Ukraine diplomatic blitz; India debates elections or infections; Italy's presidential "election"; mutineers, militants, and mines in West Africa; and Russia vs crypto
Is the US on track for the August 31st withdrawal from Afghanistan? The House narrowly passed the $3.5 trillion budget plan. What's next for the Democrats? Jon Lieber, Managing Director of the United States for Eurasia Group, shares his insights on the latest news in US politics.
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: This outrageous politics-first approach on COVID response promotes misinformation. Bad domestic actors are perpetrating this on America. People are profiting from this. Social media companies are allowing this disinformation to persist. It is not coming from the Kremlin. We in the US are damaging ourselves far worse than Moscow or Beijing ever could. And that's in the United States.
What surprised Jane Harman, former US Congresswoman (D-CA), most about Joe Biden's presidency? "Number one, he's much more hands-on as a leader than I fully understood. It's coming out now how he runs his meetings and what he does. But number two, and I love this, he's really enjoying the job."
Biden's foreign policy strategy starts with restoring alliances, promoting democracy, and making the world safer, prioritizing issues that connect what the US does abroad to concerns at home, says Jane Harman, who served nine terms as a US Democratic Congresswoman from California. She explains that the Biden administration's approach is "to take the foreign out of foreign policy."
Jane Harman, a nine-term member of Congress (D-CA) who served for decades on the major security committees in the House of Representatives, discusses the shortcomings of the US national security strategy for the last few decades, and assesses the Biden administration's plans to strengthen it. In an interview with Ian Bremmer, she discusses the priorities for addressing critical issues at home and abroad, from the COVID pandemic to the climate crisis and terrorism.
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Belarus has engaged in what European leaders are calling state terrorism. Certainly, a hijacking, a level of piracy, with a Ryanair plane through Belarusian airspace. And the Belarusians force the plane down to Minsk because a passenger on the plane is a Belarusian opposition journalist. This is a shocking breach of international law.