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A view of the damage caused by wildfires in Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii.
Maui fires fan political flames
With 96 people confirmed dead, more than a thousand still unaccounted for, and an estimated $5.6 billion in rebuilding costs, last week’s Maui wildfires are shaping up to be one of the US’ most devastating natural disasters. The catastrophe may also set the scene for nasty political battles in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election.
Over the weekend, Republican US Rep. Lauren Boebert questioned why President Joe Biden remained on vacation in Delaware, railing on X, formerly known as Twitter, that "There is a total crisis in Maui. 3,000 destroyed homes. 80 people dead. Where's Joe Biden? On vacation of course. There is no bottom for this president.”
The post immediately garnered both bouquets and brickbats. Some equated Biden’s absence with President George W. Bush’s delay in visiting New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina hit there in 2005. Others commented that “the last thing the rescue effort needs is a presidential entourage.” Meanwhile, Democratic Hawaii Gov. Josh Green praised Biden for approving the state’s request for a disaster declaration on Friday.
But the most significant impact may be on public support for Biden’s green energy policies and the fight against climate change. Boebert’s attack came after Biden noted that she, "along with every other Republican,” voted against the Inflation Reduction Act, which Biden recently credited for creating 850 clean energy jobs in Boebert’s own district, in Pueblo, Colo.
Far from being Biden’s Katrina, Maui may drive home the point that Americans ignore climate change at their peril. While Republicans like Florida Gov. and presidential candidate Ron de Santis busy themselves with removing the subject from school curricula, Democrats may simply point to images of a torched Lahaina as evidence that the country cannot wait to take the threat seriously – while claiming that they are the only party that does.US Capitol building.
Poll: American support for Ukraine aid is falling
New polling data has found that the majority of Americans now oppose Congress sending more support for Ukraine. As of mid-July, the US has sent the country upwards of $75 billion in aid.
The CNN/SSRS poll showed that a narrow majority – 55% of Americans – oppose Congress sending more cash to Ukraine, and that half of Americans think the US has already “done enough” to help the country fend off Russian aggression. In the days right after Russia’s February 2022 invasion, by comparison, nearly two-thirds of Americans favored giving more help to Ukraine.
The near 50-50 split in responses falls down partisan lines, with about 60% of Republicans seeing US support as sufficient, while a similar cut of Democrats believe Washington should still do more. A majority of Independents tended toward the Republican view.
Still, when asked separately what kind of assistance the US should provide to Ukraine, two-thirds of Americans favored intelligence support and a slim majority preferred training Ukrainian troops. Only 43% supported more weapons for Kyiv.
These numbers, coupled with grim accounts of Ukraine’s counteroffensive, could complicate President Joe Biden's ability to push Congress to approve more aid, especially since the poll also reported that 53% of Americans disapprove of how Biden has handled the war.
Meanwhile, on the Republican side, many 2024 presidential hopefuls are running campaigns against the US supporting Ukraine. At the Family Leadership Summit – an important Republican campaign event – Tucker Carlson presided over a discussion on candidates’ views on the war, revealing the stark divide between hawkish Republicans, like Mike Pence, who believe it's the US’ duty to support Ukraine, and candidates who are more concerned with domestic issues than funding a foreign war.
Both the leading candidates – former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis – have criticized the amount of aid the US is giving to Ukraine, making it very likely that this becomes the Republican Party stance in the 2024 election – and that Ukraine could lose one of its biggest supporters if the GOP captures the White House.
In the near term, Biden is buoyed by strong Democratic support for the war and is not facing pressure from his party to change course. But this poll suggests that Ukraine aid is likely to become an increasingly contentious issue in Congress.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
What’s driving (some) Republicans to donate to a Democrat?
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been raking in donations from GOP donors since he announced he would be challenging Joe Biden to be the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee. He has also been making headlines for propagating conspiracy theories and refusing to toe the party line.
