Evelyn Reynolds

Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal said on Sunday that the party has “its work cut out for us” in response to new polling that shows President Joe Biden trailing Donald Trump in five of six swing states.The survey by the New York Times and Siena College of voters in six battleground states, was released with 365 days to go until the 2024 presidential election.Biden is ahead in Wisconsin, but Trump topped the survey in Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Michigan. The margins ranged from three to 10 percentage points, and reflected an erosion of support among the fragile, multiracial coalition that elected Biden over Trump in 2020.Speaking to CNN’s State of the Union, Blumenthal of Connecticut, said: “I was concerned before these polls, and I’m concerned now. These presidential races over the last couple of terms have been very tight. No one is going to have a runaway election here. It’s going to take a lot of hard work, concentration, resources. And so we have our work cut out for us.”However, Blumenthal praised Biden’s record, pointing to his diplomacy on the Israel-Hamas war – which has dismayed some on the progressive side of the party – saying the president’s leadership “has been critical … where he’s forged a bipartisan consensus in favor of a peaceful outcome with a Palestinian state as the goal.”Dr Don Levy, director of Siena College Research Institute, said the states in the poll would be crucial in 2024: “While Biden has a narrow three-point lead in Wisconsin, Trump leads by 11 points in Nevada, seven points in Georgia, five points in Arizona and three points in both Michigan and Pennsylvania.“If the 2024 matchup featured a Democrat other than Biden running against Trump, the ‘generic’ Democrat would be ahead by seven to 12 points in five of the states and ahead by three points in Nevada,” Levy said.Across the six battleground states, 59% disapprove of the Job Biden is doing as president and 71% said he was too old, while only 38% said Trump was too old. Biden is aged 80 and Trump is 77.Asked about the survey, the Biden campaign said there was a long way to go before election day. “Predictions more than a year out tend to look a little different a year later. Don’t take our word for it: Gallup predicted an 8 point loss for President Obama only for him to win handedly a year later,” Biden campaign spokesperson Kevin Munoz said in a statement, referring to Democrat Barack Obama’s 2012 victory over Republican Mitt Romney.Munoz added that Biden’s campaign “is hard at work reaching and mobilizing our diverse, winning coalition of voters one year out on the choice between our winning, popular agenda and Maga (Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan) Republicans’ unpopular extremism. We’ll win in 2024 by putting our heads down and doing the work, not by fretting about a poll.”Biden’s multiracial and multigenerational coalition appears to be fraying, the polls showed.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionVoters under age 30 favor Biden by only a single percentage point, his lead among Hispanic voters is down to single digits and his advantage in urban areas is half of Trump’s edge in rural regions, the polls showed.Black voters – a core Biden demographic – are now registering 22% support in these states for Trump, a level the New York Times reported was unseen in presidential politics for a Republican in modern times.
Reuters contributed to this report More

Bernie Sanders has stepped up his calls for a humanitarian pause in Gaza, demanding an immediate stop to Israeli bombing and an end to the killing of thousands of “innocent men, women and children” in the enclave.In some of his strongest words in the 30-day war, the independent US senator from Vermont decried the 7 October Hamas attack inside Israel. He labelled Hamas as an “awful terrorist organization” that had “slaughtered 1,400 people in cold blood”, reiterating his belief that Israel had the right to defend itself.But speaking on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, Sanders said the death of civilians had to stop. “What Israel does not, in my view, have a right to do is to kill thousands of thousands of innocent men, women and children who had nothing to do with that attack,” he said.The senator added: “There’s not enough food, there’s not enough water, medicine, fuel. You’ve got a humanitarian disaster, it has to be dealt with right now.”Sanders continues to be influential on the progressive flank of US politics at a time of deepening rifts on the left over the response to the war. He walks a fine line, condemning the civilian death toll caused by Israeli air strikes while resisting calls for a full-on ceasefire.