US Politics

Democrats insist Joe Biden’s low midterms profile is smart strategy The unpopular president has made far fewer campaign appearances in the off-year election than his predecessorsMusic, chants and applause filled the gymnasium of a community college in an upstate New York battleground district, where Joe Biden delivered Democrats’ closing economic argument of the midterm election season.The president acknowledged Americans’ struggle to cope with painfully high inflation, while touting the progress his administration had made toward a post-pandemic recovery. He closed his remarks with a stark warning: if Republicans win control of Congress, they would create “chaos” in the economy. Then he waded into the crowd to shake hands and snap selfies.Democrats on the defensive as economy becomes primary concern over abortionRead moreWhile the visit had some of the trappings of a traditional campaign rally, it was, like much of Biden’s recent travels, an official event – an understated finish to a campaign season the president has described as the “most consequential” of his political life.In the final days before the 8 November election, Biden will ramp up his campaign trail appearances, with plans to visit Pennsylvania, Florida, New Mexico and Maryland to stump for Democratic candidates.But his relatively low profile is part of a concerted strategy designed for an unpopular president in a challenging election year.“To the extent he’s less visible, and maybe even invisible, it’s a plus for Democrats because it lets the candidates run their own campaigns on their own issues,” Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. “Out of sight, out of mind.”On the line this November is not only control of Congress. The outcome will also have far-reaching implications for Biden’s presidency – and his legacy. And Biden believes the stakes are even higher for American democracy.“If we lose this off-year election, we’re in real trouble,” Biden told supporters at a private fundraiser in Philadelphia for the Senate candidate John Fetterman last week.The violent assault last week on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, only underscored the danger of elevating candidates who embrace election conspiracies as several Republican nominees for state and federal office have done, Biden said.“What makes us think one party can talk about stolen elections, Covid being a hoax, [that it’s] all a bunch of lies, and it not affect people who may not be so well balanced?” Biden asked, delivering an urgent speech at the annual Pennsylvania Democratic Party’s Independence dinner on Friday. “What makes us think that it’s not going to alter the political climate? Enough is enough is enough.”Historical trends and current polling point to a Republican takeover of one or both chambers of Congress, an outcome that would greatly, if not entirely, curtail Democrats policy ambitions on abortion, gun control, voting rights and healthcare reform.The White House has defended Biden’s travel schedule, noting that he has been on the road almost nonstop in recent months to promote the party’s agenda and draw a sharp contrast with Republicans.“When the president speaks, he has a large bully pulpit,” White House Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters. “And he has been able, in the past several weeks, to set that national conversation.”With few exceptions, presidents tend to enter the midterm elections less popular than when they entered office, and it is not unusual for candidates to seek distance from an unpopular party leader during an election year.Yet Biden, who relishes the rope line and retail politics, has cut a more discreet presence on the campaign trail than either Trump or Obama, both of whom saw their approval ratings fall during the first years of their presidencies.While Biden has nearly kept pace with his predecessors’ travel, he has held notably fewer campaign rallies than either Obama or Trump, according to data collected by Brendan Doherty, author of The Rise of the President’s Permanent Campaign.The White House chief of staff, Ron Klain, has said Biden’s decision to eschew large rallies was a strategic choice, not simply a reflection of Biden’s low approval ratings.“I don’t think rallies have proved effective for candidates in the midterms,” Klain said recently on a CNN podcast, noting that in both 2010 and 2018 the party in power lost control of the House despite a campaign blitz by the president. “I don’t think it should surprise anyone that we’re not using the strategy that failed in 2010, and the strategy that failed in 2018,” he said.There is little evidence that presidential visits help turn out voters and in fact, they can have the unintended effect of mobilizing the opposition, said Sabato, who called concern over Biden’s relative lack of campaign appearances “much ado about absolutely nothing”.Moreover, he said campaign stops involving a president are costly affairs that require time and money of candidates, often the ones with the least resources to spare.