Trending Now
We have updated our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use for Eurasia Group and its affiliates, including GZERO Media, to clarify the types of data we collect, how we collect it, how we use data and with whom we share data. By using our website you consent to our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy, including the transfer of your personal data to the United States from your country of residence, and our use of cookies described in our Cookie Policy.
{{ subpage.title }}
Elon Musk's political donations 2020-2024
The Graphic Truth: Elon Musk's political donations
During his public spat with Trump on social media, Tesla CEO Elon Musk claimed credit for the Republicans’ electoral victories last year, writing, “without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate.”
While Musk has indicated that he will pare down his political spending, he certainly possesses the financial power to tip the scales in campaign financing – he was the GOP’s largest donor last year. Here’s a look at where Musk, who publicly converted from Democrat to Republican ahead of the 2024 election, has put his money in the last two electoral cycles.
Can Pope Leo XIV heal the Church–and his own country?
Ian Bremmer sits down with Jesuit priest and bestselling author Father James Martin to talk about the historic ascendancy of Pope Leo XIV—the first-ever US Pope—and what his papacy means for the Catholic Church, American politics, and a world in search of moral clarity.
Known for his humility and prayerful presence, Martin says Pope Leo has would do well to make his top priority healing internal divisions within the Church. “There’s a lot of division and anger,” Martin says, “but Pope Leo has the opportunity to build bridges between progressives and traditionalists.” And his early comments on war and migration signal that he intends to take moral stances with global relevance—including the Church’s firm position on welcoming the stranger. “When Jesus says, ‘When you welcome the stranger, you welcome me,’ that’s pretty clear,” Martin says.
Martin also speaks about his own public advocacy for LGBTQ Catholics, especially trans people, who he says are “being treated like dirt.” The conversation also turns to the legacy of Pope Francis, whose pastoral outreach—from encyclicals on climate change to nightly calls with Gaza parishioners—inspired many, including his successor.
“Francis showed us that the Church is a field hospitals."
GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, the award-winning weekly global affairs series, airs nationwide on US public television stations (check local listings).
New digital episodes of GZERO World are released every Monday on YouTube. Don't miss an episode: subscribe to GZERO's YouTube channel and turn on notifications (🔔).GZERO World with Ian Bremmer airs on US public television weekly - check local listings.
Washington , DC - January 20: President-elect Donald Trump arrives ahead of the 60th inaugural ceremony on January 20, 2025, at the US Capitol in Washington, DC. Trump becomes the 47th president of the United States in a rare indoor inauguration ceremony. The parade was also moved inside Capitol One Arena due to weather.
Trump’s 2025 Inaugural: From American Carnage to Golden Age
“Nothing will stand in our way. The future is ours and our golden age has just begun.”
With those words, President Donald J. Trump concluded his 2025 inaugural address, promising an American renaissance. Invoking the doctrine of American exceptionalism, he declared that “We are going to win like never before” and pledged to be a unifier and peacemaker who would nonetheless put America First.
A shift in tone. The speech was a stark contrast to Trump’s inaugural address of 2017, where he painted a gloomy picture of “American carnage”: a nation riddled with crime, poverty, and economic decline. This time, while he heavily criticized the previous administration for its decisions, Trump adopted a more optimistic and forward-looking tone, emphasizing unity and national restoration – and even territorial expansion. Trump invoked the concept of Manifest Destiny, promising to plant the American flag on Mars, as well as rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” and retake the Panama Canal.
Border Security and Immigration. Trump will declare a national emergency at America’s southern border (which earned him one of several standing ovations), reinstate his “Remain in Mexico” policy, and designate drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. He also pledged to use the Enemy Aliens act of 1798 to deploy military power to eliminate foreign gangs in American cities.
Health and Wealth. Trump promised to “end the chronic disease epidemic” but gave no further specifics. On the prosperity front, he promised to restore America’s strength in manufacturing and that his cabinet would “marshal powers to defeat inflation and bring down costs and prices”, which he said were caused by government overspending and high energy prices.
Drill baby drill. To that end, Trump promised to overturn President Joe Biden’s Green New Deal and expand the exploitation of oil and gas resources, which he dubbed the “liquid gold beneath our feet” that America should export. He spoke of tariffs, but without specifics, promising to create an External Revenue Service to collect all tariffs duties and revenues, as well as a department of government efficiency to cut spending.
Woke wars. Trump promised to sign an executive order to “stop all government censorship”, “bring back free speech to America” and create a society that is “colour blind and merit based.” He declared that the United States has only two genders, male and female.
The military. Trump promised to restore back pay to servicemen who had lost their jobs for refusing the federal COVID vaccine mandate. He pledged to remove “radical theories” from the military and leave it “free to focus on its sole mission – defeating America’s enemies.”
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.
- Biden sings his swan song at UNGA, urges support for Ukraine ›
- Will a lame-duck Biden be bold before Trump takes over? ›
- Gaza ceasefire likely as Biden and Trump both push ›
- Ian Bremmer on debate: A big loss for Biden ›
- Who will Trump’s team be? ›
- Trump’s Cabinet picks set up likely battle with GOP Senate ›
- Trump picks Trudeau critics for Cabinet ›
- What Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks mean for AI ›
- How a second Trump term could reshape global politics ›
US Attorney Pamela Jo Bondi speaks before the Senate Judiciary Committee during the nomination hearing for US Attorney General in Washington DC, USA, on January 15, 2025, at Hart Senate/Capitol Hill.
Trump Cabinet hearings ramp up, and so do concerns
On Monday, Donald Trump will be inaugurated as the first president to serve two nonconsecutive terms since Grover Cleveland over a century ago. As he heads back to the White House, his controversial Cabinet nominees face hearings in the Senate, while concerns about the weaponization of government institutions loom.
