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      Ro Khanna: Brian Thompson killing was ‘horrific’ but people ‘aren’t getting care they need’

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      Progressive congressperson Ro Khanna has sympathy for murdered UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson – yet at the same time is not surprised that the killing reignited a national dialogue about inequities in the US healthcare system, he said in an interview Sunday.“It was horrific,” the California Democrat said on ABC This Week with respect to the slaying of Thompson, whose survivors include his widow and two sons ages 16 and 19. “I mean, this is a father we’re talking about – of two children, and … there is no justification for violence.“But the outpouring afterwards has not surprised me.”Khanna told the show’s host, Martha Raddatz, that he agreed with fellow liberal and US senator Bernie Sanders when he wrote recently on social media: “We waste hundreds of billions a year on health care administrative expenses that make insurance CEOs and wealthy stockholders incredibly rich while 85 million Americans go uninsured or underinsured. Health care is a human right. We need Medicare for all.”“After years, Sanders is winning this debate,” Khanna said, referring to the Vermont senator’s support for a single-payer national health insurance system seen in other wealthy democracies.While police have stopped short of offering a possible motive behind Thompson’s 4 December shooting death, the apparent targeted nature of the attack – as well as shell casings found at the scene of the killing displaying the words “delay”, “deny” and possibly “depose” have suggested it was maybe linked to the largely privatized US healthcare industry’s routine denial of payments to many Americans.Healthcare debt has emerged as a leading cause of bankruptcy in the US while for-profit health insurers such as UnitedHealthcare are among the country’s richest companies. Thompson, 50, who lived near UnitedHealthcare’s headquarters in Minnesota, commanded a salary of $10m annually before a gunman wearing a mask shot him dead outside a hotel in Manhattan as he prepared to attend a meeting with investors of his company.Many greeted news of Thompson’s death not with sympathy but with mockery. A widely shared example of the sentiment was a social media post from Columbia School of Social Work’s Anthony Zenkus, which read: “Today, we mourn the death of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, gunned down…. wait, I’m sorry – today we mourn the deaths of the 68,000 Americans who die needlessly each year so that insurance company execs like Brian Thompson can become multimillionaires.”Khanna on Sunday said his status as a member of the US House has not immunized him from absurd insurance battles.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThough he acknowledged it paled in comparison to people with cancer, heart disease and diabetes being denied coverage while they battle for their lives, Khanna said: “I, as a congressperson had UnitedHealthcare deny a prescription for a nasal – a $100 pump spray, and I couldn’t get them to reverse this. So imagine what ordinary people are dealing with.”Khanna said some modest steps that the US could take to begin addressing healthcare inequities in the country is to cap out-of-pocket costs while also requiring the private insurers relied on by many Americans “to cover anything” that Medicare would.Medicare is the public US health insurance program for those older than 65 and people who are disabled.“We have to understand people with cancer, with heart disease, with diabetes, with insurance aren’t getting the care that they need. They’re getting stuck with huge medical bills.” More

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      Trump picks hush-money defense attorney Alina Habba as counselor to the president

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      President-elect Donald Trump has announced that he is appointing one of his defense attorneys in the New York hush money case as counselor to the president.Alina Habba, 40, defended Trump earlier this year, also serving as his legal spokesperson. Habba has been spending time with the president-elect since the election at his Florida club Mar-a-Lago.“She has been unwavering in her loyalty and unmatched in her resolve – standing with me through numerous ‘trials’, battles and countless days in court,” Trump posted on his social network Truth Social. “Few understand the weaponization of the ‘injustice’ system better than Alina.”Trump became the first former American president to be convicted of felony crimes when a New York jury in May found him guilty of all 34 charges in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush-money payment to a porn actor who said the two had sex.In Trump’s first term, the position of counselor was held by Republican strategist Kellyanne Conway. Habba has Iraqi ancestry and is Chaldean, which is Iraq’s largest Christian denomination and one of the Catholic church’s Eastern rites.Habba frequently accompanied Trump on the campaign trail and was one of the speakers at the late October rally in New York’s Madison Square Garden.On Sunday, Trump also announced he is bringing back former staffer Michael Anton to serve as director of policy planning at the state department. Anton served as the national security council spokesperson from 2017 to 2018.Trump said he also will be appointing Michael Needham, a former chief of staff for Senator Marco Rubio, as counselor of the state department. The Florida senator was chosen by Trump to be his next secretary of state. More

