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      Why Trump built a staff of incompetent sycophants | Robert Reich

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      Last week, Trump officials reportedly left behind documents describing confidential planning for the Trump-Putin meeting in a public area of an Alaskan hotel.That’s nothing compared with the actions of Emil Bove, Trump’s new nominee for the US court of appeals for the third circuit, who reputedly told subordinates at the Department of Justice that they should “consider telling the courts ‘fuck you’” and ignoring any court order blocking a planned deportation flight.Then there’s Billy Long, a former auctioneer and Republican congressman who Trump nominated and was confirmed less than two months ago to head the Internal Revenue Service, with “little background in tax policy beyond promoting a fraud-riddled tax credit”. Long has already been fired after clashing with the treasury secretary, Scott Bessent. Long was the sixth person to head the IRS this year.Let’s not forget EJ Antoni, whom Trump just nominated to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics after firing former chief Erika McEntarfer for presiding over a disappointing jobs report earlier this month.Antoni is that rarity who has drawn harsh criticism from economists on the right as well as the mainstream for being ignorant, unprincipled and incompetent. He recently celebrated that “all net job growth over the last year went to native-born Americans”.I haven’t even mentioned the towering ineptitude of Trump’s cabinet picks, such as Pete Hegseth, Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, Robert F Kennedy Jr and Kristi Noem.How to explain the rise of so many incompetent and unprincipled people?Easy. They could never succeed on their own merits. As soon as their incompetence became apparent – which was likely to be as soon as they took the first job that required some degree of intelligence and integrity – they were fired.So they learned that to be rewarded with promotions, money and power, they cannot rely on the normal processes and systems of recognition for jobs well done. If they’re to make anything of themselves, they must instead become ass-lickers, lap dogs and sycophants.They must latch on to someone who values loyalty above integrity or competence, someone for whom fawning obsequiousness is the most important criterion for being hired and promoted, ideally someone who cannot tell the difference between a groveling toady and a knowledgeable adviser.Enter Trump.History is strewn with the wreckage of dictatorships that have attracted and promoted incompetent people lacking talent or integrity. As Hannah Arendt explained in her classic The Origins of Totalitarianism:
      Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.
      Early in his career, Trump apprenticed himself to Roy Cohn, an unprincipled lawyer who taught the young Trump how to gain wealth and influence through ruthless bullying, profane braggadocio, opportunistic bigotry, baseless lawsuits, lying, and more lying.Yet as Trump’s “fixer” with politicians, judges and mob bosses, Cohn remained utterly loyal to Trump and his father, Fred.Years later, in his book The Art of the Deal, Trump drew a distinction between integrity and loyalty. He preferred the latter, and for him, Cohn exemplified it. Trump contrasted Cohn with:skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion
      all the hundreds of ‘respectable’ guys who made careers out of boasting about their uncompromising integrity but have absolutely no loyalty … What I liked most about Roy Cohn was that he would do just the opposite.
      Cohn died a disgrace, disbarred by the New York State Bar for unethical conduct after attempting to defraud a dying client by forcing him to sign a will amendment leaving Cohn his fortune.People who climb upward by sacrificing their integrity to slavish subservience almost always fall on their faces eventually. Blind ambition trips them up. They cannot explain or defend their behavior by relying on principled competence because, like Cohn, they are unprincipled and incompetent to their cores.The people they latch onto meet similar fates but for a different reason.Leaders who value loyalty above all else find themselves surrounded by sycophantic crackpots and fools. As a result, they receive no objective or useful feedback about their actions – no warnings beforehand and no criticism afterward. All they get are commendations – “Wonderful idea, sir!” “Brilliant execution, sir!”These cocoons of flattery seal off such leaders from the real-world consequences of what they do – which inevitably leads them to make grave mistakes. Some of those mistakes eventually cause their downfalls.This perverse symmetry – the certain demise of grovelers because they’re incompetent and unprincipled and the inevitable downfall of those to whom they grovel because they never get useful and truthful feedback – marks the path of all totalitarian systems. It’s the path on which Trump now treads.This is not necessarily cause for hope. If history is any guide, many innocent people suffer before the incompetent grovelers and the vain objects of their groveling meet their inevitable fates. America and the world are already suffering.

