Dr Ian Lesser of the German Marshall Fund says everyone is extra vigilant following attempts to over throw the 2020 election results. And although risks of this have grown, ‘everyone is watching’ he tells the Europe Conversation.
It may be several days before we know the result of the US presidential election, predicts German Marshall Fund’s Dr Ian Lesser.
“There could be many legal challenges, even legitimate legal challenges, if it’s very close,” Lesser, a distinguished fellow and an adviser to the German Marshall Fund’s president, told the Europe Conversation on Euronews.
“It’s quite conceivable that even a few days afterwards, you really won’t know who won,” he explained.
One of the biggest fears among many is a repeat of attempts made in 2020 by the Republican party under Donald Trump to overturn the election result or sow enough doubt about the validity of the poll.
Lesser said there’s been a “growing risk” of this reoccurring, but the vigilance surrounding this issue has intensified, and “everyone is watching”.
“There’s always a risk of this. And of course, the concern about this has been growing over the last years. On the other hand, everyone is watching”, he added.
In January 2021 Trump pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to overturn incumbent President Joe Biden’s victory there.
In a phone call published by the Washington Post, Trump said, “so look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state.”
‘Trump could make life inside NATO difficult’
On EU-US relations, Lesser warns that Trump’s preponderance towards slapping tariffs against countries he sees as having an unfair competition towards America is a real risk for the European economy.
“What Donald Trump has been talking about takes us into different territory. If he does what he says, this would be a tremendous structural change in economies.”
“Also how money is raised in the US is even talking possibly about using tariffs instead of income taxes to raise federal revenue. I mean, this hasn’t happened since the 19th century,” he said.
The spectre of another four years of Donald Trump comes as Europe grapples with slow growth and a stymied ability to innovate. Former European Central Bank boss Mario Draghi warned the EU to catch up with rivals in the US and China or face “slow agony”.
“It’s one thing to have the challenges that Mario Draghi talks about in his report orMany economists say that if tariffs of this kind become the norm, not just in the United States but elsewhere, that it would really suppress global growth in a way that would make all of those challenges much, much more dramatic’,” Lesser warned.
On European security and the war in Ukraine, Lesser believes Trump won’t take the US out of NATO but can make things difficult for the alliance.
“There’s still a lot of support for NATO in the public on Capitol Hill and at the end of the day it’s an American interest. But he could make life inside NATO very difficult indeed.”
In particular, NATO’s consensus on supporting Ukraine remains steady.
As a result, a change in direction from a Trump administration could have implications for NATO’s overall direction on Ukraine.
“What the US thinks and does really matters just as others. And you know, if the US is not supportive of seeing NATO as a vehicle for doing this, it’s going to make a huge, huge, huge difference,” Lesser said.