“I don’t know how you could have a permanent ceasefire with an organization like Hamas which is dedicated to destroying the state of Israel … and has got to go,” he told CNN.Several members of the progressive wing of the Democratic party have gone further, demanding an immediate ceasefire and challenging the Biden administration’s plans to send emergency military aid package to Israel. In a newly-released video, the only Palestinian American member of Congress, Rashida Tlaib, accused Joe Biden of supporting “genocide” and demanded he back a “ceasefire now”.Sanders declined CNN’s invitation to condemn Tlaib, saying: “We don’t have to quibble about words … Rashida is a friend of mine, her family comes from Palestine, I think she’s been shaken, as all of us are, about what is going on right now.”Republicans in the US House last week passed a $14.3bn military aid package for Israel. Democrats have indicated they are likely to oppose any similar bill that reaches the upper chamber given its inclusion of spending cuts for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).Sanders said that he would judge any aid package when it reaches the Senate, but said it should be made contingent on ending civilian deaths. “It’s terribly important that, as we debate that, to say to Israel, ‘You want this money, you got to change your military strategy’.”Sanders’ call for an end to the bombing to allow humanitarian aid to reach desperate Palestinians came as the US secretary of state Antony Blinken made a surprise visit to the West Bank on Sunday. Blinken met the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and, according to read-outs of the conversation, expressed Washington’s desire that the Palestinian Authority, which Abbas heads, should be central in the running of any post-Hamas Gaza.The Biden administration continues to press for a humanitarian pause in the bombardment, both to allow humanitarian aid in and to assist with the release of the more than 240 hostages captured by Hamas on 7 October. Speaking on CBS News’s Face the Nation, the deputy national security adviser Jonathan Finer said that while the Biden administration supported Israel’s mission “to go after Hamas” it was also urging more care by the Israeli military to spare the lives of civilians.The current death toll, as released by the Hamas-run ministry of health, is more than 9,770 Palestinians.Finer said that the US had had “many direct conversations” with the Israeli government emphasising “their obligation to distinguish between civilians and fighters … Some of the images and events that we’ve seen transpire in Gaza have been heartbreaking for all of us.”So far the US call for a reduction in the civilian death toll has failed to sway Israeli military thinking. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has dismissed the idea of a temporary ceasefire until all of the hostages are released.Gilad Erdan, the Israeli ambassador to the UN, ruled out any humanitarian pause on Sunday. Speaking to CNN’s State of the Union, he said such a break in the air strikes and ground incursion would allow Hamas to “rearm and regroup and prevent us from achieving our goal to destroy Hamas’s terrorist capabilities”.Erdan claimed “there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza”. He also insisted that Israel “never intentionally targets civilians. We do everything that is possible to minimize and mitigate civilian casualties.”Fears that the Gaza fighting will spill over into a wider regional war are also roiling political debate in the US. On Monday, a bi-partisan resolution will be presented in the US senate warning Iran not to unleash further fighting on Israel’s northern border through the powerful Iranian-backed militia, Hezbollah.The Republican senator who has co-authored the resolution, Lindsey Graham, told CNN that the resolution threatens Iran with a US military response should it open up a second front against Israel. “The resolution puts Iran on notice that all this military force in the region will be coming after you if you expand this way by activating Hezbollah or killing Americans through your proxies in Syria and Iraq,” he said.Richard Blumenthal, Graham’s Democratic partner behind the resolution, called the non-binding motion “aggressive but absolutely necessary”. “The key word here is deterrence – the purpose of the resolution is to deter Iran by showing we’re going to be behind the president as he seeks to stop the war from widening or escalating.” More

Donald Trump has appeared at times angrily under siege as he stews over his predicament in the New York civil fraud case, according to people close to the former president, particularly furious in recent weeks with the witness testimony that could result in the end of the Trump Organization empire.The rulings from the presiding New York state supreme court justice Arthur Engoron, who found that Trump and co-defendants were liable for fraud and ordered all of Trump’s adult children to testify at the ongoing trial, for instance, have taken a toll.