How The World Sees The US After The Assassination Attempt On Trump: Eurasia Group Director

2 months ago

Clayton Allen, Director of the Eurasia Group, joined 'Forbes Newsroom' to discuss the assassination attempt against former President Trump and how the rest of the world views the United States.

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Transcript

00:00What do you think this event signals largely to the rest of the world? I mean, does it show just how deeply divided America is right now?

00:09I think that the signal this sends is a negative one.

00:13Look, the U.S. is the only large major democracy that cannot hold an election that's trusted by an overwhelming majority of its voters.

00:20No matter who wins in November, there's going to be a large contingent of Americans who view the results of this election as illegitimate.

00:26That dynamic was on full display this weekend. This exacerbates perceptions that America is increasingly riven by partisan division.

00:33This is also an opportunity for America's adversaries to take advantage of that division to try and advance their own malign aims.

00:39Russia, North Korea, others who engage in election interference certainly look at this as an opportunity to sow additional seeds of distrust,

00:46to try to pull Americans away from each other and further undermine trust in our democratic institutions and system.

00:53All said, this was a negative event, not just for America internally, but also for global perceptions of its democracy.

01:00Since this was obviously such a negative, such a horrific event, and you don't anticipate the country really unifying in a meaningful, positive way,

01:10what are you specifically looking out for next as right now the RNC is underway, the DNC will be next month, there is an election in less than four months?

01:20Absolutely. I think the thing to watch this week is the RNC. There are some indications that Trump will pursue more of a message highlighting unity.

01:28I think that that is certainly going to feature into his addresses.

01:31However, the baseline approach that his party is taking, I think, is certainly sort of captured by the statements of J.D. Vance and Tim Scott.

01:40That's going to also be a feature in this narrative.

01:43The balance between those two narratives, I think, is what to watch during the RNC, as well as the response from other politicians.

01:49Are there protests? Are there other activities that happen alongside the RNC?

01:53Does that feed into greater protest activity around the DNC, as well?

01:57Those are the things that I would watch, and I think that at a basic level, our expectation here at Eurasia Group is that political violence in this cycle,

02:05whether it's small scale, whether it's high profile, like the event of this weekend,

02:09is a risk that we would definitely highlight when our clients are asking us about what to look forward to, both this year and next.

02:16I know that President Trump is saying that he wants to show a message of unity.

02:20He said that he ripped up his past RNC speech, is now going to have one that has more of a unifying message.

02:27But when J.D. Vance tweets something like this, the central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs.

02:37That rhetoric led directly to President Trump's attempted assassination.

02:40How does the GOP square those two messages?

02:45I think it's going to be challenging to be very blunt.

02:48I think that Trump's statement that he's ripped up his RNC speech, that he's going to pursue a statement of increasing unity, that's very emblematic of Trump's skill as a politician.

02:56He is ultimately adaptable. We've seen that time and time again from 2015 until today.

03:01Ripping up his RNC speech, whether or not that actually occurred as a rhetorical device is a very powerful one.

03:06It suggests that Trump is looking at this through the lens of statesmen.

03:10I don't know that he'll necessarily be able to pull that off.

03:13Certainly one of the things that we're watching is Trump's individual demeanor.

03:16His individual demeanor sets the stage, sets the tone for the rest of the party.

03:20Vance's comment, I think, is reflective of what you're going to hear from a lot of down-ballot Republicans, a lot of people who are pushing sort of the traditional Trump campaign message.

03:29And I do expect that that's going to continue to feature very heavily in the overall Republican message this week.

How The World Sees The US After The Assassination Attempt On Trump: Eurasia Group Director

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