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Trump-Musk rift over Trump's "big, beautiful bill"
On Ian Bremmer’s World In 60 Seconds: Ian breaks down the rift between President Trump and Elon Musk over Trump’s “big beautiful bill”, Mexico’s democratic backslide, and South Korea's new leadership.
Ian's takeaways:
On Trump-Musk feud: “I think Elon is mad at a bunch of stuff right now. And as we know, he's not exactly stable in how he puts his views out as he has them.”
On Mexico’s judicial reform: “It’s really bad for democracy… and leads to a lot more corruption.”
On South Korea’s new leadership: “He (Lee Jae-myung) says he wants to govern as a centrist, but I suspect he’s going to govern more to the left.”
Elise Stefanik speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference on February 22, 2025.
New York governor race bursts into life
The New York governor’s election might be over a year away, but the Republican primary race is already heating up as one ambitious, ex-moderate, pro-Trump New Yorker faces another.
Split the difference. In today’s GOP, even the moderates in the party are staunchly behind President Donald Trump. Both Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), two top candidates weighing a New York governor run, were moderates when they were elected to the US House – former President Joe Biden even tacitly endorsed Lawler in 2023. The tables have since turned.
Speaking of the United Nations. Trump had picked Stefanik to be the US ambassador to the United Nations, a position that Nikki Haley had during the president’s first term. The Adirondacks congresswoman had even begun her farewell tour, but the president pulled her nomination amid concerns about losing seats in special House elections. Trump has now plucked National Security Adviser Michael Waltz to hold the role.
Who’s out in front? Stefanik, the House Republican Conference chair, leads Lawler by a country mile in the primary, 44%-7%, per an internal poll from the GOP-aligned firm GrayHouse. Still, it is early, and 44% of those surveyed were undecided. Stefanik, who has served in the House for over a decade, has built a far greater following than the Hudson Valley congressman, who is only starting his third year in office, so it’s no surprise that she has a cavernous head start.
A win-win. Stefanik may be taking a risk by relinquishing her leadership position in the House to run statewide in a liberal-leaning state, but her predecessor showed that she can taste some victory even in defeat. Lee Zeldin, the GOP governor nominee in 2022, lost the race by just six points, and his performance was credited with helping to lift candidates down the ballot. Now, Zeldin is a member of Trump’s Cabinet, leading the Environmental Protection Agency.
Dems seek Hochul’s head. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’sapproval ratings have been in the dumps, which could create a genuine opening for Stefanik to win. Hochul’s first challenge, though, will be getting past the primary: She will likely face challenges from Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado and Rep. Ritchie Torres.
Mark your calendars. Both primaries are likely going to be scheduled for June 23, 2026.
Finding America's most spineless
Who do all these abandoned spines belong to? You tell us... #PUPPETREGIME
Watch more of GZERO's award-winning PUPPET REGIME series!
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., talks with reporters in Russell building after a senate vote on Wednesday, February 19, 2025.
Dems vs GOP: Who Blinks?
House Speaker Mike Johnson is expected to pass a budget bill with only Republican support on Wednesday, sending Senate Democrats an imminent predicament: Either approve a spending bill created solely by the GOP or trigger a shutdown standoff – a strategy they have consistently criticized in the past.
Republicans need at least eight Democratic votes, assuming no additional GOP lawmakers join Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who has committed to voting against the bill.
Democrats in the House have vowed to oppose the bill unless it includes language mandating that the Trump administration can’t cut the funds they allocate, and favor their alternative bill extending funding at current levels for four weeks instead – giving lawmakers time to craft a bipartisan funding package. However, a few Dems in the Senate may be willing to side with Republicans. Democratic Sen. John Fetterman,for example, has already committed to backing the bill.
The bill would extend government funding at current levels for seven months while adding $6 billion for defense funding and cutting $13 billion from nondefense spending. While that means some nondefense programs will be cut, it’s not expected to touch Medicaid or Social Security, or to be used as a means for Congress to hop on the DOGE train and start drastically downsizing the government. Those larger budget battles aren’t likely until the fall, when Congress needs to set a budget for next year.
