 Hello and welcome to this latest Lowy Institute Live event. This is part of what we're calling the Long Distance Lowy Institute, in which we communicate our content and analysis online while we're unable to do so in person. A very warm welcome to everyone joining us from Australia and to those dialing in from overseas. I'm Michael Fully Love, the Executive Director of the Lowy Institute. What a remarkable few days. On Tuesday night, the presidential election was too close to call with Donald Trump and Joe Biden trading victories in different states. President Trump has been making accusations about electoral fraud as late as an hour and a half ago in a remarkable press conference that I'm going to come to a little bit later. At this point, Joe Biden is favored to win more than 270 electoral college votes and with that, the presidency. But we certainly don't know what combination of the Rubik's Cube will click into place or when and we don't know with complete certainty that that will be the result. So to discuss all these issues and try to understand what's happening in Washington, I'm delighted to be joined today by two of the finest and most influential journalists in Washington, Susan Glasser and Peter Baker. Susan is a columnist for the New Yorker whose weekly letter on Donald Trump's Washington is essential reading. Peter is the chief White House correspondent for the New York Times. Susan, Peter and Peter are also husband and wife. They are the co-authors of an acclaimed new biography of James Baker, the man who ran Washington. And I'm going to ask Susan and Peter about that book a little bit later. Susan and Peter are great friends of the Lowy Institute. Two years ago, Susan spoke at the launch of our Asia Power Index in New York City. Later that year, we hosted both Susan and Peter in Sydney as part of our annual media award. And Susan and Peter were also the first guests on my podcast, the director's chair. So on top of their very impressive CV, they are both mentors. Now Susan Glasser is sitting with us at the moment in front of her fireplace. Peter Baker is filing for the New York Times. He's the chief White House correspondent and he's filing the front page story touching on, among other things, President Trump's remarkable press conference. So Peter Baker hopefully will join us in a few minutes, but in the meantime we're going to kick off with Susan Glasser. So Susan, welcome. Michael, thank you so much for once again hosting us at the Lowy Institute. We're very sad. It's not in person. We had a wonderful time visiting with you. I guess it was a couple of years ago already now. But yes, this is democracy in action, folks. Live crisis direct from your living room in the COVID era. Peter is typing away. All right. So I'm going to ask you some questions. We're going to have an opportunity for the audience to ask some questions as well. At the bottom of the screens you'll see a Q&A button where you can submit questions. Please make sure you put your name in any organization you're affiliated with as well as your friends. But in the meantime, I'm going to jump in. Susan, let's start with the election results. The New York Times has Biden at 253 electoral college votes and Trump at 214. The last time I looked, there are only a few states still counting votes. Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona and Alaska, I believe. Biden has gained ground on President Trump in Georgia and Pennsylvania, but his lead in Arizona has diminished. The betting markets have him at very short odds to win. What do you think at this point is the most likely result? Well, you know, as we're speaking on Thursday evening in Washington time, you know, the expectation is that this at this point has become Joe Biden's to lose. There are paths still for Donald Trump to win. They have not been ruled out in any way mathematically yet, but you could even see a call in the race coming overnight or tomorrow because Pennsylvania by itself is enough for Joe Biden to be productive the winner. And the New York Times number that you said it does not include the call of Arizona, which has been made by Fox News and by the Associated Press. So, you know, I do think that if the race is called in Pennsylvania, and right now, right before I came on, the number had gone down to Trump's lead, had dwindled to under 50,000 votes, it was over 600,000 not that long ago. And so what's happening is essentially they counted all the election day votes first and none of the mail-in votes and Democrats because of the pandemic essentially urged all of their voters to vote by mail and to vote early where they could do so. That's why you're seeing this enormous shift as the count proceeds. Donald Trump did something truly remarkable today, of course, which is he started the day by tweeting stop the count and, you know, taking the extremely controversial position essentially that democracy should come to a halt and we should just end the count. Of course, he didn't seem to have the math quite right because had the world somehow listened to him and they had stopped the count this morning, he would have lost because he was behind at that point. But the count has gone on and there is every expectation at this hour in Washington, at least, that that it's Biden's to lose. Let me ask you, even if President, even if even even if Vice President Biden wins, President Trump has not been wholly repudiated by the American people. He's won nearly 70 million votes, a lot of the heartland that he won in 2016 and he's done better in some states than almost anybody predicted. And this is all despite the general maladministration over which he's presided and, of course, despite the 235,000 American dead from COVID. So this is not what Democrats hoped for and it's not what the world expected. What does it tell us about the United States? Well, you know, it's interesting. I mean, to a certain extent, it might suggest inflated expectations or unrealistic expectations on the part of Trump's critics in the sense that it's been remarkable throughout the presidency how consistent his support from his Republican base has been, which is to say, it is not waivered through impeachment and crisis and pandemic and economic collapse and, you know, all of the litany of things that we can go through. And so you've actually, if you go back and look, his approval rating is essentially a straight line through his presidency as if nothing much had happened these four years when, of course, an awful lot has happened over the last few years. So in that sense, you know, we should have already understood and I think we do understand that this is a sharply divided country and that Trump's approval and disapproval ratings were remarkably not only stable, but seemed disconnected from any actions that he might take or not take. And so the result in this election is consistent with that. It shows him gaining, as you said, in some places. But overall, the story is of a record high turnout in the United States. The votes are not yet counted, but Joe Biden has already exceeded a four million margin of victory in the national popular vote. That is a very large margin of victory. It may well end up being five million by the time the votes are done. He will have had a larger victory in the popular vote