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Why Trump really wanted JD Vance as running mate
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
How did JD Vance, who once called Trump “America's Hitler,” become his VP pick?
Well, of course, that isn't exactly what he said. He said that he goes back and forth between thinking that Trump is either a cynical asshole like Richard Nixon, who could actually be good for the country, or he could be America's Hitler. How come no one's actually reporting the actual quote? And it's because the media's freaking horrible is why. And because the algorithms promote stupidity and fake news, and disinformation. But the answer to the question is because Vance is really smart, very aligned with Trump. He's very, let's say, situationally ideological and wants to win, doesn't bring a lot of votes for Trump, but Trump doesn’t think he needs them. Last time around, when Trump was running and picked Mike Pence, he was looking for an establishment figure that would get him more votes and that would make Trump seem more approachable and attractive to a larger group of voters. Trump now thinks he can win the election either way, so he's picking the person he really wants. That's what's going on.
Will the EU reelect Ursula von der Leyen as president?
Almost certainly, yes. There are still questions about where exactly she's getting the votes for. She can't afford to lose a lot of people from the parties that, in principle, support her in a secret ballot. But there aren't good options for her, and everyone I talk to in positions of leadership in the EU thinks that she is a layup there.
Why did Orbán choose to visit Russia and China despite knowing it would upset EU leaders?
Well, mostly because he wants to portray himself and not just in the six-month rotating chair of the European Union, but more broadly as the person who can represent the Chinese and the Russian view, that gives him more leverage, especially if Trump becomes president. That’s why he went to Mar-a-Lago right after NATO, saying, I'm the one in the EU that knows what these people are saying. I'm the person that can connect with you. It's not like he's trying to leave the European Union. He needs their money, but he wants to position himself more strongly and as the outlier, that's the easiest way for him to do it.
That's it for me and I'll talk to you all real soon.
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French far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party leader Marine Le Pen and party President Jordan Bardella address militants listens after French President announced he is calling for new general elections on June 30, during an evening gathering on the final day of the European Parliament election, at the Pavillon Chesnaie du Roy in Paris, on June 9, 2024.
Left in the dust: European voters swing right
Europe took a hard right turn in European Parliament elections this weekend, dealing a substantial blow to key EU leaders German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron, prompting the latter to call early elections.
In France, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party surged to 31.5% support – more than twice as much as Macron’s Renaissance coalition, with 14.5%. Close behind are the Socialists and their lead candidate Raphaël Glucksmann with 14%.
A sober-looking Macron took to French television to dissolve parliament and called for elections on June 30, with a second round on July 7. The outcome of the EU elections, he said, was “not a good result for parties who defend Europe.” This is a gamble for Macron: A similar far-right wave in the French parliamentary election could see his party lose its majority.
In Germany, projections show the far-right Alternative for Germany set to secure second place with 16.5% of the vote, a record high. Support for Scholz’s Social Democratic Party and coalition partner Free Democratic Party declined, securing 14% and 5% of the vote, respectively. And Germany’s Greens took the biggest hit, dropping a whopping 8.5 percentage points to 12%, as cash-strapped voters spurned costly environmental policies.
Coalition time: Post-election, European political parties realign in blocs in the EU Parliament. The largest, the center-right European People’s Party, has recently shifted right on issues of security, climate, and migration, and could swing further to the right if joined by Giorgia Meloni’s far-right Brothers of Italy. Another scenario would see Meloni’s group and other far-right parties such as Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party stay with the more hard-line European Conservatives and Reformists group, or become part of a new hard-right group that could form the wake of the elections. We’ll be watching the horse trading as coalitions take shape.Ursula von der Leyen
Hard Numbers: Aid corridor, Starving in Sudan, Iran the executioner, Uber-vaccinated in Deutschland, Nightmarish sea lizard
230: The government of Cyprus, just 230 miles from Gaza, has proposed the establishment of a one-way maritime corridor to provide uninterrupted aid to Palestinian civilians trapped there. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will travel to the island nation later this week to discuss the plan.
25 million: The World Food Program warns that war in Sudan now threatens the food security of 25 million people in Sudan, South Sudan, and Chad, making it the world’s largest hunger crisis.
834: A new report from the Norway-based Iran Human Rights organization says Iran executed at least 834 people in 2023, the highest total in two decades and a 435 surge from the previous year. Iranian authorities have faced large recent protests over its repressive social policies.
217: According to the Lancet, a medical journal, a 62-year-old German man who voluntarily received 217 coronavirus jabs over 29 months has shown “no signs” of COVID-19 and has not suffered vaccine-related side effects. #SeemsExcessive
26: Scientists have discovered fossils belonging to a "nightmarish" 26-foot-long sea lizard with “dagger-like” teeth that stalked the world’s oceans 66 million years ago. We’re curious whether the inevitable Hollywood blockbuster will be a horror film or an animated musical.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen delivers a speech at BusinessEurope conference in Brussels, Belgium March 5, 2020.
