Die Gruppe der Euro-Länder bekommt mit Bulgarien voraussichtlich 2026 ein neues Mitglied. Gegen Österreich leitet die EU ein Defizitverfahren ein.

Der Klub der Euroländer bekommt voraussichtlich im nächsten Jahr ein neues Mitglied: Bulgarien bemüht sich schon länger um Aufnahme. Nun hat das Land eine wichtige Hürde überwunden.#EuropäischeUnion #Euro #Leserdiskussion #Wirtschaft #SüddeutscheZeitung

EU-Kommission: Grünes Licht für Euro-Einführung in Bulgarien

^{Anna-Maria Salmen (Süddeutsche Zeitung)}

An unsteady truce between Nashville’s Democratic mayor and Tennessee's Republican leaders just collapsed after an ICE dragnet in the city.

Tension began to build in early May, when ICE started making traffic stops in partnership with the state highway patrol in the immigrant-heavy neighborhood of South Nashville, leading to the arrests of nearly 200 suspected undocumented immigrants.

Mayor Freddie O’Connell quickly condemned the action as damaging to the community. And a GOP firestorm resulted, with Republicans accusing O’Connell of interfering with federal immigration enforcement.

Four weeks later, a simple public policy spat has turned into a major conflict between some of the most powerful leaders in Tennessee, breaking a fragile peace between the city and the GOP supermajority legislature – and exposing Nashville to the wrath of the Trump administration. The feud, which shows no signs of ending soon, comes with real potential consequences for Nashville and other blue cities in red states being targeted over their immigration policies.

“It's unfortunate that he's willing to support the law breakers instead of supporting us as the lawmakers,” state Rep. Rusty Grills, a Republican, said of the mayor.

O’Connell, who has worked to calm long-running tensions with Republicans since his election in 2023, is the latest target of GOP ire over perceived threats to President Donald Trump’s deportations, and the onslaught against the mayor also represents a further escalation in the administration’s attack on local officials. In New Jersey, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested in May on a trespassing charge outside an ICE facility. That charge was later dropped, but U.S. Rep. LaMonica McIver is facing assault charges from the same confrontation.

In Tennessee, Republicans in the state legislature told POLITICO that O’Connell was putting officers at risk by updating a longstanding executive order mandating that city officials disclose interactions with ICE to the mayor’s office within 24 hours. They have latched onto that as evidence the mayor is impeding law enforcement operations.

O’Connell, speaking at a press conference following the raids, said the city does not have the authority to enforce immigration laws, and noted that Nashville’s crime rates are down. He has maintained that the city did not interfere with the ICE operation in early May.

Yet GOP outrage has spread from Tennessee to Washington. O’Connell is facing a federal investigation from House Republicans announced last week, and a call for another from the Department of Justice by Sen. Marsha Blackburn, who all argue that O’Connell is impeding law enforcement’s ability to crack down on crime committed by illegal immigrants.

U.S. border czar Tom Homan has warned that Nashville could see larger immigration crackdowns as a result of O’Connell’s opposition.

“We’ll flood the zone in the neighborhoods to find the bad guy,” Homan said on Fox News last week. “We’ll flood the zone at work sites to find the bad guy, but we’re going to do it, and [O’Connell’s] not going to stop us.”

Republicans have also gone after O’Connell for highlighting a donations fund that supports individuals affected by the arrests, like children whose parents were detained. Republicans say the fund is an improper use of taxpayer dollars, although the fund was created by a nonprofit that says it exclusively uses private donations.

Tennessee Democrats and immigrant advocates say that Republicans are cheering ICE’s involvement because of a bad-faith view of immigrant communities and that the criticism of O’Connell is purely GOP rhetoric lacking any basis. They also say the sweep shows how the Department of Homeland Security is taking in people that pose no threat to the public. DHS said about half of the people arrested have criminal records, but only identified four of them – leading Democrats to demand more information about those detained.

“For the politicians who care about nothing but the national news, this is a symbolic story,” said Democratic State Sen. Jeff Yarbro. “But for those of us who represent communities where we've seen lawless dragnet policing, there are real life consequences to our community and to our neighbors.”

The raid’s scale and scope was “unlike anything we've ever seen before,” said Lisa Sherman Luna, the executive director of the Tennessee Immigrants & Refugee Rights Coalition.

The Tennessee Highway Patrol’s cooperation with ICE underscores the role states will play in carrying out the Trump administration’s immigration agenda – especially as DHS struggles to hit its deportation goals. GOP leaders eager to impress the president have taken steps in recent months to deputize local law enforcement as immigration enforcers, like in Georgia, where Gov. Brian Kemp recently signed a law requiring law enforcement to check the immigration status of detainees.

“They are building an infrastructure that we've never seen, especially for a non-border state, to really carry out the President's agenda of mass deportations,” Luna said of the ICE operation in Nashville. “The devastation for families and local communities is going to be deep and broad, because everyone is a target now, and so it's really alarming to see our state government being used in this manner.”

