them, for a lot of them, prices have gone up further. And furthermore, Americans tend to think about this in a somewhat selfish way, which is to say that Americans think that any wage gain they make is obviously due to their own merit, but any price gain that happens is ridiculously unfair. And so this is one of the reasons why they are so disillusioned. When we shift from, you know, the economy to the perceived state of the world. The another fundamental truism in political science, at least, American political science, is that Americans fundamentally do not care about foreign policy. All right. I teach this for a living. It would astonish you how little Americans know about the rest of the world. All right. However, again, this is where almost it's a vibe thing more than it's a reality thing.
Drezner Dixon: And what Americans can see. Is that the world around them seems more violent than it used to be. There seems to be more unending conflict, and the blowback from that conflict is affecting the United States. All right. Whether you're talking about violence in Gaza or surges of migrants crossing the Rio Grande, to them it all looks like a world on fire and a world that is falling apart. And again, in this instinct, Americans are not wrong. The Uppsala Conflict Data Program, which measures the nber of conflicts going on in the world. We are now at an all time high since the end of World War two, and the nber of interstate wars and civil wars that have international implications. And another issue with this. Is that, you know, in many cases, these conflicts don't seem like they're going to end anytime soon. All right. The conflict in Gaza doesn't seem like it's going to end. The war in Ukraine doesn't seem like it's going to end. China's threats against Taiwan look like they're going to continue, and so on and so forth. And what Americans tire of is not seeing a victory. They don't have any understanding of how we potentially win these conflicts. To be clear, if you poll Americans, most Americans still support Israel. They want Israel's rights to exist. They definitely support Ukraine's fight against Russia. So they support Biden's foreign policy outputs. What they aren't keen about are the outcomes because the outcomes are just unending conflict.
Drezner Dixon: And the administration is not offering a narrative of how we actually win. And what Americans want more than anything else is easy victory. So as I said, generally speaking, you know, these things don't matter all that much in terms of voting. But there are reasons why since 2024 is a knife edge election, there might be instances in which, on a small level, these things matter. So, for example, if we talk about Michigan, which is an important swing state, significant percentage of, you know, 3% of Michigan's voters are Arab Americans, it would be safe to say they are not keen about how the Biden administration has handled Gaza. And you think, well, surely they're not going to vote for Trp. But, you know, if you take a look at a lot of reporting on this, a lot of their attitudes are, well, we'll rather vote for the guy who at least admits that he's a bigot rather than one who claims he's on our side and then doesn't do anything. And so that can lead to something. And also there's a connection between what seems like uncertainty about the state of the world and uncertainty in the United States, whether, again, it is migration coming in. And this is one of the areas where, in fact, both parties, you know, Americans of all sides have become much more restrictionist, even though, again, one of the ironies about this is that the only reason the US economy is outperforming all the other OECD economies is migration.
Drezner Dixon: That is the reason why inflation tapered down and why growth has been higher in the United States. But find me a politician in Washington who will make this argent, and you will find a unicorn. And similarly, in terms of inflation, there's a strong belief, you know, from the pandemic that this is due to supply chains, globalized supply chains, which, again, is a gigantic misperception because in fact, it was globalized supply chains there were far more resilient to the pandemic than more local ones. But nonetheless, these are sort of stylized myths that American voters have internalized, which means that politicians have to recognize them. So why is the election still up for grabs then? Well, again. Polling shows it's incredibly tight. Also incredibly tight in the swing states. This is one of those elections where if the polling is somewhat off in one direction or the other, you could have what looks like, you know, a neck and neck election turn into a landslide for either Biden or Trp. And the truth is, there are other things that can happen between now and then. All right. Obviously, though, the Trp trials, we now have Trp as a convicted felon. This is not the only trial on the books. The January 6th trial will likely go to court in the fall. You have the debates, one of which is in June, which is interesting. This is a really early time for a general election debate. There are other wild cards that can happen, you know, a Superstorm Sandy or the war in Gaza, you know, going regional or, you know, a peace deal in Gaza as well.
