[News Now] U.S. presidential election exit poll announced...Who is the winner of the super battle?

■ Host: Kim Sun-young Anchor
■ Starring: Kim Jin-ah, professor of LD department at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Moon Sung-mook, director of the Unification Strategy Center at the Korea Institute for National Strategy

* The text below may differ from the actual broadcast content, so please check the broadcast for more accurate information. Please specify [YTN News Special Report-2024 U.S. Choice] when quoting.

[Anchor]
Until the end of the U.S. presidential election, Vice President Harris and former President Trump were in a super-close race. Let's analyze the situation at the beginning of the vote count. Two experts came out. We invited Kim Jin-ah, a professor of LD department at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, and Moon Sung-mook, director of the Unification Strategy Center at the Korea Institute for National Strategy. Welcome. It's early in the vote count, but where should I focus on it?

[Kim Jin]
I'm Pennsylvania until the end. From the beginning, I saw Pennsylvania. Because it's so polarized right now, it's clear that the blue states and the red states are completely clear. And there are seven remaining contenders, and if you catch three of the rust belts in the north, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, it's game over. It's over. Then the Democrats win.

[Anchor]
Pennsylvania is coming out right now. 33% of the votes have been counted now. This is based on 12 o'clock. Vice President Harris is 52, former President Trump is 47, and so on. You don't know this because it's early in the count, right?

[Kim Jin]
In the case of Pennsylvania, big cities and rural cities. It's completely separate, so rural cities in the north, especially mines, are the areas where you have to dig up gas and sell it, so there's never going to be a Democratic Party that's pushing for environmental policy. However, since small-populated states count first and counties count first, there are aspects that go back and forth depending on how much the votes are counted later in large cities.

[Anchor]
You don't know where it's being held first.

[Kim Jin-ah]
Yes, so I have to tell you that you have to watch it a little longer. In Michigan and Wisconsin, as I mentioned earlier, we continued to manage them stably while gaining the Democratic advantage, but in Pennsylvania, we kept tossing and turning. So I'm just looking at this.

[Anchor]
Pennsylvania, look here and you'll see if you win or lose. You gave me this forecast, but the turnout for this U.S. presidential election was much higher than others. That's what they said. That's how hot the presidential election is, right?

[Moon Sung-mook]
It's the best right now. I've experienced the U.S. presidential election.Isn't Ma very unique this time? The Democratic presidential candidate changed in the middle. It's unprecedented, and a black female candidate was nominated by the vice president. In the case of Trump, even though there were many such judicial risks, he challenged himself again. So, in this situation, as Professor Kim said, it is completely polarized and facing extreme confrontations. In the last election, Trump's disobedience to the election eventually leads to a congressional intrusion. So, the forces that support Trump should be Trump somehow this time, and the Democratic Party's supporters are pushing President Harris, so aren't there various sensitive issues in the domestic issue? Abortion rights issues, gun control issues, and various economic problems are the biggest. These things, the problem of illegal immigration. It will result in a sensitive confrontation over this and a rise in voter turnout. Especially, isn't the early voting rate very high? That's what I think.

[Anchor]
First of all, red areas will come out red this time, and blue areas will come out blue, so the most important thing is swing state and competition state. In order to secure the magic number 270, which week should former President Trump bring first?

[Kim Jin]
You have to bring all of the south and take one of the north or Nevada. Nevada is a state that can take six more votes. The North is being taken away, well, I keep saying that the only thing I think we should look at is Pennsylvania, especially in Philadelphia, is that the Democratic Party is very superior because it's in big cities. However, looking at the overall trend, the Democratic Party's share itself continued to decline. Since 2012, it has been going down from 85 to the early 80s, and if this trend continues, we can predict that it may go down even further this time, and the nearby suburbs are going up again with Trump's strength. That's why Republicans visited Philadelphia until the last day of the election because it's a state that can't be reassured and Republicans can look at it at least once. After that, Georgia and North Carolina, traditionally strong Republican areas, should be definitely caught.

[Anchor]
Many people say that the U.S. presidential election is very complicated. If you explain for those who are curious about who will win by exit polls and why it's not coming out clearly, the time zone is so different for each region, so the time when the vote ends is different, so the counting of votes is inevitably carried out differently for each region, right?

