National

The results are in from this week's European Parliament elections, a massive, 4-day democratic exercise spanning 28 countries, 400 million voters and hundreds of parties all vying for a voice in the 751-seat assembly.

Why it matters: With nationalism resurgent, this election was critical for those who wanted to preserve and further integrate the 62-year-old European Union — as well as those who wanted it dismantled from within. 

Traditionally a low-interest contest akin to the U.S. midterms, final numbers show voter turnout increased from the last cycle for the first time since the first European elections were held in 1979. About 51% of the 400 million eligible Europeans vote, compared to 42.6% in 2014, and turnout increased in all but 7 countries.

As projected, the center-right conservatives (EPP) and center-left socialists (S&D) lost their combined majority, ending the "grand coalition" that had commanded parliament for the last 40 years.

The liberal ALDE will merge with Emmanuel Macron's centrist, pro-EU Renaissance to comprise the 3rd largest group, marking one of two major realignments of power — with the other coming on the far-right, populist wing of the assembly.

In what some commentators are dubbing the "Greta Thunberg effect," Green parties flooded the ballots in northern and western Europe, outperforming Politico Europe's projections by 10 seats and becoming the 4th largest group in parliament.

The Greens' performance was especially strong in Germany, where they almost doubled their 2014 result and helped devastate the center-left Social Democrats. The Greens "cemented their status as the rising force in German politics," the FT notes, but their presence in southern and eastern Europe remains virtually nonexistent.

The overwhelming narrative heading into the elections was that a new crop of far-right, populist parties — emboldened by a wave of victories in national and regional elections — would take parliament by storm and become kingmakers. Certain nationalist parties like the Sweden Democrats fared well, but the overall gains were modest.

One astute caveat: Academic Matthew Goodwin points out that while Denmark's far-right was decimated, the country's center-left party has adopted one of the most restrictive immigration policies in Europe. "The national populists collapsed because they won the argument," Goodwin writes.

Marine Le Pen's National Rally eked out a victory (23%-22%) over Macron — seen as a bellwether for greater EU integration — but failed to perform as well as in 2014. That comes as a surprise, given the persistent domestic troubles, such as the months-long gilet jaunes protests, that have helped sink Macron's approval rating at home.

Former presidents Sarkozy and Hollande's Republican and Socialist parties, meanwhile, combined for less than 15% — a collapse that The Economist's Sophie Pedder argues confirms "the upending of the French party-political system that Macron brought about in 2017."

Nigel Farage's new Brexit Party dominated the U.K.'s dreaded European election, which was only held because of a failure by Theresa May's Conservative government to pass a Brexit deal in time. The Conservatives were decimated across the country, but so were the opposition Labour Party — a devastating rebuke of the U.K.'s two main political parties.

The Liberal Democrats appear to be the main beneficiary of Labour's collapse, likely due to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's reluctance to adopt a second referendum as the party's official platform. The Lib Dems even won in Islington, Corbyn's own constituency.

While the Brexit Party's triumph will likely dominate headlines, it's worth noting that the various pro-Remain parties together comprise the majority of votes.

What to watch: There is still plenty to come in the way of group alignments, with parties on both sides of the political spectrum set to find new families. Once that's completed, parliament will vote on the next president of the European Commission, the EU's powerful executive body. The current favorite is Manfred Weber, leader of the now-weakened EPP.

For more on the European elections, subscribe to the Axios World newsletter.

6 key takeaways from the critical European elections

Voter turnout increased from the last cycle for the first time since the first European elections were held in 1979.

World

European Union (EU)

Never miss a major world story

Exclusive: Emails show border union chief clashed with Trump nominee

"If you truly cared about the Border Patrol you would resign immediately."

Excerpt of an email sent from Brandon Judd's personal account to incoming ICE chief Mark Morgan

Excerpt of an email sent from Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, to then-U.S. Border Patrol chief Mark Morgan, obtained by Axios. Photo illustration: Lazaro Gamio/Axios

Politics

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

2024 will be an election year like no other, as President Biden seeks re-election amid economic uncertainty, two wars and questions about his age. His likely foe, former President Trump, faces felony charges and vows revenge on his political enemies. Meanwhile, Americans generally are dissatisfied with those choices and are divided over immigration, race, education and more.

Politics & Policy

President Trump's tweets don't pack the punch they did at the outset of his presidency. His Twitter interaction rate — a measure of the impact given how much he tweets and how many people follow him — has tumbled precipitously, according to data from CrowdTangle.