Tennessee Republicans have framed the conflict as a matter of law and order – arguing that the ICE raids were a necessary use of force to crack down on crime they blame on illegal immigrants. Under the leadership of Gov. Bill Lee, Tennessee has emerged as one of the most aggressive non-border states on immigration in the second Trump era.

Lee, to the surprise of many Tennesseans, was the first Republican governor to say in January before Trump’s inauguration he was readying the National Guard should they be called upon to aid in deportations. In January, a few days after attending a governors meeting at Mar-A-Lago, Lee tacked onto immigration legislation as part of a special session on school vouchers. Lawmakers then passed a sweeping law expanding local law enforcement’s immigration purview and making it a felony for state officials to establish sanctuary cities.

Nashville is not a sanctuary city. But Democrats there still view the law as a warning shot from the legislature, which has clashed with city leaders over a range of issues — from control of the airport to representation in Congress.

“We wanted to send a signal that Tennessee was ready to cooperate and welcomed ICE coming into our communities to get these violent people out,” said state Sen. Jack Johnson, a Republican. “So I'm very, very happy with it and excited, and I hope they do more.”

And many want to see ICE return. State Sen. Brent Taylor has asked Homan to send ICE to Memphis to address “the violent crime epidemic” that he says is “exacerbated by poor local leadership.”

Shelby County, where Memphis is located, was included on a list of sanctuary cities and counties published by DHS last week that was soon taken down. Leaders of Shelby County, Memphis and Nashville — which was also on the list – disputed their designation as sanctuary cities, which have been outlawed by the Tennessee legislature.

State Sen. Jody Barrett described relations between Nashville and the GOP legislature as a “forced marriage,” complicated by the fact that Nashville serves as the state’s economic engine. Nashville’s population has exploded in recent years, and the city’s tourism industry keeps the state coffers filled.

“And because of that, it’s kind of a love-hate relationship,” he said.

It turns out, Democrats aren't online enough.

Conservative organizations spend more than left-leaning ones on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram in non-election years, capturing a large audience while those Democratic-aligned groups go more dormant in the digital space. And it’s making Democrats’ election-year persuasion game that much harder.

That’s the warning of a new report from Tech for Campaigns, a political nonprofit focused on using digital marketing and data techniques to support Democrats, that argues one of the party’s major problems is that its communication falters in non-election years. While Democratic spending and presence online surged leading up to the election, for example, Republicans quickly regained the spending advantage this year.

Democrats, in other words, aren’t putting in the work online during “off years.”

The report, shared first with POLITICO, comes as Democratic donors and officials have grappled with how online personalities and social media content boosted President Donald Trump in 2024, and openly acknowledged Democrats need to fix their brand.

“The Right, especially Trump, recognized that persuasion is no longer about last-minute convincing, but about shaping beliefs continuously — building trust, shifting opinions, and staying visible through frequent engagement — just like commercial brand building,” the report’s authors wrote. “Democrats may acknowledge this shift but continue treating digital communication as a campaign-season sprint.”

Republicans’ audience advantage spans from podcasts, where Democrats have fretted about the influence of hosts like Joe Rogan, to social media and digital sites. On Facebook and Instagram, for example, Republican-aligned pages outspent those associated with Democrats throughout former President Joe Biden’s term, the report found. The only exception of the fourth quarter of 2024, when Democratic-aligned spending surged ahead of the November election. Republicans regained the spending advantage in the first quarter of 2025, suggesting Democrats are not making up ground.

“Democrats have a brand and customers who require consistent and constant communication,” said Jessica Alter, co-founder of Tech for Campaigns. “And ads … 3-6 months before an election can certainly supplement that strategy, but they can't be the main strategy, not when Republicans never stop talking to their audience.”

The online spending gap is not coming from political parties or campaigns. Instead, Republicans’ digital advantage largely stems from allied groups and digital media companies, such as PragerU and the Daily Wire.

Those sites and other similar ones are not focused strictly on electoral politics. But they have cultivated broad audiences, and spent years sharing content about issues — such as transgender students’ participation in sports and opposition to diversity, equity and inclusion programs — that are electorally potent. And Republican candidates are primed to take advantage of those large, sympathetic audiences when an election draws near.

While there are newer left-leaning media competitors, such as Courier Newsroom and NowThis Impact, the conservative pages and websites still have a larger audience and spend more on to boost their content across the platforms.

When it comes to campaigns, Democrats do have a financial advantage. But although Democratic campaigns consistently outspend Republicans on digital platforms, that’s often more focused on fundraising than persuasion and mobilization ads. That’s a mistake, Tech for Campaigns argues.

While former Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign spent nearly three times as much as Trump’s across Facebook, Google and CTV after she entered the presidential race in July 2024, only a small share, 8 percent, was devoted to mobilization, the report finds. That allowed Trump and his allies to close much of the gap when it came to digital content designed to get voters to the polls.

