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US President Donald J. Trump signs executive orders in the Cabinet Room of the White House on March 25, 2025.
GZERO Explains: How Trump’s executive order could impact millions of voters
US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday that aims to secure elections by requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote. The order aims to guard against illegal immigrants voting in elections and would require all ballots to be received by Election Day.
The conundrum: The order has a strict list of ways to prove citizenship. So, while it will guard elections against illegitimate voting, it will also stop a lot of legitimate voters from casting ballots.
How does the executive order affect voter registration? Voters will have to provide proof of citizenship and valid photo identification. For most Americans, this will mean a passport or a combo of a Real ID-compliant license and a birth certificate. It also aims to eliminate online voter registration.
Who might this affect? About 140 million Americans do not have a valid passport. To put that into perspective, 153 million people voted in the 2024 presidential election. And close to 69 million women who have changed their names would have difficulty providing matching documents.
Is this enforceable? One provision of the order grants the Department of Government Efficiency, aka DOGE, the authority, with assistance from the Department of Homeland Security, to issue subpoenas to states for reviewing voter rolls to ensure compliance with federal laws. It also says that failure to comply could lead to a loss of federal funding.
But this is unlikely to fly with the courts. The US Constitution is crystal clear that Congress and the states have jurisdiction when it comes to creating election laws. This is likely to be thrown out by the courts. However, legislation called the SAVE Act was passed by the House on April 10 and contains the same provisions as the executive order, and would make them law if it is passed through the Senate.
But requiring proof of citizenship has been a goal for Republicans for a long time. So, even if the executive order is blocked nationwide, it will likely mean many GOP-led states and counties adopt rigid citizenship requirements anyway.
Are non-citizens voting? Despite levels of illegal immigration rising in the US over the last decade, audits by state officials and political scientists have concluded that it is still rare. A 2022 Georgia investigation found that there were 1,634 incidents of noncitizens potentially attempting to register to vote between 1997 and 2022, but 1,319, or 80.7% of them, happened after 2016. But, and this is important, in none of the cases was the person allowed to vote.
Are the payoffs worth it? Kansas implemented similar strict voting rules requiring proof of citizenship in 2013 in response to its Secretary of State saying that it found 129 non-citizens to have voted or tried to vote since 2000. While that accounted for 0.0007 of the state’s voters, the new rules ended up preventing more than 31,000 eligible US citizens from registering to vote after it was enacted – accounting for 12% of all first-time voter registration attempts in Kansas that year.
After voters elected her to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, liberal candidate Judge Susan Crawford celebrates with Wisconsin Supreme Court Judge Ann Walsh Bradley at her election night headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin, on April 1, 2025.
Republicans expand House majority, but Musk’s man suffers in Wisconsin
What was all the fuss for? Republican Randy Finecruised to a 14-point victory over Democrat Josh Weil in Tuesday’s special election for Florida’s 6th Congressional District, quashing the quixotic liberal dream of flipping a seat that US President Donald Trump won by 30 points in the 2024 presidential election. Combined with Jimmy Patronis’ Tuesday triumph in Florida’s 1st District, the GOP increased their House majority to 220-213 — heady days for US Speaker Mike Johnson.
The Fine print. Republicans will be relieved that Fine pulled through, but the margin of his victory may worry them. Fine’s supporters outspent pro-Weil groups on ads by a four-to-one ratio, amid concerns that the seat could be in play. Yet the Democrat still cut the victory margin in half, compared to where it was just five months ago. In the 1st District, Patronis also won by just 14 points — a paltry showing in an area that more closely resembles Alabama than parts of Florida.
Musk misfires. Despite plowing $25 million into the race, Elon Musk couldn’t help conservative candidate Brad Schimel over the line in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election yesterday, as liberal candidate Susan Crawford cruised to a 10-point victory. The result ensures that liberals maintain their 4-3 majority on the court with a suite of court hearings upcoming on abortion access, district maps, and collective bargaining.
“There is an unelected billionaire who should not and will not have a greater voice than the working people of Wisconsin,” former Vice President Kamala Harris said last night, a pointed remark against Musk.
The Tesla CEO wasn’t the only one who spent big on the race, as Crawford’s campaign committee raised $17 million as of March 17 and helped to make it the most expensive judicial election in US history. The greater concern for Musk isn’t the loss of cash — he has plenty left in the bank — but rather the political repercussions. Crawford and her supporters relentlessly attacked Trump’s right-hand man in their ads, and the bet paid off. Republicans’ private grumblings about the tech entrepreneur might just start to get louder.National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), the then-nominee for US ambassador to the UN, during a Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025.
