Evelyn Reynolds

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    FBI to reinvestigate 2023 White House cocaine find and leak of supreme court Dobbs draft

    The FBI will launch new investigations into the 2023 discovery of a bag of cocaine at the White House during Joe Biden’s term, as well as into pipe bombs discovered at Democratic and Republican party headquarters before the 6 January 2021 Capitol riot by supporters of Donald Trump, and the leak of the supreme court’s draft opinion before the historic overturning of national abortion rights with the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that overturned Roe v Wade in 2022.Dan Bongino, a rightwing podcaster turned deputy director of the FBI, made the announcement on X, where he said he had requested weekly briefings on any progress in looking into the old cases. The incidents have been popular talking points on America’s political right wing and among conspiracy theorists.Bongino said that he and the FBI director, Kash Patel, had been evaluating “a number of cases of potential public corruption that, understandably, have garnered public interest” and had made a decision “to either re-open, or push additional resources and investigative attention, to these cases”.The FBI deputy director made an appeal for “investigative tips on these matters”.The discovery of a small, zippered bag of cocaine in a cubby near the entrance to the West Wing two years ago drew excited commentary from Republicans, including then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who has said it was implausible the drugs could belong to anyone beyond Joe Biden or son Hunter Biden – even though the Biden family was away from Washington at the time.Bongino has previously alleged, without presenting any evidence, that he was in touch with whistleblowers who told him they were “suspicious” that evidence from the White House cocaine bag “could match a member of the inner Biden circle”.A formal laboratory test confirmed that the powder found was indeed cocaine and the Secret Service said the substance was found in a “highly trafficked” area of the White House and it was reviewing visitor logs to determine how it had gotten there.Then White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that public tours of the West Wing had taken place over the weekend when the discovery was made, prompting an evacuation of the executive mansion.“We have confidence that they will get to the bottom of this,” Jean-Pierre later said, referring to the Secret Service. A White House spokesperson said that the allegations that Hunter Biden was involved was “incredibly irresponsible”.But in his first interview as a president in February this year, Trump returned to the subject, arguing that forensic analysis should have revealed fingerprints but the evidence appeared to have been deliberately wiped clean. He described the cocaine discovery as a “terrible thing”.The pre-emptive publication of the supreme court’s opinion ending the constitutional right to abortion in Politico on 2 May 2022 provoked condemnation from Trump, who called the source of the leak “slime” and demanded that the journalists involved be imprisoned until they revealed who it was.Eight months later, the supreme court released a 23-page report into the leak saying the investigative team “has to date been unable to identify a person responsible by a preponderance of the evidence”.Investigations into both cases ended without identifying who was responsible for the cocaine or the leak.Bongino also announced more resources for the FBI’s investigation into the placement of pipe bombs at the Democratic national committee and the Republican national committee in Washington.The bombs, which were later defused, had been planted the night before Trump’s supporters stormed the US Capitol in a failed bid to block Congress from certifying Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election.Reuters contributed reporting More

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    Trump’s mass federal cuts disrupt LA wildfire recovery: ‘It’s coming tumbling down’

