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U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a swearing-in ceremony of Special Envoy Steve Witkoff in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 6, 2025.
What We’re Watching: Trump talks peace, Pakistan charms China, Romania, Poland and Portugal go to the polls
Trump seeks peace between Ukraine and Russia - again
US President Donald Trump will speak Monday at 10 am EST to Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss “STOPPING THE 'BLOODBATH'” in Russia’s war with Ukraine, as well as “trade.” After that call, Trump will speak with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in the hopes of brokering a 30-day ceasefire.
But is a deal DOA? Ukrainian sources claim that Moscow insists that Ukrainian troops first withdraw from the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, and Luhansk regions of Ukraine, which doesn’t align with Washington’s proposal. Moscow hasn’t commented, but such demands could torpedo a truce before it begins.
A new eastern axis: Pakistan, China…. and Afghanistan?
Pakistan’s Foreign Minister and deputy Prime Minister, Ishaq Dar, is in Beijing Monday to meet with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi "on the evolving regional situation in South Asia and its implications for peace and stability.” The meeting follows April’s violent conflict between Pakistan and India which saw Islamabad deploy Chinese weapons.
Is Kabul now in play? While in China, Dar is reportedly also holding trilateral talks with Afghanistan to discuss "enhanced security cooperation". The three countries all border India, and an alliance could threaten that country’s territorial integrity in the north.Pakistan further claims that its ceasefire with India expired Sunday, raising the possibility of renewed hostilities.
A mixed night for the right in trio of European elections
A centrist takes the crown in Romania, the right makes gains in Portugal, and a run-off awaits in Poland.
In Romania, the centrist mayor of Bucharest, Nicușor Dan, bested hard-right election front-runner George Simion 53.8% to 46.2%. The results won’t please the White House, which had plumped for Simion, but will delight the EU, NATO, and Ukraine, which Romania has supported in its war with Russia.
In Portugal, the center-right Democratic Alliance (AD) won 32% of the vote, improving on last year’s results by 4 points and boosting its number of seats in the Assembly to 89. They remain short of an outright majority, though. It was a dismal night for the opposition Socialist Party (PS), which scored just 23% and lost 20 seats, leaving it with just 58. This means that Chega, a hard-right party, will be the joint-second-largest party in Portugal, after it also won 58 seats. This is by far Chega’s best result in its six-year history.
In Poland, liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowskinarrowly bested conservative historian Karol Nawrocki, 31.4% to 29.5%, in the first round of the presidential election. Trzaskowski would help Prime Minister Donald Tusk reform laws enacted by the former governing party, Law and Justice, while Nawrocki would align with the far right. The two men will now face off in a second-round runoff on June 1.
Syrians set off fireworks during celebrations in Clock Square in the center of Idlib city, after US President Donald Trump's decision to lift sanctions on Syria.
Trump ends Syria sanctions ahead of meeting with new regime
US President Donald Trump announced that he will lift sanctions on Damascus ahead of his meeting with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Wednesday, to help the country “move forward” from its devastating civil war.
Turning a new leaf: Deposed dictator Bashar al-Assad had long been sanctioned for terrorism and human rights abuses. Syria’s new leadership has pushed for those restrictions to end, as they further crippled the Levantine country’s war-ravaged economy.
Why it matters: Trump’s decision paves the way for other Western countries to follow suit.
Biden vs. Trump redux: what we know so far
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: A couple of obvious points to begin with US elections. One, of course, they take far too long. Two, they cost far too much money. Three, we are so, so tired of both of those facts because they are such a distraction from being able to get policy done for almost 50% of the entire electoral calendar. Having said all of that, this is a particularly unfortunate upcoming election because we have two candidates that very few people are enthusiastic about. It's Biden versus Trump redux. That's not absolutely certain yet, but you would bet on it. And a couple of points that I think are a little less obvious.
First, whether or not Biden should run again. Everyone is saying, "Oh my God. Can't we get somebody else? He's 80 years old, he's going to be 82 if he wins. That's too old for anyone to be a CEO. Why would we be putting that person in a job that has such incredible importance globally?" And I get it. I absolutely get it. I think it's too old for the position. I'd rather have younger people running. But if you are interested in running the candidate that's most likely to win, do you go with an incumbent president or do you go with somebody else having no idea who that someone else is? And the answer seems to me is reasonably likely you go with the incumbent president. There are huge benefits in the US political system in running as an incumbent. If Biden decides he isn't going to run, Kamala Harris, who is much more unpopular than he is and certainly much more untested, and to the extent that she's tested, she's much more unproven than Biden, would be a weaker candidate, I think almost everyone would agree, than Biden would.