“Is it really worth it?” Sabato asked. “Frequently, the answer is no, especially when a president is not popular.”Biden’s travel so far has largely taken him to states where Democrats believe his political power will boost their candidates, like his western swing through Colorado, California and Oregon. That has allowed Democrats in some of the most competitive races create some distance from the president.In Ohio, a state Trump won twice, Tim Ryan, the Democratic congressman running for an open Senate seat, has avoided Biden, saying he preferred to “be the face of this campaign”. Though earlier this month, Ryan welcomed a visit to the state by the West Virginia senator Joe Manchin, a centrist Democrat who has staked his reputation on bucking his party.Biden’s relatively cold reception this midterm cycle stands in stark contrast to four years ago, when he was among the party’s most sought-after campaign surrogates. That year, he jetted across the country to rally support for Democratic candidates in corners of the country where others in his party were not welcome. His enduring appeal among voters in states that Trump won in 2016 became a central part of his pitch to Democrats in 2020.As president, Biden has made light of his predicament. In speeches, he’s told candidates: “I’ll come campaign for you or against you – whichever will help the most.”In the closing days of the campaign, Biden’s immediate predecessors are barnstorming the states that will determine which party controls Congress, governors’ offices and statehouses.Over the weekend, Obama began a five-state tour that took him to the battleground states of Wisconsin and Michigan and Georgia, where he implored weary Democrats to “resist the temptation to give up”. In the coming days, he will also visit Nevada and Pennsylvania, both key to Democrats’ efforts to keep control of the Senate.And last week Trump announced a five-day swing through the swing states of Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Iowa.Several high-profile Republicans have embarked on the campaign trail, inviting speculation about their ambitions for 2024 while rallying their party’s base. Governors Ron DeSantis of Florida and Glenn Youngkin of Virginia have all appeared at events on behalf of Republican candidates, along with former governor Nikki Haley of South Carolina, Senator Ted Cruz and other conservative figures.On the Democratic side, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has been a presence on the campaign trail, rallying voters in an effort to save the party’s slim majority. Democratic senators and 2020 presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren, a progressive from Massachusetts, and Amy Klobuchar, a moderate from Minnesota, have targeted races where their respective political brands might help sway voters.And on Friday, Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent of Vermont, held a rally for progressive candidates in Texas, the start of a multi-state tour to mobilize young people disillusioned by the slow pace of progress in Washington.Biden’s cabinet members have also been on the road, talking about the administration’s policy initiatives on infrastructure, drug prices, student debt and climate change. Collectively, they have made 77 trips to 29 states and Puerto Rico, according to a senior administration official. A majority of the events were focused on inflation and the economy while nearly a dozen were designed to highlight new infrastructure projects.Harris recently traveled to New Mexico to support Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, who is up for re-election, and to emphasize the stakes for reproductive rights this election. During an event at a college campus in Albuquerque, the vice-president said New Mexico had become a “safe haven” for women seeking abortions in the region. She then went to Seattle, Washington, where she announced $1bn in grants for electric school buses.Jim Kessler, the executive vice-president for policy at the center-left thinktank Third Way, said the political landscape had changed dramatically in recent election cycles. Much of the campaign activity has moved online and pandemic-era changes to states’ voting systems have turned election day into “election weeks”.With millions of votes already cast, Kessler said Democrats and the White House should focus on the most effective ways to sway the small number of undecided voters and turn out those who are not politically engaged – groups that are unlikely to attend a campaign rally.In Kessler’s view, the venue matters less than the message, and the message must be relentlessly focused on the economy and the clashing visions the parties have for the country’s future.“In the time that you have left, you draw a contrast – talk about what you’re going to do and what they’re going to do,” Kessler said, adding that Democrats have a strong case to make on the economy. “We just saw an experiment on the Republican plan on the economy in Britain and it lasted as long as a head of lettuce. It was a disaster.”After casting an early ballot in his home state of Delaware on Saturday, Biden said he was optimistic about the elections and was ready to hit the trail this week.“I’m going to be spending the rest of the time making the case that this is not a referendum,” he told reporters outside the polling station. “It is a choice – a fundamental choice between two very different visions for the country.”TopicsJoe BidenUS midterm elections 2022US politicsDemocratsRepublicansfeaturesReuse this content More

