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“Politics ought to be boring”: Tom Nichols on Biden’s first 100 days
For international relations expert Tom Nichols, the best way to have a non-divisive US presidency is to elect a president who's "kind of boring." That's what Joe Biden has delivered so far, a stark contrast to the high drama of the previous administration, and deeply unsettling for the GOP. Ian Bremmer's interview with Nichols on the latest episode of GZERO World begins airing on US public television Friday, April 30. Check local listings.
Grading President Biden's first 100 days; 2020 US Census helps Sun Belt states
Get insights on the latest news in US politics from Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington:
How would you grade President Biden's performance in his first 100 days?
Well, Biden's done pretty well in this first 100 days. He's done a good job on what's the number one most important issue facing his administration and that's the coronavirus response. He hit his goal of 100 million vaccinations within the first month or so of his administration. And they increased that to 200 million vaccinations, which they hit on day 92. So that's a pretty successful start. They inherited a lot of that from President Trump to be fair. Operation Warp Speed set the US up for success and Biden delivered after he came into office. And of course, the second thing is his COVID relief package, which the US has taken advantage of a favorable funding environment to borrow trillions of dollars and get them into the hands of American small businesses and families and has really helped the economy through what has been a very bad year but could have been a lot worse if the government hadn't intervened. The bill has been very popular, and it set the stage for a follow on bill that Biden wants to deliver for big priorities for democrats later this year, potentially as much as $4 trillion in spending.
Less good are kind of the external challenges that he's been facing. He changed his mind on his refugee policy. He's got a major problem with a flood of immigrants at the southern border. That's really unsolvable. And there's been a rash of high-profile shootings that it's going to be really, really hard for the federal government to do anything about because of polarization and the lack of 60 votes in the Senate. So overall, I think you've got to give them a solid A, A- for his first 100 days and now is probably the time when it starts getting tougher as he starts planning even bigger long-term things.
Who are the winners and losers from the 2020 US census results?
Well, there's been a population shift over the last 10 years from kind of declining Rust Belt states to booming Sun Belt states. And you saw states like Texas, Arizona, Florida gain seats, but not as many as expected. Texas was thought to get three, but they only got two. California lost a seat for the first time ever. And because of this, you're going to see a steady shift of power to these southern Sun Belt states, which are largely controlled by Republicans who will, again, as they did in 2010, have the advantage in the redistricting process that will determine who controls Congress, gives them an edge up in the 2022 midterm elections, and really puts the Democrats' are already very thin majority in peril.
Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace on the chances for bipartisanship in Congress
Freshman Republican Representative Nancy Mace has only been in Congress for a few weeks, but she already has big plans. "It's my hope, because I've been such a strong voice, a new voice for the Republican party over the last few weeks, that I can use some of that capital to find ways to work together. And I think that there are small ways that we can make a big difference in this country for everybody." The South Carolina former businesswoman spoke to Ian Bremmer on GZERO World in the days leading up to a Senate impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump. This episode of GZERO World also features an interview with Senate Democrat Chris Murphy of Connecticut.
Quick Take: US stimulus, vaccine rollout, & Russian cyber espionage
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take:
Hi, everybody. It's Christmas week. God, we need it. Great to see you and a little quick take to kick us off this last full week of 2020, getting through on fumes this most, most challenging year. First, obviously happy to finally see a deal come through almost a trillion dollars in relief that is desperately needed in the United States. People complaining that $600 checks aren't going to do very much. And I agree, it's kind of pathetic, especially in the context of what other advanced industrial democracies have been doing for their working populations around the world, but it's better than zero, which is where we were.
Look, my annoyance with all of this is that a trillion-dollar deal was doable three months ago, six months ago. The Republicans in power refused to make it larger when larger was necessary and doable. The Democrats, not in power, were unwilling to compromise or capitulate. And if you're in a weaker position, you need to be willing to bend more. As a consequence of both sides playing politics logically to improve their positions in the run-up to the election, the people that get screwed are the American voters, and particularly those that aren't doing well right now.
