In the coming week, the global response to President Biden stepping down. The world comes to Paris for the Summer Olympics, what's next in the Gaza War after Netanyahu's visit to Washington, and the future of two American journalists sentenced in Russia. This July 25th, 2024 in time for The World Next Week. I'm Bob McMahon. And I'm Carla Ann Robbins. Carla, lots to talk about, given that rundown, but let's start here in the U.S. where the news has been particularly fast and furious with President Biden dropping out of the presidential race and Vice President Kamala Harris well on her way to clinching the nomination for the Democratic Party. What has been the global reaction to this handoff? And the world does not stop for American politics, by the way. How do you think Biden will exercise U.S. leadership in his remaining six months or so in office? Secretary of State Anthony Blinken had reminded his senior staff earlier this week that Biden still has one-eighth of his term to go. So, lots to lay out there for you, Carla. You know that Blinken quote is really telling because you can just imagine, you know, what it's like in pretty much every department right now of people stay focused folks. It's not over with. We still have a lot to do here. So among allies, you know, what we're seeing is a sense of relief after what was really barely contained panic at the NATO summit. You know, when a Trump win with the expected chaos to follow seemed all but inevitable. There's no guarantee Harris can win, but it looks like more of a horse race. But nobody's going to stop filling up sandbags for a Trump return, certainly in Europe. Europeans and Asians have actually seen Harris quite a lot. Vice Presidents Bob, you know, often get relegated to funeral duty. She's done a lot more than that. She's led U.S. delegations at the Munich Security Conference at Rishi Sunak's AI Summit at the Ukraine Peace Conference, the one we talked about in Switzerland, at ASEAN at the Climate Conference in Dubai last year. But allies are certainly less certain about her credentials on foreign policy. It's not surprising for a vice president and it's not surprising given her background. She was a prosecutor in a state attorney general and not surprising given the comparison with Biden, who spent most of his career working on foreign policy issues. And there has been some very sniffy and frankly sexist comments, not just here in the United States but also abroad, you know, who is Kamala Harris? And perhaps the sniffiest one reported came from Isabel Schnabel, an executive board member of the European Central Bank who was caught in a hot mic in February. He said, "I don't even know her because she's been so invisible." Really hard to say she's been so invisible given all the summit she's been at. But it's true. It's really hard to figure out what is a Kamala Harris foreign policy, but she's a vice president. So far what we have to predict is it's going to be continuity, but she's going to have to decide in the coming weeks how much she wants to separate herself from Biden and on what issues. And that is always a challenge for a sitting vice president running for office. Her advisors have been described as foreign policy traditionalist and her national security advisor, Phil Gordon, is a Europe expert with a lot of experience in the Middle East and a former colleague of ours here at CFR. I, we're going to predict continued strong support for Ukraine, continue what Biden's economic and security initiatives in the Indo-Pacific. She has a history from when she was a senator of being a trade skeptic, pretty strong commitment on human rights. And the area where there's been the most daylight such as it is between Harris and Biden has been on Gaza. And even that is limited, although it could prove to be politically significant. She was rhetorically ahead of the present criticizing Israel for Gaza and most notably in the civil rights speech in Selma, Alabama in March, where she called for an immediate ceasefire, something that Biden himself got to. And she really has been highly critical then and subsequently for Israel for creating what she called a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. And that perceived difference and particularly that sense of empathy that she's expressed for people in Gaza has already garnered her praise from many of the officials who resigned from the administration and some cautious, if not optimism, a willingness to listen from political groups, including these people who were voting not committed during the primaries. They seem willing to listen to her, whether they're going to vote for her will see, but much more willing to put aside their fury at Biden. We should also note that our colleague Linda Robinson has a new post up on her CFR blog about Kamala Harris, noting both the rarity of a woman candidate for president in the United States and why there are such obstacles in the way the US campaign has run and also taking stock of what Kamala Harris has done in the foreign policy and national security sphere. So check that out if you get a chance. I think it is important to note, as you say, there is this sense that a Harris administration would have in broad strokes some of the continuity of the Biden administration. Our colleague, Charlie Kupchian, will have a piece up on the website later today