[Kim Jin]
In the case of exit polls, the time zone is different for each region, so there is already a 3-hour difference between the east and west of the mainland. And the way each state conducts elections is different. That's why Alaska is the last place to close because there are so many different things like when to open and when to close. So, around 3 p.m. Korean time, Alaska's voting will be over. If that happens, the person who voted in advance will have been interviewed for a long time. And people who are voting today voluntarily induce interviews, so we collect all the data from the exit polls. So when all the votes are finished and that's when it's time to be predictable overall. So we have to wait a little bit until then.

[Anchor]
Who is the president of the United States, how much time does it take to nail it like this?

[Kim Jin]
That's a very difficult thing. Because in 2020, it took about 4 days. The reason is that there were a lot of mail-in ballots because of COVID-19. So I went to about 69%, but Pennsylvania is an area with a lot of mail-in voting and there are a lot of people, so I have to do it all by hand, but I check everything by checking the name, address, and signature. It took a lot of time because these things took a lot of time, and this time, the percentage of mail-in and early voting was a little low. So I think it won't take that long because it fell more than 10% more, so I think that's what we can see. And actually, there's a variable that we have to think about in between, and Pennsylvania said it's very close. If this is really close, the difference can narrow further to less than 1% or less than 0.5% when it results. Then, under Pennsylvania law, if the difference is reduced to less than 0.5%, it automatically goes into the recount.

Then we have to recount it again and officially wait for the results to come out. But statistically, it doesn't mean that the recount is very different. Instead, it's a process of increasing transparency and checking how you counted things incorrectly, so statistically, the difference is 0.03% very small. That's why it doesn't really affect the outcome, but it's still time to officially declare something.

[Anchor]
Many said that even a small variable at the end could lead to a big difference because the U.S. presidential election was really tight between the two camps. What factors do you think could be a variable in the last minute's votes?

[Moon Sung-mook]
Was it about 10 days ago? People who know America well, I've heard about it. Also, if you ask people living in the U.S., the overall atmosphere seems to be flowing toward Trump. I heard that. However, as I came in within two to three days or a week, there are comments that Harris' rebound is not easy. So if you think about the cause, isn't it actually very complicated and confusing when you look at the international situation now? There are many concerns about the North Korean military's illegal dispatch of troops to Ukraine, the launch of ICBMs, and the possibility of expanding the Middle East, but if you look at it now, external variables don't seem to have such a big impact. In the end, the internal variable seems to be the biggest. But what influenced you to the end? In this assumption, in the case of candidate Trump, mistakes in speech are quite serious, disparaging women. I think these expressions will be a factor in reducing votes. Looking at this time, there were states asking for opinions on the pros and cons of abortion during the presidential election. If so, I think those things can be a factor that leads women to the polls. So, in a situation where the support groups are divided overall, I think that at the end, such small variables will affect the overall acceptance.

[Anchor]
Now, we are delivering the results of the vote count through subtitles, and among all these regions, seven competing states, 19 electors, and the largest number of electors, are all waiting for the results of Pennsylvania. The overall outline of the exit survey is not out now, but this survey stood out. The announcement was made on the day of the election, and a survey was conducted to see who was more favorable to Harris and Trump. I think it would be nice if you could show me some graphics. 48% said they had a favorable view of Harris, and 44% said they had a favorable view of Trump. Is it possible to analyze the tendency of voters through this? I think it attracted a lot of attention because it came out on the day of the election.

[Kim Jin]
We need to think about today's exit poll as well. We get various information from it. What was one of them? What was the most important issue in this election? It was this question. If you look at the answer here, the first is democracy. Democracy is the most important thing. Then economy, then abortion, then immigration. People who choose democracy and abortion are 100% Democratic supporters. In the case of the economy, it can be divided. But since these two issues are Democratic issues, the Democratic Party has quite a campaign strategy, especially with democracy versus authoritarianism.

