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Greene sees red over Johnson’s support for Ukraine
Roughly six months after Kevin McCarthy was booted as House Speaker, GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia aims to oust his successor, Mike Johnson. On Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,”Greene declared, “Mike Johnson’s speakership is over. He needs to do the right thing to resign ... If he doesn’t do so, he will be vacated.”
The reason? On Saturday, Johnson cut a bipartisan deal with Democrats to pass a $95 billion foreign aid package that includes $61 billion for Ukraine. The far-right wing of the GOP is opposed to the notion of funding “foreign wars,” contending that US funding should instead go toward domestic issues like border security.
Though former President Donald Trump publicly backed Johnson last week, it’s unclear if this will be enough to save him from the growing mutiny among House Republicans. Some even say the party risks tearing itself apart.
Johnson stands firm. Despite Greene’s threats,Johnson remains steadfast. “I really believe the intel … I think Vladimir Putin would continue to march through Europe.”
In Ukraine, meanwhile, the aid package's approval has been met with gratitude. Officials there say it will help replenish Ukraine’s short- and medium-range air defense systems to intercept Russian ballistic missiles targeting Ukraine’s energy grid.
Crisis at Columbia: Protests and arrests bring chaos to campus
Blankets, tents, Palestinian flags, signs, and scores of tired students were strewn across the South Lawn of the university's Manhattan campus. The protesters were camped there to demand Columbia’s divestment from companies with ties to Israel – but they knew they were playing a game of chicken. The night before, university administrators had warned that remaining in their “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” would result in suspensions and possible arrests. Still, they decided to stay, and some 34 hours later, police in riot gear arrived. Organizers yelled “phones out” as NYPD officers reached for their zip ties.
“I remember the collective fear, like everyone was having the same thought: ‘We’re really on our own,’” says Izel Pineda, a Barnard senior who delivered supplies to the encampment minutes before police arrived.
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Chaos at Columbia University this past week started with the encampment being erected hours before President Nemat Shafik’s congressional testimony on antisemitism on Wednesday. Shafik told Congress about last autumn’s protests on campus following the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas militants and about the incidents of antisemitism that had left many Jewish students on campus afraid to leave their dorms or attend class. She explained that the school had made progress in disciplining students, enforcing stricter protest policies, and investigating some professors.
But as she spoke, that progress began to unravel, leading to the Thursday arrests of 108 students – all of whom have been suspended and kicked off campus – and subsequent protests by students and faculty across the ideological divide. Many of the young people, especially Jews, fear for their safety, while professors are wondering if their jobs are at risk. The growing demonstrations, and the threat of further arrests, have only worked to inflame tensions – so much so that the only thing all sides agree on is that the campus is unraveling into distrust, dysfunction, and fear.
Students hold hands and circle the lawns in solidarity with the pro-Palestine protesters.Will Hull
Breeding mistrust and anxiety
On Wednesday, Shafik faced three hours of questioning before the Republican-led Committee on Education and the Workforce. Questions focused on how administrators were protecting Jewish and pro-Israel students on campus amid frequent pro-Palestinian protests.
Shafik focused her testimony on disciplinary matters, noting the increased police presence, stricter policies, and the November suspension of the campus’s two main pro-Palestine student groups for not following the rules.
The committee honed in on individual Columbia professors like Joseph Massad, who described Hamas’ temporary takeover of Israeli settlements as a “stunning victory” in a highly controversial article after the Oct. 7 attack. Shafik told Congress that Massad was under internal investigation – something the professor himself had not known.
Shafik’s answers seemed to satisfy the committee. But on campus, students and faculty are far from satisfied – and the resulting demonstrations, some in solidarity with the arrested students, and some pro-Israeli versus pro-Palestinian protests, are again making campus feel more like a battleground than a safe space for learning.
“[Jewish students] appreciate all the concern about our safety, but the congressional hearing only further cleaves apart our campus and escalates tensions,” says Alina Kreynovich, a junior at Columbia’s School of General Studies.
