Transcripts For CSPAN2 Campaign 2020 Brookings Discussion On 2020 Election Foreign Policy 20240711

Discussion on election 2020 and its implications for u. S. Foreign policy. Obviously over the weekend there have been rapid developments theres now a president elect joe biden after a tumultuous days for everyone and an election that was pretty close for many days, but now looks like we have a clear a clear winner. So we have a terrific panel this morning to discuss not so much the election, but really looking forward to next year to see what the implications are for u. S. Foreign policy for International Order and to pars maybe some of the nuances of last week and what they may mean, particularly the fact that trumpism is alive and well even though the president did not receive a second term and that the senate could be in the hands of republicans. We have eric edelman, practitioner in residence of johns hopkins. And a nonsenior fellow at brookings, and the important china center. Tamara, a senior fellow at center for middle east policy at Brookings Institution and victoria noonen, nonresidency new fellow for United States. All served either served in senior positions in government which i wont go into at the moment, but you can rest assured that they come equipped with decades of experience at the highest levels and evan has recently written a book on joe biden, which is titled im sorry, the title escapes me, but its sits off my jean there, joe biden life and times, what it means for the 2020 election. Evan, lets start with you, if we can. Joe biden has been an around long time as weve heard repeatedly from donald trump, hes been in office, out of office 47 years. He has a long track record, u. S. Foreign policy. In some ways, hes a very known quantity, but in other ways a bit of an enigma. His views have evolved a bit over time. He has a large team that has the debates about foreign policies that have been obscured a little by the trump show and many people bidens world were expecting a repudiation of donald trump an overwhelming victory that would send a message to the world. He has won a clear victory, more close and marginal than anticipated and he may well have a Republican Senate. He, of could,has said that his super power is working with republicans, working with people on the other side of the aisle. So as he sort of contemplates the first few days of his condition and the beginning of his term. How do you think he sort of intemperatures the results of last week, particularly with the view to what it means for his Foreign Policy and for the future sort of of americas global role. Thank you. Its great to be with my colleagues up here and all of you tuning in. Look, i think there are, as tom mentioned, i think there are in some ways elements of joe bidens mind, his approach to diplomacy as to domestic policy that we sometimes overlook or havent really studied in detail until just now and they can help us anticipate some of the things that i think were likely to see. Ill talk just for a minute here what i think we can broadly describe as an era of division at home and abroad and i think thats important as a defining piece of this, as a way of sort of understanding this period of structural and sustained hostility in the u. S. And many relationships which will have implications. Before we do that, i want to talk a minute about president elect bidens theory of diplomacy because when you talk to him about how he thinks about diplomacy, which is something he cares a great deal about, he will tell you that he draws somewhat of a distinction between the way that is conventionally practiced. He said to me at one point. Sometimes diplomates get tired because i will say to them im not going to go into a room and say what you want me to say exactly as you wrote it herement and his basic view, baghdad, beijing, dont tell another person what their interests are. Thats his fundamental idea. Theyll have a notion of their interests and people said, in my experience, people are generally not open to being persuaded that their own calculations and interest is wrong. You have to show them the basic elements of recognition that youre hearing. Youre listening. You dont have to pretend you agree, but if you continue begin from the position that they understand their interests, you have an advantage other why you tell them theyre wrong. I think another piece of this thats meaningful is, joe biden and barack obama actually had some a very important thing that bound them together when they were joined together on this ticket. Now, often times and vicepresident s and president s, it was the basic unification, they used different tools to do it. In president obamas case he had a kind of transcendent story, his own literally his own personal story and the power of his eloquence, of his political rhetoric was able to at home and abroad trying to restore some element of the american image and american credibility. That was his approach. And you saw that in the significance of his speeches and so on. President elect biden has a different view. He does not pretend, frankly that, he has that kind of american story that can communicate what the future of the United States is likely to be. What he says is, in fact, i have the relationships, i have the kind of fundamental person to person contact and most of all, i believe that if you go back to that first principle, that you acknowledge that somebody elses interest may be legitimate that thats the basis for a meaningful discussion and ill just very briefly mention one other thing with his it is significant that he knows a lot of these people. And one point to me, used to have foreign leaders that went in the senate with joe biden for a long time. We had have foreign leaders come all the time to the senate and my job was to go around and introduce the foreign leaders and over here is senator soandso and then the foreign leaders would say, hi, joe. They just knew him and at a moment like now, when the United States looks frankly unfamiliar in so many ways now, in the nature of its politics, the nature of our division, to our friends and opponents abroad, an element of recognizability is a political asset that i think we sometimes discount. Im going to save specific comments about all of the various specific domaindomains, china, europe, elsewhere because i think my colleagues will get them and go to specifics in q a. Thank you, evan and tamara you served as Deputy Assistant secretary of state for the middle east for middle Eastern Affairs in the first term of the Obama Administration. You had the opportunity to work with then vicepresident bide p. Well get into the middle east part of it later on, i think, in the discussion. Just as a question on his sort of outlook, how it might have changed following the election