      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com. His new book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, is out now More

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      When immigration shows up at daycare: crackdown in DC terrifies families and workers

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      Early on Tuesday morning, as parents went to drop off their young children at a bilingual childcare center in north-west Washington DC, they received a message from the administrator saying that unmarked cars were parked directly outside.Shortly after 8am, federal agents in tactical vests arrested two people unaffiliated with the center, the administrator said.“While these activities are not connected to our program, we are closely monitoring the situation and taking extra precautions to ensure everyone feels safe entering and leaving the building,” read the message to parents, reviewed by the Guardian.Foram Mehta, whose son attends the daycare, said she had feared immigration raids there for months, but her fears escalated when Donald Trump sent national guard troops and federal agents to Washington two weeks ago. She said she was concerned about her own safety as a brown person, even though she’s an immigrant in the country lawfully, and also worries for her undocumented neighbors.She, and other Washington residents, including undocumented parents and caregivers, said they were avoiding parts of the city where federal agents have been reported, and she said her parents who are visiting were “strictly forbidden to go anywhere alone – even down the street to the grocery store”.In a city already upended by the second Trump administration’s mass firings of government workers, Trump’s decision to take over the city’s police force, send thousands of federal agents to Washington, and ramp up immigration enforcement has left many residents on edge and grappling with how to go about their lives in a city that no longer feels safe. The return to school for most public schools on Monday has cast that in sharp relief.The White House said on Friday that 719 people had been arrested since the start of the federal crackdown, with many hundreds of them immigrants in the country without legal documents. On the ground, that has looked like federal agents patrolling the streets for undocumented immigrants, setting up checkpoints at busy intersections, stopping delivery drivers and pedestrians, and detaining immigrants at their places of work.The crackdown has especially been affecting parents and caregivers as the new school year begins. Parents told the Guardian they were scared to send their children to school. Nannies are calling out or asking to be escorted to and from work. Daycares are having to implement new safety precautions.Once off limits for immigration enforcement and arrests, schools and daycares feel as if they are no longer safe for employees and for children, many Washingtonians said.Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (Ice) did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment. Last week, Ice’s acting director, Todd Lyons, told NBC that Washington parents should not expect to see Ice officers at schools on the first day Monday, but that they may come to school campuses in the future.“It’s gotten to the point where people are scared to be out and about,” said Amie Santos, a Washington resident who lives near the daycare. “Nothing about this is making DC safer.”For many Washingtonians, the potential targeting of people and institutions that care for small children has been especially alarming. Multiple people told the Guardian they were struggling with childcare, as so many who work as nannies or in childcare centers are immigrants.Claire, a mom who asked not to use her real name due to fears about her undocumented nanny, said her caretaker called out of work last week with short notice, saying she was concerned about reports of increased police and arrests.View image in fullscreen“She said there’s a very heavy police presence and she’s hearing all of these stories from other nannies and from friends and acquaintances that there are all of these checkpoints,” Claire said. “She said she and her husband are both staying home and not coming into work, either of them.”Claire gave her the week off and is working to figure out options to make her more comfortable to return to work this week, including offering to pick her up from her home.The nanny, who has been in the country for almost three decades, has a teenage child, and “she is so concerned about deportation – that something could happen to her and her husband – that she has asked if we would take care of her child if that were to happen”, Claire said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOther parents said they were driving their children to the neighboring state of Maryland to meet their nannies who live there, or that their nannies have been staying inside rather than venturing outside, or driving throughout the city rather than walking.In a neighborhood parents group, a mom on Tuesday shared a document template for parents to fill out and give to their nannies as they escort their children around the city.