    On 13 April, Tess McGinley was working in her Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) cubicle in Los Angeles, calling people who had lost their homes in the January wildfires, when her team was told to stop what they were doing and leave the office immediately.McGinley, a 23-year-old team leader for AmeriCorps, the US agency for national service and volunteerism, was helping Fema by reviewing wildfire survivors’ cases to ensure they received housing assistance. Over the past six weeks, she and her seven teammates had reviewed more than 4,000 cases and made hundreds of calls to survivors. Now, even as the team drove home after their jobs were cut, their government phones kept ringing. “Survivors just kept calling us … And we weren’t able to help,” McGinley said.“I think of one survivor calling over and over, getting my voicemail, and thinking that Fema has abandoned them,” she added.View image in fullscreenMore than 400 AmeriCorps staff and volunteers were deployed in the aftermath of the January megafires that destroyed thousands of homes and businesses and killed 30 people. They helped 26,000 households affected by the fires and packed 21,000 food boxes. But in April, the agency placed about 90% of its staff on immediate leave.The cuts were among the harshest doled out by Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge). But AmeriCorps is just one of several agencies involved in the response to emergencies like the LA fires that has seen drastic reductions as Trump has sought to slash costs across the federal government and shift disaster preparedness on to state and local governments. Fema, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the army corps of engineers and the Small Business Administration (SBA) have all been affected as well.A flurry of lawsuits are challenging the Trump administration’s cuts to various federal departments, including two lawsuits led by the state of California and Democracy Forward over the gutting of AmeriCorps.But the cuts are already being acutely felt in LA’s burn zones. Disaster relief is composed of many different agencies at the local, state and federal levels, and the federal support is now being pulled out. “Jenga is one of the best ways to describe it,” said Kelly Daly, AmeriCorps employees union AFSCME Local 2027 president. “It’s going to come tumbling down.”The impact of AmeriCorps volunteersAnthony Garcia-Perez, 25, spent more than three months helping wildfire survivors, working six days a week and 10 hours a day. AmeriCorps made it possible for him to volunteer by covering his hotel and meals. He worked at a YMCA in Pasadena, handing out food and clothing donations to survivors, and at a disaster recovery center, assisting Fema workers and translating for wildfire survivors who only spoke Spanish.He recalls meeting a family of five who lost their home in the Eaton fire and became regulars at the YMCA. The mother, father and three young children were living in their car. The children had no toys. Garcia-Perez found dolls for the two girls, and a rattle toy for the family’s newborn son. “Seeing the smiles on the kids’ faces, getting something as simple as a doll, definitely made my day,” Garcia-Perez said. “The mom was overwhelmed. She started crying and thanking us for everything. We said we were more than happy to help. We’re here for them.”View image in fullscreenGarcia-Perez heard on 28 April that the funding supporting him was cut. “We were told to go back to our hotels, pack and then be ready to go home the next day,” he said.Nearly a month after leaving Los Angeles, his mind still turns to the families he helped. “I wonder if they’re OK, I wonder if they’re getting the help they need.”Crucial Small Business Administration loansAfter the fires, the Small Business Administration contributed $2bn in disaster loans – the largest source of federal disaster recovery for homeowners, renters, businesses and non-profits. In March, the Trump administration announced cuts to 43% of the agency’s workforce.Judy Chu, the US congresswoman who represents wildfire survivors in Altadena, said she feared the federal cuts would make it harder for survivors to navigate recovery. “So many of them need help, especially the elderly and disabled,” she said. “I worry about them being able to make their way through the morass of bureaucracy.”Chu said she had already heard from Altadena residents who felt frustrated by the federal cuts.View image in fullscreenA woman who lost her home in the Eaton fire had told Chu she had secured a loan from the SBA, support she said was crucial because she was underinsured and couldn’t afford to rebuild without a loan. Since the Doge cuts, she said her caseworker was not responsive and she experienced long wait times to get questions answered.