today we're talking with one of america's pre eminent political sciences, john mearsheimer, professor a political science at the university of chicago. john, it is terrific to be with you today and look if there ever was an inflection point in foreign policy, donald trump coming in seems to be one of those. and so let me just ask you, what do you think donald trump strategic map looks like? what should look like from the mirror shiner perspective, a well, he's inherited a set of problems from jo by the 2 principal problems that he's inherited that he has to deal with or the conflict. so we're the genocide in gaza. number one. and number 2, he has to figure out how to settle the ukraine war. we could say there's a 3rd big issue we asked to think about, which is how to deal with the ran and especially iran's nuclear program. but the agenda has been clear since the day that trump got elected as to what are the problems he has to solve. which disturbing is that there's no evidence that trump and his advisors have come up with any sort of meaningful solution for dealing with any of these 3

talking, you just mentioned soft power, which has been on my mind a bit because we even had john mearsheimer, one of the hardest core national security realist in the world. talking about the importance of soft power and how america is diminishing that right now. and i know you're in the trade in economics space, but it raises a fundamental question of an america that has allies and global financial networks and trade flows and has set the terms really for what, for, and direct investment around the world needs to look like. and what that bar needs to be, and this is what you're an expert in. but if we withdraw from all of that infrastructure into our own, what i'm trying to get my head around. is that a new era of american power, or is it a new american, a new era of america that has shrunk, and no longer is really dictating the heartbeat of the world financially? i think, yes i, i would not want us to shrink back into fortress, america, or fortress north america, or even fortress western hemisphere. we need to be engage with the world, the peer that might be happening. i worry that we coul