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      Trump surgeon general pick involved in gun accident that killed her father at age 13

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      Donald Trump’s nominee for US surgeon general – Dr Janette Nesheiwat – accidentally knocked over a gun when she was 13 years old, causing it to fire and fatally shoot her father in the head.The death of Nesheiwat’s father occurred in February 1990 at her family home in Umatilla, Florida, as reported on Friday by the New York Times.“I was in Father’s bedroom at about 7.15am getting some scissors” out of a fishing tackle box on a shelf above her dad’s bed, she said, according to a police report reviewed by the New York Times. “I opened the … box and the whole thing tipped over”, causing a handgun to fall from inside, discharge and strike her father in the head as he slept in the bed.Nesheiwat’s father, who immigrated from Jordan, died in a hospital the following day.While avoiding discussing her role in the case, she has said her father’s death inspired her to become a doctor. Nesheiwat has spent the past 15 years as an urgent care doctor for CityMD, a for-profit chain of clinics around New York City.At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, she began appearing regularly on Fox News as a medical contributor.Nesheiwat would replace Dr Vivek Murthy if her nomination is confirmed after Trump begins his second presidency.Murthy was the first US surgeon general to declare gun violence as a public health crisis. In an advisory, he cited that firearms are now the leading cause of death in the US among children and adolescents.A graphic accompanying the advisory explained how many of those deaths were unintentional, resulting from firearms that were stored loaded as well as unlocked.To address the crisis, Murthy called on the US to ban automatic rifles, introduce universal background checks for purchasing guns, regulate the industry, pass laws that would restrict use in public spaces and penalize individuals who fail to safely store their weapons.Republicans have opposed efforts to treat gun violence as a public health issue, with House Republicans voting in 2023 to ban the Center for Disease Control from researching gun violence. Republicans have also pushed to prevent public health agencies from citing public health emergencies to pass gun control measures and has attempted to defund programs aimed at gun violence reduction.Murthy was dismissed from his role as US surgeon general by Trump during his first presidency in 2017 before outgoing Joe Biden appointed him to the position again in 2021.The New York Times reported that a Nesheiwat memoir being published later in December mentions her father’s death in the first sentence.“When I was 13 years old, I helplessly watched my dear father dying from an accident as blood was spurting everywhere,” she writes in Beyond the Stethoscope: Miracles in Medicine. “I couldn’t save his life.“This was the start of my personal journey in life to become a physician and enter the world of healing arts.”But, according to the New York Times, nowhere in the next 260 pages of the book does she detail how her father died or say that he was shot.The Orlando Sentinel provided more detail in 1990, describing in a news item how a bullet hit Ziad “Ben” Nesheiwat in the head and killed him after his 13-year-old daughter knocked over a tackle box, causing a gun to fall out and fire.“As she says in her book, she became a physician because of her dad’s tragic accidental death,” a spokesman for Trump’s transition team, Brian Hughes, said in a statement to the New York Times after Nesheiwat did not respond for comment. “She became a physician to save lives, and that dedication to the lives of her fellow Americans is why president Trump nominated Dr Nesheiwat to be our next surgeon general.“She and her family miss their father, and hope he’s proud of them.” More

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      Donald Trump promises to pardon January 6 rioters on ‘day one’