“In the event that [NANNY’S NAME] is detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) or any other law enforcement authority, this letter affirms that [CHILD’S NAME] is my child and should be immediately returned to me, [HER/HIS MOTHER/FATHER/PARENT] and legal guardian,” the template reads. “Under no circumstance should [CHILD’S NAME] be taken into government custody or placed in foster care.”With the new school year beginning in the middle of Trump’s federal takeover, parents are also concerned about what might be happening at schools.Sebastien Durand, the director of facilities at a public charter school in north-west DC whose role involves student safety, said the school had engaged with families this week before the school year begins.“It was made clear to us that they are all extremely scared,” he said. “Quite a bit of them were actually asking if we can go back to a pandemic era-type of school where they didn’t have to come to school and we had to provide something remote.”He said he explained to them that legally they can’t do that, but the school decided to use its own funds to run buses from the closest Metro station to the campus for at least the next two weeks. The school is concerned about attendance, he said, especially with rates still lower than desired since the pandemic.For children that have already started the school year, the first week has been fraught. Santos’s five-year-old son started kindergarten on Monday at school in north-west DC. On the second day of school, there were unmarked police cars with agents who appeared to be in tactical gear parked in front of the school, she said. That evening, parents were told the school was enhancing security measures and all students, parents and caretakers would be required to wear colored lanyards with photo identification to enter school grounds. The school will also be running a bus for students and caretakers from the Metro to the parking lot.“As you can imagine, it’s been hard,” Santos said. “We had to talk to our son about what was going on, why there was increased security, the importance of kindness, that not everybody feels safe and welcome.“With kids going back to school, there are intimidation factors at play,” she added, “and it’s creating an aggressive environment that I don’t think is conducive to learning or to children.” More

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      Trump casts home-town shadow as he weighs role in New York mayor’s race

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      Millions of people will go to the polls in New York City in November, but in a closely watched election for mayor it’s a high-profile, highly unpopular former New Yorker who is attracting most of the attention.Donald Trump, who spent nearly seven decades in New York before leaving town after his first term as president, is the ghost at the feast in America’s biggest city, a looming presence as he weighs whether to insert his considerable heft into the race.In recent weeks, Trump has taken an increased interest in his home town’s mayoral election and is considering whether to back a candidate, according to reports. It’s a development that adds another layer of complexity to a race that has already seen it all: from the leading candidate, Zohran Mamdani, being threatened by Trump with deportation, to an apparent attempt at bribery via cash stuffed into a bag of potato chips.Trump had a phone call about the race with Andrew Cuomo, the former Democratic New York governor and Mamdani’s rival, in recent weeks, according to the New York Times. It came as wealthy New Yorkers are seeking to thwart Mamdani, the 33-year-old Democratic socialist who delighted the American left when he defeated Cuomo in the Democratic primary. Cuomo, who resigned as governor in 2021 amid a sexual misconduct scandal, is attempting to revive his dream of becoming mayor by running as an independent.The president also has links to the incumbent, Eric Adams, who has benefited more than most from Trump’s re-election. Adams, a Republican turned Democrat turned independent, was charged in September last year with accepting bribes and illegal campaign contributions from Turkish officials in exchange for favors. In April this year, the justice department, headed by Trump loyalist Pam Bondi, successfully lobbied for the case against Adams to be dropped – a move which came after Adams took a more hardline, Trumpian stance on immigration.So far, neither man has successfully won over Trump, and a White House official told the Guardian that the president has said he does not intend to get involved. But the speculation of a presidential incursion just won’t go away.Trump has said Cuomo should stay in the race, and even praised Adams in a recent press conference – during which he also described Mamdani as a “communist”.