Trending Now
We have updated our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use for Eurasia Group and its affiliates, including GZERO Media, to clarify the types of data we collect, how we collect it, how we use data and with whom we share data. By using our website you consent to our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy, including the transfer of your personal data to the United States from your country of residence, and our use of cookies described in our Cookie Policy.
by ian bremmer
Collage of Ian Bremmer, Putin, and Trump.
Moose and I are trading Manhattan’s muggy sidewalks for Nantucket sand, but first, one more mailbag. Since this is the last newsletter you’ll get from me until after Labor Day, we’ve got an extra-long edition to tide you over. Thanks to those who sent in so many smart and snarky questions, to all of you for reading, and I’ll see you fully energized in September.
What recourse does the Supreme Court have against a president who doesn't follow the rule of law?
Ultimately, the Court’s leverage lies with its own legitimacy in the eyes of the American public. President Donald Trump has thus far respected its rulings because outright defiance would risk a backlash that could damage his political standing. That said, the Court has also been selective about the cases it’s taken, partly to avoid confrontations with the executive it might struggle to enforce that would expose the limits of its power. The institution is being challenged; even if for now its authority is holding. It’s a mistake to assume that will necessarily last forever.
The Trump administration is incredibly pro-Israel, both in terms of sending weapons to Israel for offensive operations throughout the Middle East as well as arresting pro-Palestinian protesters on US college campuses (and also going after the colleges themselves). How does one reconcile this position with the administration's support for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and other far-right parties in Europe and elsewhere that hold very strong antisemitic views?
There’s no contradiction: pro-Israel policy, anti-Palestine campus crackdowns, and support for far-right parties all serve the same worldview – nationalist, populist, anti-globalist, anti-immigration – rather than any coherent, principled stance against antisemitism. The Trump administration’s support for the AfD, France’s National Rally, and other European ultranationalists – all of which praise Israel as a model “ethnostate” despite their persistent antisemitism – was driven less by President Trump himself than by Elon Musk (who’s now out) and Vice President JD Vance (who has now stepped back from that policy push). Trump personally likes leaders like Hungary’s Viktor Orban, but that’s less about shared ideology than the fact that Trump likes people who profess their love for him.
The question is not why Trump is so strongly pro-Israel, but rather, why the United States is. After all, Trump may be even more pro-Israel than Joe Biden, but compared to the rest of the world, both presidents are outliers in terms of their support for the Jewish state. Some of that comes down to the depth of intelligence-sharing and military coordination between the two countries. Some is about genuinely shared geostrategic interests and common enemies in the region. Some is about the strength of the political lobby in the US. And some used to be about Israel’s status as the only strong democracy in the Middle East (Gaza and the West Bank notwithstanding), though that’s now less true of Israel and less important to American leaders.
With the broken promises of "no new wars," increased budget deficits, and now the swirling conspiracies around the Epstein files, can Trump hold together a cohesive base to maintain the very slim majorities they hold in Congress come midterms?
I would not call “no new wars” a broken promise. True, Trump has failed to end the war in Ukraine (so far at least), but he has clearly tried. He’s had moderate success helping to broker truces in the India-Pakistan, Thailand-Cambodia, and Rwanda-DRC conflicts. He does get a big zero on Gaza, having helped make matters worse. It’s unclear he (unlike Elon, who was not on the ballot) credibly promised to end budget deficits; his base cares less about this than ending the two-tiered economic and justice system – and on that front, they have grounds to be angry both about the tax breaks for the rich in the “big beautiful bill” and the lies and misdirection about Jeffrey Epstein. I suspect that undermines his (very resilient) support with the base somewhat, but it might get washed out by a kept promise that was key to getting him elected in 2024: closing the southern border and deporting illegal aliens. At the end of the day, though, a lot will come down to how the economy is doing by then.
Is it too early to even think about a Vance presidency?
It’s too early, especially given how much has already happened – and how fast things have changed – in the first six months of the Trump-Vance administration. Folks need to pace themselves; this is a marathon, not a sprint. Trump has no incentive to crown a successor and weaken his own power while he’s still center stage. Expect him to keep everyone guessing until the very last minute (and maybe even later).
Global investors are increasingly de-risking from US assets and reducing their US dollar exposure. As the US moves away from the rules-based order, who (China, the EU) or what (gold, oil, cryptocurrencies) can fill the vacuum?
There’s still no alternative to King Dollar. Yes, more investors are trimming their outsized holdings of historically overvalued USD assets and looking for alternatives to hedge against political shock and weaponization risk. In the long term, China’s economic heft and global lead in some of the most important frontier technologies make the yuan a leading contender (yes, despite its demographic collapse). But a true substitute has to offer scale, liquidity, open capital markets, and trustworthy national institutions. Washington’s self-inflicted wounds may erode the greenback’s appeal, but they don’t make the RMB – with its capital controls and legal opacity – any more suitable to be a reserve asset. Nor do they allow Europe’s rule of law, deep markets, and capital openness to make up for the persistent lack of a true fiscal, financial, and political union. Gold and oil remain commodities, not currencies; they can’t grease modern finance. And crypto is still far too volatile (and, in the case of dollar-pegged stablecoins, paradoxically reinforces greenback dominance).
The more realistic future is a messier, more multipolar system where central banks, institutional investors, and corporations still keep most of their dry powder in dollars yet diversify more into euros, yuan, bullion, and digital tokens. Fragmentation means higher transaction costs and less automatic US leverage, but until someone marries China-style scale with Swiss-style trust, the dollar remains first among unequals – just less overwhelmingly so.
If critical minerals are necessary for energy security and warfighting, how can the US diversify supply chains within a credible timeframe?
Trump’s executive order to fast-track permitting and expand financing for mining projects is useful, as is the Pentagon’s direct equity investment in MP Materials. But it’s going to take a lot of money and several years – I’d say no fewer than five – of coordinated and consistent policy support to build out not just production capacity but refining and processing ecosystems, especially for defense-critical heavy rare earths. Putting aside the technical hurdles, fiscal constraints, and permitting bottlenecks, there’s presently no strategy to make Western-led projects commercially viable against a non-market competitor whose dominance not only spans upstream and midstream production but also extends to pricing, logistics, and trading infrastructure, resulting in both direct supply pressure and indirect influence over global pricing.
Is the fight against climate change dead? What will it take for it to return to the political agenda?
No, because clean energy technologies are getting cheaper and being deployed at an unprecedented speed and scale, driven not by woke ideology or government regulation but by scientific breakthroughs and market forces. To be sure, the global transition is not being led by the United States, but it’s also not being particularly held back by it. That deep-red Texas leads the US (and China and India lead the world) in renewable deployment is a case in point: the fight against climate change will be won by economic self-interest and tech ingenuity, not Greta tweets and political diktat.
Do you think the US will ever leave NATO altogether?
Ever? Sure, since it’s easy to see nation-states no longer being the principal geopolitical actors a generation or two from now. But probably not in the coming, say, 5-10 years. Trump may once again threaten to pull out of the alliance (both for domestic politics and to encourage fairer burden-sharing), but even before taking office in January he had already admitted to changing his mind about NATO being obsolete.
