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      Is Trump building a political dynasty? – episode two

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      The United States has had its fair share of political dynasties – The Bushs, the Cheneys, the Kennedys… but has Donald Trump been quietly moulding his own family to become a political force long after he leaves office? Who from within the family fold could be a successor to the president? Or does Trump simply see the presidency as an opportunity to enrich himself and promote the family brand?In this episode, Ashley Parker, a staff writer for The Atlantic, explains why Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner stepped away from politics. The reporter Rosie Gray introduces us to Donald Trump Jr, the louder Trump child, who has enjoyed his unofficial role as spokesperson for his father. And Eric Cortellessa, Time magazine’s senior political correspondent, brings us up-to-date on how Eric Trump is being useful by growing the Trump family brand … and its wealth.Archive: ABC News, ABC11, CBS Mornings, CBS Philadelphia, CNBC, CNN, Fox News, NBC News, PBS Newshour, Skinny Confidential podcast, Tucker Carlson, Sky News Australia, WFAA
      Listen to The Audio Long Read on the Albanian island bought by Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner
      Send your questions and feedback to politicsweeklyamerica@theguardian.com
      Help support the Guardian. Go to theguardian.com/politicspodus More

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      Trump news at a glance: president hails US-EU trade deal as House speaker weighs in on Epstein controversy

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      Donald Trump has hailed what he called “a powerful deal” on tariffs with the European Union to avert a damaging transatlantic trade war after months of tough negotiations between the two sides.“It solves a lot of stuff and was a great decision,” the US president said of the agreement after meeting the European Commission chief, Ursula von der Leyen, in Scotland. The “important” partnership involved the EU agreeing to spend tens of billions of dollars more on US energy products, Trump said.US House speaker Mike Johnson, meanwhile, said he would have “great pause” about granting a pardon to Ghislaine Maxwell while another House Republican said it should be considered as part of an effort to obtain more information about Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes.Here’s more on this and the day’s other key Trump administration stories:Trump and von der Leyen announce US-EU trade dealDonald Trump has announced a tariff deal with the European Union to end months of difficult negotiations between Washington and Brussels after meeting the European Commission chief, Ursula von der Leyen, at his Turnberry golf resort in Scotland.“This is really the biggest trading partnership in the world so we should give it a shot,” the president said before the private meeting started.Von der Leyen described it as “a huge deal” that would bring “stability” and “predictability” to both sides.Read the full storyMike Johnson would have ‘great pause’ about a Ghislaine Maxwell pardonUS House speaker Mike Johnson said he would have “great pause” about granting a pardon or commutation to Ghislaine Maxwell while Kentucky Republican representative Thomas Massie said a pardon should be on the table for the jailed Epstein confidante if she were to give helpful information around the Epstein case.On Sunday – after deputy attorney general Todd Blanche met with Maxwell last week –Johnson was asked on NBC about the possibility of a pardon and said: “I think she should have a life sentence at least … That she orchestrated it and was a big part of it, at least under the criminal sanction, I think is an unforgivable thing. So again, not my decision, but I have great pause about that, as any reasonable person would.”Read the full storyTop medical body concerned at RFK Jr’s reported plans to cut preventive health panelA top US medical body has expressed “deep concern” to Robert F Kennedy Jr over news reports that the health secretary plans to overhaul a panel that determines which preventive health measures, including cancer screenings, should be covered by insurance companies.The letter from the the American Medical Association comes after the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Kennedy plans to overhaul the 40-year old US preventive services task force because he regards it as too “woke”, according to sources.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Thai and Cambodian leaders will meet on Monday for talks to end hostilities, Thailand said, after pressure from Donald Trump to end a deadly border dispute.

      UK prime minster Keir Starmer will recall his cabinet from their summer break for an emergency meeting on the Gaza crisis this week as cross-party MPs warned his talks with Donald Trump provided a critical juncture in helping to resolve the conflict.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on26 July. More

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      ‘Get over it’: some middle America Trump supporters remain unfazed over Epstein files tumult