But the report cautions against simply trying to recreate what Republicans have done well — for instance, by trying to find a Democratic equivalent of Rogan or even assuming that podcasts will be the most important medium for 2028. Instead, it argues, Democrats need to be willing to try different formats, testing what works and adapting as needed.

“Simply increasing funding to replicate Republican tactics from the last cycle won't be sufficient — nor will continuing to rely primarily on the same networks of talent,” the report concludes. “Successful right-wing influencers emerged largely organically outside party structures, not through top-down creation.”

Elon Musk came out swinging against President Donald Trump’s “big beautiful bill” on Tuesday, slamming the reconciliation package as a “disgusting abomination” in a massive break from the president just days after stepping away from his role in the administration.

“I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore,” Musk wrote on his social media platform X. “This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.”

Musk, who Trump had tapped to lead the federal expense-slashing Department of Government Efficiency, went on to criticize the bill for setting up Congress to “increase the already gigantic budget deficit to $2.5 trillion (!!!)” and saddle Americans with “crushingly unsustainable debt.”

His comments come as the bill is set to face Senate scrutiny after narrowly passing in the House last month.

Musk’s bombshell attack on Trump’s prized megabill marks a dam-breaking moment for the billionaire presidential adviser, shortly after stepping back from his position helming DOGE last week as the end of his designated time as a special government employee came to a close.

The Tesla CEO had criticized some of the president’s policies while he was serving in government. But the harsh rebuke of legislation pushed by Trump — who said in May that the bill was “arguably the most significant piece of Legislation that will ever be signed in the History of our Country” — marks the most severe split between the Trump ally and the president.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt brushed off Musk’s criticism, which he posted as she was at the briefing room podium. "The president already knows where Elon Musk stood on this bill,” she said. “It doesn't change the president's opinion."

Musk’s social media post emboldened some of the reconcilation’s package Republican critics. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), one of two Republican defections against the bill last month, was quick to boost Musk’s tirade, writing “He’s right” in a post on X.

And Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who Trump criticized repeatedly earlier Tuesday for his opposition to the bill, came out in support of Musk.

“I agree with Elon,” Paul wrote on X. “We have both seen the massive waste in government spending and we know another $5 trillion in debt is a huge mistake. We can and must do better.” Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) also jumped on the post, replying to Musk that “The Senate must make this bill better.”

But the message came as a blow to House Speaker Mike Johnson, who was instrumental in pushing the bill through the House.

Musk “coming out and panning” the GOP megabill is “very disappointing,” Johnson told reporters at the Capitol, “and very surprising in light of the conversation I had with him.”

Tuesday’s post wasn’t the first time Musk expressed disapproval of Republicans’ megabill.

The former DOGE head took to CBS News last week to criticize the bill, saying he was “disappointed to see the massive spending bill,” and lamenting that it “undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing.”

While Musk’s role at DOGE fundamentally reshaped Washington, the close Trump ally has signaled his frustration with the administration in recent weeks, from launching an attack on Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro on X over the administration’s sweeping tariff policy — which impacted Musk’s business holdings — to indicating that he had “done enough” in politics after throwing significant funds at an ill-fated Wisconsin Supreme Court race in April.

Meredith Lee Hill and Ben Johansen contributed to this report.

Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman’s chief of staff is leaving her post, two people familiar with the matter confirmed to POLITICO on Tuesday. The move is yet another key departure for a congressional office that’s been marked by turnover amid mounting questions about the Democrat's health and shifting political persona.

Axios first reported Krysta Sinclair Juris’ plans to part ways with Fetterman’s office.

POLITICO has learned Cabelle St. John, who previously served as Fetterman’s deputy chief of staff, senior adviser and scheduling director, is taking over as his new top aide.

“Cabelle St. John has been a trusted advisor since day 1 in the office. I’m lucky to have her taking over as my Chief of Staff and I’m confident she’ll do a great job,” Fetterman said in a statement. “I’m grateful for Krysta’s work. She’s been an invaluable member of the team for over two years and I wish her all the best.”

In the last year and a half, the senator’s former chief of staff, Adam Jentleson, top communications aides and legislative director all left his team. Two more aides departed Fetterman’s office in the last couple months.

In a Monday debate in Boston with Sen. Dave McCormick (R-Pa.), Fetterman said that reporting about his missing votes and committee hearings is a “weird smear.” Previously, he criticized a New York magazine article about former and current aides who expressed concerns about his health “a one-source hit piece.”

“I’m here. I’m doing that job,” he said in the debate that aired on Fox Nation. “For me, if I miss some of those quotes — I mean some of those votes — I’ve made 90 percent of them and, and we all know those votes that I’ve missed were on Monday; those are travel days, and I have three young kids, and I — those are throwaway procedural votes. … That’s a choice that I made, and if you want to attack me for that, go ahead.”

In addition to concerns over his health, some ex-staffers have been frustrated with Fetterman's hardline support of Israel and recent meeting with President Donald Trump.

After Latino voters moved toward President Donald Trump in November, a new in-depth survey of this demographic shows their support for him could be breaking, according to polling shared first with POLITICO.

