>> Can we overcome these massive divisions?

Can we find a common purpose?

Can we put America back into the picture here and all of us as American citizens?

♪♪ >> Hello and welcome to "GZERO World."

I'm Ian Bremmer.

One year after the January 6th Capitol insurrection, we are taking stock of the state of American democracy.

What as a nation have we learned since those acts of violence and sedition shocked the world?

And how likely are they be repeated?

I'm joined by Fiona Hill.

She served as senior national security adviser under President Trump before she famously testified against him in his first impeachment trial.

And then I make the case for a surprising silver lining to America's political implosion.

Don't worry, I've also got your "Puppet Regime."

>> So another great day here at Anti-Democracy Club, huh?

Perhaps we should unwind with a game of charades.

>> But first, a word from the folks who help us keep the lights on.

>> Major corporate funding provided by founding sponsor First Republic.

At First Republic, our clients come first.

Taking the time to listen helps us provide customized banking and wealth-management solutions.

More on our clients at firstrepublic.com.

Additional funding provided by... ...and by... >> If the January 6th assault on the United States Capitol had a face, it would probably be Jacob Chansley's.

We won't soon forget the horned and shirtless QAnon Shaman.

Of the roughly 800 people who stormed the Capitol that day, there were plenty of whack jobs.

Right-wing extremists and paramilitary groups like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys terrified the nation or at least cable news with their tactical vests and their zip ties.

But most of the folks looked a lot like your average Joe rather than Jacob Chansley.

They were schoolteachers, they were real estate agents.

They were even former cops.

>> Retired NYPD officer Thomas Webster surrendered to the FBI.

Federal prosecutors say the 54-year-old attacked a Capitol police officer with a flagpole.

Webster also allegedly pulled down the officer's helmet, choking him.

>> The truth is that many of the rioters chanting, "Hang Mike Pence" could have been your neighbors, your friends, your family.

And that's how democracy dies -- when ordinary people choose violence over voting, and when we can no longer agree on objective reality, like what happened that day?

Here's audio from a Capitol police officer fending off the crowd.

Fast-forward to Fox News six months later.

>> If this were covered, Tucker, the way the riots of last summer were covered, it would be described as mostly peaceful.

And I think to a great extent, it was peaceful.

>> The historical whitewashing seems to be working.

Despite President Trump getting impeached for an unprecedented second time and despite an ongoing House Select Committee investigation into his role on that day, 67% of Republicans polled said they want Trump to continue as a national figure.

That's a 10-point jump from last January, right after the insurrection.

Recent polling also found 78% of Republicans believe that Biden stole the 2020 election, and that's an increase from 75% in January 2021.

In this fractured political landscape, congressional Democrats will struggle to hold on to power come November's midterm elections, and if history is any guide, President Biden may be up for the same kind of "shellacking" that humbled his former boss back in 2010.

>> Feels bad.

>> But this year, it's not just the Democrats who are in danger.

It's increasingly our democracy.

Is America really back, as President Biden has promised, or is America's back against the wall?

I'm posing that question and many more to a woman who says she put everything on the line to protect democracy during President Trump's first impeachment trial.

You remember that one.

Here is my conversation with former senior national security adviser Fiona Hill.

Fiona Hill, welcome to "GZERO World."

>> Great to be here with you, Ian.

>> So I want to start, because it's January 6th, to ask, you know, whether or not you feel a little bit more optimistic or not a year after those horrible events in terms of the United States and the future of our democracy?

>> Well, actually, no, I don't really feel that much better because, you know, we're still grappling with the ongoing consequences of that particular event, and in many respects as well, it was just an episode in an ongoing struggle that we're in the midst of right now on the societal political level about the future of the country.

And it was a manifestation, January 6th of 2021, of the deep divisions, the partisan infighting, the polarization within our society.

You know, the fact that we could have a group of our citizens basically storm a building that is supposed to be a unifying symbol, a symbol of freedom, of representational democracy, not of repression.

This isn't like the storming of the Bastille, the idea of a kind of repressive fortress that had to be taken down for people to win their rights.