What is preventing Secretary of State Rubio and President Trump from insisting that Israel stop impeding the free flow of humanitarian aid (including food) into Gaza?
They don’t consider the Palestinians strategically relevant and/or worthy of concern (also see: Europe). They certainly have more political leeway and, therefore, more leverage to pressure Israel with than the Biden administration did (and than the Europeans). But they just don’t care (not enough and not yet, at least).
Are we ever going to witness the United States of Europe?
If the pandemic, climate change, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and America’s isolationist turn haven’t done the trick, I have a hard time imagining what will. Each crisis nudges the bloc toward more coordination and incremental integration (banking union, joint vaccine procurement, a modest pandemic recovery fund), but the same shocks also fuel populist backlash against ceding another inch of sovereignty. Add the centrifugal pull of NATO for security, national capitals for taxation, and Berlin-Paris bargaining for everything in between, and the path to a true federation keeps receding. That reality means Europe will keep punching below its collective weight – let alone the US and China’s.
Do you think the UK should consider rejoining the EU?
Brexit dented growth and diminished Britain’s bargaining power vis-à-vis great powers, but re-entry is a practical, political, and diplomatic slog with diminishing returns. Having spent years extricating the UK, Europeans are once burned, twice shy; even if they were to reopen the wound, good luck getting Brussels to agree to London’s old rebates and opt-outs. At home, any government would have to sell free movement, loss of sovereignty, and a meaningful budget contribution to voters who were told they’d “taken back control.” Plus, the world has changed since 2016. Relinquishing veto power to 27 other capitals in a G-Zero era where agility and autonomy are key strategic assets risks trading one set of constraints for another. The smarter play is to stitch together flexible partnerships with the EU – from security to green tech – while keeping a free hand on the steering wheel.
If the US steps away from the Ukraine/Russia negotiations, do you think Europeans will step up and take a leading role in defending Ukraine?
They are already taking the lead. Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, the combined support for Ukraine (financial, military, and humanitarian) from European countries has exceeded US contributions by over $45 billion – and that’s not including the over $110 billion in European aid commitments still to be allocated plus new funding to scale the continent’s own defense industry so the flow keeps growing.
Considering Russia's historical proficiency in winter warfare and its ability to exhaust enemy resources ahead of spring offensives, why have they been unable to decisively overwhelm Ukrainian forces during the past several winters of the ongoing conflict?
Endemic corruption sapping resources and logistics, overconfident and incompetent military leaders squandering Russian materiel and manpower superiority, and poorly led conscripts with low morale, fighting against a more motivated and savvy Ukrainian force bolstered by strong Western support and impressive homegrown tech capabilities.
Is there hope for Russia after Vladimir Putin?
The analyst in me doesn’t expect a dramatic shift at the Kremlin if Vladimir Vladimirovich were to suddenly croak tomorrow. His successor is far less likely to be a liberalizing democrat than another authoritarian, strongly anti-Western nationalist who’d behave even more risk-aversely than Putin, needing the continuous support of the Russian military, intelligence, and security establishment – the siloviki – to stay in power.
Do you think "traditional" news providers such as the FT, NYT, etc. will become stronger as people look for more credible sources of information in the age of increasing disinformation on social media? Or is this wishful thinking?
I’m skeptical that traditional media as a whole can become stronger in an era of hyper-polarized audiences, an ever-more-fragmented information ecosystem, declining ad revenue, and business models that depend on paywalls. Disinformation thrives not because people actively seek out lies, but because they consume news the way they consume everything else online: passively, emotionally, algorithmically, and in soundbites. The key challenge isn’t trust, it’s attention. The NYT and the FT can’t win a game that’s optimized for engagement without compromising the very accuracy and credibility that make them valuable. Though I do think select sources that are trusted and have authentic voices will become increasingly essential to a narrow slice of the public willing to pay for the “credibility premium” (whether in money or attention). I hope that’s what GZERO Media is for most of you.
What are we missing on the horizon that we should pay more attention to behind all the current dust?
Artificial intelligence transforming our economies, societies, global security, and geopolitics in a matter of years. Compared to the magnitude and speed of change we’re used to, we’re in for a wild ride.
Do you have a p(doom) number for AI? What's your take on the value of making p(doom) predictions?
My distribution of possible AI outcomes currently looks like a barbell. I think either we blow ourselves up in the next 10-20 years or we end up with a radically better quality of life, extremely high economic growth and scientific progress, and even much longer lifespans. But I can’t tell yet which tail scenario is more likely, making my p(doom) – the probability of existentially catastrophic outcomes as a result of AI – incredibly uncertain. I need to see more to update decisively one way or the other. As the technology advances, these estimates will become increasingly important.
Have you noticed any growing suspicion abroad due to your nationality? Are you being threatened or intimidated by anyone here at home because of your opinions?
I’ve noticed a rise in anti-American sentiment more generally, on the back of the belief that the United States is no longer as reliable a partner and ally (fact-check: true). I think some people do presume that as an American you must hold a certain worldview (e.g., Russia and China always bad, US always good, etc. etc.), which is as ridiculous and offensive as thinking you would do that as a white or black person. But I have thankfully never been threatened or intimidated, neither at home nor abroad, other than on social media – which is a feature, not a bug, of these platforms.
Are you giving any thought to moving to a different country, and if so, where would you consider going?
Zero. I love New York City. And unlike mayoral candidate and former governor Andrew Cuomo, I can’t imagine leaving under any circumstances.
China’s ‘trump’ card, tariff brinkmanship, Epstein fallout, and more: Your questions, answered
Before I swap my keyboard for a Nantucket clam rake next month, I’m handing the column over to you. Thanks to everyone who lobbed in smart, snarky, and occasionally apocalyptic questions – too many for one edition. Below is the first batch (questions lightly edited for clarity), spanning chip wars, tariff poker, Taiwan’s future, Epstein drama, AI doom, and my apparently tragic brow. Keep ‘em coming.
Why is Trump suddenly giving away the chip store to China?
Because he overplayed his hand, the Chinese called his bluff, and he didn’t have the cards. Trump billed himself as the tough guy on China. During his first term, he pioneered containment policies that went on to become bipartisan consensus. Coming into office this time around, he put on what amounted to a trade embargo on China, expecting the Chinese would fold under the economic pressure and he’d get to bring home a big beautiful deal. That, of course, didn’t happen. Instead, the Chinese pushed back hard, responding not just with their own reciprocal tariffs but – most importantly – with restrictions on the export of critical minerals and rare earths.
As it turns out, that was the big kahuna, because the United States is hopelessly dependent on China for minerals vital to the production of a broad range of modern military systems and advanced tech goods, from computers, phones, and EV batteries to Patriot missiles and fighter jets. After decades of Western offshoring and underinvestment, the Chinese have come to dominate every link in the supply chain for rare earths and key minerals, from mining and extraction to processing and market infrastructure. Though the Chinese are global market-makers, until recently, they didn’t have an effective licensing regime to shut down this chokehold on demand. But they’ve rapidly put one together (mimicking the US semiconductor export control regime), giving Beijing a powerful lever they can weaponize against the Americans for years to come.
