Between israel and the United Arab Emirates, afghanistan, the potential october surprises dealing with Foreign Policy. This a fantastic panel that bring such a depth of expertise to these topics and i would like to introduce them. When charlie cook who is editor and publisher of the cook political report. Celinda lake, president , Lake Research partners. Doctor norman ornstein, resident scholar come senior scholar at the American Enterprise institute, and christian sultans anderson, who is part of cofounder of echelon insights. Thank you all. Were lucky to have you or this discussion and want to dive right in. I was excited to talk you to yl about this. Its something im interested in. Id like to start with the question for each of you that generally gets at the role of Foreign Policy in the 2020s election. How much do Americans Care about Foreign Policy and nationals could issues in this election cycle and how is that different from past elections that weve had recently . Lets just go in a political order. Start somebody, charlie, if that works for you. Great, thank you. So i. Think how much people care about pulse is onebo way to look at and its about i think in this t election Foreign Policy s actually standing out as a circuit for leadership style. I think in the end, leadership and character will make a big difference in this election. Y ah more important role, particularly as contrast is drawn about what kind of leader do you want. This is particularly poor into women voters and to suburban voters, collegeeducated voters, and i think there is a very, very stark contrast. Tweets, you erratic have voters to think at one point, donald trump could tweet us into a war, versus someone who has experienced steady, strong, knows how to deal with our allies, knows how to deal is aour enemy, so that strong character contrast, and i wills i think that is how you will see it play off. Sure. So i think Foreign Policy as discussed is not a toptier issue. Closelys woven in very to another issue, and that is covid19. The issue of china has been one that for many elections not ,eally i many voters radar President Trump was talking about that for a long time, and that might be why he was able to stand out in the republican primary four years ago, but we have seen in recent years the unfavorable ratings for china go from, according to the Pew Research Data at the start of trumps presidency, now you have 66 that you have people say they feel unfavorable towards china, and they were trending negative well before covid19, and it is not exclusively about republicans. 62 percent of democrats as well as 72 of democrats say they feel unsafe regarding china. While i would not say it is a top issue or a toptier issue, i think it is woven in deeply to economic anxieties, and then with covid19, china has become a health care issue, in addition to being a security and economic issue, so i think that policy had significant the question how to deal with other nations in fighting and controlling this virus has led to having relations become a little bit more critical. This is not a u. S. Domestic problem. This is a global problem, and watching how america has and has not succeeded in containing the virus as other countries or in combination with other countries, i think that is on many voters minds. A little selfconscious. Here i am on a panel talking about this from one of the great political scientists of all times, and a reporter, butl somebody has to play the role of someone who has gone to the picnic. I do not think that Foreign Policy issues directly or indirectly, sadly, i do not think theyre going to be very important. Biden i think this is a referendum up and down on President Trump, and so many things are baked into that cake about President Trump, and, sadly, americas role in the world, leadership, these are things that ought to be really, really important and i wish were topics in this debate, in this campaign, but really are not. Just about donald trump, as a midterm election. They were not only about donald trump. Think the policy issues are incredibly important, but i just do not think anything can eclipse whether you like donald trump, whether you love him or loathe him. I do not think any issues really penetrate their other than perhaps the handling or mishandling of the coronavirus. To red ay, somebody had jean this proposition. Did you want to weigh in . So, thanks, charlie, for the nice words, which i will say your modesty should not be there. The best of the best. Having said that, let me parse out a little bit more. I think on a larger scale, charlie is right. This is a referendum on the president. But i also think we are going to have a little bit of a choice here, that it is going to be issues of leadership, maturity, of empathy. That will play out. Morepact on for policy indirectly. I think we can look at some other things. This started by talking about china. You can see from the Republican Convention and the other things that donald trump has said in the past that, in fact, he is trying to skirt around the coronavirus issue, the covid issue, by saying, i had nothing to do with it. I made America Great again. We had the best economy in the history of the world, and then china undermined us, and we will see a push to go after china that could have reverberations, including with some issues of Foreign Policy, like trade, which i think could make a real difference. Because theight, electorate will be looking at whether or not they like trump or do not, but what we can see from both conventions is some farmer saying these tariffs, the way they handled the trade issue have been devastating to me, and some at the Republican Convention saying, that god, now we have finally got things in order, and our orders