And that concerns me, especially because come January, assuming the Democrats don't take both seats in Georgia in the Senate, and it's possible they do, in which case you'll see a lot more stimulus, but if it doesn't, I think it's more the same. And that means you're going to have a working class in the US that's going to be in worse shape, in terms of trajectory, than in most of Western Europe, than in Canada, than in Japan. And for the wealthiest country in the world, the United States, with the markets just chugging along and the top 10% doing very well indeed, that's just not acceptable. And that, that kind of annoys me. So yeah, it's better than nothing, but it's not where we want to be.
Also, in terms of vaccines, we're seeing the rollout. I've seen an awful lot of criticism about all of these members of Congress that are getting their vaccines. I have no problem with the idea that for continuity of government purposes, that political leaders across the board, in the White House, top management in cabinet and in key departments, as well as all members of Congress, House and Senate should have access to the vaccine in the first tranche. I have no problem with that.
But I think leadership, if you are in one of those positions and clearly not vulnerable to the disease yourself, in other words, you're not old, you don't have pre-existing conditions, leadership is saying, "Everyone should take this vaccine. I'm waiting until my demographic comes up," which by the way is what the CEO of Pfizer did. And obviously he could have had a vaccine as soon as it was approved. He chose not to. That's leadership. And I don't like the idea that Marco Rubio or AOC or others have decided not to.
Now, by the way, I actually blame the Republicans more on this, not all Republicans, but those specifically that were unwilling to get tested when they should have, weren't wearing masks when they should have, it shows more hypocrisy. But what I want is not just an absence of hypocrisy, I want leadership and leadership is when you're out front leading by example. And I don't see very much of that in the United States right now on either of these points. I hate to bang on this, but here we are in the teeth of the worst crisis of our lifetimes and the United States is both the most economically unequal and also the most politically divided, and that's really not where you want to be.
The Russia hack is something that, as we learn more, continues to get worse. The technological sophistication that the Russians have in terms of cyber is very great indeed. Russia is not a country doing very well overall. They're nowhere in terms of private sector technology and artificial intelligence, the Americans and Chinese are both light-years ahead of them. Their major sources of strength and wealth are fossil fuels, which are going away, and conventional weapons and nuclear weapons capabilities, which the Chinese aren't investing much in, and that should tell you something about the future. But on cyber, the Russians have invested, and they are truly capable, and they are deploying that against the United States. The Americans are, of course, deploying that against the Russians as well. And the fact that we both engage in that kind of espionage against each other makes the world more dangerous, but also has to make you a little bit more cautious in terms of calling for, "We've got to hit them back. This is war."
It's not war. It would be war if the Americans were trying to actually break the critical infrastructure as they attack it, which is what they did, of course, in Ukraine with the NotPetya virus a few years ago, and which then actually extended well beyond Ukraine and caused billions and billions of dollars of damage. No, this is espionage. This is an intelligence operation. But the Americans need to invest in better defense. And the Americans also need to do a better job of degrading Russian capabilities. And in both cases, I suspect we'd not been quite where we want to be in the US. And that plus a risk acceptance on the part of the Russian government, where they feel like very little is going to be done to respond to them, whether it is their conventional activities in places like Syria or Ukraine, or even Belarus, or it's their cyber capabilities against the Americans against NATO, against American allies, that clearly makes Russia more of a risk than you'd like it to be.
China is still by far the most capable competitor of the United States and is growing in that capacity over time. Russia's capacity to undermine the global order is actually decreasing over time, but they're angry about it, and they blame the United States. And in the near term, that actually makes them a greater risk factor than you would otherwise expect.
So that's a little bit of where I'm thinking right now. Hope everyone is good. Hope you have a great Christmas this week. Be safe, avoid people. Talk to you soon.
Trump's chances of proving election interference are over
Jon Lieber, who leads Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington, offers insights on US politics:
Is Trump out of options now that William Barr said the DOJ found no election interference?