than Hillary Clinton. In fact, it will not have been a close race really at all in terms of the actual national vote. And depending on the outcome in the states that are still up in the air, you know, if you see Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania and possibly Georgia also flipping for Biden along with Michigan and Wisconsin, which have already turned to Biden and which provided the margin of victory for Donald Trump. Four years ago, that's actually a very large shift in four years in terms of the electoral map of the United States. So I would say, first of all, it shows you how the narrative of election night may or may not be the historical narrative about this election. But I do take your point because I think it is important for people to know millions and millions of Americans, 70 million have supported Donald Trump all the way up until the end here. They're just not going to magically disappear, even, you know, if he loses and Joe Biden is inaugurated as president on January 20th, and especially because Democrats do not seem to have cemented their total control over government. The U.S. Senate right now is currently too close to call, but so far it appears that Democrats have fallen short in their effort to also control the U.S. Senate. And it may come down to two runoff elections in Georgia, which would not take place until January 5th. But, you know, let's say that the Republicans continue to hold on to the Senate. You know, Biden would be facing a divided Washington and it would be very, very hard for him to enact many of the legislative priorities that Democrats spent, frankly, the entire last two years talking about enacting. All right, I want to come to that question of how a president Biden could unify America. But first of all, I want to ask about President Trump's press conference because I don't want to bury the lead. I know that's a great sin in for journalists like you. Susan, let me ask you about this press conference. A lot of people fear that President Trump would refuse to accept defeat. And that does seem to be what he's doing in that press conference. He said there had been a lot of shenanigans. He went through a lot of detail of cases that he he he claimed indicated electoral fraud. He said there is going to be a lot of litigation probably ending up in the Supreme Court. So first of all, what did you make of the press conference? You've you've watched every Trump press conference read every Trump tweet. What did you make of this one? Well, look, it is a classic Donald Trump shocking, but not surprising. It's particularly not surprising because he's literally spent the last six months campaigning in advance of the election and calling it a rigged election. According to some numbers I put in my column the other day, just since August alone, he has attacked the legitimacy of the election a hundred times total in his political career, more than 700 times. He's talked about rigged elections. So, you know, it's it's it's not surprising that he's doing exactly what he told us he would do. But it's still stunning to see the President of the United States in the White House briefing room basically saying, don't count the votes baselessly alleging fraud and stealing with actually out. He didn't to my mind, Michael, he didn't offer any evidence. He didn't. He just he just made random attacks. He said, well, everybody knows that Philadelphia is corrupt. How do I know I know that Philadelphia is corrupt? Because I went to college there in the 1960s. You know, I mean, this was like kind of, you know, tin pot dictator stuff, truthfully. And I think for many Americans, it was a kind of a shocking moment, perhaps to people like me, who've been watching Trump so closely. I think many Trump critics have kind of tuned out the president. So they might be shocked to listen to him kind of ramble on in this way. But to me, he looked like a man who was beginning to understand that he's on the precipice of an epic and historic defeat. And there's nothing Donald Trump hates more than being called a loser. Well, let me ask you about that because I I also felt that Trump seemed less angry and more depressed during that press conference. I thought it was very low energy, rambling down in the weeds, didn't take questions. As you say, it's possible that he senses that it's slipping away. Is it possible that therefore to take the glass half full that he's pursuing this to preserve face and to salvage a sort of a narrative that he can tell to his supporters as he exits stage left, which is OK, fine, I've lost, you know, I'm out, but it wasn't fair and it was rigged. Is that a possible interpretation rather than the other more dangerous interpretation, which is he will really push the system to the brink to breaking point, whether it's by inciting violence or just just pushing and pushing and pushing. Is it possible that this is how he sort of inelegantly dismounts? Well, I would say yes, but the only but my only quibble with that analysis at all is that I'm not sure it's an either or I do actually think that he has pushed the system to the brink and beyond and that there is a sort of incalculable damage to the United States when the president is attacking the basis of the election and leading millions of people to agree with him. You know, you can turn on our airwaves thanks to Rupert Murdoch listen to lots of people going down that road along with Donald Trump right to the very end. You know, however, I actually do think that, you know, psychologically that always has explained a lot of Trump's preemptive attacks. Remember, he called the 2016 election rigged for months in advance of it because he also anticipated losing that election. And even after he shocked himself as well as the world by winning that election, he actually demanded and set up a commission to look for the evidence of widespread fraud that he had claimed. And they embarrassingly had to dismantle that commission without any fraud having been discovered. But a man who is willing to investigate his own victory in order to prove his unfounded claims, you know, again, this is somebody who goes to extreme measures absolutely to save face and not to be seen as a loser to create. As you put it, a plausible narrative. But I think he's also he's he's the course is not set, right? Donald Trump is somebody who will, you know, keep buying for time. He will always play rope a dope in boxing terms, right? He's never going to give up until the last possible moment. And so while there's any hope in any of these states, he's going to keep going very much heedless of the damage that he might be doing or has already done. It's notable that he was a man alone on that podium today at the White House in past presidencies when the president was in trouble. You know, he flanked himself with his party leaders and, you know, with his supporters. But Donald Trump has always been, you know, very much a man alone. And I think that's how he's ending this thing, too, all alone. And and in particular, Vice President Pence wasn't in that briefing room. Is that significant, do you think? My Vice President Pence also tweeted, you know, moments after the press conference, I stand with President Trump in wishing that all legal votes should be counted. Now, that, of course, was