Speaker of the US House of Representatives Mike Johnson (Republican of Louisiana) speaks on the importance he sees in the Laken Riley Act.
Republicans’ beachside budget battles
House Republicans are snowbirding from Washington, DC, to Florida’s Miami area this week for their annual policy retreat where they have to figure out how to fund a laundry list of legislative promises before the 2026 midterms.
“The goal is going to be to try to forge a consensus among the Republican factions – with the complication that [Speaker Mike] Johnson basically can't lose any Republican votes,” says Eurasia Group’s US expert Noah Daponte-Smith. Both House and Senate Republicans will need to agree on an identical funding package for it to sidestep a Democratic filibuster and be passed with a simple Republican majority.
But before they can do that, House Republicans need to figure out what’s going to be in the budget and what will be cut, a process that is expected to deepen the divides within the GOP.
Right now, Donald Trump has laid out a list of priorities costing $10 trillion over 10 years. Some of these issues could go in a separate, harder-to-pass bipartisan funding bill that will be negotiated with Democrats over the next two months. The highest priorities for the reconciliation bill will be energy, border security, and tax policy.
What are the sticking points? The far-right Freedom Caucus is expected to demand deep spending cuts, especially with the necessary debt ceiling increase looming. But determining which mandatory and discretionary programs to slash is contentious. Policy-wise, legislators differ on whether to raise or eliminate state and local tax deductions – an issue that Daponte-Smith says blue-state Republicans could end up holding the funding bill hostage over.
How Biden’s presidency will be remembered
Jon Lieber, Eurasia Group's head of research and managing director for the firm's coverage of United States political and policy developments, shares his perspective on US politics from Washington, DC.
This is what we're watching in US Politics this week: One question that's going to be debated for a long time in the coming years is what is President Biden's legacy? I think there are a couple of things that he's going to be remembered for.
The first is the extraordinarily chaotic global environment over which he presided. Republicans will tie this back to the shambolic withdrawal from Afghanistan that President Biden presided over. But following that, you had the Russian invasion in Ukraine and the events of October 7th in the Middle East that led to the ongoing war there that is just now starting to look like it's settling down. But this is clearly going to be one of the background themes of any assessments of President Biden's legacy.
Biden's now one of four one-term presidents in the last 50 years, and one of the reasons that he lost was of course inflation. And inflation, you could argue was fueled by the pandemic or you could argue it was fueled by early actions taken by the Biden administration to spend a lot of money, perhaps more money than was necessary. But either way, the inflationary story of 2021 and 2022 is going to be remembered as one of his key legacies and one of the reasons that he lost reelection. Now that loss to Donald Trump, allowing probably one of the more controversial presidents in certainly recent American history, to come back into office and mount an unprecedented political comeback is also going to be part of Biden's legacy. Because of the fact that he decided that he was able to run even at his advanced age, that blocked out the Democrats from having an opportunity to hold a primary and then forced the Democrats to change horses midstream and move over to Kamala Harris in the middle of the election cycle, who of course lost to Trump. That is also going to be part of his legacy.
And it's unclear. Biden thinks, says it publicly, he could have won election if he just stayed in. He's 82 years old. He'd be the oldest president ever if he did, and there's obvious decline in his faculties over the course of the year. But more importantly, the American people really started to lose confidence in Biden as time went on this year. So not at all clear that he would've won that election or that any other Democrat could have won that election if there were a primary process. But his sticking around and the White House staff and other Democratic operatives that covered for the age-related decline that he was experiencing is also going to be a part of President Biden's election.
Probably one of the more consequential things I think he's going to end up having done over the longer term is increasing the US confrontation with China, particularly over technology policy. The world is at a critical juncture when it comes to the advanced semiconductors and artificial intelligence. And the wall that the Biden administration has been trying to erect around Chinese access to US advanced technologies is going to have ripple effects and repercussions for years to come. The Trump administration's likely to continue a lot of that, and this could potentially be an inflection point in 10 years time as we look back and look at the two different tech ecosystems that are being built out. A lot of that legacy is going to trace back to the Biden administration.
