# How to Be Smarter About the News | TED Explains the World with Ian Bremmer

## Метаданные

- **Канал:** TED
- **YouTube:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR7xdT_Xi5U
- **Дата:** 22.05.2026
- **Длительность:** 51:11
- **Просмотры:** 3,628
- **Источник:** https://ekstraktznaniy.ru/video/51750

## Описание

Political scientist Ian Bremmer (@GZEROMedia) has access to the rooms, conversations and world leaders who make the news of the day. So how does he stay on top of everything that’s going on? In conversation with TED’s Helen Walters, Bremmer opens up about how he thinks about sources, how he avoids getting spun — and what we can all do to think more clearly about the news. (This interview was recorded on May 20, 2026.)

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The TED Talks channel features the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of t

## Транскрипт

### Segment 1 (00:00 - 05:00) []

Hello everyone. It's May the 20th, 2026 and we are doing something a little different today. We are going behind the curtain to talk about how reliable, trustworthy analysis and reporting actually happen. So as the founder of Eurasia Group and G GZ Media, Ian Bremer is one of the most closely followed voices in geopolitical analysis. He has access to the rooms, the conversations and the world leaders who make and respond to the news of the day. You have seen him on this very screen talking about everything from Iran to Israel. And today we are going to get a better sense of how he does what he does. I am Helen Walters. I am the head of media and curation at TED. And here is Ian. Ian, thank you so much for being here. A pleasure as always. — Helen, very good to see you. — So I mentioned that word trustworthy. So let's start with that very small topic of trust. So what public sources of information and analysis do you trust the most and what makes a source trustworthy? — Public sources. Well, um it's getting harder first of all. Uh I think we all feel that. Um I mean I used to trust uh what I would read in the newspapers a lot more than I do today. Um so much of that is framing. It's not that the uh the journalism is wrong, but the stories that are being picked and the way that they are being reported and the angles on them um are much more politicized than they used to be. I would say 10 years ago, I felt that the op-ed pages of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal had clear slants, but that the coverage uh in the general news did not. I think that's changing. Um, I probably still see the Financial Times as uh in terms of their news coverage uh both politically and economically around the world as quite good uh and objective. It is uh it's not the most serviceable website and it's pretty dry and it's pretty technically detailed. Um but frankly, um I think in part because they don't care necessarily about having the broadest distribution and subscriber set. It's more doing what they do well for the people that need them. Uh they've probably been most true to that uh over the last 10 years, 20 years. Um I think that um there are plenty of places uh that you can turn to for good global coverage outside the US. So, one thing I try to do all the time when I'm adjusting my own media diet is spending some time with um NHK uh in Japan in English and uh Deutscheella um from Germany um and uh I mean the CBC in Canada uh and uh the BBC in the UK and Al Jazera um in the Middle East uh and all of them have their specific biases, but their world views are generally pretty good. And of course, they're interested in a lot of the same stories in terms of global coverage um that American media is, and they're also all very consumed with what's happening in the United States. But they're trying to figure it out, and they're usually doing that with less of a structural bias. That I would say that's particularly true for Germany and Japan. Um and uh and so that that's that is something that most of my friends in the United States don't do that. Most of my friends in those countries don't consume the media outside their countries. I think that's an increasingly smart way to go. And then the final thing that I do and again for in terms of public consumption, we're not talking about private consumption of our own analysts and our own network and who we talk to and how we engage. um is uh I probably have among the 2,000 people that I follow on Twitter um which is the platform that I personally uh spend the spend more time on to get information. Uh and I don't do the um you know for you feed at all. Uh I do the who I'm following. that's been pretty carefully curated to be a broad political spectrum uh of people that have a great deal of expertise covering most of the issues that I think are important globally. And if anyone wanted to go into my file and look at the people I'm following, I think you'd get a pretty good basic here it is with the recognition that it doesn't show up chronologically in your feed, which is annoying. Uh, and makes