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      It has united luminaries of the far right, from media personality Tucker Carlson to activist Laura Loomer, from tech billionaire Elon Musk to congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. Typically unwavering in support of Donald Trump, all have criticised his administration’s handling of files about the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.But in towns and cities across the US, a more complicated and nuanced picture emerges, serving as a reminder that – like any other political constituency – Trump voters are not a monolith.Some of the US president’s supporters are undoubtedly animated by the Epstein issue and urging Congress to push for greater transparency. “It’s the number one phone call that we get. By far,” Eric Burlison, a Republican congressman from Missouri, told CNN this week. “It’s probably 500 to one.”But others seem to be shrugging off the crisis as they have so many others that seemed to threaten Trump’s political career. They remain fiercely loyal to a president they believe is delivering low inflation, strong border security and sweeping reversals of progressive policies. They are willing to take White House advice to “trust in Trump”.That was the prevailing mood this week in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, a former steel town and Democratic stronghold that swung heavily for Trump in last November’s election.“Trump is right about everything, no matter what he does,” was the blunt take of Teddy, 55, wearing a Stars and Stripes hat and sitting on a bench in Central Park in downtown Johnstown. “Epstein – he’s dead, that’s it, it’s over.”Did he have no concern that Trump’s name is reportedly listed in the Epstein files which have yet to be made public? “That’s a bunch of bullshit,” said Teddy, who didn’t want to give his last name. “The world should move on, get over it.”Curt, 51, another Trump supporter in Central Park, who was recently released from state prison, expressed similar views. The only people who were in a nervous state about Trump’s relationship with Epstein were Democrats, he said.“Epstein was a piece of shit and got what he deserved. As for Trump, they haven’t come up with any evidence that he actually did anything,” he said.Pennsylvania was crucial in tipping Trump over the line of 270 electoral college votes needed to win the White House. Rural areas in the west of the state responded especially favourably to his promises to bring back manufacturing, reduce living costs and drive out immigrants. Trump won Cambria county, which includes Johnstown, by 69% to Kamala Harris’s 30%.View image in fullscreenAt the local Walmart, Pam, who also asked not to give her last name, said she didn’t believe that Trump’s name was in the files. “Trump has morals – it may not seem like he does, but deep down he does. He wanted to protect the United States when nobody else did.”As for media coverage of the story, she said: “My uncle was in the Secret Service. He used to tell me that everything you see on TV is what they want you to believe, not what is actually happening.”Trump has been under growing pressure from political friends and foes alike to release more information about the justice department’s investigation into Epstein, a disgraced financier who officials ruled died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.After Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, promised to disclose additional materials related to possible Epstein clients and the circumstances surrounding his death, the justice department reversed course this month and said there was no basis to continue investigating and no evidence of a client list.That sparked an outcry from some of Trump’s base of supporters who have long believed the government was covering up Epstein’s ties to the rich and powerful. On Friday, Trump denied reports that he was told by Bondi in May that his own name appeared in the Epstein files.Yet interviews by the Guardian in multiple states found Republicans generally willing to give Trump the benefit of the doubt – and suspicious that he is the victim of a double standard.Gavin Rollins, a lawyer from Orlando, Florida, acknowledged disappointment in the way the administration’s initial communications raised expectations but praised Trump for doing a “phenomenal job” overall.“I think on the Epstein thing, I wish things had been handled a little bit differently,” he admitted. “I think the rollout was less than smooth. I would say that it’s important but I also believe in giving grace to people and he’s gotten so many things right.”Jeff Davis, the Republican party chair in Greenville county, South Carolina, accused the media of using the Epstein controversy to falsely portray a divide in the Maga (Make America great again) movement.He said: “I think the Epstein issue is obviously critical and important but I think what most people care about is that the Trump agenda – the Maga ‘America first’ agenda – is being promoted. I think [Epstein is] being used as a distraction.”Davis added: “We can walk and chew gum at the same time. They need to pursue the Epstein thing to the nth degree but I think most people are interested in the results of the things that the Trump administration is doing, as opposed to analysing this issue from the old days.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMary Smith, the party chair in Dickson county, Tennessee, said: “If Donald Trump’s name is linked to something, it’s like a shark fest, whereas if it’s somebody else’s name attached, ‘Oh, it’s no big deal,’ and it’s swept under the rug. I get so tired of that whole focus on Trump.”Despite Democrats’ efforts to keep attention focused on the Epstein saga, some are ready to move on. James Bennett, who runs a lumber company and is Republican party chair in Calhoun county, Alabama, said: “As far as I’m concerned with Trump, it’s about run its course. I know the Democrats are the ones out there trying to put gas on the fire, but you know, the fire’s about out.”That may prove wishful thinking. Just 17% of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the Epstein case, a weaker rating than the president received on any other issue in a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll last week. Among Republicans, 35% approve and 29% disapprove, while the rest said they are unsure or did not answer the question.Whit Ayres, a Republican consultant and pollster, draws a distinction between Trump voters who identify as part of the Maga movement and those attracted by his pledges to bring down inflation, juice the economy, close the southern border and tackle “woke” culture.“For the Maga group, this is a very big deal,” Ayres said. “Many of them bought into all the conspiracy theories surrounding Epstein, whether it was the fact that he abused a bunch of kids and then covered it up or symptomatic of a widespread deep state conspiracy protecting elites and the privileged in general.“For the other people who voted for Trump, it is disturbing but not as compelling as it is for the Maga crowd. They are more interested in whether he is going to be able to bring inflation down than they are in Epstein. That’s not to say that Epstein is not a disturbing story for them, but it’s more a matter of perspective.”Yet another survey published this week again challenged the conventional wisdom. An Economist/YouGov poll found that Republican voters who identify as “Maga” were more likely to approve of how the president is dealing with the Epstein investigation (56%) than those who do not (38%). Overall among Republicans, 45% approve and 25% disapprove, with the remaining 30% unsure.One such Maga voter is Mike Boatman, 57, who has attended about a hundred Trump campaign rallies, including the one last year in Butler, Pennsylvania, where the then Republican nominee survived an assassination attempt. His faith remains unshaken.“I’m backing President Trump,” said Boatman, an independent contractor from Evansville, Indiana. “He knows more than what we know about the situation. There’s more important concerns for me than the Epstein files.“There’s so much that President Trump needs to get done. He’s got three and a half years to get it done. Don’t get me wrong, I’m against paedophiles and whoever has done that with Epstein should be punished. But there’s more important things.”Still, the story continues to dominate headlines and put heat on Republicans in the House of Representatives. They went on recess a day early to avoid holding a vote on releasing Epstein material. Mike Johnson, the House speaker, insisted the Epstein case is “not a hoax” despite Trump using that very word.The president has been defiant, describing supporters hung up on the issue as “weaklings” who were helping Democrats. “I don’t want their support anymore!” Trump said in a social media post.This week, he sought to distract his followers by making the baseless claim that Barack Obama and his officials fabricated intelligence reports to assert that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, accusing his predecessor of treason. Next he might try something even more extreme to change the narrative.Reed Galen, president of the Union, a pro-democracy coalition, said: “My real fear is that he gets us into some sort of Wag the Dog thing where all of the distraction isn’t working so he decides to throw up some gigantic bright, shiny object that gets us all in trouble.”But otherwise Galen is sceptical that the Epstein scandal will have far-reaching political implications. “To me, the flip side of this is: what difference does it make? I shouldn’t say that as a means of diminishing the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein or the pain of his victims. I’m looking at this from a purely electoral perspective.“He’s not going to leave office. The midterms are 15 months, 16 months away. Do I think this is fodder for the left and the media and even the true Magas who are like, ‘What’s happening?’ Yeah. Do I think that ultimately, a year from now, we’ll be talking about this? Hard to believe.”