“Our community was devastated,” the woman wrote to Chu. “We want to rebuild and move forward, but how can we when the very support we rely on is being stripped away?”Canceling Fema’s disaster aidTo help the city recover, Fema approved more than $200m in relief funds for eligible wildfire survivors, and helped fund transitional hotels and shelters. The agency also deployed 70 staff to help survivors apply for aid. The White House said in a statement that Fema deployed hundreds of staff to Los Angeles and provided shelter for more than 2,800 households.The agency delivered crucial aid in LA, but now it is facing possible extinction. Trump has threatened to get rid of Fema, and on 9 May, he fired its leader, Cameron Hamilton, one day after Hamilton publicly disagreed with dismantling the agency. The administration has fired hundreds of Fema employees and offered deferred resignations. Fema is ending door-to-door canvassing in disaster areas, and cancelling the $750m set to be allocated this year through the building resilient infrastructure and communities grant program, which funds local projects to protect against disasters including wildfires.Brad Sherman, the US congressman who represents the fire-stricken neighborhood of the Palisades, said Trump had demoralized federal workers when the president suggested getting rid of Fema while visiting Los Angeles in January. “I talked to Fema people, and they were, of course, upset. They’re professionals. They did their job. But it’s hard under those circumstances,” Sherman said.Sherman called it “absurd” that Trump wants to abolish Fema by pushing its responsibilities on to states. “The idea of shifting it to the states is absolutely crazy,” he said.Slashing army corps and EPA cleanup staffTwo federal agencies, the EPA and the army corps, are responsible for the majority of wildfire debris cleanup in Los Angeles. But both agencies are bleeding staff.“We’re relying on the army corps to do the debris removal, which is the single thing that has to happen before rebuilding can start,” Sherman said.As the climate crisis fuels more destructive wildfires, army corps workers are deploying to more burn zones. They had barely finished cleaning up after the fires in Lahaina, Hawaii, when they were deployed to Los Angeles, said Colin Smalley, president of IFPTE Local 777 representing army corps workers.The Doge deferred resignation program pushed a large number of army corps employees out the door, meaning there are fewer workers available to respond to wildfires, Smalley said. Supervisors can only approve staff to deploy to disaster missions to the extent that it doesn’t compromise the agency’s core functions, he explained. “It creates a concern about our ability to absorb these kinds of disasters. [Our disaster response] is jeopardized by these personnel actions that Elon Musk and Doge have forced upon us,” Smalley said.View image in fullscreenThe EPA, the agency responsible for the hazardous materials cleanup in Altadena and the Palisades, has faced brutal cuts, with Trump moving to reduce staff to 1980s levels.When Doge began slashing EPA staff in early March, it prompted an urgent letter from members of Congress, including Chu and Sherman, asking the agency to reconsider. “In the wake of the recent California wildfires, it is more critical than ever that EPA is fully staffed and supported to ensure EPA’s efforts to identify hazardous materials on properties impacted by the Eaton and Palisades fires is completed promptly,” they wrote.EPA staff completed the hazardous debris removal in Los Angeles in record time, but the cuts will harm future wildfire recovery, said Mark Sims, who recently retired from his role representing EPA workers at Engineers and Scientists of California Local 20, IFPTE. He explained that the EPA was suffering brain drain as both senior and new staff leave in droves. “Their responses will be a lot less robust, and take a lot longer to do,” he said.White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in an email that “President Trump led a historic, record-breaking effort to clean up the damage from the LA wildfires, including turning on the water to prevent further tragedy,” referring to a widely debunked claim that Trump’s order for the Army Corps to release billions of gallons of irrigation water could have helped Los Angeles fight the fires. Fire hydrants ran dry in the Palisades due to an infrastructure issue, not a water supply problem.She argued LA’s mayor, Karen Bass, and California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, slowed down recovery efforts “by dragging their feet and bogging down the process with unnecessary bureaucracy and red tape” and the president had pushed them to speed up. “The Trump administration remains committed to empowering and working with state and local governments to invest in their own resilience before disaster strikes,” she wrote.A White House official said AmeriCorps had failed eight consecutive audits and, in the fiscal year 2024, the agency had found and publicly reported $45m in improper payments, which are outside the control of the agency and were made by grantee partners.Trump has argued his federal cuts are necessary to root out fraud and waste. But McGinley, the AmeriCorps team leader, said part of her team’s job was to review cases and ensure people were not receiving double benefits. “It made a difference that it helped people receive housing assistance, and it helped identify that waste in the government system, too,” she said.“My team worked really hard,” McGinley said. She recalled a woman who lost her home in the Eaton fire. She was blind, making it harder for her to upload the necessary documents to receive assistance. But McGinley’s team sent people to the woman’s hotel to help her upload the files to prove she was eligible. “She was able to stay in housing, which is huge after you’ve lost everything in your life,” McGinley said. More