last week. What hes sort of thinking what do you think hes thinking about the problems hes facing the world with a still very divided country at home and is his Foreign Policy likely to be different this week than it might have appeared just before the election . Oh, wow. I think that last is a difficult question, but let me try on start with the broader outlook question. I think that one thing weve seen from joe biden throughout his career, whether its in domestic policy, Foreign Policy, or in politics itself, is an ability to learn and grow and change. You know, this is not his first run for the presidency. And he, you know, across his career, i think, has just gotten better and better and better at what he does. What evan pointed out about his determination to empathize and to seek out Common Ground, i think these are elements of practical diplomacy that will serve him very well. And you know, hes got the background to hit the ground running, but the challenge he faces coming in in january is how much the ground has shifted since he was in the vicepresidency. Thats very true in the middle east, where weve seen historic developments over the last deca decade, some of which he was in office for, some of which he was not, but its true across the board. The global geo politics have changed. Transatlantic partners are in a different place than four years ago and theres a degree of uncertainty in Global Politics that i think has led a number of our traditional partners to engage in selfhelp over the course of the Trump Administration and its not simple to unwind that. So i think his capacity to learn and grow is going to be put to use very, very quickly. But i think that hell probably root himself in some of the Common Ground hes found with partners in the past. Whether that is, you know, on the iranian channel, on counterterrorism, on strengthening our port of coalition of democracies across the world, which is something he spoke about a lot during the campaign. But its hard to see how to put meat on the bones of all of those good intentions without those deep conversations with his foreign interlocutors to hear from them and find that Common Ground. No doubt, theres a lot of prep work thats been going on, but he will be reaching out and having had a lot of conversations. Hell want to hear it for himself and, you know, hes not going to be able to put these things on pause while he figures it out. Thank you. Thank you tamara. Thats fascinating. If we could turn to you next. I mean, you have served in very senior positions in the republican administrations. What do you think Mitch Mcconnell and, i guess, the Foreign Policy oriented senators are thinking at the moment . I mean, theres a id say a better than 5050 chance that they retain control. Senate following the runoff in georgia january 5th and we need to see the results. If youre looking at it now, theres probably a decent chance theyll remain in control and theyll have control basically of the nomination process, nell have considerable oversight and obviously, theyre necessary for any legislation to pass, its been a pretty divided election, weve already seen some senators come out and basically back Donald Trumps theory of the case. So, what do you think mcconnell and some of the other senators are thinking . And is there sort of a prospect for cooperation between a Biden Administration and Republicancontrolled Senate . Well, thanks, tom. First, its great to be here with you and all of my colleagues here with whom i have all sorts of unusual ties. I mean, we succeeded each other in a variety of positions in government. Tammys parents were exceedingly kind to me when i was ambassador in turkey and evans grandparents lived in the same neighborhood that my grandparents in manhattan. Its a great panel and im thrilled to be part of it. The Republican Party, certainly the Republican Party of Ronald Reagan has been shattered and is beyond recognition in terms of its approach to National Security policy. I think that for those of us who were never trump republicans and i was part of two different groups of that ilk that endorsed vicePresident Biden, we had hoped as you said a bigger repudiation of trump and trumpism and we didnt get it. I think that vicepresident is going to win a pretty solid victory when all votes are counted, likely to have a slightly higher margin than barack obama did against mitt romney, but its still not the repudiation of trumpism that might have served as a helping cleanser of the republican tendency to, particularly in the senate, to enable president trumps worst instincts and you can see that already in whats happened in the postelection period when a number of republicans in the senate have jumped like trained seals to respond to tweets from donald, jr. , et cetera, about defending his fathers, you know, totally undemocratic efforts to cast doubt on the results of the election, which i think is really dangerous for our democracy. And benefits only one person, which is vladimir putin. Might also benefit xi jinping. Might be more than one. What will happen in senate, i think senator mcconnell, i think leader mcconnells instincts remain sort of traditional, internationalist, conservative internationalist. He does have a longstanding relationship with vicePresident Biden. I think hits instincts is going to want to be pragmatic to get some things done. And i think, in fact, probably some contacts are already beginning to happen between vicePresident Bidens folks and congressional staffers on the republican side. So, i think thats, you know, all to the good, but leader mcconnells going to have a very large challenge and that is going to be that the Election Results are likely to have ratified in the minds of a number of people that the problem was not the message, it was the messenger, that this was a, you know, repudiation of trump, but not necessarily of trumpism. And that therefore, a hostility to trade agreements, hostility to our alliances are, you know, going to be the ticket to success in 2024 and that trump lane, i think, is going to be very crowded with a number of candidates. And many of them are going to try and soak the trump base and win it over for themselves and to win donny, jr. And president trumps impremator by leading resistance to a Biden Administration. I think that mcconnell is going to have a tough row to hoe himself. Hes going to need some help from the biden team in helping manage that. Particularly i dont think its going to be as big an issue in confirmation for cabinet positions, but the subcabinet positions, i think, na are open for confirmation are going to be a bigger batt battleground and thats going to require some very dexterous cooperation on both sides which i hope happens because that will be good for the country. Thank you, eric. Victor