kind of walking through how to look at the Biden presidency and its foreign policy. He makes a point in his piece about also the importance of the Biden domestic policy being a through line that in terms of being willing to use industrial policy, even protectionism to nurture US competitive industries, I would think that would also continue through with the Harris administration as well. I think the bigger question is what you alluded to at the beginning, which is something that's been noted repeatedly, which is that you have, if you do have this sort of through line in foreign policy, you now have a figure, a younger, more vigorous figure who can debate these points, who can challenge Donald Trump, Republican candidate in a debate more assertively on these points and not sort of back down or not be seen as too frail to push back. So I think it's a race that's definitely got adrenaline injected into it. We've seen the Democratic base fired up. You see the Republicans in their own way fired up. You're going to see the full panoply of social media and media brought to bear. We're already seeing a media campaign on the Harris side that stepped up its message. We've seen, you know, Republicans again going after Harris as they went after Biden. So hang on, but also potentially we have a chance to have some of the actual subject matter areas really argued at least more vigorously back and forth than we have had unexpectedly this summer given the Biden position on a lot of these areas. You know, we were talking before this. There's this new Kamala Harris, you know, ad out there with Beyonce's freedom in the background, which is pretty extraordinary and quite powerful. Certainly a different face from what the Biden campaign was doing. It's certainly an enormously different face from what the Trump campaign has out there. Beyonce, Kid Rock, pretty different contrast out there. And yes, they're going after her. Not just the way they went after Biden, but there's a lot of sexism and a lot of racism already floating out there on the internet and some of it out of people's mouths. So this is going to be a pretty intense campaign. So what about Biden? He, as Tony Blinken said, it's not over yet. And all presidents spend a lot of time thinking about their legacy. And no more so is when this clock is taking down. When I covered Clinton in 2000, I remember there was this discussion about whether they're going to devote his last remaining bandwidth to trying to negotiate a deal with North Korea or in Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. And they sent Malin Albright to Pyongyang and Clinton instead chose to stay in Washington to focus on trying to broker this last-minute peace agreement between Yasser Arafat and Ehud Barak. Neither panned out, but limited bandwidth, limited amount of time and pretty big decisions to make. Biden and his aides are already listing their goals for the last six months. Biden mentioned Supreme Court reform and several other things last night. But we know that for Biden, the foreign policy space is where he's devoted most of his career. And if I had to bet, he's going to really want to focus on bolstering Ukraine and NATO and helping seal this Israel Hamas ceasefire agreement and possibly pushing forward, you know, this bigger grand bargain, the Israel-Saudi deal. All of these are really major heavy lifts. But things you certainly, if he has the energy, he's going to try and push through. And no more money for Ukraine, but lots of things he could do if he's out there and could help the allies, could help Kamala Harris. If he does it, pulling shot Americans still want to support Ukraine and have a positive view of NATO. So any attention he draws to those fights could make it a lot easier for her and potentially Trump-proof if Trump is elected. Wider grand bargain on Gaza. If Biden takes the lead and actually makes some progress on Gaza, certainly make it a lot easier for Kamala on the campaign drill. So lots of things to look for, lots of storylines, Karla, certainly. Bob, let's go to France. Oh, if only we could, where the Summer Olympics are kicking off. Paris and the French government are eager to show they could put on a fabulous event. They're especially proud of that $1.5 billion cleanup of the sand and a show that is also safe even at a time of huge uncertainty over who's going to ultimately govern France alongside Macron following snap elections over this month. The preparations include the country's largest peace time deployment of security personnel and the gains are taking place in the midst of two major conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, which has interestingly had an effect on what athletes are attending. Are we going to have any time to focus on the competition amid all these other dramas? I would say at the end of the day, yes, but it will be a crowded space certainly. And again, we should also note these are the first Olympics coming out of the COVID influenced Olympics, both the winter ones in China and the summer ones in Tokyo, which were delayed by a year. And it's not to say that COVID isn't out there. There's actually a pretty big strain that's running through Europe. And I know anecdotally of people who've traveled recently there and came down with case of COVID. So that could flare up. But I think it's going to be important