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      In his first sit-down television news interview since winning a second presidency in November’s election, Donald Trump renewed promises to pardon his supporters involved in the attack on the US Capitol in early 2021.He also doubled down on promises of mass deportations and tariffs in the conversation with NBC’s Meet the Press host Kristen Welker – the latter of which he acknowledged could cause Americans to pay more after riding voters’ complaints about higher prices back to the White House at the expense of Vice-President Kamala Harris.“I’m going to be acting very quickly. First day,” Trump said in the interview, claiming convicted Capitol attackers had been put through a “very nasty system”.“I know the system,” said Trump, himself convicted in May by New York state prosecutors of criminally falsifying business records to conceal hush-money payments to adult film actor Stormy Daniels. “The system’s a very corrupt system.”Trump said there may be some exceptions to his pardons over an attack on the Capitol that was meant to keep him in the Oval Office after losing the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden – and which was linked to multiple deaths, including the suicides of traumatized law enforcement officers. He referenced previously debunked claims of anti-Trump law enforcement infiltrating his supporters’ ranks and agitating the attack.When Trump was asked about Capitol attackers who assaulted police officers he said that “they had no choice”. He also claimed individuals were pressured into accepting guilty pleas.“Their whole lives have been destroyed,” said Trump, who criticized the outgoing president’s recent pardon of his son, Hunter Biden, on convictions of lying on gun ownership application forms as well as tax evasion. “They’ve been destroyed.”Trump denied he would direct his second administration’s appointees to arrest elected officials involved in the investigation of the attack on the US Capitol, which led to federal criminal charges against him that have been dismissed. But he made it a point to tell Welker: “Honestly, they should go to jail.”More than 1,250 people have been convicted or pleaded guilty in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. And at least 645 people have been sentenced to serve some time in prison, ranging from a few days to 22 years.During his sentencing Friday, Philip Sean Grillo of New York City, one of the Capitol attackers, tauntingly told the federal judge presiding over his case, “Trump’s gonna pardon me anyways.” Grillo received a one-year prison sentenced and was ordered to be taken into custody immediately.Another of the convicted attackers, Edward Kelley of Tennessee, was found guilty at trial in November of conspiracy to murder federal employees. Jurors determined he had developed a list of officials he wanted to kill for investigating him in connection with the Capitol attack.In other parts of Sunday’s interview, Trump reaffirmed his plans to enact tariffs on imports from some of the US’s biggest trading partners. He said he could not guarantee US families would not pay more as a result of his plan.He also doubled down on refusing to admit Biden fairly defeated him in the 2020 election, claiming he won in November against Harris because the race “was too big to rig”.On his plans of mass deportations, Welker asked Trump about families with mixed immigration statuses. Trump suggested immigrants living in the US legally were at risk if they had family members living in the country without permission.“I don’t want to be breaking up families, so the only way you don’t break up the family is you keep them together and you have to send them all back,” Trump said.He did claim to have some support for working with Democrats to protect Dreamers, or people who have lived in the US for years after being brought to the country as undocumented children. But, as he has done before, he promised to work to end birthright citizenship and said he would consider pushing to amend the US constitution to do so.“We have to end it,” Trump said.Welker also asked Trump if he had fully developed a plan to overhaul healthcare after saying he had “concepts” of one during his lone debate with Harris.“We have concepts of a plan that would be better,” Trump replied, in part. More

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      Arab Americans become prominent voices in US politics – via Trump

