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Haley games the GOP’s future
After conceding Trump’s win and leaving the race, she chose not to endorse him. Instead, she announced, it’s the presumptive GOP nominee who has work to do. “It is now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him, and I hope he does that," she said. “This is now his time for choosing.” So far, Trump has responded only by mocking the failures of her campaign.
In the fall, when party unity will be crucial for Trump’s success, how will Haley calculate her odds for future success? Will she fall in line to endorse him, as nearly all Trump’s rivals and GOP sometime-critics, including outgoing GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell, have done? Or will she position herself as the one still-politically viable Republican who called him to account for his personal and political failings?
We, and Trump, will be watching.
Trump continues to lead the GOP charge
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi, everybody. Ian Bremmer here and a Quick Take to kick off your week. Thought I'd talk about the US election. I try not to do that every week because it would get really boring.
It is, of course, the longest and most expensive and most dysfunctional of any major democracy. And would we have it any other way in the United States? Trump, of course, is getting closer and closer to the nomination on the Republican side. It is all over except for the fact that Nikki Haley does not want to drop out. She is still in it. Her arguments are that everybody should get a chance to vote and that she would be much more likely to win in the general election against Joe Biden.
All of those things are true. But as we all know, that's not the way the US electoral system works. She can't win a single state. She can't come close. South Carolina, her home state, where not just Republicans that are registered, but others can actually vote. So an open primary and she still lost by 20 points, could have lost by more. It was a respectable showing, considering just how popular Trump is. But she's got no shot. And she lost her funding just now from the Koch network, which is a big deal. When they stood up and said that they wanted to give a lot of money to Haley, they understand that they're not going to throw good money after bad.
And so that's done. And she's not likely to be able to stay in very long if she's going to lose significant funding, because she needs to be relevant in terms of the airwaves and get her message out there. She has said that she is not thinking about what's going to happen after Super Tuesday, which is almost certainly not true. But what else is she supposed to say for as long as she's in the race? I think when she loses the slate on Super Tuesday, she's going to be in a lot of trouble.
On the Biden side, no one is really running against Biden. Williamson dropped out, but most people didn't know she was in. Dean Phillips hasn't dropped out. Most people don't really know he's in. But very interestingly and coming up real soon in Michigan, where you have five and a half percent of the electorate, Arab American, and they are deeply, deeply unhappy with the fact that Biden has been so strongly supportive of Israel in the ongoing war in Gaza. And there is a significant campaign in Michigan not to support Biden, but to write in that they don't have anybody that they're in favor of. And if that proves significant, that is absolutely going to hurt the president. It's one of many things that are not going particularly well for him as we think about his effort to secure a second go at the presidency come November.
But the more relevant point in the near term is what happens in the GOP. How does Trump secure the nomination and is everyone behind him or does he lose a significant piece of Republicans? On that front, I think he gets everybody. I've seen so many people that privately have said that they were never Trump six months ago, even three months ago, people that were supporting Chris Christie, high level folks in the Republican Party that are now saying, “well, he's going to be the nominee, he's probably going to be president because they want a Republican to be president. And so we're going to get behind him.” I've seen that with John Thune just come out, the number two on the Republican side in the Senate. Tim Scott, of course, a serious adult, serious conservative who has decided he's going to be as full throated, as supportive Trump is humanly possible. A lot of the billionaires are in that camp. Koch, of course, is going to be there. But also we've seen that with Jamie Dimon coming out of Davos and so many of all of these people that have been privately saying we can't stand the guy, we want anyone but him. But since that isn't going to prove worthwhile or possible, we're going to get behind Trump.
And this is the biggest issue for democracy, he has huge amounts of support in the Republican Party, he has the money that will be behind him. But he also refuses to accept the outcome of a free and fair democratic election. That is fundamental. There's nothing that's more essential to the functioning of a democracy than being able to hold an election that people believe in and transferring power to an opponent if you lose. That fundamental assumption of democracy is something that Trump as strongly disagrees with as anything in his body and showed that off in 2020 and will show that off again in 2024 if it goes against him or if it threatens to go against him.