victoria, youve served not just in the Obama Administration as assistant secretary of europe, but also in several other administrations in both parties as a Foreign Service officer, very senior levels. Picking up where eric left off, if we are likely to see sort of a continuation of trumpism in the Republican Party and in the senate, would you still have some of those internationalist elements there and you have a President Biden who is sort of naturally inclined to bipartisanship. What do you think the best prospects are to sort of recreate, if not the bipartisan concensus, at least sort of a strong bipartisan view, maybe not shared by everybody in each party on americas leadership role internationally . Welcol, thanks, tom, its great to be with everybody on this morning and patriots and served their countries so well. Listen, biden came up, along with most of the senior members of the senate, in a period where the fundamental underpinning was that political fights ended at the waters edge and when you went out into the world, you went out as a unified and ideally a bipartisan front to talk to allies and adversaries alike about the challenges and about and to represent the United States. I think that will be bidens instinct trying to reach out to the mcconnells and burrs and cornyns and traditional republicans of his generation, but i think that eric is not wrong that on the Foreign Policy and security side, we dont know yet what those who will posture for the trump voters of 2024, the younger folks will take from the Foreign Policy agenda of trump. I thought it was pretty interesting that throughout the trump period even as some of the more trumpians punishing those on the trade side, the trump hostility toward nato, even toward the eu as an institution or towards allies in general, and over the period of the Trump Administration, this america go it alone, america unilateralism did not have popular support. Public opinion polling for institutions like nato and the u. N. Went up over this period. And i think that reflects the fact that the American People never really did buy that its better for us, cheaper for us to take on issues like china, issues like the new National Security challenges from hightech like artificial intelligence, kwquantum, et cetera, if we could do it with allies it would be cheaper and more persuasive for us, secondarily, doing it all alone puts all of the burden of things like sanctions on china put it on america than a broader, and i think biden will try to build a Bipartisan Coalition for american leadership, i think there will be a demand on the republican side for a more rigorous approach to some things, china in particular, than they may have seen from the Obama Administration, but as tammy said, i think thats where president elect biden as his team have evolved, anyway, that its time to be far more organized structured, rigorous and strong as a Democratic Community in the way we approach russia, china, and some of these other challenges from authoritarians who want to change the rulesbased system in their favor. So, i think he will make a strong effort. I just wanted to underscore a couple of things that evan said as somebody, you know, who had the honor of travelling with biden and watching him work as a u. S. Diplomate in the last in the Obama Administration. Not only does he start from the premise that you cant tell somebody else what their interests are, he starts by trying to understand what the other person on the other side of the table thinks their interests are. And then what their political environment is. Where their room to maneuver is. And then to try to call the interlocutor on the other side of the table to their higher angels to try to take some political risks together for a better outcome for both countries or for a larger group of countries. And hes fundamentally extremely optimistic in his approach. So just as he, you know, believes that the nation needs healing, i think he thinks the planet needs healing and particularly, that the Democratic Community has got to come together in a stronger way to address the many challenges that we have. So i think he will start from that optimistic place. He will do a lot of listening, but i also think that the democratic allies need to be ready, that he will be quite, quite demanding because he will not want to address these big challenges that we have alone and he will want the help of allies and partners in asia, in europe and other parts of the world. So, you know, i think it will be a much more multilateral approach, but i dont think that hell be a pushover with allies either. Tom, can i pick up on something at that tammy and victoria talked about, which i think is really, really important and put a slightly different gloss on it, which is, you know, she was talking about rebuilding sort of multilateral approaches, and tammy was talking about the tendency for some of our partners allies for selfhelp. This is actually bigger than trump and biden, right . Because for a lot of allies, they look back at the last 12 years, including the obama years, and see a pattern of retrenchment and diminished in their view, u. S. Leadership. They look at the vacuum created by obamas arguably underreaction in syria. And not only that trump represented, but rather something longer lasting. And so the challenge, i think, biden is going to face as he attempts to address the issues that tammy and victoria were talking about, how credibly can he say, look, im not barack obama, im not just the, you know, the second incarnation of barack obama. Im joe biden and im bringing a different approach and its one in which america is going to be more active than youve seen it be not just in the last four years, but in the last 12 years and i think thats going to be really his challenge. Eric, thats a great point. You know, ive long thought that key analytical question about a Biden Administration is not how is he different to trump, but how is he different to obama in terms of getting leverage on what it might be like. And i guess tamara, maybe you can come in next on that, i mean, the way you know, weve discussed this before, of course, but the way i try to think about it is are there sort of Key Assumptions or orthodoxies from the Obama Administration that are sort of different this time, and i guess, you know, you could address that in the context of the middle east or more broadly on other issues, what do you think those most likely i guess maybe not shifts, but debates, will are the debates within the broader sort of Foreign Policy Community Around biden, whether or not there should be a significant departure either along the lines that eric was suggesting or Something Else . Yeah, thanks, tom. And this is already such a rich conversation, i really enjoy it. Yes, i think what