This week Mark Leonard is joined by Nevada Joan Lee, a policy fellow in ECFR’s US programme, and Stephen Wertheim, a senior fellow in the American Statecraft program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Together they discuss what the imminent midterms mean for American foreign policy until the end of Donald Trump’s second term—and for Democratic foreign policy in the future.
The US midterm elections take place on November 3rd, with Democrats hoping to win back the House of Representatives, and perhaps even the Senate. America’s global allies, however, will have to wait and see whether a Democratic Congress would be able to change America’s chaotic and increasingly predatory foreign policy. The main question is: what kind of foreign policy will the Democrats implement if the party wins back the presidency in 2028?
This week, Mark, Nevada and Stephen discuss what is at stake in the US midterm elections and beyond. To what extent is foreign policy playing a role in the electoral races? Could the Democratic Party manage to take the Senate as well as the House of Representatives? And what would a Democratic win mean for Europe?
This podcast episode was recorded on October 26th 2026.
Bookshelf:
After the midterms: What a volatile US and an embattled Democratic Party mean for Europe, by Célia Belin and Majda Ruge
A Democratic win isn’t enough: How Europe can prepare for Trump beyond the midterms, by Nevada Joan Lee
Tomorrow, the World: The Birth of U.S. Global Supremacy, by Stephen Wertheim
Life of the party: Democrats and the search for a post-Trump future, by Célia Belin, Chris Herrmann, Nevada Joan Lee
America's Middle East: The Ruination of a Region, by Marc Lynch
Retrench, Defend, Compete: Securing America's Future Against a Rising China, by Charles L. Glaser
Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think, Third Edition, by George Lakoff
The Anthropocene Reviewed, by John Green
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