to sort of lay out the security landscape, because I think it'll be evident even as we try to take in the spectacle of opening night and it's going to be a different spectacle. It looks like it's the first opening ceremony that is not taking place in a stadium in modern Olympic history. It is going to be an opening ceremony taking place along a four mile stretch of the Sun, which winds its way through Paris very picturesquely as anybody who's been to Paris knows. There's major security along that route. Apparently hundreds of thousands of spectators will be able to see the dozens of boats and with floating athletes on them. The US delegation will include flag bearer LeBron James representing the men and Coco Gulf, tennis player representing the women among others. So it's going to be quite something. So I think there's going to be a great deal of interest. I think the coverage by the way starts in US Eastern time around 130. And there'll be a big recap production at 730 for those tuning in and those relying on this podcast to tune in. But in any event, security though, something along the order of 75,000 police officers, soldiers and private security guards will be involved from the French side to try to maintain security. Particularly, there's a mandate to forbid drones from being used anywhere near the events and the ceremonies. There's a lot of concern about the capability of drones as we've seen in fields of combat, certainly. Even though there are plenty of amateurs who would love to get their camera mounted drones in there and getting photos, all of that is banned and they are being really strict about it. In terms of the events, there's always a new event. This year, the new event is called breaking. It is breakdance as a sport. We have seen dance and rhythmic gymnastics and other things enter their way into sport or ice dancing, I should say. I'll just have to describe it because I can't do it justice paraphrasing. It is going to be quote characterized by acrobatic movements, stylized footwork and the key role played by the GJ and the MC, master ceremonies during the break battles according to the Paris Olympic Committee website. So that is something to check out. There are also new sports like surfing and skateboarding, which will be very interesting. BMX biking will be taking place I believe in the Place de la Concorde or some part of it that's been retrofitted. These are obviously all geared towards attracting younger audiences and getting younger audiences locked in. We've certainly seen with the Winter Olympics and the Halfpipe, how much that has really generated enthusiasm on younger crowds as well as athletes. So that'll be very interesting to see. I'll just note on breakdancing. I can't imagine it will match what I witnessed on New York streets in the late 80s, early 90s on certain pop-up performances, both in subways and on the streets. But I'll be interested to see what this evolution has yielded, Carla. And I love all the traditional sports too, from swimming to track and field and so forth. In and of itself, the competitions are going to be great, but you can't get away from the geopolitical moment we're in. Just quickly because I want to get to the bigger geopolitical, but this may be linked. All that security, is it that they're worried about terrorism? Is it that it's just normal when you have that many people in any place? Are they worried about protests because of the politics of France? Are they worried about the Russians doing something because of Ukraine? What's the intelligence assessment about the threat potential here? Yeah, a bit of all the above, Carla. First of all, let's start with Russia. Russia and Belarus for that matter, but particularly Russia are going to have extremely trimmed down athletic teams going. In fact, the Russian athletes will be under a neutral banner, as they have been in various ways since the 2016 Rio games. This is a consequence of a number of things, including the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Also, previously to that as a legacy of doping among Russian athletes. So Russia, which had a large 300-plus contingent in the Tokyo Olympics, will have about 15 athletes from Russia taking part, which is a real come-down for a country that performs extremely well and has always proudly stepped forth in the Olympics. So there's concern about a cyber attack emanating from Russia or affiliates, either directed at athletes at the Olympic venues or whatever. Just keep an eye out for that. Russia has great capabilities in that area. More along the lines of actual terrorist attacks, though there's a great deal of concern about a group known as the Islamic State Coruscant, ISIS-K, by shorthand. This is a group that actually struck Russia earlier this year at a Moscow theater, killed 139 theatergoers. There's a lot of concern given what they call chatter about this group being active. The German authorities were alert to them to warnings around the Euro 2024 football tournament, which recently took place. And so that is a concern. France and the 20 teens had a few incidents of terrorism as well. And so, yeah. And so they are very concerned about the surfacing of this. And so it's all to say that they are on extreme alert for any sort of attack. Maybe it's just protests or maybe it's something a little bit more serious. They are on