Defying to voice dissent
After police cleared the encampment with their arrests on Thursday, other protesters reorganized on the adjacent lawn, and over 100 students began a sit-in and prepared for a second round of arrests. Organizers told them what to do if detained, wrote lawyers’ phone numbers on their arms, and voted to expand their demands beyond divestment, adding amnesty for the suspended students to their list.
Presidential candidate and progressive activist Cornel West witnessed Thursday’s arrests as he sat cross-legged among the students nearby. “Shame on the Columbia University administrators,” he said. “It's very important to protect every student.”
Many students joined the demonstrations because of the police action. “I think a lot of us came out here because of the arrests,” said a junior at Columbia College who requested anonymity. “Students shouldn’t be arrested and suspended for peacefully protesting on campus.”
Pro-Israel protesters carrying Israeli and American flags gathered together nearby holding pictures of hostages taken by Hamas and singing “God Bless America.”
Fears of violence rise
Yoseph Haddad, an Arab-Israeli journalist who was scheduled to speak at Columbia’s chapter of Students Supporting Israel, was assaulted by a protester while trying to enter campus. A man was attacked as he held a ripped, red-stained, Israeli flag. Multiple Jewish students said they were disturbed to see protesters defacing posters of hostages on the street.
Danny Gold, a Ph.D. candidate at Columbia’s Jewish Theological Seminary, said he doesn’t feel like protesters recognize how many students at Columbia – where 22.5% of undergraduates and 15.5% of graduate students are Jewish – have connections to people who were killed or kidnapped by Hamas. “One of my students has two cousins who were hostages. How does that make him feel seeing these protests where people deface hostage posters?”
Another student told me he felt like many of the protest chants were intimidating for Jewish students. “A lot of us have family in Israel, and hearing a chant like ‘from the river to the sea’ – that doesn’t call for a regime change, which would be an acceptable criticism of Israel, but for the total annihilation of the state – is frankly terrifying to many students who feel like it is a safe place for them.”
Students on both sides say they are afraid — of the university, which they believe has done too much or too little to crack down on the protests, and above all, of each other.
“It was crazy how quickly the community just turned upside down in terms of how we treat each other,” said Noa Fey, who has been a victim of bullying, online and on campus, after sharing her thoughts about the right to self-determination of both Israel and Palestine. “I’ve lost friends,” she said. “I barely made it out of the semester academically and emotionally.”
Faculty members join the fray
Many professors fear that free speech and academic freedom are under attack on campus. They are also concerned about being investigated by the university without their knowledge.
On Thursday evening, faculty members held a press conference outside of the President’s House. “The attack on students today violates fundamentally a core component of academic life,” said Joseph Howley, a classics professor. “This has not happened since 1968. And in the last 50 years, Columbia has been extremely careful about these extreme measures, and that care was violated today.”
As of the weekend, the protests have only grown, faculty members are boycotting graduation, and Jewish students increasingly still feel unsafe on campus.
“This national attention has only fueled the fringes of Columbia’s community and invites the entire country into our emotionally exhausted campus. If anything, the campus is less safe than ever,” says Kreynovich.
Viewpoint: India gears up for biggest elections ever
The world’s most populous country will hold elections between April 19 and 1 June for its lower house of parliament, the Lok Sabha. The 543-member chamber is India’s primary legislative body, and its composition will determine which party or coalition gets to nominate a prime minister and form the next government. Over the 44-day electoral period, nearly 970 million people will be eligible to vote, the most ever. More than 1 million polling stations will be set up, and officials will be dispatched to remote corners of the country’s vast geography to collect ballots.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, one of the world’s most popular heads of state, is expected to lead his Bharatiya Janata Party to a comfortable victory and secure a third consecutive term in office. We sat down with Eurasia Group experts Rahul Bhatia and Pramit Pal Chaudhuri to learn more about the upcoming elections.
What are the main issues for voters?
The chief concerns are inflation, particularly high food prices, and unemployment, especially among the youth. More than one-third of Indians believe they are worse off than before the pandemic-induced lockdowns, while about two-thirds say it is now harder to find a job. Though religious-political issues are also on voters' minds, they hold less weight than economic ones.