Drezner Dixon: That could be something else that happens. And then we get to the swing voter. And this is an interesting thing. This is something else to realize about how the 2024 election looks different than traditional elections. Traditionally, what has happened is that Republicans do better in off cycle elections Non-presidential years, right up until really 2020. And the reason was, is that generally speaking, during off year elections, during elections with a low turnout, the voters that are most likely to turn out looked Republican. They were educated voters or older people. Right? What is happened since 2020 is that that is flipped. You are now seeing people who are much more likely to vote. Vote for Biden or vote for Democrats. All right. One of the biggest cleavages now in American politics is college educated voters, versus non-college educated and college educated voters are much more likely to vote Democrat. Now, interestingly enough, older voters also migrating to Biden as well. All right. Whereas on the other hand, you know, it used to be concerns about, you know, minority voters would vote Democrat. You're not seeing minority voters. Exactly. Switch to Trp. What you're seeing is partisan sorting within minorities. That in some ways was the last group for this to happen. But the important thing is that if you take a look at voters who are really paying attention, they support Biden.
Drezner Dixon: Trp is doing well, you know, among those who did not vote in 2020. Those were barely, barely attached to voting, those who were barely paying attention. And this makes prediction really hard. So John Maynard Keynes very famously said, if you want to predict the stock market, admittedly, you know, he didn't have the model that we just saw before. But, you know, Keynes, you know, made the analogy to a beauty contest that the way you predict the winner of a beauty contest is not how you think the most beautiful is, it's who you think the judges think are the most beautiful. Sure. But to analogize this to political science, to elections, you know, at least in Keynes's analogy, the judges were paying attention. The judges were actually watching the contest. Imagine trying to predict the winner of a beauty contest. If the judges are looking at their phones 95% of the time and then are only paying attention 5% of the time. So, for example, one of the interesting things The New York Times, Siena just released a poll yesterday afternoon about this shows that actually, Trp's conviction in New York did cause a significant swing among those disattached voters. And you might wonder, well, why is that? It was sort of a marginal case, you know, really was that what was going on? The answer is, is that these people didn't even know there was a trial going on.
Drezner Dixon: I'm not joking about this. They had no idea. All right. So now suddenly you get to say he's a convicted felon. This is new information for a lot of these people, and it causes them potentially to change their mind. Now, how long they'll change their mind? We don't know. All right. People don't necessarily make decisions in June that carry over to November. So just quickly to talk about, you know, what we're likely to see if Biden gets reelected. So basically we're going to see status quo plus some of the constants. And this is true of both administrations. If you have a second Trp administration, you will see continued prosecution of the trade war in China. That's not going away anytime soon. , you will be likely to see debt ceiling drama if Biden gets reelected. And the reason for this is, is that the odds are really good that the GOP controls the Senate, regardless of what happens in terms of the presidential election. And so as a result, they will have an incentive to make life difficult for Biden. And that's going to come through in the debt ceiling also, potentially government shutdowns, whether or not the Trp tax cuts are renewed, they will be renewed in some form. But Biden has made it clear that he wants to do this only for the middle class and lower. Although his middle class definition is pretty generous. Republicans are going to fight this. So the interesting question is whether that'il, you know, whether there'll be a deal cut for that in terms of foreign policy, you're going to see mostly, you know, status quo.
Drezner Dixon: Plus, there's not going to be dramatic changes. And in fact, if anything, Biden would be able to say, I've got a mandate to continue to pursue, you know, building and, you know, shoring up the liberal international order. All right. If Trp gets elected. , well, a couple of things are going to happen. First, if you believe Trp is going to implement all the policies he's talked about, you are going to see an inflationary spiral. All right. Everything Trp wants to do, whether high protectionist barriers you know, reducing the labor supply. Massive tax cuts on top of the existing tax cuts that will all be inflationary. He can't do much about the current constitution of the fed. Jay Powell is going to be there for at least another year. So one of the interesting things is whether or not the fed responds by jacking up interest rates in response. If there is any hint of, you know, increased inflation, which means the first year of a Trp administration is likely to be extremely volatile. And then once Trp is able to, you know, install whoever he wants in the fed, you are going to see a less independent fed. There is no denying this. And this is another thing to realize with the difference between Trp's second term versus Trp first term, Trp's second term. Trp came in as the biggest political neophyte in American history.