youve already heard from this panel about the president elects proclivities would suggest that he sees politics as the art of the possible. He doesnt sort of go in with the lofty overarching visions like obama did. Remember obama eliminating nuclear weapons, for example. You know, i think obama had partly because of his own personal story, but partly because of the way he approached the world, he thought that he could sketch out these ambitious visions and inspiring others to move forward. I think president elect biden is going to take a much more down to earth approach. Here are the problems we are afacing together. How do we Work Together to make this better than it is. And you know, and i think the question that eric posed, can he really take that down to earth approach while simultaneously sending the message that were back, were engaged, were driving events, at a moment when, look, you know, the United States like every other country in the world is facing a tremendous domestic crisis because of covid. And thats layered on top of all of the drivers of this desire to pull back from the world that exist in our domestic politics and affected both obama and trump. He wants to be engaged abroad, he is pushing into a domestic political headwind. You know, i think that the challenge begins at home with persuading americans that it is necessary to remain engaged and that actually as victoria said that we can get more done more effectively at lower cost and perhaps lower risk working with partners. Now, you know, where do we see the relative bipartisan agreement, on which International Issues can we start out with republicans in the senate, for example, china clearly. You can look back at the clear unified message from Congressional Democrats and Congressional Republicans and the Trump Administration at last years security conference on china, for example, just across the board. You know, you can see it on russia, a desire to impose stronger consequences on the russians and try to con strain their behavior in europe and elsewhere and you can see it on saudi arabia. Lets remember that, you know, obama had the veto of from Bipartisan Legislation overridden by congress at the end of the administration, allowing 9 11 families to pursue remedies in court against saudi arabia and we saw those in congress to suspend arms sales to saudi arabia because of the yemen war that trump had to veto. When you look at those scenarios, those are areas if thats where you start,it pushes the United States in a more confrontational direction toward these three actors and you know, doing that effectively is going to require international coalition. But theres also the question is is that where a Biden Administration wants to start . Rather than focusing on, you know, strengthening democracies, working on climate change, addressing the challenges nuclear proliferation, you know, addressing the Global Health challenge. You know, these are things that are going to require cooperation, including from russia and china, so, i do think that theres an inherent tension between the domestic equation, if you will, and the international equation, thats going to be difficult to solve. I actually see it the opposite way, tom. If i might. I think in you look at the Foreign Affairs article that biden penned a year ago and you know, the few times during the campaign that there have been conversations about National Security and Foreign Policy because it really didnt figure too much, there is a strong stream of thought that strong at home also requires being strong abroad and that the two challenges, rebuilding in the United States and Building Back better have to work in tandem with restoring u. S. Leadership abroad and the degree to which we can make an infrastructure leap, an innovation leap, a defense leap, past the old rusty technologies to the new security challenges and use stimulus money to make ourselves stronger will make us both better leader globally in terms of how we deal with economic recovery, how we deal with pandemic, but will also put us in a stronger position to lead other allied countries in a unified approach to russia, to china, will ensure that neither of those countries gets around on us in terms of next generation economy, et cetera. So and then the question becomes and you see this in the writings of some of bidens key advisors. How do you convince american kitchen tables that the two issues are linked, that so many of the jobs that they depend on in the heartland are linked to open trade and open borders, not necessarily new trade agreements, but maintaining the freedom of navigation and freedom of markets and not tariffing your friends and those kinds of things, but also how do you ensure that some. Stimulus money thats going into the United States and that europe is applying is also bringing us better standing in the world, better outcomes, more green innovative ways of running our country such that were stronger visavis our adversaries and not yielding the field to them in the next generation of economy and infrastructure. I think they see it as linked. Its a tall order to implement that way because youre going to have to get some this is where the Congress Comes in, is a Republican Congress going to support the kind of investment that biden talked about, 80 billion and are they going to see it as a gift to him or going to see it as part of strengthening the country for everybody and strengthening our leadership role. Thats the challenge, i think. Thanks, and evan back in on precisely that point and start to weave in questions from the audience as well because theyre streaming in and trudy of the Philadelphia Inquirer has a question on bidens policy on Chinese Technology and add another china question as well to it, the point that victoria is making there that, you know, getting the domestic agenda is through and even getting some of the nominations through will be difficult with a Republicancontrolled Senate. One way to do it is to make competition with china more central to the overall Foreign Policy narrative, right, that you need to have these structure investments to compete with china and that the necessary changes for technology side, that maybe some of the nominees, you know, will sail through more if theyre seen as having liberal sort of version of great power competition. There steams to be a massive debate, both in biden and democratic circles the wisdom of that. Some people embrace this, an and some distance, and a, the substance of it and experience china on it and also on internal politics within biden world on the china issue . You know, in some ways this is the issue that ties together so many of the themes that we have been talking about all of us today. You could take just as an example, china is one of the areas in which you see