So that's a pretty complex, mixed legacy. The US doesn't have lot of one-term presidents in recent history. Most one-term presidents aren't remembered that fondly. Presidents like George H.W. Bush look a lot better in the long distance of history, whereas President Jimmy Carter who recently passed away still has a bit of a mixed legacy. And that's probably where Biden's going to end up.
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What Trump’s cabinet picks reveal so far
Jon Lieber, Eurasia Group's head of research and managing director for the firm's coverage of United States political and policy developments, shares his perspective on US politics from Washington, DC.
This is what we're watching in US politics this week: It's Trump's transition, of course. Lots of activity happening over the course of the week with some unexpected developments, including a lot of very unusual cabinet appointees. Sean Duffy at Department of Transportation, former "Real World" star and congressman, who has very little experience with transportation other than presumably driving a car, and of course, competing on the "Real World/Road Rules Challenge" is going to be in charge of the transportation department.
Other picks like Pete Hegseth have been a little more controversial. The former Army National Guard member and Fox News host has been accused of sexual assault. Not a great look for the incoming Secretary of Defense. But he's nowhere near as controversial as the recently withdrawn pick, Matt Gaetz, the firebrand Congressman from Florida who resigned his seat in order to become Trump's attorney general, and then found out that no Republican wanted him in that job.
Gaetz's withdrawal will allow some of the more controversial attention to be focused on people like RFK Jr. as the Secretary of Health and Human Services, somebody with a long career in the nonprofit management space, but no experience in public administration and who's been extremely critical of the US's Public Health Administration, including on toxins in foods, additives in foods, vaccines, and the approval process for them. And he's tapped into a strain of anger among Republicans at the public health apparatus that they say failed to protect the public during the COVID-19 epidemic, pointing to inconsistent and sometimes unnecessary masking guidelines. Things like social distancing, keeping the schools closed, and of course the vaccine recommendations that a lot of Republicans rejected during that pandemic. RFK's confirmation odds, however, look pretty good if you look at the relatively warm reception that he's been received with by most Republicans.
One area that's still totally in doubt for the most part is Trump's economic team. It's been two weeks since the election, there's no treasury of the secretary, there's no USTR. There is a commerce secretary pick, another Trump ally who has no experience in public administration, Howard Lutnick, a lot like Wilbur Ross in the first administration, but potentially leaving Trump's trade czar, Robert Lighthizer, without any clear role. So there's a lot more clarity on the national security side than there is on the economic side for now. That may change over the weekend. And of course, the one thing with President Trump is you could always expect the unexpected.
Trump's America: How MAGA came out on top
On this episode of GZERO World, Ian Bremmer unpacks the implications of Donald Trump’s decisive election win, marking his historic return to office and the GOP's comprehensive control over government (assuming they hold onto the House). Despite polls suggesting a razor-close election, Trump won with strong support across critical swing states, including Pennsylvania, where voter shifts were significant even in traditionally Democratic strongholds like Philadelphia. Bremmer discusses Nov 5 and its wide range of implications with Vanderbilt historian Nicole Hemmer and Wall Street Journal correspondent Molly Ball. How did Trump’s return signal a change election? How much of it was driven by voters' discontent with inflation and immigration, and how much was simply the appeal of a populist alternative to the status quo.
The conversation highlights Trump’s longstanding opposition to globalism and his strategy to reshape America’s place on the world stage. With the GOP controlling the presidency, Senate, and likely the House, Trump's second term could bring sweeping policy changes, including a push to consolidate executive power and reduce judicial and institutional independence. Reflecting on the stakes, Molly Ball comments, “If there are not those barriers before him, what is he willing to do? What norms and traditions, not to say laws, is he willing to violate in order to pursue his goals?” Hemmer adds, “The erosion of representative democracy…has accelerated over the past 10 years,” emphasizing the risks of unchecked power. They also examine the Democratic Party’s struggle to resonate with working-class voters across racial lines and its internal debate over progressive versus centrist policies. With both parties facing pressure, there remains an enduring tension between America's democratic ideals and the growing appetite for anti-establishment reform.
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