That's why Trump, a threat to democracy in the United States, kept sending such messages that we need to unite so that Trump doesn't get elected anyway. In fact, in the case of October, the most important thing is how much the non-party or the middle class is attracted, and if these people really help the election to determine the future of the United States, it is right to move a little more toward the Democratic Party.

And as you said earlier, Harris seemed to be a little dominant in the beginning, but then came down again. But if you look at it big, it was actually going back and forth from close to each other. So, depending on what point we see it, it could be closer to a close call or a little further away. So after the convention, Harris kept making promises about Trump's undemocratic things, so she was kind of delaying the timing of coming down. In such a situation, why was there a lot of confusion? There were a lot of things that I didn't see in the past.

First of all, the first thing is that it's cross support. So, the approval rating of white voters, Trump's central supporters, fell considerably and went toward the Democratic Party. You can predict that there would be a lot of women among these white people. And as Harris' approval rating for black voters has dropped considerably, she's gone for Trump again. In the case of black people, economic issues are also very important, especially in the south, because black people are very conservative. That's why there must have been this change because Trump has put a lot of emphasis on a number of policy directions on those issues, especially immigration, and the division of the union has been quite severe this time. In the past, these things didn't turn out to be that way, but despite the fact that the Democratic Party is a very supportive party, this time the firefighters and drivers' unions didn't take the Democratic Party's side and stayed still.

And the rest of the automobiles, steel, teachers, and others continue to support and become a little bit separate. There was certainly an atmosphere that gave Trump a boost as labor unions in big cities, especially the working class, got out of the Democratic Party a lot, so we saw a very close race as these things went plus-minus.

[Anchor]
Professor, what about the results of this survey? A British Economist survey also showed that Harris' victory rate rose by 6 percentage points in one day. We have a graphic ready, so it would be nice if you could show us. There is also a saying that the economist's winning rate analysis has rarely been wrong, but it's an election that you have to open the lid to know. How much confidence do you have in this win rate analysis?

[Kim Jin]
Why did the probability suddenly go up? I read the explanation about that. Recently, especially in Nevada, including Democrats coming up a lot faster, so that's what I've predicted, I think I'm going to win 276 instead of 270. If you count the votes of the electors. So I think those parts will be reflected. In practice, did all the agencies conclude so in favor of Harris? That's not true. In the case of Crystal Bone and Pirate, they sided with Kamala Harris, but they predicted that the Republican Party would be much more advantageous than the Democratic Party in The Hill and Real Clear Politics. The fact that the predictions are so mixed can be said to show the situation as it is.

[Anchor]
The results of the U.S. presidential election are coming in one after another by region. 2024 U.S. choice. Attention is focusing on whether the first female president will be born or whether Trump will open the door. CNN is on air right now. Let's take a look at CNN for a moment. Harris leads with about 15,000 votes

If you look at how it's going in Wisconsin, Harris is winning 49.9% and Donald Trump 48.5%. Harris leads with 19,000 votes. About 33% of the votes were counted. And in Pennsylvania, Trump gets 50.3% of the vote and Kamala Harris gets 48.7%. Donald Trump is winning by 58,648 votes.

Now, 51% of votes are counted in Pennsylvania. Trump continues to have the upper hand in Georgia. 51. It's 8%. It leads Harris by 47.2% by 204,640. Kamala Harris accounted for 51.1 percent in Michigan, a battleground. And Trump is getting 47%. Harris leads by more than 43,000 votes. Voting is taking place in Michigan, a 19% battleground. Trump has 52.4% of the vote in North Carolina and Kamala Harris 46.4%. Trump is getting 253,752 more votes.

It's based on the current standards. About 72% of the votes have been counted now. In New Mexico, Harris is ahead. It has 50.7% of the vote by 8,592 votes. Trump is 47.6%. It has a vote count rate of less than 31%. 31% of the votes were counted.

And Harris is also leading Virginia. 49. With 1% of the vote, Donald Trump leads by 49% and Harris by 1,118. Vote counting progress is 68%, and we're seeing it in Virginia. Things are constantly changing. Let's look at Virginia. Last time I saw it, it was much lower in Fairfax. But it's the largest county in Virginia. It's a 40-minute drive from Washington DC. You can go faster, especially at night time like this. Like this, the population is very small in the suburbs of Alexandria. It's very close. And Harris is leading by a really narrow margin. Joe Biden won by 10%. So even if Harris wins, it's probably going to be this close.