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    Trump’s foreign policy is not so unusual for the US – he just drops the facade of moral leadership

    JD Vance is an Iraq war veteran and the US vice-president. On Friday, he declared the doctrine that underpinned Washington’s approach to international relations for a generation is now dead.“We had a long experiment in our foreign policy that traded national defence and the maintenance of our alliances for nation building and meddling in foreign countries’ affairs, even when those foreign countries had very little to do with core American interests,” Vance told Naval Academy graduates in Annapolis, Maryland.His boss Donald Trump’s recent trip to the Middle East signified an end to all that, Vance said: “What we’re seeing from President Trump is a generational shift in policy with profound implications for the job that each and every one of you will be asked to do.”US foreign policy has previously zigged and zagged from isolation to imperialism. Woodrow Wilson entered the first world war with the the goal of “making the world safe for democracy”. Washington retreated from the world again during the 1920s and 1930s only to fight the second world war and emerge as a military and economic superpower.Foreign policy during the cold war centered on countering the Soviet Union through alliances, military interventions and proxy wars. The 11 September 2001 attacks shifted focus to counterterrorism, leading to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq under George W Bush with justifications that included spreading democracy.Barack Obama emphasized diplomacy and reducing troop commitments, though drone strikes and counterterrorism operations persisted. Trump’s first term pushed economic nationalism, pressuring allies to pay their way. Joe Biden restored multilateralism, focusing on climate, alliances and countering China’s influence.As in many other political arenas, Trump’s second term is bolder and louder on the world stage.Trump and Vance have sought to portray the “America first” policy as a clean break from the recent past. Human rights, democracy, foreign aid and military intervention are out. Economic deals, regional stability and pragmatic self-interest are in.But former government officials interviewed by the Guardian paint a more nuanced picture, suggesting that Trump’s quid pro quo approach has more in common with his predecessors than it first appears. Where he does differ, they argue, is in his shameless abandonment of moral leadership and use of the US presidency for personal gain.On a recent four-day swing through Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, Trump was feted by autocratic rulers with a trio of lavish state visits where there was heavy emphasis on economic and security partnerships.Saudi Arabia pledged $600bn in investments in the US across industries such as energy, defence, technology and infrastructure, although how much of that will actually be new investment – or come to fruition – remains to be seen. A $142bn defence cooperation agreement was described by the White House as the biggest in US history.Qatar and the US inked agreements worth $1.2tn, including a $96bn purchase of Boeing jets. The UAE secured more than $200bn in commercial agreements and a deal to establish the biggest artificial intelligence campus outside the US.Jeffrey Goldberg, editor of the Atlantic magazine, said Trump had shown “the outlines of America’s newest foreign policy doctrine: extreme transactionalism”. He had prioritized quick deals over long-term stability, ideological principles or established alliances. But, Goldberg noted, the president had also advanced the cause of his family’s businesses.The president said he will accept a $400m luxury plane from Qatar and use it as Air Force One. Abu Dhabi is using a Trump family-aligned stablecoin for a $2bn investment in the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. And the Trump Organization, run by the president’s two oldest sons, is developing major property projects including a high-rise tower in Jeddah, a luxury hotel in Dubai, and a golf course and villa complex in Qatar.Analysts say no US president has received overseas gifts on such a scale. Aaron David Miller, who served for two decades as a state department analyst, negotiator and adviser on Middle East issues for both Democratic and Republican administrations, said: “He gives transactionalism a bad name.“The level of self-dealing in this administration means the notion that the national interest is now seamlessly blended with Donald Trump’s personal interests and financial interests. The concept of an American national interest that transcends party politics and partisanship has gone the way of the dodo.”Ned Price, a former US state department spokesperson during the Biden administration, said: “I actually think calling this ‘transactional’ is far too charitable, because so much of this is predicated not on the national interest but on the president’s own personal interest, including his economic interests and the economic interests of his family and those around him.”Presidential trips to the Middle East usually feature at least some public calls for authoritarian governments to improve their human rights efforts. But not from Trump as he toured the marble and gilded palaces of Gulf rulers and deemed them “perfecto” and “very hard to buy” while barely mentioning the war in Gaza.In his remarks at a VIP business conference in Riyadh, the president went out of his way to distance himself from the actions of past administrations, the days when he said US officials would fly in “in beautiful planes, giving you lectures on how to live and how to govern your own affairs”.Trump said: “The gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so-called nation-builders, neocons or liberal non-profits like those who spent trillions and trillions of dollars failing to develop Kabul, Baghdad, so many other cities. Instead, the birth of a modern Middle East has been brought by the people of the region themselves, the people that are right here.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut Price challenges the notion that Trump’s aversion to interventionism represents revolution rather than evolution. “It is fair to say that presidents have successively been moving in that direction,” he said.“The sort of military adventurism that characterised the George W Bush presidency is not something that President Obama had an appetite for. It’s not something that President Biden had an appetite for. President Obama’s version of ‘Don’t do stupid shit’ has echoes of what President Trump said. Of course, as he often does, President Trump took it one step further.”Price added: “Most people who worked under President Biden or President Obama would tell you it doesn’t have to be either/or: you don’t have to be a nation builder or an isolationist. You can engage on the basis of interest and values at the same time and it’s about calibrating the mix rather than declaring the age of nation building is entirely over and from now on we’re not going to lecture, we’re just going to come in and be feted with your goods.”In his address in Riyadh, Trump made no reference to the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul which, the CIA found, had been sanctioned by the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. The president’s willingness to turn a blind eye to human rights violations was condemned by Democrats.Ro Khanna, who serves on the House of Representatives’ armed services committee, said: “I was opposed to the Iraq war and I’m opposed to this idea that we can just go in and build nations. But I’m not opposed to the idea of human rights and international law.“To see an American president basically embrace cultural relativism was a rejection of any notion that American values about freedom and rule of law are not just our cultural constructs but are universal values.”Khanna added: “The past century of development in global governance structures has pointed us towards human rights and dignity. He wants to go back to a a world where we just have nation-states and that was the world that had wars and colonialism and conflict.”Trump is hardly the first president to court oil-rich nations in the Middle East and tread lightly on human rights issues. Nor is he the first to be accused of putting interests before values. The public was deceived to justify wars in Vietnam and Iraq. Democratically elected leaders have been ousted and brutal dictators propped up when it suited US policy goals.John Bolton, a former national security adviser to Trump, said: “Different presidencies say they have different priorities but I would be willing to go down the list and all of their record is mixed and somewhat hypocritical in terms of exactly what they do on the values side of things. Just take Biden as the most recent example. He started off by calling Saudi Arabia a pariah but by the end of it he was going to visit the crown prince as well.”In that sense, Trump’s lack of pretension to an ethical foreign policy might strike some as refreshingly honest. His supporters have long praised him for “telling it like it is” and refusing to indulge the moral platitudes of career politicians.Miller, the former state department official who is now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace thinktank in Washington, said: “He’s made explicit what is implicit in Republican and Democratic administrations. I’m not saying presidents don’t care about values; Joe Biden cared a lot about American values. But the reality is, when it comes time to make choices, where or what do we choose?”Miller added: “No administration I ever worked for made human rights or the promotion of democracy the centerpiece of our foreign policy. There are any number of reasons for that. But Donald Trump, it seems to me, is not even pretending there are values. He’s emptied the ethical and moral frame of American foreign policy.”Trump’s lifelong aversion to war is seen by many as a positive, including by some on the left. But it comes with an apparent desire to achieve significant and flashy diplomatic breakthroughs that might win him the Nobel peace prize. The president also displays an obvious comfort and preference for dealing with strongmen who flatter him, often siding with Russia’s Vladimir Putin against Ukraine.Miller commented: “Trump has no clear conception of the national interest. It’s subordinated to his grievances, his pet projects – tariffs – his political interests, his vanity, his financial interests. I worked for half a dozen secretaries of state of both political parties. That he is so far out of the norm with respect to foreign policy frankly is less of a concern to me than what’s happening here at home.” More

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    Trump’s revenge spree on Harvard echoes well beyond education | Jan-Werner Müller