Trump's problem isn't William Barr not finding election interference, it's that he lost the election and he lost it by millions of votes, and he lost it in the most important key states by tens of thousands of votes. Now, this was a very close election. The three closest states, Wisconsin, Georgia, and Arizona, Trump only lost by 44,000 votes so far, and if he'd ended up winning those three, we'd have an Electoral College tie. But the election was not close enough that Trump's strategy of trying to kick this to the courts and then getting it to go all the way to the Congress, with an alternate slate of electors, it just wasn't possible. Had the election been a little closer, he might've had a shot. But as it is, his chances are over. Joe Biden's going to be inaugurated on January 20th.
Will Biden's new economic team be able to make progress on a COVID stimulus plan?
This is really out of the hands of Biden's economic team, and it's all about what Congress wants to do. We've seen a lot of progress this week, starting with a bipartisan proposal that came out of the Senate, that a bunch of House members quickly signed up for that forced Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer to come down from their $2 trillion number much closer to the compromised $900 billion number. Now the ball is in President Trump's court. If he wants to get a deal, he can send signals to Senate Republicans that he wants to move closer to that $900 billion number. And if no deal gets done, they always have the fallback position of simply extending some of the expiring provisions of the Cares Act into January or February of next year so they can come back and fight another day.
Reports that Trump discussed pardons with his three eldest children begs for an important question, what about Tiffany?
Well, poor Tiffany has always been the forgotten daughter, but I think the reality is these reports are pretty ridiculous. There's no clear crimes that any of the children have been accused of, and where this came from was a conspiracy theory by Sean Hannity that the Biden administration would retaliate against President Trump once he was out of office by going after his adult children. Unfortunately, in order to pardon them in advance, which the President could certainly do, he would need to be pardoning them of an accusation of a specific crime, and in the absence of that, there is no pardon that's available. What probably is going to happen though between now and the end of Donald Trump's term is that the President's going to use his very broad power to commute sentences and part of people to forgive high profile accused criminals, people in his political orbit, and people that are being pushed to him by lawyers like Alan Dershowitz, who's representing a known accused criminal, trying to get a pardon. The President could also commute or pardon people who are in jail for low-level drug offenses, which is something that he did over the summer and he used it to his political benefit. Watch for this to happen if the President truly wants to run again in 2024. He may think there's a new base of voters of convicted felons who are free who love Donald Trump now.
Why US COVID relief package progress is unlikely before January
Jon Lieber, who leads Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington, offers insights on US politics:
With 250,000 Americans dead of COVID and case counts rising, is there any sign of a federal relief package on the way?
And the answer is a solid maybe. The interesting thing is even after the election, neither party has really changed their views on what they want in a stimulus. The Democrats are still holding to their $2.5 trillion number, and the Republicans are saying they want something much smaller and more targeted. President Trump is nowhere to be found in these discussions. He's busy litigating the outcome of an election he lost. Vice President Biden, the incoming President on January 20th, has indicated he basically supports the Democrat's position. He can probably be the deal breaker here. If he wants to tell the Democrats to come down with their number, that could potentially drive compromise with the Republicans. Negotiations haven't really gone anywhere though in the last six months, and I'd frankly be surprised at this point if we saw relief before the fifth January runoff election in Georgia, which will determine control of the Senate.
Why is everyone so mad at California Governor Gavin Newsom?
Well, the problem is, Gavin Newsom's having a hard time following his own rules. There's restrictions in place across California, mask mandates, curfews, lockdowns are happening, and the Governor went and celebrated a birthday party for a friend at a $450 a meal restaurant in Napa Valley. So, I think there's a lot of people saying that he's not exactly leading by example. Similar criticism was levied against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi this week for hosting a large dinner for incoming freshmen congressmen inside, that was later to converted to a to-go meal after some blow back on Twitter. So, there's a problem here, where many Americans are stuck inside, are being told to stay at home, are being told to cancel Thanksgiving, and political leaders aren't following their own rules.