Throughout the president’s first few months in office, his favorability among Latinos is crashing, especially among independents and women, according to a new poll conducted by Global Strategy Group and commissioned by Somos Votantes, a Democratic-leaning group that focuses on Latinos.

Among independents, Trump’s approval dropped from 43 percent in February to 29 percent in May. Overall, his approval among Latinos dropped from 43 percent to 39 percent. The poll surveyed 800 Hispanic/Latino registered voters nationwide between May 8 and May 18 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percent.

The Latinos surveyed were also increasingly negative on Trump’s handling of the economy, with just 38 percent of those surveyed holding a positive view. Among independents, that figure drops to 26 percent, and among women it’s at 30 percent.

“These numbers tell a pretty clear story that (Trump’s economic) trust is not only steadily, but quickly, eroding, which is a huge liability for the president,” said Somos Votantes president Melissa Morales, who said Trump’s gains among Latinos were mostly because of his promises to create a better economy.

Fifty-six percent of those surveyed said that the economy is getting worse under Trump’s administration, and 19 percent said the economy is improving.

“I think there are a lot of Latinos who didn't necessarily vote for Donald Trump. They voted for change,” Morales said. “They voted for something different than they were experiencing in their everyday economic lives.”

Republicans have continued to bet that Hispanic and Latino voters will continue to back them in the midterms following Trump’s inroads. On Monday, the National Republican Congressional Committee launched a Spanish ad campaign targeting eight House Democrats, which doubled down on their promise to target 11 seats occupied by Democrats across the Southwest.

Republicans point to Trump’s progress with this voting bloc, as well as specific gains in a few majority-Hispanic House districts. When Republicans announced their targets, Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.) — who chairs the NRCC — made a direct plea to Hispanic voters during a cable appearance.

“Hispanic voters. We want your vote,” Hudson said at the time. “We share your values. Our policies will make your lives better.”

Somos Votantes said that messaging isn’t landing so far.

“There is a huge disconnect between what Hispanic/Latino voters want the President and Congress to focus on versus what they believe Trump and Republicans are doing,” said a memo shared alongside the polling.

Es ist die erste gerichtliche Entscheidung nach der Neuregelung der Migrationspolitik von Innenminister Dobrindt (CSU).

Ohne Ausführung des sogenannten Dublin-Verfahrens dürfen sie nicht abgewiesen werden, entschied das Gericht im Fall dreier Somalier.#FluchtundMigration #Asylpolitik #Migrations-undAsylpolitik #Leserdiskussion #Politik #SüddeutscheZeitung

Gericht: Zurückweisungen von Asylsuchenden auf deutschem Boden sind rechtswidrig

^{Süddeutsche Zeitung}

Sen. John Fetterman is pushing back on reports that he no longer wants to serve in Congress.

At a debate with Sen. Dave McCormick (R-Pa.) Monday morning, Fetterman claimed that the media is trying to “smear” him over his lack of public appearances, including for congressional votes.

“I'm here. I'm doing that job,” Fetterman (D-Pa.) said. “For me, if I miss some of those quotes — I mean some of those votes — I've made 90 percent of them and, and we all know those votes that I've missed were on Monday; those are travel days, and I have three young kids, and I — those are throwaway procedural votes. … That's a choice that I made, and if you want to attack me for that, go ahead.”

Fetterman and McCormick spoke in Boston at The Senate Project, a series to foster bipartisanship, that aired on Fox Nation.

Fetterman’s office did not immediately respond to POLITICO’s request for comment.

The first-term senator has come under fire from progressives and others both in Congress and his home state over his voting record and alleged outbursts toward staffers.

Fetterman suffered a stroke shortly before winning the 2022 Senate primary and was admitted to the hospital, where doctors removed a clot. In February 2023, Fetterman announced he was seeking treatment for severe depression.

Many applauded Fetterman for being candid about his mental health struggles.

But a bombshell New York magazine report this month alleged that current and former staffers are concerned about Fetterman’s mental and physical health. Top Democrats have yet to come to Fetterman’s defense, and at least one Pennsylvanian progressive organization called on Fetterman to resign, citing the senator’s voting record and “disdainful attitude” toward constituents.

“You have failed to fulfill the most basic duties of the office by avoiding contact with your constituents who can't even leave voicemails after business hours, refusing to hold town halls, yelling at visitors in your office and inexcusably missing more votes than any other member of the current Senate,” the letter from Indivisible Pennsylvania read.

On Monday, Fetterman alleged that Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) missed more votes than he has.

Sanders did not immediately respond to request for comment. A spokesperson for Murray told POLITICO that the majority of votes she was absent for were during a vote-a-rama that took place when her husband was hospitalized.

"Senator Murray was caring for her husband while he was in the hospital and was prepared to return to the floor if her vote might have been determinative,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

“Why aren't the left media yelling and demanding them and claiming they're not doing their job?” Fetterman said.