are up, and things are going well. How much those Economic Issues related to Foreign Policy matter will be interesting. As anave russia factor in issue, not just because of what we saw especially with the Republican Convention, the disdain for the russia probe and the implications which came up again and again and again but also, of course, the Senate Intelligence committee report, which is a pretty devastating takedown of what russia did in 2016 and again in 2020, and if we think about russian interference in the election, that sure seems to me to be a Foreign Policy issue. Finally, let me say it often becomes an issue when it comes to specific stitch wins, so i do not think it is a coincidence that we have a deal just reached with the United Arab Emirates and israel. It is very much the timing of it tied to an attempt to try to sway votes, and we may see other actions here that will also impinge on our ability to deal with actors abroad, adversaries and others, that are tied to an attempt to sway voters one way or the other. In the larger sense, you know that Foreign Policy is not the toptier unless we are in the middle of a war, and, of course, we can talk about afghanistan and both parties struggling over how many troops we keep in the least and what we do there. It will not be the most significant factor. Could weigh iny with marginal voters. How itnt to talk about is more a character issue rather than a specific policy issue. What is the mood of the voters . They prefer trumps unpredictable style on the world stage . Do they want to lean towards a e and, who is status quo do they want to lean towards a biden, who is status quo . Is it having any impact on voters, whatsoever . A really interesting question. First of all, it depends on which voters. Same for the republicans. There is a trump base who like his style. People in general tend to see him as pretty patriotic, and you see that reinforced at the Republican Convention, that this is a guy who loves his country. Women are much more troubled by it than men, and this has been true for at least two years, and what is really interesting to me is i think covid was a bit of a shifting point, because what we saw with covid was that it was kind of an idiosyncratic, personal style. He is not a politician. We knew what we were getting. We saw him on the apprentice, and it became a governing style on the tv for your family every day, and that profoundly influenced women. It is an interesting issue, right, because now we have the republicans trying to elevate proteststy threat, and violence, and the democrats elevating the Security Threat of having such an erratic leader in the world and that we need our allies. We need to work together. It depends on who you are talking to. But for the vast majority of women and four nonrepublican or nontrump voters, it definitely matters to them. Something they do not like. Carol i wanted to ask norm. Has the coronavirus, the pandemic, how has it shifted Public Opinion on americas role in the world, the changes in terms of the view of multilateralism versus unilateralism and those sorts of things . What is your take on that . Norman remember, this came up with a discussion of the wuhan virus as the china virus, but it who, spilled over to the world health organization, and internationally trying to combat this. It has played out in another way, as well, it is the contrast of how the United States has handled the coronavirus and how other countries, especially our allies, like australia, for example, have handled it and european countries, whom the president has harshly criticized, the european countries, but we know where countries moved very quickly to shut things down and to use masks and testing and contact tracing, this had a different implication. This is going to come up, i think, in another way. One of those areas where we see contention in congress has not yet played out because we have not had this new recovery bill. We will get it coming back to the board in september, the issue of whether we are going to provide some relief for especially the poorer countries around the world. As we move towards a vaccine or a set of vaccines, we know that some of those vaccines are going to be expensive enough that they will only be useful for richer countries. Are we going to subsidize other with those respects, our withdrawal from the w ho and the ways in which we have separated ourselves out from other countries, this will play into the election. It is not going to affect large numbers of votes, but will will if wevotes more see a resurgence of the virus as we headed to flu season right at the time of the campaign hot moments in the election. What that will do to turn out. Whether people return against trump. One thing we know is in terms of handling covid and our Public Opinion experts can say more about this, the public as a whole is not real happy with donald trump on this. It is not clear to me it has shaken many of his voters. Those who like him and are with him even if they dont think he has done a particularly good job with this. On that point, charlie and kristin, how has it changed . Particularly in the battleground states . Is there any movement over this issue . I think we have seen a dramatically different situation than what we were looking at for the first four months of the year. About a month in, starting in april, you started seeing the president s numbers flutter with doubts about his handling of the coronavirus. Then we saw the ballot numbers starting to move in june. It is just an up or down about President Trump, but its about culture and identity politics. My wife and i are sequestered on the coast of maine. I am looking over at a dock and empty fish house for our neighborhood lobster men had