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Yale Law School's Emily Bazelon on Trump's showdown with the courts

Listen: President Trump has never been shy about his revolutionary ambitions. In his second term, he’s moved aggressively to consolidate power within the executive branch—signing more than 150 executive orders in just over 150 days, sidelining Congress, and pressuring the institutions that were designed to check his authority. His supporters call it common sense. Critics call it dangerous. Either way, it’s a fundamental shift in American governance—one that’s unlike anything happening in any other major democracy.

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Where Trump-Musk bromance goes from here, with Semafor’s Ben Smith

It was an extraordinary public fight between two billionaires—President Donald Trump, the world’s most powerful man, and Elon Musk, the world’s richest. On a special bonus episode of the GZERO World Podcast, Ian Bremmer sits down with Semafor co-founder and editor-in-chief Ben Smith to talk about Trump and Musk’s messy breakup, what led to the explosive public fallout, and whether there’s any chance of reconciliation.

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- YouTube

What’s behind Trump & Musk’s public feud?

Elon Musk and President Donald’s Trump’s White House bromance imploded in spectacular fashion last week in a feud that played out in full view of the public, with the two billionaires trading insults in real-time on social media. That fight appears to be cooling down, at least for now, but President Trump has made it clear he has no intention of mending the relationship any time soon. On a special edition of GZERO World, Semafor Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith joins Ian Bremmer to discuss what led to the breakup and where the Trump administration’s relationship with Silicon Valley goes from here.

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Members of the California National Guard stand in a line, blocking an entrance to the Federal Building, as demonstrators gather nearby, during protests against immigration sweeps, in Los Angeles, California, USA, on June 9, 2025.

REUTERS/Leah Millis

Trump deploys Marines to LA as political battle escalates

Overnight, hundreds of US Marines began arriving in the city of Los Angeles, where protests, some of them violent, against the Trump Administration’s immigration enforcement have been ongoing since Saturday.

The move marked an escalation by the White House beyond its initial deployment of National Guard troops on Saturday, and it came just hours after California’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom sued the Trump administration over that decision, calling it an “unprecedented usurpation of state authority,” and accusing the White House of provoking the protests.

Why are the Marines there? The troops are officially acting on orders to protect federal property rather than to restore order more widely, though US President Donald Trump has suggested they are there to suppress protesters he has labeled “insurrectionists.”

Legal scholars say this rhetoric suggests Trump may be leaving the door open to invoke the Insurrection Act, which authorizes the direct use of the military against US citizens to suppress rebellion.

“The Insurrection Act is still sitting there on the shelf and gives the president enormous power,” Yale Legal Expert Emily Bazelon told Ian Bremmer on the upcoming episode of GZERO World.

It allows the military to go beyond protecting federal property, to potentially breaking up and policing the protests themselves. In an eerie historical echo, the last time a president did this was in 1992, when President George H. W. Bush deployed Marines to quell racially charged riots in Los Angeles that were touched off by the acquittal of police officers in the beating of Rodney King, a Black motorist.

Trump has already tested the legal bounds in LA. When he deployed the National Guard over the objections of Governor Newsom – the first time a president has defied a governor in this way since the 1960s, he invoked Title 10 of the US Code. That’s a law which permits the White House to “federalize” state-based National Guard units if necessary to “execute the laws of the United States,” – in this case immigration enforcement.

California’s lawsuit says that the White House overstepped its authority and that local law enforcement is capable of managing the protests alone.

In the White House vs California standoff there are risks for both sides. On the one hand, Trump has public approval for stricter immigration policy, with a slight majority of Americans, and a robust majority of Republicans, in favor of his policies, according to polls taken before the weekend upheaval.

And with polls showing that only a third of Americans support the LA protests, Trump, who has long styled himself as a “law and order” leader, may also relish the notion of Democrats associating themselves with images of unpopular chaos and disorder on American streets.