Musk posts baseless conspiracy theory about Paul Pelosi attack on TwitterPost comes days after Musk takes over social media platform amid concern that hate speech will run rampant under his leadership Elon Musk was criticized on Sunday after posting a baseless conspiracy theory about the assault of Paul Pelosi to Twitter – the social media giant he took over several days ago with a promise to impose less restrictions on its content.Paul Pelosi, husband of US House speaker Nancy Pelosi, was attacked with a hammer at their California home on Friday. The attacker, identified by authorities as David DePape, allegedly said “Where is Nancy?” during the attack; president Joe Biden said that she appeared to be the intended target.Musk’s sharing of the conspiracy theory stemmed from a tweet by Hillary Clinton on Saturday. The Democratic former senator shared a Los Angeles Times story about DePape’s apparent far-right leanings.“The Republican Party and its mouthpieces now regularly spread hate and deranged conspiracy theories,” Clinton said, according to the Los Angeles Times. “It is shocking, but not surprising, that violence is the result. As citizens, we must hold them accountable for their words and the actions that follow.”Musk responded by tweeting that “there is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye,” and shared a link to a post that presented an unfounded conspiracy theory on the hammer attack, the Times reported. This conspiracy post was in the Santa Monica Observer, which the Times described as being “notorious for publishing false news”.Dan Moynihan, a public policy professor at Georgetown University, said in the wake of Musk’s tweet: “A big problem in contemporary American politics is that one party has become obsessed with conspiracy theories, encouraging radical responses including anti-democratic actions and violence. Musk will just make the problem worse.”Musk deleted the response by early Sunday afternoon, according to NBC News. Prior to its deletion, however, it had received in excess of 24,000 retweets and 86,000 likes.“The latest conspiracy theory about Paul Pelosi’s attack is frankly too disgusting to print,” said NBC News reporter Ben Collins, in response to Musk’s retweet.The world’s richest man’s apparent sharing of this post comes amid concern that hate-speech and harassment will run rampant under his leadership. Musk has tried to ease concerns about an increase in harmful posts under his ownership, such as his announcement that there would be a new content moderation counsel.Musk suggested that a better approach would be to divide Twitter into various strands. This approach would see users applying content ratings on their posts, and engaging in online disputes, within a special space on the platform.The Guardian has reached out to Twitter for comment.TopicsElon MuskNancy PelosiUS politicsTwitternewsReuse this content More

The website of the America First Secretary of State Coalition (“America First SOS”) doesn’t include the word “democracy” anywhere. It goes hard on “integrity”, mentioning “voter” and “election” integrity four times in about 800 words. But the Coalition isn’t interested in democracy.

America First SOS aims to get “America First” (that is, Trumpian Make America Great Again) Republicans elected as secretaries of state across key battleground states like Arizona and Nevada, precisely so they can influence or even change election processes and outcomes in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential elections.

The America First candidates will, if elected, “counter and reverse electoral fraud”. Their openly stated objective, in other words, is for state-level election officials to both reverse-engineer Trump’s election loss in 2020 (never mind that this is impossible) and ensure that he (or his favoured candidate) takes out the next one.

Across the United States, at every level of politics, democracy is under attack. America First SOS is just one example. While the November midterm elections are being treated by political analysts largely as a standard horse race, they are nothing of the sort. What happens in November will be a critical indicator of the strength of the United States’ political institutions. And the signs are not good.