Chain reaction: Why Trump pulled Stefanik’s UN nomination
Rep. Elise Stefanik’s (R-NY) hopes of moving to the Big Apple have been dashed after US President Donald Trump asked her to withdraw her candidacy for ambassador to the United Nations.
“As we advance our America First Agenda, it is essential that we maintain EVERY Republican Seat in Congress,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Thursday, admitting the political nature of his decision. When asked about her withdrawal, Stefanik told Fox News, “I have been proud to be a team player.”
Margin call: With four vacancies in the House, Republicans only have a 218-213 majority in the lower chamber, meaning they can only afford to lose three votes anytime they want to pass legislation. Trump fears that, if Stefanik moved to the UN, Republicans could lose the special election to fill her seat.
Bad signal: It’s not Stefanik’s seat that Trump is worried about right now, but rather Florida’s 6th Congressional District, formerly represented by none other than National Security Adviser and Signal-chat-scandal creatorMichael Waltz. There’s a special election there on Tuesday, and the president’s team is concerned that the well-funded Democratic candidate, Josh Weil, could defeat the underfunded Republican candidate, Randy Fine, even though Trump won the Daytona Beach district by 30 percentage points in the 2024 presidential election.
Eye on the poll: An internal Republican poll from March has Weil leading Fine 44% to 41%, according to a source familiar with the race, with 10% undecided. The poll was conducted by Fabrizio Ward, the same firm that worked for Trump’s campaign, and isn’t yet public. The February iteration of this poll found Weil trailing Fine by 12 points.
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.
Global leaders scramble to align with Trump
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: A Quick Take to kick off your week. A lot more information about where the Trump administration is going in terms of the appointees that they're making and also, the responses that we see from leaders around the world. Maybe focus a little on the global, because if you think that Republicans who privately don't really like Trump are publicly all lining up and saying, "This is God's gift," you've seen nothing compared to what you're going to see from allies of the United States all over the world who know that they get crosswise with the president-elect at their own peril. He is a lot more powerful, and his country is a lot more powerful than their own. We've already seen that with Prime Minister Netanyahu in Israel saying that an upcoming Lebanon ceasefire would be a gift to the president-elect. We've seen Zelenskyy in Ukraine saying, "Great meetings, great phone calls."
Of course, the war is going to be over faster with the policies of the incoming president-elect. We're seeing all sorts of outreach from individual European leaders, Asian leaders saying, "We can't wait to find a way to work with this guy. Congratulations. Please don't tariff us. Please don't cause any problems for our country." So, I do think we're going to see a lot of wins in the near term from countries all around the world because the alternative is problematic. And when you look at the G7, the G20, NATO, it is different from last time around in a few ways. First of all, that you now have a number of countries that are ideologically aligned with Trump, and there's going to be more in the near term. I mean, Giorgia Meloni, who is the most popular of G7 leaders, assertively, is someone who sees herself much closer to Trump's worldview in terms of immigration policy, social policy, even to a degree economic policy. And that is going to make him feel much more comfortable when he's sitting at those summits. That wasn't the case first G7 Summit he attended last time around.
Canada, still Justin Trudeau, but won't be for long and soon Canada's going to be Pierre Poilievre who runs the Conservative Party and is absolutely much more aligned with Trump and be a very close friend of the US President-elect when he becomes Prime Minister of Canada. Of course, you've got the Gulf states on board with Trump. You've got the Israelis much more aligned with him than otherwise. The South Korean leader, President Yoon, a conservative, taking up golf again so that he'll be able to play with Trump effectively and wants to be the new Shinzo Abe from Asia in terms of being able to maintain stable relations. That's one reason. The second reason is that there's a lot more at stake. The world is much more dangerous. Getting Trump wrong is a lot more costly when you've got a major war going on in Europe, a major war going on in the Middle East, when the US-China relations are in a worse place, but China's under much more economic pressure at home than they were before. So getting it wrong is trouble.
And so already seeing outreach from the Chinese to the United States saying, "Look, here are some things that might be the beginnings of a deal. We could buy more US treasuries. We could maybe organize a Ukraine conference. We could buy a bunch more American goods. What do we need to do? What do we need to do?" So I'm not saying it's going to go well, but clearly there is more such orientation. And then you have the fact that Trump is more powerful at home in the United States. He has the House, he has the Senate, and he's creating far more loyalists around him as opposed to adults that are more independent in his own cabinet. Which means that if you are a foreign leader, your ability to work around Trump with other parts of the US political firmament is very constrained. And all of that implies that whatever it is that Trump decides he wants to do going forward is going to be what other leaders are going to have to engage with and align with.