The most recent controversy came last week, when RFK Jr. was accused of spreading a racist and antisemitic conspiracy theory by suggesting that COVID-19 was “ethnically targeted” to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people. Democrats, including RFK’s sister, Kerry Kennedy, have condemned his remarks, with some calling for him to be disinvited from addressing the House at Thursday’s hearing on censorship.
Who is RFK Jr? The nephew of former President John F. Kennedy and son of JFK’s attorney-general, Bobby Kennedy, RFK Jr has gained notoriety as a prominent vaccine skeptic. His campaign, which has seen poll numbers as high as 20% among Democratic primary voters, aims to limit the influence of corporate money in politics, is against the government’s COVID response and seeks to cut US military aid to Ukraine.
Biden vs. Trump redux: what we know so far
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: A couple of obvious points to begin with US elections. One, of course, they take far too long. Two, they cost far too much money. Three, we are so, so tired of both of those facts because they are such a distraction from being able to get policy done for almost 50% of the entire electoral calendar. Having said all of that, this is a particularly unfortunate upcoming election because we have two candidates that very few people are enthusiastic about. It's Biden versus Trump redux. That's not absolutely certain yet, but you would bet on it. And a couple of points that I think are a little less obvious.
First, whether or not Biden should run again. Everyone is saying, "Oh my God. Can't we get somebody else? He's 80 years old, he's going to be 82 if he wins. That's too old for anyone to be a CEO. Why would we be putting that person in a job that has such incredible importance globally?" And I get it. I absolutely get it. I think it's too old for the position. I'd rather have younger people running. But if you are interested in running the candidate that's most likely to win, do you go with an incumbent president or do you go with somebody else having no idea who that someone else is? And the answer seems to me is reasonably likely you go with the incumbent president. There are huge benefits in the US political system in running as an incumbent. If Biden decides he isn't going to run, Kamala Harris, who is much more unpopular than he is and certainly much more untested, and to the extent that she's tested, she's much more unproven than Biden, would be a weaker candidate, I think almost everyone would agree, than Biden would.
I do think there are better candidates out there. Gretchen Whitmer, for example, the governor of Michigan, Jared Polis, the governor of Colorado. There are others that I don't consider as effective, but nonetheless would be strong candidates like Governor Gavin Newsom of California. There are plenty of others, Gina Raimondo, for example, the secretary of commerce, it would be a pretty wide group, but would they be more effective and more likely to win if they aren't the incumbent president? And there, I think the answer is no, especially because the incumbent president isn't going to be doing a lot of campaigning for whoever that person is, and Biden is not up for that kind of a schedule, intense schedule, whether he's running or it's somebody else. I'm sympathetic to the view that even though Biden has capacity to be present until he is 86, is a serious concern that he might well be the most effective person for the Democrats to run. And especially running a relatively uncontested campaign. When you're running against Kennedy and Williamson, you're basically running an uncontested campaign.
Now, I also think that those people who say that Biden is incoherent and incompetent, that's performative, that's partisan, that is certainly not anyone who has spent time with Biden in conversation as president. I have, many, many people I know have, whether you're talking about members of cabinet or senators or other heads of state, Biden's ability, his mental coherence and cogency to handle the basics of the job and the importance of those meetings and decisions has not, in my view, substantially eroded over the last couple of years. I also do think, though, that there's a real question mark. He has lost a step or two, certainly physically in the last 10 years, and I do worry that this could be an issue over the course of his presidency. So if Biden becomes president a second time and he's going to run with Kamala again, is there a real likelihood that Kamala Harris becomes president? Of course, there is, and that's something that I think is going to be a concern for a lot of certainly independent voters.
Then on the Republican side, Trump is not a slam dunk, but at this point, he's at least a layup. He's a jumper from the free-throw line. He's likely to get the nomination. In part, he's likely because he's running a relatively smarter campaign, he's trying hard to lock up key endorsements early that will crowd out others like DeSantis maybe from even deciding that they're going to run, but certainly makes it more of an uphill struggle. He's raising a lot of money. He's spending that money already in targeted advertisements to go after, to kneecap those that would be potentially the stronger folks in the race.