But the deployment of federal troops also poses risks – if they are seen harming US citizens there could be a public backlash against an administration that is seen to be overstepping its bounds.

For now, Trump seems keen to push the envelope. “It is 100% true that they’re enforcing immigration laws and that there are lots of people in the country illegally. However, if you were just playing the numbers game, you would go to a poultry factory in the middle of nowhere in the Midwest and pick up a lot of factory workers,” says Bazelon.

“When you choose to go into the heart of a city, onto the streets and publicly snatch people up, you’re kind of asking for a reaction.”

Protesters are blanketed in smoke along Alondra Boulevard during a standoff with law enforcement following multiple detentions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), in the Los Angeles County city of Compton, California, U.S., June 7, 2025.

REUTERS/Barbara Davidson

What We're Watching: Trump calls out National Guard, US-China trade talks, Russia-Ukraine violence escalates

Trump deploys National Guard to LA

On Saturday, US President Donald Trump deployed 2,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles to quell protests against ICE immigration raids. Several hundred demonstrators, some carrying Mexican flags, clashed with police Friday and Saturday in the predominantly Latino neighborhood of Paramount, at times dispersed with batons and tear gas.

How can Trump bring in the National Guard? While VP JD Vance denounced the protestors as "Insurrectionists carrying foreign flags”, the White House did not invoke the Insurrection Act. Instead, Trump used a similar statute to “federalize”, i.e. take control, of state national guard troops, who are expected to arrive in LA by Monday. California Governor Gavin Newsom has condemned the action as “purposefully inflammatory.”

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- YouTube

Elon vs. Trump: Billionaire fallout goes public

Ian Bremmer breaks down the clash in his latest Quick Take, calling it “super dysfunctional … but what isn’t around US politics?”

The fallout stems in part from a sweeping tax-and-spending bill Musk opposes, but deeper tensions are personal. Trump abruptly cut ties with Musk, removing key allies like NASA’s administrator, despite Musk's massive political donations and behind-the-scenes influence.

Musk, feeling betrayed, fired back, publicly suggesting Trump should be impeached. Ian warns the feud reflects deeper dysfunction in American politics, where influence is bought, loyalty is volatile, and institutions bend to personal power. Still, don’t rule out a truce.

As Ian notes, “They can clearly patch it up, and they should … because it is in both of their interests.”

President Donald Trump gives a thumbs up as he returns to the White House on Feb. 22, 2025.

REUTERS/Craig Hudson

Opinion: 100 days of promises kept

This week marks 100 days of the second Trump administration. Against a political timekeeping system of late that has been measured by the shelf life of lettuce (British Prime Minister Liz Truss’ seven weeks in office) and “Scaramuccis” (Anthony Scaramucci’s 10 days as White House communications director under Trump 1.0), the first 100 days of this administration feels like an anomaly. More has been set in motion in just over three months than other US administrations have sought to accomplish in full terms. Trump 2.0 is the dog-years presidency – every day brings seven days’ worth of developments.
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US President Donald Trump returns to the White House from his New Jersey golf club to Washington, DC, on April 27, 2024.

Sipa USA via Reuters Connect

Viewpoint: How strong is Trump’s support 100 days in?

President Donald Trump has claimed a broad mandate to pursue sweeping changes to US institutions and policies since he took office on Jan. 20. He has sought to overhaul the federal government by closing agencies and cutting thousands of jobs, restructure the economy by throwing up a tariff wall to force companies to base more of their operations in the US, reconfigure decades-old foreign alliances, and assert expansive powers in an illegal immigration crackdown.

With a cohesive team in the White House, Republican control of Congress, and a disoriented Democratic opposition, Trump has pushed ahead rapidly on many fronts. But opinion polls in recent weeks have shown a sharp decline in public support for the president, and the courts, financial markets, and other institutions have started curbing his actions. Eurasia Group’s Clayton Allen and Noah Daponte-Smith explain their shared insights on where things are likely to go from here.

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