Ian Bremmer

speaker

4,435 appearances 19 recordings 12 series first heard Jun 2025 last heard 1 Aug

Ian Bremmer’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 18 in all, peaking in Jan 2026 with 4.

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TED Talks Daily · How to be smarter about the news | Ian Bremmer · 23 May 2026 podcast

And I remember this and there's not much I remember from being in second grade.

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 and i did later in life you know high school college grad school i i think i i would have said that being national security advisor would be a great job not 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

And Lord knows I have the network for, but I think I would be really bad at some pieces of that job, like not being able to publicly speak my mind much, particularly if I didn't fully respect and was not fully simpatico 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.

I mean, the level of kleptocracy in the US right now is not something I would want to be associated with directly, frankly.

And so I feel quite strongly that the answer is no.

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, I mean, if I were a national security advisor, I'd be in the job for two or four years and I'd 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 would be angry with me and they'd 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.

We're here, like if I stay in good health and confidence mentally,

I can do this for another 30, 40 years.

And that's pretty extraordinary.

So I really I have I would say really no ambition to serve in public office.

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