Welcome to the bully pulpit from the University of Southern California Center for the Political Future.

Our podcast brings together America's top politicians, journalists, academics, and strategists from across the political spectrum for discussions on hot button issues where we respect

each other and respect the truth. We hope you enjoy these conversations.

Good afternoon and welcome. I'm Bob Shrum, the Warshaw Professor and the Director of the Center

for the Political Future here at USC Dornseif.

With us today as part of the National Week of Conversation is Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister

who arguably saved the world during the 2008-2009 financial crisis.

As the longest serving Chancellor of the Exchequer in modern history, he transformed

monetary policy by making the Bank of England independent of political interference, and he carried

through the most far-reaching reforms and domestic policy in Britain since the late 1940s,

including the introduction of a first ever minimum wage and measures of massively

reduced poverty and child poverty, reformed and strengthened the National Health Service,

and opened a far wider range of opportunity across society. He is a rare combination

of brilliance on substantive issues and brilliance in political strategy.

He is once again teaching a course this April at USC. He's also my friend,

or in one of the political leaders, one of the two political leaders of my lifetime that I have

known that I most admire. We will talk for about 45 minutes and leave the last 15 minutes for audience

questions. We will focus on both the politics of globalization and the reality of today's

global order or perhaps I should say disorder. The two areas are closely related, so let me start

with the most urgent issue. The war in Ukraine constitutes a fundamental breakdown in the post-Cold War international order that we largely took for granted for a long time. What happened? What's likely to happen? How dangerous is the conflict and is the West likely to sustain support for Ukraine?

Look, first of all, can I say what a real privilege it is to be at the University of Southern

California. I had to be teaching here. I had to be listening to the students, to be talking

...