‘THE DEVIL THEY KNOW’ — The fate of one of the world’s most powerful leaders now hangs in the balance as more than 60 million Turkish voters weigh who to support in the second round of their country’s presidential elections.

One thing is clear, though, after Sunday’s vote. Despite crippling inflation and allegations of cronyism, going heavy on Turkish nationalism is still a winning political strategy.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has held the top job for almost a decade, defied predictions and took home 49 percent in the election. That’s despite growing anger over the worsening economy and the government’s flawed handling of the earthquakes that cost more than 50,000 people their lives in February.

“We strongly believe we will continue to serve our nation for the next five years,” the populist leader said in a jubilant speech at a flag-waving rally in Ankara. Neither he nor his main rival, liberal economist Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, actually received the outright majority required to win, but Erdoğan now appears on the cusp of securing an unprecedented third term in a runoff vote in just under two weeks.

Riding high on nationalist rhetoric, he has sought to convince voters that only he has Turkey’s best interests at heart in a growing geopolitical standoff between the West and the East.

“The opposition underestimated the identity politics that Erdoğan and his nationalist partners were playing,” says Lisel Hintz, assistant professor of international relations at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. “They claimed a Western coup was afoot, that he was a Western puppet and that this was all part a ploy by the U.S. and George Soros.”

Meanwhile, on the international stage, Erdoğan has deftly played Russia and Washington against each other, supplying advanced attack drones to Ukraine while buying up cheap Russian oil and gas. More valuable to NATO than ever before, Ankara has held up Sweden’s application to join the alliance, but at the same time secured President Joe Biden’s approval for new fighter jet upgrades.

Hopes that Kılıçdaroğlu might come to power and prove a more reliable ally now appear to have been all but crushed.

To come out on top, the 74-year-old would have to win over supporters of Sinan Oğan, the eliminated ultranationalist candidate who nonetheless did unexpectedly well on the back of his fiery anti-refugee rhetoric. But, by doing so, Kılıçdaroğlu risks alienating the marginalized Kurdish community whose backing he needs to win.

That’s not the only pressure his campaign faces. Just hours before the polls opened, Twitter confirmed it would “restrict access to some content in Turkey,” raising concerns for the democratic process. The social network’s owner, Elon Musk, said the decision was taken to avoid seeing “Twitter throttled in its entirety.”

Now, there’s little doubt about the eventual result. “Nationalism has worked for Erdoğan and he’s the one with the path to victory,” says Dimitar Bechev, a University of Oxford academic and the author of a new book on how the president has turned his country against the West.

“There are mixed feelings in the U.S. and Europe,” Bechev says. “On one hand, they’ll be disappointed but, despite that, there will be some relief that they’ll likely still be dealing with the devil they know.”

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— Yellen: U.S. faces ‘widespread suffering’ if debt limit not raised: Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen today warned of “widespread suffering” and a potential stock market crash if Washington fails to raise the government’s borrowing authority in the coming weeks. Yellen told a banking conference that a situation where the U.S. runs out of cash to pay its bills and defaults on its debt “would generate an economic and financial catastrophe.” She said millions of Americans who rely on payments from the federal government would likely go unpaid, ranging from 66 million Social Security beneficiaries to millions of veterans and military families.

— IRS will experiment with free online filing system: The IRS will launch a pilot program next year that will allow a small number of people to electronically file their tax returns directly with the agency. Details are still being worked out, but the initiative announced today is designed to allow people to avoid having to pay companies like Intuit and H&R Block to do their taxes. Republicans are already lining up against the plan, fearing it could eventually lead to a system where the IRS fills out people’s returns for them, which they say is a conflict of interest since the agency also enforces tax laws.

— Biden will cut trip abroad short over debt ceiling talks: President Joe Biden will head to Japan this week to attend the G-7 summit but will cancel the remainder of his trip abroad, according to several people familiar with the details. Biden will instead return to Washington to help oversee ongoing debt ceiling negotiations with congressional Republicans. The president is scheduled to leave Wednesday for Hiroshima. He had planned to make visits afterward to Papua New Guinea and then to the Quad Summit in Australia. Biden will instead return to Washington on Sunday.

HOME FIELD ADVANTAGE — Florida’s two Republican legislative leaders, who gave DeSantis a string of significant legislative victories during the recently concluded session, endorsed the GOP governor in his highly anticipated run for president, reports POLITICO’s Gary Fineout. Senate President Kathleen Passidomo and House Speaker Paul Renner gave their support to DeSantis shortly after joining him for a bill signing ceremony held this morning in Broward County.

TAKE YOUR SHOT — A cavalcade of GOP presidential hopefuls stepped up today to go after the FBI in the wake of a report from Special Counsel John Durham that criticized the agency for its actions during the probe that scrutinized Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and its alleged ties to Russia.

“THEY ARE SCUM, LIKE COCKROACHES ALL OVER WASHINGTON, D.C.,” former President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social.

Other GOP contenders called for cleaning house at the FBI. Vivek Ramaswamy, who announced his campaign in February, called to “shut down the FBI” following the release of the report Monday.

SNAPPING BACK — DeSantis today took a swipe at Trump over abortion, chiding the GOP presidential frontrunner for failing to take a stance on what type of abortion restrictions he would be willing to support.

On Monday in The Messenger, Trump said “[DeSantis] signed six weeks, and many people within the pro-life movement feel that that was too harsh.”

Today, DeSantis hit back, arguing, “I think that as a Florida resident, you know, he didn’t give an answer about ‘would you have signed the heartbeat bill that Florida did.’ It had all the exceptions that people talk about. The Legislature put it in. I signed the bill. I was proud to do it. He won’t answer whether he would sign it or not.”

The comments set up a potential fault line for DeSantis when he officially jumps into the race for president, which could come as soon as next week.

CORRUPTION CASE — The head of Ukraine’s Supreme Court has been detained as part of a $2.7 million bribery inquiry, writes Nicolas Camut.

Supreme Court President Vsevolod Kniaziev and an unnamed lawyer were detained as part of the investigation, Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) said in a statement.

The lawyer is suspected of acting as an intermediary on behalf of a billionaire Ukrainian iron oligarch, Kostyantyn Zhevago.

Several high-level Ukrainian officials have been linked to corruption cases over the last few months as Kyiv attempts to crack down on graft to comply with the EU’s rule of law requirements, even as it continues to resist Russia’s full-scale invasion.

DRAWING THE LINE — A veteran Russian politician and former army commander called for a crackdown on the country’s notorious private military company, Wagner Group, as tensions rise over its role in the invasion of Ukraine.

Viktor Sobolev, a former lieutenant general in the armed forces who now sits as a Communist Party MP, branded the mercenary outfit “an illegal armed formation” in a statement today.

“It is not clear where [the Wagner Group] is registered and what it does,” Sobolev said. He warned regular soldiers defecting into its ranks could face up to 15 years in prison.

Moscow outsourced much of the fighting around the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut to Wagner in recent weeks. The group’s founder, oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, accused top generals of failing to supply his troops in a series of furious attacks on the top brass.

The Washington Post reported on Monday leaked documents revealed Prigozhin may have offered to give information on Russian army positions to Kyiv in exchange for a Ukrainian retreat from Bakhmut.

THE ROAD BACK — What is life like after a traumatic brain injury? What can you put back together, and what can’t you? In a clever essay laying out “how to survive a car crash in 10 easy steps,” writer and video journalist Anne Lagamayo reconstructs her experience in 10 chapters with a debilitating brain injury and an arduous recovery process that doesn’t always allow you to ever regain full function. Read her piece for Longreads here.