### Segment 2 (05:00 - 10:00) [5:00]

more people want to go to the for you feed. Uh, but I still think that when you refresh it a few times, you usually get a pretty good sense. — Interesting. Okay. So, you that was the public side. Now, let's talk about the private side. Often when we have spoken, it seems to me like you've been having conversations with the people who are actually involved in making the important decisions. You're in the room or you're close to the room. Now, how do you get those people to trust that they can share information with you? Because a lot of it, I'm sure, is confidential. And so, h how does that work? — One, uh it's taken a long time. You don't build a relationship of trust like that in a day. uh you do it over years and years. The conversations usually are pretty one-sided to start. And when one-sided, I mean I'm doing the briefing and not much is coming back my way. Um and because they're already giving you something, if they're important, if they're already some form of global leader, a head of state, a key minister, CEO of a major corporation, what have you, um they're giving you the most valuable thing they have, which is their time. It can be 20 minutes, it can be an hour, but the fact that they're giving you that um needs to be understood and respected by you in that meeting so that you're already in a deficit when you enter the meeting. Um and you need to be providing value in return for what they've given you. And so that the first thing is do they find you someone that is useful to engage with. Um, secondly, I think it's important that they don't really see that I have a driving political or commercial agenda. Uh, I'm not doing comm's work or lobbying work for an organization. Um, and uh, I'm really trying to understand the world. And that's something that a lot of these leaders, they love the macro, they love the big picture conversations, but they don't actually have much time for it. um because they spend so much of their time on very high stakes, very specific short-term decisions, many of which are domestic and political, international, but they're not where the world is going. They're not what my legacy is and how I fit my country, my company, my organization into a radically changing planet. So, it is a content set and a topic set that they like. Um so, those are a couple things starting off. And then um I've also I've been writing my own little weekly update uh that goes um to those leaders for 28 years now. And yeah, if they're reading it carefully, they will occasionally find things that uh are uh certainly reflect or are informed by conversations that we've had, but never in a way that would bring it back directly to that person. Not by quoting them, not by saying something that could only come from that conversation, not at all. Um it's kind of like when you have a clearance like you have a top secret clearance and suddenly you get a whole bunch of information all of which is almost 99% of which is in the public sector but suddenly the fact that you know that is what the real actor collecting the intelligence knows means you can go back find it in the public sector and now it is a filter that is extraordinarily valuable knowledge. The same thing is true for conversations uh with people that are decision makers for these global issues. And then finally, when you continue to do that to provide that role over a long period of time consistently, authentically, honestly, and you're going to get things wrong, but that's okay. Everybody gets things wrong. It's how you handle that um and how you continue to stand uh for the principles uh that motivate uh your uh conversations, your analysis and your questions. Uh all of that builds trust. Um and by the way, it doesn't hurt when someone that you went to a conference with 20 years ago suddenly has grown up with you and now that person that you've always liked and trusted is How do you like that in a position of real power that also matters too. So the network is essential and the network is something that you cannot substitute anything but content and time for that. — So how do you avoid getting spun? — Well um one is time. uh the more you know somebody, the longer you know somebody, um the better a track record you can assess. In the same way that they're assessing whether or not they trust you, uh you need to understand

### Segment 3 (10:00 - 15:00) [10:00]

what their perspective is. Now, the fact that everyone has a perspective is very different from being spun. I assume that um any leader you're talking to comes from the context and background um that is informing their job that their worldview is very heavily linked to that. So I mean clearly if you are the prime minister of Japan um or if you're the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia um you have very different contexts. That doesn't mean that they're spinning you but their perspectives are wildly different. Spinning for me is when someone is trying usually not to convince you of a broad argument, but specific point that has relevance and time duration um to something that is happening in the news or is about to happen in the news that usually isn't a serious isn't the most important part of a conversation. So already when that comes up um it kind of rings some bells. Um, and if it's not consistent um, with what you believe because you don't have one data point, you've got lots. You're not getting one set of inputs from one leader, you have many, and they're different. Allows you to connect those dots. I mean, I remember when I um found out that Trump was having uh a essentially an informal bilat in plain view at a G20 summit um with uh um uh Putin. He was sitting next to uh at the time Shinszo Abbe's wife and who was pretending not to speak much English because she didn't like Trump and didn't want to talk to him. He went across the table at a very long dinner uh in Germany and had a 45inute one-on-one with Trump that nobody talked about. Now I bring this up in part because uh someone ran into me in Washington DC the other day and reminded me of the story and he said, "Oh, you got that scoop. " And I was thinking I it wasn't really a scoop because I'm not out there trying to break news. I'm trying to understand what's happening in the world. In this case, several of the leaders um from around the world were people that I know and I was hearing this story from them because they were so startled that Trump had done something that was so dramatically different from what people understood an American president in a G20 setting would do. Uh and this was especially at the beginning of the Trump administration, the first one, when the Europeans were worried, oh, do we have a strong alliance? Can we trust this guy? Is he all talk, but he's going to be fine? And then suddenly they see it. So they're talking to their national security adviserss, their chief of staffs, and the rest. But the point is, once you've built a network, it's a matrix. It is a whole bunch of people that are interconnected with each other. They meet constantly. They share information constantly. They have different perspectives, but they do have a general shared understanding of what's happening in the world, much of which they're not necessarily saying to other people. And if you build those relations over time, the ability of any one individual leader to spin you, that'll be true if you're that'll be a problem for you if you only talk to that leader. But if you have a broader set of relationships, that one person spinning you isn't going to be very effective at all. And um I I think that is uh that I see this happening all the time with media sources who are deep journalists, but they are they're deep journalists on the basis of a very strong connection with one individual leader or government that gives them all their information. And that's a problem because then even if the journalist is really good and really professional, all of the scoops they're getting, all of the analysis that is really, you know, feels like it is not in the public domain but needs to be out there is only from one perspective and one filter. And so they they're at risk of being spun. and even if they're not being spun, they likely are promoting a very narrow worldview which does not really help the readers get what's happening globally. — What do you make of the changes that have happened to the media industry over the years? So I'm imagining that when you're in these rooms or when you're talking to people, you're not do you call yourself a journalist for instance? — I'm a political scientist, — right? So you're a political scientist. So that actually gives you a kind of a different credibility from a journalist who is there to report on the topic. Do you feel like — I'm not there to like break news or write stories. I'm really there to try to understand like how are Yeah.