Since taking office in 1991, Sanders has missed 836 of 6,226 roll call votes, or about 13.4 percent, according to GovTrack.us, a government transparency site. Between 1993 and May 2025, Murray missed 290 of 11,106 roll call votes, or about 2.6 percent.

In his first term, Fetterman has missed 174 of 961 of roll call votes, or about 18.1 percent, according to GovTrack.us. The median among lifetime records of current sitting senators is 2.9 percent.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, former TV host and Pennsylvania Senate candidate, is one of America’s most famous physicians. Now he’s running the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which means he’s in charge of programs that provide health care for about half of all Americans. He sits down with White House Bureau Chief Dasha Burns to discuss potential Medicaid cuts, his big plans to lower drug pricing, why he’s fielding early morning phone calls from President Donald Trump, and his advice to patients to “be curious” about their health.

Plus, Burns is joined by senior political columnist and politics bureau chief Jonathan Martin to discuss his juicy column about the Ohio governor’s race featuring Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy and former Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel. And senior legal affairs reporter Kyle Cheney joins to discuss the showdown between Trump and the courts over his “Liberation Day” tariffs.

Listen and subscribe to The Conversation with Dasha Burns on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Die erhöhten Einfuhrabgaben sollen bereits ab Mittwoch gelten. Die EU droht mit Gegenmaßnahmen.

Die erhöhten Einfuhrabgaben sollen bereits ab kommender Woche gelten. Die EU droht mit Gegenmaßnahmen.#USA #US-Wahl #DonaldTrump #US-Präsident #DemokratischePartei #RepublikanischePartei #ElonMusk #US-Regierung #JDVance #Repräsentantenhaus #US-Kongress #US-Senat #Ausland #Leserdiskussion #Politik #SüddeutscheZeitung

USA News: Trump: Verdoppelung der Stahl-Zölle auf 50 Prozent ab Mittwoch

^{Kassian Stroh (Süddeutsche Zeitung)}

COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA — Democrats here took a vital first step in delivering Joe Biden the presidency five years ago. Now, they're hoping his tarnished legacy won’t jeopardize their future as an early primary state.

Already, there are hints some Democrats will revert to New Hampshire holding the party’s initial primary contest, while progressives want to see labor-heavy Nevada take the lead. And there's even talk of friendlier southern states, like Georgia or North Carolina, leapfrogging South Carolina.

“The unfortunate part is, Democrats are saying that, and they think that [South Carolina leading] is a bad part of Biden's legacy,” said Bre Booker-Maxwell, a national committeewoman, Saturday on the sidelines of the state party’s convention.

She questioned the rationale of such a decision, before answering herself. “The fact that the man ran the second time, and he probably shouldn't have run?” she asked skeptically. “Some people just need to get over themselves and whatever issues they have with Joe Biden.”

Attempts to move past Biden and the bad aftertaste of 2024 got underway this weekend as state party insiders hosted a pair of out-of-state governors with obvious, but still publicly undeclared, sights on the 2028 nomination.

Govs. Wes Moore of Maryland and Tim Walz of Minnesota took turns gracing the outdoor stage while onlookers feasted on whiting filet on white bread, at the World Famous Fish Fry, an annual tradition hosted by the state’s Democratic kingmaker, Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.).

Walz, the first to greet the crowd, spoke of the missteps from the last cycle and Democrats needing to expand their reach beyond a handful of swing states.

“I went to the same seven damn states over and over and over,” Walz said. “People are pissed off in South Carolina, they're pissed off in Texas, they're pissed off in Indiana. … We need to change the attitude, compete in every district, compete for every school board seat.”

Moore, who earlier Friday delivered the keynote address at the state party’s Blue Palmetto Dinner, drew cheers from the mostly Black attendees of the fish fry when he said “we come from a resilient culture” and encouraged them not to run in the face of challenge. He then pivoted to Trump and the havoc his so-called big beautiful bill would create if passed, which Moore suggested would push tens of thousands of kids into poverty while enriching the president’s billionaire buddies.

Once speeches wrapped, several in the crowd broke into line dance while South Carolina crooner 803 Fresh’s campaign anthem “Boots on the Ground” blared over loudspeakers.

It was not the rip-roaring affair of 2019 when a cavalcade of 21 presidential candidates — including Biden — wooed attendees with stump speeches. Friday night's gathering at the EdVenture Children’s Museum was held as many Democrats are still grappling with the pain of widespread electoral defeats.

Biden’s return to the national spotlight — through negative coverage detailing how those in his inner circle shielded the president's deteriorating condition from the outside world — has only resurfaced some long-held misgivings about his legacy.

“All this talk about President Biden and what should have and what could have, what might have, is a bunch of bullshit,” said Trav Robertson, a longtime Democratic operative and former chair of the state party. “We can peck that to death if you want to, but that is in the past. South Carolina represents going into the future.”