This is easily as big a vulnerability for the US as Europe’s decision to outsource so much of its energy to Russia (before Russia's invasion of Ukraine made the security problems too obvious to avoid any longer). Trump has vowed to “win the mineral war,” but weaning the US off Chinese value chains will take a matter of years (5+ for heavy rare earths). Which means Trump had to cave to get near-term access to key minerals. So on July 15, he reversed prior export controls on Nvidia H20 chips and chip design software, in keeping with the quid pro quo reportedly agreed to by the two sides in London. It amounts to unilateral disarmament, as advanced chips are the biggest constraint on China’s ability to compete with America on AI. Meanwhile, the Chinese haven’t formally eased mineral restrictions, and actually put new export controls on EV battery technologies the same day Trump announced the easing of the chip controls. The simple fact is that the Chinese had the cards and the Americans didn’t.
How important is the timing of the upcoming midterms in pressuring Trump to reach a negotiated agreement with China?
Not at all, honestly. It’s much more about concerns over the direct downsides of a head-on fight, given China's unique retaliatory ability, willingness to inflict damage on the US economy, and the potential for an escalatory spiral to cause market panic. Plus, Trump really does prefer deals to confrontation when possible.
Do you envision any scenario(s) where an invasion of Taiwan does not occur in the next 10-20 years? What can the United States do to preserve the status quo?
Sure. In fact, that’s China’s present strategy for unification: to gain control over Taiwan through mounting but incremental economic, political, and grey-zone military coercion short of all-out invasion. This plan assumes that the US-China military balance of power in the Asia Pacific will continue to shift in China’s favor, that US security commitments to Taiwan will eventually waver, and that a Taiwan left to its own devices is more likely to submit to peaceful unification. It follows that if the US wants to keep Taiwan independent, it needs to invest in upgrading and adapting both American and Taiwanese defense capabilities to erode Chinese military advantages and bolster the credibility of the US commitment to the island’s defense.
Will Trump chicken out on the tariffs he threatened to impose by August 1?
He’ll follow through on some, but not all, of the threatened hikes. Some deals are getting done (most notable this week: Japan and the Philippines); negotiating holdouts, smaller countries with no leverage and market salience, and political targets such as Brazil and South Africa will face tariff increases, while key trading partners who are playing ball in talks like Mexico, Canada, and the EU will probably see no change in their rates as negotiations continue. But all bets are off if talks with some of the latter eventually break down (or if Trump feels emboldened or needs a political distraction). The higher the overall increase (but especially on large countries such as the EU and Canada), the worse the retaliation and the market backlash, and the likelier the White House is forced to walk back the hikes quickly (as it did in April in the face of the bond market reaction to the Liberation Day tariffs). Either way, much higher tariffs on the largest US trading partners won’t last long, which is why markets are so complacent right now.
Do you think Europeans are right to be patient with the US administration in trade negotiations or should they take a "firmer grip," as some EU members have suggested?
European officials I talk to increasingly view the 30% tariff threat as a negotiating tactic, and I agree. The EU has leverage, and they’ve been preparing retaliatory measures ahead of the August 1 deadline. The approach they’ve taken thus far seems to be moving talks along. Ultimately, I think the EU ends up accepting a higher tariff baseline (than 10%) with quotas and exemptions for key European industries. This lets them avoid having to hit back strongly (most importantly, with penalties on US services exports) in a way that would lead to an escalatory spiral and a lose-lose trade war with the US.
What’s behind Trump’s 180 on Russia/Ukraine?
Well, it’s finally sunk in that ending the war isn’t as easy as he thought – and that the Ukrainians aren’t principally to blame for it (if only someone had told him sooner!). Since his infamous Oval Office dress-down, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has worked hard to get on Trump’s good side, accepting a two-month ceasefire with no preconditions and signing a critical minerals deal that gives the Americans some stake in Ukraine’s long-term future. Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin has flattered Trump but rebuffed every chance to negotiate an end to the fighting, despite Trump’s best efforts to appease him. Trump recently recounted how after telling Melania about a “wonderful” conversation he’d had with Putin, his wife replied, “Oh really? Another [Ukrainian] city was just hit.” It’s not what MAGA voted for, but there’s nothing Trump hates more than being made to look like a powerless fool.
Can Trump still get a ceasefire in Ukraine this year?
I have a hard time seeing the war ending in 2025, for three reasons. First, Putin won’t drop his hardline terms for a ceasefire anytime soon. He continues to believe he can use military pressure to force Ukraine into making concessions and win a war that is existential for him. Second, while fragile, Ukraine’s battlefield position won’t be catastrophic enough in 2025 that Zelensky will have to agree to Russia’s terms or else Ukraine will collapse. Despite manpower shortages, a ramp-up in Western aid and domestic drone production can keep the Ukrainian military supplied. Third, growing Western economic pressure on Russia won’t be enough to bring Putin to the table in 2025. Specifically, Trump’s threat of secondary sanctions and 100% tariffs against Russia’s trading partners in 50 days (might as well be 50 years in Trump time) is not credible while he’s also trying to stabilize relations with China and close a trade deal with India. Accordingly, the Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine, the drone and missile attacks against Ukrainian cities, and Ukrainian targeting of military and defense industry sites in Russia will all continue.
Why is the Epstein issue causing such a rift inside MAGA? Will it last?
Because it's the one issue Trump ran on that he's not in any way embracing. Some of the base is also unhappy about the Iran bombings and the Ukraine pivot, but at least Trump really did try to end wars and keep the US out of them (even when he’s failed). But he's not draining the swamp. He's not trying to undo America’s two-tiered legal and justice system. He's leaning into them. And he’s now condemning his “past supporters” for falling for the Epstein “hoax” and not moving on, when he’s the one who taught them never to trust the government. The gaslighting makes the most powerful US president in modern history look incredibly insecure and vulnerable. I guess you either fight the deep state or live long enough to see yourself become it …
I don’t expect the issue to go away soon. Trump's natural instinct is to deny and punch back, like he’s doing with his $10 billion lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal. But while that strategy can unite the MAGA faithful against their common enemies (mainstream media, Democrats, etc.), it’ll also keep the rare 10/90 losing issue for Trump alive and risk the release of even more damaging information. The smarter play would be to try to change the subject altogether by giving the base other red meat to focus on – like Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s referring to President Obama and other former officials falsely perpetuating the “Russia hoax.” Expect more such “counterstrikes” meant to wag the dog and distract from Epstein.
With the freight train of AI coming fast, does America need to shift toward prioritizing training people for trades over putting them through four-year college degrees?
We need to focus more on trades but also on social/interpersonal, organizational, and management skills, whose premium will rise over time. Colleges will remain useful for networking but, increasingly, not for the education they provide. Not because AI will render all the knowledge and skills we currently learn in school unnecessary, but because we will be able to get the same (if not a better) education from AI far cheaper and more efficiently, no matter who or where we are.
And the social contract will have to change meaningfully. Even with reskilling, many humans won't have productive work available. How will they satisfy their material needs? And perhaps as importantly, how will they satisfy their psychological needs? Universal basic income may be expensive at current fiscal constraints (though if AI leads to 10% GDP growth it’s a different story) but it’s straightforward enough on a conceptual and technical level. Universal basic self-actualization? Not so much.
