Secretary of state, john kerry from the u. S. And from the alliance, the former head of nato. Welcome. Good to be with you. Global Public Opinion is not looking good for the u. S. Every country surveyed and china had a better response to the pandemic, but rights can be abused in countries that did not have checks and balances. Does the pandemic make you an optimist or a pessimist . I am an optimist by nature and an optimist because i believe that america is waking up and taking stock of the position the administration has put us in. There are reasons to be concerned about the pandemic carrying into 2021. It will be difficult. It will present the next president with Major Economic challenges, as well as global and strategic challenges. I believe we will have a new president. I think we will see record levels of turnout in this election. Obviously, enormously moved by what happened with George Floyds murder. The aggregate of all the civilrights components, including environmental justice. People see a linkage between covid19 and the unwillingness to listen to science, to listen to facts, to listen to experts. The climate crisis, where they are unwilling to listen to the facts. The u. S. Has succeeded in the last three and half years of literally alienating itself from our friends. It has made the world a more dangerous place, without question. Climate change, walking away from the agreement, a fake trade war that has raised prices for people. You can run down a long list. The president standing feet away from president putin and disavowing his own intelligence committee. We have seen things that none of us would have ever believed we would have seen or heard from any administration, republican and aquatic alike. I see the latest polls. Vice President Biden is well ahead. I have run for president and i know what happens in the last weeks. I am quite confident that americas future, providing we had a change in leadership. If we do not, all bets are off. I will go to the heart of the matter. You were secretary of state in 2016 we saw russia interfere with election. What threat are you worried about most for 2020 . I am concerned about two things. I remain and about the foreign threat. President trump overtly, according to john boltons book, he invited china to get involved in the race and help him win. Facebook took down exploit one billion fake account last year. You can bet your boots that is not the end of the problem. They are very sophisticated in finding new weaknesses or opening up messes. Undoubtedly, there will be attacks there. I am also concerned about something that affected my campaign in 2004 and al gore in 2000. It has affected other campaigns in the country the last few years, most recently in georgia, where certain officials of a particular party purposely make it difficult for the other party to vote. They control those matters, so we have precincts when there are not enough machines and people are waiting in long lines. Access to the ballot is supposed to be one of the greatest things of democracy. Here we are, having held ourselves up as a leader of the free world for a long time. We are not meeting the standard that we ought to be meeting. I am deeply concerned about protecting the vote. We need to make sure that people actually do vote. Those are the key items that are being worked on now with a lot of people focused on this. I am hopeful that we will have so people voting and that the vote will not be close, so that things are definitive and we have a clear mandate for the future of the u. S. I do not know about you, but as a australian, i find it mindboggling in the u. S. Alarm bells everywhere. What is your top threat in 2020 . First of all, we definitely need American Global leadership. I hope to see that after the elections. I am concerned, but i think the u. S. Is much better prepared than four years ago. We have seen the russian playbook has been adopted by china, by other autocratic regimes in the world, so i think we still have to put a close eye on those developments. This is also a reason why we decided yesterday to continue the work of the Transatlantic Commission on integrity. It is established by joe biden, probably a couple years ago. Looking into interference with our election. We are better prepared, but i think that we should still focus on it. You have your own experience as a president ial candidate in 2004. You were very gracious and quick when you did lose narrowly. How do you think the citizens will cope in 2020, if there is a delayed vote . The followup, do you think trump will actually leave in the way that we are accustomed to . If he does lose the election . I was not all that quick to concede. There were serious questions about what happened in ohio. I finally did because i thought we were there was an election in december. It just did not make sense. My feelings now, i want to do everything in my power to make sure this is not a close election. The way it is going right now, it will not be a close election. I cannot speak to what will happen, if it is. But i believe americans want to move in a different direction. This has been chaos for years. There are major issues. You know this. We are looking at cyber, where you can push a button and stop a nations business completely. We have nothing is being done to followup on what we started in the administration to work with china on setting the rules for cyber. That is a negotiation just as important as their weapons, as it was for reykjavik. We need this to move in a new direction. Not just india and pakistan but russia and the u. S. , we are seeing the increased arms race. It is dangerous. It is a vast expenditure of funding that we do not need to do. You have Climate Change. You have the challenge of global unrest over the populist nationalism that is being exploited. There are many huge challenges. You have to have global engagement. It is no exaggeration to say we did not have a leader of the free world. The institutions that we put together, you know this. World war i, we said we do not want chemical weapons. World war ii, we talked about how to deal with torture. None of this was done for the sake of doing it. That it would address problems and be a better way of making the world a better place that we could Work Together to get done. That is not happening today. We are moving in the opposite direction. We will have a mandated america. Picking up on that point, we have an audience question in, he is a journalist and he is asking about what will happen if donald trump is reelected. I am worried. It is very simple. Too much money in our system. Far too little sensitivity to the plight of a bunch of people. It is growing worse and worse by the year. We have major challenges. If people do not have adequate access to the ballot, that is the stuff from which revolutions are built. The capacity of your democracy to work, even the Founding Fathers wrote in the declaration of independence, we have an inherent right to challenge that. I am worried that increasingly, people are affected. This incredible, spontaneous reaction to the killing of george floyd by those Police Officers has a torrent of awareness that people see this unfairness. It was not a voting issue but it might come one. This will be a fascinating year. We have not had a year like this in the u. S. Since Martin Luther king was assassinated. We had major challenges in our street. I am more optimistic now that we are going to see a massive response