US Politics

Donald Trump has billed the Secret Service more than $40,000 for a room for his own security detail, which has been guarding him at his Mar-a-Lago resort since he left office in January.Spending records obtained by the Washington Post through a public records request show that Trump’s resort in Palm Beach charged the Secret Service $396.15 every night starting on 20 January, the day he left the White House and relocated to Mar-a-Lago full-time.The charges continued until at least 30 April, costing taxpayers a total of $40,011.15. A source familiar with the transactions told the Post the charges were for a single room that functioned as a workspace for Secret Service agents.Compared with protection provided at Mar-a-Lago during Trump’s tenure as president, Secret Service agents rented fewer rooms during their stay this year. The agency would previously rent four to five rooms for every night Trump was there. His security detail only rented out one room this spring.However, costs for the single room over the past few months have exceeded previous stays because Trump has stayed at Mar-a-Lago every night, and not just on weekends or during vacations. The extra days spent at Mar-a-Lago have added up: the Secret Service has paid as much money to Mar-a-Lago during the spring as it had spent during similar times in 2018 and 2019.Trump’s decision to invoice the Secret Service for rent is unusual for a sitting president or a former one. Former presidents are given Secret Service protection for life and other paid-for perks, but as the Post notes, historians and representatives of past presidents were unable to cite another example of a president billing Secret Service at this level.As vice-president, Joe Biden charged the Secret Service $171,600 in rent for use of a cottage on his Delaware property between 2011 and 2017. Since becoming president, Biden has not charged the Secret Service rent. More

It just so happened that Joe Biden was due to visit Detroit, home to the biggest Arab American community in the country, at the height of the latest upsurge in Israeli-Palestinian violence.The sight of the presidential motorcade on Tuesday passing through a protest bedecked with Palestinian flags – and of Biden himself in heated discussion with Rashida Tlaib, the first Palestinian woman to be elected to Congress, on the Detroit airport tarmac – vividly illustrated the rapid shifts under way in US politics.Welcoming Friday’s ceasefire, Biden said he would continue what he called his “quiet, relentless diplomacy”. But his emphasis through 11 days of bombs, rockets and bloodshed, on Israel’s right to self-defence, his refusal to demand a ceasefire or to join a UN security council statement to that effect, have exacted a political cost in the very constituency that was decisive in getting him elected.In many ways, Biden was following a well-trodden path for US presidents, but the political downside of doing so is much greater now than it would have been just a few years ago, before a new generation of Democrats such as Tlaib arrived in Congress, and before the Black Lives Matter campaign made common cause with the Palestinians.The same broad coalition that saved Biden’s primary campaign and helped get him across the line in November, could now become a powerful counterweight to the pro-Israeli traditions of the Democratic party.“We’re in a moment of profound flux in society in general and things are moving very, very quickly and sometimes it takes moments like these to see how far things have shifted,” said Abdul El-Sayed, an epidemiologist, formerly Detroit’s former health director and candidate for governor, who addressed the protesters in Michigan on Tuesday.“Joe Biden has, throughout his political history, been very, very good at reading the changes in temperature that occur, and I hope that he registers the fact that the base has also moved on this issue.”Also in the crowd on Tuesday was Reuben Telushkin, a Black Jewish activist who is national organiser for Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). He said the Black Lives Matter movement has reinforced an alliance between Palestinians and African Americans.“People were connecting in the streets, connecting online and so pre-existing solidarities were deepening, but also average, maybe more apathetic folks, were being politicised,” Telushkin said.He pointed to the impact of protests in Ferguson in 2014, when it was discovered the same US-made teargas canisters were being used on Black American demonstrators in Missouri and against Palestinians on the West Bank.“Palestinians were demonstrating their solidarity by sending tweets to the protesters in Ferguson about how to treat teargas,” Telushkin said. “So it was a really material link.”A new vocabulary has entered the US debate on Israel and Palestine, particularly since Human Rights Watch published a report last month that described the status quo as apartheid, a description that echoed on the floor of the House of Representatives and on MSNBC by presenter Ali Velshi.“That is a radical change. Normally you’d be at risk of losing your job if you spoke up for Palestinian human rights,” said Edward Ahmed Mitchell, the deputy executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.The models Bella and Gigi Hadid, whose father was born in Palestine, used their social media platforms, with a combined following of 108 million, to highlight the plight of the people of Gaza and the West Bank.“This political activism has been building for decades,” said Salih Booker, president of the Center for International Policy. “It’s hard to point to exactly what grain of sand has now been added to this side of the scales, but I think we’re approaching a new tipping point where the entire debate is being reframed.”Beth Miller, government affairs manager for JVP Action, the group’s political advocacy arm, said: “This idea that you could be ‘progressive except for Palestine’ is falling apart, and people understand that now there is no such thing as ‘progressive except for Palestine’.”US public sympathies are still mostly with the Israelis rather than the Palestinians. The ratio was 58% to 25% in a Gallup poll in March, but that still reflected a steady swing towards the Palestinians over recent years and the survey was taken before the most recent eruption of violence.Similarly the centre of gravity in the Democratic party is still sympathetic towards Biden’s approach, but the direction of change is away from the reflexive support for Israel that has been the president’s hallmark throughout his long political career.As a sign of things to come, progressives point to the ouster of the formerly powerful, pro-Israel chair of the House foreign affairs committee, Eliot Engel, by a political newcomer, Jamaal Bowman, in a Democratic primary last July. Bowman has since supported a bill that would regulate US military aid to Israel.“The conversation has to change before the policy can change,” Mitchell said. “And right now we are seeing a radical change in the conversation surrounding Palestine.” More