I do think there are better candidates out there. Gretchen Whitmer, for example, the governor of Michigan, Jared Polis, the governor of Colorado. There are others that I don't consider as effective, but nonetheless would be strong candidates like Governor Gavin Newsom of California. There are plenty of others, Gina Raimondo, for example, the secretary of commerce, it would be a pretty wide group, but would they be more effective and more likely to win if they aren't the incumbent president? And there, I think the answer is no, especially because the incumbent president isn't going to be doing a lot of campaigning for whoever that person is, and Biden is not up for that kind of a schedule, intense schedule, whether he's running or it's somebody else. I'm sympathetic to the view that even though Biden has capacity to be present until he is 86, is a serious concern that he might well be the most effective person for the Democrats to run. And especially running a relatively uncontested campaign. When you're running against Kennedy and Williamson, you're basically running an uncontested campaign.
Now, I also think that those people who say that Biden is incoherent and incompetent, that's performative, that's partisan, that is certainly not anyone who has spent time with Biden in conversation as president. I have, many, many people I know have, whether you're talking about members of cabinet or senators or other heads of state, Biden's ability, his mental coherence and cogency to handle the basics of the job and the importance of those meetings and decisions has not, in my view, substantially eroded over the last couple of years. I also do think, though, that there's a real question mark. He has lost a step or two, certainly physically in the last 10 years, and I do worry that this could be an issue over the course of his presidency. So if Biden becomes president a second time and he's going to run with Kamala again, is there a real likelihood that Kamala Harris becomes president? Of course, there is, and that's something that I think is going to be a concern for a lot of certainly independent voters.
Then on the Republican side, Trump is not a slam dunk, but at this point, he's at least a layup. He's a jumper from the free-throw line. He's likely to get the nomination. In part, he's likely because he's running a relatively smarter campaign, he's trying hard to lock up key endorsements early that will crowd out others like DeSantis maybe from even deciding that they're going to run, but certainly makes it more of an uphill struggle. He's raising a lot of money. He's spending that money already in targeted advertisements to go after, to kneecap those that would be potentially the stronger folks in the race.
I think it's likely that he is the nominee. I think he's too old. Though he strikes me as much more physically robust than Biden, I think his unfitness is primarily not about his age, though it's a concern. His unfitness has to do with everything else about the quality of his person, his lack of ethics and morals, and of course, what we have seen from his first term in governance and not his administration, but how he personally has acted in that office. Something that I think would be a concern to a greater degree if he runs again. Now, a lot of people I hear saying, "Well, if Trump gets the presidency again, then he's going to have no one good around him because they will refuse to work with him, and it'll be a completely incompetent administration." I think that's precisely wrong. I think once Trump gets the nomination, almost all of the GOP will line up behind him.
I think Nikki Haley, it's very clear that her run is an effort to become Trump's VP, and if she gets that, she's one of the most capable and competent Republicans out there through when she was governor, when she was UN ambassador. There's no question about that. And do I think that she would be effective as a VP? Frankly, more so than Pence. I think Pompeo would still be there. I think that a shocking number of GOP members, maybe not Chris Christie, maybe not Asa Hutchinson, certainly not Liz Cheney, not Mitt Romney, but the strong majority of Republicans would support Trump, and they would even be willing if they got the right position to join the administration. The bigger danger, I think, is that a Trump administration, having been through four years, will know what they need to do to have much more impact in what they want to get done, not just in terms of policy, which is generally less problematic, but in terms of eroding democracy.
For example, really hollowing out civil service in a lot of administrations that they think are stopping them from doing things they want to do. The brittleness of US institutions after another four years of a Trump administration, I think, would be a lot greater than they were after the first four, where his impact on those institutions as a whole was relatively limited.
What happens? Damned if I know. I'm not going to sit here and tell you I think I have a strong view of who's going to actually win the election. I think we're far off from that. I saw the Washington Post poll like everyone else did, that shows that right now, Trump is actually leading Biden head-to-head. It's the first major poll that showed that. Before, most have showed that Biden would win head-to-head against Trump. I think part of it has to do with how Biden holds up from a health perspective. Part of it has to do with how well the economy looks. Part of it has to do with how Trump is able to campaign. And we've got a long, long way to go with a lot of moving parts and also some fairly substantial global crises that we and others are dealing with on the global stage before people go to the ballot box on November in 2024.