      This article was amended on 27 July 2025. Trump won Cambria county by 69% to Kamala Harris’s 30%, not by 68% to Joe Biden’s 31% as an earlier version stated. More

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      Top medical body concerned over RFK Jr’s reported plans to cut preventive health panel

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      A top US medical body has expressed “deep concern” to Robert F Kennedy Jr over news reports that the health secretary plans to overhaul a panel that determines which preventive health measures including cancer screenings should be covered by insurance companies.The letter from the the American Medical Association comes after the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Kennedy plans to overhaul the 40-year old US Preventive Services Task Force because he regards them as too “woke”, according to sources familiar with the matter.During his second term, Donald Trump has frequently raged against organizations and government departments that he considers too liberal – often without any evidence. The US president, and his cabinet members such as Kennedy, have also overseen huge cuts and job losses across the US government.The taskforce is made up of a 16-member panel appointed by health and human services secretaries to serve four-year terms. In addition to cancer screenings, the taskforce issues recommendations for a variety of other screenings including osteoporosis, intimate partner violence, HIV prevention, as well as depression in children.Writing in its letter to Kennedy on Sunday, the AMA defended the panel, saying: “As you know, USPSTF plays a critical, non-partisan role in guiding physicians’ efforts to prevent disease and improve the health of patients by helping to ensure access to evidence-based clinical preventive services.”“As such, we urge you to retain the previously appointed members of the USPSTF and commit to the long-standing process of regular meetings to ensure their important work can be continued without disruption,” it added.Citing Kennedy’s own slogan of “Making America healthy again,” the AMA went on to say: “USPSTF members have been selected through an open, public nomination process and are nationally recognized experts in primary care, prevention and evidence-based medicine. They serve on a volunteer basis, dedicating their time to help reduce disease and improve the health of all Americans – a mission well-aligned with the Make America Healthy Again initiative.”According to the Affordable Care Act, public and private insurance companies must cover any services recommended by the Preventive Services Task Force without cost sharing.In a statement to MedPage Today, Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson Andrew Nixon did not confirm the reports, instead saying: “No final decision has been made on how the USPSTF can better support HHS’ mandate to Make America Healthy Again.”Reports of Kennedy’s alleged decision to overhaul the taskforce come after the American Conservative published an essay earlier this month that described the taskforce as advocating for “leftwing ideological orthodoxy”.It went on to accuse the panel of being “packed with Biden administration appointees devoted to the ideological capture of medicine”, warning that the “continued occupation of an important advisory body in HHS – one that has the capacity to force private health insurers to cover services and procedures – by leftwing activists would be a grave oversight by the Trump administration”.In response to the essay, 104 health organizations, including the American Medical Association, issued a separate letter to multiple congressional health committees in which they urged the committees to “protect the integrity” of the taskforce.“The loss of trustworthiness in the rigorous and nonpartisan work of the Task Force would devastate patients, hospital systems, and payers as misinformation creates barriers to accessing lifesaving and cost effective care,” the organizations said.In June, Kennedy removed all 17 members of a US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention panel of vaccine experts. Writing in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, he accused the committee of having too many conflicts of interest.Kennedy’s decision to overhaul the immunization panel was met with widespread criticism from health experts, with the American Public Health Association executive director Georges Benjamin calling the ouster “a coup”.“It’s not how democracies work. It’s not good for the health of the nation,” Benjamin said. More

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      Mike Johnson would have ‘great pause’ about a Ghislaine Maxwell pardon