Despite apparent concerns about the economy, an overwhelming 75% of Indians approve of Modi’s leadership. He gets high marks for delivering targeted welfare schemes, upgrading the country’s infrastructure, and raising India’s international profile. He also gets credit for implementing elements of the BJP’s longstanding religious-political agenda, such as constructing a grand temple dedicated to the Hindu deity Ram and revoking the special autonomous status of the Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir region.
Modi has come under criticism for alleged anti-democratic tendencies – why is that and will this be a factor for voters?
Under Modi, press and political freedoms have suffered. Opposition parties have accused the prime minister of using government investigative agencies to harass opposition leaders and constrain their ability to contest elections. Other critics allege the government has undermined India’s secular constitution and its pluralistic values with its actions favoring the country’s Hindu majority population. While Modi's attitude toward civil liberties is not unlike that of past prime ministers who enjoyed a similar single-party majority, there are genuine concerns about democratic backsliding in India. Nevertheless, apart from a small urban elite, the average Indian voter doesn’t seem concerned.
What is the state of the opposition alliance?
Since the 2014 elections that brought Modi to power, the Indian National Congress, India’s largest opposition party, has struggled with a lack of clear leadership and an inability to craft an alternative political narrative that could capture the imagination of voters. It recently pivoted to an agenda of social and economic justice, but this strategy has not yet been tested at the ballot box.
Last July, the Congress and 25 smaller parties formed the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance, aka INDIA, a big-tent coalition to pool their vote shares and create a stronger challenger to Modi and the BJP. However, the alliance has failed to cohere, and some regional parties have defected to the BJP’s alliance. Moreover, while seat-sharing arrangements had been agreed upon in some states, key regional parties have decided to contest their strongholds on their own, defeating the alliance’s purpose. The Congress and its partners remain far behind the BJP in the polls; they are not fighting to win the upcoming elections but rather to preserve their respective geographic power bases and limit Modi’s majority.
Modi has indicated he wants an expanded parliamentary majority – what does he aim to achieve in a potential third term?
Modi has said he aims to win 370 seats in the lower house of parliament, up from 303 at present. He is seeking a strong mandate to push through legislative changes – some of which are unpopular or challenge vested interests – that he believes are necessary to bolster economic growth. He wants to simplify the tax code and advance reforms on land, labor, agriculture, education, health, and electricity – which require the support of the states. A new Modi-led government would also continue efforts to upgrade infrastructure, including roads, railways, and airports.
Separately, Modi would seek to end India’s religion-based civil laws governing marriage and other issues and subsume them into a single uniform civil code – a process that has already begun at the state level.
Is Modi expected to serve just one more term? Is there a succession plan? What legacy does he want to leave behind?
It’s anybody’s guess whether another five-year term would be the last for Modi, who is 73 years old. He wants to leave behind a legacy of cementing India’s middle-income country status, raising its international stature, and correcting what the BJP believes are institutional biases against India’s Hindu population.
It does seem clear, however, that the BJP will face a succession problem when Modi steps down. The polls indicate that one in three people who vote for the BJP do so because they like Modi, not the BJP. As a result, the party might want Modi to contest the next elections in 2029 and then step down after that. While Amit Shah, the home minister, seems to be Modi’s preferred successor, he would probably face a leadership challenge from Yogi Adityanath, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, and possibly from Himanta Biswa Sarma, the chief minister of Assam.
Edited by Jonathan House, Senior Editor at Eurasia Group
Split the difference: Johnson to push separate bills for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan
For months, we’ve all wondered how US House Speaker Mike Johson was going to square this circle: The Biden administration, most Democrats, and much of the GOP establishment want more aid for Israel and Ukraine, while hardliners in Johnson’s own Republican Party, led by Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, say foreign wars aren’t America’s business and that border security is more important.
Now we know. The Louisiana Republican plans to break that unsquarable circle into a handful of little strips (this metaphor ends here, we promise) – crafting country-specific aid bills for Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan.
The move may skirt a right-wing rebellion in Congress, but it’s a rebuke to the White House, which had called for Johnson to simply take up a version of a bipartisan Senate bill from February, which earmarked $95 billion for Israel and Ukraine.