Review: The Unfolding – A.M. Homes (Granta)

“Democracy,” as one of the characters in A.M. Homes’ brilliant new novel puts it, “is fragile, more fragile than any of us are comfortable admitting”.

The Unfolding is fiction: a made-up story of American politics. But just like in the real United States, the lines between truth and fantasy are perilously thin.

Homes’ main character, the “Big Guy”, is a businessman and lifelong Republican – not unlike Jim Marchant, the Republican candidate for secretary of state in Nevada and cofounder of America First SOS.

Both Marchant and Homes’ Big Guy came of age in Ronald Reagan’s America. They lived through the triumph of the end of the Cold War, the blip of the Clinton years, then the Republican glory of the 2000 election and the George W. Bush years. So they are accustomed to wielding power, and they do not take well to having that power threatened.

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American exceptionalism: the poison that cannot protect its children from violent death

Rich Republicans, ‘saving democracy’

The Unfolding begins on election night, 2008. The Big Guy is in Phoenix, Arizona, attending John McCain’s election night party. In the book, it’s always “Phoenix” – not the election, not the fact that

a Black man just got elected president of the United States. Oh my fucking god.

It’s “Phoenix” that was “the tipping point”. Because in the book – as in so much of real politics – the experiences of rich, old white men are almost always centred.

The book follows the Big Guy from the night of November 4 2008, until January 20, 2009 – President Obama’s inauguration day – as he and his network of other rich Republican men construct intricate and secretive plans to, as they see it, save American democracy.

The Unfolding begins in Phoenix, with Republican presidential candidate John McCain losing the 2008 election.
Chris Carlson/AP

The Big Guy and his network never really explain how it is that “democracy” is under threat, because they know that it isn’t, not really (not in 2008, anyway). What is under threat is power – specifically, the power of rich men to control American politics. As one of the Big Guy’s interlocutors puts it to him: “That’s the part that makes you really anxious, the idea that old white men will be obsolete.” The Big Guy replies, “You’re not wrong.”

Outside the context of the novel, this dialogue might seem a little ham-fisted, and it is. But therein lies its genius. Homes’ ability to tap into the language of American politics, history and culture – its simultaneous complexity and embarrassing simplicity – is astounding in its brilliance.

Homes’ capture, through fiction, of the backlash to the election of Barack Obama and its continuing reverberations, is the greatest strength of this book. That backlash (or, more accurately, “whitelash”) is responsible for Trump and so many white Americans’ embrace of, in President Biden’s real-life words, “semi-fascism”.

To Homes’ characters, living in the period between Bush’s election loss and the inauguration of the first Black president, “It’s not just that Obama won, it’s as though the founding fathers were assassinated.” They felt (and perhaps still feel) they’d watched

a generation of hard work flushed down the toilet. That’s what it is – it’s not four years, it’s not nothing, it’s an entire generation of men who worked to build this country and now it’s flushed, that’s what happened.

The Big Guy can hardly bear it; he’s watching his worlds, political and personal, collapse around him. To his like-minded friends, he insists that “each of us has worked too hard to leave this earth without having made a lasting impression”.

The Big Guy and his network are distraught, too, because “there is no succession plan – there is nothing in place to say who will run the world after they are gone”. They don’t have any sons.

A.M. Homes’ novel ends at Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration.
Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

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Jared Kushner’s memoir is a self-serving account of a hero’s triumphs but contains a great deal of fascinating detail

Personal and political crises

This mingling of the personal and the political finds life in one of the book’s best characters, the Big Guy’s teenage daughter, Meghan. She, too, is shaken by the events of November 2008, as everything she thought she knew – about her country, and her own life – begins to fall down around her.

Meghan’s navigation of these dual crises, and her own changing identity, often finds its own expression in historical thinking. Both she and the Big Guy love American history; they’re obsessed by it.

