The Brookings Institution hosted this event, which looked at more out in the state department, the impact of a Republicancontrolled Senate, the u. S. Record abroad and future relations with europe, china, and iran. This runs an hour and 10 minutes. Good morning. Im the director for the center of United States in europe. At the bookings institution. I am delighted today to be chairing this important discussion on election 2020 and its implications for u. S. Foreign policy. Obviously over the weekend there have been some rapid developments. There is now a president elect joe biden, after a pretty tumultuous few days, i think, for everyone, an election that was pretty close for many days but now we have a clear winner. So we have a terrific panel this morning to discuss not so much the election but looking forward to next year to see what the implications are for u. S. Foreign policy, for international order, and to talk to parse maybe some of the nuances of last week and what they may mean, particularly that trumpism is alive and well even though the president did not receive a second term and that the senate could still be in the hands of the republicans. Adelman fromic Johns Hopkins school of advanced international study, evan osnos, a staff writer at the new yorker and a nonresident fellow at brookings, tamara wittes, senior fellow at the center for middle east policy at the brookings nuland, an, victoria nonresident at the center for the United States and europe. All have either served in great 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 sorry, the title escapes at the moment. It slipped off my screen. It is joe biden, his life and times and what it means for the 2020 election. Evan, lets start with you, if we can. Joe biden has been around for a long time as we heard repeatedly from donald trump. Hes been in office or out of office for about 47 years. He has a long track record on u. S. Foreign policy, in some ways hes a very known quantity but in other ways hes a bit of an enigma. His views have evolved a bit over time. He has a large team that has these debates about Foreign Policy that have been obscured by the trump show and many people in biden 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 but it was maybe more close and more marginal than many people anticipated. He may well have a republican and he, of course, has said that his superpower 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 transition and the beginning of his term, how do you think he sort of interprets the results of last week, particularly with the view to what it means as far as Foreign Policy and further for the future of americas global role . Thanks, tom. Yeah, its great to be with my colleagues up here and with all of you who are tuning in. Look, i think there are, as tom mentioned, there are in some ways elements of joe bidens mind, his approach to his diplomacy as to domestic policy that we sometimes overlook or havent really studied in detail until just now. They can help us anticipate some of the things that i think were likely to see. Ill talk just for a minute here about what i think we can broadly describe as an error of of division ata home and abroad. I think thats an important defining piece of this, to understand the period of structural and sustained hostility in the u. S. And in many of its relationships, which will have implications but before we do that i want to talk 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, hell tell you, that he draws somewhat of a distinction between the way its conventionally practiced. He said to me at one point, look, sometimes diplomats 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 here, because his basic view, and he would apply this in wilmington or in baghdad or in beijing, is do not tell another person what their interests are. Thats his fundamental idea. They will have a notion of their interests, and as he puts it, you know, in my experience people are generally not open to being persuaded that their own calculation is wrong. What you have to do is show them the basic element of recognition, the facts that that you are hearing them, that you are listening with them. You dont have to pretend you agree but if you can get them into a position that they can trust their own ability to calculate their interests, you are starting over at an advantage over if you come in and tell them why they are wrong. I think another piece of this, thats meaningful is, joe biden and barack obama actually had a very important thing that bound them together when they were joined together on the ticket. Oftentimes president s and vice are shotgun tickets marriages. In this case they had this thing, that tied them. It was this basic belief in the possibility of unification. That you could actually unify people but they used very different tools to do it. In president obamas case, as we know, he had a transcendent story. Literally his own personal story and the power of his eloquence, of his political rhetoric, was able to at home and abroad withstand this process of trying to restore some element of the american image, of american credibility, and that was his approach. 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 these kind of fundamental persontoperson contacts, 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, which is, it is significant that he knows a lot of these people. George at one point said to me, we used to have foreign leaders who went into the senate with joe biden for a long time, we would have foreign leaders come all the time to the senate and my job was to go around and introduce the foreign leaders. I would say over here is senator so and so, then these foreign leaders would say hi, joe. There is a certain they just knew him. And at a moment like now, when the United States frankly looks unfamiliar in so many ways now, in the nature of politics, the nature of our divisions, 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 the various specific domains, china, europe, and elsewhere because my colleagues will get us going on that and well come back to them in more specifics during q a. Tom, back to you, i think. Thank you, evan. Tamara, you served as Deputy Assistant secretary of state in the middle east for middle Eastern Affairs in the first term of the Obama Administration. You had an opportunity to work with then Vice President biden. Well get into the middle east part of it later on, i think, in the discussion, but just to the question on his sort of outlook, how it might have changed following the election of last week, what hes sort of thinking, you know what do you think hes thinking about the challenges hes facing in the world with still a very divided country at home, and if his Foreign Policy is like to be a little different this week than maybe it would have appeared just before the election . I think that last one is a difficult question, but let me try and 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. This is his not his first run for the presidency, and, you know, across his career, i think, hes 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. 