Mearsheimer’s ‘Big Question’: Can Trump Beat Back the ‘Deep State’?

Speaking at the All-In Summit on Monday, John Mearsheimer, the famed international relations scholar, stated that he views Donald Trump as the exception to the bipartisan foreign policy consensus in Washington. 

“Former President Donald, when he became president in 2017 was bent on beating back the Deep State, and becoming a different kind of leader on the foreign policy front, but he basically failed,” Mearsheimer posited. “He has vowed that if he gets elected this time, it will be different and he will beat back the deep state and he will pursue a foreign policy that is fundamentally different than Republicans and Democrats have pursued up to now.” 

“And the big question on the table is whether or not you think Trump can beat the Deep State and these two established parties,” he added. 

Mearsheimer is not optimistic: “And I bet against Trump.”

Mearsheimer was joined by Jeffrey Sachs, an economist and professor at Columbia University, who likewise contrasted Trump with the Deep State. “I think it’s obvious, there’s basically one Deep State Party, and that is the party of Cheney, Harris, Biden, Victoria Nuland—my colleague at Columbia University now,” he said. “And Nuland is kind of the face of all of this, because she has been in every administration the past 30 years.”