One of their favourite games is exchanging obscure facts about the Big Guy’s favourite president, George Washington. They have made a family tradition of visiting historical landmarks. But it’s in these places where Meghan’s uncertainty grows. Driving past the site of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Meghan wonders if

the grassy knoll is less of a hill or a mound, and more of a bump, or at this point in time – a blip? Is that true or has the scale of things changed? Does a place compact and get smaller over time? Does history shrink?

Meghan’s complex musings on the nature of history, her “fear that truth is an elusive thing, that history is not fixed in time and space but subject to fluctuation and interpretation and to the possibility that there are other stories”, stands in stark contrast to her father’s more insistent, one-dimensional view of the past and the present. While Meghan wants “to make history, to live in history, and to be the history of the future”, her father is more interested in controlling it.

Musing on the very first president, and his decision to step down after two terms, the Big Guy waxes lyrical on Washington’s selflessness, his patriotism, and his refusal to be “a king”. “What did America not want to be?” asks the Big Guy. “A kingdom.”

The Big Guy, consciously or not, exposes the contradiction at the heart of American power. The Big Guy and his friends don’t want a king, but they do want to be kingmakers. They don’t want democracy, not really. Or perhaps they do, but they want the version George Washington lived – a democracy reserved for rich, white men. The way, as they see it, American democracy was originally conceived.

Horrified by Obama’s election, The Big Guy wants a George Washington democracy – one reserved for rich, white men.
Lewis Whyld/AP

If this sounds familiar, that’s because it is. The Unfolding cuts to the heart of a broken American politics. It’s billed as a “black comedy”, but I never once found the book funny. It was far too real, and too brilliant in its fictional diagnosis of American malaise. Homes captures the horror and the stupidity of American power.

Throughout the book, we’re never really sure if the Big Guy and his network can be taken seriously. When they say meaningless things like, “Our plan will be organized around the concept of rings of power and authority with an inner circle”, are we to believe that this is a brilliant organisational strategy? Are these men executing a supremely complex game of three-dimensional chess? Or are they just rich, mediocre-but-entitled white men exploiting a system that was always rigged in their favour? Maybe it’s both.

Will the Big Guy’s network succeed in their plans? Will America First SOS succeed? Will Trump come back? Will American democracy collapse? Has it already?

The Unfolding opens with the oft-repeated line, “It can’t happen here.” (“It”, in this case, being the fall of the United States to fascism, riffing off another work of fiction, Sinclair Lewis’s titular 1935 novel.) As the lines between fantasy and reality increasingly blur, A.M. Homes offers us a brilliant, frightening reminder that “it” just might happen. Or that either way, “there’s shit on the horizon.” More