“You have a good independent running: Mayor Adams who is a very good person. I helped him out a little bit. He had a problem and he was unfairly hurt,” Trump said.The intrigue comes as Mamdani, who has terrified New York’s powerful real-estate lobby and billionaire class by promising to freeze rent prices and raise taxes – slightly – on the wealthiest 1% of New Yorkers, is on the verge of running away with the race.For weeks, polls have shown Mamdani ahead of Adams, Cuomo and the Republican Curtis Sliwa. A survey this week showed Mamdani winning 42% of the vote, with his nearest challenger Cuomo on just 23%. The poll, published by AARP, showed that Mamdani’s support would increase if Cuomo or Adams dropped out.Cuomo and Adams have shown signs that they may be open to Trump. In audio obtained by Politico, Cuomo told Trump-friendly donors in the elite enclave of the Hamptons that the president was likely to intervene in his favor in the election.Cuomo predicted to donors that Adams would drop out, and said that they could negate the impact of Sliwa, who has said Trump should stay out of the race.“Trump himself, as well as top Republicans, will say the goal is to stop Mamdani. And you’ll be wasting your vote on Sliwa,” Cuomo said. A spokesman for Cuomo, whose lawyer turned governor father at one point worked for Fred Trump, the wealthy real-estate developer who handed over his business to his son, Donald Trump, in the 1970s, told the Guardian the story was “overblown”.“The governor was asked what he heard to be a hypothetical about how it could become a two-person race and was speculating,” Rich Azzopardi said.“We’re not asking for or expecting help from anyone – he [Cuomo] also said the mayor would have to drop out and the mayor said he wasn’t going to. Governor Cuomo is the only chance to beat Mamdani and ensure the greatest city in the world stays the greatest city in the world.”View image in fullscreenStill, with Mamdani comfortably leading in the polls, and Adams and Cuomo seemingly cannibalizing each other’s support, the rightwing elite in New York are becoming increasingly desperate for a Trump intervention.The New York Post, the rightwing tabloid that Trump is known to read, sent a message directly to the president earlier in August, running an editorial with the headline: “President Trump, do what’s right for NYC and endorse Mayor Eric Adams for re-election.”But that wouldn’t necessarily be helpful, said Trip Yang, a Democratic strategist and founder of Trip Yang Strategies.“Donald Trump is one of the least popular individuals in New York City history. Anyone who Donald Trump wants, supports, is automatically going to be a loser in the New York City mayor’s race. He is beyond toxic,” Yang said.Trump won just 30% of the vote in New York City in 2024, a remarkable low for someone born and raised in the city. Although, it does suggest he is more popular than Adams, whose job approval was at a record low of 20% earlier this year.Adams and Cuomo are deeply flawed candidates. Cuomo was plagued by scandal in his final term as governor, stepping down after he was accused of sexual harassment by 11 women, most of whom worked for him. He attempted to defy the odds by entering the New York mayoral election, and was originally the frontrunner, but ran an anonymous race, relying on tightly controlled press conferences over in-person appearances. Despite wealthy backers – some of whom had donated to Trump – pumping millions into his campaign he finished a distant second to Mamdani.While those corruption charges against Adams were dropped, questions remain over the kind of people the mayor surrounds himself with. Multiple people linked to Adams have been charged with corruption, and in a bizarre incident just this week, a volunteer on his campaign, Winnie Greco – who until last year served as Adams’s liaison to the Asian community – handed a reporter from the City a bag of Herr’s ripple potato chips containing a red envelope full of cash. A lawyer for Greco, who has been suspended by the Adams campaign, told the City that the money-in-a-potato-chip-bag ruse was a misunderstanding.“In the Chinese culture, money is often given to others in a gesture of friendship and gratitude,” the lawyer said.In a statement to the Guardian, Adams said: “I have not been accused of any wrongdoing, and my focus remains on serving the 8.5 million New Yorkers by making our city safer and more affordable every day.”Earlier this month, Adams left some wiggle room when asked if he would accept an endorsement from Trump, telling 77 ABC: “I want New Yorkers’ endorsement. I think the president’s going to make a determination on what he’s going to do in his race.” Cuomo has said he would not accept an endorsement.That’s probably wise given Trump’s unpopularity, but there have been suggestions that the president could weigh in behind the scenes, with the New York Times reporting that donors and allies of Adams and Cuomo have “pined” for Trump to intervene.Yang thinks that wouldn’t work.