What Actually Mattered This Week: Erdo?an Clings to Power

?? Want to stay updated on global politics every weekday? Subscribe to GZERO Daily to get the news delivered straight to your inbox.

WHAT ACTUALLY MATTERED THIS WEEK

Turkish Election Headed to Round Two

Despite polls predicting a win for Turkey’s main opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu, incumbent (and aspiring autocrat) Recep Tayyip Erdo?an still received the most votes in last weekend’s presidential election—49.5%—leading to a runoff election that he’s going to win.

The election was certainly free, but not exactly fair.

Erdo?an was aided by dismantling most independent checks on his power (military, judiciary, & the media).

A crucial deal aimed at averting a global food crisis has been extended

Another two-month extension is coming on the critical Black Sea grain deal between Russia and Ukraine.

The deal marks the most successful international diplomacy of the past year, with due appreciation for the hard work of the aforementioned President Erdo?an and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

Joe Biden cancels Australian visit amid US domestic debt deadlock

Didn’t President Obama cancel on Australia twice when he was in office?

Seems like a habit…

(also canceled: first-ever trip of a US president to Papua New Guinea)

Elon Musk says George Soros ‘hates humanity,’ compares him to Jewish supervillain

This comparison is unacceptable. There are plenty of things to criticize Soros for but he has made a genuine effort to support civil society when it has been under attack.

George Soros is a strong (and controversial) partisan in the United States, but he has done more to fund the promotion of civil society in the former east bloc countries than any other living American.

His enemies are dictators. Musk should not want to join them.

?

TRUTHS, DAMNED TRUTHS, AND STATISTICS

An insane trend.

(who's got the graph for how much Americans have been sleeping?)

-Axios

?

THE GZERO WORLD WE’RE JUST LIVING IN

GRAPHIC TRUTH

YOUR GZERO WORLD

The only way out is through. That's how former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie views the 2024 GOP primary, and more specifically, how he views its frontrunner, former President Donald Trump.?

"I think there's one lane for the nomination, and right now Donald Trump's in the front of that lane," Christie tells me in a wide-ranging interview for GZERO World. "And if you want to get in the front of that lane, you better intervene and go right through him because, otherwise, trying to go around him? I don't think it's a strategy."

I invited Christie onto the show to take a big-picture look at how things are already stacking up for the upcoming primary fight, and one thing is clear: It won't be pretty. From Christie's own ... um ... complicated ... past with the man whom he was first to legitimize back in 2015, to the more pressing issues facing the country today, Bremmer and Christie cover it all. They also discuss the news of the week, with Christie expressing confidence that Republicans and Democrats won't drive off the debt-ceiling cliff with hands clasped (or slapping each other).

For a longer, wider-ranging version of my interview check out the GZERO World podcast.

WORLD IN 60

How is the Ukrainian counteroffensive going?

Pro-democracy opposition parties swept the Thai elections. Will they be allowed to govern?

Is Assad's invitation to COP28 a sign of Syria's return to the global stage?

Find out in this week’s World in 60 Seconds!

DIG DEEPER: GZERO DAILY BY IAN BREMMER

Turkey’s sultan Erdo?an is not going anywhere

Erdo?an's foreign policy balancing act: deepening ties with Russia and China while maintaining pragmatic relations with the West.

He’ll cement Turkey’s role as a geopolitical ‘swing state’—making Ankara a more unreliable ally.

?Do you like what you’ve seen??Sign up for GZERO Daily by Ian Bremmer

?

BECAUSE THE INTERNET

?Pretty stupid (but it makes me chuckle)

?

WHAT TO READ THIS WEEK

The New China Playbook: Beyond Socialism and Capitalism by Keyu Jin

Keyu Jin knows a lot about modern China—and about what Americans and Europeans think they know about its future. Western eyes need a fresh look at what China has become and where it's likely to go. "The New China Playbook" delivers in vivid color.?

?

DEEP THOUGHTS

"Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it."- Charles R. Swindoll

?

?

?

Thanks for reading!?Please subscribe to GZERO Daily for coverage of global politics. And make sure to read my new book?The Power of Crisis?for a roadmap of this decade's great crises and how they might help us build a better world.

I am president of Eurasia Group and GZERO Media and foreign affairs columnist at TIME. I currently teach at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs and previously was a professor at New York University. You can follow me on?Twitter,?Facebook, and?Instagram.