alert, none the same, to make sure that they tamp down any sort of actions. The Israeli athletes, Israeli contingent of sort of 80-plus athletes are under special guard, as they have been since the 72 Olympics, where Israeli athletes were killed by the Black September terrorists. Actually, the Israeli soccer team played against Mali, a country that does not recognize Israel. There was a lot of sort of overtones of concern, and there were no major incidents. And so we'll just have to keep on watching that given the high rate of concern over the ongoing war in Gaza. And the state of the war in Ukraine could potentially raise concern among athletes as well. Ukrainians are sending a stripped down contingent on their own. And so, again, a backdrop to what's seen as a very creatively interesting staging of the games this year is the state of the world being in such upheaval, Carla. Symbol of peace and very rarely in a world of peace. I'll note we have an interactive timeline up on our website that looks at the history of the modern games, and politics has it frequently intercedes. Some people are comparing this year in terms of global ferment in 1968. The 1968 Mexico City Games were certainly known for their iconic protest photos. So just take a look at that timeline to get a sense of how this is resurfaced through the years. Carla, let's shift the talk back to Washington, D.C., where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a joint session of Congress on Wednesday and is due to meet with President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris today, Thursday, as we were taping this podcast. He is then due to fly to Florida to meet with former President Trump on Friday. Netanyahu himself has faced pretty strong criticism from opposition leaders, both in Israel and the United States, and who see him as an obstacle to ceasefire for hostages deal. There was hope that this visit could shift Netanyahu and move negotiations ahead. There aren't ceasefire negotiations ongoing. Any sign that this is going to move forward? First, let's some news and context since we haven't discussed the ceasefire negotiations in a while. Israeli negotiators were due to return to the table on Thursday, today in Gutter. But everybody's reporting that a senior Israeli official said that's been delayed and the delay is due to the postponement of Netanyahu's meeting with President Biden. It was kicked back from Monday because of Biden's COVID and the BB intends to, quote, discuss the emerging deal with the president to weigh how to proceed. And then they'll go after that, color me skeptical. But let's see, maybe that meeting will change things. As for the status of the negotiations, the wires this morning were quoting a senior U.S. officials saying the negotiations are in closing stages. But we've been hearing that for quite a while since this is a podcast in which we are quoting the pithy lines of Tony Blinken. He said in Aspen, I think last week that they were within the 10-yard line. How many times have we said that before? But let's hope that it's true right now. The basic framework has reportedly been agreed on for weeks with the first phase, a six-week halt in fighting in the release of more than 30 hostages and several hundred Palestinian prisoners. But since then Netanyahu's come up with a series of security demands and inspection system to stop the mass fighters from returning to the north of Gaza, another system for Rafa, full control of the border with Egypt. And he insists that these security demands can only be extracted from Hamas through additional brute military pressure. And that's what we've been seeing even as these negotiations were supposedly within the 10-yard line. Israel's defense minister, meanwhile, and the IDF leaders have been insisting increasingly publicly, and it's been pretty extraordinary how it's spoken, Israeli military leaders have been, that all these issues can be addressed and that Israel can sign right now. So you see an enormous amount of public tension inside of Israel and a great deal of tension between Netanyahu and American leadership, including President Biden. What everyone pretty much knows is that what is holding BB back is his fear that if he does sign, he's going to lose his far right coalition partners and his government, and then his immunity from prosecution. The timing on that, though, is potentially more propitious because the Knesset is about to go into a three-month recess and much less likely to topple a government under those conditions. So possibly, there was certainly no breakthroughs announced in BB's speech on the Hill. He was as hardline as ever, and maybe when he talks to Biden, he's willing to give him the big breakthrough. Maybe when he talks to Harris, he's willing to give him the big breakthrough. We certainly know when this trip was originally cooked up, it had nothing to do with moving a deal forward. The Republican leadership on the Hill invited him and made no secret that they were doing it to divide the Democrats, and dozens of Democratic lawmakers didn't show up. White House wasn't enthusiastic about BB coming at all, but they certainly want to use it now to push it forward, so watch that space. And we should note that Netanyahu's address, where he was certainly well aware of who he was speaking to in the venue he was in, he mentioned