not a departure so much from the obama approach, but an evolution, often in some cases by some of the same practi practitione practitioners, the facts on the ground, that things have changed in the relationship and both in chinese leadership and also in americas view at the elite level and popular level. And look, i think if you take if you look back at what vicepresident elect biden wrote and what his key advisors wrote elsewhere, you begin to get a feel in which there is a recognition the fundamental u. S. China relationship under the administration is not the same way, its not simply cooperation will lead to a more cooperative china. That it is now a recognition that were into a phase of, to some degree, obviously, a much more contested arrangement. Now, i will say a couple of things specifically. The u. S. Sort of political side, take, for example, the data point that you had a Senate Resolution to censor p pay beijing over hong kong, and that would come in 100 , and there are a tremendous options. They can say, beijing, look, this is what were contending with here. It is now in our hand, on our schedule, on our terms to define what were going to do because we have this mandate to do what we want to do and thats not to say that they are going to either chuck out entirely the Trump Administration approach, or simply apply it and extend it. I think what youre likely to see is, and these are very experienced practitioners involved in this relationship. Were going to use the elements of the setting of the tables in ways that are helpful to them. They dont need to roll back tariffs until something is provided in return. They dont simply need to change course from the existing approach on technology until they see evidence of progress. So, even though there may be and there are very deep philosophical disagreements about the approach that the Trump Administration took and how the incoming Biden Administration will take it, they are also in the fortunate portion of being able to inherit the elements they find useful and use them as they find necessary. Ill sort of leave it there because there are this is by the way a thrilling chat with colleagues and i feel we could do this for the next week and not fulfill all of our mandate here. Getting back to the same one other area of leverage comes up with of course iran a and i think youre guessing at potential differences between the Democratic Administration of whatever president and the Republican Senate, you know, the jcpoa is probably pretty high up there on the list. Could you speak a little about how you think a Biden Administration should proceed with these issues particularly with regard to the leverage that the Trump Administration has bequeathed to them . And is there a way to do this that sort of builds a bridge to the senate and a way to do it maybe that burns that bridge . A great question, tomment tom. I want to say i agree with every word that evan said, including and and the. And i think that the way Biden Administration will look the at china question and goes more broadly because of the National Security strategy that the trump people adopted, which prioritizes competition with russia and china and you know, before the election, the House Armed Services Committee Chairman adam smith said there was going to be a big fight among democrats for the Defense Budget and biden needed a new National Defense strategy, i think they will do a National Defense strategy, but i dont think its going to end up quite where adam smith thought because of the election returns and for the reasons that evan adduced, there is a broad bipartisan concensus that were in a longterm competition, strategically with china and with that russia than that probably china is the longer term, bigger challenge. So i think that theres broad acceptance of that and i think that the Biden Administration can make its own adjustments and build on that. And biden, i think, signaled that in his stars and stripes interviews, he didnt think there would be big cuts in the Defense Budget, notwithstanding the sanders amendment that calls for 10 across the board defense cut. I think he was signaling all of this. On iran in particular, you know, the vicepresident said that he wanted to go right back into the Iran Nuclear Deal and i hope he doesnt because i think that would be a huge mistake strategically. And it really speaks to the point that tammy made earlier about every and i went through five different president ial transitions during my 30year career. And one thing that occurs all the time is the challenge because people always come back from having been, you know, in office previously four or eight y years ago, the world has changed and sometimes takes shorter and sometimes longer to figure that out. And i hope that the biden team will discover that on iran, its changed and that it doesnt take them longer, but shorter because theyve been bequeathed, again as evan was suggesting with china, enormous leverage because of the impact that almost nobody predicted, including the critics of the Trump Administration, that the maximum Pressure Campaign would build as much economic pressure on iran as it has. And the iranian economy is it in terrible shape. Moreover, the iranians now are very much now out of compliance with the standards set in the jc pchl jcpoa. To go back in and relief the sanctions pressure without getting something pretty considerable in return, would be, i think, to squander the leverages that they have. More over, it would poison the relationship with Senate Republicans who will be looking at this very carefully and not just republicans. Lets not forget that at the time the jcpoa was agreed, i was going to signed, but then i remember it was never actually signed, its not a signed agreement its just an accord, but the senate, when it was debating it never voted on it because the Obama Administration refused to have a vote because they knew they would lose. The Senate Minority leader who hopes to be the Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer came out against the agreement. The ranking democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee bob menendez came out against the agreement. The next Ranking Member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee ben carson came out against the agreement and so, there will be bipartisan folks looking at this to see how much the biden folks are both using the leverage theyve got, but also, addressing what even the democratic platform admits were omissions in the agreement to agree with, which is the Ballistic Missile program and irans malign behavior. So i think the way forward for the Biden Administration on this is first to consult to allies. And try and develop a common approach to getting iran to the table to get a better agreement that doesnt