Hard Numbers: Von der Leyen seeks reelection, Israel GDP plummets, Ukrainian troops captured, Something’s smelly in Cape Town, Moïse’s widow indicted
20: Since the start of the war in Gaza, Israel's GDP has plummeted by nearly 20%. The biggest economic hits came from the government calling 300,000 reservists away from their jobs to Gaza, relocating 120,000 Israelis away from the border, and restricting Palestinian West Bank workers from working in the country.
1,000: Up to 1,000 Ukrainian troops appear to have been captured during Russia’s takeover of the east Ukrainian city of Avdiivka. The loss is a sign of military supplies dwindling in the absence of new US funding, damaging morale, and Ukraine’s ability to hold the line.
19,000: After searching for days to locate the source of the “unimaginable stench” that engulfed Cape Town, South African officials finally found the culprit: a ship transporting 19,000 live cattle from Brazil to Iraq. The ship is set to depart soon, but the country is seeing an uptick in livestock bound for the Middle East passing through Cape Town as an alternative to the Red Sea route amid Houthi violence there.
51: Martine Moïse is among 51 people indicted for alleged involvement in the July 2021 assassination of her husband, then-Haitian President Jovenel Moïse. Attorneys for Mrs. Moïse, who was wounded in the attack, denied the charges and questioned the legitimacy of the 122-page indictment, which doesn’t provide evidence of her direct involvement.
FILE PHOTO: Donald Trump dancing during the campaign rally for the Republican primary for the 2024 American presidential election. Manchester (NH), USA, January 20, 2024.
For China, Russia, and Israel, patience is a virtue in 2024
In January, Taiwan elected pro-independence candidate William Lai and, despite warnings, China’s response has been restrained, possibly influenced by Beijing’s belief that the leading US presidential candidate may treat Taiwan like a “discarded chess piece.”
That’s what Chinese Taiwan Affairs Office spokesperson Chen Binhua said would happen if Donald Trump won the US election in November after the former president refused to say whether he would defend Taiwan. His comments shook US ally Japan strongly enough that senior Kishida administration officials are reportedly contacting Trump’s camp to warn against cutting any kind of deal with China.
The view from China: The prospect of a friendlier – or at least more transactional – US administration might be good news for cross-strait relations in the short term. There's no point in rocking the boat in a way that might hurt either Trump’s prospects or what trust Beijing has built with the Biden administration over the last year (Joe Biden, after all, could win too).
Beijing isn’t alone in recognizing that a little patience could pay big dividends after November. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Sunday, Israeli far-right leader Itamar Ben-Gvir said Israel would have carte blanche under Trump 2.0.
“Instead of giving us his full backing, Biden is busy with humanitarian aid and fuel, which goes to Hamas,” he said. “If Trump [were] in power, the US conduct would be completely different.”
The view from the Kremlin is just as rosy. Former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul has been arguing for months that Vladimir Putin is waiting for Trump to be re-elected to sue for peace in Ukraine because of how destabilizing another dose of Trump will be to NATO. Former US Ambassador to NATO Ivo Daaldermade a similar argument last week. And Trump did tell European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, “By the way, NATO is dead, and we will leave, we will quit NATO” in 2020.
GZERO also has its eye on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. He and Trump left it in a bad place after their whirlwind romance in 2018 … but who knows what another love letter might spark?
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
Hard Numbers: Lampedusa landings soar, Aussies rally for indigenous rights, Vatican makes Holocaust admission, Brand accused of rape
8,000: European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen traveled to the island of Lampedusa, which lies halfway between Sicily and Tunisia, after Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called for the EU’s assistance with a wave of small boat arrivals there. Over 8,000 migrants have landed on Lampedusa since Friday. For more on how the immigration debate is dividing European governments, see our explainer here.
20,000: In Brisbane, Australia, 20,000 protestors rallied ahead of an Oct.14 referendum on Indigenous rights. They support measures that would enshrine Indigenous groups in the country’s constitution and set up an advisory body to advance their issues.
1942: A never-before seen letter has revealed that Pope Pius XII knew of the horrors of the Holocaust in 1942, far earlier than previously believed. The letter was released by the Vatican ahead of a major conference on Pius and the Holocaust next month at the Pontifical Gregorian, sponsored by Catholic and Jewish organizations.
6: Ukraine is stepping up its drone attacks. The Russian Defense Ministry says its forces stopped six Ukrainian unmanned craft that were attacking Russian targets in Crimea from different directions on Sunday. On the same day, two Ukrainian drones were shot down near Moscow.
4: Four women have accused British comedian and actor Russell Brand of sexual assaults, including rape, committed between 2006 and 2013. Brand, who has amassed millions of followers by styling himself as an anti-establishment truth teller and wellness guru, has denied all charges, saying they are "a litany of extremely egregious and aggressive attacks as well as some pretty stupid stuff."
EU Commision chief Ursula von der Leyen
Europe’s annual checkup
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen takes the mic on Wednesday for her annual state of the union address.
She’ll look to tout successes in reducing Europe’s dependence on Russian gas, supporting Ukraine, advancing Europe’s transition to clean energy, and boosting semiconductor production on the continent.
But not all is well in the Union. Inflation is stubbornly high, and the economy is sputtering as Germany, the largest member, slips into recession. Moreover, big questions about EU enlargement loom as the Union considers whether to formally invite Ukraine to begin the process of joining.