‘Somebody’s going to die’: Democrats warn of political violence after Paul Pelosi attackDire warnings after hammer assault on speaker’s husband and amid concern that security does not adequately reflect threats Democratic politicians have ramped up their warnings about the threat of political violence in America after a man bludgeoned House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s 82-year-old husband with a hammer in their California home on Friday.The dire warnings come amid longstanding concern that security services provided do not adequately reflect ongoing threats, especially as midterm elections loom. The Associated Press reported on Sunday that Paul Pelosi’s assailant had been carrying zip ties when he broke in.“Somebody is going to die,” Debbie Dingell, a Democratic congresswoman from Michigan, told the news website Axios. Dingell said that in 2020, after Fox News’s Tucker Carlson broadcast a segment on her, “I had men outside my home with assault weapons that night.”Mike Quigley, a Democratic congressman from Illinois, similarly told Axios that the savage assault “is confirming what members know: we are completely vulnerable at a time when the risks are increasing.” Quigley also said: “We need more ways to protect members and their families.”Indeed, the attack on Paul Pelosi appeared to have been intended for Nancy Pelosi, –Joe Biden said on Saturday. Authorities said that the attacker demanded “Where is Nancy?”; the veteran congresswoman was in Washington DC with her security detail when the assault took place.On the day of the attack, a US joint intelligence bulletin warned that there was a “heightened threat’ to the midterm contests, fueled by a rise in domestic violent extremism, or DVE, and driven by ideological grievances and access to potential targets,” according to CBS’s Nicole Sganga.The man charged in the assault, David DePape, might have expressed his political ire – which largely mirrored far-right taking points – in recent online missives. An internet user with the handle “daviddepape” voiced support of the former US president Donald Trump and seeming belief in the conspiracy theory QAnon.Insurrectionists invaded and vandalized Pelosi’s office during the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol by extreme Trump supporters. The rioters had been inspired by the then president, attacking law enforcement in an attempt to overturn Biden’s win.Some Capitol rioters sought out Pelosi, shouting her name; she escaped with other politicians and subsequently spearheaded efforts to secure the Capitol so that Congress could certify Biden’s victory.New York City police warned on Thursday that extremists might target politicians, polling sites, and political events in advance of the 2022 midterm elections. Threats have increased dramatically in recent years, with the US Capitol police reporting that they investigated 9,625 threats against lawmakers in 2021 – an approximately threefold increase from 2017.“I’m a rank-and-file member who served on a Mueller investigation and had death threats,” Kelly Armstrong, a Republican representative from North Dakota, told Axios. “I think everybody has to take it seriously.”There have been steps taken to address increasing threats against members of Congress, such as the House sergeant at arms’ announcement in July that all US Representatives will receive a $10,000 security allowance, but these measures have been criticized as insufficient. Pramila Jayapal, a Democratic congress member from Washington, said this summer that the allotment would not cover the recommended security measures for her home, per Axios.There have also been calls for legislative solutions to security concerns, but the attitude toward these concerns might stall along party lines. Mike Sherrill, a Democratic lawmaker from New Jersey, has introduced a bill that would permit judges to protect their personal information, following a 2020 shooting in New Jersey that left a judge’s son dead and her husband injured.Should Republicans win a majority in Congress, however, Capitol security will change; Republican Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, has criticized the placement of metal detectors outside the House chamber following the January 6 attack. McCarthy has hinted that he would remove them if he were in charge, Axios noted.TopicsUS CongressUS midterm elections 2022US politicsHouse of RepresentativesUS SenateUS crimenewsReuse this content More

A secret bathroom 911 call: how Paul Pelosi saved his own life House speaker’s husband told alleged intruder that he needed to use restroom and spoke in ‘code’ to alert authorities of problem Paul Pelosi, the husband of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who was attacked with a hammer during an invasion of their California home, saved his life after secretly telephoning for help from the bathroom.According to Politico, Paul Pelosi told the alleged intruder – identified by authorities as David DePape – that he needed to use the restroom. Paul Pelosi’s mobile phone was charging in the bathroom at the time; the 82-year-old then made a surreptitious call to 911, and remained connected.The emergency services dispatcher, Heather Grimes, heard an exchange between Paul Pelosi and his attacker as he spoke in “code” to alert the authorities there was a problem. “What’s going on? Why are you here? What are you going to do to me?” Pelosi reportedly said while on the call.A suspicious Grimes then notified police for a wellness check.“It is really thanks to Mr Pelosi having the ability to make that call, and truly the attention and the instincts of that dispatcher to realize that something was wrong in that situation and to make the police call a priority so they got there within two minutes to respond to this situation,” Brooke Jenkins, San Francisco’s district attorney, told CNN.The San Francisco police chief, William Scott, said that officers arrived to the Pelosis home and saw Paul Pelosi and DePape holding a hammer. “The suspect pulled the hammer away from Mr. Pelosi and violently assaulted him with it,” Politico quoted Scott as saying. “Our officers immediately tackled the suspect, disarmed him, took him into custody, requested emergency backup and rendered medical aid.”Paul Pelosi suffered a skull fracture as well as injuries to his hands and right arm during the attack. He underwent surgery and is expected to fully recover.President Joe Biden said Saturday that it appeared the attack was targeting Nancy Pelosi. DePape allegedly said “Where is Nancy?” after invading their home.The attack on Paul Pelosi has intensified lawmakers’ calls for increased protection for their families. As threats against US politicians have risen sharply over the past several years, lawmakers are also seeing their families targeted.Lawmakers’ security details do not extend to their families when they are not with them. Some lawmakers have received supplemental protection from police departments in their home districts, but others have had to seek private security, CNN reported.TopicsNancy PelosiCaliforniaUS politicsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesUS crimefeaturesReuse this content More