I think it's likely that he is the nominee. I think he's too old. Though he strikes me as much more physically robust than Biden, I think his unfitness is primarily not about his age, though it's a concern. His unfitness has to do with everything else about the quality of his person, his lack of ethics and morals, and of course, what we have seen from his first term in governance and not his administration, but how he personally has acted in that office. Something that I think would be a concern to a greater degree if he runs again. Now, a lot of people I hear saying, "Well, if Trump gets the presidency again, then he's going to have no one good around him because they will refuse to work with him, and it'll be a completely incompetent administration." I think that's precisely wrong. I think once Trump gets the nomination, almost all of the GOP will line up behind him.
I think Nikki Haley, it's very clear that her run is an effort to become Trump's VP, and if she gets that, she's one of the most capable and competent Republicans out there through when she was governor, when she was UN ambassador. There's no question about that. And do I think that she would be effective as a VP? Frankly, more so than Pence. I think Pompeo would still be there. I think that a shocking number of GOP members, maybe not Chris Christie, maybe not Asa Hutchinson, certainly not Liz Cheney, not Mitt Romney, but the strong majority of Republicans would support Trump, and they would even be willing if they got the right position to join the administration. The bigger danger, I think, is that a Trump administration, having been through four years, will know what they need to do to have much more impact in what they want to get done, not just in terms of policy, which is generally less problematic, but in terms of eroding democracy.
For example, really hollowing out civil service in a lot of administrations that they think are stopping them from doing things they want to do. The brittleness of US institutions after another four years of a Trump administration, I think, would be a lot greater than they were after the first four, where his impact on those institutions as a whole was relatively limited.
What happens? Damned if I know. I'm not going to sit here and tell you I think I have a strong view of who's going to actually win the election. I think we're far off from that. I saw the Washington Post poll like everyone else did, that shows that right now, Trump is actually leading Biden head-to-head. It's the first major poll that showed that. Before, most have showed that Biden would win head-to-head against Trump. I think part of it has to do with how Biden holds up from a health perspective. Part of it has to do with how well the economy looks. Part of it has to do with how Trump is able to campaign. And we've got a long, long way to go with a lot of moving parts and also some fairly substantial global crises that we and others are dealing with on the global stage before people go to the ballot box on November in 2024.
Having said that, a lot of people are going to get really exhausted by this campaign, and I'm sorry for everyone, but we are at the beginning of it, and it's a long slog, and I'll be talking you through. So everyone, be good. I'll talk to you soon. Bye
Bharara: Clarence Thomas' donor trips may not be illegal, but not a good look
US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has come under fire for failing to disclose taking luxury trips paid for by a billionaire Republican donor. How big of a problem is this for him, SCOTUS, and the judiciary?
Preet Preet Bharara, former US attorney for the Southern District of New York, says that Thomas probably didn't violate any actual rule related to conflicts of interest. But the optics are bad — especially coming on the heels of his wife's involvement with the Jan. 6 insurrectionists. "At a time when confidence and trust in the integrity of the court is low, it's not a great thing to do," Bhararara tells Ian Bremmer on GZERO World.
To be sure, there's no evidence that the gifts influenced how Thomas ruled on cases. After all, the ex-prosecutor says he's a "dyed-in-the-wool conservative."
Still, Preet Bharara thinks he should have disclosed the gifts. If he didn't, it's likely because Thomas knew how bad it would look.
Trump's indictment is problematic
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi everybody. Ian Bremmer here, and at least a few comments from me on the Trump indictment. You didn't hear anything from me about this a couple weeks ago. Of course, former President Trump had announced that he was going to get arrested a week ago Tuesday and when I heard that, I thought that that one thing that guaranteed was that he was not going to be arrested a week ago Tuesday, so he didn't really need to talk about it. But then after that passed and nothing happened, he said, "I'm not going to get arrested. They don't have a case. They've thrown away. These guys are idiots." And then I started to get worried. I'm thinking, well, if he's saying it's not going to happen, that means may well. And of course that is where we now are, that for the first time in American history though, this happens all over the world in many other countries, but the US had been exceptional in this regard.