Are we moving further away from, or closer to, a geopolitical depression?
For now, we are moving closer to it, and we haven't yet hit rock bottom. The United States is unwilling to adhere to the rules of the order it once created, policed, and has long benefitted from, and other countries aren't stepping up to fill the gap. The resulting leadership vacuum is the G-Zero world I’ve been warning about for over a decade – and Eurasia Group’s top risk for 2025 – featuring ever greater geopolitical instability, disruption, and conflict. As the Italian political theorist Antonio Gramsci wrote, “The old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” Until the old institutions are reformed or destroyed and new ones are created to reflect the underlying balance of global power, the symptoms will worsen.
Why do you always have that face of anguish?
You mean the furrowed brow? I get that from TV people (and people who see me on TV) all the time, which surprises me because I’m not a particularly distraught person. It’s probably because I’m usually talking about serious stuff. Thankfully, the face goes away quickly after I go off camera. Sadly, the serious stuff does not.
_________
🔔 Be sure to subscribe to GZERO Daily to get the world's best global politics newsletter every day on top of my weekly email. Did I mention it's free?Quiana started at Walmart as a floor associate. Ten promotions later, she’s supporting her family and over 850 stores. Across America, Walmart is investing $1 billion in career-driven training and development by 2026, helping associates like Quiana build their skills and careers, with or without a degree. At Walmart, the opportunities are endless. Learn how Walmart is helping frontline associates live better.
Elon Musk in an America Party hat.
“Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom,” he announced a day after President Donald Trump signed into law the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), the deficit-busting tax-and-spend package that Musk had blasted as a “disgusting abomination.” The megabill that broke the bromance will add an estimated $3-4 trillion to the deficit over the next decade thanks to large tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, increased spending (especially for defense and homeland security), and higher debt interest payments, making what’s already an unsustainable fiscal situation much worse. If some of the law’s now-temporary provisions are eventually made permanent, as this bill did for the 2017 “temporary” tax cuts, the total cost could be as much as $6 trillion. “When it comes to bankrupting our country with waste & graft, we live in a one-party system, not a democracy,” Elon wrote on X.
What exactly does the America Party stand for? Details are scarce, but Musk says his goal is to disrupt the uniparty’s hold over American politics and reduce federal deficits (oh, and uncover the real Jeffrey Epstein story) – for real this time. Elon went all-in on support for Trump in 2024, who in return installed him to lead the Department of Government Efficiency’s efforts to slash government spending. Himself a disruptor of the uniparty, President Trump has broken with bipartisan consensus on immigration and foreign policy, tightening border enforcement and actually trying to end foreign wars (even if not very effectively). But Trump has governed like a card-carrying uniparty member when it comes to expanding the size and cost of government.
This grievance is the core driver behind Musk’s creation of the America Party. He was right to ask ‘what the heck was the point of DOGE’ once the OBBBA’s debt blowout was codified – although in fairness to Trump, DOGE did deliver less than $175 billion in “savings,” a rounding error in the overall federal budget and far short of the $2 trillion in “waste, fraud, and abuse” Musk had promised to cut initially. Even before the ink dried, the bill was polling deep underwater with the American people. But most voters hate the OBBBA not because it increases the deficit and debt, but despite it. By revealed preference, voters support politicians who spend on them and punish those who threaten their benefits or raise their taxes. It’s no wonder that the biggest wealth transfer from the working class to the top 1% in modern US history, which kicks more than 10 million Americans off Medicaid to make the rich richer, is so deeply unpopular. But fiscal discipline? That has had no real constituency in our spend-happy nation – and, accordingly, no home in either major party – for a very long time.
The America Party faces a product-market-fit problem that everyone but Elon seems to recognize. Most voters claim to be deficit hawks in the abstract – it sounds so serious and responsible! – but few support the broad-based tax increases and spending cuts on everything from entitlements and healthcare to defense, education, and border security that balancing the budget entails in real life.
If Elon wanted to create a party that represents the interests of “the 80%” of Americans “in the middle” and not just a fringe of too-online libertarians, its platform would have to consist of higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations, cheaper healthcare, childcare, energy, and housing, congressional term limits and lobbying reform, common-sense gun regulations, comprehensive immigration reform, and other such policies supported by bipartisan majorities. Some positions may be accommodated by one or the other major party, whether now or in the future. It’s even possible that there may exist a majority for an economically populist, socially moderate third party today. But there’s definitely no popular appetite for the kind of America Party that Elon has in mind.
So, does that mean that Elon is going to fail? Not necessarily ... but probably.
On the one hand, unlimited funds plus razor‑thin congressional majorities equal mischief potential. We’re talking about the wealthiest dude in the world perhaps being willing to throw a blank checkbook at America’s coin-operated political system. Musk poured nearly $300 million into GOP campaigns in 2024 and happily spent over $20 million on a single Wisconsin Supreme Court race earlier this year. And while he’s highly unlikely to be able to get America Party candidates elected to Congress, he may not need to. Musk could plausibly influence primaries, spoil close races, and force Republicans to tack (slightly) toward fiscal discipline. His stated goal of controlling “2 or 3 Senate seats and 8-10 House districts” by 2026 sounds modest until you remember that four Senate races and 11 House contests were decided by under two points in 2024. In a 50‑50 nation, margins that slim turn even a 2% spoiler vote into real leverage. And if he’s willing to burn, say, $250 million coaxing ten safe‑seat incumbent Republicans to switch jerseys, he could build himself a small blocking coalition in the House with veto power over key legislation before voters ever see the America Party on a ballot.
On the other hand, not even Musk’s eyewatering fortune is likely to be able to override the laws of political physics that have humbled every third‑party crusader before him. America’s deep-rooted two-party presidential system is designed to strangle third parties in their crib: first-past-the-post, winner-take-all elections herd voters into two big tents, and state ballot-access and federal campaign-finance laws pose formidable entry barriers even for someone with Musk’s resources. Worse still, there are fewer true independent voters than polls suggest: most Americans who dislike both major parties (and there are many of us) tend to hold their noses and often vote for one of them, fearing “wasting” their ballot. The few voters out there who actually affiliate with neither party and are open to voting for a third party don’t agree on much with one another – certainly not on an uncompromising commitment to austerity. Musk may soon discover that building a successful third-party bid in America, especially one centered around Making Fiscal Responsibility Great Again, is not rocket science … it’s harder.
Then there’s Elon himself – a wellspring of liabilities matched only by the depth of his pockets. There’s no denying that he’s a generationally talented entrepreneur and an incredibly hard worker, but the mercurial billionaire’s popularity trails even Trump’s, his attention span is legendarily short for ventures that aren’t core to making him money, and he has a history of not following through on his most outlandish and overconfident promises. Leading a political party will cost him a fortune, distract from his business activities and humanity-saving mission, end in failure and frustration, and otherwise make his life more difficult than it needs to be.