And the fact that is not close to the issue that exercises all of these people that privately say they can't stand this guy but will get with him, shows that they are not particularly worried about the nature of eroding US democracy. And that reality should be a top concern of American allies around the world. It should be a top hope of American adversaries looking to take advantage of American weakness around the world. It creates and injects a huge amount of chaos into the global system. The most powerful country in the world today is also the one that is least confident about the intrinsic value of its political system, doesn't really know what it stands for, and is going to continue to erode its institutions legitimacy and the strength of its institutions without particular guardrails, at least as far as this electoral cycle goes.
And that is true, frankly, no matter whether Trump or Biden wins. And again, I feel that Trump is clearly unfit for the job and it's not a matter of anything other than what I just said. And I felt that way when he was a Democrat. This has nothing to do with his political party. It certainly has nothing to do with his ideology because Trump isn't fundamentally ideological except in support of his narcissism. But the fact that even under four years of Biden, that the political institutions in the US has have continued to erode, that you continue to have stronger and stronger distance between what is seen as basic facts and belief among Democrats and Republicans. The fact that the United States is becoming more politically tribal and dysfunctional says that Trump is a symptom, a deep symptom, and a strong symptom of something that is profoundly broken in the US system. Something I've talked about for a while.
I'll talk about more going forward, but it does make us very concerned about where 2024 is going. It's why the US versus itself was our number one risk back at the beginning of this year and by a long margin, given the impact of what that means for the rest of the world, while we continue to focus on it all the way through.
That's it for me and I'll talk to you all real soon.
Republicans rally to protect IVF
After Alabama’s Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos should be legally considered children this week, lawmakers are scrambling to pass legislation to protect in vitro fertilization.
The ruling only applies to the three families who brought the initial lawsuit, but its wording has many medical professionals worried it could be used against them. Three major fertility clinics halted IVF treatments in the state this week.
While all of Alabama’s Supreme Court justices are Republican, many politicians in their party are trying to distance themselves from the ruling and take action to counteract it. Republican legislators, who have a super-majority in Alabama, are considering introducing a bill to protect the treatment. Donald Trump has condemned the ruling and is urging Alabama’s GOP to protect IVF.
Does this mean the GOP is pro-choice now? No, we wouldn’t go that far.
The Alabama ruling has highlighted the schism among Republicans who believe life begins at conception and those who want to protect reproductive services. Republicans are also realizing that reproductive restrictions rally Democrats, and extreme positions like this one are gifts to their opponents ahead of the 2024 election.
Democrats win back George Santos’ House seat
Democrats prevailed in New York’s snowy special election on Tuesday, narrowing the GOP’s razor-thin House majority and boosting Joe Biden's party ahead of the November presidential election.
Their candidate Tom Suozzi, a mainstay in Long Island politics, defeated the Republicans by firing up an angry base following the fiascos of disgraced former Republican Rep. George Santos. After voting for Biden in 2020, the district has voted red ever since. Regaining the seat gives Democrats some much-needed good news as Biden suffers from lackluster polling numbers.
For Republicans, the loss narrows their House majority to 219-213, limiting the breathing room their unruly House coalition will have to pass legislation.
Suozzi's campaign focused on immigration, Israel, inflation, and abortion. It remains to be seen how the district vote broke down, but it’s clear Suozzi’s moderate reputation, his push for stricter immigration rules, and a boatload of national and grassroots funding helped him win the day.
Why Republicans hold Biden accountable for border problems
President Truman famously had a sign on his Oval Office desk that read: "The buck stops here." Indiana Republican Congresswoman Victoria Spartz believes that truth holds when it comes to President Biden and US immigration dysfunction as well.
"I will lay responsibility on President Biden because he is in charge," Spartz tells Ian Bremmer in an interview for GZERO World. "He's a top executive president. Trump is campaigning to be president, so I'll judge him if he is a president, I think he will likely might be."
Ian interviewed House members on both sides of the political aisle for this episode, and Spartz, a Ukrainian immigrant who supports increased US aid to her home country, is not surprised that the bipartisan border deal could not deliver it.
Watch full episode here: The US border at a tipping point
Catch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week online and on US public television. Check local listings.
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If Ukraine loses, US troops could be fighting Russians, warns Rep. Zoe Lofgren
It's a reality that many still find hard to imagine: American troops fighting Russian troops in Europe. But according to California Congresswoman and Immigration subcommittee member Zoe Lofgren, it's a reality we may be facing if we don't continue to support Ukraine.