And if Trump wins the week, it could be a supplement again. The same goes for Senate elections. There's this much gap right now. This can change. The Republican Party is at the bottom. There is also the possibility that this could be almost tied. It's because there's still a lot of night left. But about 20 minutes ago, it turned into a Democratic advantage. And let's look at Pennsylvania, which is the most interesting. It just turned red. It's been a Democratic advantage all night. We still have a long way to go before it's over. But Pennsylvania, which is just a close race, has also changed like this.

[Anchor]
I'll connect you to the correspondent. How's the vote count? Please tell us.

[Reporter]
We have the county's elections officials. The results of the vote will be reported soon.

[Anchor]
2024 U.S. Choice. I briefly told you about the vote count on CNN. Professor, the counting rate seems to be a little different from state to state, but I've been paying attention to North Carolina, which is a competitive state. Looking at it now, 70% of the votes have been counted, but Trump is leading by almost 5 percentage points, so North Carolina has a chance that Trump will take the electors, can we see it like this?

[Kim Jin]
Of the seven, it's the only state that favored Trump in 2020. 2020 was a year that was very favorable to Biden. It's a state that hasn't been taken away. That's how strong the Republican Party is and the Democrats haven't won since 2008.

[Anchor]
But why is it tied up as a contestant?

[Kim Jin]
What is important here is that the population continues to grow. around a big city North Carolina. So, as the population of large cities such as Charlotte increases, if highly educated people gather, the results will inevitably be in favor of the Democratic Party, which continues to be a trend. And in the case of many Democrats, the newly emerging areas are Durham County, and there are many black people here, but since it's around the university district, it's very well managed here as well. So you can think that it's an area that you can keep staring at in the future.

[Anchor]
Is the Democratic Party on the Rise?

[Kim Jin]
Since the upward trend is a predictable week, we have to think about 2028, but the important thing is that there was another variable in the middle. The point of concern that slightly dampened this rise was the Hurricane Helen variable. So there were people who were predicting that the West would have had a significant impact on the Republican-leaning regional turnout, and that this would have shifted a lot of votes from here to the Republican Party because of that sentiment that the government was not responding properly.

[Anchor]
If the number of electors is 16, it's quite a lot. The most common is Pennsylvania with 19 people, North Carolina with 16 now, and Georgia with CNN now predicting former President Trump's victory. If Trump takes Georgia and North Carolina, wouldn't Harris be in a difficult situation? What do you think?

[Kim Jin]
But as I said earlier, the southern state was well managed by Trump, so you don't have to pay much attention to the situation of the Democratic Party.

[Anchor]
Do you think there's a good chance Harris won't expect them to take it?

[Kim Jin]
North Carolina has been managing it, so I had some expectations. And in the case of Georgia, I expected to find another opportunity to turn the tables here. Because in the 2020 presidential election, President Biden won here and led to victory. But even though it's a very small car, there's one thing here that keeps the population flowing into the suburbs, mainly in the metropolitan city of Atlanta, and especially white people support Trump much more than black people, but Georgia is a region with a lot of black people. Plus, in the case of 2020, black people gathered quite a bit because of the George Floyd case. So, it's an area where we hoped that such an extraordinary event would happen again because it pushed the Democratic Party with nearly 90% of that unity.

[Anchor]
So it's Pennsylvania that turns around and it's important. We've been talking about that all along, what are some of the key variables that are going to win Pennsylvania's votes?

[Moon Sung-mook]
So Pennsylvania goes back and forth at every election, didn't the candidate who won Pennsylvania become president? So it became Trump in 2016 and then Biden in 2020.

[Anchor]
It would be nice to show our Pennsylvania graphic again.