This was the here and now of American politics and a group of people feeling that they had no recourse other than to engage in acts of violence, beating up Capitol police, going after members of Congress, who are supposed to be their representatives, and, you know, potentially even getting their hands on the vice president and talking about hanging him.

I mean, who would have thought that the United States would end up in that kind of situation?

The fact we haven't really fully processed it, that we haven't kind of come up with a common narrative of what happened there -- We've heard the dismissal of this as just an episode, one day in January, even by Mike Pence, who would have been the target of the mob himself.

I mean, this kind of shows the problems that the United States is facing.

So no, I'm not feeling particularly optimistic about where we are, but I do think as we move on with this, we unpack it -- The real necessity is to figure out where we're going as a polity, you know?

Can we overcome these massive divisions?

Can we find a common purpose?

Can we put America back into the picture here and all of us as American citizens, and we're not divided up into these camps?

And certainly you don't feel that we have to get to the streets and commit acts of violence to be able to, you know, find our own place in the world and in the country.

I mean, we've got a long way to go still.

>> When January 6th happened, I found myself thinking back to a lot of the movements outside the United States that Americans have historically supported.

The people themselves that were storming the Capitol, I mean, actually would have thought of themselves in that environment as not so different in trying to uphold their own democracy and keep the elections sacrosanct.

Do you think there's any reasonable fairness in that perspective?

>> Well, look, clearly those people did.

Many of those people did think that, as you laid out like that.

They'd been lied to.

And I would hope that as a result of the process, you know, in all the discussions and the national debate about this afterwards, that many of them have realized, I mean, it's not just those who found themselves prosecuted and facing jail terms, but others who were involved in it would realize that they'd been lied to.

Look, this is the United States.

I'd sue people if I were them, you know, basically for, you know, motivating them under false pretenses.

So not just a kind of a question of, you know, civil suits against them by people who were hurt at their hands like the Capitol police, but if I were them, I would be suing, you know, the leaders that lied to them because they were basically incited to violence and encouraged to storm the Capitol building under entirely false pretenses.

And look, I'm not a litigious person.

In another setting, I wouldn't advise that.

But this is the United States.

And, you know, the president and many of the people have decided with frivolous lawsuits, and this wouldn't be frivolous.

>> The idea that the election is stolen is something that has not only been perpetuated by the former president, but also is something that is still believed very much by a strong majority of Republican voters and by Trump supporters across the country.

>> Yeah, well, it's believed because the people who are telling the lies are people ostensibly with a great deal of credibility drawn from their positions in society.

And this goes back to my point about lawsuits because we're being told by the people who are telling lies that this is actually free speech.

So this is why I'm saying that they actually, in some respects, the only recourse is to sue.

>> Now, you worked for this administration.

And so I mean, to some degree, you worked for this president.

You worked for this man.

Given how badly it all went both for you personally and the attacks that you've had to face and also in terms of what happened to the country up to and in some ways, culminating in the events of January 6th, does that make you feel conflicted?

And if so, how about the time that you spent personally in the White House?

>> I don't have any problem whatsoever with what I did and the decision that I made in going into the White House or the administration, the National Security Council back in 2017.

I did this purely on the basis of trying to do something in national security as a result of the Russian interference in the election in 2016, and behind the scenes, that's what I focused my attention on.

I didn't play political games with anyone.

I was in charge of Europe and Russia in the National Security Council, and I have, you know, complete confidence that at no time did I subvert my own principles.

Now, in terms of my personal views about Trump and about the, you know, kind of serving the man himself, plenty of people have said that to me, you know, kind of "How could you?"

or "Are you now not being disloyal?"

I took an oath to the country.

First of all, I took an oath of citizenship.

I'm a naturalized U.S. citizen, so I've taken an oath twice and I also served the country previously as national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council.

>> Absolutely.

>> So unlike, you know, kind of people who were born here, I've actually taken an oath to serve the country and to be a good citizen, to step up and to give something back.

And again, I did that the second time when I went into there.

I went in there with eyes wide open.

I'd been properly warned and I was attentive to what was going on there.