Why it matters: It's a sign that his strongest communication tool may be losing its effectiveness and that the novelty has worn off.

Trump's interaction rate has fallen from 0.55% in the month he was elected to 0.32% in June 2017 — and down to 0.16% this month through May 25. (The metric measures retweets and likes per tweet divided by the size of his following.)

Data: CrowdTangle; Note: Interaction rate is retweets plus likes per tweet divided by total followers. Explore the tweets that got the most interactions by month here; Chart: Naema Ahmed/Axios

Trump's lines of attack have been repeated so much that they don't shock anymore, says Toronto Star Washington bureau chief Daniel Dale.

Because norm-breaking tweets have become the new norm, Dale says, he doesn't cover them as often — and therefore, casual readers hear about them less.

Attacking the Mueller investigation went from scandalous to routine for Trump, and accusing government officials of treason went from groundbreaking to commonplace. 

The big picture: While the number of interactions per tweet Trump generates has increased 21% between his first six months and most recent six months, it lags way behind his follower growth of 110%.

And he's tweeting more, which could make any individual tweet less likely to stand out.

The pace of Trump's tweeting has picked up over the course of his presidency, from 157 times per month during his first 6 months to 284 times per month over the last 6 months.

May is on pace to be the lowest month for Trump's Twitter interaction rate since January 2016.

Not counting posts he retweets, he is at 343 tweets through May 25 — closing in on his one-month record of 348 in August.

Trump's top tweet of his presidency: The pro wrestling video of him taking down a man with a CNN logo for a head. (930,531 interactions)

No. 2 and 3: Insults and threats to Kim Jong-un. (876,755, 685,193) 

It's not always controversy that takes off. Rounding out Trump's 5 biggest tweets are "Merry Christmas!" and "Good Morning, Have A Great Day!" (592,052, 538,564)

Despite all of the drama of conflict, there's an appetite for harmony in Trump's tweets. In 11 months of his presidency, his biggest tweets had a uniting, positive message — like his responses to violent attacks and his post-Super Bowl messages.

Explore the biggest tweets each month of his presidency here.

Trump's tweets are losing their potency

After repeated attacks, the shock value has worn off, according to his interaction rate.

Trump tweets

Elon Musk

Social Media

Capital

Axios Capital

Facebook's new cryptocurrency, reportedly known internally as GlobalCoin, will be in "about a dozen countries" by this time next year, per the BBC. And it's going to be about more than just payments, according to an FT rep0rt this week — although the payments space alone is enormous.

Why it matters: "It should be as easy to send money to someone as it is to send a photo," says CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Given how many photos are shared across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp every day, it's clear that he sees an enormous opportunity here.

By the numbers: A single money market fund dedicated to Alibaba's Alipay service, Tianhong Yu’e Bao, had 588 million investors and $168 billion in assets at the end of last year. Mobile payments are both easy and ubiquitous in China, seamlessly bundled into social media apps.

But, but, but: You don't need to invent your own cryptocurrency in order to get into payments. Just ask Alipay — or, for that matter, Tencent, the owner of WeChat. Both of them are happy using China's fiat currency. And Facebook itself has incorporated dollar payments into Messenger since early 2015. So why create GlobalCoin?

What Facebook wants is not just to facilitate payments, but also to be able to print its own currency. That was the idea behind Facebook Credits in 2009: If you control your own coin, you can mint as much of it as you like and hand it out to users or anybody else at will. 

What to watch: GlobalCoin has the promise of being a vastly more useful and sophisticated version of Reddit Coins — or, for that matter, airline miles. "Reward points are dumb," says Jeff Bandman, a crypto consultant and former CFTC official. "I’m not saying they’re a dumb idea. But a cryptocurrency is programmable digital software that you can put intelligence into." 

Be smart: GlobalCoin can in principle be earned, rather than just bought. Amazon is already gamifying its jobs — that is, coaxing its employees to work harder by turning their jobs into a game with prizes — just as Uber has been doing for years. Perhaps soon Facebook too will become a game with valuable prizes. 

The bottom line: The most important currency in the world, if you're a social media network, is attention. If Facebook ever dies, it will be because its users desert it for some other network, taking their attention with them. And so Facebook wants to give them incentives to keep coming back.