[Moon Sung-mook]
So, I can tell you that Pennsylvania is the decisive variable in every presidential election, but as Professor Kim said now, looking at the various situations that are at issue, is it a white man or a white woman? Is it a black man or a black woman? The unique composition this time is that I think that the effect will eventually appear in Pennsylvania. So, the overall U.S. election system is an electoral college-only system, and you can take 270 seats out of 538 people, but Professor Kim just said that the candidate who wins Pennsylvania will win. That's what I think. Pennsylvania, as I mentioned earlier, the important variables of the presidential election are democracy or authoritarianism, and where else contributes to economic development. And I wonder if the votes are divided in Pennsylvania and in the city and county over abortion and illegal immigration, but I don't think we can conclude that the vote count and exit polls alone are more advantageous.

[Anchor]
Since no place has been counted yet, we can't say where and who will take it. Pennsylvania is also seeing the current state of the vote count, and now there is news that former President Trump is a little ahead. But the vote count seems to be going back and forth. I think we're in a situation where we have to wait and see. Pennsylvania, past Democrats and Republicans have been there, so which side had more favorable variables this time?

[Kim Jin]
First of all, the midterm elections are important. Whether you did well or not in the 2022 midterm elections also affects how much it affects 2024, just two years later. However, in 2022, the Democratic Party was quite dominant in the midterm elections. So the atmosphere was good. And it's not big for the 2020 presidential election, but it's an area that won by at least 1.2%. But if you look at the numbers, the Democratic Party lost by less than 50,000 votes in 2016. That 50,000 votes may feel big, but it's actually a small margin, and what we should pay attention to at this time is that during a recent rally in Madison Square Garden in New York, Puerto Rican voters came up with a radical expression that could be very opposed.

So it's become such an important issue that there's talk of Puerto Rico being a floating trash that Latinos are now quite agitated and Puerto Rican voters are starting a fire, so I think this would have been a very variable later on.
Because how many Puerto Rican voters are in this area? It's half a million. So if you move all 500,000 votes to the Democratic Party in the area where you lost, that doesn't mean all those votes were Republican votes. But there's one thing that we can think about at the end of the day, which would have been a very important variable, and that this might have worked in a more favorable way for the Democratic Party.

But just to tell you one more thing, Pennsylvania is one of the states with the largest Jewish population. That's why when I think about the Jewish community, I implemented a lot of pro-Semitic policies during the Trump administration. So, as I said earlier, the Republican Party had no choice but to target Pennsylvania because it used a strategy that sends a message to Jews about Gaza that "I will end the war in a much better way" and at the same time pledges to Arabs who are shaken by Gaza that the current government is not working properly and is not working out.

[Anchor]
Pennsylvania is in the spotlight as a state that can ultimately determine the fate of the United States, and there are 19 electors at stake, and even 1% of the candidates will take all 19 of them. It was a very close U.S. presidential election that the polls were tied until the end, and many people say this. There are so many Shy Trumps. So it's not reflected in the polls. So if you open it up, there's a view that Trump will win by a landslide, so how do you see that?

[Kim Jin]
Shy Trump is a term that came out in 2016 when he overestimated the Democrats so much that he called Shy Trump "we didn't do the math." However, the difference in the difference varies slightly from region to region, but if the preliminary prediction was about 10% plus, there was an area where 10% of this flew away. It was in 2016 that the Democratic Party interpreted 6% to 10% excessively by state. In 2020, this was slightly corrected. I think everyone who came out came out. So, the difference in votes varies slightly from week to week, but it's decreased from 10% to 6%, and I think it's been significantly corrected this year, and what's filtered out will have been filtered. It must have been reflected for now, and I call Harris Shy Harris, who wants to support Harris as well as Trump, but can't speak, and there must have been quite a few such voters.

[Anchor]
There was something like, "Let's go secretly and film Harris."

[Kim Jin]
There's that, too. You mentioned abortion earlier, but because of the abortion issue, women's voters have no choice but to unite, and especially rival states and women's voters have no choice but to support the Democratic Party because it is a problem directly connected to their lives anyway. Not only that, but I can predict that there must have been a case in the Republican Party where Republican voters don't go out or vote at all, or they go out and take pictures of the other party. In the middle of the 2020 Capitol storm, I think this Shy Harris was inevitable. Because I think traditional and very docile Republicans should protect democracy. That's why some people say they can't vote for Trump when it comes to the grand principle. And recently, one of the Democratic Party's various election strategies is the Republican Party, especially Trump's aides and people who worked as White House staff, and we've had a lot of elections about how dangerous Trump is. I think those messages spread and probably created a lot of Shai Harris.