And I made sure, you know, at all points that I reported up my chain of command to others about what was going on and that I either tackle this head on, and as many people know, when I was asked to step up as a fact witness in the first impeachment trial, when I was subpoenaed to do so, I did so.

And as I told the committee last month, I refused to be part of an effort to legitimize an alternate narrative that the Ukrainian government is a U.S. adversary and that Ukraine, not Russia, attacked us in 2016.

I told the truth.

And I have put up with an awful lot of attacks, defamation against me and my character.

And that's fine because that comes with the territory, unfortunately it seems these days, of public service and of being in the national spotlight.

And, you know, in the words of George Orwell, which I've quoted before, "in a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."

And I mean, that's, you know, kind of basically the business that I and you and others are into and should be into, which is telling the truth.

I was always up front and I did give myself in the knowledge that this was going to be a very difficult assignment, a time limit.

So I left in the summer, in July of 2019.

I left one week before the fateful phone call between President Trump and President Zelenskiy of Ukraine.

>> Yeah, mm-hmm.

>> And it was already obvious by that point that I was already straying into that territory that I had been worried about of kind of a time when I would have to make a really difficult decision about how to continue given the direction that the presidency was going in.

But I thought it was extraordinarily important to step up when something was happening.

The country was under attack from the outside -- assault and intervention in our democracy.

And, you know, we needed all hands on deck to do something, and what an incredible number of people, both political appointees and nonpartisan experts were all trying to do something behind the scenes.

So I've no regret about that whatsoever.

But, of course, I have a lot of conflicted feelings since then about what is happening and what my own role should be, and you know, I've chosen to speak out not just, you know, by writing a book that, you know, lays out some of my experiences within the government, but to continue to speak out about these issues because, you know, as you referred to that platform, I never expected to be in that position.

But I think it's very important for people to stand up there, be counted and speak out and, you know, basically tell, you know -- tell people how things are.

I have, you know, a unique experience of having been in there and seen it and, you know, being able to then speak with authenticity and firsthand experience of what I saw.

>> So I want to move from that sort of directly to the Russia question because, of course, part of the challenge, I mean, the disinformation, if you will, in some ways began with intervention by Russia into the 2016 election, which the Obama administration at the time did not respond effectively to.

Knew it was going on, but didn't do very much at all, very late.

And so clearly the Putin administration understood and Putin himself understood he had a level of impunity.

Trump comes in and he wants to be buddy-buddy with the Russian president, doesn't want to criticize him at all.

Says, "Don't worry.

I got to be mean to you in front of the cameras but everything is just fine."

Given all of that, how do we deal with a Russian president who clearly feels a level of impunity?

>> Well, look, part of it and part of the reason why he's been so successful at this and why there is that sort of sense of impunity because, in fact, behind the scenes, there were some punishments that were kind of meted out as a result of those actions, but it gets to the heart of our divisions, polarization and partisan infighting because there's no "us."

There's no "we."

There's no United States in terms of the foreign policy at this particular juncture.

And in 2016, the Obama administration hesitated because it was in the middle of an election season, an election campaign, and they didn't want to take an act that would look like they were getting involved in the electoral campaign.

Because, of course, President Obama had finished up his two terms.

And this is why the Russians intervened at that point, because it was a very fertile, propitious moment for intervention.

We were uniquely divided, more so than we'd been in prior times.

But this was a great environment for an intervention by someone like Vladimir Putin and the Russian security services.

You know, you and I have studied this for a very long time.

They knew exactly how to push buttons.

Boy, did they push our buttons.

So, you know, part of our problem now as we look ahead, is how we deal with that because we have to have a collective front.

So, you know, for anybody who's listening out there who thinks to themselves in, you know, kind of this identity, that identity, Putin doesn't care.

He doesn't care what you think of yourself, if you're Democrat or Republican.

He thinks about America.

He's got Russia's unified interests in the foremost part of his thinking.

He sees himself as an extension of the state and the state as an extension of him, depending on one's perspective there, and we are not like that.

Trump was all about himself.

Nothing to do with America or America first.