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      While many appearing on stage during president-elect Donald Trump’s victory speech in the early hours of 6 November were familiar faces, one man, standing next to Tiffany Trump, was not.Michael Boulos, the son of Lebanese billionaire and Trump’s new senior adviser on Middle Eastern affairs, Massad Boulos, and the husband of Trump’s youngest daughter, stood cautiously to the president-elect’s right as America looked on.While Boulos’ presence – part of Trump’s successful coalition-building effort – may have gone largely unnoticed by many viewers, for Arab Americans such as Yahya Basha, a Syrian American doctor who runs several medical facilities in Detroit, it served as a breakthrough moment.In September, Basha met Trump and Boulos during one of the president-elect’s many campaign trips to Michigan.“I felt that they were serious and wanted to do business and communicate and partner on the issues,” says Basha of his engagement with Trump and Boulos. “If you are out, you don’t count. You have to stay in the battle.”Twenty years after the spike in animosity and prejudice in the aftermath of 9/11, Arab Americans are now finding themselves incorporated into US politics like never before and – ironically given his nationalism – the process is getting a boost from Trump.On 22 November, Trump nominated Janette Nesheiwat, the daughter of Jordanian Christian immigrants and a Fox News contributor, to the post of US surgeon general, and Marty Makary, a British American doctor with Lebanese heritage who also contributes to Fox News, to commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration.Alina Habba, Trump’s Iraqi American lawyer and adviser, is another prominent face in Trump’s entourage. During his previous administration Mark Esper and Alex Azar, both who have Lebanese heritage, served in senior positions.View image in fullscreenMany Arab Americans, particularly older generations who fled dictatorships in the Middle East, feel this is the first time that such prominent voices have been heard in a political context – despite Trump’s threats and a track record that has seen him ban travel from a host of Muslim-majority countries during his previous administration.While many Arab Americans say they are forced to look past Trump’s previous actions given the failure of the Biden administration to stop Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon, others believe the president-elect’s overtures to figures in their community is genuine.While the Democrats declined to allow a Palestinian American speaker at their August convention, a month earlier, at the Republican’s equivalent event, Habba was strategically given a place in the coveted Thursday night session, where she spoke of being a “proud first-generation Arab American woman”.Part of Trump’s outreach to Arab Americans has focused on connecting with Christian elements within the wider community, rather than Muslim ones.Boulos, Habba, Azar and Esper are either Maronite, Chaldean or Greek Orthodox Christians.“[The Arab American and Chaldean communities] needed one of their own – someone that is of their own and is in politics,” says Casey Askar, a Chaldean businessman who was recruited by Trump as far back as July 2023 to engage with Chaldeans in Michigan. Askar believes 80% of the Chaldean voters in Michigan – many of whom don’t identify as ethnically Arab but celebrate their own distinct heritage within the Arab world – backed Trump in last month’s election.“Because Chaldeans didn’t come from a democratic world or have opportunities for democracy or freedom of speech, they didn’t engage in politics,” he says.“But in 2016, Chaldeans really came out to vote. And they generally voted for Trump and Republican candidates.” He says that since a majority of Chaldean households in south-east Michigan, where the community is thought to number almost 200,000 people, own or run their own businesses, there’s an attraction to Trump and the Republicans.After a fall off in 2020, he says the Chaldean vote helped Trump win Michigan last month, where he beat Kamala Harris by 80,000 votes.