### Segment 4 (15:00 - 20:00) [15:00]

— But then the media company that you have GZero Media is reporting on these stories all the time. You have a you know a team of people who are writing and analyzing and giving context about all of these things. I'm just curious because the press has got such a bad rap at the moment and we can argue about whether it's warranted or whe whether it's not warranted. In some cases it is, isn't, but access is becoming harder it seems like for people to be able to report about what is happening at the highest levels. So how do you think about that topic and how and does the fact that you're a political scientist and kind of there in a different context as an adviser like is that the way in? Is that kind of the future? — I don't know. Um, again I think that Ford, you know, Fared Zakaria is uh someone I consider almost an alter ego of mine. And I say that in the most friendly and respectful way. I mean like we know the same people. We do the same speeches. We talk constantly. We've written together. I mean all of this sort of stuff, right? I've been on his show. He's been on my show. His show is a lot bigger. Um uh and and he started out as a political scientist. He's a PhD in political science. He's written a lot of books, right? And and most people think of him as a journalist, not a political scientist. But I think that his access and uh certainly among Americans that are recognized as journalists, he has better and more trusted access to world leaders than anyone that I know. Um, and I think that access comes because he's approached his relationships with all of these people over the years more as a political scientist. I do believe that. I think that it's more about like his post American world. he is seen as yeah, he's writing columns, but what he's really doing is trying to figure out where the world is heading. And those leaders value his views on that. He's not there principally just to interview them. They're to the extent that they're interested in coming on his show. Sure, they'll try to spin him, but let's face it, you know, cable news, CNN on the weekend is not the biggest thing these leaders could be doing to get their their voice out there. What they really want is access to him. And I think that is different than journalism. And my firm um Eurasia Group of which GZero Media is a part is principally 250 plus people who are political scientists. Um and some of them are economists used to be journalists and some of them have other skill sets. There are a couple tech folks. Um but they're people um that are um all working to accomplish the same thing just mostly with a narrower target set. So their expertise is principally about a region or a country or it's about a sector um or it's about you know a component of geopolitics or a lens on geopolitics and they are building out the same relationships with those leaders those stakeholders the decision makers that I am in their space and if G0ero were driving all of this and we were hiring principally journalists that were just trying to get access to people so they could write a story. I yeah, I do think that you probably get less that way. Uh I'm not saying it's not valuable. Of course, it's valuable though. It's become less so and it's also become commoditized. Um but I I think that's probably that is probably not the future. — So let's talk a minute about the process that you have internally when everyone is getting this information. Everyone has their network of contacts and people and so there's stuff flying around, right? Very nuts and bolts. What is the way that internally you share information so that you guys are all kind of keeping each other in the loop as things are happening as new stories are breaking as things are developing? Do you like what is your system internally? — So um it used to be principally uh and we still do this but we now do something else as well. you'll you'll immediately see why I'm phrasing it this way. We used to have a morning meeting every day at 900 a. m. uh Eastern time. It's half an hour. In advance of that meeting, all of the analysts across the firm uh who have anything that they believe uh is deserves uh to be written about uh deserves to be commented on that is not in the collective consciousness of the organization will say I want to present on issue X. It can be a breaking story. new piece of information that we have, a new analytic take we have, whatever. And on any given day there will be between six