Just him, him, him.

And now, President Biden has a real difficulty in his own party is not pulling together behind him, let alone being able to bridge the divides over into the Republican Party, which is the party of one man.

Kind of it's become the Trump-rump Republican Party, you know, rather than the kind of sophisticated, you know, kind of complex party that it used to be prior to 2016.

And that's our biggest problem.

To deal with Putin, we have to have collective, coherent, concerted pushback.

So we need to have our act together and we have to have a coherent foreign policy stance that has everybody, you know, kind of on the picture, not having members of the Senate just trying to win points politically by holding up ambassadors, which we actually need them in place.

We need to have, you know, the forward-leaning push of the United States.

And then we have to be able to work with our allies.

>> Is this a moment where Russian President Putin actually feels now that he has more influence, more ability to shake things up and see what falls from the tree than he really ever has at any point since the Soviet collapsed?

>> Absolutely, Ian.

I mean, if you're Vladimir Putin and you're sitting and looking at all of this -- You know, everyone says, "Oh, the Russians have a weak hand."

No, we have the weak hand right now.

The Russians know how to play and Putin knows how to play a weak hand very well.

Doesn't look like we do.

You know, so because we've been so used to having, you know -- no pun intended here -- all the trump cards in our hands.

You know, we have always thought of ourselves as being in the stronger position, having all of the leverage.

And as you laid it out, we have very little at this particular point, and our own internal dysfunction, you know, becomes part of that.

So, you know, Putin looks at us and he sees a pretty weak state.

You know, Biden's having an incredibly difficult time getting legislation through.

We flip and we flop from one policy to the next every time an administration comes in.

We're just all over the place.

The power of our example is fading around the world.

All the polling shows that people no longer look at the United States as something to emulate.

You know, if you want to exert coercive diplomacy and take advantage again of all of these divisions in this polarization and mix things up and see what you can get out of it, now is the moment.

>> The final question I want to ask you -- think about the NATO member countries, and here I'm thinking specifically about the Baltic states.

I'm thinking specifically about Poland.

Do you believe that American defense and security guarantees to those NATO countries are adequate?

NATO multilateral guarantees to those countries are today adequate, given where Russia is, and if not, what would you suggest we do to strengthen them?

>> Well, again, it depends on what we think is going to be the nature of the threat.

So, you know, if we're worried about Russian tanks, you know, kind of rolling over, you know, into, you know, one of the Baltic states, for example, you know, or are we talking about covert action?

Are we talking about political pressure?

What has to be adequate is taking all of these contingencies into consideration and then thinking about how we're postured to deal with us.

I do think we need an awful lot more work on, you know, financial flows, on cleaning up corruption.

We're working more closely with our allies on kind of closing up all these loopholes for shell companies, following the money, you know, rooting out and basically holding to account corrupt politicians in our own countries because that is part of the problem as well of infiltration and influence, regulating our social-media platforms so that the Russians can't do again what they did in 2016, having public/private partnerships to look out for ransomware attacks or other, you know, hacking and intrusion episodes.

So what we need is a kind of an adequately postured response on all of those fronts, and a lot of it is about our own resilience and shoring up our own defenses.

And that gets back to, you know, where I started from, is we have to get our own act together, clean up our own acts, but also try to get a bit more cohesion in our societies because one of the things that Putin himself focused on, as you well know, is unity -- unity inside of Russia -- but then taking advantage of disunity abroad.

And that should be a lesson to all of us because Putin loves our disunity.

It's incredibly useful as a tool to exploit and that toolkit that he has.

>> Important stuff.

Fiona Hill, thanks so much for joining today.

>> Thanks so much, Ian.

It's great to be with you.

♪♪ >> Given that American democracy in peril may not be the New Year's message you were hoping for, here's a silver lining.

The United States may not have its house in order, but neither does China, and that reality, I am confident, is one thing that will prevent any cold or, God forbid, hot war between the two great nations in 2022.

Don't get me wrong -- the two countries have no trust and will continue to confront one another over all sorts of issues like technology and trade and COVID, not to mention the future of Taiwan.