“Historically, the Democratic party was the party of immigrants and minorities. I know that because when my family came, I believe they were more Democrat-leaning. If you look at the Catholic vote as a whole, it was predominantly Democrat,” he says.“But the party has changed. There’s so much hypocrisy. They pushed too far with wokeness, and that alienated a lot of people.”It’s a view shared by Basha, who is not Christian and who donated to Democrats’ election campaigns including Joe Biden, the governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, and others running against Israel lobby-backed candidates.“I had an excellent relationship with [Democrats]; I went to the White House many times,” he says.But last year, he says he felt slighted during a call with Michigan donors hosted by the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I wasn’t allowed to speak during the call. I raised my hand but wasn’t given the floor to speak when others were,” he says. “The Democrats became so complacent. I think the Arab-Americans were treated in the Democratic party as insignificant partners, from the Obama administration onward.”Though he donated thousands of dollars to Trump’s first opponent, Hillary Clinton, in 2016, he says that this time around when Harris’ campaign approached him for a donation, he refused.“I told them: I’m committed to Trump.”Trump’s efforts to build a coalition from within elements of the Arab American community has in part prompted many to run – and win as Republicans – at various political levels across the US.Amer Ghalib, the Democratic Yemeni American mayor of the Muslim-majority city of Hamtramck in Michigan, attracted headlines by endorsing and campaigning with Trump in October.Nor is the move to the Republican party confined to Michigan.Last month, Abe Hamadeh, a 33-year-old lawyer and former army reservist with little political experience, was elected to Arizona’s eighth congressional district, defeating a Democrat in an open race. Endorsed by Trump and Arizona firebrand Kari Lake, and the son of Syrian immigrants, Hamadeh’s campaign website photos see him leaning into his military and Middle Eastern background.For many Arab Americans, the messages espoused by Republicans resonate.Samra’a Luqman, a Yemeni American from Dearborn, Michigan, campaigned on behalf of and voted for Trump because “you cannot reward genocide with a second term”, referring to the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza, where more than 44,000 people have been killed.But a second reason for abandoning the Democratic party related to her and others more conservative social values.Luqman, who still considers herself a Democrat, was among parents who railed against sexually-explicate content in schoolbooks in Dearborn in 2022.“The story of this election does not start with 7 October [when Hamas attacked Israel]. It started in 2022, and the community felt betrayed by their own [Democratic] party,” she says.“It’s unfortunate, but the minute the [Arab American] community disagreed with the policies espoused by the Democratic party, they became ostracized and painted in a negative light. That betrayal started the shift to the Republican party.”Basha says he is fully aware of the dangers the second Trump administration may incur on the Arab world, not least to Palestinians suffering horrendous conditions as Israel continues to attack Gaza. Trump – and many of his cabinet picks – are vociferous supporters of Israel and its army’s actions. Trump has also promised to bring back travel bans on Muslim-majority countries which he says is “definitely a concern”.“It’s better to be at the table than outside the door,” he says.“I want to see what we can be a part of and establish a positive view of [Arab Americans] and negotiate on local, national and international issues.” More