not exactly what Trump said. Trump said, I claim victory and I won. But, you know, I would remind, you know, your listeners in Australia that. Our system does not require the loser to concede in order to lose. And it certainly doesn't require the loser to be graceful, you know, in conceding or not conceding his defeat. But, you know, he can do an awful lot between now and January 20th. And I think people are still in the immediate vote counting phase of this. But it is a slow motion crisis because it's it's a very dangerous situation for a country like the United States to be in. Let me ask you about the interregnum between now and the 20th of January and the kind of circus that may unfold. I was actually in Florida during the 2000 election and I drove down Alligator Alley to Miami-Dade County to look at the hanging chads outside. You know, that that's how crazy I am about American politics. You wrote about that period in in your your terrific book, The Man Who Ran Washington, because, of course, George W. Bush tapped James Baker to head the legal team. So let me ask you, I think I think you've spoken to James Baker. You or Peter have spoken to James Baker recently. I'd be interested in what his view was about what President Trump should and shouldn't do. And more generally, what kind of legal strategies do you anticipate the president deploying in the next in the next 11 weeks or so? Well, you know, it is a good question. We did speak with Jim Baker just this afternoon, a few hours ago, in part because Jared Kushner, President Trump's son-in-law, had been quoted as saying that he was making calls and looking for a James Baker-like figure to lead their White House legal strategy after the election. But when we talk to the real James Baker, he was not a fan of what he's seen so far. In fact, this was shortly after the president's tweet that they should stop the counting in the states that are currently counting. And Baker could not have been more clear with us that, you know, that's just not the way that it works. He pointed out that back in 2000, when you were in Florida, Michael, you know, that when Bush and Gore, that was a recount situation. The votes had already been counted. And as Baker put it and counted and counted and counted, our point was that at a certain point, we didn't need to recount it any more. And, you know, that they never even considered the possibility of saying that ballots that were cast and received by Election Day would not be counted. They never launched any legal action against entire categories of votes. The question was what to do. You know, the Hanging Challenge refers to were some ballots improperly marked or were they properly counted or not counted based on the paper, you know, stylists and was it all poked through or not? You know, that's the kind of issue that might come up after a count was determined. Back in Florida, the election came down to a 1,400 vote lead approximately that George W. Bush had when the official count was done over Al Gore. And the entire election nationally was very close, by the way. It was about 500,000 votes ultimately by which Al Gore won the popular vote. We're not dealing with a situation like that right now. We're talking about a much bigger popular vote lead in the millions for Joe Biden. And so far, we'll see what happens. But none of the states are as close as Florida was back in 2000. Let me ask you about the electoral system, just as saying, as you've just helpfully sort of reminded us what happened in 2000, the differences between now and then. It does seem crazy to most observers to this seems a crazy way to run the world's greatest democracy, if I can put it that way and still be respectful. I mean, first of all, there's the issue of the Electoral College, which which has its own question marks. And as you say, it's the Hillary Clinton won the national the national vote by by a large margin and yet lost. So that that's one question. Then there's the other separate issue of the different voting procedures and processes in different parts of the country. Now, in most advanced democracies, it doesn't work like that. And there are systems and commissions that mean that you can be much more confident that votes will be counted in exactly the same way all across the country. Is this an area of I mean, has this election shown up again? The electoral procedures, the machinery of democracy as a weakness for the United States. And is there any chance that this could lead to reforms, whether it's reforms to the Electoral College, which I understand is very difficult, or even to have a more nationally uniform system in terms of voting? Well, these are excellent questions. And, you know, even, you know, as a lifelong US citizen, I would say that it's it can be hard to understand. And I'm sure we will before this thing is over, you know, find out the 2020 equivalent of the hanging chad somewhere. So far, I should say there's been no evidence actually of questionable counting procedures or fraud. I mean, it's actually been quite remarkable. And I would suggest there's also been some evidence actually of the strength of this very decentralized system. Why? Well, imagine if there was a federal machinery that counted all the votes and there was a president who wanted to be a dictator and who could simply instead of just tweeting from the Oval Office, stop the count, could order election officials to stop the count. Well, he can't do that in the United States because of the way we have this decentralized system. And in fact, it's even decentralized often. It's not even at the state level, but it tends to be by counties and municipalities. There's, you know, just it's a very confusing patchwork of laws. But it also, of course, makes it very, very hard for any would be dictator to interfere with it no matter how much he'd like to. And, you know, I was struck listening to CNN's coverage just now after it. There's, you know, like this sort of one Republican who they have on Rick Santorum, who was a senator from Pennsylvania and then a presidential candidate unsuccessful Republican, very conservative Republican. He often, you know, sort of gets everybody who watches CNN angry because he defends Trump at various times. But interestingly, not only did he condemn what Trump said about stopping the counting, but I really took note of what he said. You know, when Donald Trump is claiming that there's some massive conspiracy against him, you know, in like dozens of counties across Pennsylvania, there are election officials, good people who are counting these votes right now. And he's saying every single one of those people is cheating him. I was a senator from Pennsylvania and that's not how you do it. And I was just struck right like that, you know, Republicans and Democrats all have an investment in this system. They know who counts election votes in America because those are their neighbors and their friends and it's done at the local level. All right. Let me, let's talk about some of the ways that this can go in the next, in the next little while. As you mentioned at the top, it's still possible mathematically for President Trump to be re-elected. So say that's the way the Rubik's Cube clicks into place and President Trump is re-elected. He probably, his quibbles