Nancy Pelosi: family ‘heartbroken and traumatized’ by brutal attack on her husbandSpeaker’s husband underwent surgery after hammer assault that comes amid rising warnings of political violence in the US House speaker Nancy Pelosi said her family is “heartbroken and traumatized” after a brutal and bloody hammer assault on her husband that has shocked the US as it stands on the brink of tense and crucial midterm elections.An intruder smashed his way through a rear door into the Pelosi’s house in San Francisco on Friday. The man confronted Paul Pelosi and shouted, “Where is Nancy.”Paul Pelosi, 82, underwent surgery to repair a skull fracture and serious injuries to his right arm and hands but his doctors expect a full recovery. However, the brutal attack – by a man who had posted online right-wing conspiracy theories – came amid rising warnings of political violence in the US.In her first official statement on the attack, Nancy Pelosi said: “A violent man broke into our family home, demanded to confront me and brutally attacked my husband Paul. Our children, our grandchildren and I are heartbroken and traumatized by the life-threatening attack on our Pop.”She added: “We are grateful for the quick response of law enforcement and emergency services, and for the life-saving medical care he is receiving. Please know that the outpouring of prayers and warm wishes from so many in the Congress is a comfort to our family and is helping Paul make progress with his recovery.”Paul Pelosi remains in the hospital but “his condition continues to improve”, the speaker said.The attacker now faces charges of attempted murder and other felonies.David DePape, 42, has been named by police as the attacker. Formal charges will be filed on Monday, and his arraignment is expected on Tuesday, according to the San Francisco district attorney’s office.In recent posts on several websites, he had reportedly expressed support for former president Donald Trump and embraced the cult-like conspiracy theory QAnon. The rambling posts included references to “satanic pedophilia”, aliens, antisemitic tropes and criticism of women, transgender people and censorship by tech companies.TopicsNancy PelosiUS politicsSan FranciscoHouse of RepresentativesnewsReuse this content More