### Segment 5 (20:00 - 25:00) [20:00]

and 15 such things and they'll be prioritized from most important to least so we can spend the most time on them. Uh there's a very active chat going on while that conversation is happening. I try to attend that meeting every day. When I am on the wrong time zone or when I have a meeting that is happening at the same time then I will dial in and I'll listen to the call in. um on tape of that half an hour. So that's essential and that's every day. Um and some people do that from you know remotely. Some people actually if you're in the office you usually come into the main conference room and everyone's there in the room together which is kind of fun. London for some reason always seems to all be in the boardroom. Um you know New York is a little bit more remote. Washington's kind of in between you know and smaller offices around the world do what they do. Now that's the way we used to do it principally. That is still true. But in addition to that, we now have a significant number of internal chats. Some are um there are regular, you know, sort of uh on online chats um that you know, real-time chats and some that are more sensitive are smaller group. Um and I would say that those now especially for things that are happening real time. So the Trump Xiinping summit in during the last few days of preparations and while it's going on um or today um with a potential for a new uh agreement on again off again uh between the Americans and the Iranians on the strait of Hormuz that the Saudis are talking about there is real time information and what does this mean coming from relevant analysts all over the world and if I didn't have access to those chats, I'd feel like I was missing an arm. I wouldn't know how to go into um a top level meeting today uh without especially in a heavy news cycle day without for five minutes, 10 minutes before that meeting dipping into the chats and making sure I am current on everything happening um around the most relevant issues. By the way, it's very similar to the way the National Intelligence Council in the United States used to be set up. And I have had um many people um come to me uh like the prime minister of New Zealand, for example. I've had the foreign minister of Canada, for example, others that have said um we want our shops some of Nordics. We model um our in-house um you know sort of uh political uh you know analysis intelligence gathering on the way you guys do it um because in many cases many of these countries we just have we've got a larger group that's working on it. — Yeah, it's so interesting. It reminds me of the morning meetings that newspapers and media organizations often have too. But it also relates to the idea and I think maybe the answer is in there of like how do you know what not to track? There's so much going on. There's like 60 conflicts happening around the world at this moment and you can you know that how do you know or how do you manage not to treat everything as burning and urgent? — Well, we have the most the product that we put out um and I say product but I mean we actually put it out publicly and we don't spend we don't charge for it. um that we're most well known for um is the top risks piece which you and I do at the beginning of the year as well and it's out and it looks at what we think the biggest most consequential risks are globally. Uh and it's there's only 10 of them. So it's a completely artificial number but it it's it means that we don't have a number 11. And we also do the top herrings usually three or four of those. We don't do 10 of those which are the things people think are going to matter but actually don't. And we have a methodology that is uh kind of creates some rigor around the process. And that methodology is we rank these risks on the basis of likelihood, imminence and impact, right? Likelihood if it's really likely to happen, it's a baseline risk, then it's more impactful. It matters more. We're going to pay more attention to it than if it's like, oh, this could happen, but it's 0. 1%. So when people were talking about a tactical nuke is going to go off in Ukraine, you know, incredible headline, very unlikely, right? Don't talk as much about it. Um, then you look at imminence. Uh, getting the the story right and getting the timing wrong is a disaster in the marketplace, but it's also a real problem for policy. I mean I remember 10 years ago I put out a tweet that said that I believed within 10 years time um that the US would have a closer relationship with Iran than Saudi Arabia. Um in part because Saudi Arabia is all about OPEC and oil production and the US is a massive oil