over the voting at that point may fizzle off. What kind of second term would you anticipate from President Trump if he were re-elected? Of course, with George W, you got in, I think most observers would say in the second term you've got the sharp edges rounded off. You've got a more orthodox kind of presidency. Do you think that model might apply to President Trump? Or do you think alternatively it might be President Trump unleashed? Yeah, President Trump unleashed. Look, you know, first of all, it is hard and I do think one of the problems is it right now. And even during the campaign, people really hadn't fully wrapped their arms around the full implications of a Trump's second term because it always seemed very unlikely. And actually, as we're talking, I'm just looking, the vote margin of Trump's in Georgia is now down to 2,500 votes. And there's a new batch of votes expected at midnight. If Biden takes the lead in Georgia, you know, this thing is over now. And that is quite, it's probably more than possible. It's probably likely. But let's entertain that thought exercise for just a second. What I would say is that the entire story of the last four years of Trump has been a sort of progressively more unleashed and less constrained president as he's grown both more confident but also more isolated in office. He's surrounded himself increasingly with advisors who do not have the independence or stature to challenge him. He gets rid of those who do. And of course, it's hard to imagine who would want to serve him in a situation after something like this as well. I mean, you know, at this point, Trump being installed in a second term would be such an undemocratic maneuver, right? He would have lost resoundingly in the popular vote. So he would be a two-term president who had never been elected by a majority of the people. You know, that would just be a curse of illegitimacy, you know, that would haunt and hang over the presidency and likely only to make Donald Trump more determined only to serve those whom he saw as loyal to him. So I would think you would see in particular the hyper politicization of the Justice Department, you know, the use and commandeering of vast parts of the executive machinery of the government for personal ends of Trump and those he surrounds himself with a sort of corrupt oligarchic model. All right. Let me ask you one more question about Donald Trump and then I want to ask you a bit about Joe Biden. So let's say that it doesn't go that way. Let's say it's called for President Biden. And by the way, you're most welcome to call the election for Joe Biden on this call. If you see something happening in the back, you can make news for us. I'll check right now, but not yet, not yet. Okay. So say Joe Biden is elected. What does President Trump do over the next four years? He's not going to disappear. He's not going to go quietly into the night. Of course, I guess I think I'm right that he's entitled to constitutionally entitled to run again in 2024. What do you think he would do if he were out of office? And what does the Republican party do? They've sort of gone all in with President Trump for the last four years. Do they maintain that rage or do they try to come back to their more traditional moorings? Well, you know, I think it's an excellent, excellent question. You know, there are a lot of people, Trump and his family today. In fact, that's the very unsettled message that they've had for Republicans to try to keep the party leadership in line. You've seen the President's son today, you know, essentially tweeting and also his former campaign manager basically saying, Republicans, if you've got an eye towards the future, we'd like to hear you speak up right now, because they think they're going to use Trump's enormous public platform to maintain his power in the Republican party. They've openly talked and leaked their talk of him running again in 2024. I would say this, color me skeptical. I actually personally think that, you know, the stench of a loser on Trump will be very, very hard to erase that he will certainly still command a big media following he may create, you know, some new media company or be a part of some new venture. Not that he'll go away quietly, but he'll be shocked at how quickly, you know, the sort of rent seekers around him disappear and the opportunists. And so, you know, I'm skeptical about how much personally he will be involved. But I do think that this phenomenon that he's unleashed, this strand in the Republican party is not going away anytime soon. And so I think it's going to be a kind of, you know, nationalist, populist, right wing, aggressive kind of politics is definitely going to be around. And there's going to be a real competition also among Republicans to be seen as the rightful heirs of that Trump base. And I think that competition, of course, is beginning already. And it looks like maybe we're getting our other panelists here. Are you going to say? Yes. Here we go. It's very exciting. All right. No, that's just a text from my father saying, as all American fathers are, we are more anxious by the hour. Please call us. All right. Let me, I'm going to ask you another question while we wait for Peter to join us. Let's, let's go on to a Biden administration. So let's say that the Rubik's Cube clicks into place in that combination. Joe Biden is sworn in as president on the 20th of January. The first question, I guess, is can he unify the country? Welcome. Welcome, Peter Baker. I'm so sorry. Oh, no. No, no, this adds to the drama of the call. Thank you for staging this. How'd you go with your story for the New York Times? What's the lead? Well, we were debating whether to use the word far-fetched, fanciful, imaginative, or invented to describe the president's version of reality. Does that tell you something? Where did you, where did you come down? It's still being debated. I went with far-fetched, but there's some, there's some argument for hallucinatory. Okay. You know, it's, it's hard to find the right adjective at this point. Let me, I might ask you one question, Peter, that I've, that I've already put to Susan and then, and then come back to the other questions I had. Let me ask you about your take on that press conference today. I asked Susan about this. I said to Susan, he seemed more depressed than angry to me. What was your take? What are the reporters in the Times Bureau take of that? What are you hearing from his advisors in the West Wing about his state of mind? What does this tell us about how hard he will put, you think he will push things in the next few weeks? Is he looking to dismount or is he still on fire, still thinking that somehow he can squeak out a win? Well, first I would say, I agree with everything Susan said, whatever she said. But look, yeah, I agree. I think he seemed subdued. I think he seemed like a man who didn't actually think he had won or was about to win, that he was trying to outline a predicate to explain a loss. That is, he's not a loser. People didn't repudiate him. He's the victim of this conspiracy, which apparently stretches all the way from Philadelphia to Detroit to Arizona to Nevada to Georgia. Apparently all these people in all these places have somehow collaborated in a way we don't understand exactly to steal