    In record time, a court has at least temporarily put a stop to the Trump administration’s latest attack on Harvard University, part of a larger retaliation spree that began in April.On Thursday, Kristi Noem had revoked Harvard’s certification to host international students, causing fear and existential uncertainty for thousands of young people and their families. The swift restraining order comes as a relief. But it is no cause for complacency.Attacks will not stop, and it is naive to think that this is all primarily a Harvard problem, or even only a challenge to higher education. Noem’s letter to Harvard makes clear that Trump and his sycophants will weaponize the state against anyone who incurs their displeasure. Courts may prevent the worst, but the whole pattern has to end if we want to have any hope of living in a country free of fear and featuring at least minimum respect for the rule of law.As Harvard’s lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security rightly pointed out, Noem’s revocation fits into the Trump administration’s orgy of vengeance prompted by Harvard’s refusal to comply with evidently illegal demands issued in mid-April. Among other things, Trumpists had asserted their right to determine appropriate levels of “viewpoint diversity” among faculty and students. After Harvard sued, $2.2bn in research funds were frozen, followed by Linda McMahon, the education secretary, asserting at a cabinet meeting on 30 April that Harvard was failing to report “foreign money that comes in”. This line of attack has now been extended with absurd claims that Harvard “coordinates with the Chinese Communist Party” and is somehow “pro-terrorist”.The background noise to the official letters has been a steady stream of social media posts from the president, throwing invective at Harvard instead of conducting the serious government business of maligning Bruce Springsteen and Taylor Swift. The founder of a university whose attendees received a $25m settlement has accused the US’s oldest university of “scamming the public”, constituting a “threat to democracy”, and exposing innocent young Americans to “crazed lunatics” (as opposed to non-crazed lunatics). It is a well-known pattern in authoritarian regimes that underlings try to please the leader by anticipating his wishes and imitating his style. Official letters, posts, and press statements from DHS and the Department of Education not only fail to provide evidence and violate procedural safeguards; they not only make up ad hoc demands that have no basis in law; they also contain the signature capital letters, spelling mistakes, and kindergarten-level invective familiar from the president’s rhetoric. It is governance driven by a desire to please Fox viewers, online Maga mobs, and the Avenger-in-Chief.Incompetence hardly makes the measures harmless. They instill fear even when courts step in (and no, not all Ivy League undergrads are spoilt kids who never have anything to fear). Noem, in a further escalation, demanded footage and audio from all protests at Harvard. It is a clear signal for young people to shut up and fall in line. But there was also a signal to foreign faculty: the letter emphasized that it was a “privilege to employ aliens on campus”. The threat aligns with the nativism of xenophobe-in-chief Stephen Miller, who is not just going after people who are in the country without proper paperwork – foreigners as such are a problem.But Noem’s rhetoric also aligned with the logic of authoritarian populist leaders who claim uniquely to represent what they call “the real people”: even citizens will not be free from the accusation by Trump and his sycophants that they are not proper Americans. Trump, at the April 30th cabinet meeting, declared: “The students they have, the professors they have, the attitude they have, is not American.” And Noem made it clear in her letter that her weaponization of the state will not be confined to campus; she wrote that the “evils of anti-Americanism” have to be rooted out in “society” at large.We can draw larger lessons from this – so far – failed attack (eight investigations, involving six different agencies, are still ongoing). One has to be ready – Harvard’s lawyers clearly were. Universities have to stand with each other; Noem warned all of them that they have to “get their act together” or else. Not least, university leaders have to explain to a larger public how Trumpists, in an unprecedented spree of national self-destruction, are busy preventing cancer cures, damaging American soft power, and killing one of the country’s major exports, namely higher education.As with so many other Trump policies, the assault on universities is actually not popular. Even after years of journalists and some professors priming people to think that campus is controlled by woke commissars and “Marxist maniacs” (Trump’s expression – I am still looking for them in the Economics Department), a clear majority of Americans disapprove of Trump’s approach to higher education. Conservatives have stoked resentment of “liberal eggheads” for decades, but when their children get sick, they will still want to have access to the best medical schools; no parents wants their kids, away at college, to become pawns – as the Harvard Crimson put it – in political games and subject to an administration’s caprice. And even JD Vance is unlikely to send his offspring to Pázmány Péter Catholic University in Budapest (no disrespect!).

    Jan-Werner Müller is a Guardian US columnist and a professor of politics at Princeton University More

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    Donald Trump announces he will pause threatened 50% tariffs on Europe after call with EU chief – US politics live