This is especially true if President Trump reacts as viciously against Musk’s betrayal as I expect him to. Should he decide that Musk’s America Party threatens not just MAGA’s political agenda but his personal spotlight, there’s no telling how far he’ll be willing to go to punish him – and to what extent he will be constrained by the rule of law in doing so. Based solely on what Trump has gotten away with doing to other people who have harmed him far less grievously, Musk’s federal contracts, tax subsidies, even his security clearance and US citizenship could be on the chopping block. That risk alone may deter Elon from sticking with this effort for very long, and would-be recruits (many already skeptical about Elon’s long-term commitment to the bit) from joining it.
Musk may yet scare a few vulnerable incumbents or win over the handful of principled libertarians like Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), but the structural logic of US politics still points to a binary choice in 2026 and 2028. If the history of US third parties is any guide, his latest moonshot will flame out faster than a Tesla battery. Even in the strongest-case scenario, the America Party is likely to end up looking more like a successful pressure group – something closer to the Tea Party, the Club for Growth, or the Sierra Club – than an electable third party.
Of course, the man who builds reusable rockets and is landing them on barges in the middle of the ocean thrives on low-probability bets. So keep an eye on the launchpad and enjoy the show. After all, even if the party fizzles, Musk is always sure to deliver the one thing Americans consistently reward: entertainment value.
Zohran Mamdani was a long shot. But the 33-year-old democratic socialist state assemblyman flew past former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s name recognition and money advantage to win the Democratic primary for New York mayor last week.
On paper, the upset may seem like a parochial story of quirky turnout math and a uniquely flawed opponent in a city so blue it’d elect a Smurf. In reality, Mamdani’s victory is a canary in the coal mine, less for what it says about him and New York politics than the conditions that made his message land. Dismissing it as an intramural oddity misses the broader point: when voters believe the deck is stacked against them, they look for candidates who promise to reshuffle it.
First, a reality check: There’s no guarantee Mamdani will win in November. Only registered Democrats vote in primaries, and the general electorate is a different animal. Moreover, while New York is reliably blue, big outside money is lining up against him, so it remains plausible (even if not super likely) that he could lose to an independent candidate.
Nobody knows how Mamdani would govern if he wins, either. He could push the policies he ran on, some of which could create a crisis if enacted. In the worst-case scenario, they could result in capital flight, plummeting tax revenue, worsened public services, rising crime, and a host of other ills that would make the greatest city in the world slightly less great. (Though none of that would make me consider relocating my home and company HQ. Moose is up for anything.)
But Mamdani will also be a first-time executive constrained by Albany’s veto power and the tough realities and tradeoffs of city management. I wouldn’t be shocked if he governed more pragmatically than he campaigned. He’s already ditched some of his more controversial positions such as “defund the police,” and he’s shown a willingness to engage and evolve. He’s clearly a skilled and ambitious politician who wants to have a successful career in this business; to achieve this, he needs to be popular and win elections, and that means being seen as having done a decent job as mayor. If he does things that make New York’s tax base flee the city, crime go up, and public services fall apart, he will be seen as a failure. As Fiorello LaGuardia said, “There is no Democratic or Republican way to pick up garbage.”
Ultimately, though, how and what Mamdani does in the future is almost beside the point. Nothing will change the fact that he won the primary with an unabashedly far-left, economically populist, soak-the-rich message in the beating heart of global capitalism. New York is simultaneously one of the wealthiest and least affordable cities in America (and the world). Mamdani’s campaign was focused on slashing the cost of living and improving the quality of life for regular New Yorkers, promising a $30 minimum wage, free buses and childcare, city-owned grocery stores to slash food prices, rent controls on stabilized apartments, and higher taxes on the rich and corporations to pay for it all.
In the America I grew up in, this kind of platform would’ve been DOA, and Mamdani would’ve long been ostracized from polite society. The only political label that’s historically been more toxic than “socialist” is “communist.” Everyone knows that’s about as un-American as it gets, which is why Donald Trump calls anyone to his left a communist, from Mamdani to Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris.
But here’s the thing: the slurs only carry weight if people still see the United States as capitalist. Increasingly, they don’t. The United States looks less like a free‑market meritocracy – the kind with equal opportunity, open competition, rags-to-riches possibility – and more like a pay‑to‑play kleptocracy where access and advantage are auctioned to the highest bidder.
When Mamdani said that “billionaires shouldn’t exist,” he wasn’t threatening to line them up at dawn, but rather just to tax them down to size – at least as long as the playing field looks as tilted as it presently does in the United States. A growing number of Americans, those for whom the American Dream is the stuff of history books and “socialism” gives more Sweden vibes than Cuba, are on board for that.
Socialists may still not be able to beat capitalists, but if voters conclude that America has devolved into a two-tier system that rewards proximity to power more than hard work, don’t be surprised when a Ugandan-born millennial socialist like Mamdani has a shot against oligarchs and kleptocrats.
This country’s last successful populist wave started with a Queens real-estate showman promising to blow up business as usual. Trump won the White House twice on the back of voters who believed that democracy was broken and the game had been rigged against average Americans by coastal elites and the “deep state.” He’s spent a decade blaming global trade and immigration for working‑class pain, to reasonable success. But when it comes to “draining the swamp,” Trump has done anything but. Instead, he has expanded the swamp – and I’m not just talking about the new Alligator Alcatraz he's so excited about. Now Republicans in Congress are ramming through the One Big Beautiful Bill, which is set to be the largest wealth transfer from the poor to the rich in modern US history and will burden future generations with trillions in additional debt. Talk about class warfare.
If you’re 25, saddled with student loans, priced out of housing, and watching Trump cut the social safety net you’re paying into to fund tax cuts for his billionaire friends and cronies, soaking the rich increasingly looks not just like common sense but like self-defense. It’s no wonder Mamdani’s message resonated.
And I suspect the demand for what he’s selling will only grow in the coming years. Advances in artificial intelligence threaten massive job losses among white-collar workers. The backlash this time around will be driven not by blue-collar, working-class men in the Rust Belt but by priced-out urban professionals with advanced degrees and politically active suburban moms whose over-educated, under-employed children won’t have the opportunities they thought they would. Trump’s protectionist, anti-immigrant crusade won’t win over that crowd. Establishment Democrats haven’t come up with a good answer yet, either.
This doesn’t necessarily mean Mamdani himself is about to become the left’s new Trump. The fact is Mamdani is everything Trump wished Obama could’ve been: actually born in Africa, actually a Muslim, and actually a (democratic) socialist. That may be a winning combo in Brooklyn coffee shops and parts of the Bronx; color me skeptical it plays out as well in swing districts across the country. But the policy lane Mamdani has staked out – call it “anti-kleptocratic economic populism” – is wide open for someone with more national appeal to speed through it.
CEOs should worry less about Mamdani and more about the energy he’s tapping into. Those who mistake lobbying spend for sound strategy will one day wake to find themselves the targets of bipartisan populist pitchforks. If companies don’t start embracing genuinely open competition and mainstream politics remain unable to fix the optics of a rigged game, voters will send outsiders to rewrite the rules for them.