the election from him. And I'm not 100% sure how much he believes it, but certainly a lot of people around him, even if they find flaws with the system and they are upset about this or that, even the people around him understand that this is not very plausible. You saw no senior Republicans basically rushing to endorse this view of the world, as Susan probably already said. I mean, the New York Post story said there was nothing to it. The Fox News people said there's no hard evidence, Rick Santorum on CNN, all that. So you've got that right from Susan, but I think that's the right take. Now, how far will he go? I don't think he's going to let go easily. He doesn't do that. He's not looking to leave with an L tattoo to his forehead. So he will continue to maintain that he is a victim all the way as long as he can, continue every court fight he can, no matter how groundless it might be. All right, let me say with you, Peter. Let me ask you about Joe Biden's state of mind at the moment and the way Joe Biden is presenting himself. It was quite comforting actually. I thought to see that statement he made about 24 hours ago, maybe a bit longer than that. He seemed sort of quietly confident. He seemed to lay things out in a way that was almost presidential if I can put that. What are you hearing about how Biden is feeling and about how, and in particular, how successful do you think Biden would be at unifying America if indeed he is elected president? This seems to have been Joe Biden's signature move over the course of his career, reaching out to his opponents. Many on the left of his party actually derided him for doing that. So it may be that the times will suit Biden. But can anyone unify America at this point, even someone with a track record of half a century more or less, of reaching out to Republicans, could Biden unify America? Yeah, I think you're right that Biden's people are feeling very confident right now. They see multiple paths toward a win. Our own staff in the New York Times earlier mapped it all out. They found 27 different scenarios. You can get to an electoral college victory for Biden and only four for Trump at this point. So I think they're feeling quietly confident. Now, can Biden unify the country? I think that's a stretch. I think at this point is a country that doesn't want to be unified. It's a country that is very polarized and divided. Now he has instincts that are different than Trump's. Trump's instinct is to exacerbate that division, to play on that division, to make it deeper. Biden's instinct obviously is the opposite. Biden would prefer to unify and he would prefer to work with Republicans. It may be interesting to see a Republican Senate with Biden because he may actually be able to cut some deals with Mitch McConnell. He won't be able to do some of the far-reaching things he would like to do that he promised the left that he would do. That's certainly not going to happen with a Republican Senator. But he might be able to work with Mitch McConnell a way that even President Trump sometimes wasn't able to do. Now, that's even an unlikely thing. And it may only be just to keep the ship of state running relatively smoothly rather than making any major changes. But it is his instinct to try to find ways to collaborate and compromise, even to the point where fellow Democrats would get mad at him about that. Well, let me ask you then, Susan, if that's the case, if Joe Biden's instinct is to be a centrist and if the circumstances of the election and the fact that nearly 70 million people have voted, Americans have voted for Donald Trump and that it looks like the Republicans will retain the Senate, if the circumstances of the election require him to govern from the center. What does that do to the kind of divisions within the Democratic Party? I mean, we have seen that over the last couple of years, most of the energy in the Democratic Party has been on the left. We've seen that a lot of the positions that leading Democrats have taken have moved to the left and even Biden himself during the primary process moved to the left. So what does that, how do you think, what would be the settling point of a Biden administration along this sort of left-right continuum, if I can put it that way? And if he tries to govern as a centrist, what does that do to the squad and AOC and all the energy on the left of the Democratic Party? Well, you know, Michael, it's interesting because of course, Biden was eight years the Vice President with President Obama who came in talking about hope and thought he would make change by bringing people together around big issues. And he left very disillusioned, I would say, President Obama did and viewing the Republicans as determined to obstruct anything that they would do, even things that were essentially centrist or things that a large part of the country could agree upon. And so, you know, Biden comes into office wanting to unite the country, but I think he's got to be pretty clear-eyed about his possibility to do so if Mitch McConnell is still the majority leader of the United States Senate. Remember that Mitch McConnell would be the majority leader not only of the Republican Senate, but this isn't even the same Republican Senate that was blocking Barack Obama for eight years. This is the Republican Senate that voted to acquit Donald Trump in an impeachment trial of an offense that many of them publicly acknowledged he was guilty of. Okay, so this is the post-Trump Republican Senate that he's dealing with, which is an even more obstructionist by definition even more activated Republican Senate than the one that spent the last few years of the Obama-Biden administration trying to stop them. So I think you've got to be pretty sanguine about that. Now, there was immediate talk, as you might imagine, since the election about, well, what could Democrats and Republicans do together? I do think in the short term, it should increase the likelihood of a coronavirus relief bill, which might shock, you know, your listeners in Australia. But here in the U.S., we have not actually managed to have a relief bill for our individuals and state and local governments that are really, truly in crisis since April. You know, just a kind of political malpractice in our system. And that was because Mitch McConnell refused to go along with it. So that's much more likely. A lot of talk about infrastructure, which is something, you know, usually politicians like to spend money on things like building bridges and the like. So, you know, maybe we'll see something like that. But I don't think you could be too dewy-eyed about the prospects for some kind of national coming together moment. No, I don't think anyone's too dewy-eyed about Washington these days. Let me ask you about the foreign policy of a Biden administration, because foreign policy is the one area where the president has a lot of freedom of maneuver. And especially if he's blocked on Capitol Hill, he may like to express his preferences internationally. We know that President, Vice President Biden has enormous international experience. We know that generally he's pro-alliance. He's a much more internationalist figure than President Trump is. But there's also been changes on the democratic side on foreign policy we've seen in the last few