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      The US House speaker, Mike Johnson, said on Sunday he would have “great pause” about granting a pardon or commutation to Ghislaine Maxwell while another House Republican said it should be considered as part of an effort to obtain more information about Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes.Donald Trump and his allies, including Johnson, have been under immense pressure to disclose more information about Epstein for weeks, especially amid scrutiny over the extent of Trump’s relationship with Epstein. The splits over what to do with Maxwell illustrate the complicated challenge posed by the scandal for Trump, his Maga base and the broader Republican party.Johnson weighed in on the possibility of a pardon after Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, met with Maxwell, who is serving a 20 year prison sentence for sex trafficking, over two days last week. The one-time British socialite was Epstein’s close confidante for years and his partner-in-crime. Epstein killed himself in jail in 2019.The House speaker was asked about the possibility of a pardon by Kristen Welker during an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday.“If you’re asking my opinion, I think 20 years was a pittance. I think she should have a life sentence at least. I mean, think of all these unspeakable crimes,” he said. “It’s hard to put into words how evil this was, and that she orchestrated it and was a big part of it, at least under the criminal sanction, I think is an unforgivable thing. So again, not my decision, but I have great pause about that, as any reasonable person would.”Pressed directly on whether he favored a pardon, Johnson deferred to Trump.“Obviously that’s a decision of the president. He said he had not adequately considered that. I won’t get it in front of him. That’s not my lane,” he said.Representative Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican who has been pushing for disclosure of more Epstein information, said a pardon should be on the table for Maxwell.“That would be up to the president. But if she has information that could help us, then I think she should testify. Let’s get that out there. And whatever they need to do to compel that testimony, as long as it’s truthful, I would be in favor of,” he told Welker on Meet the Press.Representative Ro Khanna, a California Democrat who has joined Massie’s effort to release more information, said he did not support a pardon for Maxwell, who was charged with perjury in connection to a civil deposition in 2016 (prosecutors did not move forward with those charges once they obtained her sex-trafficking conviction.)“I’m concerned that the deputy attorney general Todd Blanche is meeting with her supposedly one-on-one. Look, I agree with Congressman Massie that she should testify. But she’s been indicted twice on perjury. This is why we need the files. This is why we need independent evidence,” he said on Meet the Press.After Trump pledged to disclose more information about Epstein on the campaign trail, the justice department said earlier this month it had determined Epstein did not have a “client list” and did not blackmail anyone.Johnson adjourned the US House of Representatives early last week to avoid a vote on releasing Epstein files. He said on Sunday he favored “maximum disclosure”. During his appearance on Meet the Press, he defended that decision, saying the legislation being pushed by Massie and Khanna would require the release of uncorroborated information and could harm the victims of Epstein and Maxwell’s crimes.“You have to protect innocent people’s names and reputations whose names might be, as you noted at the outset of the program, intertwined into all these files,” he said. “These are minors in many cases who were subjected to unspeakable crimes, abject evil. They’ve already suffered great harm. We do not need their names being unmasked.”That kind of argument is a “straw man” Massie said on Sunday.“Ro and I carefully crafted this legislation so that the victims’ names will be redacted and that no child pornography will be released. So they’re hiding behind that,” he said.Khanna also pushed back on the idea that releasing the information could damage reputations.“Different people feel that the rich and the powerful have been not held accountable, that they have a different set of rules, and that there may be government officials involved,” he said. “They’re going to be able to distinguish between someone who got a grant for Jeffrey Epstein to do cancer research versus rich and powerful men who were abusing underage girls.” More

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      The key to understanding Trump? It’s not what you think