“So sad to see my sons being PERSECUTED in a political Witch Hunt by this out of control, publicity seeking, New York State Judge, on a case that should have NEVER been brought,” Trump partially wrote in one Truth Social post. “Legal Scholars Scream Disgrace!”And Trump was furious when the judge imposed a gag order against him in the New York case, as well as when the judge enforced $15,000 in fines last week after deciding that Trump violated its prohibitions by assailing the judge’s law clerk.But Trump appears to have been otherwise content with his legal situation, including with the multiple criminal cases that are marching towards trial, the people said – an observation that the playbook he reverts to when feeling threatened, to attack and delay, has lately been successful.That strategy has not always worked out for Trump. In fact, it has sometimes created more serious problems, such as when he attacked the prosecutors investigating his retention of classified documents – only to have his comments used against him in the subsequent indictment.But the well-worn legal playbook of attacking and distracting in recent weeks has brought Trump victories in court that have actually buoyed and emboldened him, the people said, despite the mounting legal peril he stares down from his multiple pending civil and criminal cases and a series of key fellow defendants in the Georgia election interference case taking plea deals.That playbook was on display in the New York civil fraud case on Friday, when Trump’s lawyer Chris Kise repeatedly fired missiles during the trial, sparring with the judge over notes he was being passed by the same law clerk that Trump had been fined for disparaging.It was unclear whether it came at Trump’s direction or whether it was his lawyer’s initiative, but the attacks had an effect: the prosecutor from the New York attorney general’s team complained it affected his presentation, and it also served to distract from Eric Trump’s sometimes shaky testimony.Trump has been particularly jubilant at how the playbook has given him wins in the federal criminal cases, the people said, starting with the judge in the classified documents case appearing inclined to push back key deadlines that could result in delaying the start of the trial.The former president has made it no secret that his overarching legal strategy in his criminal cases is to seek delay, ideally beyond the 2024 election in November, in the hopes that winning re-election could enable him to potentially pardon himself or direct his attorney general to drop the charges.The prosecutors in the office of special counsel Jack Smith had explicitly complained that Trump’s requests to postpone some deadlines – because the trail dates being so close together could cause them to “collide” – amounted to a request to delay the trial.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut encouraged by Trump’s lead lawyer Todd Blanche, who in an audacious moment blamed prosecutors for the hectic trial schedule because they had the gall to charge him with crimes in Florida in Washington, the judge suggested she would make adjustments as requested by Trump’s team.Trump has also expressed satisfaction with his lawyers pushing back in the 2020 election subversion case, the people said, including with the lawyers who asked the DC circuit on Friday to temporarily pause the gag order prohibiting him from assailing prosecutors and potential trial witnesses.In that matter, however, the playbook showed its penchant for biting him long-term: Trump had the gag order temporarily lifted pending appeal, but drew a massively unfavorable panel of judges nominated by Democratic presidents, who are almost certain to ultimately rule against him. More

The new speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson of Louisiana, faces the tough task of uniting a fractured Republican party, and preventing a quick-approaching government shutdown. Jonathan Freedland and Marianna Sotomayor of the Washington Post discuss what we have learned about his approach to the job from his first week with the gavel.
Plus, as we prepare for next week’s off-year elections, Jonathan speaks to Carter Sherman about Virginia – the last remaining southern state without extensive abortion restrictions. They look at why results there could prove pivotal for Republican chances in 2024

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“You can’t con people – at least not for long,” Donald Trump observed in his 1987 bestseller The Art of the Deal. “You can create excitement, you can do wonderful promotion and get all kinds of press, and you can throw in a little hyperbole. But if you don’t deliver the goods, people will eventually catch on.”The former president spent decades trying to create excitement with wonderful levels of promotion, getting all kinds of press, and throwing in more than a little hyperbole. But did he have the goods?This is the central question Justice Arthur Engoron, of the state supreme court in Manhattan, has been considering over the last five weeks. On Monday, the fraud trial enters its final, fateful leg. Trump himself will take the stand. The stakes are high. Although Trump will not go to jail, regardless of the outcome, because this is a civil case, he is fighting for the future of his corporate empire.The case against Trump, although inextricably linked to his political rise, is focused on his business dealings. Hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake as the ex-real estate tycoon prepares to take the stand.Letitia James, the New York attorney general, has accused Trump and key members of his inner circle at the Trump Organization of fraudulently inflating his wealth to secure better loans from banks. She asked for $250m and the cancellation of Trump’s business licenses in New York, a move that would end the Trumps’ ability to run businesses in the state.This is not a jury trial, and Engoron has already made up his mind on the foundation of the case, finding Trump and his adult sons guilty of financial fraud before the trial started. Should an appellate court uphold this ruling, Trump will essentially lose the ability to operate his business in New York – and control of properties including Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan, from whose golden staircase Trump launched his successful presidential campaign.