Trump, Netanyahu, and
Then, on Monday, the Iranians responded as I said they would a week ago and in my conversation with TED’s Helen Walters the morning after the US strikes. Tehran launched a well-telegraphed, symbolic missile salvo against Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, the largest US military base in the region and the most heavily fortified within striking range of Iran. This sprawling air base, home to 10,000 American troops, is in the middle of the desert, far away from civilian areas, and bristling with missile defenses. Tehran gave the US advance warning via Qatar to minimize the potential for casualties and damage. It had to put on enough of a show to convince folks at home it had punched back, while hoping Trump would take the hint and refrain from retaliating.
It wasn’t either side’s first rodeo. At the end of his first term, Trump ordered the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, the popular war hero and head of the Iranian defense forces. Iran’s response then? A performative, pre-announced missile attack against a US base in Iraq that had minimal impact. Trump ignored it, both sides declared victory, and the whole thing blew over.
The same choreography played out this week. With ample warning of the impending missile strike, the US evacuated nonessential personnel and ordered everyone else to shelter in place. Not a single person was hurt. Just like last time,Tehran sold the fireworks to its people as a major success, claiming they had "destroyed" the US base. Most Iranians – under an internet blackout – were none the wiser that the attack had been a dud by design. Engineered to cause no deaths, no damage, just theater.
Trump sprinted for the exit ramp, eager to wrap things up and avoid the political risks of a further US military commitment he never wanted in the first place. Instead of retaliating, he thanked Iran (yes, really) for the “early notice.” Two hours later, he announced that he had brokered a “Complete and Total CEASEFIRE” between Iran and Israel. The “12 Day War”, as he dubbed it, was over. “CONGRATULATIONS WORLD, IT’S TIME FOR PEACE!” he posted.
The ceasefire almost collapsed before it even went into effect, with Israel launching air strikes on Tehran and Iran responding with a missile barrage on Israel early Tuesday. A clearly annoyed Trump said he was "not happy with Israel" and urged Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu to stand down in all-caps. It was a rare public rebuke from Israel’s best friend on the global stage. But if there’s one thing that pisses Trump off, it’s being made to look weak.
The US president has staked his reputation on this fragile ceasefire holding. Trump wants a clean win. He cares about being seen as powerful and in control, about low oil prices, and about ending wars and keeping the US out of them. A resumption of the fighting would jeopardize all that. That’s why he (successfully) pressured Israel to scale back planned strikes against Iran on Tuesday, and why he’ll keep trying to discourage either side from taking actions that might restart the war.
For the time being, everyone seems content to declare victory and keep the peace.
That includes Iran, the undisputed loser of the 12-Day War. Everything about how the conflict played out was a display of Iranian weakness. Of the three belligerents, Iran is by far the least capable and most vulnerable – and it is keenly aware of it. But the loss of all its deterrents also makes it the most risk-averse. Tehran’s goal has always been regime survival, not victory. And the Islamic Republic can indeed claim it survived a direct war against both Israel and the US while inflicting unprecedented pain on the Israeli home front and preserving key parts of its nuclear program. Khamenei has been humiliated and his days as supreme leader may well be numbered, but the regime gets to live to fight another day, even if weakened. A ceasefire gives Tehran breathing room to focus on internal security and a chance to rebuild its capabilities.
For his part, Netanyahu wasn’t particularly interested in a ceasefire – certainly not as much as the Iranians or Trump. But Bibi already got more than he could’ve hoped for out of this war. He dealt a massive blow to Iran’s military, ballistic, and nuclear capabilities. He got the US to strike at the one hardened site Israel couldn’t reach. And he did it all while keeping Trump onside and bolstering his domestic political standing. In the course of two weeks, he went from the brink of government collapse to nigh untouchable.
As for Trump, this is arguably the biggest foreign policy win of his second term to date. The president can take credit for degrading Iran’s nuclear program and enabling Israel to severely degrade its military and ballistic capabilities, all with no blowback to the US and without getting dragged into a broader war. True, Iran had never been weaker and its threats had never been emptier, but Trump still had the willingness to call the ayatollah’s bluff. And so far, the gamble seems to have paid off. One of the world’s most dangerous rogue states is significantly weaker today than it was two weeks ago (not to mention before Oct 7, 2023), and America is no worse for wear.
But how big a win this turns out to be in the longer term remains an open question.
For starters, it’s unclear just how much of Iran’s nuclear program was actually destroyed. Trump insists Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan were “obliterated” … as he would. Iran says most of its enrichment capabilities survived the attacks and its 400-kilogram stockpile of highly-enriched uranium – enough for 9-10 warheads – was moved to secure locations in advance … as they would. But a leaked early assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency found that the strikes failed to destroy Iran’s nuclear sites and only set back the program by a few months. And preliminary Israeli damage assessments have also cast doubt on the effectiveness of the Fordow strike, estimating the setback to the Iranian nuclear program at two years.
The IAEA isn’t sure, unless Iran lets them into the facilities. It’s plausible that the bulk of Iran’s fissile material stockpile was saved. Satellite photos show truck convoys outside Fordow days before the strikes, and moving uranium is fairly easy. Not so for centrifuges, which are large, fragile, and hard to transport. Maybe Iran managed to move a few. But thousands? Unlikely. Which means that even if Iran’s stockpile survived intact, its ability to enrich to weapons-grade level has probably taken a hit. They also lost their uranium conversion facility at Isfahan – critical for processing uranium “yellowcake” into the metallic and gaseous forms needed to produce a bomb.
Even if it turned out that the program was severely degraded, Iran could rebuild it in secret. The US-Israeli strikes may have slowed the timeline to a bomb by six months to several years, but they also multiplied Iran’s motivation to get one. If you’re sitting in Tehran, the lesson from this war is simple: being a nuclear-threshold power is not enough – the only way to avoid being bombed is to become un-bombable.
Strategically, that makes the US-Israeli tactical victory potentially counterproductive. That’s the thing: the military option was never a permanent solution to Iran’s nuclear ambitions. That was true before this war and it’s true now. You can bomb the program back a few years, but unless you’re prepared to keep bombing them indefinitely, the only real way to stop Iran from building a nuke is to get them to sign a deal.
Trump came into office this term understanding that diplomacy was the way to go. He had a real shot at success, too. Iran’s historic weakness post-Oct. 7 made it ripe for a reasonable negotiated agreement – meaning anything short of zero enrichment with at least some upside. If he had offered limited (but non-zero) domestic enrichment for civilian purposes, no sunset clauses, and sanctions relief, the Iranians probably would’ve taken it. Alas, he was unwilling to budge on zero enrichment and ultimately got pushed into a corner by the Israeli strikes to take the military route instead.
It may work out in the short term – the only term Trump usually cares about (which is a bigger, more structural problem). Long term? It’s likely to push Iran to go all-in on covertly acquiring a nuclear deterrent to ensure regime survival. That would take time – they need to rebuild underground facilities, reconstitute their centrifuges, enrich in secret. But it would happen out of the IAEA’s sight and beyond easy reach. We’d likely only find out when we were presented with a fait accompli: a working bomb.
Netanyahu has already warned that Israel will strike again if it detects any Iranian attempts to rebuild its program. Even if Tehran doesn’t dash for a bomb, Israel intends to continue “mowing the grass” in Iran whenever threats and opportunities arise, as it has in Gaza, Syria, and Lebanon. “We have concluded a significant chapter, but the campaign against Iran is not over,” the IDF chief said yesterday.