Tahanie Aboushi was 13 when police barged into her home and arrested her parents. At 14, her father, a shop owner in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park, was sentenced to 22 years in prison for charges relating to untaxed cigarettes and stolen goods. Her mother was acquitted of all charges.“Every day throughout the trial, I thought he was coming home with us. And then the day he was sentenced, he couldn’t come home with us. It was just so abrupt. I remember asking myself: ‘Is this it? He doesn’t come home with us?’ That was the day it actually sank in,” Aboushi told the Guardian in an interview.She added: “That night, there was no dinner with my father at the table, and that this would probably the last time we had dinner with our father in our home for the next 20 years.”Now over two decades later, Aboushi is entering a competitive race to become Manhattan’s next district attorney – the chief prosecutor who possesses the power to decide which cases will be pursued in the financial capital of the world and the heart of New York City. It’s a beat that covers Wall Street and downtown Manhattan to the uber-rich avenues of the Upper East and West sides, to the bustling communities of color of Harlem and Washington Heights.Aboushi is an underdog, but is already the standout progressive in the race, having earned the endorsements of the leftist Working Families party, the Jewish Vote advocacy group, and progressive political figures like congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, congressman Jamaal Bowman and the actor and activist Cynthia Nixon.Outside a coffee shop in Harlem, Aboushi is greeted by Yemeni women in burqas carrying groceries. A car pulls up to the curb and a man rolls down his window to say “Salaam” to the candidate. The man is Brother Tariq, a director at the Malcom X mosque down the street. Aboushi shouts back to tell him he owes her a phone call.“This is the side of Manhattan that’s forgotten about,” Aboushi said at the Manhattanville coffee shop. “This is one of the reasons why I jumped into this race – because there are other constituents who have been hurt. And like, we live here, too. What about us? It’s a very heavy working-class [place] here, predominantly black and Latino. But you can see we have a good mix of Yemeni communities and Pakistanis. A lot of the the immigrant African cab drivers live up here. It’s just a diverse, beautiful community up here.”In a competitive race with seven other candidates, the odds are stacked.Aboushi’s most formidable rival is Tali Farhadian Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor who clerked for Judge Merrick Garland, who now heads the justice department. If elected, Farhadian Weinstein or Aboushi would be the first female district attorney for Manhattan. While Aboushi joked that she and Farhadian Weinstein have already been confused for each other since both are women of color with ethnic names, she said she couldn’t be more different than her opponent, a millionaire who is married to a wealthy hedge-fund manager.“The fact is that we’ve had a DA for the last 80 years here in Manhattan that’s only ever been a white man. It’s been somebody that is part of powerful and privileged communities that haven’t walked in our shoes but tells us what’s best for us. We have the movement and the advocates. People are demanding change. We know we have to control and address crime, but we also know the system is very unfair and it is racist.“And so people want to know how we’re going to do both. And we can do both. I’m going to show them we can do both. That’s why I jumped in the race.”Aboushi’s hope is to succeed the current district attorney, Cyrus Vance, who announced his retirement earlier this year. Whoever is elected to the position of DA will inherit Vance’s investigation into Donald Trump’s taxes – a key issue in this race.“We know what Vance could have done this with Trump back in 2015. This was your career prosecutor and people wanted something to be done in that 2015 investigation and it ended up nowhere, right? So is it really somebody that’s never been a prosecutor that we’re worried about, or somebody that has always been a prosecutor that we should be worried about shutting things like this down?”Despite having practiced law for over a decade and running her own practice with her siblings, Aboushi’s lack of prosecutorial experience could be seen as a vulnerability in her candidacy, but she views this as a strength.“I’ve been on the other end of the decision a prosecutor has made,” Aboushi said, referencing her father’s prison sentence. “I know what it looks like on the ground and what it means to fight, to not become a statistic where you just get trapped in this cycle. And that’s the perspective that has always been missing from this office.“We’ve had career prosecutors. We can’t sacrifice any more of our families hoping that a person is going to see us as human beings and do something different.”We have the most diverse cross-sectional support system – more than any other candidateTaboushi said what she’s lacking in prosecutorial experience, she makes up for in lived experience. Her most high-profile case to date was against the New York police department, where she defended Muslim women who were forced to remove their hijabs to get their mugshots taken in arrests. She won, and New York City paid each woman in the case a settlement of $60,000.“I told myself, ‘What kind of kind of environment are these officers in that you can do that and feel so comfortable about doing it?’ It was one of first impressions in the courts, meaning the NYPD never had that issue come up with them before. Now, the policy extends to all New Yorkers.”She added: “What I loved about that case is it started with a high-school student – a Muslim girl who tried to speak up for herself and her voice was stamped out. It doesn’t matter what religion you are. To work through their arguments was an active changing of systemic racism and understanding that you are in a vibrant city of so many different cultures.”Aboushi hopes to clinch the nomination in the primary election on 22 June and she is confident she can win.“We have the most diverse cross-sectional support system – more than any other candidate. We can have a safe and fair justice system and accomplish accountability in a way that’s focused on rehabilitation and preventative measures. People trust us. People hear my story and read about the work that I’ve done.“And they know I’m not going to ‘otherwise’ them, and that we’re going to be open and honest about this process. And we’re going to be responsive. We’re going to ensure a safe and stable society for everyone.” More