There are big problems from a Trump administration coming in. He's not interested in multilateralism. He doesn't want a strong European Union. He's prepared to end the Russia-Ukraine war, even at terms that are problematic for the Ukrainians. Has very little interest in promoting rule of law or democracy internationally. In fact, one of the most interesting things about Trump and the United States for right now is that for almost half a century, the US has been trying to get the Chinese to orient more towards an American worldview. This is what the idea of responsible stakeholdership was, that China was meant to play more of a leadership role in US-led multilateral institutions, promote US-led rule of law and values on the global stage, and become more aligned with the Americans and its allies over time as it got wealthier. Turns out China hasn't done that, but America has. The United States is becoming more like China on the global stage, much more transactional in their foreign policy, indifferent to the values of other countries or the political systems and economic system of other countries on the global stage.
Certainly not interested in the global promotion of democracy or even rule of law, and rather bilateral relations between the US and other countries where the US is more powerful to get the outcomes that they want. Exactly the way that Chinese engage globally. It has been successful for China in many places because they're more powerful than most of the other countries they deal with except the Americans. They've had challenges in Southeast Asia, for example, because the US has led a more multilateral approach on things like the South China Sea. Doubt you're going to see as much of that under Trump. So a very dramatic change in how we think about the world, and we'll be watching very closely as Trump continues to fill out his cabinet and starts talking much more with global leaders on the global stage.
That's it for me and I'll talk to you all real soon.
Trump's plans for policy & personnel
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: A Quick Take to kick off your week. Everyone, of course, talking about the incoming Trump administration. What it's going to mean in terms of personnel and in terms of policy. The latter, more important, but informed very significantly by the former. Couple of things I would say.
First of all, on the personnel side, clearly most important point here and very different from the first administration is that loyalty matters immensely. Trump is angriest not at Democrats, angriest at people that used to work for him who have now flipped, who are calling him a fascist. Some of the worst things that have been said about Trump in the first administration came from senior people that he put in that weren't loyal. They may have been long-term establishment Republicans and adults, but now he couldn't be bothered with them in the slightest and wants them to know it.
And that's why nobody really expected, that was talking to the Trump team, that Pompeo or Haley were going to be appointed. But the fact that Trump came out immediately before even making other appointments to a cabinet and saying, "No, you two, thanks, but no thanks. You can go get on with the rest of your lives." Because he sees them as not loyal. Nikki said all sorts of horrible things about Trump, and Pompeo was feeling around with other candidates and didn't endorse until way too late. And Trump was angry about that at the time, and he holds that grudge.
So you're going to see a team that I think is much more consolidated around Trump. And that doesn't mean there won't be different constellations, groups of people that are more aligned with each other, but when Trump has something he wants done, everyone's going to run alongside him.
And I think that's true for JD Vance too. The idea that there's going to be a shadow cabinet that is run by Vance, and he's the Project 2025 guy. No, if that happens, Trump will be angry. If there's any large meeting internally, Trump wants to be the star. And he expects Vance to do his bidding and to be effective at it and to run other things that he doesn't care as much about. And that is, I think, the role that Vance will play.
Is it going to be more populist on some issues? Sure, but not necessarily on as many as you'd think. Why? Because there are going to be a lot of billionaires who are interested in their business interests, their investment interests around the Trump team. There will be CEOs. There'll be a lot of people that aren't globalists in name; they've been thoroughly repudiated, but globalists in more policy than you would think.
Now here, China policy is extremely interesting because on the one hand, Trump really wants to see higher tariffs on China and has talked about that. Robert Lighthizer, who was US trade rep for Trump last time around, very professional, very capable in that role, clearly playing a very significant role in running trade and maybe other things economically for Trump this time around. He is pushing for more jobs in the United States, more investment in the United States, decoupling from China. Very comfortable with a new Cold War between the US and China.