years. Democrats have got much harder line on China, for example. The left of the party has put a lot of energy into issues like free trade and climate. What kind of, let me ask you a general question, Peter, what kind of foreign policy do you think a President Biden would run? Well, I think his first priority will be re-establishing and repairing alliances and focusing on, you know, sort of restoring kind of an American, you know, role in the world, basically. This is a president, Trump, that is, who's pulled us out of international agreement after international agreement, alienated our friends in Germany at times in Australia, our friends in Asia, and friends throughout Europe, sometimes in the Middle East. I think that you're going to see in Biden, I think, a first priority of just saying, hey, we're back, America's back. Don't worry, we're here again for you, we're your friends, and all of that. He will obviously get back into the Paris climate accord, I think, on day one, if that's legally possible. There are some things he might not do right away. I don't know that he'll necessarily get right back into the Iran nuclear corps. There may have to be some negotiation, both with the Europeans and the Iranians. But he will make an effort, I think, to show an internationalism, a traditional internationalism that had been a bipartisan approach in America for so many years, that will return. Now, he's not going to be flexing military muscles. You know, he is, I think he and President Trump would probably agree, to some extent, on that. He's going to be just as interested in pulling American troops home from conflicts and not starting new ones as President Trump has been. He won't be as bellicose in his language, but I think Vice President Biden, and maybe President-Elect Biden, if he becomes that, will show an allergy to military adventurism overseas, just like the current president. But broadly speaking, I think he'll want to reevaluate and reestablish the more traditional foreign policy that we've seen. He will be tough front China. I do think that's true. I think there is more bipartisan agreement on that. That's one area where a lot people actually agree with President Trump, if not his tactics, the way he's going about it. And I do think that he will be skeptical of some trade stuff because in fact, that's where the left of his party is as well. So he may not necessarily break entirely with President Trump on some of that. By the way, we're down to 1,900 votes in Georgia. All right, thank you for the update. Susan, let me ask you about, let me hone in on those two issues that Australians care about a lot, China and climate. How, you know, as Peter said, Mr. Biden has said he will, America will rejoin Paris. How much, how big a priority for a Biden administration would be to take a more ambitious approach on climate change? And on China, just how hard edge do you think Biden would be? There's a lot of view in Asia that President Obama gave away too much to China. He was too keen to achieve a G2 with China to solve global problems like climate change when really the leaders in Jong Nan Hire focus very intently on Chinese national interests. Do you think, do you think, how tough-minded do you think a Biden administration would be on China? Well, those are both important questions. To start on climate change, I think absolutely, not only as Biden said, you know, that he would rejoin Paris on day one of his presidency, but I think, you know, he and his advisors would be looking for a way to tell the world that the U.S. is back, that multilateralism, treaties, alliances are respected by the United States. And so I would think they would make that a key early priority, especially because that was seen as a signature of Obama-era diplomacy. And so I think that's going to be something where there would be almost across-the-board consensus in the Biden administration. China, there's more of a debate among Democrats, and I think more of a debate on Biden. For example, he very notably, he said he would get rid of and reverse a lot of Trump's foreign policy decisions, but he has not committed to returning immediately to the TPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. That was the trade deal that was meant to be the Obama administration's sort of signature regional response to kind of rising China and to look to a kind of security diplomacy that also involved economic security. And so interestingly, Biden, because there's been such an anti-free trade discourse from Trump in the last few years and a turn in the electorate away from it here in the U.S., Biden has not committed to rejoin it. I would say they haven't ruled it out either. Maybe they hope to use that as leverage with the Chinese or allies in the region. So I could see them doing it at some point in the future about in exchange for getting something. In general, the other thing I know about Joe Biden as a foreign policy figure from his years as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as well as vice president, he's somebody who actually is more of a traditional liberal internationalist, even in some ways, than Barack Obama, I would say. And so I think you're going to hear more about things like human rights from Joe Biden than you heard at times from Barack Obama, who had a sort of streak of foreign policy realist in him. And I think that Biden, I wouldn't be surprised if you hear a lot more than you've heard from this current administration about Hong Kong, for example, and trying to make the case that U.S. democracy is back and that a kind of moral values-based foreign policies what Biden's been talking about. I agree with that. I think Obama had a little bit of vice in his veins, and I think Biden is a bit more hot-blooded. Yes. You may think that. Now, we've got about, we've got a bit less than 15 minutes left. I'm going to try to sneak in a few quick questions from our audience, and then I want to come back and ask you a question about your book. So let me put some questions. First of all, from Deborah Snow, who's a senior journalist here in Australia for the nine newspapers. Deborah asks, why were the polls so off-kilter yet again? You can take that one. Oh, good. I get that one. It's a great question. We don't know the answer. I don't know the answer. I'm not a pollster. I think you'll see a lot of autopsies done as a result of this. If this doesn't blow up the polling industry, I'm not sure what will, because clearly the frustration that people feel over this now twice in a row is pretty striking. It's the one thing I think President Trump said at his press conference, that probably everybody agreed with, which is that the pollsters were wrong. Now, he made them out to be, of course, intentionally wrong trying to hurt him. That's not what happened, of course. But it is correct that the polls were universally wrong, including, by the way, some of the conservative, more conservatively, polling outfits also, I think we're off. So I think that could it be the shy Trump voter who just didn't want to admit to pollsters that they like him and want to vote for him? That's possible. That's part of it. It also could just be that the turnout models were wrong. The weighting was wrong. They just simply underestimated how many people out there are