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      View image in fullscreenDonald Trump embodies dealmaking as the essence of a particular form of entrepreneurship. Every deal begins with his needs and every deal feeds his wants. He thus appears to be like other super-rich people: seemingly bottomlessly greedy, chasing the next buck as if it is the last buck, even when they have met every criterion of satiation.But Trump is different, because his brand of greed harks back to an idea of leadership that is primarily about adversarial dealmaking, rather than about innovation or improved managerial techniques. Trump’s entire career is built on deals, and his own narcissism is tied up with dealmaking. This is because of his early socialization into his father’s real-estate dealings in and around New York. Real estate in the United States, unlike the money-making modes of super-rich individuals in other countries, relies on deals based on personal reputation, speculation on future asset values, and the ability to launder spotty career records. Profits and losses over time can be hard to identify and quantify precisely, as Trump’s auditors and opponents have often confirmed, since profits, which depend on speculation and unknown future value, are by definition uncertain.Trump’s incessant boasts about being an apex dealmaker cast light on almost every aspect of his approach to his presidential decision-making. Numerous observers have long cast doubt on Trump’s image as a consummate dealmaker, pointing to his many failures in his long real-estate career, his abortive political and diplomatic deals, his backsliding and reversals, and his overblown claims about deals in progress. But these criticisms miss the point.Deals, whether in finance, real estate, or in any other part of the economy, are just one step in the process of reaching full-fledged, binding agreements subject to the force of law. They are a stage in the negotiation process that has no force until it is finalized as a contract. It is, at best, an agreement to agree, which can turn out to be premature, poorly conceived or unacceptable to one or other party. Put another way, it is an engagement, not a wedding. A deal allows a negotiator like Trump to claim victory and blame the other party or some other contextual variable if things do not work out.In fact, in the hands of someone like Trump, deals are ways to evade, postpone or subvert the efficient work of markets. Trump does not like markets, precisely because they are impersonal and invisible. Their results – for corporations, entrepreneurs, investors and shareholders – are subject to clear measures of success and failure.Because deals are personal, adversarial and incomplete, they are perfect grist for Trump’s relentless publicity machine, and allow him to polish his brand, massage his ego and signal his prowess to opponents – without the regulations and measurable consequences of regular market risks. The downside risk for an aborted or interrupted deal is negligible, and the upside is guaranteed by the legal power of fully completed contracts.Trump has figured out to an exceptional degree that dealmaking does not need to be successful in order to massively increase his wealth. Whether or not true, his claims to successful deals are the key to his brand and profitmaking worldwide, either directly or through the business endeavors of his sons. These range from his latest Trump perfume and Trump mobile telephone services, his Maga accessories, Trump golf courses around the world, his real estate and resorts, and of course his highly profitable cryptocurrency holdings. In every case, his deals either lead to further deals, which service his branding machine, or they lead to direct increases in his personal and corporate wealth. Deals, successful or not, are Trump’s magic means to amass money and feed his avarice.Avarice is a vice with a long history in Christian theology. It is widely defined as an excess of greed, an inordinate level of greed, an insatiable greed. It has been viewed by economic historians as a passion that must be curbed and replaced by calculated, moderated self-interest in order for the rationality of the modern market to function as a dominant economic principle. From this perspective, greed can have numerous objects – such as food, sex and power – whereas avarice is single-minded in its focus on money.Trump exemplifies this focus. Though he has to function in a world where avarice is meant to be regulated by the market mechanisms of price and competition, he has managed to successfully pursue his avarice with little obstacle.This driving desire defines Trump’s “egonomics” – the intimate connection between his narcissistic urges and his wish for increasing his stock of money. The governing principles of his economic policy have nothing to do with America getting its due, as his messaging about tariffs argues, or about restoring dignity to the working class, as he signals to his Maga base. Nor are they about power or prestige. The object of everything he does is money, and in the service of the boundlessness of money, which Trump has made the defining object of his desire. Other commodities are of interest to him only insofar as they serve his desire to acquire, hoard and increase his stock – of money.View image in fullscreenMoney for what?The first – and most soothing – theory is that Trump wants money to buy power – more of it, perhaps all of it. More power than China, than his generals, than Harvard. We all know power – via our parents, our teachers, our bosses, our police. It is a force we understand, a pull we recognize. If Trump only wants more of something that many people have, and even more want, he is legible, he is like us.But power for what? To do what? To get what?Perhaps he is chasing an unassailable place in history, both human and eternal. So then it is not just power he endlessly chases, but glory. For this we have some evidence in the clownish thesaurus of words that he uses to describe his achievements, his looks, his wit, his wisdom, his all-round superhumanity: best, most, only, incredible, ever, more. In this orgy of superlatives, he is always curled high up in the clouds, like a Maurice Sendak toddler. But since Trump, from his perspective, brooks no real competition in life, in politics, in real estate, or even in history, there can be no glory for him which is not tainted by the mediocrity of his competitors. And true glory usually requires some form of self-sacrifice, some sense of compassion, some ability to transcend oneself. Given his woeful deficits in these areas, the glory game cannot be the key to understanding Trump.And so we go to a more familiar space: the realm of prestige, status and stardom. This realm is wired into competitions, tournaments and casinos of every sort, where winning is well-defined, losing is for losers and there is usually only one survivor and one winner who takes all. The competition for status is as old as recorded human history and accompanies every human society that has had leaders and followers, more and less skilled competitors for food, shelter and sexual partners. It begins with simple rules for coming out on top and evolves over time into the most elaborate forms of status competition, often driven by males – including wartime exploits, trophy wives, palatial homes and bottomless conspicuous consumption.These tournaments of value can be observed in settings as disparate as auctions, horse races, philanthropic gifts and corporate mergers and acquisitions. There is widespread consensus among thinkers from many eras and regions that status is a limited good, which has its own economics of supply and