South Carolina, a state where Black Democrats make up a substantial portion of primary voters, played a pivotal role resurrecting Biden’s moribund campaign. When Clyburn threw his support behind Biden ahead of the South Carolina primary in 2020, it vaulted him to the nomination and later, the presidency. In return, Biden pressured the Democratic Party to upend its traditional nomination calendar by moving the state to the lead-off position.

But that electoral situation was tenuous. By running for reelection, Biden sapped energy out of the 2024 primary. Now, party officials are bracing for its status as the kickoff state to be ripped away.

“I think it would be a mistake to act like South Carolina's place [at the top] is just because of Biden, when this has been a conversation we've been having for 20 years,” said Nick Sottile, an attorney and executive director of the South Carolina House Democrats.

Like nearly every Democrat in the state, he points out the benefits of South Carolina are vast. In addition to paying homage to a vital Democratic voting bloc, the small state with relatively cheap media markets won’t bankrupt campaigns, which can hit upstate, midlands and the coast — a mix of urban, suburban and rural areas — all on a single tank of gas. Then there’s the robust defense of South Carolina primary voters' history of picking presidents — Bill Clinton in 1992, Barack Obama in 2008 and Biden in 2020 — particularly in contrast to New Hampshire and Iowa.

“We get it right, and it's a proven track record,” Sottile added. “It's not one election and one candidate that we're talking about.”

That feeling is not shared by many outside the state.

A longtime member of the DNC’s committee that helps determine the presidential primary order granted anonymity to discuss informal discussions suggested South Carolina’s current spot atop the calendar will undoubtedly come under scrutiny in the coming months.

“Clearly South Carolina members will want to continue to be first in the calendar for obvious reasons,” the person said. “I think that no one else is going to feel any kind of obligation to keep South Carolina at the top of the calendar — because Biden is gone.”

Biden may have unintentionally shattered South Carolina’s standing next cycle, which only adds to a sense of betrayal over his role in ushering in another Trump presidency.

“There are people who are just mad as hell about everything that happened in 2024,” said Sam Skardon of Charleston.

He admits he was one of the few in the state party who believed Biden’s promise to be a “bridge” candidate to the next generation. He took the job as chair of the Charleston County Democrats in March 2023 hoping to preside over a robust primary. A month later, Biden announced his reelection bid.

“There's a special connection here that’s a deeper attachment, I think, than most states' Democratic Parties have to President Biden, probably up there with Delaware for thinking of him as our own,” Skardon added. “But yeah, then there is additional anger, I think, at Biden for … not not letting us put our best foot forward.”

Some believe Biden is simply too convenient a scapegoat for the party’s broader problems. Backpedaling on giving Black voters more of a say in picking the party’s nominee could erode trust in a bloc that's already drifting away from the party.

“It is a slap in the face … to Black Americans, where people are questioning Joe Biden at this point,” said Antjuan Seawright, a Democratic strategist who resumed his role as emcee of the fish fry. “It was Joe Biden who had the steel spine, the guts and the courage to declare that Black Americans' voices should be heard first in the presidential preference process.”

But Seawright also shared concerns that too many voters here view Democrats as out of touch.

“I think trust was a part of the formula for Trump's success in the last election cycle,” Seawright added. “You had some people who, in my opinion, did not necessarily vote for Donald Trump, they voted against the Democratic brand.”

At the Palmetto Dinner, Jaime Harrison, the chair emeritus of the Democratic National Committee and Orangeburg, South Carolina, native revved up the crowd by putting a positive spin on the party’s standing in state since Biden left the stage.

“We are more organized, we are more energized, and we are more focused than ever before,” he said, heaping praise on the state’s party chair Christale Spain who was elected to a second term on Saturday. “I am going to be on record right now to the South Carolina Republican Party, 2026 is going to be a reckoning.”

Amanda Loveday, a Democratic strategist based in Columbia who worked on Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign, is another South Carolina defender. But she is less optimistic given South Carolina’s Democrats, who have long been locked out of power in the state, suffered setbacks last cycle.

“We lost [state] Senators and House members that we have absolutely no business losing,” Loveday said, which included two prominent Black lawmakers including state Sen. Gerald Malloy and state Rep. Joseph Jefferson.

Republicans flipped four state Senate seats last cycle, leaving just 12 Democrats in the chamber. And in the presidential election, Trump’s victory was never in doubt, but he increased his margin by 6 percentage points over 2020.

All this is fueling speculation that South Carolina’s neighbors — North Carolina and Georgia — which have notched statewide wins for Democrats in recent cycles, have better arguments to hurdle South Carolina in the primary calendar.

When top figures in President Donald Trump’s orbit descended on a small town in southeastern Poland this week to rally support for the right-wing candidate in that country’s presidential election on Sunday, they put MAGA’s ambitions abroad on full display.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem called Karol Nawrocki “just as strong a leader” as Trump, declaring “he needs to to be the next president of Poland.” Matt Schlapp, chair of the pro-Trump Conservative Political Action Conference, which hosted the gathering, said electing candidates like Nawrocki is “so important to the freedom of people everywhere,” while John Eastman, who aided Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election, said Poland under Nawrocki would play “a critical role in defeating [the] threat to Western civilization.”