“The judge has already found fraud,” said Jed Handelsman Shugerman, professor of law at Boston University. “The question is the extent of the liability and the remedy. It seems like it’s going in a direction that will be a very serious liability and very serious remedy.”The court’s attention turned this week to his eldest sons. This is a family business, after all, officially run by Donald Jr and Eric since their father assumed the presidency.Both brothers sought to distance themselves from the alleged fraud, insisting it was up to others to ensure financial records were correct. “For purposes of accounting, I relied upon the accountants,” Don Jr, executive vice-president of the Trump Organization, said. “I never had anything to do with the statements of financial condition,” Eric, also executive vice-president at the company, added hours later.Their sister, Ivanka, is also scheduled to be questioned on Wednesday. Unlike Don Jr and Eric, she is not a named defendant in the case. While her lawyers argued she should not have to testify, this request was denied by an appeals court.While the family appearances are grabbing all the headlines, Engoron might ultimately be more interested in testimony that could help gauge the liability of the alleged fraud. On Wednesday Michiel McCarty, chair and CEO of the investment bank MM Dillon & Co, said the inflation of Trump’s wealth allowed the Trump Organization to secure better rates for loans. He calculated that banks lost more than $168m in interest payments as a result.The media spotlight on this trial has been brightest when high-profile witnesses – from Michael Cohen, Trump’s former fixer turned foe, to the former president himself next week – take the stand. But at the heart of the action sit stacks of emails, contracts and financial statements. “There’s enough evidence in this case to fill this courtroom,” Engoron remarked last month, as he rejected another bid by Trump’s lawyers to obtain an early verdict.Gregory Germain, professor of law at Syracuse University, said prosecutors must demonstrate that Trump was “unjustly enriched” by falsified financial statements. “In order to do that, the attorney general needs to show that somebody took these statements at face value, believed they were true, and made loans at lower interest rates that they would have, or priced an insurance policy at a lower price – something to show they were harmed by this, and he was enriched.”This element was “completely missing in the earlier stages of the case”, Germain added.Trump is set to be grilled over allegations that documents fraudulently magnified the value of his assets. Earlier in the trial, for example, prosecutors noted that his Trump Tower apartment was once listed as 30,000 sq ft and worth $327m, despite other paperwork – including one document signed by the former president in 1994 – reporting that the apartment was actually under 11,000 sq ft.Commentators expect Trump, like his sons, to try and distance himself from the accounting. But he is likely to be asked by prosecutors about allegations that he directly, if not explicitly, instructed executives to inflate his net worth.Cohen, his former personal attorney, testified that Trump would scrutinize the value of his assets and declare, “I’m actually not worth $4.5bn, I’m really worth more like 6,” before sending senior executives away. They would return to him “after we achieved the desired goal,” according to Cohen.A current Trump Organization employee, Patrick Birney, testified that the chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg informed him between 2017 and 2019 that Trump – by this point in the White House – wanted his net worth to go up.Since Engoron’s pre-trial ruling, Trump has argued he is worth “much more” than what is shown in his financial statements, which don’t include what he describes as his “most valuable” asset: his brand. The Trump Organization has been “slandered and maligned”, he has complained, denying his fortune was exaggerated.The former real estate mogul will attempt in the coming days to make the case that his empire was accurately valued. Even after Engoron ruled otherwise, Trump insists no one lost out as a result.Prosecutors are confident they are on the cusp of bringing Trump to justice. They believe – to paraphrase the defendant’s observation some four decades ago – that he didn’t have the goods, and they’re catching on. On Monday we may see who really has the goods. More