Is this a campaign speech? Many will hear it that way. The next European Parliament elections will be held in June 2024, and while von der Leyen hasn’t yet thrown her hat in the ring officially, she is widely thought to be considering it.Macron’s Taiwan remarks are a big win for China
Emmanuel Macron is in the news again, and this time it’s not because he’s trying to get French people to work longer.
France’s president set off a firestorm last week after he said Europe should stay out of any conflict between the United States and China over Taiwan and called for Europe to lessen its dependence on the US … at the same time as he was in Beijing trying to increase Europe's dependence on China.
Much like German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s trip to China a few months ago, the purpose of Macron’s three-day visit was two-fold: (1) to urge Chinese President Xi Jinping to help end the war in Ukraine and (2) to deepen commercial ties between Europe and China. Business as usual for a European leader these days.
Macron’s delegation included Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, as well as some 50 business leaders. Xi rolled out the red carpet for the French leader (not so for von der Leyen), complete with a state banquet, a military parade, and a mob of cheering students.
Everything was going swimmingly … until Macron opened his mouth.
“We don’t want to get involved in a bloc vs. bloc logic,” he stated to reporters from Les Echos and Politico aboard a flight between Beijing and Guangzhou. Rather than become a “vassal” of the US, he said, Europe should aim to become a “third superpower” independent of both Beijing and Washington, warning Europeans against getting “caught up in crises that are not ours” such as Taiwan.
Much like his repeated attempts to engage Vladimir Putin riled many in the US and Ukraine, these comments prompted sharp criticism on both sides of the Atlantic.
For starters, openly complaining about excessive dependence on the US and claiming cross-strait stability isn’t a core European interest when Europe relies so heavily on America to address crises like Ukraine, which concerns Europe much more than the US, is hypocritical. As India’s foreign minister said last year: "Europe has to grow out of the mindset that Europe’s problems are the world’s problems but the world’s problems are not Europe’s problems."
To be blunt, if it weren’t for US leadership, intelligence, and weapons, the Russians would be sipping tea in Lviv. Should Europe be powerful enough to stand up to Russia and compete with China on its own? Absolutely. But the “strategic autonomy” Macron has strived for since 2017 can’t simply be talked into existence. It must be earned in the physical world through costly policy changes Europe doesn’t seem able or willing to push through.
Moreover, saying that Europeans should avoid falling in with “the US agenda and a Chinese overreaction” on Taiwan presumes the US will be the aggressor while China will simply be reacting. In reality, a conflict over Taiwan would more likely be precipitated by Beijing’s more aggressive actions to change the island’s status quo by force, against the wishes of the Taiwanese people (who don’t seem to possess any agency in Macron’s worldview).
I can’t imagine any other G7 leader acting the way Macron did, especially in today’s geopolitical environment. The timing couldn’t have been worse, happening just as Beijing was launching military exercises off Taiwan in response to President Tsai Ing-wen’s meeting with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California just days earlier.
And for what? He handed Xi a PR win, failed to extract any concessions or promises on Ukraine, undermined intra-European and trans-Atlantic unity on China, gave fodder to American isolationists like Donald Trump and Sen. Josh Hawley, and weakened Western deterrence of Chinese aggression against Taiwan. But at least we're not talking about his pension reform.
All this is not to say France, an important NATO ally, nuclear power, and permanent UN Security Council member, doesn’t have every right – and plenty of reasons – to express concerns about US leadership. The Biden administration’s handling of the AUKUS submarine snub was an embarrassment and did lasting damage to the bilateral relationship. Trump’s “America First” treatment of US allies no doubt scarred the Elysée Palace, too, sowing the initial seeds of mistrust and prompting Macron to seek out alternatives to a “brain dead” NATO.
But you’d think that Washington’s muscular response to the Russian invasion, which by Macron’s own admission was an “electroshock” for the trans-Atlantic alliance, would have assuaged his fears. Think again. Partly, that’s a logical response to the prospect of another Trump presidency. But in part it’s structural, born of a deep-seated ambivalence toward the US and ambition to be a geopolitical “balancing power” that has characterized French foreign policy since Charles de Gaulle. Plus ça change …
The point is that France should air its grievances – however legitimate – with the United States and fellow allies. Even if he said nothing new, Macron voicing them publicly while in China, given the asymmetry of the US-France relationship, the intensifying strategic competition between Washington and Beijing, and America’s outsized role in Ukraine’s defense, reflects poor judgment.
Whether it leads to a broader rift in the trans-Atlantic alliance is an open question, but two things are clear from this episode.
First, while there is near-total alignment between the US and its allies on the need to decouple economically from Russia, the same cannot be said about decoupling from China. As Beijing has long suspected, economic diplomacy can be a pretty effective way to buy off at least some of Washington’s friends.
Second, China is decisively leaning into the role of global peacemaker, and it is finding lots of takers. Coming on the back of the proposed 12-point framework for peace in Ukraine and the Beijing-brokered détente between the hitherto irreconcilable Iran and Saudi Arabia, the momentum of its diplomatic push is undeniable.
Xi’s got to be feeling pretty good about himself these days.