and perhaps well change, for the better. That will strengthen america in the world. If we get a new president , who the world respects and is ready to listen to and believe, i think you will see a world of difference in other countries as well. One area where we might see Common Ground in the substance, if not the style it strikes me that there is bipartisan support towards china. That brings up issues in hong kong and trade policy as a matter of dispute. Is it trump policy that is wrong or mostly his execution of it . It is a combination. Your policy is part of your execution. Everybody has agreed that china presents real challenges when it comes to what they are prepared to do in reciprocity, in fairness in the economic exchange. They operate by a different system. That system, which can sometimes force companies to be forced to give up their technology in order to do business, or that did not get equal access and a marketplace, that is unfair. Every country in the world should care about that. Donald trump is right to raise that issue. He raised it and he walked away from it. John bolton did not just walk away from it. He was ready to trade help for buying more goods. He said if you buy more goods, that is the end of the trade issue. No, it is not the end of the trade issue. The president s policy is not correct. I think that we have to recognize that we will not stop Climate Change without china being deeply involved. We got them to be involved in the negotiation. The chinese came on board for the first time and it was critical. We need to thank them for the work that they have done. They have taken Climate Change quite seriously. But we will have to address that. None of that has been talked to by donald trump. He is making life far more tenuous and risky for people all over the world, affected by his attitude as the leader of the Worlds Largest economy. It is critical that the last lead on this. While he may have defined some of the problems with china, he has not executed thoughtfully at all. We are far worse off today and the relationship with china and when we started. The Climate Change issue is close to your heart. I wonder, how can americans maximize their impact on the issue . Does that include governors or other actors going and partnering or negotiating with china direct to get those back regardless of the administration . It is a simple answer, what can americans do . You can vote, vote, vote. When trump was elected, the turnout of eligible americans was 56 . The year i ran, it was about 62 . When obama got elected, it was 63. 7 . You get the drift. Young people have the greatest stake in the future. Only 19 of people between 18 and 25 voted. If people come out and vote, we will change the direction of the world. That is the foremost thing that people are going to do. I have worked on this issue for 30 plus years. Working on the whole road up to paris. Even if we did everything we were able to achieve in paris, we would still see the warming of the planet. We are currently on track to hit 4. 1 degrees by the end of the century. We are just not getting the job done. China is about to bring power online. So, we have a monumental challenge ahead of all of us. What is exciting about it is, it is not a downside, economically. If we make the right choices and do the right things with the right level of cooperation, there are millions of jobs to be created, extraordinary benefit in terms of health, less particulates and less cancer, less emphysema. There is a huge benefit to the security by building new security base at which we are not at risk to sending people to the middle east to fight a war to defend our ability to run our factories and heat our homes. It is an exciting future and we will grab that feature, but we only have about nine years left to make the decisions that will make the greatest difference for us and avoiding the worst consequences of the climate crisis. We have to get to work and get to work fast. That can only happen with President Biden. I was interviewing joshua wong, and he was very frustrated with the statements of concern about the situation in hong kong. He was critical of the eu for not doing more to stand up. Being in those rooms and crafting that language, at what point do you flip the switch and move into the trade embargoes, the sanctions or other measures . He was clearly frustrated. I wonder if you had to make those judgment calls where it is time to step out of hong kong . You are our guest of honor, so it is natural that you are the one who has spoken the most, but what we need is speaking for europe. We need a more united european stance. We should listen to the democratic activists in hong kong. I think we should speak up, stand firm and tell china that they are not fulfilling their International Obligations by passing the security law. We should step up our support for taiwan. The chinese adhered to the principal of one country, two systems, but we can support hong kong and taiwan much more. Let me conclude by saying that i am so grateful for you meeting with us. I agree that the covid crisis has taught us that we need more, not Less International cooperation. The free world forms and aligns democracies to stand up against autocracies to use new technology etc. I agree with you. We should never not stand up for democracy. Democracy is the foremost principle in our being. It is in our dna and no place knows better what happens when you are not vigilant than europe. Europe has lived a tortured history because of fascism, tyranny and so forth. We have to do a better job. Here in america, we are doing our part. Our congress has been dysfunctional. We did not even pass a budget. There is almost no bipartisan budget passing. Rules when the same when i was there. We worked across the aisle. What has changed with the people and leadership of politics, where people are not standing up for for the institution and for the system. I think that, and also, you know, in recent days, we just read again john boltons book lays out pretty clearly donald trump did not stand up to president xi with respect to the uighurs and said intern them all. We have got other things to talk about. If you dont stand up, that is when things run away. That is when evil can take over. I think it is vital for us to remember, as i was saying earlier, we created this liberal order as we called it not to be liberal, not to just have a structure there to talk about. We created it because it put in place institutions which would help us work more effectively, live more effectively, be safer. Nato is one of the greatest alliances ever created in the world. And yet our president has been attacking it these last few years. I think the road is clear. I dont think we need to keep repeating the challenge is making democracy work which means voting. There is no automatic pilot in democracy and there is nothing the desperates in the world love to see more than the west wringing its hands over where to go. We are wasting so much Political Energy it is astounding, brexit and so forth. Europe has been on hold for the last few years. It certainly wasnt a waste of our time. Time to move on to the next session. I wish we could speak longer but everyone has limits on zoom. Thank you so much. Stay safe and well. Take a short break before the next session. Former secretary of state Madeleine Albright participates in a discussion with former nato as part of the copenhagen democracy summit. This is half an hour