allow republicans to pick at all those weaknesses of the earlier agreement including the conventional arms embargo that expired on october 18th while the rest of this stuff was going on and nobody was noticing. And that, i think, will be the best way forward, if they just rush back in and say were going back into the agreement we dont really care about all the rest this have, i think that it would be both a diplomatic mistake, but i think it will invent relations in the congress. And mark, id love to get your thoughts on erics comments, but also, you know, its hard to think of another region in the world where maybe joe bidens election will be greeted so cooly, i mean, these guys generally were totally in bed with trump and for him for a wide variety of reasons. On this iran piece for sure, but also on the broader sort of middle east challenge that a Biden Administration will face and this isnt necessarily an area where you want to reassure, we assure, reassure, there are legitimate differences and with these leaders, of course, the crown prince of saudi arabia. How do you think about the choices that a Biden Administration will face in the first six months, including on the jcpoa . Yeah, i am doubtful, eric, that a Biden Administration is going to rush back into a jcpoa that iran is out of compliance with. I dont actually think that realistic. I think more likely is the question of whether you can tee up some kind of essentially, freeze for freeze. Where the iranians stop their, especially the enrichment activity thats brought them out of compliance, stockpiling of Nuclear Material and you know, right now in the region consulting with allies about scaling up iran sanctions which, you know, in a way puts the Biden Administration in a good position although i think the intent is to tie a Biden Administrations hand, but it does give them more leverage, at least in the shortterm, i think with the iranians to demand this sort of freeze for freeze. And that gives you time to consult with allies, to sketch out the parameters of what a bigger, longer, stronger, jcpoa2. 0 might look like. So, you know, thats the direction i expect that they will take. But i think that as far as the region is concerned, israel aside, the primary concern with iran has not been the nuclear proliferation, it has been the other activities. And what weve seen over the course of this maximum pressure with no off ramp is that iran has escalated those activities and the trumps administrations incoherence in responding to that often between bluster and aggression and truly leaving allies in the lurch as the saudis were after an attack on refinery facilities, leaves allies with a question with the direction of american policies. I think its both a challenge and an opportunity for the United States, but its going to come up very quickly in a lot of places. This is the issue that is going to bring riyadh and abu dhabi and everybody else knocking on the door, just as it was when the Trump Administration came in, by the way. One of the reasons that they went all in for trump is it because they felt fairly or unfairly betrayed and abandoned by an Obama Administration that conducted secret diplomacy without telling them with the iranians and made noises about leaving the saudis and iranians to work out their own. How is biden how does biden put those pieces together, pursue some kind of diplomatic engagement with iran without creating the perception that, i think, would be incorrect that is quite likely among these hypersensitive regional partners that biden is just being the antitrump and switching sides. Back to the iranians and of course, there are quite a bit of republican critics in the United States who will jump on that as well. And find a way to kick the nuclear can down the road a bit. And the immediate concerns about and are immediate concerns about militia activity in iraq, about the ability to defend against missile attacks and rocket attacks from the iranians and from their allies and hezbollah. And you know, to have some really tough and honest conversations with regional partners about the ways in which their behavior in the last four years has gone, not just beyond the bounds of partnership, but beyond the bounds of basic international norms. The violations of sovereignty of other countries, including the United States by the saudis, for example. Not only the murder of jamal khashoggi, but the twitter, using saudi diplomatic facilities in the u. S. With common crimes to escape justice, this is not how friends behave. There needs to be some very honest conversations about the things we need to do together and the things that they need to pull back on in order to demonstrate that theyre committed to this partnership. Thank you. Victoria, theres a question here from jennifer rudman, which is mou how how can president elect biden build morale in the state department. Id like to ask you that and a link to tamara and eric were just saying about leverage because we often here that the Biden Administration ought to use this leverage and that has been bequeathed to it. I wonder if you might talk about how it might generate leverage and what weve learned from the Trump Administration in terms there were occasions where they committed leverage and people didnt think it would work and didnt have a strategy to execute on it or negotiate on it. Were there things maybe that, you know, the Obama Administration could have done more of to generate leverage. What is sort of your thinking on how a Biden Administration might be able to create leverage of its own that it can use, you know, over the subsequent four years . And i just mean that in terms of we often hear reinvigorating diplomacy, diplomacy is personnel, resources its the buildings and also sort of the strategy and youve got a lot of experience, obviously, negotiating and with some pretty tough characters. How do you think about sort of revitalizing diplomacy and across the spectrum of all of those areas . Well, first of all, you know, i and i think a lot of people subscribe to the addage that diplomacy doesnt work unless its backed by strength. Being strong at home, recovering fast, and rebuilding this Alliance Structure so that regardless of the adversary, whether its china or russia or iran or any force around the world that wants to undercut the liberal world order run by the democratic world, we have to rally together, and thats the greatest leverage when were working in tandem with others. You know, i was fascinated listening to eric and tammy. I think the middle east is going to be the most complicated for the Biden Administration because i dont think we have an articulation yet of the middle east end state that wed like to see, right . How much does it matter to the United States that syria is still bleeding, that