### Segment 6 (25:00 - 30:00) [25:00]

producer and so Saudi Arabia would be more tilting towards China. Um, but in part because I believe that the Iranian government was not going to last 10 years and that if there was a revolution um or a breakdown that the a new Iranian government would be radically more interested in engaging with the United States. Now, I still think that is likely over time, but that it wasn't 10 years. I think the 10 years actually comes up in 2026, so maybe I still have a few months on this, but it it's very unlikely to now happen. Um the fact that when you talk about anything um intrinsically we all have a discount factor in our mind. We all think well if it's going to happen in 10 or 20 or 30 years we don't care. You know you have a 250 year lease on a home in the UK. You feel like you functionally own it even though you don't. You actually don't have title to it. You're renting it. Somebody else does. Um, and if it's going to happen tomorrow, you treat it as if it is real time. Um, and then you have impact. And impact is why so much is made of Iran and the straight of Hormuz and so much is made of Russia Ukraine because it affects the Europeans and it also affects global food. um in a way that Sudan with lots and lots of people f far more humanitarian uh impact on the Sudin than Russia Ukraine on the Ukrainians or um Gaza Israel on the Palestinians. And yet Sudan gets virtually no coverage. And not only because there are no journalists there, but why aren't there any journalists there? because um the knock-on implications for other countries both geopolitically, economically, in terms of human flows, all of these things just isn't very significant. Now if we actually valued all human beings as having equal importance which you know I certainly believe uh as a core value and you do too but we don't act that way and and certainly no one the world doesn't act that way. The world's not structured that way. So, you know, I as a consequence and Eurasia Group spend a lot more time on the things that we think are more likely to affect the state of the world that are going to change how humanity collectively organizes, is governed, develops or fails. Um and that means that um you have a much smaller windcreen for a lot of this stuff than you otherwise might. There's also uh the issue of not getting distracted by headlines that are um you know so when the cutteries um offer a plane to Trump um the value of which is a rounding error um compared to the billions and billions that he is making um off of crypto um for example then don't spend time on that even though it's a salacious headline um and I do think that frequently the news has you know everything Trump is automatically an 11. But if you recognize that long-term Trump is a symptom and not the cause of the G0ero world, the geopolitical recession and is also strictly term limited, that reduces the volume and the noise. Also, if you recognize that a lot of things he tries to do, he ultimately fails at. Also, if you recognize that a whole bunch of the stuff that is making headlines is stuff that's meant to make headlines, but isn't actually changing the way that things are governed, isn't changing impact. So, that immediately brings you down from Trump, Trump, Trump to there are a few stories that are relevant that you should be talking about, like his decision to escalate or to cut a deal with Iran, which is incredibly important, and on and on. So, I hope that I mean that's a kind of an extended answer to your question, but it's a really it's a tough it's one that you know manifests in so many different ways every day. — No, I thought that was incredibly insightful. So, thank you. I'm also interested in your tips. So, obviously you're in this, your team is in this. you have a kind of a nose for understanding what is as you say and in other people's terms they may call misinformation disinformation like it depends on the kind of intent of some of that information but what is your advice for someone who is smart who is interested who is curious and who doesn't work in this world but wants to understand what to take on and what to ignore — well look I mean first of all understand

### Segment 7 (30:00 - 35:00) [30:00]

that everyone is I mean, I think that one of the reasons I gravitated towards political science and international relations is because I don't get very worked up by nationality. I am an American. I love my country. I consider myself patriotic, but I don't in any way think that the United States is a repository of truth in ways that other countries cannot be and are not. Um, and uh, I think that's essential to be effective as an international relations specialist. There are a lot of people that don't feel that way and those are people that would not make good political scientists. They should do other things, right? Um, which I mean because everyone has different skill sets. I would not be a great economist. I wouldn't be a great accountant. I'm not a great manager of people. So, chef, right? Um, I'm a horrible basketball player. On and on. So, first of all, recognizing what you're good at. There are a lot of people that are actually very good at being thoughtful and considered on a whole range of issues, but aren't on a few that they feel really personal about. I I'll give you a small example. My mother uh is was of Armenian lineage and I used to study the Soviet Union and then the 15 countries that came out of the Soviet Union when it collapsed and um I never focused on Armenia and the reason I didn't and I didn't write about Armenia even though I was writing about all these other places for a long time because I felt like I was kind of biased and I felt that way because when my family members were talking like my grandma would talk about Turkey that was like a country that committed genocide against like her people, our people, even though I didn't feel any enmity. I kind of felt like, well, I'm rooting for them to win. They're kind of like the home team, the Armenians. And so, until I got to a place that I felt comfortable, that I understood that bias, that I could pack it away, and that I could talk objectively about it, um, which I think I've gotten much better at on that issue, though it's a very small issue at the end of the day. Um, I didn't want to engage on that issue professionally. And I think that if you are trying to not have your hair on fire on the news, it is important to understand if there are areas of the news that you have a very strong bias on. Um and don't consider that part of the news. Just your identity, whatever it is, right? Um and try not to spend as much time following the news on that. So, for example, if you're trying to set up your social media feed so it is useful for you on news, avoid the people that are experts on the topic that you are super biased on because you're not going to get anything from that. All you're going to do is like the people that already agree with you and hate the people that don't, but it's not going to help you at all. So, stay away from something that is a structural bias, right? Um, and then also longer form. It's why I mean when they say kids don't read and they're worried that everything is a headline, kids listen to podcasts all the time. I've got folks I mean 80 year olds watch my show on PBS. 20 year olds are listening to the same thing on a podcast. In fact, sometimes it's an extended version and they're getting more out of it. So, it's not like young people can't do long form, but they digest it in different ways. And long form content is better because when you're talking about serious and complicated issues, it doesn't lend itself to a short pathy answer. Like the world, the next order is it going to be unipolar? multipolar? Is it going to be tech companies that run it? answer is it's a very complicated discussion that you and I would have over 30 minutes or an hour. I can't do it in a tweet. Fox News or CNN sound bite. And so, you have to give yourself time when you want to digest information. Don't do it in five minutes unless you're doing it constantly. So, it's truly an update. For those of you that the news is a hobby and it's a civic commitment and it's something that you're interested and you care about, but it's not your profession, don't do it constantly in little bits. Instead, give yourself a half an hour or an hour where you say, "I'm going to digest this long form feature. I'm gonna read this thing that is gonna help me out on a big issue that I care about and then go and grab 10 of those articles or find everything you can from your AI bot and claude and chat GPT are incredibly useful if you