No US president, sitting or former, had been indicted. Can't say that anymore. Now, former President Trump has indeed been indicted and he will surrender and he will show up in New York and he will be fingerprinted and get his mugshot and all of those things that will both excite and infuriate to various degrees, people across the United States.
I will say, first of all, that you should look at the polls to start. What do people in the United States think about this and that should be a cause for concern. Recent, I think it's Quinnipiac Poll showing that well over 90% of Republicans believe that this decision to indict is political, is not on the basis of fair application of rule of law. 70% of Independents believe that. 30% of Democrats believe that. So, it's interesting. This is not just a matter of political divide. It's also that for those that focus on all of the various cases that are being brought, that have been brought against Trump. The matter of Stormy Daniels, this effort to break campaign finance rules and to cover up an affair in the run up to the election, and certainly, I mean, lots and lots of people believe that the case must be solid. In other words, the evidence against him, to be able to proceed with an indictment. But that doesn't mean that they take it seriously. In other words, if this were another political figure, would you bring up this case? Would you indict? Would you consider it a felony? And there, the witch hunt that Trump is talking about, is something that is broadly aligned with by Americans, whether or not they like Trump.
And of course, one of the most important points there is the unifying factor that this has for Trump among Republicans themselves. Republicans, many of whom had been trying to differentiate, distinguish themselves, even criticize the former president, all coming right back and saying, "This is a travesty. It's a breach of justice. How dare they go after Trump in this way?" People, like Mike Pence, for example, who certainly seems to be running for president. People like Governor Ron DeSantis. People like Mike Pompeo. I mean, almost everybody out there was talking to Chris Christie the other day who is very, very critical of former President Trump, but also believes that this is a politicized case and that's a challenge. I think that's a challenge in terms of really dampening any potential for momentum for other erstwhile candidates against Trump on the GOP side.
Trump can still lose the nomination. But if you ask me today, is he more likely to get the nomination than he was yesterday? And he's already well ahead in name recognition and polls across the board of every other candidate, the answer is yeah. You'd probably bet that Trump is going to.
Now, a lot of people out there that can't stand Trump say, "Well, that's great because he's going to be the weaker candidate among Republicans against Biden, and we just want Biden to win."
My response, no matter who you support for the upcoming election, is that the potential for Trump to become president if he gets nomination is real, and he's going to be running against an 82-year-old Biden. And I think that for the safety and stability of the country, as well as the way that the United States is perceived by others across the world, Trump getting the nomination is a assertively a problematic and damaging thing. Any other Republican would be a better and more stabilizing outcome. So, I absolutely think that this is unbalanced problematic.
Now, beyond all of that, the fact that Trump has been indicted means that everyone is going to be talking about him pretty much nonstop over, when we talk about domestic politics, going forward. It really is kind of the beginning of another period of massive divisiveness and abnormality after many were trying to focus more on policy and governance for the last year, year and a half.
I think that also means that other countries around the world will now take much more seriously the possibility that this wasn't just an aberration 2016 to 2020 the United States, but that indeed there's something much deeper and more systematic afoot, which means more hedging behavior for other countries around the world, allies around the world, and that's going to make Biden's job more difficult in terms of foreign policy.
Now, we're talking about this in isolation. We don't even know exactly what these charges are yet, though I don't think that's going to make much of a difference in terms of the voting public in the United States when it comes up. I do think what will make more of a difference is what happens with other cases that are much more significant in their seriousness and their impact in terms of Trump on US democracy.
In particular, the case in Georgia where you have on tape the fact that he wanted Republicans on the ground to find him votes to be able to overturn the outcome. Also, more broadly, the effort by the special investigator in the Department of Justice, around the events of January 6th, as well as to a lesser degree, in terms of impact and importance handling of classified materials.