As celebrations marking the Guardian’s 200th year continue, Jonathan Freedland and David Smith explore the paper’s rocky road through covering the biggest stories in US political history

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This week, to celebrate the Guardian’s 200th birthday, David Smith takes Jonathan Freedland on a historical journey through the paper’s centuries of US coverage, from its constant criticism of Abraham Lincoln, to its show of force against the Iraq war, which went against most in the US media at the time. They discuss the fascinating transition from being a sort of outsider looking in, to being a go-to guide for millions of Americans. Read David Smith’s piece on 200 years of Guardian US coverage Send us your questions and feedback to [email protected] Help support the Guardian by going to gu.com/supportpodcasts More

Senator Bernie Sanders introduced a resolution blocking a $735m US weapons sale to Israel on Thursday, mirroring a symbolic action by the House of Representatives in response to conflict between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas leaders.“I believe that the United States must help lead the way to a peaceful and prosperous future for both Israelis and Palestinians,” the progressive senator said on Twitter.He added: “We need to take a hard look at whether the sale of these weapons is actually helping do that, or whether it is simply fueling conflict.”Sanders’ language mirrored that of a separate resolution he introduced on Wednesday, which emphasized the importance of Israeli and Palestinian lives. “Whereas every Palestinian life matters; and whereas every Israeli life matters:now, therefore, be it resolved, that the Senate … urges an immediate ceasefire,” Sanders’ resolution said.The resolution was in response to a separate measure from the Republican senator Rick Scott affirming US support for Israel.The current conflict in the Middle East has opened splits in the Democratic party between its progressive wing and its centrists, including the White House. Joe Biden’s administration has approved the potential sale of $735m in weapons to Israel this year, and sent it to Congress on 5 May for formal review.The Democratic and Republican leaders of the Senate foreign relations and House foreign affairs committees all backed the sale during an informal review before 5 May. And lawmakers predicted efforts to stop the sale would fail, given traditionally strong bipartisan support in both the House and Senate for arms sales to Israel.Senator Bob Menendez, the Democratic chairman of Senate foreign relations, said he would oppose the Sanders resolution. He also said he was not certain that Sanders had filed it within a required 15-day period.“I can’t imagine that passing,” Senator Jim Risch, the committee’s top Republican, told reporters.The clashes have prompted calls from some lawmakers for a more concerted US effort to stop the violence, including Israeli airstrikes that have killed dozens of civilians, most of them Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.Sanders’ resolution follows a measure introduced by the US Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Mark Pocan and Rashida Tlaib, which has at least six other co-sponsors, including some of the most left-leaning Democrats in the House. More