But if the conservative confab ahead of Poland’s vote was an indication of how hard Trump’s allies have been working to expand the MAGA brand across the globe, the results of recent elections, including in Romania, Poland and Canada, suggest Trump’s influence in some cases may not be helping.

“Just like domestically, you see one step forward, two steps back sometimes,” said Matthew Bartlett, a GOP strategist and State Department appointee in Trump's first administration. “The thought of Trump and MAGA is sometimes more powerful than the reality.”

He said, “His thumbprint can help push in certain regions and countries, but there can also be some pushback.”

Trump’s election to a second term in November emboldened far-right movements abroad. It gave Trump’s allies hopes of putting like-minded leaders into positions of power, boosting parties that share his priorities and spreading his populist, hard-right politics beyond the U.S. Meanwhile, conservative politicians in other countries yoked themselves directly or stylistically to his brand.

In the months since, far-right parties have performed strongly in European elections, including in Poland, Romania and Portugal, overperforming expectations and elevating their vote shares with electorates shifting to the right on issues like immigration. The hard-right in Europe, by most accounts, is surging. But they’re not vaulting into government like some Trump allies had predicted.

“I wouldn't say the right has ascended, I'd say it's a mixed package,” said Kurt Volker, who served as Trump’s envoy for Ukraine during his first administration and ambassador to NATO under George W. Bush. “There is a movement effect where the far-right movements seem to draw energy from each other and do well. But there's also this anti-Trump effect, where Trump has challenged a country or a leader and that has only backfired and helped them.”

In Romania, hard-right presidential candidate George Simion, who spoke at this year’s CPAC in Washington and appeared on Trump ally Steve Bannon’s podcast just days before the country’s election this month, lost to a centrist challenger after dominating the first round of voting. In Albania, conservatives hired former Trump co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita to boost their fortunes, only to see their candidate get trounced anyway.

And the movement is bracing for a close election on Sunday in Poland, where Nawrocki — who visited the White House earlier this month — is locked in a tight race with centrist candidate Rafal Trzaskowski after finishing behind him in the first round.

“We have a lot of political leaders here in the U.S. who are camping out in Poland to try to tilt it,” said Randy Evans, who was ambassador to Luxembourg during Trump’s first term. “Whether or not that's enough or not … I don't know. I think it's going to be very close.”

Trump’s allies have been working since his first term to expand MAGA’s influence abroad. Bannon, who had managed Trump’s 2016 campaign, began traveling across Europe pitching himself as the mastermind behind a new global far-right alliance called “The Movement.” He even announced he would set up an academy to train future right-wing political leaders at a former monastery outside Rome.

Those efforts largely fizzled at the time: Bannon’s planned academy got caught up in yearslong legal battles, and support for far-right parties across the continent tanked in the early months of the coronavirus pandemic.

But rising inflation and growing concerns over immigration helped far-right parties gain back support as the pandemic faded. By the time Trump won the election last November, many of those parties were resurging — and his victory emboldened them further, with far-right allies quickly seeking to tie themselves to the incoming U.S. president and his orbit.

When Vice President JD Vance chastised European leaders for “running in fear of [their] own voters” at the Munich Security Conference in February, he billed the Trump administration as an alternative model — the vanguard of a hard-right movement not only in the United States, but across the West.

“Make Europe Great Again! MEGA, MEGA, MEGA,” Elon Musk, Donald Trump’s billionaire ally, posted on X earlier this year.

In the months since the vice president’s appearance in Germany, hardline conservatives have had some success. In Portugal, the far-right Chega party surged. And Reform UK, the party led by pro-Brexit leader Nigel Farage, made big gains in the country’s local elections earlier this month.

CPAC, which has been holding international conferences since 2017 — including in Japan, Australia, Brazil and Argentina — gathered supporters in Hungary following the Poland meeting this week.

Schlapp did not respond to a request for comment. But he told NPR, “The one thing that's undeniable is that everybody wants to know where Donald Trump is on the issues that matter to their country” and said, “They're really rooting for Donald Trump to succeed.”

But elsewhere abroad, MAGA-style politics not only has failed to spread — it has been a liability. In both Canada and Australia, Trump’s combative and unpredictable trade policy led to an anti-Trump wave that helped tank right-wing candidates who sought to emulate his rhetoric.

Canada’s Pierre Poilievre ran on a “Canada First” slogan and Australia’s Peter Dutton proposed DOGE-style cuts to government. But Trump’s tariffs were deeply unpopular with voters in both countries, and even though Poilievre and Dutton distanced themselves from Trump in the final days of the campaign, voters punished them anyway.

Vance’s speech in February “gave the impression that this is becoming a transatlantic right-wing alliance,” said Liana Fix, a fellow for Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. “Since then, the reality is … not as drastic as those worst-case scenarios. And that’s not because they’re not trying. You see how the White House is trying.”