The Trump Tapes: Bob Woodward’s chilling warning for US democracy The Washington Post Watergate veteran’s 20 interviews with the now former president prove to be must-listen materialBob Woodward has witnessed more than 50 years of depredation on the Potomac. Together with Carl Bernstein, he helped push Richard Nixon out the door. Only one president, however, left the veteran Washington Post reporter fearing for the future of the republic and democracy.‘A nutso proposition’: Robert Draper on Trump, Republicans and January 6 Read moreHis latest endeavor, subtitled “Bob Woodward’s Twenty Interviews with President Donald Trump”, is a passport to the heart of darkness. In June 2020, Trump confided: “I get people, they come up with ideas. But the ideas are mine, Bob. Want to know something? Everything is mine.” So much for the 24th Psalm: “The earth is the Lord’s.”Trump whispered and sought to draw Woodward close. The author questions, pokes and curates. But in the end, his subject is left unbowed.The Trump Tapes, an audiobook, is disturbingly relevant, an unplanned coda to Woodward’s print Trump trilogy. We hear Trump ladle out praise for Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin. Kim Jong-un is dear to his heart. Trump praises them for smarts, cunning and ruthlessness. He envies autocrats, seemingly wishes to join their ranks. A second term as president would provide that opportunity, Woodward argues.The tapes convincingly demonstrate that Trump knew in early 2020 that Covid posed a mortal danger to the US, but balked at telling the whole truth. His re-election hung in the balance.By the time Trump delivered his State of the Union address to Congress in February 2020, his national security team had delivered a stark warning. Yet Trump soft-pedaled the danger until his final months in office. Covid deaths in Republican America grew to outpace fatalities in Democratic states.Robert O’Brien, Trump’s national security adviser, and Matthew Pottinger, his deputy, confirmed to Woodward that they warned Trump the coronavirus would be “the biggest national security threat you face in your presidency”. They expected the devastation to be brutal, akin to the flu epidemic of 1918.Trump tacitly acknowledges receiving their message but does not dwell on Covid’s downside. He did not see it as his primary responsibility.In February 2020, Trump assured Woodward that everything was OK in the US, adding “now we got a little bit of a setback with the China virus”. He added that Covid would “go away in a couple of months with the heat”. In summer 2020, asked if this were “the leadership test of a lifetime”, Trump offered an emphatic “no”.He bragged of the US nuclear arsenal. “I have built a weapon system that nobody’s ever had in this country before,” Trump said. “We have stuff that Putin and Xi have never heard about before.”The tapes again demonstrate that Trump holds the press in contempt but yearns for its approval. Trump flatters his interviewer as “a great historian” and “the great Bob Woodward”. His tropism toward Woodward and Maggie Haberman is of the same piece. Woodward doubled as de facto White House stenographer and chronicler, Haberman as psychiatrist. Trump would call without warning. Woodward scattered devices around his home, to record such conversations.In the end, Trump smashed history’s clock. The US stands changed, possibly forever.“There is no turning back for American politics,” Woodward observes. “Trump was and still is a huge force and indelible presence, with the most powerful political machine in the country. He has the largest group of followers, loyalists and fundraisers, exceeding that of even President Biden.”Our divisions are unlikely to recede, Woodward worries. Trump better intuited where America stood in 2016 than any of his rivals. He grasped the impact of free trade, opioids and death by despair. He validated his base and relished his capacity to enrage. In the process, he obliterated the Republican legacy as the party of Abraham Lincoln and made the GOP his own.Woodward acknowledges the power of Trump’s instincts. On tape, Trump places himself on par with the 16th president and claims to have outshone Lyndon Johnson and the civil rights legislation of the 1960s.“No, I’ve done more,” he bristles, when pressed.Not surprisingly, Woodward and Trump spar over culture. A son of an Illinois state judge, a graduate of Yale, Woodward asserts that he and Trump are beneficiaries of white privilege. Woodward served in the navy, Trump dodged Vietnam. Trump refuses to have any of it. He says Woodward’s formulation is not part of his worldview.Maggie Haberman on Trump: ‘He’s become a Charles Foster Kane character’Read moreWoodward also focuses on the anger unleashed by the murder of George Floyd. Trump revisits the ensuing riots. From the left, the slogan “Defund the police” is a gift that keeps on giving for Republicans. This election cycle, law and order appears to be the winning message – as it was in 1968, 1972, 1988 and 2016. Latino voters and Asian Americans drift to the GOP.If Trump seeks the 2024 Republican nomination the crown will likely be his, together with excellent odds for re-election. Joe Biden’s ratings lumber. A criminal indictment might even burnish Trump’s allure to the faithful, albeit a conviction would be a wholly different matter.Biden has ignored the cold fact that his election came with a singular mandate: that he not act like his predecessor – nothing more. Instead, the 46th president fashioned himself as FDR 2.0, striving to usher in a second New Deal via razor-thin Democratic margins in Congress.On 8 November 2022, America will deliver a midterm verdict. Weeks later, Biden will turn 80. The country will be watching. So will an eager Trump and a vexed Woodward. No one said democracy was easy.TopicsBooksDonald TrumpAudiobooksCoronavirusUS elections 2020Politics booksUS domestic policyreviewsReuse this content More

The ex-president remains his party’s rock star and is touring key states to fire up voters – but his midterms record is far from flawlessby More