### Segment 8 (35:00 - 40:00) [35:00]

prompt them properly to say here is the way I would like to digest news on the following issues and I wanted to have all of the analytic balance and the push back and the smart people on all sides And don't kiss my ass. Don't tell me I'm awesome. Push back when I'm asking you for something that feels like a bias. Give it all of that the the training that you would to a very precocious toddler to te to learn how to help you. And suddenly you have an incredible tool that can get you a better media diet, but you have to digest it correctly. You can't use the tool incorrectly uh because you end up killing the patient. — I love that answer. And I should say that this very show that we have concocted together which is always — always more than 45 minutes and does incredibly well for us. So I think that the kind of the myth that everybody can everyone's attention span has become 25 seconds or less is just not being proven out by the data at all. I mean, you know, the fact is that TED was always known at the beginning of having these short, you know, sort of speeches where you could get the expertise on a topic and you're out in whatever it was, 12 minutes. Uh, and the reality is we, you and I have done how many, 10, 15 of these now, and they're basically 45 minutes, an hour, sometimes longer, and they've been, you know, all over the world. The feedback I've gotten is fantastic. They're deep dives. Um, and this time around it's a deep dive on doing analysis. I don't think I could have this conversation in five or 10 minutes. And I wouldn't want to try, right? Because I don't think um, I could do the topic justice. I'd much rather have someone come back to this. They see it. Oh, that's interesting. Let me come back to this on a Saturday afternoon or when I'm on a bike ride, you know, uh, or whatever it is, um, that I can actually listen to it because we're capable of multitasking. I see. I mean, when I'm at the gym or when I'm running on the river in New York, I see people that are listening to their books and their podcasts, it's like 90% of the folks, so they're actually all super intellectually engaged. That that's when you do something like this. — And it's interesting, too. I feel like sometimes people get mad at TED mad at us because the TED talk doesn't necessarily encompass everything about a topic. And I'm always just like, well, of course it doesn't. It's just it's like the start of a conversation and if you're interested what an incredible opportunity for you now to go and learn more to dive more deeply into these ideas to find out other perspectives and so I think our insights have are rhyming here which is always gratifying — completely yeah it's the best TED talks that I have watched are talks that have interested me in a topic that before watching that talk I had very little exposure to and then made me proactively go and engage with that kind of content when I saw it before and I would have flipped through it because when you just see a reasonable article on something but you haven't seen the best person in the field opine on it in a sharp way for 12 minutes you don't know that you're really interested and TED is like this sudden tada you should really care about this topic you don't care about all of them they don't all resonate with you but of those that land you're more likely to start digesting that news and that content better than you otherwise would have. What an incredible service. I think it's a great thing. — Well, thank you very much. We do, too. Okay. So, we canvased our community to ask for questions for you. And I think you already answered this one a little bit, but I think it's a a per question, which is, have you ever or would you ever work for the US government? Well, I government all the time. Um, in the sense that I'm not charging them for my analysis and I'm giving them advice and sometimes they're listening and sometimes they're not. Um, but I certainly feel like a part of my existence uh as an analyst is to try to help government leaders that at the end of the day I want to do better. Um and that means most government leaders, even lead even governments that I don't really agree with, I'd much rather that they would be ultimately successful um than fail. I mean, would I do that for with an incredibly repressive government um that's, you know, sort of not probably not, but for most generally, I would say sure. And opposition, too. Um, but I don't think that I mean when I was a kid, um, I was in second grade and Mrs. Criticos uh was asking the class uh, they were telling us about what it was like to be the president and, you know, the importance of the job and the decisions you had to make. And I was thinking about it and she was asked the class, okay, everyone that would like to be president um, when they grow up, raise your hand. And you know, so I raise my hand and I'm thinking about, you know, how cool it would be and all this stuff. And she calls on me and and I remember this