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 vice presidency. Thats very true in the middle east, where weve seen historic developments over the last decade. Some of which he was in office for and some of which he was not. But its drew across the board. Politics has changed. Transatlantic partners are in a different place now than they were four years ago. And there is a degree of uncertainty in Global Politics that i think has led a number of our traditional partners to 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 hell probably move himself into some of the Common Ground that hes found with partners in the past. Whether that is, you know, the iranian challenge on counterterrorism, on strengthening our sort 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 without those good conversations. To hear from them and to find that Common Ground. So no doubt there is a lot of prep work thats been going on, but he will be reaching out and having 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. Eric, if we could turn to you next. Youve served in very senior positions in the pentagon and overseas, in the republican administrations. What do you think Mitch Mcconnell and, i guess, the Foreign Policy oriented senators are thinking at the moment . Are they better than 5050 chance that they retain control of the Senate Following the runoffs in georgia on january 5, we need to wait to see, of course, results but if youre looking at it now there is probably a pretty decent chance they remain in control, so they will have control basically of the nomination process, considerable oversight. Obviously, legislation to pass, they are necessary for any legislation to pass, and it has been a pretty divided election. Weve already seen some senators come out and basically back Donald Trumps theory of the case. What do you think mcconnell and some of the other senators are thinking and this is sort of a is there sort of a prospect for cooperation between a Biden Administration and a Republicancontrolled Senate . Thanks, tom. First, its great to be here with you, and with all my colleagues here, with whom i have all sorts of unusual ties. Weve succeeded each other in a variety of positions in government. Tammys parents were exceedingly kind to me when i was an ambassador in turkey, and evans grandparents lived in the same neighborhood my grandparents did in manhattan. Its a great panel and im thrilled to be part of it. Look, the Republican Party certainly the Republican Party of Ronald Reagan has been shattered, and its beyond recognition, in terms of its approach to National Security policy. I think for those of us who were never trump republicans, i was part of two different groups of that ilk, that endorsed Vice President biden, we had hoped for, as you indicated, a bigger repudiation of trump and trumpism and we didnt get it. I think Vice President biden is going to win a pretty solid victory when all the votes are counted. Hes 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 healthy helping cleanser of the republican tendency, 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 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. It might also benefit xi jinping, so it might be more than one. What will happen in the senate . I think senator mcconnell, leader mcconnells instincts remain sort of traditional. Conservative internationalist republican. He does have a longstanding relationship with Vice President biden. I think his instinct is going to want to try and be pragmatic, to get some things done. And i think, in fact, probably some contacts are already beginning to happen between Vice President bidens folks and congressional staffers on the republican side. So i think thats, you know, all to the good but leader mcconnell will have a very large challenge and thats going to be that the Election Results are likely to be ratified in the minds of a number of people that the problem was not the message, it was the messenger. That this was a repudiation of trump, but not necessarily of trumpism. And that, therefore, hostility to trade agreements, hostility to our alliances, are going to be the ticket to success in 2024. And that trump lane i think will be very crowded with a number of candidates, and many of them are going to try and stoke the trump win their own candidacies by being obstructionists, by leading the resistance to a Biden Administration. Mcconnell will have a tough road himself. He is going to need some cooperation from the biden team in helping him to manage that. I dont think it will be as big an issue on the confirmation for cabinet positions, but the subcabinet positions, i think, that are open for confirmation, are going to be a bigger battleground, and that will require some very dexterous cooperation on both sides, which i hope happens because that would be good for the country. Thank you, eric. Toria, youve served in several administrations, in both parties as a Foreign Service officer, very senior levels. Picking up where eric left off, if were likely to see sort of a continuation of trumpism in the Republican Party and in the senate, would you still have some of those International Elements there, internationalist elements there, and a Vice President biden who is sort of naturally kind to bipartisanship, what do you think the best prospects are to sort of recreate, if not the bipartisan consensus, at least, a strong bipartisan view, maybe not shared by everybody in each party, americas leadership role internationally. Thanks, tom. First, its great to be with everybody on this fresh monday morning and with so many patriots and folks who have served their country 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 to represent the United States. I think that will be bidens instinct, to try to reach out as eric said, to the mcconnells and ands and cornyns traditional republicans, of his generation, but i think eric is not wrong that on the Foreign Policy and security side, we dont know yet what those who will posture for trump 2024, what 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 trumpian republicans in the congress supported punishing side, almost trade nobody joined this caravan of trump hostility towards nato and even trump hostility towards the e. U. 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. You know, 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 high technologies like artificial intelligence, etc. , by ourselves. First and foremost, if we could do it with allies that would be better, cheaper, and more persuasive for us, but secondarily that doing it all alone puts all of the burden of things like sanctions on china on the American Farmer rather than on a broader coalition, and it stands less of a