“Sometimes you could pull that off in a very local race that doesn’t get any attention. But look: the New York City mayor’s race, for us here in New York, this is our Super Bowl. Any type of private phone call, private meeting, it’s already shown that it gets leaked immediately to the press,” he said.“It would actually be net negative. It would be a good thing for Mamdani. You can buy a lot of things, but you cannot be associated with Donald Trump in New York City if you’re trying to win an election.”What is clear is that if the election happened today, rather than on Tuesday 4 November, Mamdani would win. And so far the questions about Trump’s links with Adams and Cuomo have seemed to be a blessing for the frontrunner.Mamdani responded to the leaked Cuomo audio this week, writing on Instagram: “This is not just a shady backroom deal by a cynical politician, it is disqualifying. It is a betrayal. Donald Trump is sending masked agents to rip our neighbors off the street, gutting the social services so many New Yorkers rely on, and threatening to deport me for having the audacity to stand up to him and his billionaire friends.”Mamdani added: “The job of New York City mayor is not to be a jester for a wannabe king, it is to protect the people of this city.”With less than three months to go, it remains to be seen whether Trump will move to select a jester, or whether he will leave the people of New York City, the city that spurned him, alone. More

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      ‘Debilitating consequences’ in Uganda after USAID cuts – photo essay

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      In northern Uganda, the unfolding consequences of US funding cuts to international humanitarian aid are palpable. Thousands of families have been living in refugee camps along the border with South Sudan for almost a decade, and newcomers are reported every day as the never-ending conflict within the country intensifies.Uganda has long been a crossroads of migration, shaped by historical and contemporary population movements. Today, it hosts over 1.9 million refugees and asylum seekers – one of the largest refugee populations in the world. Persistent violence in South Sudan and the eruption of armed conflict in Sudan have displaced millions. As both countries spiral further into instability, Uganda remains one of the few safe havens in the region.The decision by Donald Trump’s administration to cut support to USAID, a giant in the international humanitarian assistance network, disrupted the lives of millions of people across the continent, and other humanitarian groups were impacted. In March, the World Food Programme (WFP), an international non-profit, announced a cut to food distribution to 1 million refugees in Uganda.The AVSI Foundation, along with many other humanitarian actors, was forced to abandon a project that employed more than 200 local field officers, leaving their families without a steady income, and thousands of refugees unable to enroll in agricultural training, schools, or start small businesses. Before the end of 2024, they had identified 13,000 households to receive support that vanished just a few days after Trump’s inauguration day.View image in fullscreenView image in fullscreenAmong a slew of executive orders, and actions by the “department of governmental efficiency” (Doge), led then by Elon Musk, the funding cuts dashed people’s hopes and expectations of leaving extreme poverty. A general sentiment of failure and retreat spread among the refugee and host communities. In the following months, a consequent rise in suicides was reported, as Jatuporn Lee, a UNHCR local representative, explained.“Families are struggling to cope with the impact of reduced support, increased food insecurity, higher land rental costs, growing mental health and psychosocial challenges, surges in gender-based violence, school drop-outs, child neglect, abandonment, and child labor,” she said. “We would be cautious about drawing a direct link between funding cuts and suicide rates. As a non-clinical specialist, drawing such a correlation can be misleading. However, these concerning vulnerability trends are clear indicators of growing vulnerability and underscore the urgent need for sustained donor support to promote refugees’ protection, welbeing, and social and economic inclusion.”View image in fullscreenView image in fullscreenIn April and May, I spent two weeks in several northern Ugandan districts, including Lamwo, Kitgum, Madi-Okollo and Terego, at the very time when new refugees from South Sudan and Sudan were arriving at the border seeking safety. Olive Ngamita, the representative of AVSI Foundation in Kampala, said that 200 humanitarians in Kitgum had to leave, and that they had paid several months of rent in advance, relying on their upcoming salaries.The absence of international humanitarian support left a vacuum in the ecosystem of refugee settlements and host communities. Teachers who stop receiving their salary volunteer