The first tranche of Trump nominees — including scandal-struckPete Hegseth forsecretary of defense, Pam Bondi for attorney general, Marco Rubio for secretary of state, Scott Bessent for treasury secretary, and John Ratcliffe for CIA director — all appear to stand a strong chance of confirmation. Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and FBI director, Kash Patel, however, may face longer odds.
Patel has vowed to go after “government gangsters” — so-called enemies within the state — raising questions as to whether he would use the FBI to target Trump’s political opponents. At her hearing, Bondi said she would not create an “enemies list” to prosecute, but she defended Patel, calling him “the right person at this time for this job.” Nonetheless, she told the Senate Judiciary Committee she would “not target people simply because of their political affiliation.”
Gabbard, who has talked about a “slow-rolling coup” by government insiders against US democracy, has also raised concerns. As she plans to remake the US intelligence machine, she faces accusations of parroting Kremlin propaganda — an accusation that experts say could make Western intelligence agencies uncomfortable, to say the least.
Neither Patel nor Gabbard have had hearings scheduled yet. We’ll be watching when they’re ready for their close-ups.TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testifies before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday, March 23, 2023 in Washington D.C.
Looks like the TikTok ban is coming. Probably. And with unintended consequences
Barring an eleventh-hour reprieve, TikTok’s operations in the US are likely to be shut down on Sunday. China is said to be considering a sale of its stateside outfit to X owner Elon Musk as the incoming administration seeks a pause on the ban so it can pursue a deal to keep it running. While both of those options look unlikely, at least in the short term, President-elect Donald Trump is considering an executive order that would delay enforcement of the ban for 60 to 90 days.
The Supreme Court hasn’t ruled on a challenge to the ban yet, nor is it required to by the Sunday deadline. The law, passed in April, only requires that US app stores no longer carry or permit updates of TikTok, and that internet service providers block access to the TikTok website. That would leave existing users with access to the platform, though it would degrade over time. But ByteDance, the social media platform’s owner, announced Wednesday that it is preparing to fully shut down the app in the US when the ban comes into effect.
Meanwhile, in a case of unintended consequences, TikTok users have been signing up en masse for China’s TikTok equivalent, RedNote — or Xiaohongshu, which translates to “little red book.” The shift is connecting US and Chinese social media users, which means that one of the aims of the TikTok ban, keeping US social media users away from China, may come up short of its goal. But it’s also exposing Chinese users to thousands of Western voices – something Beijing may not appreciate either.A drone view shows the Canada-U.S. border between the U.S. state of New York and the Canadian province of Quebec, near Champlain, New York, U.S., December 6, 2024.
Hard Numbers: Canada’s immigration crackdown shows results, BC free contraception measure boosts birth control, Pentagon flags China’s growing nuclear arsenal, Americans aren’t thrilled with their jobs, US government tells top pols to “get off the phone”
0.4: In the third quarter of this year, Canada’s population grew just 0.4%, the lowest quarterly growth rate in two years. Given that immigrants account for almost all of Canada’s population growth, the data suggest that new government measures to slow immigration – including capping foreign student slots and slashing temporary work visas – are having an effect. Immigration skyrocketed during the pandemic, straining housing supply and services, provoking a political backlash.
10: The decision by the BC government last year to make birth control products free has caused a 10% jump in women’s use of contraceptives. Use of pricier options such as IUDs and implants, the cost of which is now fully covered by the state, jumped 14%.
20: China’s arsenal of operational nuclear warheadsgrew by 20% over the last year, reaching 600, according to the Pentagon. At his clip, Beijing will have 1,000 warheads deployed by 2030. That would still trail the roughly 1,600 nuclear warheads deployed by Russia and the 1,800 deployed by the US, but it only takes a handful to inflict unspeakable destruction. So far, China is not party to any agreements with the US and Russia on limiting nuclear arsenals.
50: How do Americans feel about their jobs? So-so. Only 50% say they are extremely or very satisfied with the daily grind, according to a new Pew study. But the generational divide is stark: 67% of workers aged 65 or older viewed their jobs in the best light, a whopping 24 points higher than people aged 18-29.
8: The US government is telling senior officials and politicians to GET OFF THE PHONE. Literally. Authorities want top pols to ditch phone calls and text messages, after at least eight US telecoms companies were hacked by the “Salt Typhoon” group of China-linked cybercriminals. Authorities say it’s safer to use end-to-end encrypted text apps like Signal, WhatsApp, iMessage, Teams, or Zoom.
Graphic Truth: Americans' trust in courts plummets
American trust in its judicial system has fallen dramatically, plummeting away from other wealthy nations. New Gallup data shows American confidence in courts hitting a record low of 35% in 2024, placing it far behind the median of OECD countries where majority trust remains intact. The 20-point gap between US and OECD median trust levels in 2024 marks the widest divide since tracking began in 2006.
The 24-percentage-point decline over four years represents one of the steepest drops globally, rivaling decreases seen in countries experiencing political upheaval like Myanmar and Venezuela. This places the United States in concerning company, especially since dramatic institutional trust declines typically coincide with significant political instability or civil unrest.
The erosion of confidence spans political lines, though following different patterns. Among those disapproving of current leadership, trust fell from 46% to 29% since 2021, possibly because of Donald Trump supporters disagreements with the federal indictments brought against him for hush money, racketeering, and Jan. 6. Even more striking, those approving of leadership maintained steady confidence around 62% until 2024, when it dropped sharply to 44%, possibly reflecting dissatisfaction with the immunity Supreme Court ruling which favored Trump.