### Segment 9 (40:00 - 45:00) [40:00]

and there's not much I remember from being in second grade. And I kind of I was a little annoyed that she was interrupting my like little fantasy land about being president. And then I looked around the class and I realized that I was the only one in this public school class that had their hands up. And that quite surprised me because I would have thought that everyone would have wanted to be president. That sounded like a great thing. Of course, that's because I was like in second grade and had no idea how horrible the job is. Um, and I did later in life, you know, high school, college, grad school, I think I'm I would have said that being national security adviser would be a great job. Not so much secretary of state because that's a running a big bureaucracy, but being the top foreign policy advisor to the president uh is a job that I think I could be quite good at. Um, and Lord knows I have the network for, but I think I would be really bad at some pieces of that job. Um, like not being able to publicly speak my mind much, particularly if I didn't fully respect and was not fully sympotico with the president. I also think the United States presently stands for some things that are kind of problematic and a lot of those things would have to really change before I would feel comfortable having a full-time job in a role like that. Uh I mean, you know, the level of kleptocracy in the US right now is not something I would want to be, you know, associated with directly, frankly. Um and so I I feel quite strongly that the answer is no. Um, but I also feel strongly the answer is no because I now feel that having done what I've done for the last 30 years, I can have a lot of impact and influence but be myself, be authentic to me in a way that lots of other people have a harder time. So, this is something that I can if I mean if I were national security advisor, I'd be in the job for two or four years and I get really frustrated and I would lose a lot of hair and I don't know if I'd accomplish what I'd want to accomplish and people be angry with me and they think I was partisan. all those horrible things that would stick with me afterwards and then I'd be out and then I'd always have that legacy issue where here like if I stay in good health and and and confidence uh mentally I can do this for another 30 40 years. Um and that that's pretty extraordinary. So I really I have I would say really no ambition um to serve in public office. I would love to be UN Secretary General because I think that that's an extraordinary organization that the US has created. I'm very proud of it. I love that it's in New York. I love the quality of all the ambassadors that are sent by different countries around the world to engage in multilateralism and try to improve governance and create and move forward sustainable development goals. But an American is not going to run the UN. So that that's a non-starter. So I kind of think that I've over these decades created the job that really fits well for me. — I'm fascinated that you say that about the UN given that the UN does not get such a great rap these days for its influence or for the way that it actually, you know, for any effect that it has in the world. So that's fascinating. It's fine. We don't want you to be the — different conversation, but yeah. — Different conversation. So, one of the things that's always stood out to me when we've been talking is the way that you are able to be nonpartisan and basically give us the facts as you see them. I guess again you're digging into the actual data that are happening and reporting on that. But it must get to you Ian the person. Some of these stories are uh or some of the things that are going on in the world are harrowing. Uh, what do you do when you're exhausted or when you're emotionally invested in something that you're looking at? — Well, I mean, I obviously do vote. So, um, it's when you know, you say that I'm seen as nonpartisan, but I still have preferences. The point is that your preferences are not your analysis. Now, if my job were to advocate or lobby or be a policy maker or be a partisan tribal like, you know, part of a of that process, that would be a different story. That's not my job. My job, my professional advocation and what I do publicly is analysis. It is not personal preference. I never could have written about the Gzero world um if my analysis were my personal preference. I mean, more often than not, uh, because we are in a geopolitical cycle and we're in a downward, uh, portion of that cycle, so we're hitting the geopolitical recession, most of the things that I see coming geopolitically, are not things that I like. But nobody cares what I like, or at least they shouldn't. Maybe you, you know, people that follow me may like me personally, but they still don't really