still in the demographic groups where President Trump is strongest and that they overestimated how many Democratic-leaning voters would come out. Again, I'm not an expert on this, so I would hesitate to offer a quick judgment. I would say about the 2016 polls, which I know a little more about, it was the state polls that were wrong, but the national poll was right. It basically predicted that Hillary Clinton had a three-point lead over Trump, and she won with two points, basically. It was almost exactly correct on the popular vote. Now, it looks like Biden is not going to be as close on the national vote, but we haven't counted them all yet. We haven't gotten the final poll. Right now, I think it's about five million votes above Trump, something like that. Right? So that's three or four percentage points. It's not eight percentage points, which are a lot of the polls it had, so people will have to answer for that. All right. We have a question from Clive Motrom. I might put it to you, Susan. Clive asks, what influence would Kamala Harris have in a Biden White House? And maybe, as you're both historians, you can answer that question by referring to some vice presidents in history. What kind of vice president do you think she'd be? Would she be a chainy sort of center of executive power? Would she be a Biden, a VP, the last guy in the room? What type of vice president would Kamala Harris be, do you think? Well, look, it's a challenge when you take the job that somebody has done and is now your boss, right? That's always a challenge, and I think that's true here. Biden is probably a big fan of the Biden model. I'm just guessing where that is. Look, Kamala Harris is not going to be a Dick Cheney. She has not spent decades in Washington learning the machinery. In fact, one remarkable thing about her rise is that she's a first term senator from California who is poised on the brink of becoming the first woman and the first African-American woman to become the vice president in the United States. It's a huge historic moment. And she really is very new to Washington. She's experienced in government, but in state government in California, she was the attorney general of California before she became a senator. And so she brings a certain expertise. You could imagine her being involved in things like the Department of Justice reform, things like that, and politics, right? She ran herself for president and had a not very successful run. She basically dropped out before the voting started. So I don't see her as like kind of being a hidden machinery of government type actor, but a kind of political envoy, probably to constituencies like the younger Democrats in particular. I would add one thing on this. I think she's exactly right about all of that. Keep in mind that the last, the Cheney and Biden models were vice presidents who were picked because they were perceived not to want to run for president. George W. Bush didn't want a number two who's going to be spending all his time thinking about the New Hampshire primary and the Iowa caucus. That was certainly what Obama expected from Biden. Of course it didn't turn out quite that way. And so I think one thing you'll see that's different about Kamala Harris than the two of our last three vice presidents is she will have her eye on running for president in 2024. I mean, she will be an active candidate almost from the beginning of her vice presidency, which creates a very different dynamic in a White House where you have sort of these two different imperatives which are sometimes conflicting. The imperative of a president who wants to get things done and govern and the imperative of a vice president who's trying to set themselves up for their own run in the future. And since Biden has presumed not to be running in 2024, that dynamic asserts itself earlier than it would normally say in a Bill Clinton, Al Gore type of White House. Would it also be true that advisors to the president are likely to be more influential in the Biden White House than the Trump White House given that all power flowed from President Trump's head given Vice President Biden's age but also his governing style? Is it therefore more important who are clustered around him in the Oval Office? Yeah, I think that's a fair interpretation. Remember that, as you said, Trump really was the enemy of process among many other things and really certainly on national security decision making really blew up many of the processes that have been in place for Democratic and Republican predecessors. So Joe Biden having spent eight years in the White House is very familiar with that kind of executive authority. And by the way, President Obama was really even a micro manager when it came to some crucial decision making very much a careful constitutional lawyer type. Biden might not be quite like that but he's used to working very closely with staff also from his decades on Capitol Hill before that. So I think it matters also he has a cadre of very loyal political and policy advisors that he can bring with him into government who are very experienced and that of course is also a big contrast to Donald Trump who didn't really have experienced people. Steve Bannon was not exactly a veteran of government when he was brought in to oversee the strategy of their first year in the Trump administration. It's probably too early to get into the parlor game of which name would be assigned to which slot in a Biden administration but perhaps I can just sort of ask you a thematic question. As you say Susan, Vice President Biden has worked with a lot of advisors. He's well known actually. I think it's fair to say having good staff, high quality people who've been with him for a long time like Tony Blinken and many others. Of course there's a number of figures like Susan Rice who's actually become almost a political figure in her own right in the last year. But do you think that Biden would lean on old advisors that he's very comfortable with like that? Do you think equally we might see Biden reaching across the aisle and appointing maybe even is it feasible to imagine him appointing a Republican to a big cabinet post as Bill Clinton did as I think Obama did for example someone like Mitt Romney as Secretary of State. Are those kinds of moves possible given the state of American politics or do you think he's more likely to reward a long time advisors and loyal Democrats? Yeah, that's a great question. I think he comes in, you're right. We shouldn't be handicapping the cabinet of a president who hasn't been elected yet. So just start with that caveat. In our household that's been a banned topic. But if we're going to play the game anyway because we do that in Washington. I would say that the dynamics of the cabinet he was going to pick is different today than it was on Monday. Okay, and the reason is because it no longer is guaranteed that he's going to have a Democratic Senate which I think on Monday, the Biden people thought they would have. You know it may yet end up there. They're going to be looks like possibly two runoff elections in January in Georgia. It's still conceivable then if Biden were to win that they could get to 50 senators for the Democrats with Kamala Harris casting the tie breaking vote. But given that that's still far fetched