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      Trump dominates Washington’s agenda – weeks before he takes the oath of office

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      The grand reopening of Notre Dame cathedral in Paris on Saturday was expected to be attended by around 50 heads of state and government. Joe Biden was not there to admire the magnificent splendour of the 850-year-old place of worship. But Donald Trump was.The role reversal neatly symbolises how power is draining from one man to the other. Biden, now a lame duck, appears to be in decline both physically and politically, fading from America’s national stage and tarnishing his legacy with a pardon for his errant son.Trump, however, is already dominating the Washington agenda more than 40 days before he takes the oath of office. He has grabbed attention with incendiary cabinet selections and policy pronouncements. He has begun flexing his muscles with world leaders. To many Americans, it feels like he is president again already.“Biden’s presidency is ending with a series of whimpers rather than a bang and it feels like he’s shrinking into irrelevance as Trump is asserting himself,” said Charlie Sykes, a conservative author and broadcaster. “If you’re a foreign leader, you may talk to Biden out of politeness but you’re going to listen to Trump out of naked self-interest.”Traditionally, the US has only one president at a time in both practice and spirit. But since defeating Biden’s vice-president, Kamala Harris, in last month’s election, Trump has effectively set up a shadow presidency at Mar-a-Lago, his club in Florida long dubbed his “winter White House”.He’s already engaging with foreign leaders. His threat of 25% tariffs – taxes on foreign imports – led Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau to rush to Mar-a-Lago with a promise of increased border-security measures. Trump also said Mexico had agreed to close its border, a claim contradicted by the Mexican president, Claudia Sheinbaum.Just as in his first term, Trump can shape affairs and move markets with a single social media post. He sent shares of US Steel down by writing on Truth Social that he would block its proposed acquisition by Japanese-owned Nippon Steel.View image in fullscreenMike Waltz, Trump’s pick for national security adviser, has credited Trump with bringing Israel and Lebanon to the negotiating table, although some political analysts have said there is no evidence that Trump had any direct involvement. The president-elect vowed “ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East” if Gaza hostages were not released before his inauguration.Meanwhile, he is capitalising on the strong stock market, claiming it as a victory for his policies, and taking credit for the the reversal of diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) initiatives at companies such as Walmart.On Monday, the Trump transition team issued a press release headlined: “Promises Kept – And President Trump Hasn’t Even Been Inaugurated Yet.” It argued that Trump, who still has no official powers, is already securing the border, working towards international peace, propelling economic growth and dismantling “divisive, unchecked DEI”.Critics point out that economic indicators – including the stock market – have been trending in the right direction for a long time, while recent dramas in South Korea, Syria and Ukraine cast doubt on the notion that Trump’s “peace through strength” mantra is already paying dividends.Even so, Trump and his team are once again proving they can sell a narrative that suits them. Reed Galen, president of JoinTheUnion.us, a pro-democracy coalition, said: “It’s a combination of Trumpian bravado, further or final dismantling of whatever processes we took for granted for too long and their instinctual and maybe even unconscious ability to occupy a vacuum when they feel one.”He added: “If Biden’s going to spend most of his time overseas and do very little in the way of pushing back on this stuff, they’re going to take all the ground that’s ceded to them. Call it Maga, call it the 21st-century Republican party – if they see an opportunity, they take it.“They don’t worry about the outcome. They don’t worry about the consequences. They don’t worry about somebody saying, you can’t do that, you shouldn’t do that. They’re like, we’re going to go do it and good luck trying to stop us. Clearly, it spooked Trudeau enough to go flying to Mar-a-Lago.”In theory, Trump’s conversations with world leaders could violate the Logan Act, a federal statute prohibiting unauthorised private diplomacy with foreign nations. But only one person has ever been indicted for breaching it – that was in 1803 and did not lead to a prosecution. Legal experts do not expect Trump to fall foul of it now.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHis actions do represent a break from past norms, however. Presidents-elect tend to maintain a respectful distance from the incumbent until it is their turn to occupy the White House. Franklin Roosevelt firmly rebuffed an invitation from the man he beat, Herbert Hoover, to take part a joint effort to pull the economy out of the Great Depression.Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said: “I’m old enough to remember when presidents-elect disappeared. I don’t think we saw Kennedy three times except going to church back in the late fall of 1960.“Reagan appeared once in public after the election; they caught him going into a store for supplies or something. That’s what was expected. You didn’t interfere with your predecessor because he was still president.”But perception of Trump’s authority has been accelerated by Biden’s shrivelling influence. This week, Biden became the first sitting US president to visit Angola and the first since Barack Obama in 2015 to set foot in Africa. His speech received little coverage and has fewer than 2,000 views on the White House’s official YouTube channel.Biden, 82, is also facing fierce criticism from fellow Democrats for pardoning his son Hunter over federal crimes after previously pledging that he would not. Some regard it as a vote of no confidence in the justice system that Biden vowed to protect – and a gift to Trump in his ongoing efforts to undermine democratic institutions.The Axios website reported: “A Biden friend said the president seems older by the day — slower in walk, more halting in talk. To some Biden loyalists, his decline is a sad metaphor for his presidency: He started strong but will finish diminished.”By contrast, Trump, 78, is once again dominating headlines with a frenzy of round-the-clock social media posts and controversies. One cabinet pick had to withdraw due to sexual misconduct allegations; another is teetering because of claims he assaulted women and abused alcohol; a third presents grave concerns to intelligence experts because of her willingness to believe conspiracy theories. The growing prominence of Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, also has nerves jangling.For Washington, there is a sense that the circus is back in town – or perhaps it never went away. Sykes, author of How the Right Lost Its Mind, said: “It feels like a continuation of the last four years where, even though Joe Biden has been the president, Donald Trump has felt like he was a politically dominating force for so long.“Unfortunately, when people look back on the Biden presidency, they’re going to comment on how low-profile and low-key Biden was in comparison to the man that he defeated. I’m not sure that there’s any historical parallel for that. The Trump show has been ongoing and sucking up all the oxygen for nearly a decade now.” More

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      Elon Musk’s rumoured $100m donation may just fuel a fresh look at UK political funding