Adam Kinzinger represented a reliably Republican district in the US House for six terms. He voted to impeach Donald Trump over the insurrection and with Liz Cheney was one of two Republicans on the January 6 committee. Like the former Wyoming congresswoman, he earned the ire of Trump and the GOP base.A lieutenant colonel and air force pilot, Kinzinger read the terrain and declined to run again. In his memoir, he looks back at his life, family and time in the US military. He also examines the transformation of the Republican party into a Trumpian vessel. With the assistance of Michael D’Antonio, biographer of Mike Pence, he delivers a steady and well-crafted read.Kinzinger finds the Republicans sliding toward authoritarianism, alienating him from a world he once knew. On 8 January 2021, two days after the Trump-inspired coup attempt, he received a letter signed by 11 members of his family, excoriating him for calling for the president to be removed.“Oh my, what a disappointment you are to us and to God!’ the letter began. “We were once proud of your accomplishments! Instead, you go against your Christian principles and join ‘the Devil’s army’ (Democrats and the fake news media).”The word “disappointment was underlined three times”, Kinzinger counts. “God once.”Elected in 2010 with the backing of the Tea Party, once in office, Kinzinger distanced himself from the Republican fringe. The movement felt frenzied. Hyper-caffeinated. He cast his lot with Eric Cantor, House majority leader and congressman from Virginia. “Overtly ambitious”, in Kinzinger’s view, Cantor also presented himself as “serious, sober and cerebral”. Eventually, Cantor found himself out of step with the enraged core of the party. In 2014, he was defeated in a primary.Cantor was too swampy for modern Republican tastes. Out of office, he is a senior executive at an investment bank.Simply opposing Barack Obama and the Affordable Care Act wasn’t enough. With America’s first Black president in the White House, performative politics and conspiracy theories took over.Kevin McCarthy, deposed as speaker last month, earns Kinzinger’s scorn – and rightly.“I was not surprised he was ousted,” Kinzinger told NPR. “And frankly, I think it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.”On the page, Kinzinger paints McCarthy as weak, limitlessly self-abasing and a bully. He put himself at the mercy of Matt Gaetz, the Florida extremist, prostrated himself before Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia extremist, and endured 15 rounds of balloting on the House floor to be allowed the speaker’s gavel – an illusion of a win.McCarthy behaved like “an attention-seeking high school senior who readily picked on anyone who didn’t fall in line”, Kinzinger writes. The California congressman even tried, if feebly, to physically intimidate his fellow Republican.“Once, I was standing in the aisle that runs from the floor to the back of the [House] chamber,” Kinzinger remembers. “As [McCarthy] passed, with his security man and some of his boys, he veered towards me, hit me with his shoulder and then kept going.”Apparently, McCarthy forgot Kinzinger did stints in war zones.Kinzinger also takes McCarthy to task for his shabby treatment of Cheney, at the time the No 3 House Republican. On 1 January 2021, on a caucus call, she warned that 6 January would be a “dark day” if they “indulged in the fantasy” that they could overturn Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump.McCarthy was having none of it. “I just want to be clear: Liz doesn’t speak for the conference,” he said. “She speaks for herself.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThat, Kinzinger writes, was “unnecessary and disrespectful, and it infuriated me”.These days, McCarthy faces the prospect of a Trump-fueled primary challenge. But he is not alone in evoking Kinzinger’s anger. Kinzinger also has tart words for Mitch McConnell and his performance post-January 6. The Senate minority leader was more intent on retaining power than dealing with the havoc wrought by Trump and his minions, despite repeatedly sniping at him.When crunch time came, McConnell followed the pack. Kinzinger bemoans McConnell’s vote to acquit in the impeachment trial, ostensibly because Trump had left office, and then his decision to castigate Trump on the Senate floor when it no longer mattered.“It took a lot of cheek, nerve, chutzpah, gall and, dare I say it, balls for McConnell to talk this way,” Kinzinger bristles, “since he personally blocked the consideration of the case until Trump departed.”Kinzinger devotes considerable space to his own faith. An evangelical Protestant, he is highly critical of Christian nationalism as theology and as a driving force in the Republican party. He draws a direct line between religion and January 6. Proximity between the cross, a makeshift gallows and calls for Mike Pence to be hanged was not happenstance.“Had there not been some of these errant prophecies, this idea that God has ordained it to be Trump, I’m not sure January 6 would have happened like it did,” Kinzinger said last year. “You have people today that, literally, I think in their heart – they may not say it – but they equate Donald Trump with the person of Jesus Christ.”In his book, Kinzinger echoes Russell Moore, former head of public policy of the Southern Baptist Convention: “Moore’s view of Christianity was consistent with traditional theology, which does not have a place for religious nationalism. Nothing in the Bible said the world would be won over by American Christianity.”Looking at 2024, Kinzinger casts the election as “a simple question of democracy or no democracy … if it was Joe Biden and Donald Trump, I don’t think there’s any question I would vote for Joe Biden”.