Trump won’t love his ceasefire getting broken. But the real question is, what’s he going to do to stop it? And the answer is probably not much. He’s willing to lean on Israel for now to declare mission accomplished and claim the W. But he won’t stick his neck out to rein in Bibi forever. And if the fighting resumes, Trump will back Israel regardless of whether it’s Israel who starts it.
The 12-Day War is over, but the story will be continued.
Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Israel’s war plan has led directly to this juncture (though Trump’s own decision to tear up the 2015 nuclear agreement in 2018 arguably paved the way). The culmination of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decades-long crusade to neutralize Iran’s nuclear threat to the Jewish state, ‘Operation Rising Lion’ began early on June 13 with Hollywood-worthy sabotage to disable Iranian air defenses, followed by the largest airstrikes on Iranian territory since the 1980-88 conflict with Iraq.
The Israel Defense Forces have since methodically destroyed significant portions of Iran’s missile launchpads, drone factories, and above-ground nuclear facilities. They have decimated its military leadership. They have gone after its domestic energy production and industrial capacity. On June 16, the IDF announced it achieved full air supremacy over Tehran, meaning Israeli planes can now fly over Iran’s capital without getting shot down – an extraordinary statement of facts on the ground.
Iran has been unable to mount much of an effective response. It has fired hundreds of missiles and drones against Israeli population centers, but very few projectiles (under 5 percent) have penetrated Israel’s layered defenses. Though these barrages have caused damage to mostly residential buildings and killed scores of Israeli civilians, as Tehran’s ballistic stockpile has started to dwindle, each wave has been smaller than the last. Israel’s advantage is only set to grow the longer the war goes on.
Yet the Israeli campaign has a hole. Despite severe damage inflicted upon Iranian capabilities and escalation dominance, Israel cannot achieve its chief war aim on its own: destroying Iran’s nuclear program. The partial degradation of the Natanz, Isfahan, and Parchin nuclear facilities, along with the assassination of 14 of Tehran’s top nuclear scientists, have set it back by months. But crucially, the Fordow enrichment plant, which sits more than 300ft beneath earth and reinforced concrete, remains out of Israel’s reach. Only the US Air Force’s Massive Ordnance Penetrators, or bunker-buster bombs, can “finish the job.”
Israel can and will continue to hammer at Iran’s other nuclear, missile, and military infrastructure for weeks (if not months), but a war that ends with Fordow guarantees that Tehran retains the means to redouble its efforts to acquire a bomb once the smoke clears. Israel’s only path to victory therefore runs through President Trump.
Early on, Trump drew a clear red line: American forces would stay out unless Iran escalated directly against American interests, such as by attacking US military bases or interfering with shipping through the strategic chokepoint of the Strait of Hormuz. The president ran as a peacemaker, promising to end foreign wars and keep US troops out of them. To his credit, he has tried – he just hasn’t been very effective at it. Even after sanctioning Israel’s June 13 operation, he still insisted the US had nothing to do with it and urged the Iranians to return to the negotiating table, despite being frustrated at their continued refusal to compromise.
But over the last few days, signs have emerged that the president’s position has shifted. On June 15, Trump said “it’s possible we could get involved.” The day after, on Monday, he issued a cryptic warning to Tehran’s 10 million residents to “immediately evacuate” the city. And on Tuesday, he implicitly threatened to assassinate Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and called for Iran’s “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!” (all caps assuredly not mine).
In tandem, the Trump administration and the MAGA media apparatus started laying the political groundwork for a one-off US strike, making the case to the isolationist wing of the GOP that one-off airstrikes – as opposed to boots on the ground and long-term occupation – to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons are not only consistent with the president’s “America First” approach, but necessary to achieve his “peace through strength” vision. Even Vice President JD Vance, a vocal critic of US military intervention in the Middle East and the cabinet’s leading isolationist, echoed the new party line.
Trump has reportedly not made up his mind yet. He said today that it’s not “too late” for Iran to avoid a US attack if it agrees to give up its nuclear program. But as Israel and Iran exchange blows for the seventh day, the president could give the go-ahead to strike any second now. The retaliatory threat to US forces in Iraq should give him pause; two dozen ballistic missiles or sustained short-range rocket fire could overwhelm the air defenses shielding American bases in close proximity to Iran. A single successful barrage causing American fatalities could trap the United States in another open-ended quagmire. Ultimately, though, the perceived upside – encouraged by Netanyahu – of going down in history as the guy who eliminated the Iranian nuclear threat is likely to prove too tempting to pass up on. The US military has already deployed enough air and naval assets to the region to enable a strike and defend against potential retaliation.
Despite last-ditch efforts from both sides to avert a direct clash, Tehran looks unlikely to capitulate; Khamenei swore as much today. The leadership’s priority is regime survival, with domestic enrichment viewed as a cornerstone of the regime’s long-term survival strategy – the ultimate insurance policy against a Libya-style overthrow. Surrendering the nuclear program under threat of US bombardment would sacrifice long-term deterrence and legitimacy for the sake of short-term respite – a “poisoned chalice” even more bitter than Khamenei’s predecessor Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1988 decision to accept a ceasefire with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. While devastating, enduring the loss of Fordow would at least allow the regime to live to fight another day and perhaps even rebuild the nuclear program in secret once the dust settles.
With Iranian capitulation all but ruled out and no other clear off-ramp for Trump to walk back his ultimatum, the likely outcome is a US strike on Fordow in the coming days. Tehran would face growing pressure to retaliate against US bases, Gulf energy infrastructure, and shipping through the Strait of Hormuz (through which 20% of the global oil supply flows) to restore deterrence and maintain credibility at home. But, fire and brimstone rhetoric notwithstanding, a weakened regime in survival mode will probably (read: hopefully) refrain from purposefully broadening the conflict further, especially in ways that would force it to fight a three-front war against Israel, the US, and the Gulf Arab states. Iran might opt to harass oil shipping and local export facilities instead, possibly leaning on its proxies, while stopping short of measures that invite major retaliation. Trump, for his part, shows little appetite to indulge Netanyahu’s regime-change fantasies.
The greater danger lies in the fog of war. Israeli decapitation strikes have fractured Iran’s chain of command; even if the consensus among the decision-makers is to proceed cautiously, a rogue Revolutionary Guard faction might decide to take matters into its own hands and shoot at US barracks, or a wayward missile could hit an oil tanker and blow $120-a-barrel crude into the global economy. The longer the conflict runs, the higher the odds of unintended escalation. And if it’s backed into a corner, such as via overt Israeli or American attempts to induce regime change (no matter how likely to fail and/or backfire), Iran can always decide to raise the stakes, retaliation risks be damned.
President Trump could well still pull back from the brink. Just hours ago, he said to reporters at the White House, “I may do it, I may not do it." The option for the United States to take out Fordow won’t go away in a month or six. At this point in time, it will unnecessarily put American troops at risk, and it won’t result in regime change. In fact, it’s more likely to rally Iranians around the flag, empower hardliners, accelerate clandestine nuclear activities, and create pressure for prolonged American involvement. It would be smarter to allow Israel to continue degrading Iranian nuclear, missile, and military capabilities while setting back its nuclear program many months further.