"Just a short time ago I talked to a Republican House member, and we discussed the lack of Ukraine funding and agreed that if we don't do something that Russia will be emboldened" Lofgren tells Ian Bremmer in the latest episode of GZERO World. "And ultimately we will have American troops fighting Russian troops in Europe. That's pretty dire. We all see it. And yet we're not getting the funding necessary. They're running out of ammunition."Whether or not Congress can get its act together in time to help Ukraine is still very much uncertain. But in the meantime, the US/Mexico border will remain dysfunctional, and one of America's closest allies in Europe will keep fighting to maintain its own borders as well.
Watch full episode here: The US border at a tipping point
Catch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week online and on US public television. Check local listings.
NATO has a Trump problem
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi, everybody. Ian Bremmer here. And a Quick Take to kick off your week. Could be so much to talk about. I say kick off. So you think it's Super Bowl, but no, no, I'm not going there. Don't. I mean, I care, but not after the game's over. Then I'm kind of done. It's exciting that way. I love sports. I get very excited and then over immediately.
Let's move on to NATO and lots of hair on fire because former President Trump, about to become the Republican nominee, could easily be president again, says that recounting a conversation he had with a leading European leader. (I suspect he's talking about Angela Merkel and Germany.) And that if they refused to pay, that he wouldn't be interested in defending them Indeed, he would tell the Russians they could do whatever the hell they wanted to countries that refused to pay for their own self-defense. And predictably, this got Europeans very agitated. The NATO' secretary-general, the European Council president, both saying this is only good for Putin. It weakens the alliance with Trump saying that and especially saying that publicly and the Europeans are indeed, almost all the Europeans are panicked about what might happen if Trump were to become president in 2025.
And I think these are all real points and deserve to be responded to. I do think it's important to look at the other side of the equation. At the same time, which is, should there be consequences for American allies that are unwilling to prioritize their own self-defense? And by the way, when I say consequences, I don't mean that the Russians should be able to invade them.
But should there be any consequences or should they just continue to be perfect NATO allies in good standing because the de facto policy of the United States appears to be, “well, otherwise, yeah, tell them they need to pay more, but we're not going to do anything if they don't. ” And that also doesn't seem reasonable. That seems like a policy that is guaranteed to alienate the Americans and lead to a much weaker NATO. In fact, if you are a country that is not spending on your own self-defense for years and years, that also is a strong signal to Vladimir Putin. That also is a very weak signal to the future of the NATO alliance. But unfortunately, that message is never sent by the president of the European Council or by the leaders of the countries that don't care about spending on their own defense.
I mean, the Canadians, for example, spend less than 1.3% of GDP on defense. That's roughly exactly what they were spending in the nineties. Why? Because they don't think they need to they don't think it really matters. The Germans, the Italians, the Spaniards. I mean, most of the large economies other than the United States significantly underspend on defense. They don't have adequate troop readiness, they don't have adequate military capabilities, never mind to provide support for Ukraine or other countries that might need it that aren't NATO members, but even to adequately defend themselves.
And that's a serious problem. It's been going on for decades, in part because of a belief that there was a peace dividend, that there weren't going to be wars anymore in Europe, so they didn't really care about NATO and “let the Americans spend if they want to, but we don't have to.” And that's unacceptable as well, especially when the Russians invade Ukraine. Now, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a lot of countries took it more seriously. That's why Finland has joined NATO, that's why Sweden is about to join NATO. Certainly the front line countries are much more worried and they spend a lot more. But those countries that are free riding in the back, they don't care as much. And clearly the right answer is somewhere in between.
It is that for years and years the Americans need to say that if you don't spend or else, and that all else needs to be consequential, needs to have you know, we won't have as many military exercises with you or we're not going to share the same level of intelligence or we're not going to provide as advanced military equipment. And if you do that and make it matter, then those countries are much more likely to do something like actually take you more seriously than if they know you have no fist in your glove. Now, there is a broader question, which is whether a President Trump actually wants the Europeans to spend 2% and then he'll be happy and committed, or whether he believes that NATO is just a drag on the United States. It’s a multilateral group.