One of the grimmest aspects of the conflict that has unfolded over recent days is its sheer familiarity, especially to those living through it. Even the youngest have faced this violence too many times before: the Norwegian Refugee Council reported that 11 of the children killed by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza over the past week were participating in its psychosocial programme to help them deal with trauma. In all, 228 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have died, at least 63 of them children, while 12 people in Israel, including two children, were killed by rockets fired by Palestinian militant groups. Both parties disregard the lives of civilians. But it is overwhelmingly Palestinian children who have died, lost parents or siblings, and whose homes, schools and health services have been hit. Late on Thursday, Israel announced a ceasefire after 11 days of violence, with Hamas confirming that the truce would begin overnight. It had become evident that both sides were looking for an exit, and Joe Biden had strengthened his language the day before, telling Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in a phone call that he “expected a significant de-escalation today on the path to a ceasefire”. This too is familiar: the US beginning by talking only of Israel’s right to defend itself, and blocking efforts to exert pressure at the UN, but talking tougher once a resolution looked more plausible (whether to use limited leverage wisely or, less generously, to look like it has influence).The administration is said to believe it is better to lobby in private than pronounce in public; while such formulations are often convenient, it does appear to have been pressing harder behind the scenes. The approach reflects the president’s style of business and the bitter experience of the Obama administration, for which Mr Netanyahu showed such contempt – eventually prompting the US to refuse to veto a landmark UN vote demanding a halt to settlements in the occupied territories. But Donald Trump’s unalloyed enthusiasm for Mr Netanyahu, and the gifts he handed over, weakened the Palestinians and emboldened the Israeli prime minister.Mr Trump’s successor has returned to the status quo ante in US relations with Israel. But something has changed: his party and parts of the public are shifting. An influx of progressive Democrats to Congress, and the energy of the Black Lives Matter movement, have brought renewed support for the Palestinian cause. Many in the American Jewish community, particularly in younger generations, are increasingly critical of Israel. This time, the conflict appears to have captured public attention.Mr Biden has plenty to preoccupy him at home and internationally. Essentially, he wants all this to go away. But this latest violence has shown that it will keep returning until the real problems are addressed. The injustice of occupation has been compounded as settlements change the facts on the ground to make a viable Palestinian state look ever less possible, while Israel denies its Palestinian citizens the same rights as Jews. The US may prefer not to think about all this for now. But in the long run, Israel may find that it cannot count on such a compliant partner. More

How stressful can an election campaign really be? Potentially life-threatening, researchers say, at least in the case of the 2016 US presidential election. The divisive campaign may have raised the risk of abnormal heart rhythms and worsened high blood pressure in people with underlying cardiovascular disease, two studies suggest.One study focused on nearly 2,500 people (mostly white, with an average age of about 71) with implanted cardiac devices in North Carolina, a swing state in the 2016 election that was subjected to fiercely negative political commercials and campaign events.Researchers examined the incidence of cardiac arrhythmias (too fast or too slow heartbeats or irregular heart rhythms) in a six-week period spanning before and after the election, and compared it with two six-week control periods June/July 2016 and October/November 2015.There was a 77% rise in the risk of cardiac arrhythmias during the election phase versus the control periods, even after accounting for factors including age and underlying medical conditions, according to the study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.In particular there was an 82% rise in the incidence of atrial arrhythmias, an abnormal heart rhythm that begins in the heart’s upper chambers and can lead to blood clots, stroke and other complications. There was a 60% jump in the rate of ventricular arrhythmias, an abnormal heart rhythm involving the heart’s lower chambers that can lead to cardiac arrest.The study’s lead author, Dr Lindsey Rosman, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina, said previous research had indicated that acute cardiovascular events tend to rise in the aftermath of events such as natural disasters and terrorist attacks. “But the direct link between a stressful political election and an increase in cardiac events hasn’t been established – until now.”The researchers also assessed whether the risk of arrhythmia differed by political party affiliation. Surprisingly, people who voted for the losing candidate, Hillary Clinton, did not experience a higher rate of arrhythmias compared with those who voted for the winner, Donald Trump.A separate study investigated changes in blood pressure among different ethnic groups. Readings from about 2,000 non-Hispanic white people, non-Hispanic people of colour, and Mexican Americans in the pre-election period (May to October 2016) were compared against 1,700 randomly selected participants from the three groups a year into the new presidency (November 2017 to April 2018.)The researchers found significant increases in blood pressure among black and Mexican American participants with hypertension, but no significant rises in people who did not already have hypertension (regardless of their ethnic background.The lead author, Dr Andrew Hwang, an assistant professor of clinical science at High Point University, North Carolina, said it was possible that the passage of time may have played a role in worsening blood pressure measures. “However, given that the 2016 US election was a major national event, we may be able to suspect that the election may have contributed, in part, to changes in blood pressure.” More