    Donald Trump has warned that if Vladimir Putin attempts to conquer all of Ukraine, it will lead to the “downfall” of Russia, while also criticising Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a Sunday night post on Truth Social.“I’ve always had a very good relationship with Vladimir Putin of Russia, but something has happened to him. He has gone absolutely CRAZY!” Trump wrote in a social media post, adding, “I’ve always said that he wants ALL of Ukraine, not just a piece of it, and maybe that’s proving to be right, but if he does, it will lead to the downfall of Russia!”Earlier on Sunday the US president told reporters that was he was “very surprised” that his Russian counterpart had intensified the bombardment of Ukrainian cities despite the US president’s efforts to broker a ceasefire.Pressed by a reporter to say if he was now seriously considering “putting more sanctions on Russia”, Trump replied: “Absolutely. He’s killing a lot of people. What the hell happened to him?”In his post on Sunday night, Trump also criticised Zelenskyy, saying the Ukrainian president was “doing his Country no favors by talking the way he does.”“Everything out of his mouth causes problems, I don’t like it, and it better stop.”Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and will be bringing you all the latest news lines throughout the day.Donald Trump has announced that he will pause his threatened 50% tariffs on the European Union until 9 July, after a “very nice call” with EU chief Ursula von der Leyen.The European Commission president announced in a social media post that she had spoken with Trump and secured the delay to give the two sides more time to negotiate.European assets rallied on Monday, Reuters reported. The euro hit its highest level against the dollar since 30 April, while European shares surged and were poised to recoup the previous session’s losses.“Europe is ready to advance talks swiftly and decisively,” von der Leyen wrote. “To reach a good deal, we would need the time until July 9.”Brussels and Washington have been locked in negotiations in a bid to avert an all-out transatlantic trade war, after Trump’s tariff threat on Friday dramatically raised the stakes.Trump warned he would impose 50% tariffs on all of the bloc’s imports into the US, saying “discussions with them are going nowhere”, adding that the tariffs would be applied from 1 June. Trump claimed he was “not looking for a deal”, repeating his longstanding view that European states had “banded together to take advantage of us”.For the full story, see here:In other news:

    President Donald Trump said Vladimir Putin had “gone absolutely CRAZY” by unleashing the largest aerial attack of the war on Ukraine and said he was weighing new sanctions on Moscow, though he also scolded Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump posted the remark on Truth Social as sleeping Ukrainians woke to a third consecutive night of Russian aerial attacks, listening for hours to drones buzzing near their homes and eruptions of Ukrainian anti-aircraft fire.

    The United States demanded that South Korea resolve the large trade imbalance between the countries during recent trade talks, South Korean media reported on Monday. The US repeatedly raised the issue of the trade imbalance in the commodity sector and both countries agreed it was necessary to address it, broadcaster YTN and the Yonhap news agency reported, citing an unnamed South Korean trade official who was part of the trade delegation.

    Trump said on Sunday his tariff policy was aimed at promoting the domestic manufacturing of tanks and technology products, not sneakers and T-shirts. Speaking to reporters before boarding Air Force One in New Jersey, Trump said he agreed with comments from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on 29 April that the US does not necessarily need a “booming textile industry” – comments that drew criticism from the National Council of Textile Organizations. “We’re not looking to make sneakers and T-shirts. We want to make military equipment. We want to make big things. We want to do the AI thing with computers,” Trump said.

    Malaysian prime minister Anwar Ibrahim said on Monday he has written to US president Donald Trump to organise a meeting between the United States and the Asean regional bloc. Malaysia is chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations grouping this year.

    Hong Kong’s education bureau has called on the city’s universities to “attract top talent” by opening their doors to those affected by the Trump administration’s attempt to ban Harvard from enrolling international students. Last week the Trump administration revoked Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification, effectively banning the university from accepting foreign students.

    Federal judges are discussing a proposal that would shift the armed security personnel responsible for their safety away from the Department of Justice and under their own control, as fears mount that the Trump administration is failing to protect them from a rising tide of hostility. The idea of creating their own armed security detail emerged at a meeting of about 50 federal judges two months ago, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

    Trump has been warned by fiscal hawks within his own party in the US senate that he must “get serious” about cutting government spending and reducing the national debt, or else they will block the passage of his signature tax-cutting legislation known as the “big, beautiful bill”. More

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    We demanded justice after George Floyd’s death. Donald Trump made things worse, but we fight on | Al Sharpton