demand, distinct from those of pecuniary gain. This insight looks, at first, like the key to Trump.But attractive as this argument may seem, it too is a red herring.View image in fullscreenTrump’s signature riffAmong Trump’s own tactics, the one he loves to use most is tariffs. Trump’s obstinate insistence on tariffs as the key to restoring American manufacturing, swelling the US treasury and reducing American consumer prices has flummoxed most mainstream economists. Tariffs are for Trump the ideal way to combine dealmaking, status-grabbing and his penchant for money as its own bottomless value.It is evident that Trump’s understanding of the trade-offs of globalization is rudimentary and often internally contradictory. Indeed, he shows signs of believing that making deals of any sort requires only outsize confidence, charismatic force and bottomless access to financial backing. In fact, Trump’s view of himself as an incomparable dealmaker (a claim at odds with his many entrepreneurial disasters) conceals his deep distaste of real markets – in which a large apparatus of binding promises, the tendency to stable price equilibria, and the connection of supply and demand through pricing – can frustrate his brand of deal-making, which is always oriented to maximizing his personal prestige.Trump’s deep-seated desire to be the winner who takes all in the global prestige economy sheds some light on his weaponization of tariffs. We can catch a glimpse of this logic in a most unlikely context. It was captured in detail by one of the fathers of British social anthropology, Bronisław Malinowski, in his 1922 book on a unique trading system that he found in the Trobriand Islands of Oceania, on several trips there in the years between 1915 and 1917. This anthropological classic, Argonauts of the Western Pacific, casts new light on Trump’s tariff mania.What Malinowski described is a system of trading across about 18 coral islands within a 175 sq mile (453 sq km) area, between “big men”, leaders of lineages who exchanged highly specific valuables (such as decorated shell necklaces and bracelets) and their counterparts in this network of islands. Called the kula system, it had a highly codified set of rules to hedge voyagers against oceanic weather dangers and hostile groups in other islands, some of whom were cannibals. The goods appropriate to kula exchange could never be hoarded, marketed or bartered like normal utilitarian goods. This was a strictly ceremonial system geared to enhancing the prestige of male elites, of moving these well-known objects in a circuit which could last for years.The diplomatic rituals of these exchanges were ensconced in an atmosphere of pretend hostility between the parties, often because other groups in these islands were real enemies, always poised for real warfare. Hanging on the knife-edge between trade and war, these exchange circuits were strictly distinguished from barter or money transactions (what we would today call market transactions). The kula system was a way of organizing exchange, averting war, signaling prestige and making allies through a tightly regulated flow of valuables outside market exchange circuits.Trump does not care about Malinowski, the Trobriand Islands, non-capitalist exchange systems or “big man” politics in kinship-based polities. But his operating system belongs in this type of diplomatic world, one that requires nothing except a non-negotiable interest in winning deals. Trump’s onslaught of tariffs, falling on everyone like nuclear ash, is meant to make him the king of the global prestige market, no matter the cost to diplomatic traditions, financial markets, customer capacities or fair balances of trade. Trump appears to be undistracted by any other economic priority outside the aim to be the apex dealmaker.The kula system is grounded in a non-monetary system of honor, prestige and reciprocity, which helps us understand Trump’s tariff strategy but does not fit his narcissist drive to crush all his fellow players. Even the kula system is about relationships. Trump is strictly about winning deals.So we must beware of seeing the urge to dominate all prestige markets as Trump’s bottom line. Trump’s bottom line is money. Being an avaricious man, Trump worships money – both its power and its pomp – and he seeks it through his extensive networks of children, clients, tax lawyers and cronies, all devoted to the increase of his wealth. This pecuniary drive has a transcendent, epic and unquenchable force which cannot be explained by reference to the other things that money can buy. Even his quest for prestige through arm-twisting tariff deals is primarily about positioning himself to secure future deals in his individual capacity. His is a special brand of avarice.View image in fullscreenThe new cryptocracyThere is no better way to explore the ways in which Trump’s various egonomic strategies come together than in the recent invention and propagation of cryptocurrency, which has spawned a shadow world of speculators, fraudsters, legal hucksters, elected and unelected lobbyists. Their usual victims are vulnerable citizens, low-level grifters, pensioners, badly informed investors and other natural prey. The entire industry lives in a gray economy, attached to mainstream markets, assets and regulators like the tiny remora fish that feast off sharks. It survives in a legal twilight zone, where its currency is accepted only by some businesses as legal tender, and where smart players use pump-and-dump tactics to make fast profits with short-lived “coins” of various kinds. Whatever the utility of cryptocurrency in the real world of goods and services, it is mainly a tool for amassing wealth by gambling on its future convertibility to real money in specialized currency exchanges.Cryptocurrency puts Trump in the position of being a player and the owner of a casino-like system at the same time, so that he always wins, if not in one role, then in the other. The outrageous self-enrichment schemes of Trump and his family in the crypto industry, which have been carefully exposed in several media outlets recently, establish new frontiers for Trump’s shameless violation of even the simplest norms about conflict of interest. The best example of these ventures is his memecoin, $Trump, which has made him and his close associates a fortune by selling access to Trump through a barely regulated crypto mechanism. By some estimates, Trump has gained several billions of dollars in his net worth through his crypto ventures, which combine nepotism, influence-peddling and dealmaking in a unique package.Through cryptocurrency, Trump has found the ultimate way to attach his core impulse – avarice – to the larger machinery of the markets. There is some truth to the argument that Trump wants more of everything he can get, including power, glory and prestige. But what he wants more than anything else is money, which is just a temporary token of more money, and more money for ever more.The unique instinct behind Trump’s avarice, which sets him apart from other billionaires who continue to chase wealth, is that he has found a way to build his fortune through deals – whether deals that make him money by inflating the value of his brand, which can then make him more money through more deals, or through the enforceability of completed contracts.Through his dealmaking, Trump has managed to triumph over the market, making it work for him to amass greater and greater sums of money, whether his deals are seen through to fruition or not. We can summarize Trump’s approach to markets by adapting a famous sentence, spoken by him, about how he grabs women: Trump grabs markets by the deal. Illustrations by Joao Fazenda