It's a commitment with countries that the Americans would rather not be committed to, that Trump thinks it's a fool's game and would rather leave. There are those that have worked with Trump that feel that way. Former National Security Adviser John Bolton certainly thinks that has articulated that that is Trump's actual private view. Hard to know, hard to know. Will say that Trump feels much more comfortable with allies like the Saudis, for example. And you'll remember that he traveled there before we traveled to European countries or to Canada, in part because the Saudis not just short term transactionally, but longer term are committed to US defense. But also recognize that they need to spend and that there is a very ongoing mutual back scratching between the two countries. And the fact that the Saudis don't share American values is a very little interest to Trump, in part because the United States frequently doesn't live up to those values. And certainly Trump doesn't care very much about them. And that the Europeans, in being committed to multilateralism and rule of law, which Trump isn't as interested in, but also more willing to use that to help, you know, sort of strengthen an alliance system that has values as a component of it, is something that Trump thinks the Americans get taken advantage of with.
Now, again, where you land on that spectrum, I think differs radically on, you know, how old you are, your historic world view of the Cold War, for example, where your country is geographically. You know what your immediate threat environment is like, also how you feel about the United States. I mean, as an American, do you think the US has been good for you or do you feel like you've been screwed by the United States? I mean, if you've got kids that went to war in Afghanistan or even the second war in Iraq and didn't come back, came back with PTSD, and the Veterans Administration didn't take adequate care of you, and you don't think the war was fought justly or for principles that you believe in, you probably feel very differently about what the US should and shouldn't be doing in terms of other military alliances than you do say, my dad, who fought in Korea or others that were World War II veterans, certainly, or those in the United States that didn't fight for anything, but nonetheless feel like the American system did pretty well for them.
And it's that latter problem. It's the fact that so many Americans today don't feel like their political system is legitimate, don't feel like the American dream applies to them, don't feel the class mobility, don't trust their leaders or their institutions across the board. That I think is creating so much space for populists in the United States to say, why are we doing for other countries? Trump's other statement that we saw over the last few days, we shouldn't give any foreign aid. It should all be loans. And if you don't behave in ways that we like going forward, that we should take those loans away and we should make you pay it back. And he didn't say that only applies to the Europeans. From his perspective, that would apply to Israel, that would apply to the Japanese. That would apply to Mexico, Canada, he doesn't care. It's America first. And more Americans will feel that way if they think that their country hasn't taken care of, doesn't take care of them or their kids. I don't feel that way. I'd like to live in a United States, it’s the richest country in the world, and we have much more ability to do more for others. And long term, I think that plays to our advantage.
But I absolutely understand why many Americans no longer feel that way. And I think it's a shame. And I think we need to take responsibility to do something about that if we want a different outcome.
So that's it for me for today. I hope everyone's doing well and I'll talk to you all real soon.
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- As Russia balks, NATO might gain two strong Nordic recruits ›
- The Graphic Truth: How NATO absorbed its old foes ›
- Munich Security Conference 2024: What to expect - GZERO Media ›
- NATO unity will hold no matter the US election, says Norwegian PM - GZERO Media ›
The US border crisis at a tipping point
How do you solve a problem like the US southern border? If that question makes you hum a certain Sound of Music song, just know that it's more pleasant than whatever has been floating through the minds of the hundreds of members of the US Congress. Because if there was ever a week of dysfunction on Capitol Hill, this was it. Congress failed to advance, or even entertain, a bipartisan US border deal, which also included much-needed funding to Ukraine. Why? Because of a man who is not even in government now, but very well might be back again soon: Former President Donald Trump. To unpack why the border crisis is getting worse instead of better, Ian Bremmer speaks with lawmakers on opposing sides of the aisle in Capitol Hill.
"We have an urgent need for funding for Ukraine," California Democratic Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren says in an interview for GZERO World.. "I mean, urgent...I look at some of my colleagues, and it's like the communist wing of the Republican party. They're ditching Taiwan to China, ditching Ukraine to the Russians. I mean, it's really unbelievable."
Republican Congresswoman and Ukrainian immigrant Victoria Spartz, however, defended why she wouldn't support a border deal in the current form. "I don't think that this piece of legislation really addresses the important issues and strategies that we have to deal with. I don't think it's really addresses in our border situation. It's just kind of lipstick on a pig."
Catch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week online and on US public television. Check local listings.
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