You know who isn't? Elon Musk. Has massive investments on the ground in China, wants a more comfortable relationship there, and has basically told the Chinese that he's very interested in helping to be an interlocutor. Kissinger is dead. And the one person who's out there that could be a conduit of information and potentially better relations between the two most powerful countries in the world is Elon. Will he be effective? A technology policy is kind of interesting because Trump first time around didn't do technology policy. Remember the CHIPS Act? That was Biden. Semiconductors, export controls, that was Biden. Wasn't something Trump was focused on. He was focused on trade, on the trade deficit, on tariffs, on those issues, intellectual property theft, those issues. Not as focused on technology. Elon will be, and he's going to want people he wants to be appointed in relevant positions in the Trump administration. So if that happens, maybe it's true that US-China relations become more functional than they otherwise might've been. But this is an untested proposition, something very interesting to watch.
A couple other places that are really important, Russia-Ukraine. Did Trump, did Trump not have a conversation already with Putin? Kremlin's saying no, that means absolutely nothing. But clearly he is very interested in pushing Zelensky, who is on the back foot militarily right now, to end this war. And the likelihood of a near-term ceasefire has gone way up because of Trump. Orbán of course, already been saying that from Hungary. Robert Fico from Slovakia wasn't saying that before Trump was elected. Now he is. Are we going to see that from Giorgia Meloni in Italy, for example, who's ideologically disposed to Trump, but has been much more anti-Russia in her policies? Watch that very, very carefully. Other countries that aren't on the front lines.
So it's going to be a lot of pressure on the Ukrainians, an opportunity for Putin, if he wants it, though he's doing well militarily, so he's going to probably drive a harder bargain on even a short-term ceasefire than he might have three months ago, six months ago. And he knows Trump wants to get this done. And then we need to see what the Europeans do. Do they hang together under a relatively strong and aligned European Union leadership, or do we start to see a real split among a whole bunch of European individual government leaders that are a lot weaker? Super interesting.
And then of course, you have the Middle East. And on the Middle East policies are even stronger than Biden's pro-Israel policies. And you've seen a lot of support for going after Iran. Might the Israelis now do that? Oil prices are low. China's not demanding much energy. Hitting the Iranians nuclear and energy capabilities wouldn't bring oil as high as they would've been 6 months ago, 12 months ago. Depends on what the Iranians do in response, how disruptive they want to be. But right now they're reaching out to everyone. The Europeans, the Iranians are reaching out to the Saudis. They just did some low level military exercises with the Saudis. This is a country that is basically saying, "We don't want a big fight. We know that we're going to lose if we have one." Easy time for Trump to press in the Middle East. Last time he was president, first place he went was Saudi Arabia, then Israel. Wouldn't surprise me at all if he does that again. Though he probably flips it this time around in terms of the order.
Okay, so much to talk about, so much to watch. I hope you find this interesting. We'll be on top of it and we'll talk to you all real soon.
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Ian Bremmer on Trump’s win
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: A Quick Take to kick off your post-election morning. And Trump is back as president. Should not be a shock to people. Certainly, was not to us. Anyone looking at elections around the world this year has seen incumbents underperform. We saw that in the United Kingdom. We saw it across Europe in the EU parliamentary elections. As well as in Germany, in France, everywhere, Austria, you name it, Portugal, in Japan in the last couple of weeks, in India, in South Africa. Soon in Canada, as Trudeau will be forced out and very likely Conservative Party leader, Pierre Poilievre will be the next Canadian prime minister.
So, this was an election that Harris had a significantly uphill battle. That's not usually the case with incumbents, but it is in this cycle. Why? Inflation. And yes, inflation numbers were coming down, but from a high baseline. And anyone in power is seen as responsible for that. You're vice president, you don't get to say it was somebody else. I think the numbers coming down are still from a high baseline. Those prices aren't coming down. You're still paying them. Immigration, and more recently, immigration numbers also illegally coming down, but from a high level. And the illegal immigrants in the United States are still here. And a lot of those that were in red states have also moved or were moved to blue states. And that certainly had an impact. I saw that Trump did better in New York City, my own city, than he had ever before by a large margin. He didn't win, but he got a lot. He was over 30%.
And why is that? Well, because a lot of New Yorkers aren't happy about those things, not so different from the rest of the country. And so, inflation, immigration and disinformation. Disinformation because the country is not having a single conversation about policy. It's having two very different political conversations and you are in your bubble. So, there were very, very few votes that were actually up for grabs. It was more a question of who you could get out, who you could turn out. If there's a surprise, it's that women did not turn out in droves despite the abortion issue, despite the fact that there was a woman on the ticket. And despite the fact that Trump has lots of challenges appealing to women historically. But women overall, white women turned out in favor of Trump.
