GZERO World with Ian Bremmer Podcast

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Venezuela after Maduro with Sen. Gallego and Frank Fukuyama

After the US captures Nicolás Maduro, is Venezuela headed for stability, or chaos? Ian Bremmer talks to Senator Ruben Gallego and Frank Fukuyama about what comes next.

The United States has pulled off a stunning operation in Venezuela, capturing longtime strongman Nicolás Maduro and bringing him to New York to face federal charges. For President Trump, it was a dramatic show of force, executed without US casualties and framed as proof that American dominance in the Western Hemisphere is back. But once the dust settles, far bigger questions remain. What happens when a regime falls but the system behind it stays intact, and who takes responsibility for what comes next?

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GZERO World with Ian Bremmer

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The biggest geopolitical risks of 2026 revealed

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Listen: With the global order under increasing strain, 2026 is shaping up to be a tipping point for geopolitics. From political upheaval in the United States to widening conflicts abroad, the risks facing governments, markets, and societies are converging faster—and more forcefully—than at any time in recent memory.

To break it all down, journalist Julia Chatterley moderated a wide-ranging conversation with Ian Bremmer, president of Eurasia Group and GZERO Media, and a panel of Eurasia Group experts, to examine the findings of their newly-released Top Risks of 2026 report.

One theme dominates the discussion: the United States itself. From an accelerating political revolution at home to a more aggressive projection of power abroad, Washington has become the single biggest driver of global risk. That shift is playing out vividly in the Western Hemisphere, where dramatic developments in Venezuela signal a renewed US willingness to shape political outcomes closer to home.

Along with Ian Bremmer, the Eurasia Group panel included Gerald Butts, Vice Chairman; Risa Grais-Targow, Director, Latin America; Cliff Kupchan, Chairman; and Mujtaba (Mij) Rahman, Managing Director, Europe. Their discussion also digs into the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, rising instability among US allies in Europe, intensifying US-China competition, and the growing geopolitical consequences of artificial intelligence—all against the backdrop of a world with fewer guardrails and weaker global leadership.

As Bremmer argues, these risks are not isolated. They are symptoms of a deeper transformation: a GZERO world, where power is unconstrained, alliances are fragile, and no single country can—or will—stabilize the international system.

Listen: With the global order under increasing strain, 2026 is shaping up to be a tipping point for geopolitics. From political upheaval in the [...]

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War and Peace in 2025, with Clarissa Ward and Comfort Ero

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This week, instead of zooming in on a single conflict, the GZERO World Podcast looks back on 2025 and takes stock of a world increasingly defined by conflict. Ian Bremmer sits down with CNN Chief International Correspondent Clarissa Ward and Comfort Ero, President and CEO of the International Crisis Group to look at some of the biggest crises of 2025–-both the headline making wars and the ones the world overlooked.

Gaza and Ukraine captured the world’s attention this year. But at the same time, around 60 other armed conflicts and struggles have been raging around the world. It’s the most active period of conflict since the end of World War II. Some are decades-long battles, like Myanmar’s devastating civil war. Others are more recent, like the surge of terrorist insurgent groups in Africa’s Sahel. But each is a symptom of a broader global order breaking down—driven by weakening institutions, regional rivalries, climate shocks, and failing states. Bremmer sits down first with Clarissa Ward, to discuss her reporting from war zones around the world and then with Comfort Ero, for a global perspective on the conditions that have created so much strife.

“I think it's important not to stop talking about Ukraine and Gaza because what happens there in those two conflicts set the precedent for other places,” Ero tells Bremmer.

Subscribe to the GZERO World Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published

This week, instead of zooming in on a single conflict, the GZERO World Podcast looks back on 2025 and takes stock of a world increasingly defined by [...]

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Why we still trust Wikipedia, with cofounder Jimmy Wales

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At a moment when Americans can’t agree on much of anything, one unlikely institution still commands broad trust: Wikipedia. On the GZERO World podcast, Ian Bremmer sits down with Wikipedia cofounder Jimmy Wales to ask why the crowdsourced encyclopedia remains one of the most visited and relied-upon sites in the world, even as trust in media, government, and tech companies continues to collapse.

That trust, Wales argues, comes from Wikipedia’s decentralized model and its refusal to speak with a single authoritative voice on contested issues. “We don’t try to answer the question or take a side,” Wales says. “What we do is describe the debate.” But that principle is under strain. Wales addresses recent backlash over Wikipedia’s handling of politically sensitive topics, including Gaza, where he says the site crossed an important line by adopting language that lacked broad consensus. “For Wikipedia to speak in its own voice requires an extremely high bar,” he explains.

Bremmer and Wales also explore how artificial intelligence is reshaping the information ecosystem. While AI systems are already trained on Wikipedia’s content, Wales says the platform is moving cautiously, prioritizing transparency, open source tools, and independence over partnerships with big tech. “Wikipedia’s biggest liability is also its biggest strength,” Wales says. “No one owns it.” In an internet increasingly dominated by centralized platforms and opaque algorithms, Wales makes the case that Wikipedia’s model, messy, imperfect, and community-driven, may be more necessary than ever.

Subscribe to the GZERO World Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published

At a moment when Americans can’t agree on much of anything, one unlikely institution still commands broad trust: Wikipedia. On the GZERO World [...]

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The human cost of AI, with Geoffrey Hinton

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Computer scientist and Nobel laureate Geoffrey Hinton joins Ian Bremmer on the GZERO World podcast to talk about artificial intelligence, the technology transforming our society faster than anything humans have ever built. The question is: how fast is too fast? Hinton is known as the “Godfather of AI.” He helped build the neural networks that made today’s generative AI tools possible and that work earned him the 2024 Nobel Prize in physics. But recently, he’s turned from a tech evangelist to a whistleblower, warning that the technology he helped create will displace millions of jobs and eventually destroy humanity itself.

The Nobel laureate joins Ian to discuss some of the biggest threats from AI: Mass job loss, widening inequality, social unrest, autonomous weapons, and eventually something far more dire: AI that becomes smarter than humans and might not let us turn it off. But he also sees a path forward: if we can model good behavior and program ‘maternal instincts’ into AI, could we avoid a worst-case scenario?

"They're going to be much smarter than us. We are not going to be fully in control anymore," says Hinton, "We have to somehow figure out how to make them care more about us than they do about themselves."

Subscribe to the GZERO World Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published

Computer scientist and Nobel laureate Geoffrey Hinton joins Ian Bremmer on the GZERO World podcast to talk about artificial intelligence, the [...]

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