Drezner Dixon: He had no idea what the levers of power were, and he had to rely on people who weren't really his people. That won't be true this time around. He has a whole set of, you know, staffers this time, a whole set of people who basically moved down the learning curve in the first term. They have an agenda that they will implement. And also, if Trp gets elected, the odds are excellent that he will have GOP majorities in both the House and Senate. And those GOP majorities will be far more loyal to him than members of Congress were in 2017. There's going to be even more foreign policy variants. Oh, there will be regulatory rollbacks. This will be definitely a difference between Biden and Trp if Biden gets elected. By the way, I would expect, you know, further actions on antitrust and on unionization. This is an area where Biden doesn't need the support of Congress. In terms of foreign policy. You know, for all the talk about how Trp, you know, wants to pull out of Ukraine and, so forth, I would expect to see a much more militarized foreign policy in this hemisphere. You've got Republicans talking about, you know, using force against the drug cartels in Mexico. You know, wouldn't surprise me if you see essentially a replay of what happened 110 years ago when we tried to get Pancho Villa. And actually, if you really want to go there, one other thing I would expect to see if Trp gets reelected is more nuclear proliferation, not among our adversaries, but among our allies, because essentially, the South Koreas of the world, the Germanys of the world, are not going to be able to trust the United States if Trp gets reelected.
Drezner Dixon: They're going to look at this and think that even if he doesn't follow through in terms of pulling out of NATO, what they now have to recognize is that this is a persistent force in American politics, and there is no guarantee that the US will actually honor its treaty commitments. And so they are therefore going to have to engage in self-help. Unsurprisingly, this is from our folks at Media Stats. It is not surprising that we are seeing, you know, somewhat more concern about what Trp will do in terms of the fed. And I would expect this to continue to go up, particularly if Trp's odds of winning increase. In conclusion, while I would love to tell you that geopolitics isn't going to play a role in terms of what you want to do going forward, I would be lying to you. I'm not trying to sell you anything because I don't have a brilliant model to tell you when geopolitics will matter, but we have left the world where this was something limited to emerging markets. Geopolitics and political risk is now something that is affecting the developed world as well. On that cheery note, thank you very much.
Noel Dixon: All right, let's have a seat. Sure. Oh. Thank you. I need.
Speaker1: The iPad.
Noel Dixon: Perfect. Ah, well, that was brilliant. Thank you, professor, and scary at the same time.
Drezner Dixon: That's my brand.
Noel Dixon: So I have loads of questions, so I'm going to get right into it. And please, the audience, if you have any questions, please submit it through the, the app there. So first question is, you know, last Thursday, Trp was convicted of 34 felony counts. Do you actually think he's going to do any jail time.
Drezner Dixon: For that trial? , no, I'm skeptical of that. It's tricky. Ordinarily, he's a first time offender, believe it or not. And this is not a crime that would normally lead to jail time. , the one thing that would the one thing that could change that, though, is that Trp has been completely unrepentant and has shown no remorse. , it would be interesting to see whether or not the judge would say, I will give you probation, but you got to allocute , you actually have to cop to this, and I don't think Trp would cop to it. I think he would somehow see himself, you know, as going to prison as a gesture of, you know, as being one in a long list of political prisoners. , my hunch, though, is that it's not jail time, it's probation.
Noel Dixon: Got it. And how fearful or concerned are you about sort of a tit for tat among the major parties, , in terms of, you know, targeting or criminalizing their political opponents from here on out?
Drezner Dixon: I mean, the answer is it's already happened. , you know what? the Secretary of Homeland Security was impeached. Alejandro Mayorkas. you're seeing a trial, for Hunter Biden, that it started with an investigation launched under Trp for all of Trp's talk about how, you know, the president needs absolute immunity. You know, I doubt he would apply that, when he was if he was re-elected, it's worth remembering he wanted Hillary Clinton investigated. When he got elected, it was Jeff Sessions, of all people who said, we can't do that. , so, you know, and the fact that you also now have, you know, just sort of negative polarization, in all likelihood, if Trp gets reelected, you would expect the House to go Democrat in 2028 or sorry, 2026, which would mean the House would launch all kinds of investigations one would expect. So yeah, unfortunately, I do think this is an increasingly permanent feature of American politics. And I would add you now have state. I guarantee you states attorney generals are looking, you know, ambitious ones are looking for ways that they can prosecute, political opponents.
Noel Dixon: Got it. And so when we look at the swing states, as you pointed out earlier, it does show that, you know, Trp does have an edge. , some argue that Biden calling the debates early is an indication that he he he acknowledges that he's behind. Do you think if post the debate, the first debate, if he doesn't continue to perform, is there any possibility during maybe the Democratic National Convention that they opt to swap out Biden for another candidate?
Drezner Dixon: I rarely can give offer certainties. This one is certain. No, the only way Joe Biden is not, you know, nominated as if he dies between now and then. , that's just not how political parties work.
Noel Dixon: And that's a perfect segue into my next question, which is which is which is, you know, Biden is not a spring chicken. And, you know, so that leaves Kamala Harris. So if she were to come into power, do you think she would just be a simple continuation of his agenda, or does she have her own philosophy?