[Anchor]
Each other says there will be a lot of Shy Harris and a lot of Shy Trump, but I think we'll know the results soon. One of the most important issues for us is security. There is also a view that former President Trump may have to drastically revise our North Korea policy if he becomes the president of the United States this time.

[Moon Sung-mook]
Of course it is. In the meantime, President Trump has met with Kim Jong-un three times. We had two official summits and met at Panmunjom. So that's what Trump is bragging about. I stopped the war because I got along well with Kim Jong-un. And when Trump was in power, North Korea did not conduct a nuclear test and fired very few missiles. That's why one's credit is great. I'm bragging about it like this. In the meantime, he is close to Kim Jong Un. What's wrong with getting along well with Kim Jong Un? That's why he says he'll solve this problem if he comes to power.

Then, when Trump came back to power, as Trump himself said, a summit with North Korea and Kim Jong-un will be held again, or dialogue will resume on the subject of denuclearization of the North Korean nuclear issue. If you think about whether that's possible, it's completely different from the security situation that Kim Jong-un and Trump met in 2018, and Trump and Kim Jong-un met now. First of all, if Kim Jong Un himself persuades the U.S. and Trump to some extent, the nuclear issue will be a matter of fact. In other words, they came out with the expectation of lifting sanctions while being recognized to some extent for their nuclear possession. Now I'm completely paired up with Putin. So to form a blood alliance with Putin, even young people are sent to illegal battlefields and become one. Putin fully supports Kim Jong-un's nuclear and missile programs. And I said that.

Recently, North Korea fired ICBMs and unveiled enriched uranium facilities, and we declared that the direction of our nuclear strengthening was so right and so good, and now there is no such thing as denuclearization forever. If so, how can Trump go with the CVID resolved by the U.N. Security Council, in other words, the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization, the so-called nuclear disarmament talks that North Korea wants to abandon and recognize the North's nuclear possession? I don't think it's easy. In that sense, I personally think that even if Trump becomes Trump, it will not be easy for the entire North Korea policy to change like it did in the past.

[Anchor]
Then, how about Chairman Kim Jong-un? I've worked with former President Trump before, so I'm familiar with it, but I also remember being kind of stabbed in the back during the U.S.-North Korea summit, so I might be reluctant to ask him to meet again. What do you have in mind?

[Moon Sung-mook]
That's what I'm saying. Some say Kim Jong Un has met with Trump several times, exchanged letters, and knows his opponent well, so wouldn't it be advantageous if he becomes Trump? And as he calculated, some interpret that the U.S. and North Korea will now be advantageous in holding nuclear disarmament talks rather than denuclearization talks as equal nuclear powers, but I think Trump and Kim Jong-un are unlikely to meet, and Kim Jong-un will not know about it. So, even if former President Trump comes back to power, it is unlikely that such a summit table like 2018 will be re-established, and if so, it will not be easy for Kim Jong-un to expect that. That's what I think.

[Anchor]
In any case, I think the security landscape of Korea will inevitably change considerably depending on who becomes it. I think we have to wait and see how the changes will be made. We talked about Shy Trump and Shy Harris earlier, but wouldn't Vice President Harris continue to make a kind of black splash until the Democratic National Convention to nominate candidates? Former President Obama and Oprah Winfrey are also actively supporting him. So I think there was an expectation that black people would unite, but there were many stories that black votes left for Harris at the end. Why do you think that's the case?

[Kim Jin]
Black voters have been leaving for a long time. As I said earlier, I think it might have fallen little by little, but in the past, there were various issues that could be consolidated. There's one thing that started with the George Floyd case that didn't trigger anything recently, so the Democratic Party has been very concerned about black men, especially men, leaving the Democratic Party for a long time. So if you look at the approval rating of black voters, in the past, 90% of the votes were clearly toward the Democratic Party, but when it came back and forth between 70% and 80%, it went back and forth, that's how low it went. That's why I don't think it was easy to say that the overall black vote is now Democratic. That's why the Democratic Party's last election strategy was a publication for 55 black people. And I think it proves again that there was a lot of anxiety about the reason why 48 radio broadcasts were so customized for black voters, spending more than a million dollars.