    Yesterday, I led a private memorial service at ​George Floyd’s graveside​, along with his family, in Houston, Texas. Once that was over, we visited the housing project where Floyd and his siblings grew up.Half a decade after Floyd was taken from them, they were keen, as are we, to ensure his life and legacy will not be forgotten – and to remind the world why the fight for police accountability continues.He died in front of the entire world. Everyone saw the phone footage of the incident where a white officer in Minneapolis kneeled on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes as he repeatedly said “I can’t breathe”, and cried out for his mother. His desperate pleas for help were ignored by those sworn to serve and protect the public; but they were heard in every corner of the globe.The movement for police reform gained renewed fire, and people from all walks of life demanded systemic change and the protection of Black lives. Five years later, while the officer convicted of Floyd’s murder is behind bars, the current climate in the US and regressive actions from those in power have set us back and prevented substantive police accountability.Just a few days shy of this sombre fifth anniversary, Donald Trump’s department of justice announced that it would back away from cases to force reforms on police departments – including in Louisville, Kentucky, and in Minneapolis, the city where Floyd was killed. This outrageous decision is not a surprise; it is just the latest roadblock in the fight for police reform and justice. It is an insult to the mothers, fathers, children and loved ones of all those killed at the hands of law enforcement. The consent decrees and small incremental changes that were achieved after tireless advocacy, organising, protests and political courage have been dismantled by a department that should be protecting the civil rights of individuals, not eliminating them.This move isn’t just a policy reversal. It’s a moral retreat that sends a chilling message that accountability is optional when it comes to Black and Brown victims. Trump is shamelessly weaponising the justice department against marginalised communities. The decision to dismiss these lawsuits with prejudice solidifies a dangerous political precedent that police departments are above scrutiny. The timing is no coincidence; it is an insult to Floyd’s family and the loved ones of victims such as Sandra Bland, Tyre Nichols, Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner and countless others whose names we may never even know.View image in fullscreenI remember delivering the eulogies for Floyd (one in Minneapolis and one in his native Houston) like it was yesterday. There was so much frustration, anger, disgust and exhaustion permeating throughout the US and, in turn, in many nations across the world. In fact, his death sparked global protests against racial injustice, particularly at the hands of law enforcement. Many young people mobilised and hit the streets for the first time, and more than 200,000 folks joined us in the nation’s capital for a march on Washington in August 2020 to call attention to ongoing police injustice. Despite a pandemic, hundreds of thousands from all races, ages and socioeconomic backgrounds protested alongside my organisation, National Action Network (NAN), as we led this march through the streets of Washington.Much has changed. In the wake of Floyd’s killing, and amid calls to respect Black lives, many corporations made commitments to continue diversifying and investing in our communities. Now we are watching many of those same companies turn their backs on their own diversity, equity and inclusion policies, capitulating to a rightwing government. The 2021 conviction of Derek Chauvin, the officer who killed Floyd, represented one of the first major cases in which someone in law enforcement was held accountable for their actions. But now some conservative groups and individuals are pushing for Chauvin to receive a pardon from the president. Such action would be the height of throwing salt into an already achingly deep wound. It should not be entertained for a moment.Some (particularly those in power at the moment) would like to distort reality and act as though police brutality and misconduct aren’t current problems. Nothing could be further from the truth. According to Mapping Police Violence, police in the US have killed 456 people so far this year (as of 23 May). In fact, there has only been a single day when police haven’t killed a person in 2025. And as it highlights, Black people are 2.8 times more likely to be killed by law enforcement than their white counterparts. This is why we still march, this is why we still put pressure on elected officials and corporations.For several months, NAN and I have been leading “buy-cotts” to support businesses such as Costco who remain firm in their DEI commitments. I have had meetings with PepsiCo’s chair and the CEO of PepsiCo North America, as well as Target’s CEO. Recently, I joined fellow leaders of national civil rights organisations for a meeting with top Google executives. And on 28 August, NAN will lead a march on Wall Street to defend DEI, remind corporations of their own promises in the wake of Floyd’s death, and reiterate that we will only spend our dollars where we are respected.When I stood in front of mourners five years ago at Floyd’s funeral, I said that his story has been the story of Black people, because the reason we could never be who we wanted and dreamed of being is because society kept its knee on our neck. Well, just as we loudly proclaimed around the world then, we say it again, remembering George Floyd, remembering all the victims: get your knee off our necks. Do it now.

    Rev Al Sharpton is an American Baptist minister, civil rights activist and radio talkshow host More

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    Hong Kong targets ‘top talent’ as Harvard faces international student ban

    Hong Kong’s education bureau has called on the city’s universities to “attract top talent” by opening their doors to those affected by the Trump administration’s attempt to ban Harvard from enrolling international students.Last week the Trump administration revoked Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification, effectively banning the university from accepting foreign students. A US federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the government from enforcing the ban, which would have reportedly forced students currently enrolled and not graduating this year to transfer to another institution or lose their legal status and visa.Harvard has launched legal action, but it has done little to assuage concerns among students thrown into limbo. Experts have warned the US the ban could be a boon for foreign institutions looking to attract talent.On Monday Hong Kong’s education bureau said it had “promptly called on all universities in Hong Kong to introduce facilitation measures for those eligible with a view to safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of students and scholars, and to attract top talent”.The Hong Kong Science and Technology University announced on Friday an open invitation to any affected foreign students, offering a place to those forced to leave Harvard as well as those with confirmed offers.“The university will provide unconditional offers, streamlined admission procedures, and academic support to facilitate a seamless transition for interested students,” it said.Hong Kong is home to five of the world’s top 100 universities, according to the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, however in recent years they have been made to integrate national security and patriotic themes into studies, after China’s ruling Communist party tightened its grip on the semi-autonomous city.More than 2,000 students from Asia are currently enrolled at Harvard, with an unknown number accepted and waiting to start.“A lot of people in east Asia have some sort of fantasy and feel the prestige of Harvard,” said Taiwanese student Chu, who asked that his real name not be published.Chu was expecting to start a Masters in Science in August, and has already paid about $3,000 in visa and accommodation fees, and deferred his hospital residency for a year“I either stick with Harvard or I just go back to my residency training,” he said. “There’s no other alternative I have.”In a lawsuit filed against the Trump administrations attempted ban, Harvard said the move would immediately blunt its competitiveness in attracting the world’s top students.“In our interconnected global economy, a university that cannot welcome students from all corners of the world is at a competitive disadvantage”, it said, adding foreign students were “a key factor” in the college maintaining its standing in academia.The vast majority of Harvard’s foreign students – about 1,200 currently studying – are from China. On China’s Xiao Hong Shu app, a Chinese masters student from Sichuan, said she had given talks to campus classmates about unequal access to education in her home country.“As a fresh graduate studying abroad in the US for the first time, I’ve overcome a lot to get here,” she said. “But when the hammer came down today, it was the first time I truly realised just how small I am.”A spokesperson for China’s ministry of foreign affairs, Mao Ning, said on Friday that China “opposed the politicisation of educational cooperation”, and warned the move would “harm the image and international standing of the United States”.On the social media platform Weibo, a series of related hashtags, including “Trump is destroying Harvard”, saw more than 200 million interactions, including many viewing it as the latest skirmish between the US and China. Among the reasons cited by the Trump administration for revoking Harvard’s program was an accusation that it fostered “coordinating with the Chinese Communist party on its campus”.Additional research by Jason Tzu Kuan Lu and Lillian Yang More