Drezner Dixon: I think she has her own philosophy. The real issue of Kamala became president is she would inherit all of Biden's, you know, staffers, you know, cabinet officials and so on and so forth. And it would be an open question of how much she could replace them. , it's worth noting that with Republican, with Democrat administrations, increasingly cabinet level and sub cabinet level officials are staying at their posts longer. These are exhausting jobs. The truth is, is that usually most people it used to be you would last two years, maybe three in these things. , but because Senate confirmation has become a much more fraught process, increasingly these people are staying on for much longer. And so one problem Harris would have to deal with is if I ask everyone to resign, how do I replace them? , and in that sense, you know, just to, just to address the elephant in the room with with Harris, she would be having all of these challenges as a less popular, you know, official than Biden. And as a woman of color, , which means God knows what else that she would have to encounter in Washington as a result, so she would face some serious challenges. She also, to be blunt, has not had a great track record when it comes to administrating. You know, she ran her own campaign into the ground in 2016. Sorry, 2020. , and her first year as vice president was was rocky at best. Although that's as much on Biden as it is on her, she does seem to have found her, her sea legs, as it were, though, so I think she would actually I think she would overperform in terms of expectations.
Noel Dixon: Got it. And I wanted to talk about RFK. So who do you think he hurts more, Biden or Trp?
Drezner Dixon: The correct answer is the brain worm inside of RFK. I mean, he's got to be running out of you know, protein is the way I put it. I think the honest answer is, is that I think in the end, he winds up hurting no one. , third party. This is a third party. Candidates always look like, oh, my God, they could really tip the, you know, tip the scales. It could make a huge difference. And, you know, at least in American politics, these folks always go down to, you know, 1 or 2%. By the end, I mean, Ross Perot is the exception. And RFK is a lot of things, but he's not Ross Perot. , I suppose if he doesn't, in other words, if he manages to maintain 10%, I actually do think in the end he winds up not hurting either of them very much. , because there seems to be evidence that he's drawing from both of them. And the way that Trp has sort of pivoted against RFK suggests that the belief that he was drawing just from Democrats, I think Republicans have realized that wasn't true.
Noel Dixon: So real quick, before I switch to foreign policy, your projections for the House and Senate.
Drezner Dixon: I think the Senate is extremely likely to go Republican. , they're guaranteed one pickup, which is in West Virginia, because Manchin is stepping down for the Democrats to maintain control, they have to run the table in all of these seats, including places like, you know, Ohio and Montana, , which is unlikely. And then Kamala Harris would be the tiebreaker with the House. I really do think it goes the same way as the presidency on this. , I would maybe you would give Republicans a slight edge because they're overperforming in places like New York State, , which would sort of potentially give them an edge. On the other hand, to be blunt, the, you know, a lot of the Republican House folks that they've nominated, you know, in some of the swing districts, you kind of wonder whether they're really going to be worth it. , but I think that one of the things that the, the House GOP benefits from is because they've dealt with spending and foreign aid, there's not they're not going to generate a lot of chaos news, which is what was the case in 2023. It'll be interesting to see whether or not the Democrats can continue to pin this on them, to sort of say, look, just let us run stuff and they can yell in opposition. That's what they want to do anyway.
Noel Dixon: Now, speaking of Ohio, Senator JD Vance said that we don't have the military capacity to fight a three front war in Ukraine, the Middle East and in Taiwan. Do you think that's true or is that just hyperbole?
Drezner Dixon: No, it's definitely true, but it's worth pointing out we're not fighting any wars at this point. , so it's sort of also hyperbole that it suggests that we are , I do think that he's the one semi valid point that he's raising is the US does have an issue in terms of munitions. And it needs to start, you know, addressing this in terms of long term. And part of this is a function of the way the DoD contracts this stuff. They need to provide munition manufacturers sort of assurance for at least the next 5 or 10 years of, you know, steady demand, and then you'll start to see a scaling up. , that said, the argent that, you know, from a from a strictly realpolitik perspective, the US aid to Ukraine is a bargain because we're giving, you know, even if you want to say we're giving them 50 billion a year, we're giving them 50 billion a year. And as a result, you are taking what used to be a great power and forcing it into a sausage grinder in which it is going to lose its best manpower every year in a war of attrition. You know it. That is, for me, from a strictly US interest perspective, not the worst trade off as these things go. , and also, again, this is the other thing that we, we can't say is that that, you know, the aid Ukraine Vance likes to talk about the US aid to Ukraine as being like, we can't afford that the aid Ukraine is going to US arms manufacturers. Right. It's just that you can't. That's one of those things you can't say out loud.
