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Biden's vigorous SOTU speech aims to prove doubters wrong
Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington, DC, shares his perspective on US politics.
What's going on with the Biden State of the Union?
So big week in US presidential politics. Super Tuesday basically effectively ended both primaries for the Republicans and the Democrats. We now have two all but official candidates. Joe Biden gave his fourth State of the Union address this week. Big question around Joe Biden, is he up to the task? 75% of Americans say that he is too old to run for a second term, but he is a attempting to prove them wrong like he did last night in Washington with a vigorous speech where he spoke for an hour, which officially kicked off his campaign.
Biden spoke about themes of income inequality, he spoke in favor of aid to Ukraine, and he rolled out a couple of tax increases that Republicans don't like. There's a lot of risk in every public appearance that Biden gives these days because of the fact that Democrats are very concerned that he's going to make a verbal flub or that he's going to look physically frail. That did not happen last night, and I think that's a good sign for Biden for now.
But every time he goes on stage for the rest of the year, there's going to be concern about how old he looks. So the campaign can now begin in earnest. Biden didn't mention Donald Trump by name in the speech, but he did indirectly attack him, talking about how Republicans are the party of the rich and how the threats to democracy represented by this election. At least that's how Joe Biden wants to frame it.
Why Mitch McConnell is stepping down
Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington, DC, shares his perspective on US politics.
What are the implications of the retirement of Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell from his leadership post?
This week Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell announced his intention to step down as leader of the Republicans after serving longer in that post than anybody else in American history. There are really two implications that I can see.
The first is that McConnell was basically acknowledging the inevitable. It was very unlikely that he would be able to stay on as leader after this Congress anyway. If Donald Trump wins the presidential election, then he almost certainly is going to push McConnell out of the job. And if he didn't win the election, there's a whole generation of Republicans in the Senate who are looking for an opportunity to step up. McConnell, at 82 years old, did not represent that new generation. So the time had come to pass on the torch, and McConnell chose this February to announce it.
The second takeaway is that McConnell is really giving the speech the Democrats are hoping Joe Biden would give. McConnell's only eight months older than President Joe Biden, who's running for a second term right now. And lots of questions have come up recently about Biden's fitness for office because of his advanced age. This is going to be an increasing problem for Biden as more and more Democrats start talking about it. But in the absence of any challenger, it looks like Biden's going to be the nominee and his age will just be a liability they all have to learn to live with.
Israel-Hamas War: Can the US count on its Arab allies?
Can you count on your partners when the chips are down? That's what President Biden is likely wondering after his trip to the Middle East was severely curtailed. Planned meetings with Jordanian and Egyptian leadership were called off after a devastating explosion in Gaza that now appears to have been the work of an Islamist group aligned with Hamas.
It's a topic that US Democratic Senator Chris Murphy was particularly keen to discuss in his interview with Ian Bremmer, part of a new episode of GZERO World. "This is a moment of crisis," Murphy tells Bremmer. "We need Egypt to be with us and with our friends in Israel and relieve the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. And if they aren't willing to do that, then I think we just have to ask ourselves exactly what is the efficacy of a billion dollars of my taxpayer money going to Egypt when they are brutally repressing political speech, and they are making it very difficult on us when we make requests that are important to us in a situation like this in Gaza."
How will the United States navigate the growing Israel-Hamas war, and what role will its purported allies in the Middle East play in containing that conflict?
Watch more on this episode: America's tightrope walk with the Israel-Hamas war
Catch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week at gzeromedia.com/gzeroworld or on US public television. Check local listings.
- Israel-Hamas War: The race to avert escalation in the Middle East ›
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- Biden seeks urgent aid package for Israel, Ukraine ›
- Israel-Hamas war: Biden's second foreign policy crisis - GZERO Media ›
- Israel-Hamas war set to expand & directly involve US - GZERO Media ›
The implications of Senator Feinstein's passing
Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington, DC shares his perspective on US politics:
What are the implications of the death of US Senator Dianne Feinstein?
Senator Dianne Feinstein died this week at age 90. She was the longest serving female senator in history and a former mayor of San Francisco who was a trailblazer for women in politics in the United States. She had been sick for a little while, leading to calls from fellow Democrats for her to step down from her seat and allow somebody younger to take over both the Senate seat from California and her coveted seat on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
And after she announced her intention to retire this year, a number of California Democrats stepped up and said they were going to run for her seat. Governor Gavin Newsom, who clearly has national ambitions beyond California, has said he wants to fill her slot with an African-American and has said he intends to stay out of the primary race, which has caused some challenges for him, given that one of the candidates in the race is hoping to get a little benefit from being appointed to the seat.
One of the biggest questions is who will get her slot on the Judiciary Committee, which is now evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats. If the slot isn't filled, then none of Biden's judicial nominees will be able to get out of the committee and get on to the floor. And while some Republicans have indicated that they are inclined to allow Democrats to fill the seat, not every Republican wants to do so because by blocking that seat from being filled, they can block all of Biden's judges.
So this could be an impasse that lasts for potentially a few weeks until there's likely to be a floor vote which would then appoint somebody new. But that could be one of the controversies coming out of this death.
- The Graphic Truth: Don't bet on it ›
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- Sen. Dianne Feinstein dies at 90 ›
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- Ian Explains: Trump's Republican competition ›
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Mitt Romney will be defined by opposing Trump
Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington, DC shares his perspective on US politics:
Mitt Romney is retiring from the Senate. Will he be missed?