Renegade is published in the US by Penguin Random House More

Michigan Democratic congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American member of Congress, has released a video accusing Joe Biden of supporting the “genocide of the Palestinian people”.Tlaib has been a withering critic of Biden’s staunch backing of the Israeli war against Hamas in Gaza and the White House refusal to listen to demands from some progressive Democrats to back calls for a ceasefire.The video represents by far her most blunt criticism of Biden and his administration and includes a warning that she believes his stance on the war will hurt his re-election chances in 2024, as Michigan has a significant Arab American population.“Mr President, the American people are not with you on this one,” Tlaib, who has called for an immediate ceasefire in the Israeli offensive on Gaza, said in the video on the platform X, warning: “We will remember in 2024.”The post continues with an overlay of lettering: “Joe Biden supported the genocide of the Palestinian people. The American people won’t forget. Biden, support a cease-fire now. Or don’t count on us in 2024.”This week Tlaib fought off an attempt in Congress led by extremist Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene to formally reprimand her for “antisemitic activity, sympathizing with terrorist organizations and leading an insurrection” after she participated in a pro-Palestinian protest in which she aired the accusation of an Israeli genocide of Palestinians.Tlaib has faced criticism from within her own party. Last week, a pro-Israel Democratic group began airing a TV ad in Detroit criticizing the congresswoman, one of two Muslim women in the legislative body, for voting against US funding of Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system and a resolution condemning the 7 October Hamas cross-border attack.Tlaib’s video post highlights a growing issue for Biden, one that often splits Democratic support down generational lines as well as political ones. Tlaib is among 18 Democrats from the mostly younger, progressive-leaning wing of the party co-sponsoring a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.Last week, a senior Democratic senator, Dick Durbin of Illinois, also called for a ceasefire – but only if Israeli hostages held by Hamas were released. “Whatever the rationale from the beginning has now reached an intolerable level. We need to have a resolution in the Middle East that gives some promise to the future,” Durbin told CNN.The video posted by Tlaib counter-posed comments by Biden on US support for Israel with film of bodies lying in the rubble of Gaza, children wounded by Israeli airstrikes and global protests against the Israeli bombardment of Gaza in response to the deadly 7 October Hamas cross-border attack.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOne clip features a demonstration in Michigan in which protesters chanted “from the river to the sea” – a chant that many Jews and Israelis view as calling for the eradication of Israel, though others say it can have a multitude of meanings.In a follow-up post on X, formerly Twitter, Tlaib stated: “From the river to the sea is an aspirational call for freedom, human rights and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction or hate.”Tlaib has become a lightning rod for divisions in the US with some of her own party and Republicans saying she has not condemned Hamas fervently enough and others saying she is a victim of Islamaphobia and hostility toward those who advocate for Palestinian civil rights. More

Is Joe jinxed? In less than three years as US president, Joe Biden has faced more than his fair share of international crises. America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan blew up in his hands like a cluster bomb. Then came Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and Europe’s biggest war since 1945. Now, suddenly, the Middle East is in flames.It could just be bad luck. Or it could be Biden, who prides himself on foreign policy expertise, is not as good at running the world as he thinks. But there is another explanation. It’s called Donald Trump. If Biden’s presidency is cursed, it’s by the toxic legacy of the “very stable genius” who preceded him.It’s worth noting how the poisonous effects of Trump’s geostrategic car crashes, clumsy policy missteps and egotistic blunders continue to be felt around the world – not least because he hopes to be president again. In 2020, with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his side, Trump unveiled his “ultimate deal” for peace in Israel-Palestine.His plan was a gift to rightwing Jewish nationalists, offering Israel full control over Jerusalem and large parts of the West Bank and Jordan Valley while shattering hopes of a viable Palestinian state. It was laughably, amateurishly lopsided. Except