Noel Dixon: All right, all right. No, no.
Drezner Dixon: It's great we're funding this war and we're also getting rich in the process. You know, that's that's not a good message.
Noel Dixon: So, , how do you feel the. So, so CBO projected that if Trp extended the tax cuts, it would it would increase the debt by 4.6 trillion, which is. It's a mind blowing nber. , however, if we just were to stick with the status quo, on average, we're spending about 6%. , you know, every year on fiscal expense. So is there any appetite within the Biden administration, with the exception of increasing taxes to kind of reduce spending at all?
Drezner Dixon: I think the answer is probably not, although this might be an area where I could see Biden allowing for budget cuts that he doesn't propose, but rather the Republicans propose. And so he gets the best of both worlds this way, which is he can agree to budget cuts that he knows for fiscal reasons are probably necessary, but also say it's those darn Republicans who are who are cutting the budget. At least if I was his political advisor, that's what I would tell him to do.
Noel Dixon: Right. And how about the Usmca? Do you think that if we had a Trp administration that would be in jeopardy in any way?
Drezner Dixon: Why would it be? It's the greatest trade deal ever negotiated in the history of, you know, the United States. Noel. , which is why, in all seriousness, I don't think he would do anything for the Usmca. I mean, he has issues with Mexico, but the issues have to do with migration. They're not a trade concern. , and this would be an area where presably, you know, for him to have to renegotiate would be to acknowledge that the first renegotiation didn't work, which is not something Trp is prone to doing.
Noel Dixon: Right. , and then when we think about, just a little more broadly with the Middle East, , do you think. And what strikes me is interesting is that, you know, like you said, they blame the incbent currently, but do you think it will become more of a binary decision post the debate, like, you know, because Trp obviously is probably a little more hawkish. Miriam Adelson just funded him with the intention that he would, you know, they would they would, annex the West Bank was one of her conditions. So. So do you think, it could become more of a binary choice post the debate, or is that.
Drezner Dixon: Binary for.
Noel Dixon: Who between voters, for for the voters as it relates to, to the Middle East?
Drezner Dixon: As I said, I think, you know, Arab Americans are disaffected. It's possible that they wind up deciding to do is just not vote. Or maybe they're the ones voting for RFK. , you know, because as you said, Trp is now, you know, both in fundraisers and, and more publicly sort of backing Israel. Although the weird thing about this is that first, the Trp campaign isn't stupid. They don't want to be completely, you know, rah rah Israel precisely because they're disaffected voters in Michigan. They want to attract. The other wild card on this is that Trp can't stand Netanyahu. , to be fair, no American politician. No. You know, Biden didn't like Netanyahu either. Obama didn't like Netanyahu. Trp's reason for not liking Netanyahu, though, is weird, which is he doesn't like Netanyahu because when Biden won in 2020, Netanyahu acknowledged that Biden won. , but that is a personal grudge that that Trp takes very seriously.
Noel Dixon: And what about, NATO? So do you do you really think, , I know we I asked this before in one of our, presentations, but do you really think Trp would seriously want pull away from NATO?
Drezner Dixon: Not necessarily leap it this way. I think the odds are as good that he would actually withdraw from the WTO as they are, that he would withdraw from NATO. , because, say what you will about his views about trade. He really does seem to believe them in a way where NATO I just don't know if he cares as much. , part of what's going on with NATO, I think, is that he could potentially walk away with the with the observation that most European members of NATO are now, you know, starting to spend more than 2% of GDP on defense. Now, this has nothing to do with well, it had a little bit to do with Trp in his first term. It mostly has to do with what Russia's been doing. , in, in Ukraine. But you can picture Trp saying, see, I saved NATO. Nato is now the greatest alliance in the world because everyone is finally chipping in. Everyone is, you know, contributing their fair share. That said, again, don't underestimate the personal vendetta thing with Trp. It would not surprise me if he doesn't officially withdraw from NATO. But he does say we're only going to article, you know, honor article five with countries that pay up to 2%. And it also wouldn't surprise me if he punishes Germany, that if you actually see troop withdrawals from Germany in particular, because Trp's hostility to Germany in particular, and also the European Union in general, should not be underestimated. He views the EU as as much of an economic threat as China or India or what have you.