He also outperformed overall with African-Americans and with Hispanics. And again, this is something that looked pretty clear in earlier polls, but the polls could easily be wrong. And the biggest poll that was wrong, of course, was that Iowa outlier, which wasn't just wrong, it was spectacularly wrong. And I don't know what they got wrong with the methodology, but there you have it. So, that is the point, Trump will be coming back. As of right now, as of I'm taping this, Kamala Harris has not yet conceded, but I have literally no doubt in my mind that she will. That is essential. It's important for the country that everyone agrees on who actually won the election.
There wasn't a lot of uncertainty around the balloting process itself. I've said that before. The US has a gold standard in terms of the way it conducts its elections. That is the case here. There was a lot more effort at disinformation, most notably all of these bomb threats that were called in, particularly in Georgia, in lower income and black polling neighborhoods, that would've hit the Dems but didn't have an impact overall on the election. We'll see whether or not that was Russia that was behind it. I don't think we have any definitive information there. But again, the level of disinformation externally from Russian, from Chinese, from Iranian sources, a nuisance and irritation.
But the problems of the US political system are overwhelmingly domestic problems of the US political system. And that will continue to be the case going forward. Internationally, of course, this is a really big deal because a Trump administration is going to look very different to other countries around the world than a Harris administration would have. I think the biggest question mark out there is for the Europeans. Trump has consistently said that he's going to end this war between Russia and Ukraine in 24 hours. Wouldn't even need to wait until he was president. So, hey, in the next few weeks, it could happen.
Zelensky, Ukrainian President immediately putting out a congratulations to Trump. What a great meeting bilaterally they just had when Zelensky was in the United States, all of that. He has no choice. It's political reality. It's what he needs to do. But when Trump says he wants to end the war, what he means, of course, is that the Ukrainians don't get to keep fighting. The Russians don't get to keep fighting. It means that where the territory lines are right now, that's where they're going to get frozen. And furthermore, that the Trump administration is not going to coordinate with the Europeans. They're going to unilaterally reach out to Zelensky and Putin, and try to dictate those terms.
Might well succeed. It is possible. Zelensky will be under massively greater pressure. But how the Europeans will play that, both with Ukraine themselves as well as inside NATO, inside the European Union. A very big question, a very big problem. Especially as the Europeans who are economically not performing well will also be facing higher tariffs from a Trump administration. Will they align with the United States as they have in the last couple of years? Will they support the United States on China or will they hedge? That's a huge question mark.
The Middle East, there's a war going on right now. Netanyahu just got rid of his Defense Minister. Fired him. He is riding high right now, riding high in terms of internal popularity compared to months ago, in terms of how his war efforts are going in killing the leadership of Hamas, both political and military, as well as major gains with Hezbollah. Netanyahu has a lot of support from Trump. They don't love each other, but they are aligned with each other. And Trump has said he would go harder against Israel's adversaries. He criticized Biden for not giving enough support to the Israelis. Will that embolden Netanyahu to try to take on Iranian nuclear facilities? That's a very interesting question we should watch carefully over the coming weeks.
And then, of course, China, which has an economy that is really underperforming. They're going to feel very defensive right now, reaching out to both people like Robert Lighthizer, who has been pushing hard for more tariffs on all Chinese exports to the US, as well as through third countries. And also reaching out to Elon Musk who's traveled to China, who has a lot of business in China, who's clearly very close to Trump, and who the Chinese will hope is someone they can facilitate an easier, softer relationship with. Will Trump support that? What will that mean for the GOP and Congress, given that you're likely to see a GOP wave across both Senate, clearly they've taken, as well as likely the House at this point. That's also an interesting question. The biggest challenge here is that the backdrop for the Trump administration incoming is a far, far more dangerous world.
Two major wars going on. US, China relations in a more challenging place, though better than they were a year ago. Lots and lots of seriously moving and dangerous pieces geopolitically. And so, in that regard, definitely you would expect that Trump is going to get some wins because he will be the president of the most powerful country in the world. And therefore what he says, countries will listen to more than they would other people when they disagree. But the potential for things to go wrong, if that happens, they'll go much more badly wrong than they did or would have in his first administration.
So, that's where we are. And there's a lot to talk about. Certainly, everything geopolitical is going to be much more uncertain and volatile in the coming months. And I expect to be focused on it closely and chatting with you about it as we go through. That's it for me, and I hope everyone's doing well. Breathe. Very important for people to breathe and I'll talk to you real soon.