In fact, when I asked retired four-star Admiral James Stavridis last May where he thought a U.S.-China war would be most likely to break out, he didn't hesitate.

>> Taiwan.

I think it would be a miscalculation on the part of the Chinese, but they may calculate that now is the moment.

>> But here's why I don't see war any time soon.

China is aware of the economic stakes involved, and it's got far too much on its plate to afford the risk.

The economic growth engines China has relied on for the last 40 years to lift hundreds of millions out of poverty are running out of gas.

Job losses in wealthy countries that have brought so many Chinese-made products have forced the reshoring of manufacturing away from China.

Advances in automation and robotics also cutting into China's lower-wage advantage.

China also faces a demographic cliff.

Its population will begin shrinking in 2027.

That's before China becomes the world's largest economy.

The labor force contracted by 40 million workers over the past decade and the share of Chinese citizens over 65, now at 13.5%, is going to nearly double by 2030.

That's going to drag on growth and force the Chinese government to spend a lot more on healthcare.

Added to that, the world's most indebted country, China, is now facing a crisis in its property and banking sectors as Beijing's move to crack down on debt pushed real-estate giant Evergrande to the brink of economic collapse, and over $46 billion in losses back in 2021.

I'm not sure how you say "too big to fail" in Mandarin, but in China, I bet they do.

So while Chinese leader Xi Jinping will continue to stand up for Beijing's interests at home and abroad, China's historically ambitious and risky reform plans are going to increasingly demand the leadership's full and undivided attention.

Nationalistic chest thumping over Taiwan?

We can both do that.

But there's no crisis point soon.

♪♪ And now to "Puppet Regime," where our world leaders seem to think democracy is some sort of charade.

I know what's coming.

Roll that tape.

>> Ah, another great day here at Anti-Democracy Club, huh?

Perhaps we should unwind with a game of charades.

>> Ah, your elections are already charades.

[ Laughter ] >> Oh!

Yours are!

>> No, yours, yours, yours.

[ Laughter ] >> What the hell is an election?

>> Okay.

I will go first.

Okay.

[ Mumbling ] >> A protester who was paid by the CIA?

>> No, no, you idiot.

It's European Union making strongly worded statements.

I was trying to convey I have no teeth.

>> [ Laughing ] >> [ Sighs ] Okay, who is next?

Hey, Xi, you are up.

>> Okay, okay.

>> You're a potato in sack of potatoes carried by angry Communist Party boss.

>> No, no.

Is it Elon Musk floating around in hyperbaric chamber?

>> Wait, wait, wait, wait.

I know.

It is democracy flailing around in throes of death.

>> Yeah, yes.

[ Cheering ] >> That was a good one.

Very good one.

>> My turn!

>> Ooh.

>> This should be good.

He has flair for dramatic.

>> You're meddlesome election observer.

>> What the hell is an election?

>> Oh, oh, oh, you are dissident after drinking Russian tea.

>> No, guys, geez, don't you see it?

I'm America lecturing us all about human rights.

[ Rimshot ] [ Laughter ] >> Speaking of America.

Hello, gentlemen.

>> Well, well, look who wants to join our club, Mr.

I can't even successfully rig my own re-election.

>> What?

Are you kidding me?

I actually tried to overturn an election.

>> Oh, wow, really impressive.

But, uh, last time I checked, person in White House is not you.

>> Dude, he's right.

You lost to Sleepy Joe.

That's pretty lame.

>> Oh, I see how it is.

No faith.

Alright, you losers.

You just wait until the 2024 election.

>> What the hell is an election?!

>> "Puppet Regime"!

>> That's our show this week.

Come back next week, and if you like what you see and I know you do because I mean, who isn't wondering what's going to happen next week with the future of American democracy?

Who knows?

Check us out at gzeromedia.com.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ >> Major corporate funding provided by founding sponsor First Republic.

At First Republic, our clients come first.

Taking the time to listen helps us provide customized banking and wealth-management solutions.

More on our clients at firstrepublic.com.

Additional funding provided by... ...and by...