      Arjun Appadurai, professor emeritus at New York University, is the former provost of the New School. More

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      Democrats use new tactic to highlight Trump’s gutting of Medicaid: billboards in the rural US

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      The road to four struggling rural hospitals now hosts a political message: “If this hospital closes, blame Trump.”In a series of black-and-yellow billboards erected near the facilities, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) seeks to tell voters in deep red states “who is responsible for gutting rural healthcare”.“UNDER TRUMP’S WATCH, STILWELL GENERAL HOSPITAL IS CLOSING ITS DOORS,” one sign screams. The billboards are outside hospitals in Silex, Missouri; Columbus, Indiana; Stilwell, Oklahoma; and Missoula, Montana.The fate of rural hospitals has become a politically contentious issue for Republicans, as historic cuts pushed through by the GOP are expected to come into effect over the next decade. Donald Trump’s enormous One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) cut more than $1tn from Medicaid, the public health insurance program for low-income and disabled Americans, insuring more than 71 million adults.“Where the real impact is going to be is on the people who just won’t get care,” said Dave Kendall, a senior fellow for health and fiscal policy at Third Way, a center-left advocacy organization.“That’s what used to happen before we had rural hospitals – they just don’t get the care because they can’t afford it, and they can’t get to the hospital.”In response to criticism, Republicans added a $50bn “rural health transformation fund” just before passage of the OBBBA. The fund is expected to cover about one-third of the losses rural areas will face, and about 70% of the losses for the four hospitals where Democrats now have nearby billboards. The rural health fund provides money through 2030, while the Medicaid cuts are not time-bound.That is already becoming a political football, as Democrats argued in a letter that the money is a “slush fund” already promised to key Republican Congress members.“We are alarmed by reports suggesting these taxpayer funds are already promised to Republican members of Congress in exchange for their votes in support of the Big, Ugly Betrayal,” wrote 16 Democratic senators in a letter to Dr Mehmet Oz, Trump’s head of Medicare and Medicaid.View image in fullscreen“In addition, the vague legislative language creating this fund will seemingly function as your personal fund to be distributed according to your political whims.”Rural hospitals have been under financial strain for more than a decade. Since 2010, 153 rural hospitals have closed or lost the inpatient services which partly define a hospital, according to the University of North Carolina Sheps Center for Health Services Research.“In states across the country, hospitals are either closing their doors or cutting critical services, and it’s Trump’s own voters who will suffer the most,” said the DNC chair, Ken Martin, in a statement announcing the billboards.The OBBBA is expected to further exacerbate those financial strains. A recent analysis by the Urban Institute found rural hospitals are likely to see an $87bn loss in the next 10 years.“We’re expecting rural hospitals to close as a result – we’ve already started to see some hospitals like, ‘OK, how are we going to survive?’” said Third Way’s Kendall.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionA June analysis by the Sheps Center found that 338 rural hospitals, including dozens in states such as Louisiana, Kentucky and Oklahoma, could close as a result of the OBBBA. There are nearly 1,800 rural hospitals nationally, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), a healthcare research non-profit.That perspective was buttressed by the CEO of the National Rural Health Association, Alan Morgan, who in a recent newsletter said 45% of rural hospitals are already operating at a loss.“When you remove $155bn over the next 10 years, it’s going to have an impact,” he said.In the fragmented US healthcare ecosystem, Medicaid is both the largest and poorest payer of healthcare providers. Patients benefit from largely no-cost care, but hospitals complain that Medicaid rates don’t pay for the cost of service, making institutions that disproportionately rely on Medicaid less financially stable. In rural areas, benefit-rich employer health insurance is harder to come by; therefore, more hospitals depend on Medicaid.But even though Medicaid pays less than other insurance programs, some payment is still better than none. Trump’s OBBBA cut of more than $1tn from the program over the coming decade is expected to result in nearly 12 million people losing coverage.When uninsured people get sick, they are more likely to delay care, more likely to use hospital emergency rooms and more likely to struggle to pay their bills. In turn, the institutions that serve them also suffer.“This is what Donald Trump does – screw over the people who are counting on him,” said Martin, the DNC chair. “These new DNC billboards plainly state exactly what is happening to rural hospitals under Donald Trump’s watch.” More

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      We do not comply: how do we disrupt the momentum of Trump’s cruelty? | V (formerly Eve Ensler)