very graciously President Biden's support from Israel through the decades, also made clear his appreciation for President Trump's support during his term in office, without mentioning some of the areas of friction. Other than that, he really strongly went after the protesters in the U.S. and called them, essentially, if I'm getting the quote right, Iran's useful idiots basically saying they're doing the bidding of Iran by protesting Israeli actions in Gaza, which is many would take as a simplification of what those protests were about. But clearly, he was laying out that position, and that position has some sympathy with some of the members in the U.S. Congress, though, as you say, there was a number of no-shows and some protests as well. So it's an intriguing visit at this time, you know, in the midst of a U.S. political campaign. He's trying to navigate apparently. There was also a note from the Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas to former President Trump, basically a gesture of communication there as well, which Trump, I think, responded somewhat positively to. So very interesting state of affairs playing out in the Middle East front, Carla. And as for Netanyahu's visit with Trump, what should we be looking for in this trip? Are we going to see them kind of dealing in detail on any sort of deal? Does he want to give the win to Biden? Does he want to give the win to Trump? The line is always, you know, my friend, Steve Erlangar for the Times always says that nothing that has to do with U.S. and Israel is foreign policy. It's all domestic politics on both sides. Beebe desperately wants to get back into Trump's good graces. Trump has been furious with him ever since Beebe was one of the first foreign leaders to congratulate Biden after the 2020 election win. And Trump has been highly critical of Netanyahu, he told a Florida rally that Beebe had betrayed the U.S. by pulling out of a mission to kill an Iranian general. He's urged Israel to finish up the war. He's warned Israel that they're losing a lot of support here. Beebe certainly made no secret of his political preferences, but your right, Bob, in that speech, he was praised both Biden and Trump. He was much more balanced and he assured American officials before he came here that this was not going to be like the 2015 speech. He wasn't going to beat up Biden's nose in this one. But this trip, which is, it's the somewhat unusual thing in the midst of a campaign to go visit. The guy who's running, although Biden's not running now, I think if he was going to give a win to anyone, he'd give a win to Trump. Let's hope he doesn't decide to hold out until after the election for that ceasefire. And I think the thing to watch, of course, is what does Biden say after the meeting? Is he welcoming to Beebe? Is he going to push him very publicly afterwards? What does Kamala Harris say after the meeting? Does she stake out a position different from Biden's or harsher on Beebe if they don't feel they're getting there? And what does Trump say? Does he say, "I'm the one who's actually going to get the deal." So, there's a lot of dynamics there to watch. Okay. Well, the Middle East getting hashed out over lunch in Mar-a-Lago, perhaps, we'll have to see. Bob, before we get to our audience figure of the week, I'd like to talk about, very briefly, another incredibly important story. In the past week, secret Russian courts have unfairly and outrageously sentenced two of our colleagues to long prison sentences on false charges. On Friday, Russian-American journalist Ausu Karmasho, an editor with the Tatar Bashkir Language Service of the U.S. Funded Radio Liberty Radio Free Europe Service in Prague, was convicted on the manufactured charge of spreading false information about the Russian military and sentenced to six and a half years in prison. Her husband says the charges relate to a book she edited the profiles Russians opposed to the war in Ukraine. And on the same day, the Wall Street Journal's Evan Gerskovich was sentenced to 16 years in a Russian penal colony on false charges of espionage. His last article in the journal Before His Arrest, which ran in March of 2023, carried the headline, Russia's economy is starting to come undone. Also, an Evan must be freed now. And we cannot forget that the Russian government is holding at least 20 more Russian journalists. Journalism is not a crime. It's essential work for a healthy society. Yeah, and I think that last message is something that the U.S. and other democracies are just going to have to keep hammering home repeatedly because, you know, where does this end and where does not just in Russia, but, you know, anywhere, really. And it's really one of the foundations of sort of the functioning of the world. And there's been a great deal of sneering at what's known as the rules-based international order. But this is part of it. And while we will celebrate the return of also an Evan and Paul Wellen, who's also in prison, another American, we cannot forget, you know, the horrific conditions for other Russian journalists. And what has happened to NGOs and civil society in Russia? This is a terrible place for free speech. Well, Bob, it's time to discuss our audience figure of the week. And this is the figure listeners vote on every Tuesday and Wednesday at CFR underscore orgs Instagram story. And