Right now, whenever you post to social media, you're doing valuable unpaid work for the Big Tech platforms. The users they value the most are the ones who create engagement and stickiness. If it had its own currency, Facebook could print money to reward such behavior.

The promise of Facebook's GlobalCoin

"It should be as easy to send money to someone as it is to send a photo," says CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Ribbon with Facebook thumbs up in the middle

Business

Facebook

Technology

Big Tech

From the Valley to D.C., Big Tech players like Facebook, Google and Amazon are under more scrutiny than ever as new technology develops and privacy and antitrust concerns grow in lockstep with companies’ ambitions.

Axios AM

Speaker Pelosi, who used to treat President Trump like a naughty grandchild, last week adopted a notably more confrontational public posture, as she tried to defuse the impeachment fever rising among House Democrats.

Why it matters: "Pelosi’s allies said her taunting of Trump now is intentional, designed to get under his skin and elicit an angry reaction," per the WashPost.

"I wish that his family or his administration or his staff would have an intervention for the good of the country," Pelosi said Thursday at her weekly press conference.

"There’s no question, the White House is just crying out for impeachment," Pelosi added. "That’s why he flipped yesterday."

Asked about her "intervention" dig, Pelosi warmed to it: "That’s up to his family and his Cabinet and his staff in the White House. This is not behavior that rises to the dignity of the office of president of the United States."

A senior Democratic aide told me: "She’s succeeded in making three things very clear: 1) She’s interested in getting things done and he walked away again; 2) She’s the only adult in Washington and is leading Dems with precision; 3) He’s a toddler who pays a price for attacking her because he resorts to such publicly infantile lows to attack her." 

Even Trump allies can't believe he keeps falling for it: "I do this with my dog," one of them said.

Pelosi's Trump-like taunts are working

"I do this with my dog," said one Trump ally who couldn't believe the president keeps falling for it.

Instant classic from this year's State of the Union (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Instant classic from this year's State of the Union Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Nancy Pelosi

Donald Trump

Families have been shrinking and population growth has been slowing in most nations over the past several decades, according to World Bank data.

Data: The World Bank (birth rate, population growth, population); Note: 2.1 live births per woman is replacement level fertility. Chart: Lazaro Gamio/Axios

Why it matters: Labor shortages, strained elderly care systems and slowed economic growth could all follow if birth rates remain below replacement levels for a long period of time, demographers warn. 

Populations change slowly, humans are living longer and many rich countries still attract lots of immigrants. So despite almost half of countries around the world having birth rates below the level needed to replace current generations, most of those populations are still growing. 

Even with decades of a one-child policy and little immigration, China's population is still managing to grow. That is expected to end in 2026, according to U.S. Census Bureau projections.

Yes but: We're already starting to see impacts. Hungary, Italy, Portugal, Japan, Ukraine and 17 other nations are already watching their populations decline, according to the 2017 data. 

Low birth rates have been a factor in the state of Europe's economy, Richard Cincotta, director of the Global Political Demography Program at the Stimson Center, told Axios.

Japan is struggling with a critical labor shortage, forcing them to accept more foreign workers. 

Governments in Japan, Germany, Singapore and other nations have rolled out policies that incentivize having more babies. 

What to watch: Immigration could become increasingly important to boosting low fertility nations' populations and sustaining GDP growth. These immigrants could come from places like Niger, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of the Congo and other nations with booming populations. Much would depend on the willingness of governments and communities to welcome more foreigners into their workforces and societies.

On the other hand, with new, emerging technologies, "future economies will probably not need as many workers as they once did," Cincotta said. 

A future, smaller workforce could lead to higher wages, Global Aging Institute president Richard Jackson said, but taxes would also likely rise to help cover the costs of caring for larger retired generations living longer than ever.

And some aging economies with highly skilled workforces, such as in South Korea (which has a very small population of immigrants) and Germany, are doing just fine so far. 

The bottom line: Just before the fertility rates plummeted in the '70s, there was spreading concern for overpopulation. Demographic shifts are slow, and the downward trend we're seeing now could still reverse itself, but "each year that goes by with new data showing no rise — or even a decline, as we saw this year — makes a more fundamental shift more likely," Jackson said.

Special report: The aging, childless future

People around the world are waiting longer to have kids

The new rite of passage: Young, busy and still single

Where populations are booming and shrinking

Labor shortages, strained elderly care systems and slowed economic growth are all consequences of low birth rates.