Trump’s allies went all-in on the May 18 election in Romania, which was the re-run of a November vote annulled over concerns that a Russian influence campaign on TikTok had affected the outcome. Trump allies had criticized the decision to cancel the original results and bar the winning candidate, ultranationalist Călin Georgescu, from running in the new election.

MAGA loyalists spent months touting Simion, the hard-right candidate who promised to “Make Romania Great Again.” Less than two weeks before Election Day, Simion hosted CPAC’s Schlapp at a business roundtable in Bucharest, and two days before Romanian voters cast their ballots, Bannon hosted Simion on his “War Room” podcast.

“George, you've got the entire MAGA movement here in the United States pulling for you,” Bannon said, predicting victory for the Trump-aligned candidate.

But when the votes were counted, it wasn’t even close. Simion lost the election by 7 points to Bucharest Mayor Nicușor Dan, a centrist candidate who promised closer ties with the European Union and NATO.

In Albania’s May 11 parliamentary elections, where the conservative candidate, Sali Berisha, hired LaCivita to help his party make a political comeback, the party in interviews heralded Trump and Berisha’s “remarkably similar profiles” of being “persecuted by establishments” and “targeted by their countries’ justice systems.” Berisha’s supporters touted LaCivita’s involvement as proof Berisha was anointed by the MAGA movement.

But on Election Day, Berisha’s party lost badly, handing incumbent Edi Rama and his Socialist Party another term in office.

Rama wasted no time in gloating: Hiring Trump’s campaign strategist and thinking you can become Trump “is like hiring a Hollywood hairdresser and thinking you’ll become Brad Pitt,” he told POLITICO after the vote.

LaCivita told POLITICO on Friday that the connection between MAGA in the U.S. and conservative movements abroad stems from a common concern about an “alignment of issues — governments using their judicial systems to prosecute political opponents, the rising cost of living, reduced opportunities and individual liberties.”

“This alignment was defeated with President Trump’s win in 2024, and while that success may not always be repeated worldwide — once again America is being looked at to provide leadership in securing freedom,” he said in a text message. “Not through the barrel of a gun — but politics.”

Trump spokesperson Anna Kelly said in a statement that Trump’s “message of restoring common sense, halting illegal immigration, and delivering peace resonates with not just Americans, but people around the world, which is why conservatives have been winning elections in all corners of the globe. He is simultaneously restoring America’s strength on the world stage, as evidenced by the 15 foreign leaders who have visited the White House this term.”

Meanwhile, Trump’s allies have largely dismissed defeats abroad, with explanations ranging from blaming the “deep state” to arguing that losing politicians were not sufficiently Trumpian to win.

"MAGA's populist, nationalist, sovereignist right continues to rise despite the full force of the deep state being thrown against it,” Bannon told POLITICO in response to the spate of recent elections.

“These people aren’t Donald Trump. They’re facsimiles,” Raheem Kassam, a former Farage adviser and ex-Breitbart London editor, said of Simion and Nawrocki, noting that their parties are both part of a faction on the European level that has its roots more in traditional conservatism than the MAGA-style populism of far-right parties in Germany, Austria, France and others.

“They’re cheap copies that have been run through a copy machine 40 times,” he added. “It doesn’t work. It’s faded. It’s counterfeit Trumpism.”

Poland, where leaders of the right-wing Law and Justice Party have long cultivated ties to Trump and MAGA loyalists, will offer the next test of whether an affiliation with Trump can help put like-minded candidates over the finish line.

Nawrocki, the Law and Justice Party-backed candidate for president, has gone all-in on his efforts to tie himself to Trump — including flying to Washington in early May for a photo op at the White House.

“President Trump said, ‘you will win,’" Nawrocki told the Polish broadcaster TV Republika. “I read it as a kind of wish for my success in the upcoming elections, and also awareness of it, and after this whole day I can say that the American administration is aware of what is happening in Poland.”

But public opinion polling shows Poles, who have long been among the U.S.’ biggest fans in Europe, are souring on both the country and its current leader amid tariffs and Trump’s close ties to Russia — a tricky issue in a country where many people still view Russia as a threat.

Asked by a Polish public polling agency in April whether the U.S. has a positive impact on the world, just 20 percent said yes — the lowest figure since the poll was first conducted in 1987, and down from 55 percent a year ago. And 60 percent of Poles said they were “concerned” about Trump’s presidency, compared with just 15 percent who were “hopeful.”

“Trump is the most unpopular U.S. president in Europe,” said Milan Nic, an expert on Central and Eastern Europe at the German Council on Foreign Relations. “This means that to some supporters of Nawrocki, the photo from White House with Trump is no longer as powerful as it used to be.”

Volker, the former Ukraine envoy, said right-wing parties need to walk a tightrope of embracing some of the MAGA zeal — but without linking themselves too closely to the polarizing U.S. president.

“You have to think of Trump as like fire: You can't be too close, but you can't be too far away,” said Volker. “If you get too close to Trump you get burned, and if you’re too far away you’re not relevant.”