Having said that, a lot of people are going to get really exhausted by this campaign, and I'm sorry for everyone, but we are at the beginning of it, and it's a long slog, and I'll be talking you through. So everyone, be good. I'll talk to you soon. Bye
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Ian Explains: Has a US president ever been arrested before Trump?
The recent indictment of former President Trump has created an unprecedented legal situation that is polarizing the country. While other US presidents, such as Nixon and Clinton, have faced criminal investigations, no president has been arrested since Ulysses S. Grant, Ian Bremmer explains on GZERO World.
In 1872, Grant was arrested for the crime of racing his horses and buggy down a Washington DC street. He was let off with a warning. The incident was not widely reported at the time, but in 1908, retired police officer William West recounted the story in an interview with The Sunday Star of Washington.
The arrest of Trump is a different situation because the trial is taking place at a time when the defendant is also running for reelection, which adds to the political tension. It remains to be seen if New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg has the goods to win a conviction, or if his indictment will be the last that Trump faces. At least we can take heart in knowing that in one very specific way, history won’t be repeating itself: President Trump doesn’t go anywhere without a chauffeur.
- Parsing Donald Trump's indictment ›
- What We’re Watching: Trump’s day in court, Turkey stuffing Sweden, Egypt buddying up ›
- Trump's indictment is problematic ›
- Trump indictment would make GOP nomination more likely ›
- Trump sexual abuse verdict won't hurt him with GOP - GZERO Media ›
- How Trump's tariffs could help (or hurt) the US economy - GZERO Media ›
Parsing Donald Trump's indictment
Preet Bharara, former US attorney for the Southern District of New York, stopped by GZERO World to discuss three big legal stories in the news: the charges facing former US President Donald Trump, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas's gifts from a billionaire Republican donor, and the recent classified documents leak.
According to Bharara, the charges leveled against the Trump Organization and its CFO, Allen Weisselberg, could establish a precedent for justice and the rule of law, with significant consequences for American democracy in the future. Bharara ranked the severity of the three other potential charges that could be brought against former President Trump, with the conduct relating to the January 6th riot "being the most severe."
Though this is not the first US president to be charged with a crime, Trump's plans to run for president in 2024 while fighting criminal charges could have wide-ranging implications for the future of democracy.
"There are people who are not allies of Trump, who I think are responsibly raising the question, "What is the level of seriousness of a crime on the part of a former president that justifies bringing it?" Bharara tells Ian Bremmer, "And they're really great arguments and I struggle with this."
- Trump's indictment is problematic ›
- Trump indicted ›
- Podcast: Trumped up charges? The law & politics of investigating a president's crimes ›
- Bharara: Clarence Thomas' donor trips may not be illegal, but not a good look ›
- US intel leak shows rising risk of NATO-Russia conflict ›
- Why you should care about the legal case against the Trump Organization - GZERO Media ›
- Trump's uncertain future amid new indictments - GZERO Media ›
- Trump indicted (again) - GZERO Media ›
- Ian Explains: Has a US president ever been arrested before Trump? - GZERO Media ›
The Graphic Truth: How do US presidents do in their first year?
Joe Biden's approval rating has taken a big hit during his first year as US president. Biden is now just slightly more popular than his predecessor Donald Trump at the same point in his presidency. While Biden has made a series of policy and political blunders that might be reflected in polling, this is also a sign of the times: US politics are now so polarized that presidential approval has a low ceiling. We compare the approval ratings of the last five US presidents in their first year.
Podcast: Alcohol, diplomacy & society, from Edward Slingerland's perspective
Listen: A deep dive down the bottle to examine the role alcohol has played in society, politics, and global summitry—from the earliest hunter-gatherer days to that memorable Obama Beer Summit in 2009. Joining Ian Bremmer on the GZERO World podcast is philosopher Edward Slingerland, whose new book Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way Into Civilization makes a compelling, if nuanced, case for alcohol's place in the world.
Subscribe to the GZERO World Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published.
Joe Biden's presidency: biggest surprises, successes and mistakes so far
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." Harman, a nine-term member of Congress who served for decades on the major security committees in the House of Representatives, notes that Biden's stint as Vice President was no guarantee of how he would perform. "I think sitting behind that desk, and having the buck stop with him is very different. And I think he fills out the job very well."
In an interview with Ian Bremmer, Harman says Biden has a dimension that none of his four predecessors had, because of his experience in Congress and in foreign policy. She also shares her perspective on Biden's biggest successes as well as some mistakes he's made.