libya is bleeding, that yemen is a mess, that the gulf cant Work Together. That israel is aligning with some, but were not solving as tammy made clear the threats to israel from hezbollah, et cetera. So, i think the question becomes, can you articulate a vision of investment in the middle east, whether its with regard to syria, iraq, libya, yemen, you know, that is perhaps not the lofty 2011, you know, freedom spring vision, but is nonetheless a consistent investment on the side of stability, on the side of rolling back maligned behavior, whether its iran, whether its russia, whether its saudis, whether its our ally turkey and bringing major allies to the table around that vision and as eric and tammy have said. Jcpoa unlike the climate accord is not turn key. You cant just flip it back on because the conditions are no longer being met. So how do you define this bigger, i would say, at the same time you dont want to see iran going back to Building Nuclear weapons, the malign behavior with the support of other malign actors around the world is more dangerous right now and how do you build on that. The other thing is with the jcpoa remember that russia and china were partners, hard to imagine that we are going to be able to do that with them. I think it takes you back to the question of leverage, tom, which is that, you know, with europe, with our asian allies, starting with a core of g7 nations, who are the biggest democracies around the world. How do you Work Together both to rebuild ourselves, because you have to start from that place, the long telegram, you cant defeat the soviet union if youre not strong at home and would be to republicans if articulated right. How do you have everybody make a contribution in common and quite frankly, i dont see another country that could have a joint liberal approach to china, to russia, to iran, to climate, other than us. So were going to have to first have to articulate a clear vision, were going to have to have a team, the problem with the state they werent with diplomacy and pompeo did go out and do a little bit. But at eric taught me, 10 major policy leaders from the secretary, deputy secretary, undersecretary for mrirl afarina Political Affairs and even some ambassadors enfaging in negotiations and who are supported by young diplomatic teams who are learning how its done, to are working with the evans of this world to explain policy to the fourth estate, who are in dialog with the congress, and who will bring in resources to the table, whether there are security resources, whether there are development resources, whether they are, you know, the punitive resources of a shared sanctions approach, et cetera. So we have not been out there in the world. The table has been empty. And the malign actors, whoever they are, have rushed in to fill the gap and theyve had it easy. But also, our allies have had it easy because we havent been asking them to join with us in some of these things and some of them may be very difficult, including things like if we decide that we need to have an export control regime together against chinese high technology, which i think is a bipartisan move that people will support. I think it is very hard to underestimate how much damage has been done to the diplomatic platform of the United States by the Trump Administration. Its not just the Trump Administration. There were a number of trends that go back way before that, that have contributed to this, but the hemorrhage of senior officers, we aged out and so thats not important that people my age group flat. The problem is american taxpayers have invested enormous amounts of money getting people ready to send the most senior positions and they are not there now. Just a giant void. You cant make that up by just saying we will promote the 40 and 45yearolds because this because this is a business where experience and Long Development of subject matter expertise and familiarity actually means a lot. It matters dramatically. The state department is going to require really a kind of ten to 15 year rebuild. When we entered the Foreign Service there were roughly 22,000 people a year taking the Foreign Service exam. Last year it was 7000. And so theres going to have to be a lot of work done and a lot of effort i think probably we havent, the last on the Foreign Service got looked at by the legislative branch was in 1980 with the Foreign Service act of 1980. Its probably time to review that and avenue Foreign Service act, there are new core competency that we knew required that this is not good because that badly the institution was burned down to actually reimagine it and rebuild it in a way that serves the u. S. National interest. But i think no one should underestimate the length of time for the amount of effort is going to take. Thank you, eric. Very important issue. I knew everyone i think has we have ten minutes let a want to turn quickly to several questions on the transition. Transition period so john at the minneapolis star tribune, how diplomatically damaging is president trumps refusal to concede, to continue contesting the election, Election Results . Theres another question from deirdre of usa today about which foreign leaders president elect biden speak to in the coming days and what of those conversations about . I guess he overarching question is really fairly precedented situation of what is it, 78 day transition with an outgoing president that seem sort of determined to if that quite burnt everything to the ground maybe to certainly push back, not to cooperate in the transfer of power, and is sort of build up his position in the future. Evan, could you talk to us may be about the dangers of whats going on at the moment, how rocky are the next couple of months might be somehow the biden team might respond . But more importantly really isnt any long term damage that could be done over the next two and half months that will not be easily repaired, not so much in the policy side but rather on the institutions of government and the health of american democracy . I think its impossible to overstate how damaging it is to the short, medium and long range interest of United States 12 the president who appears to be fundamentally rejecting the legitimacy of our political system. Its damaging to the interest of the Republican Party as a Foreign Policy actor. Its damaging to the interest of the American Public and, of course, it makes it challenging for the Biden Administration thats come in. What you have seen is the Biden Administration, the Biden Campaign knew exactly what donald trump was going to do. This was not a mystery. Its one of those with things that is both shocking and unsurprising. There approaches been now quite consistent over the last few days and i think youll see the continue, which is it will not allow