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      Elon Musk has denied he is gearing up to chuck $100m at Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party, as it pushes to take on the Tories. But the very fact the question arose is a reminder of the pressing need for political funding reform on this side of the Atlantic.Musk is the living embodiment of economic power in the modern US: a multibillionaire, with spicy political views, who has bought his way into a role as Donald Trump’s costcutter-in-chief.Part of his motivation seems to be not just slashing spending for the sake of it but the dismantling of regulators that his companies have found irksome.He had previously joined legal action, alongside Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, aimed at having the National Labor Relations Board declared unconstitutional, for example.This is the body, created in 1935, that enforces workers’ rights. It ensured staff at Amazon’s Staten Island warehouse had the opportunity to ballot – successfully – for union recognition (an outcome the giant retailer has continued to challenge).Musk has also said he wants to “delete” the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, suggesting it is “duplicative”.Musk et al’s affront at the very idea that federal agencies have oversight of business is reminiscent of the fury faced by President Theodore Roosevelt and his allies during the so-called Progressive Era, at the turn of the 20th century, when they fought to bust vast monopolies and tame the worst excesses of capitalism.The mega-rich capitalists back then were the likes of JD Rockefeller and JP Morgan but then, as now, there was a clash of principles about the government’s right to oversee corporations. And then, as now, money was used to buy influence over the debate.If Musk and his co-director, Vivek Ramaswamy, succeed in scrapping a whole suite of regulators, it could fundamentally shift the relationship between capital and the individual (which, of course, is exactly his hope).Musk’s deregulatory zeal may yet run into trouble in Congress, and Trump may tire of his fellow egotist and end up wheeling out his catchphrase from the Apprentice to tell the Tesla boss “you’re fired”.But the immense influence Musk has bought, by spending an extraordinary $243m (£190m) on getting Trump re-elected, and using X to pump out pro-Trump propaganda, should sound alarm bells in the UK.We may lack the equivalent of Silicon Valley’s galactically rich donor class, with their screwball libertarianism. But we still have a system where wealthy individuals can effectively give unlimited sums to their favourite political parties.There are spending limits during campaigns, but these are very high: for a party standing candidates in every seat in the UK, it topped £34m at this year’s general election.Party funding rules state that you have to be a UK citizen to give more than £500 – or a UK-registered company, which “carries out business in the UK”.So even if Musk felt so minded, he could not donate as an individual, but would have to channel any donation to Farage’s crew via the UK outpost of Twitter, now known as X.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut the very fact he could do so in theory highlights the gaping holes in our funding rules.Keir Starmer’s Labour seems at ease with big money. Labour declared three times as much in donations as all other parties combined during this year’s election campaign – more than £9.5m – with big donors including the trade unions, of course, but also wealthy individuals, such as Lord Sainsbury, the former chair of the supermarket chain, as well as the Autoglass founder, Gary Lubner, and the hedge fund manager Martin Taylor.Yet the row over freebies – which led to Starmer being castigated over donations of glasses and gig tickets – revealed a deep public scepticism over the role of private money in politics.Just as with the MPs’ expenses scandal, a practice that Westminster considered perfectly normal was shown to be deeply unpalatable to voters.Labour’s manifesto included a promise to “protect democracy by strengthening the rules around donations to political parties”. It is unclear what that meant, and it didn’t feature in Labour’s first king’s speech, but my colleague Eleni Courea has reported that Labour will look closely at a forthcoming report from the IPPR thinktank, which is expected to recommend a £100,000 annual cap on individual donations.Cross-party talks on political funding have often foundered on Labour’s reluctance to accept any cap on trade union donations. This is a difficult circle to square – Labour is, after all, the party of labour. At the very least, union donations should be democratically endorsed, so that they function as much as possible like a collection of individual members’ subs.On this basis, plans in the employment bill to move to an “opt out” approach for union political funds seem like a backwards step (though the unions would point out that they do hold regular votes on how their political funds are used).Transparency International, which campaigns to drive big money out of politics, recommends a much lower £10,000 cap on donations, and has a slate of other suggestions – including reducing campaign spending limits, which were raised dramatically by the Tories. Labour would be wise to look closely at these, too.Political funding reform should be a worthy aim in itself, without the looming threat of the populist right. But If Elon Musk’s enthusiasm for Nigel Farage helps motivate the UK’s mainstream parties to crack on with cleaning up politics, both men will have made an unexpectedly positive contribution to public life. More

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      Why I’m voting against the military budget | Bernie Sanders