Noel Dixon: And China. Do you think that we would see probably a more aggressive China under a Trp administration or a less aggressive, a more aggressive or less aggressive China under a Trp administration?
Drezner Dixon: , that is a great question. I think it partially depends on what Trp does vis a vis China. If Trp imposes, I think he's promised 60% tariffs on all Chinese goods. If he follows through on that, yeah, I think you'd have a more aggressive China. Right. Because, you know, whatever you think about what China's done, they do have equities in a relatively open global economy. And despite all the tariffs that have been imposed to date, the fact is, is that China still exports a fair amount to the United States. If you're talking about an extra 60% on top of that, well, suddenly the incentive to to care about that goes down.
Noel Dixon: And I wanted to ask about the fed. It was brought up yesterday that, , you know, it's kind of difficult to get just any, any fed chair through the Banking Committee within the Senate. But if but if the Republicans were to win the Senate, is that is that true? I mean, Trp should be able to get through his he should be able to get, say, like a Larry Kudlow through, , if you will.
Drezner Dixon: You would expect that. I mean, it is worth remembering that during his first term, I think he tried to get Herman Cain on the Federal Reserve Board, and that did not quite work out. That's true. , and so and that that does highlight that Senate Republicans, Senate Republicans traditionally been a little more independent than the House when it comes to Trp. , and so it might be that he can't get through, you know, his most obvious toady, as it were, like, I don't think Peter Navarro winds up running the fed would be the way to put it. , we can all just, you know, just think about that scenario. But with each passing year, as I said, Congress, the Republicans in Congress are more and more attuned to Trp in a way that was not true in even in 2018. , and so, yeah, I think he probably could get a Kudlow through or someone that he feels is pliant enough so that he would actually be able to to influence interest rates.
Noel Dixon: I see Lee shaking his head over there.
Drezner Dixon: I'm not saying it's a good idea. I'm just saying this is what Trp would do.
Noel Dixon: Okay, I have two last questions. So the first one is there was an article, I believe, from the Wall Street Journal about, , Trade Representative Lighthizer, introducing a proposal where he would hypothetically use tariffs as leverage, to basically say, say to any country with a surplus against us, let us weaken our currency against yours. If not, then we'll hit you with a tariff. So I guess the question is, do you think Trp would actually bring, Lighthizer back on board? I would imagine, right. He's he's loyal. So you think that is a risk? Okay, absolutely. And then the final question, do you think Trp would leave the white House if he would if he were elected?
Drezner Dixon: Well, he has to die sometime, right? I mean, that's that's one thing to consider. And, you know, like he has a diet that's almost as bad as Bob Menendez. So one would expect that at some point that's going to affect him. I suspect that he would leave if for no other reason that, you know, the Constitution is pretty, you know, black letter on this point. , and, you know, he would be he would be able to walk away, you know, essentially being the only president beyond Grover Cleveland who, you know, was able to come back to the white House and did so despite the fact that he was convicted of a felony and so forth. The one thing that would also persuade him to walk away is if he basically he would have to he would pardon himself, you know, in perpetuity, you know, which would absolve him from any federal crime. , and it also wouldn't surprise me if he winds up making the choice for his successor on the GOP side, almost a reality show. So, for example, I think that in terms of his his vice presidential choice, you laugh. You know, we I think yesterday we had a we had the sort of shortlist that was announced basically, , among that shortlist, the guy that I think he's going to predict or he's going to choose is Doug Burg, who's the governor of North Dakota.
Drezner Dixon: And the reason he's going to predict he's going to pick him is that he's the perfect Mike pence clone. , you know, he's a governor. He's got the necessary, requisites to be vice president. He has no independence or charisma whatsoever. And what that allows him to do is come 2029 or 2030, he's going to have anyone who wants to be president from the GOP side basically ask to bend the knee to him. And so I want you to imagine the procession of folks who are going to have to go up to the white House and like, you know, express their fealty to him. Marco Rubio will do it. Jd Vance will do it. You know, I'm sure you know, at least Stefanik will do it. And so on and so forth. If he picks one of them now, well, then there's no drama because that person is. That the prospective nominee come 2028. If you pick someone like Burg, however, you can just nudge them to one side and say, okay, I've decided that this person is going to be the nominee. And again, this is the one area where, you know, the fanatical devotion of Trp's base to him makes him the kingmaker, and he will enjoy doing that on his way out of office.
Noel Dixon: Well, thank you so much. This was this was wonderful. Thank you, thank you.