Utah Senator Mitt Romney and former Republican presidential candidate announced this week that he won't be running for reelection in the Senate to represent Utah in the next election cycle. Some people are speculating that this is because he might lose a primary challenge.
Romney remains pretty popular in his home state, but he does represent a dying breed of Republican, which is kind of a Reagan's Republican, Reagan's Republican. He's firmly from the pro-business country club wing of the party that has really been demolished by President Trump over the last several years as more populist Republicans, who have a stronger appeal to white working-class voters, have really taken over the party and trying to reshape it in President Trump's image. Romney was well-liked by some people in Washington, but not necessarily by his Republican colleagues in the Senate, where he was a bit of an oddball, supporting President Trump's impeachment, going against the tide of several other Republicans on a host of issues. And even though he ran as a conservative Republican in the 2012 nomination process that he won, he's now retiring with a reputation as a moderate Republican in today's party.
Romney always had kind of a difficult time fitting into the political world. He was obviously a businessman who was looking for ways to succeed, running as pretty liberal on issues like abortion when he was governor of Massachusetts and then positioning himself as, quote, “severely conservative” when he ran for the Republican nomination in 2012. And his legacy, however, is probably going to be mostly defined by his opposition to President Donald Trump over the last several years in his tenure as a Utah senator.
He'll probably be replaced by somebody further to the right of him. And the Senate itself is set to go through a generational transition as more of the old era Republicans start to retire and a new crop comes up. It's going to move the party in this much more populist direction.
- Romney: Sloppy classified docs "a danger" ›
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- Ian interviews Mitt Romney: US political divisions & tough foreign policy calls ›
- Sen. Mitt Romney on DC dysfunction, Russian attacks, and banning TikTok ›
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Ian interviews Mitt Romney: US political divisions & tough foreign policy calls
Note: This interview appeared as part of an episode of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, "Sen. Mitt Romney on DC dysfunction, Russian attacks, and banning TikTok" on February 6, 2023.
On GZERO World, Utah Senator Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential candidate sits down for an exclusive interview with Ian Bremmer to talk debt ceiling drama, Ukraine war fatigue, and pondering war with China. He also has thoughts on the "woke-ism" debate and whether the US should ban TikTok.
Back in 2012, as a presidential candidate, Romney was mocked by Barack Obama during a debate for claiming that Russia was America’s top geopolitical threat. Now, he shares his views about the risk that Russia poses today, where China stacks up in the mix, and much more.
Independent Kyrsten Sinema won't change the US Senate
Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington, DC shares his perspective on US politics.
What does Kyrsten Sinema caucusing as an independent mean for the United States Senate next year?
And the short answer is, according to her, not much.
Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema today told Democratic Party leaders that she would be no longer identifying as a Democrat, instead choosing to identify as one of the Senate's three independents. Functionally, this probably doesn't mean much because Sinema says this won't affect the functioning of the Senate. Meaning that committee ratios are still expected to favor Democrats next year, giving them more power to easily report nominations and conduct oversight, but also that she would support Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer as the majority leader next year.
Probably where this has a bigger impact is in Sinema's own reelection campaign in 2024. She now can avoid a party primary, which was expected to be from a very well-funded Democrat, as Democrats aren't super happy with Sinema for having frustrated parts of Joe Biden's legislative agenda over the last two years. She can now run as an independent in the swing state of Arizona, which is going to be a presidential battleground state with lots of money and attention paid there in '24. And her expectation, assuming she runs, will be to split the Democratic and the Republican votes in the state and win reelection.
Warnock's Georgia victory: Dems control every Senate Committee
Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington, DC shares his perspective on US politics.
What does the Democratic win in the Georgia Senate race mean?
There are two major implications from Senator Raphael Warnock's victory last night in the Georgia Senate runoff. The first is that it ends the longest running tied Senate in American history and gives Democrats 51 seats and outright control of Senate committees that can be used to conduct oversight. This probably means more uncomfortable hearings for titans of industry next year and while the House will focus their oversight activities on the Biden administration, the Senate is going to be calling in bank CEOs and representatives of concentrated industries to talk about corporate profits and inflation.
The second is that this is yet another bad election outcome for former President Trump, who handpicked the Republican nominee, Herschel Walker, who is a first-time political candidate and not a very good one. Walker massively underperformed his fellow Republican, Governor Brian Kemp in both the general election and the runoff, and had a less controversial or more seasoned politician been the nominee, Republicans could have potentially kept or won back this seat.
This is the second runoff election in Georgia in a row that Republicans blame former President Trump for losing and it feeds into the narrative that Georgia, which President Biden won in 2020, is now a swing state, meaning that it will be one of the most hotly contested battlegrounds along with Michigan, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Wisconsin in 2024.
Republicans control the other statewide offices in Georgia however and this race, despite Walker's flaws was close. So a key question is if Georgia is the next North Carolina, a state that tempts Democrats after President Obama won it in 2008, but one that they can't consistently win because of its structurally conservative lean.
One interesting fact about the 2022 midterms is that they were the first midterm election since 1934 where no incumbent Senator lost reelection, showing the power of incumbency even in narrowly divided and hard-fought elections.
- The Peach State has spoken ›
- The trouble with Herschel ›
- What We’re Watching: Georgia's runoff election, Iran’s bluff, Putin's black eye, Ramaphosa's political survival ›
- Independent Krysten Sinema won't change the US Senate - GZERO Media ›
- Independent Kyrsten Sinema won't change the US Senate - GZERO Media ›
- The implications of Senator Feinstein's passing - GZERO Media ›