Johnson thinks he can get the split-up bills passed as soon as this week, but we’re watching to see if his separate-but-equal strategy provokes a backlash from Democrats, whose support he needs to bring these new bills to a vote in the Senate.
Ukraine and Russia war over energy
UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron visited Washington on Tuesday to lobby for greater material US support for Ukraine, and Congress is likely to provide a package that includes help for Ukraine by the end of the month, according to analysis from Eurasia Group, our parent company.
The war, meanwhile, has settled into a grim exchange of attacks that are unlikely to speed an end to the fighting, but which target energy supplies. Russia continues to launch missiles against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, and it has reportedly begun to prioritize targets like hydroelectric and thermal power stations outside Kyiv and other major cities that are less well-defended.
In response to the Russian barrage, the EU has announced that help is on the way. Austria, Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands have offered 157 power generators as part of the EU Civil Protection Mechanism, and the EU itself has deployed 10 large-capacity power generators from its own stockpiles.
For its part, Ukrainian drones have repeatedly struck oil refineries deep inside Russian territory since the beginning of the year, and Russian air defenses haven’t yet found a way to defend against them.
Congress keeps it old school
Last June, the House of Representatives banned staff use of ChatGPT — the free version at least. Now, it’s telling staffers that use of Microsoft’s Copilot, a tool built on the same large language model as ChatGPT, is also prohibited.
“The Microsoft Copilot application has been deemed by the Office of Cybersecurity to be a risk to users due to the threat of leaking House data to non-House approved cloud services,” House Chief Administrative Officer Catherine Szpindorwrote in a guidance distributed to congressional offices. In response, Microsoft said it’s working on a government-specific version of the product with greater data security set to release later this year.
The Departments of Energy, Veterans Affairs, and Agriculture have also taken steps to ban generative AI tools in recent months. So has the Social Security Administration. Governments need to be able to make sure that allowing such systems into their workplaces, interacting with sensitive or even classified data, won’t lead to that information leaking to a broader commercial or consumer user base.Is Ukraine funding on the House’s horizon?
After stalling a vote for months, House Speaker Mike Johnson hinted Sunday that he may introduce a new Ukraine aid package when Congress returns next week.
The new package would be structured as a loan rather than a grant, an idea former President Donald Trump has supported in the past. Johnson needs Trump’s approval to keep the MAGA contingency of the House on board.
He also proposed funding the bill using the $300 billion of Russian assets frozen in the West. However, most of the assets are tied up in Europe, where leaders are concerned the move would shock the markets.
Johnson is considering making the bill conditional on President Joe Biden redacting an executive order pausing new liquified natural gas exports. Johnson justified linking LNG to Ukraine aid as a way of defunding Russia, which makes big bucks selling energy.
Although these additions are meant to placate GOP hardliners, calling for a vote could still cost him his gavel. Marjorie Taylor Greene filed a motion to remove him in March, but she stopped short of calling it for a floor vote. Some Democrats have indicated they would support Johnson if there is a vote to remove him.
Meanwhile, as Congress approaches its sixth month of squabbling, President Volodymyr Zelensky warned Congress on Thursday that if US aid doesn’t come soon, Ukraine “will go back, retreat, step by step.”
House passes spending bill, prompting far-right revolt
Congress continues to be a source of seemingly nonstop political drama as lawmakers on Friday again scrambled to keep the US government’s lights on. The House of Representatives passed a $1.2 trillion spending bill hours ahead of a midnight deadline to avert a partial government shutdown.
The bill now moves to the Senate, where its passage could be held up if even one senator objects. This could push a vote into Saturday and trigger a partial shutdown, though the impact wouldn’t be major if the bill is passed before the end of the weekend.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and President Joe Biden have both urged the Senate to pass it quickly.
Meanwhile, GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) on Friday filed a motion to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson — just months after he got the top job in the lower chamber — over the spending package. But Greene, who accused Johnson of helping pass a “Democratic budget,” isn’t pushing for a hasty vote on the matter, stating, “It's more of a warning.”
"I'm not saying that it won't happen in two weeks or it won't happen in a month or who knows when, but I am saying the clock has started," Greene said. "It's time for our conference to choose a new speaker."