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    Trump news at a glance: president delays 50% tariffs after ‘very nice call’ with EU chief

    Donald Trump will delay his threatened 50% tariffs on all European Union imports into the US, after what he described as a “very nice call” with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.Von der Leyen wrote that she had a “Good call with POTUS” in a social media post announcing she had secured a tariff delay of more than a month, to 9 July, to give both sides more time to negotiate.The decision marks a U-turn since Friday, when Trump warned he would impose the 50% tariffs on 1 June because discussions with the EU were “going nowhere”. Trump claimed he was “not looking for a deal” that could deter the levies.Here are the key stories at a glance:EU chief vows quick US deal as German minister calls for seriousness In her announcement of the tariff delay, von der Leyen said that Europe was ready to move ahead with trade talks “swiftly and decisively”, while Germany’s finance minister, Lars Klingbeil, told the Bild newspaper, “We don’t need any further provocations, but serious negotiations.”If imposed, the tariff hike would escalate simmering tensions between two of the world’s economic heavyweights. Trump had previously paused threatened tariff hikes for three months to allow time for negotiations, giving trading partners until July to agree to new terms.Read the full storyTrump warns of Russia’s ‘downfall’ if it tries to seize all of UkraineTrump has lashed out at Vladimir Putin and warned that any attempt to seize all of Ukraine would lead to Russia’s “downfall”, after Moscow launched its biggest air attacks in the three-year war over the weekend.His comments came after Russia’s weekend attacks on Kyiv and other cities killed at least 12 people, including three children, and injured dozens more. Trump raised the possibility of imposing more sanctions on Russia in response. He also criticised Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who had earlier condemned US “silence” on the weekend assault.Read the full storyUS federal judges consider creating own armed security force as threats mountFederal judges are discussing a proposal that would shift the armed security personnel responsible for their safety away from the Department of Justice and under their own control, as fears mount that the Trump administration is failing to protect them from a rising tide of hostility.The idea of creating their own armed security detail emerged at a meeting of about 50 federal judges two months ago, according to a Wall Street Journal report.Read the full storyTop Republicans threaten to block Trump’s spending billTrump has been warned by fiscal hawks within his own party in the US senate that he must “get serious” about cutting government spending and reducing the national debt, or else they will block the passage of his signature tax-cutting legislation known as the “big, beautiful bill”.Read the full storyTrump administration tells border shelters helping migrants may be illegalThe Trump administration has continued releasing people charged with being in the country illegally to non-governmental shelters along the US-Mexico border, after telling those same organizations that providing migrants with housing may violate a law used to prosecute smugglers.Read the full storyUS police officer resigns after wrongfully arresting undocumented teenA Georgia police officer resigned from his job on Friday after erroneously pulling over a teenager, causing her to spend more than two weeks in a federal immigration jail, and leaving her facing deportation.The officer, Leslie O’Neal, was employed at the police department in Dalton, a small city more than an hour north of Atlanta. His arrest of college student Ximena Arias-Cristobal not only led to a domino effect that could lead to her deportation – it also engendered anger and criticism, especially given the circumstances of her immigration-related detention.Read the full storyFeatured essay: how Trump is turning US democracy against itselfThere is some mystery surrounding Donald Trump’s moves to dismantle many cherished principles of American history and its culture of governance: his globalization denialism; his romance with Russia; his demolition of universities; his contempt for European values and histories; his campaign to humiliate Canada, writes Arjun Appadurai, professor emeritus at New York University.These are all known examples, but it can be hard to see across them to discern anything like a unified theory of Trumpism, he adds. There are two possibilities here. One is that there is no rhyme or reason to Trump’s actions. He is simply a randomizing generator of chaos; the other is that there is a method. Appadurai subscribes to the second: Trump – and his advisers – know what they are doing.Read the full essayWhat else happened today:

    It’s been five years since George Floyd was killed by police officer Derek Chauvin. Now his family is fighting for sacred ground where he took his last breath.

    Kamala Harris took a swipe at Musk at a conference in Australia and raised concerns about AI.

    Speaking of Musk, where is he? The tech boss drifts to the margins of Trump world

    Catching up? Here’s what happened on 24 May 2025. More