it was no joke. It excluded and humiliated Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority, convinced many that peaceful dialogue was futile and so empowered Hamas.Netanyahu had long advised Trump that the Palestinians could be safely ignored, normalisation with Arab states was a better, more lucrative bet and Iran was the bigger threat. Now he could barely contain his glee. “You have been the greatest friend that Israel has ever had in the White House,” he cooed. Naturally, Trump lapped it up.The catastrophic consequences of Trump’s dangerous fantasising are now plain to all – but it’s Biden, his re-election prospects at risk, who is getting heat from left and right. Partly it’s his own fault. He thought the Palestinian question could be frozen. Meanwhile, Trump, typically, has turned against Netanyahu while praising Hamas’s close ally, Iranian-backed Hezbollah, as “very smart”.The 2018 decision by Trump, egged on by Israel, to unilaterally renege on the west’s UN-backed nuclear counter-proliferation accord with Iran was the biggest American foreign policy blunder since the Iraq invasion. Ensuing, additional US economic sanctions fatally weakened the moderately reformist presidency of Hassan Rouhani.Iran took Trump’s confrontational cue – and shifted sharply to the anti-western, rejectionist right. A notorious hardliner, Ebrahim Raisi, president since 2021, has pursued close alliances with Russia and China. At home, a corrupt, anti-democratic clerical oligarchy, topped by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, brutally suppresses dissent, notably advocates of women’s rights.Mahsa Yazdani is the mullahs’ latest victim. Her “crime”, for which she was jailed for 13 years, was to denounce the killing by security forces of her son, Mohammad Javad Zahedi. Such persecution is commonplace. Yet if the Barack Obama-Biden policy of engagement, backed by Britain and the EU, had been maintained by Trump, things might be very different today, inside and outside Iran.Instead, Biden faces an angry foe threatening daily to escalate the Israel-Hamas war. Iran and its militias are the reason he is deploying huge military force to the region. Iran is why US bases in the Gulf, Syria and Iraq are under fire. And thanks to Trump (and Netanyahu), Iran may be closer than ever to acquiring nuclear weapons capability.Trump’s uncritical, submissive, often suspiciously furtive attitude to Vladimir Putin has undermined Biden’s Russia policy, doing untold, lasting harm. Untold because Democrats have given up trying to cast light on at least a dozen, publicly unrecorded Trump-Putin calls and meetings over four years in the White House.It’s not necessary to believe Moscow’s spooks possess embarrassing sex tapes, or that Trump solicited Russian meddling in US elections, to wonder whether he cut private deals with Putin. Did he, for example, suggest the US would stand aside if Russia invaded Ukraine, where there had been fighting over the Donbas and Crimea since 2014? Trump has a personal beef with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy. That alone is sufficient to shape his policy.Trump’s criticism of European allies and threats to quit Nato caused a damaging loss of mutual confidence that Biden still struggles to repair. For his part, manipulative Putin sticks up for the former president. He recently declared that federal lawsuits against Trump amounted to “persecution of a political rival for political reasons”. Evidently, he’d like to see his pal back in power.Did Trump’s behaviour in office, his impeachments and failed coup, encourage Putin (and China’s Xi Jinping) to view American democracy as sick, failing and demoralised. Probably. Trump’s 2020 Afghanistan “peace deal” – in truth, an abject capitulation to the Taliban – confirmed their low opinion. It led directly to the chaotic 2021 withdrawal and a shredding of US global credibility that was largely blamed on Biden.Little wonder Putin calculates that American staying power will again fade as Trump, campaigning when not in court, trashes Biden’s Ukraine policy and his House Republican followers block military aid to Kyiv. Unabashed by his Middle East fiasco, Trump vainly boasts he would conjure a Ukraine peace deal overnight – if re-elected (and not in jail).It’s an unusually challenging time in world affairs. And Biden has been unlucky domestically, too, given a post-pandemic cost of living crisis and a supreme court gone rogue. Yet his biggest political misfortune remains the noxious global legacy and continuing, uniquely destructive presence of Trump.He is more than just a rival waiting for an 80-year-old president to slip and take a tumble. Symbolically, Trump is nemesis. He is the darkness beyond the pale, he’s a monster lurking in the depths, he’s the enemy within. He’s Joe’s Jonah.
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