this week, Bob, our audience selected not another happy topic. Huti rebels escalate conflict with Israel. And the Hutis are seen as a proxy force for Iran. Is this Tehran picking a proxy fight with Israel? I should say another proxy fight with Israel. And why are the Israelis which have a much more sophisticated military than the Hutis and pretty much everyone else in the region? Why are they having such a hard time getting them to back off? Well, first of all, note that the audience figure poll happened after we learned about the presence of sharks off of the Brazilian coast that had cocaine in their system, because surely we would have included that in the running. And that clearly would have been chosen. That would seem to have been a front runner. But in all seriousness, the Huti front is a especially challenging one. And this is part of what Iran has referred to as its axis of resistance. And they tend to all start with ages. Hezbollah, Hamas, Huti rebels, Huti rebels were cultivated as they were rising up against Yemeni government in part of the chronic civil war that Yemen has been dealing with, especially those since the so-called Arab Spring, where there was a real public ferment to overthrow the government. They control part of the Yemen at this point. And they are a Shia in origin, although not automatically linked to Iran. Iran, as I said, cultivated them and supplies them by many accounts with armaments. What happened with the Huti rebels most recently is they sent drones to Israel proper. And one of them got through, they sent it, I believe, was four drones. One of them got through to Tel Aviv and struck a building not far from the US consulate, which raised speculation that maybe the consulate itself was a target. But this was a drone that flew something like 1,200 miles and got through what is one of the world's most sophisticated air defense systems and made a point. At least one person was killed in the attack. The Israelis responded with a very strong counterattack on a port in Haudaita Yemen, where Hutis were said to have received support from Iran, including drone support. The drone was said to be an Iranian made drone. The Iranians are particularly skilled at making drones that fly long distances with lethal effect. And so the Israelis bombed Port of Haudaita, destroyed a number of fuel facilities, among other things. And everybody is sort of bracing now for another level of escalation in this. And the Hutis, by the way, have not been quiet in their red seed campaign, which they ramped up after the October 7 attacks by Hamas on Israel as a further way of showing their solidarity with the Palestinian cause. And they've been extremely disruptive. And not only has it been something that the Israelis have not been able to counter, but the US has been trying to mount a pretty major series of strikes against the Houthi sources of these attacks in the Red Sea and has shot down any number of drones. But it's still not able to snuff this out. And again, this is yet another area where Iran figures and also the Hutis own capabilities and a country like Yemen, which is now contested. It continues to be contested. And it's further pointing to the fact that the Middle East is an area where escalation can occur quite quickly. And this is one they really need to try to get under control. And yet the Houthis have shown they can defy this quite easily. It's also quite intriguing because the Houthis are also a reminder and a warning of asymmetric warfare and how technology gets cheaper and how you can have cheap technology can wreak an enormous amount of havoc. And it's really expensive to knock something down cheap. And drones have been very good at cheap drones and very, very expensive missiles to knock them down. And that's only what the future holds and of the nature of warfare. So a conversation for another day about how technology evolves. And I'm sure we will be talking about them a lot. Yes, asymmetric as a term we first heard widely discussed after the 9/11 attacks, but it only sort of dispersed further. Well, color, that's our look at a truly turbulent world next week. Here's some other stories to keep an eye on. President Nicholas Maduro faces his biggest test yet as election heats up in Venezuela. Masud Pazeshkin is set to be sworn in as a new president of Iran. And wildfires in Canada's Jasper National Park continue to rage after having forced over 25,000 residents to evacuate. Please subscribe to the World Next Week on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. And leave us a review while you're at it. We appreciate the feedback. If you'd like to reach out, please email us at TWNW@CFR.org. The publications mentioned in this episode, as well as a transcript of our conversation are listed on the podcast page for the World Next Week on CFR.org. Please note that opinions expressed on the World Next Week are solely those "the hosts" not of CFR, which takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. Today's program was produced by Molly McEnany and Marcus Acariya, with director of podcasting Gabriel Sierra. A special thanks to Helena Copens-Johnson and Emily Hall-Smith for their research assistance. Our theme music is produced by Marcus Acariya. This is Carla Robin saying so long. And this is Bob McMahon saying goodbye, and be careful out there. [end] [ Silence ]