So, this is by far the weakest, the least serious piece of the cases that are being brought against him. It makes it much easier for him to talk about a witch hunt. It aligns the GOP with him. But of course, it doesn't mean he's out of legal trouble on the other cases. But to the extent that Trump's entire political ascent has been about grievance politics, has been about us versus them, and tribalization of the US political space, not to mention capturing maximum audience attention for everything he does. I actually think perversely, very perversely, that this indictment on the Stormy Daniels case plays to his benefit and not to his disadvantage.
That's where we are politically in the United States right now and that's it for me. I'll talk to you all real soon.
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Indictment boosts Trump GOP standing and strengthens Democrats
Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington, DC shares his perspective on US politics:
Former President Trump has been indicted. Now what?
This week, a jury in Manhattan indicted for former President Trump for allegations related to hush money payments that he made during his presidential campaign to a woman that he allegedly had an affair with. And the question is: what's next? So there's probably two major political fallout implications from this action. The first is that every other Republican in the country, including those running against Donald Trump in the presidential primary, are going to likely take Trump's line, that this is a political persecution, and it's being done by a hostile progressive prosecutor in Manhattan who's against him. And there's no way that Trump can get a fair trial. This probably helps Trump standing inside the Republican Party and could be a major tailwind to push him over the finish line in the Republican nomination.
The second implication is that this is probably pretty good for Democrats. If Trump wins the nomination, then there's going to be a lot of centrist voters and even moderate Republicans who have a hard time holding their nose and voting for him in the 2024 presidential cycle. And if he loses the nomination, then we have this hardcore group of Trump supporters who are fundamentally disaffected by the party and may not show up to vote for him, which could help Biden in his reelection no matter how bad the economy is. Either way, the next 18 to 24 months of this campaign cycle are going to be dominated by this and potentially several other criminal prosecutions against a former president. An unprecedented action in US history.
Biden shifting to center ahead of 2024 reelection bid
Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington, DC shares his perspective on US politics:
How are President Biden's reelection plans affecting his policies?
The 2024 presidential election is already heating up, with the Republican field growing more crowded by the week, and President Joe Biden angling for a reelection campaign, despite speculation about his advanced age. So far, Biden has only drawn one potential primary challenger, 2020 candidate Marianne Williamson, who he can likely ignore. And as of today, it looks very likely that he'll be the Democratic nominee, with an announcement of his campaign coming sometime this spring, perhaps as soon as April. After two years promoting progressive policies like student loan forgiveness and a massive climate and healthcare bill, Biden is now attacking to the center, with pivots to the center in three critical areas: crime, immigration, and spending.
On crime, the President recently announced his support for a Republican effort to block a local District of Columbia Bill, which will mark the first time in over 30 years that Congress overrode a local bill in the capital city. This has angered many of Biden's allies on the left who support independent statehood for DC, but a huge vote in the Senate will demonstrate the fear that Democrats have of being seen as soft on crime.
On immigration, though Biden started off his presidency with the slew of progressive immigration actions that drew praise from Democrats, after two years of rising encounters on the Southern border, and verbal criticism and legal challenges from the Republican Party, the Biden administration is trying to take a more centrist approach to immigration, combining new opportunities for immigration with increased border enforcement, including most controversially reimplementing the practice of detaining asylum seekers, asylum-seeking families, which has led to some outcry from Biden's allies on the left.
Finally, on the budget, Biden is pivoting from arguing that the US needs to be investing in infrastructure and social spending to a plan to control deficits through a combination of tax increases and spending cuts. This effort is mostly designed to make Republican proposals for balancing the budget look unreasonable, but also will allow Biden to stake out centrist territory as a fiscal hawk after spending a lot of money in his first two years.
Policy-wise, 2023 is going to be largely about setting the stage for 2024, as Congress remains gridlocked on most issues and Biden's strong signals that he will be a candidate for President next year, despite his advanced age, will continue to drive his attempts to appeal to the middle, confident that the progressive left will not abandon him because of their acute fear of the one thing that they want least of all; Republican rule.