to maintain continuity in their students’ education, but struggle to support their families. Since the beginning of 2025, children and youth have been abandoning schools in large numbers, unable to afford the enrollment fees that were once subsidized. Small restaurants and street food vendors, who had looked forward to expanding their activities through loans and microcredit initiatives, have instead scaled back their operations.View image in fullscreenView image in fullscreenIn the quiet corners of these settlements, there is a visible loss of rhythm – routines once built around schooling, training sessions and market days have been disrupted. The absence of humanitarian programming leaves young people idle, exposing them to greater risks of recruitment, trafficking or exploitation.Trump and his cohorts replied to harsh criticism of the cuts from the agency’s officials and the humanitarian world, saying they would not cut life-saving aid. Massive humanitarian operations in critical situations have the primary goal of providing food and access to healthcare, indeed. But the bigger picture is to sustain a community, not to let it free fall.One of the first people I met in the Palabek camp in Lamwo was Viola, a 23-year-old pregnant woman who, unable to treat malaria and lower her fever, miscarried. Antimalarials were not delivered to the camp’s clinic. The supply chain, because of the freeze on international aid, had been interrupted. Her story is not an exception. In places where disease can spread fast, even short interruptions in supplies can be fatal.View image in fullscreenUSAID was meant to secure the United States’s dominance as part of a system aimed at stabilizing countries and strengthening diplomatic relations through cooperation. The long-term ramifications of this policy shift are only beginning to emerge. What is unfolding in Uganda today may soon reflect broader regional patterns, where donor disengagement risks creating power vacuums ripe for instability.As Nicholas Apiyo, a Ugandan lawyer and human rights defender, explains: “There is an absolute uncertainty in the future. National and international organizations that depended on USAID have either closed or scaled down their operations. People are left with no continuous care, and many have already lost their lives.“The USAID office in Kampala, is now closed, with debilitating consequences. Although funding for life-saving aid partially resumed, the disruption left a heavy toll on the beneficiaries of treatment to cure Ebola, HIV and malaria. A restoration enabling the supply chain to resume will take time, and lives will be lost in the process.”View image in fullscreenView image in fullscreenUganda will have to adjust to a new funding mechanism, which, according to Apiyo, must increase its national budget for assistance. African countries could now strengthen their ties with Russia, India, Iran and China – those countries are seen as more predictable and less “schizophrenic”, as Apiyo puts it.“You need soft power to rule the world. The colonial roots of the humanitarian system have always had their negative consequences in the majority world as a way to extend its dependency on the donor.”An example of successIn the Madi-Okollo and Terego districts, located near a triple border, hundreds of refugees from the DRC and South Sudan cross into Uganda daily at unofficial border crossing points, converging to form a growing community in established refugee settlements. There, interventions that received funding before the imposition of the new policies remain operational, promoting sustainable economic practices and creating job opportunities. However, educators are concerned that without further funding, those children, out of school without job opportunities, could be driven to illegal survival strategies and be at higher risk of forced recruitment in their country of origin, contributing to internal instability. Local teachers and social workers spoke of “a race against time”, where every month of consistent support can be the difference between a child learning to read or joining an armed group.View image in fullscreenView image in fullscreenAVSI Foundation implemented the Step – Transition from Emergency to Sustainable Development Program, a project funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation through the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation, in collaboration with the Office of the Ugandan Prime Minister, UNHCR, local leaders and partners. It aimed at improving the socioeconomic stability of refugees and host communities by addressing their priority needs through a multisectoral approach. The project reached 600 direct participants.The project promoted the use of renewable technologies among households, increasing adoption from 0% to 61%. These included briquette production, small-scale irrigation, water harvesting, energy-saving cooking solutions, and partnerships with private renewable energy providers.View image in fullscreenBy the end of the initiative, 