Trump sexual abuse verdict won't hurt him with GOP
Trump was found liable in lawsuit by E. Jean Carroll. Does this hurt his 2024 presidential aspirations? After his Victory Day speech falsely comparing his invasion of Ukraine to the defeat of Nazi Germany, is Putin losing domestic support? How might Imran Khan's arrest affect stability in Pakistan? Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
Number one, Trump was found liable in lawsuit by E. Jean Carroll. Does this hurt his 2024 presidential aspirations?
Found liable for sexual abuse and for defamation, not for rape. A civil case, $5 million he's going to have to pay. That is a horrible, horrible state of affairs for the former president of the United States. It's a stain on the country and it should matter, but it won't. It will be seen by his supporters as yet one more witch hunt, and his immediate response was, "I don't even know the woman," which is obviously untrue, but is a feature of his presidency and of his candidacy. Keep in mind, the people that are voting for him for the nomination are largely people that very strongly support him and very strongly oppose Biden. I suspect that if anything, this is going to have a negligible to slightly positive impact on the way he's likely to perform in the Republican primaries, and that is an insane thing to say.
After his Victory Day speech falsely comparing his invasion of Ukraine to the defeat of Nazi Germany, is Putin losing domestic support?
No. No, not at all. There's a theme with these questions apparently right now. Not at all. Putin domestically has an enormous amount of support. Still, I would say that the war has been internalized as part of national identity in Russia at this point. There are no more significant anti- Russian, anti-war demonstrations in the, a feeling that the Russians are fighting the war against NATO, against the United States, not just against the Ukrainians. Certainly, the war has been extremely poorly fought and managed on the Russian side. The Russian economy has been managed extremely well, and that's a challenging sort of thing to square if you're looking at Russia internationally, but domestically, it means the average Russian still feels okay about where the economy is. At least those that haven't been sent to fight or haven't fled because they're concerned about getting drafted.
Finally, how might Imran Khan's arrest affect stability in Pakistan?
Pretty badly. I mean, look, at the one hand, this is a country that is near default facing massive inflation, huge economic crisis. At the same time, the arrest of the extremely popular former Prime Minister Imran Khan, which was prevented once because all of his supporters stormed around his house and stopped the police and the military from coming in, well, this time around they got him and that is going to lead to mass protests, I'm almost certain, across the entire country in a time that they really can't afford it. So more challenges in Pakistan, sort of an ongoing state of affairs, but worse now than they have been in some time.