But evidence suggests Trump is about to pull the trigger. When he does, headlines will hail an American-Israeli triumph. The true picture will be more mixed: Iran’s nuclear program shattered but not permanently destroyed, its regime weakened but not dead; the United States deeper in a conflict it vowed to avoid; and Israel confronting a mortal enemy whose resolve to acquire nuclear arms will only intensify. The Middle East will be 16 centrifuge cascades weaker but no closer to peace.
On Saturday, US President Donald Trump activated 2,000 members of the California National Guard to quell protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s deportation efforts in Los Angeles, after small but highly visible demonstrations had popped up across the city in the days prior – with some instances of violence, opportunistic looting, and property damage. California Governor Gavin Newsom disputed that federal intervention was necessary and condemned Trump’s deployment decision as illegal and inflammatory, blaming it for stoking the protests.
Though the protests had largely petered out by then, on Tuesday the president dispatched an additional 2,000-plus National Guard troops and 700 active-duty Marines to the area. Downtown LA had a quiet night on the back of a curfew, but anti-ICE (and, more broadly, anti-Trump) demonstrations have started to spread to other major cities like New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Austin, Dallas, and Atlanta, with more planned in Las Vegas, Minneapolis, San Antonio, and Seattle. Texas Governor Greg Abbot has already called in the National Guard ahead of any potential unrest in his state.
Here are my eight key takeaways:
- Trump’s decision to send federal troops into Los Angeles was extreme. It marked the first time in 60 years that the National Guard had been deployed to a US state without the consent of its governor. The last such instance was in 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson federalized the Alabama Guard in defiance of Governor George Wallace, one of the nation’s leading segregationists, to protect civil rights demonstrators led by Martin Luther King Jr. from violence. Needless to say, federal supremacy over states’ rights is being asserted in a very different context, by a very different president, and in service of a very different goal today.
- It’s legal – for now. Trump’s deployment pushes the envelope politically, but as long as the troops limit their role to protecting federal personnel and facilities while refraining from taking law-enforcement actions (as they reportedly have thus far), it will stay within the bounds of presidential authority. That’s a key legal distinction, as the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act bars active-duty forces from engaging in domestic law enforcement unless the president invokes the 1807 Insurrection Act. That’s a step Trump hasn’t taken (yet at least), suggesting that he still sees as high a bar for it as he did during the George Floyd protests in 2020.
- The door is open to a more radical use of emergency powers. The counterpoint is that Trump referred to the LA protesters as a “violent insurrectionist mob” (he does know a little something about those) and on Tuesday refused to take the invocation of the Insurrection Act off the table. He also warned that any protesters at this weekend’s military parade in Washington, DC – peaceful or not – “will be met with very big force,” and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth hinted at a desire to use military forces on domestic soil more extensively going forward. This pattern suggests that Trump’s threshold for activating emergency powers or using troops against Americans is lower than last time around, when he was repeatedly talked out of extreme steps by institutionalist advisors. I wouldn’t be shocked if the administration invoked the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (aka IEEPA, the same law it used to levy reciprocal tariffs on Liberation Day) to freeze the assets of individual American citizens and organizations it accused of aiding and abetting “foreign invaders” (aka undocumented aliens). Or if it used the Communications Act to pressure internet platforms into throttling protest-related content. These scenarios may sound far-fetched, but so did the unilateral deployment of the National Guard and Marine Corps to Los Angeles less than 200 days into the first year of the Trump presidency. In his second term, Trump has proven willing to push the legal and political limits of executive power, against precedent and despite long odds of success.
- Trump’s LA deployment was designed to score political points, not restore peace. The City of Los Angeles was unaffected by the protests, which were confined to a handful of downtown city blocks. The Los Angeles Police Department had things under control (at least until Trump escalated the situation), and local officials saw no reason to request federal help. In fact, they warned that adding federal troops to the mix would risk heightening tensions and endanger public safety. But Trump wasn’t trying to solve a security problem – he was playing politics.
- Trump is eager to pick public fights over immigration. This is the one issue area where the president has had consistently positive approval ratings, save for a brief dip underwater caused by the administration’s mishandling of the Abrego Garcia case. For Trump, the political upside of doubling down on the migrant crackdown is twofold. First, it shifts attention toward his biggest strength and away from headlines that are more problematic for the administration, such as his failure to secure trade deals, his inability to end the Russia-Ukraine war, and his messy breakup with Elon Musk. Second, it forces Democrats into defending politically unsympathetic targets and positions, much like they did with Abrego Garcia (before the White House overplayed its hand) and Harvard University.
- The optics of the LA protests play straight into Trump’s hands. Images of burning Waymos and protestors flying Mexican flags lend credence to the White House’s false claim that undocumented immigrants are dangerous foreign invaders and their defenders are radical anti-American traitors, allowing the president to discredit opponents of mass deportations as threats to public order and safety. That only a small number of troublemakers were illegal aliens doesn’t matter; Trump is betting (correctly, in my view) those visuals will drive public opinion away from the demonstrators and toward more aggressive deportation policies.
- More deportations are coming. Trump has made measurable progress in curbing illegal border crossings, but so far, deportations have fallen far short of his campaign pledge (and even of deportations during Joe Biden’s last year in office). That’s not surprising; large-scale interior removals are much more politically, economically, and logistically fraught than border enforcement. But according to the Wall Street Journal, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller recently ordered ICE to step up its game, demanding that they stop targeting migrants with criminal records, asylum requests, and court petitions and instead “just go out there and arrest illegal aliens” at their jobs and schools. In other words, snag anyone who looks illegal, no probable cause (let alone warrant) needed. That approach was reportedly what sparked the LA protests last week. The backlash was instrumental to Miller’s goals: by signaling that Trump is making good on his deportation promise, standoffs with law enforcement can make deportations more popular and give Trump the political capital to ramp up more visible and disruptive workplace and neighborhood raids, particularly in Democratic-run cities. These operations will trigger more protests, which will in turn be met with more repression and stepped-up enforcement, and so on.
- On immigration, don’t bet on TACO. Trump faces fewer internal constraints in implementing his policy agenda on immigration than in any other area. Unless and until it starts dragging on his approval ratings, he is likely to double down: more aggressive raids, more confrontations with Democratic governors and mayors, more troop deployments to quell public protests. Mass deportations will disrupt local life in places like Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Chicago. Backlash to aggressive enforcement tactics, family separations, and mistaken detentions will be the primary source of domestic unrest in the coming months, but Trump won’t back down. This is a fight the White House is happy to fight.
Trump's deployment of troops to Los Angeles was less about taking control of the streets and more about taking control of the narrative. The strategy is confrontational by design, with immigrants and Democrats as foils and civil unrest as a feature, not a bug. This playbook may work politically. But in the long term, the result will be more conflict: between cities and Washington, between red and blue, between civilians and the military, and between competing visions of American identity. The most politically divided and dysfunctional industrialized nation will only become more so.