and he has to get moving on a cabinet before then the dynamic had changed. And now he's thinking about who he could put in a cabinet that would win approval from a Republican Senate. And that means for instance it may be that Susan Rice may be too difficult. That may change the calculation about her secretary of state. He may have to go for somebody who is more likely to win approval among Republicans. Let's say a senator like Chris Coons from Delaware is very close to Chris Murphy from Connecticut who's highly thought of. Now there has been talking the Biden circle of a no senators policy in the cabinet and partly that's the way of boxing out say Elizabeth Warren who would like very much to have a senior position and they would just as soon not like to have her in the cabinet. And if you have it across the board no senators policy that keeps her out and it means you don't have to have any special elections to take a chance on losing a seat. So all these things are going into the calculation but I think you'll see a cabinet that is a mix of democratic equities not just his own people but trying to satisfy different parts of the party bring along young people like Pete Buttigieg you know that probably be the future of the party maybe a Cory Booker maybe a you know Julian Castro he's going to be in charge of the suburbs. Well he'd be charged a suburb or something anyway and I think that you'll also see you know it's possibly to see a Republican. I think that would be Biden's instinct if he can find somebody. Obama did keep Bob Gates the Republican Defense Secretary over from George W. Bush and appointed Ray LaHood who was a Republican congressman to transportation. I could see Biden doing something like that. Okay one last question from an audience member from Livia Khalil actually from the Lowy Institute just for a quick answer if I can. Can you comment on the different way that the American media is covering President Trump's falsehoods now. Four years ago much more unwilling to call out falsehoods when they occur but we noticed even in the last couple of hours major broadcasters cutting away from President Trump's remarks when he was talking about conspiracy theories and so on. Do you have Susan what's your comment on that. Look yes I think I think it's notable. I would say it's I wouldn't paint the media with such a broad brush. I think broadcast television because they have to take the president you know live that's historically how we've you know covered news from the president United States. They've been in a particularly tough bind and of course had a lot to do with his rise in politics in the first place and so I think they've taken a much more aggressive approach than I've seen before and also you've seen social media like Twitter labeling many of Trump's inaccurate and untrue tweets about the election. That's something that's really been new just in the last month. But throughout the presidency I mean again look the Washington Post fact checker has been at it for four long you know exhausting years they've documented more than 20,000 falsehoods by the president of the United States and so you know I wouldn't want to denigrate or diminish all the work that's been done up until now. We're still left with the basic conundrum of you know if a duly elected president of the United States is a liar who doesn't believe in democracy you know you're going to have a pretty big challenge covering him. All right last question I do want to ask you about this tremendous book The Man Who Ran Washington the life and times of James A. Baker the third it really it's an incredible biography it's an amazing achievement by both of you to get this done while you're doing everything else. So congratulations on it let me urge everyone watching to buy it I'm going to buy lots of copies for my for my Christmas gifts. I just want to ask you each to comment on this you know it's non-fiction but it kind of it doesn't feel like a Washington that we're watching at the moment. How nostalgic did it make you feel about that Washington in which levers could be pulled in which you know it wasn't all perfect of course because it was dominated by white men from a certain class but at the same time it was a very different Washington and things were it seemed that that someone like James Baker could really get things done. So let me just finish by asking you how did it make you nostalgic about the about the Washington that once existed. Well look you know we wanted to do this book in part because Jim Baker's story itself was so fascinating a White House Chief of Staff, Secretary and then Secretary of State during the end of the Cold War ran five presidential campaigns that's like in our context that's like Henry Kissinger and Carl Rowe rolled into one but we also want to do the story book because we thought his story was the story of Washington you know Washington is a major character in effect in this book and how things have changed how things work then how they work now I don't think you have to romanticize the past or even being nostalgic to recognize things were different then and they are different now we obviously were cut through politics and corruption and patriarchy as you put it you rightly mentioned in the old days but there was a different ethos in which the two parties could put that aside from time to time to get important things done Baker is a great example of that he was a knife fighter during elections he was no holes bar whatsoever but when the elections were over he would sit down with Democrats and cut deals on social security on the tax code on the war in Central America and all these kinds of things and that's what you can't see today Susan mentioned the COVID relief bill it's really hard to see a Jim Baker allowing seven months to go by without a COVID relief bill if that was necessary he would cut a deal it might not be what everything everybody wanted he would have cut a deal because that's what was done and today's incentive structure in Washington works against that and that's the that's the subtext of the whole book we think well Susan Glasser Peter Baker I want to again I want to give another plug to this book it's a fantastic read I urge everyone to to purchase it but I really want to thank thank you very sincerely for keeping this rendezvous with the Lowy Institute we didn't know when we scheduled it that Peter would be rewriting a story for the front page Peter thank you for joining us for the second half and Susan you the only advantage of Peter not joining us was that I got to spend more time with you and you've taught me a lot in this in this hour about what's happening so thank you both very much and we look forward to speaking with you again in the future perhaps in person in Sydney to everyone else joining us for the latest for this latest Lowy Institute live event thank you for being there keep an eye out for other Lowy Institute work on November the 18th let me give a plug our annual oh and Harry's lecture will be given by one of the most influential political scientists of his generation Dr Francis Fukuyama and Frank may well have one or two things to say about Washington in that lecture so thank you again Susan Glasser thank you Peter Baker thank you everybody for joining us and please stay safe and well