Trump Would Likely Win if Election Were Held Now: Ian Bremmer

"I have no idea who is going to get the Democratic nomination," although Joe Biden is still the frontrunner, he said.

It's possible we'll see a brokered convention, which is the only possible way Mike Bloomberg could win the nomination, he said. However, he added: "I would not bet on it. Maybe 10% likelihood. But 10% likelihood and he's spending a couple of hundred million dollars and he's worth $60 billion — that seems like a pretty good bet." If it was Bremmer in that position, he joked, he might say to himself, "I'll take a flyer on that — why not?" That drew laughs from the audience.

Bremmer's "biggest concern" about the election isn't who wins, but more that "the process has become delegitimized," he said, adding "we are about to acquit Trump in this impeachment" after a trial where he's been accused of abusing power to ensure he can win the election. The end result of the trial is that "impeachment will be broken as a constraint on the American president as we go into reelection," which means if the election is as close as we think it will be, the result "will be seen as illegitimate" by many Americans, he said.

The likelihood is "very high" that the loser will contest the result, he said, adding there will be plenty of blame all around for factors viewed as allowing that to happen, including the Senate not doing enough to take steps to prevent external intervention in our election, Republicans removing people from the voter rolls "illegitimately" in states including Florida and Ohio, and "misuse of the attorney general's office for investigations into the Democrats" if Trump wins and it's close. If Trump loses, instead of conceding he will likely say there were millions of illegitimate votes cast, Bremmer said, adding he suspects "every legal means will be used to contest the outcome."

Among the other topics he touched on were the relationship between the U.S. and China. On that front, although the countries recently signed a phase one deal, which is a good thing, he predicted, "there will not be a phase two deal — not before the election, not after the election."

Although most experts don't think there will be a recession this year, he said, there's a commonly held view that "we're entering a down cycle in economics" globally. One gloomy sign: The International Monetary Fund has "downgraded for the second quarter in a row their expectations for global growth," he said.

During the Q&A, he said "there's a lot of money to be made" in China for investors. Hotel chains are doing especially well, for one thing, he noted. But "I would not be traveling to China right now," he said, referring to the coronavirus outbreak.

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