[Anchor]
In any case, the security landscape on the Korean Peninsula will also change depending on who becomes it, but the difference between Trump and Harris on the war in Ukraine is also significant, so the role of the U.S. in the global conflict is likely to change considerably. What changes do you think will happen?

[Moon Sung-mook]
If Vice President Harris is elected, I think he is likely to maintain the overall stance of the Biden administration's foreign and security policy now. In particular, what the Biden administration emphasized was freedom, democracy, and human rights. So, we responded strongly to such measures as violating freedom and blurring human rights. In any case, Putin's invasion of Ukraine is clearly an act of aggression that violates freedom and tramples on human rights. That's why, of course, we supported Ukraine with a certain line to prevent escalation, but we are actively supporting Ukraine anyway, so the war has been going on for nearly three years now. As Putin struggled quite a bit, he ended up having no choice but to join hands with Kim Jong-un, but now Trump says so. I'll finish it when I become, aren't you talking about this?

[Anchor]
How do you mean you're going to end it?

[Moon Sung-mook]
I'm saying I'm close to Putin. So I don't know if Putin wants to be Trump too. Anyway, I think Trump has the potential to reduce his active support as much as Biden does right now. If the United States, the center of NATO, reduces its support for Ukraine, it will probably not be easy for Zelensky to maintain this, and if Zelensky says there will never be a ceasefire talks with the three states and southern territories taken away, but if Trump had no choice but to think about such a situation and make such a statement, we can predict such a change.

[Kim Jin]
I agree with that. In the case of Trump, the most important thing is that the interests of the United States should come first. That's why if you put it as a priority, the logic goes that foreign targets and support should be reduced considerably. If that happens, the direction of significantly reducing what has been provided to Ukraine so far is clearly drawn. In the case of JD Vance as well as Trump, let's not even intervene at all, let's not even get involved. And what we talked about during the election was that the allies used the United States more than the enemies, so one of them, the place where they bleed a lot. I think they'll try to organize these places quickly.

In the case of Harris, on the other hand, she will continue to pay attention to solving things through alliances and partnerships while talking about smart power, so especially for Harris, who has come under the frame of democracy versus authoritarianism, Ukraine democracy and Russian authoritarianism can only be seen again. That's why I think that policy direction will be almost the same as it was during the Biden administration.

[Anchor]
Lastly, I'll ask you this. There are concerns about whether former President Trump will accept the results. If Vice President Harris is elected, there is a high possibility of disobeying the primary, and we actually said this. There is talk of large-scale rigged elections in Philadelphia. I've already been talking about this.

[Kim Jin]
It seems that people have no choice but to suspect that the fact that even if we lose the election in the future, we are creating something that can continue to emphasize the logic that the election was stolen. But the problem is that each state makes a decision. Trump doesn't decide by himself. And then you have a process where you open up all the state election results on December 17th, and based on that, you make a list of electors, and then you go back to DC and you get it certified again on January 6th. This is a process that must be followed procedurally anyway, and in the past, it was too easy to raise objections when the House and Senate gathered in Congress to certify it. That means President Trump was able to point out one person and raise an objection, and then he could raise the issue. However, I revised the election law in 2022. Because I've experienced it once. So now, not just one member of the House and Senate, but now 20% each, so more than a fifth, have to raise an objection to this.

But it's not that easy in Congress to collect that number. Even if the members change a little because of the election now. That's why it created a difficult situation procedurally. And even until now, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has said that we will do it according to the law, so it is quite difficult for Republicans to take Trump's hand to overturn this.

[Anchor]
I don't know who will win, but that shouldn't happen. Voting boxes that will determine the fate of the United States are being opened one after another. I'll keep you posted on the situation. So far, Kim Jin-ah, a professor of LD department at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, and Moon Sung-mook, director of the Unification Strategy Center. Thank you.