been until he went out of business this winter because of tariffs with china. I think it is hard to find a farmer, hard to find a lobster man, people adversely this was early in the administration. Are you worried about tariffs . He said i am really worried about tariffs. The next thing out of his mouth was, but i think every thing the president is doing, what he believes is in the National Interest and i support him 100 . I am going i cant believe. Anybody that stayed with him, that 40 is his base, they are not leaving no matter what. Anybody with the capacity for outrage is already outraged. That number is not going to go down below where it is now. The other 60 of the electorate are on the negative side or there are doubts about him getting higher and higher. All these things are kind of basic but not individual issues. Think that will have the same impact down ballot . Iowau think the farmers in who have been hurt might take it out on joni ernst even though they stick with donald trump because of that tribal identity . Me, i thinke asking joni ernst is in deep trouble. I am not sure the farmers. To me it is independent. I refer to the holsters. We saw pollsters. We saw an enormous erosion among independents has the coronavirus started rising. Town, rural folks like that, this is about identity. This is about he speaks for me. That, iut having said think they will have a horrible night in the senate. I think it will be more independents that are breaking overwhelmingly against not just the president but against republicans down ballot. His base will never leave him. Small town rural whites are definitely, and white farmers, definitely are in that base. The other thing important here is fierce. When you fears. With the groups he has done well with in 2016, the numbers have fallen off since the start of covid are Senior Citizens. I have studied millennial politics for a decade now. I have been preaching to republicans for a decade they have to give the program or lose young voters. Now those millennials are almost 40 years old and they still break for democrats by huge margins. If you look at many poles, Senior Citizens are voting like millennials. It is wild. It would be hard to suggest that isnt at least in some way do to covid19, which is disproportionally having a massive negative Health Effect on Senior Citizens. Comment on the whole china phenomenon. I think it is an identity issue, a Foreign Policy issue, an economic issue. The president is seen as much stronger and standing up to china. That has a lot of derivative positives for him. Strength. Draw that it emphasizes put america first. Both candidates are talking about putting america first. Joe biden has the buy american plan. In the United States so we dont have to rely on china for another crisis. Did you see it playing out in local races. You see mick sally trying to onsallie attacking kelly china. Whichk the china thread, is really a Foreign Policy issue, it is identity and economic strength. That fred is pulling strong. The other thread is russia where joe biden has the string. An organization launching an ad where they are hitting on where the russians put bounties on our troops. Donald trump did nothing and made friends with putin. He saw susan rice making the same attack. There are interesting threads for individual countries are playing a role about whose side are you on and what is your tribe. If i can just jump in, what is interesting is china. We hear so much about it. It is not about what should our policy be towards china. What you have got his President Trump and joe biden each using china as a cudgel to beat the hell out of the other so it is not a substantive issue. It is a tool. It is a weapon. What should our policy be towards china . Biden has a lot of interesting things to say but no one is listening. He doesnt even bother. They are using it as a weapon and not a substantive issue. It is a legitimate issue but that is not what we are hearing. I suspect china will be a massive issue in the republican primary of 2024. There is a reason you see josh hawley, tom cotton, everyone and congress he may be even thinking they might possibly may read for to be at in 2024 wants part of the china task force. Something your voter may think of on an issue like trade or in terms of covid19. I do believe this is something the Republican Base will be a much more longterm animating issue. It is so interesting how things have slipped in some ways on china. For a long time democrats were tougher on china than republicans. It was about human rights and it was about trade at a time democrats are more protectionist and republicans were more for free trade. Now you dont have anybody basically saying good things about china. It is pretty clear republicans have seized on the issue more and made it more of a force and factor for themselves. Its interesting, especially Million People in concentration camps with one of the worst human rights abuses we have seen in decades that the republicans were able to bring a human rights hero from china it was able to escape and achieve asylum here. They are talking at the Convention Last night, trying to some ways neutralize the human although it is not clear have any votes go with that anyhow. Mentionedn, you lawmakers who may run in 2024. I wouldnt ask you about congress generally. I wanted to ask about congress generally. Without the backing of Foreign Policy initiatives and really the backing of congress, it can all be very fleeting. President trump basically undid everything president obama tried to do or did do in his second term. The iran deal, the paris climate accord, the tpp stalled, cuba reopening. Dead ontisanship Foreign Policy . When you look at the congressional map, how consequential are so