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      Today in America, 60% of our people live paycheck to paycheck, 85 million people are uninsured or underinsured and 21.5 million households are paying more than 50% of their income on housing. We have one of the highest rates of childhood poverty of almost any developed country on Earth, and 25% of older adults are trying to survive on $15,000 a year or less. In other words, the United States has fallen far behind other major countries in protecting the most vulnerable, and our government has failed millions of working families.But while so many Americans are struggling to get by, the United States is spending record-breaking amounts of money on the military. In the coming days, with relatively little debate, Congress will overwhelmingly pass the National Defense Authorization Act, approving close to $900bn for the Department of Defense (DoD). When spending on nuclear weapons and “emergency” defense spending is included, the total will approach $1tn. We now spend more than the next nine countries combined.I don’t often agree with Elon Musk, but he is right when he says the Pentagon “has little idea how its annual budget of more than $800bn is spent.” The Department of Defense is the only government agency that has been unable to pass an independent audit. It recently failed its seventh attempt in a row and could not fully account for huge portions of its $4.126tn in assets.Very few people who have researched the military-industrial complex doubt that there is massive fraud, waste and cost over-runs in the system. Defense contractors routinely overcharge the Pentagon by 40% – and sometimes more than 4,000%. For example, in October, RTX (formerly Raytheon) was fined $950m for inflating bills to the DoD, lying about labor and material costs, and paying bribes to secure foreign business. In June, Lockheed Martin was fined $70m for overcharging the navy for aircraft parts, the latest in a long line of similar abuses. The F-35, the most expensive weapon system in history, has run up hundreds of billions in cost overruns.Today, as a result of massive consolidation in the industry, a large portion of the Pentagon budget now goes to a handful of huge defense contractors like Lockheed Martin, RTX, General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman. That consolidation has been extremely profitable for the industry: since 2022, these four contractors have brought in $609bn in revenues, including $353bn in US taxpayer funds, and recorded $57bn in profits. During that same period, they have spent $61bn on dividends and stock buybacks to make their wealthy stockholders even richer.These defense contractors also provide their CEOs with exorbitant compensation packages. In the last three years for which information is available, these companies paid their CEOs more than $257m combined – with annual salaries that are about 100 times more than the secretary of defense and 500 times more than the average newly enlisted service member.How does this happen? How do we keep handing huge amounts of money to companies that routinely overcharge the American taxpayer and often engage in fraud? The answer is not complicated. These companies – like the drug companies, insurance companies, Wall Street and the fossil fuel industry – spend millions on campaign contributions and lobbying. In the recent election cycle, defense contractors spent nearly $251m on lobbying and contributed almost $37m to political candidates. Surprise, surprise! Most members of Congress vote for greatly inflated military budgets with few questions asked.The lack of accountability at the Department of Defense is not just costing American taxpayer dollars. It’s costing lives. The United States is providing many billions of dollars to help defend Ukraine from Putin’s invasion. When defense contractors said they couldn’t ramp up production without more taxpayer support, Congress repeatedly appropriated emergency funding, with roughly $78.5bn going to buy equipment and services from the major defense contractors.How did those “patriotic” companies respond? They jacked up prices. RTX increased prices for Stinger missiles from $25,000 in the 1990s to $400,000 in 2023. Lockheed Martin and RTX raised the price of the Javelin missile system from about $263,000 per unit just before the war to $350,700 this year. Similar price hikes took place for Patriot missiles and other weapons. And make no mistake: every time a contractor pads its profit margins, fewer weapons reach the frontlines. The greed of these defense contractors is not just costing American taxpayers; it’s killing Ukrainians.The United States needs a strong military, but we do not need a defense system that is designed to make huge profits for a handful of giant defense contractors. We do not need to spend almost a trillion dollars on the military, while half a million Americans are homeless and children go hungry.In this moment in history, it would be wise for us to remember what Dwight D Eisenhower, a former five-star general, said in his farewell address in 1961: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” What Eisenhower said was true in 1961. It is even more true today.I will be voting against the military budget. More