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      The exterminating force of Project 2025 is plowing through the culture, the government and people’s hearts and bodies like a drunk on a violent tear. We wake each morning, holding our breath to bear witness to the new devastation: PBS and NPR defunded, cuts to the fight against human trafficking, Medicaid gone for millions, Ice working to surveil critics, tons of food for the poor ordered burned and wasted.The momentum of cruelty always feels inevitable. Cruelty is by definition “a callous indifference to or pleasure in causing pain”. For those of us who have suffered physical, political, racial and emotional abuse, it feels like a familiar steamroller of violence. We only have to witness the cries of parents being separated from their children, men screaming out for “libertad” from cages in Everglades detention center (AKA Alligator Alcatraz), non-violent protesters beaten for trying to stop a genocide, to be frozen in that same incapacitating dread and fear.What is the antidote to this destructive environment of mendacity possessing us now with fear, ennui and self-mutilating rage?Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson, a powerhouse activist and brilliant organizer, told me: “It’s not decided where we go yet. Which is why it feels tense. What we know is that there’s no going back to an old normal because our economic system has failed us and our governmental structure is being destroyed. They’re trying to replace what was with this minority rule of disgustingly wealthy humans dictating what can happen not only in this country, but globally.“We’ve gotta block and build at the same time. That means confronting both elected officials and the corporations that are lifting them up. We need to make sure that we are gumming up their ability to successfully implement any sort of action, whether it’s policy or otherwise, that takes more power and rights and access to life-saving resources away from our communities.”So how do we gum up their momentum; how do we become refusers, artists of disruption, interrupters of their hateful and life-destroying trajectory? How do we clear the noise and fear in our heads so that we are able to hear the call of our inner morality?“The thing that I love about being non-cooperative and non-compliant with the Trump administration,” Ash-Lee told me, “is its accessibility: people have all sorts of abilities, all sorts of means, regardless of class, regardless of identity, to find a tactic that fits for them. What keeps you up at night enough to make you active? Trump says we shouldn’t ask people for warrants. We demand warrants. When a business puts a ‘No Kings’ sign up or a ‘No Ice’ sign in their window, they’re not complying. And we need more people to do that wherever they are,” she said, “whether it’s a general saying, ‘I’m not gonna command my troops to do this,’ whether it’s troops becoming conscientious objectors, whether it’s us boycotting Target and T-Mobile.”This tyrannical white supremacist landscape is erasing our sense of existence and meaning. Daily forms of rebellion birth us back into our bodies and our purpose. Non-compliance is art, as art is meant to defy the status quo, question the givens, expand the boundaries of knowing and freedom. And as you courageously make your mark of refusal, you carve a path for others to be brave. Non-compliance is praxis, stretching and transforming the muscles of our discontent into impactful and embodied action.There are a multitude of ways that we can make their lives miserable by taking small risks and huge ones. Like folks in California sitting in their cars outside the hotels where the Ice agents are and just lying on their horn for hours. Or people towing Ice vans away that are parked illegally. Or the Harlem baseball coach who knew all his kids were American-born. When Ice invaded the field, he told his kids to get inside the batting cage and stay silent. He said he was willing to die for his kids to get home.“And non-complying is also filling in the gaps of resources and care that they are taking away. They’re already closing rural hospitals where we live because our governor didn’t expand Medicaid,” Ash-Lee told me. “So residents must build an alternative like country people and Black folks across the country have been doing on their own accord for decades, if not centuries, creating community spaces where we can both line dance, do some boots-on-the-ground organizing, get your blood pressure checked, get your mammogram in the mobile unit, get your teeth cleaned, whatever. All of those things are not complying.”I think of the man who suggested we all dress in Ice suits with masks and Oakley sunglasses and enter detention centers and free immigrants. Or my white British friend who was in a store in Nevada when Ice invaded and they started harassing Latinos for their identification. He stepped up and calmly asked why they weren’t asking for his ID. He asked simply without hostility. He asked it three times. Even though they continued, he momentarily disrupted the trajectory of cruelty and forced them to bring consciousness to what they were doing. Or the Rev Mariann Budde’s staring down Trump and his billionaire cronies in the first row of a Washington church in January, calmly and fearlessly demanding compassion for immigrants, refugees and LGBTQ+ communities.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAnd this is the time for artists to speak out, to disembed themselves from a fascist system, to place principles over profit and self-advancement. To be what Viet Thanh Nguyen calls “disagreeable”. Yes, of course there are risks. But at this moment, with the jackboots in the streets and at our door, when each hour another liberty is being erased, and those who speak truth to power are being removed from TV, from universities, from cultural centers, when the cultural platforms are being removed themselves, speaking out is not just an obligation, it’s survival.And there are artists beginning to organize. The poet Michael Klein is creating a new podcast calling writers “to take our language back in writing a way through the various veils of deceit–an act, which in itself, has always been a form of resistance”. Meena Jagannath, a movement lawyer, is gathering artists and activists in salons to deepen our collective investigation and imaginative co-creation. She told me: “Our charge in these times is to support each other in building protagonism – a sense that we have agency to contest fascist narratives about how the world is and should be. It needs to be a collective, creative and responsive process that takes in what’s going out there and alchemizes it into a more expansive imagination of what could and should be.”So in a nod to the late great Mary Oliver, I ask you, what is the one precious, wild creative act you are doing to impede this nightmare?

      V (formerly Eve Ensler) is a playwright and activist and the founder of V-Day, a global movement to end violence against women and girls More