### Segment 10 (45:00 - 50:00) [45:00]

care what I like. They think. And those things are very different. Now, uh I did not vote for Trump. I would believe he is unfit as president. I believed he was unfit as a human being when he was a Democrat. And I said that publicly. So this is not an ideological thing. I don't think Trump is a Republican. I think he supports himself. And if he had a way to become president, running the Democratic party and making it into a cult of Trump, he would have done that. So it's not a partisan thing for me to say that. Having said that, a lot of people in America are worked up over that issue. What I can say though is that when Trump succeeds at things, frankly, it's an emotional relief for me to be able to say he succeeded at these things, you know, like the Abraham Accords, for example, or USMCA, for example, or Venezuela, for example. Um, and a number of domestic policies as well, for example. Like I mean there are all sorts of areas where Trump has been successful and the fact that I don't think he's fit doesn't change the fact that those policies are successful. Um it's analysis. Uh and I'm h and that also makes it much easier to be wrong because when I'm wrong about something it doesn't mean that my desires are bad. It means that I got the analysis wrong or the world changed. and I got the analysis right and the world changed and so now let's address that. So it's not personal people so many people take it personally because they align who they are as a human being with what they think is happening in the world and the reality is those two things have nothing to do with each other. So there really isn't like you know the great Buddhists and I'm not a great Buddhist. I'm a Catholic which is almost the opposite of being a great Buddhist but I've met some great Buddhist and they've taught me a little about meditation which I can sometimes do for 10 minutes at a time and for me that's pretty good. And what they say is you've you know don't try it's not like you're going to stop thinking about things. You let your mind think about things but then let it go. Let it go. Just pass over you. And the same thing is true in global politics. Like you can't change how you feel about something, but you can let it go because that's not what's happening in the world, you know? And while you can't change how you feel, you can change the only thing you can change is how you react. You can't change how other people feel. react. You can't change what policies they're putting in. But you can change how you react to the way the world is moving. And I think if you handle that with a lighter touch and with the ability to recognize that analysis and you the world and you are not the same thing. Um then it makes it a lot easier to engage with people that you might have disagreements with. But the disagreements come from things you like, not things that you're trying to understand that are true. Uh I I those things I think are all useful skill sets and I try to teach all of those to my students um in our classes and those students come from 50 60 different countries every year and we cover the hottest topics and we did it at Colombia in the middle of the Gaza demonstrations and we talked about those issues too. We never had a fight. Not once. I never had a student demonstrate or try to shout someone else down. Not once in 12 years, 13 years of talking. It has never happened once. So that tells you it is doable. And these are grad students for Christ's sake, right? I mean, they all they have is time to argue. — If anyone is going to be argumentative, it's a grad student for heaven's sakes. It's what they're there for. So that is very gratifying to hear. I'm also grateful for uh the for prompting me to now sing the song from Frozen for the rest of the day. So thank you very much. And that shows you what a bad Buddhist I am. Okay, last question, Ian. And I like this one a lot. Do you ever turn your phone off? — Oh, yeah. All the time. I turn my phone off when I'm in meetings. at meals. I turn my phone off at night. Um my focus I have three speeds. Uh fast, faster, and sleep. Um, and all three are important, but and those speeds are true intellectually, they're true emotionally, uh, they're true uh, physically. And if I have my phone on during a meeting or during a social meal, um, or in the middle of playing tennis and then check it in the middle of a tennis set, um, I'm completely distracted because I'll then be all in on that. So, I just shut it off. Just shut off. But when I have it on, I'm focused on it. So, and if I have it on and you're talking to me, I'm not paying attention to you. So, for me, it's very

### Segment 11 (50:00 - 51:00) [50:00]

much feast or famine when it comes to the phone. I certainly spend more time on it than I would like, but knowing that uh makes me shut it off more, and that is a helpful thing. Also, I like the fact that with an iPhone, it actually takes a fair amount of time to turn on an iPhone from scratch. And that is also useful because occasionally if someone is like, "Oh, can I want to give you my number, exchange information, I'm in an important meeting. " I will visibly show them, oh, give me a second. I need to turn my phone on. Telling them, I have had my phone off for the last half an hour, hour and I've been meeting with you. That is intentional. — I love that there's no do not disturb mode for you. And I love that if anyone catches you now with your phone in your hand with the screen on, then we know that you're not paying attention to us. So, we — then you know I'm not paying attention. That's right. Okay, Ian, we have now talked for nearly an hour, which shows if you listened all the way to this point in this video that you have an incredible attention span and you are clearly a very smart person. Ian, thank you so much for being here, for sharing the tips and tricks that you have. Um, I will look forward to seeing you again soon. Thank you so much. — Great fun, Helen. This was this is quite enjoyable.