Future

Demographics

The change promised by the wave of leaders who rose to power around the world since President Trump's 2016 election often hasn't materialized, forcing them to make waves internationally instead of draining their respective swamps.

The big picture: It's not just Trump whose domestic agenda has stalled out. Both Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's far-right policies and French President Emmanuel Macron's technocratic centrism are struggling to move forward at home.

Trump's stalled domestic agenda pales in comparison to the portfolio of international issues he's inserted himself into or created: trade wars, confrontations with Iran and summits with North Korea, and a Middle East peace plan.

The president doesn't face an oversight agenda when it comes to in-the-moment foreign policy, where he can rely on the personal, transactional style that he's favored throughout his business career to grab headlines with autocrats like North Korea's Kim Jong-un and Russia's Vladimir Putin.

Bolsonaro — dubbed the "Trump of the Tropics" for his sexist and homophobic statements — took office at the beginning of 2019, but he's already seeing difficult times ahead for his key domestic promise: $300 billion in pension reform. 

The head of the congressional committee for pension reform said last week that Bolsonaro's plan doesn't have 200 of the 308 votes needed to pass Congress' lower house.

In the meantime, Bolsonaro has used his notoriety abroad to gain influence with Trump officials even as he leverages the White House's trade war with China to his own advantage — massively upping trade numbers, especially in soybeans.

Macron has seen his presidency marred by "yellow vest" protests across France, while simultaneously using his power on the world stage to attempt to prop up the European project he holds dear.

His grand entrance onto the political stage — the presidency and a Parliament controlled by his brand new party — became bogged down in a months-long listening tour called the "Great National Debate" in an attempt to quell the "yellow vest" outrage.

As a result, Macron promised a massive reform package that would, among other things, cut income taxes and reduce the size of France's oversized bureaucracy, giving up control of a large portion of his domestic agenda in the process.

While unrest percolated at home, Macron turned his attention to shoring up the European Union — "going full de Gaulle," according to Foreign Policy's Robert Zaretsky — bringing himself close to German Chancellor Angela Merkel as bastions of centrism on the continent and using his position as a bully pulpit against the U.K.'s botched Brexit process.

The bottom line: Democracy is designed to be a deliberative, gradual process, and it's become even slower as political polarization takes root worldwide — so leaders are increasingly forced to turn outward to flex their muscles.

Swamped: As domestic reform fails, world leaders take on the globe

Democracy is slow, but leaders can easily make waves on the world stage.

Political polarization

Latin America and Latinos

Speaking from Tokyo in her first "Meet the Press" interview ever, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told NBC's Chuck Todd that President Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un "agree in their assessment" of former Vice President Joe Biden, who Trump called a "low IQ individual" in a tweet Monday evening.

28pgtcduvob7wdxt

TODD: Can you explain why Americans should not be concerned that the president of United States is essentially siding with a murderous authoritarian dictator over a former vice president in the United States?

SANDERS: Chuck, the president's not siding with that. But I think they agree in their assessment of former Vice President Joe Biden. Again, the president's focus in this process is the relationship he has and making sure we continue on the path towards denuclearization. ... The president watched [Biden] and his administration with President Obama fail for eight years. He's come in in two and a half, he's cleaned up a lot of the messes that were left behind. We shouldn't even be in the position that we're in to have to deal with North Korea at the level we are if they had done their job in the first place.

Why it matters: This is not the first time that Trump has taken the side of a foreign authoritarian over Americans that he deems his political enemies. As Axios has previously reported, Biden has been in Trump's head for months. His advisers take the former vice president very seriously and see him as Trump's biggest threat to re-election — and have been surprised to see him dominating early in a primary that was expected to be steered by left-wing activists.

The big picture: Sanders, like Trump on Sunday, downplayed the significance of North Korea's recent missile tests, saying none of them have posed "a threat" to the U.S. or its allies.

Todd challenged her on comments by the prime minister of Japan and by national security adviser John Bolton that North Korea had violated a UN resolution with its tests. Sanders deflected the question and reiterated what has long been Trump's stance on foreign diplomacy: He believes in his personal relationship with Kim and that the dictator "will stay firm with the commitment that he made to the president and move towards denuclearization."

Sarah Sanders defends Trump siding with Kim Jong-un on Joe Biden

It's not the first time Trump has taken the word of a foreign authoritarian over Americans he deems his political enemies.