themselves to be drawn in to the invention of a dispute. There is no dispute here. Law is clear. The votes are being counted and the count is clear, and the only confusion here, frankly, is in the might of donald j. Trump and on the part of mind of the leaders for ranting who are deciding in realtime weather not to acknowledge reality or to make the political calculation to stay in his particular form of delusion. I am being blunt about this because those are the stakes here. I think the way to think of it is the Biden Campaign is practicing what i would call vigilant reassurance. They are letting the world know they are not participating in the fiction, that there is an actual dispute but they are also using the courts as absolutely aggressively as they need to be. But they dont have any question. On january 20th, president trumps signature becomes legally an operative and the next president will take office, full stop. Yeah, so let me come in on that. I do think there was time for Transition Team in giving cooperation from the Current Administration matters. Although that is not unprecedented. Wish the court decided on december 12 and was an orderly transition between then and january 20. So it is doable but it seems that so far the Trump Administration has opted not to cooperate with incoming team so the transition landing teams cannot start their work, the transition can prepare personnel choices but is going to have a lot of trouble getting those people into the nomination process if the Republican Senate is not willing to go along with the transition period so the lost time does matter. But i think that there are couple other things that worry me more in this transition period mac. One is that it is all in the planning to be concerned about which International Actors might try to take advantage of the transition period to test the United States or the undertake activities where they otherwise faced challenges on the u. S. And given trumps capriciousnes capriciousness, there rationally come in coheres, the the policy process, thats another dangerous prospect for the United States in this transition than in any previous one. We just dont know how he would react to, for example, another major militia attack on american troops or the American Embassy in iraq. Just to take one example. So we have to worry about that. The other thing that worries me very much is what would be left behind and what would be destroyed . We have plenty of evidence now of the corruption of the Trump Administration and its willingness to use Foreign Policy and International Relationship for private purposes and private gain. Whether we are talking about the issue that was litigated in the impeachment of the president or the simple use of the state department in dinners for mike pompeo and his wife to prepare the political ground for his possible electoral future. That kind of corruption is corrosive. So even though the electors and appointed officials of the Trump Administration, you have loads and loads of people in the state department and every agency across the federal government who have been coerced into corruption. They have simply been complicit, or in an attempt to defend their agency from degradation, went along because they had to pick their battles. All of the recrimination and the corrosion of that experience is left left behind for the Biden Administration to confront and that will impede our ability to do our work. I think thats a tremendous challenge we cant lose sight o of. Thank you. Isnt anyone who wanted to comment on that before i move on . First of all i agree with everything evan and tammy just said. I do want to make one point, which is look, if emily murphy designates President Biden or president elect biden as president elect on december 14 when the electors are certified, as tammy said that wont be any later than the bush v. Gore. What i have to say, and i think from my conversations the biden transition folks have been anticipating an uncooperative transition from the outset as evan suggested. Having said that, you know, to the point that tammy made earlier that when people get in, they need to take an assessment of the state of the agencies as they are and prepare for taking the reins of government on january 21. Our system is not like the british system where you have the election and then the new Prime Minister walks in number ten and gets handed his red box with all the memos from the permanent cabinet secretaries who continue in office and everything just takes over. If you want to watch the transition of power you can go to the Southwest Gate or at least that you can get to it nowadays and watch the 18 wheelers holding out of the white house with the records of all the Previous Administration and new administration is coming into the white house and theres nothing there except maybe a couple of secretaries and phones that might or might not work. The problem is that as one of my former Foreign Service mentors told me long ago, transition time is equal to three times governing time. Because when you walk in on january 21 you are literally drinking from the firehose. Theres everything from around the world. It at you and demanding attention and a response. The ability to try and think through these problems that youre going to inherit calmly and without being forced to take immediate action on them is a luxury that we have in our system that we are squandering. Its going to complicate everything and its one reason why its such a disgrace that more republicans have not spoken out as mitt romney has and a few others to call an end to this charade. Thank you, eric. Were out of time said like to give tori the last word maybe even on the transition point or on anything else that you would like to ask before we go. You know, i agree with all that is been said. I think this team would be supremely prepared. I think the bigger problem, and its not just trump intransigence. Its also covid which makes it hard to gather and speak informally and get the wisdom of long serving professional staff in all of these agencies. It will be harder, but i am an optimist. I joe biden is an optimist. I think the world is ready for a more orderly and stable and predictable and committed United States. So i look forward to it. Tori, eric, evan, tamara, thank you so much and thank you all, for all of you online joining as the assume and via the website. I think with a very large group of people so thank you so much and thank you for the questions. I can say with great confidence this is an issue we will come back to maybe not every day or every other day but probably every week for now for some time, so thank you again. Until next time we are adjourned. Thanks, john. You are watching booktv on cspan2, every weekend with the latest nonfiction books and authors