Sarah Sanders

Joe Biden

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is about to roll out the new version of its main weather forecasting model next month — but it won't help the agency gain much ground against its international rivals for the title of having the world's most accurate weather model.

Why it matters: Weather forecasting today relies on numerical prediction models that simulate the current and future state of the atmosphere. If the most commonly used computer model is off target during high-impact weather events, it can affect the larger economy and possibly even cost lives. 

NOAA, for example, has estimated that 3%–6% of U.S. GDP is sensitive to weather variability.

Driving the news: The new version of the Global Forecasting System — a model known as the GFS-FV3 — will roll out in mid-June, acting NOAA administrator Neil Jacobs tells Axios. That's after an unexpectedly lengthy trial run in which problems were discovered in how the model handles snowfall projections.

While it should result in more accurate projections, testing shows it's unlikely to make up much ground against two of NOAA's forecasting rivals: the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts and the U.K. Met Office. 

The U.S., in other words, will still be in 3rd place even after the upgrade, Jacobs says.

However, Jacobs, who previously led the weather modeling group at Panasonic Avionics Corporation, says it's what is under the FV3's hood that counts. He says it will mark the beginning of a shift "that will drastically improve the skill” of U.S. forecast models from here on out.

Background: The public narrative that U.S. forecasting models are inferior have their roots in Hurricane Sandy, which struck the East Coast in 2012. The GFS failed to anticipate the storm's westerly turn into the New Jersey coast several days in advance, while the European model advertised that historically improbable outcome a week out. 

Ever since, NOAA, working with Congress and the White House, has been trying to obtain the resources needed to catch up to other countries. 

A big hang-up so far has been how the U.S. spread out its model development across agencies and research institutions without centralized oversight, including among centers within NOAA that did not collaborate despite being in the same agency.

What's next: Jacobs has big plans for changing how NOAA develops its computer models, with the goal of shifting code out of the agency and into the commercial cloud, where it can be used by university researchers and the private sector to help improve it and spin off new products. 

“We will set ourselves up to essentially crowdsource forecast model development work,” Jacobs says, noting that before, NOAA built models that could only be run on its own machines. 

NOAA also suffers from the perennial plight of every public-facing meteorologist: No one recognizes the agency when it gets the forecast right, but they are quick to point out when they screw up.

Jacobs says other weather agencies, including the ECMWF, are better at touting their forecasting skill: “We don’t claim the wins. We’re not actively out there saying look how good we did."

Go deeper: 5G spectrum and the potential weather forecasting apocalypse

America's upgraded weather forecast model still lags behind Europe

The nation's top weather agency says it's on the brink of major gains in modeling the weather.

A man walking along the Tidal Basin in Washington with an umbrella

A man walks along the Tidal Basin on the National Mall in March. Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

Science

extreme weather

Never miss a major science story

Extreme weather

News and analysis of the scientific advances fueling AI and quantum computing, revolutionizing biology and medicine, and tackling climate change. Science is changing the world and colliding with the global politics that shape it.

Breaking climate science and policy coverage as extreme weather events reshape communities. Keep tabs on the race to a low carbon economy, which may be bumpy as governments, climate tech startups and major oil and gas companies race to find their niche amid the changing energy landscape.

Energy & Climate

President Trump tweeted a different take Saturday on North Korea from national security adviser John Bolton, who said Pyongyang's recent missile tests violated UN Security Council resolutions and sanctions must remain against the country.

"North Korea fired off some small weapons, which disturbed some of my people, and others, but not me. I have confidence that Chairman Kim will keep his promise to me, & also smiled when he called Swampman Joe Biden a low IQ individual, & worse. Perhaps that’s sending me a signal?"

Why it matters: Bolton is the first senior administration official to confirm that North Korea launched the short-range ballistic missiles in contravention of UN resolutions. Trump's tweet appears to contradict Bolton's stance. 

The tweet puts Trump at odds with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. with whom he's meeting in Tokyo for a 4-day visit of Japan this week. Abe has also said North Korea violated UN resolutions with the weapons tests this month.

The big picture: Trump's mention of North Korea's scathing online attack against former Vice President Joe Biden indicates he sees the Democratic presidential candidate as a potentially serious threat for 2020.

Trump shrugs off North Korea concerns after Bolton says it broke UN ban

"I have confidence that Chairman Kim will keep his promise to me."

President Trump speaks as John Bolton looks on.

President Trump and national security adviser John Bolton. Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Sunday's top stories