92% of families reported higher agricultural production. This was supported through training, access to farming tools and seeds, and the establishment of backyard gardens with a reliable water supply. The program also formed 24 production and marketing groups, bringing together refugees and host community members to improve cooperation and create income opportunities.Support systems for the most vulnerable were strengthened, offering mental health and psychosocial services, gender-based violence prevention, and legal assistance through community dialogues, legal clinics and coordinated referral pathways. Cases of abuse and neglect were promptly referred as a result of child protection and birth registration initiatives.Special focus was placed on pregnant adolescents, young women and youth, who received life skills training, mentorship and sport therapy, resulting in 80% showing positive behavior change. Positive parenting sessions also improved family relationships, with follow-up home visits and group mentoring helping communities sustain these changes. These models – holistic, inclusive, and locally adapted – should guide future international efforts. What they demonstrate is clear: when investments are sustained, results follow.View image in fullscreen More

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      Burner phones, wiped socials: the extreme precautions for visitors to Trump’s America

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      Keith Serry was set to bring a show to New York City’s Fringe festival this year, but pulled the plug a few weeks out. After 35 years of traveling to the United States, he says he no longer feels safe making the trip.“The fact that we’re being evaluated for our opinions entering a country that, at least until very recently, purported to be an example of democracy. Yeah, these are things that make me highly uncomfortable,” said Serry, a Canadian performer and attorney.“You’re left thinking that you don’t want to leave evidence of ‘bad opinions’ on your person.”Serry is among a substantial cohort of foreign nationals reconsidering travel to the US under the Trump administration, after troubling reports of visitors facing intense scrutiny and detention on arrival.In March, a French scientist who had been critical of Donald Trump was refused entry to the US after his phone was searched. An Australian writer who was detained and denied entry in June said he was initially grilled about his articles on pro-Palestinian protests, and then watched as a border agent probed even the most personal images on his phone. He was told the search uncovered evidence of past drug use, which he had not acknowledged on his visa waiver application, leading to his rejection. German, British and other European tourists have also been detained and sent home.More than a dozen countries have updated their travel guidance to the US. In Australia and Canada, government advisories were changed to specifically mention the potential for electronic device searches.On the advice of various experts, people are locking down social media, deleting photos and private messages, removing facial recognition, or even traveling with “burner” phones to protect themselves.In Canada, multiple public institutions have urged employees to avoid travel to the US, and at least one reportedly told staff to leave their usual devices at home and bring a second device with limited personal information instead.“Everybody feels guilty, but they don’t know exactly what they’re guilty of,” said Heather Segal, founding partner of Segal Immigration Law in Toronto, describing the influx of concerns she’s been hearing.“‘Did I do something wrong? Is there something on me? Did I say something that’s going to be a problem?’”She advised travelers to assess their risk appetite by reviewing both the private data stored on their devices and any information about them that’s publicly accessible, and to consider what measures to take accordingly.US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has broad powers to search devices with minimal justification. Travelers can refuse to comply, but non-citizens risk being denied entry. CBP data shows such searches are rare; last year, just over 47,000 out of 420 million international travelers had their devices examined. This year’s figures show a significant increase, with the third quarter of 2025 reflecting an uptick in electronic device searches higher than any single quarter since 2018, when available data begins.“Anecdotally, it seems like these searches have been increasing, and I think the reason why that’s true is, undoubtedly, I think they are more targeted than before,” said Tom McBrien, counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center.“It seems like they are targeting people who they just don’t generally like politically.”Travelers who are concerned about their privacy should consider minimizing the amount of data they carry, McBrien said.“The less data you have on you, the less there is to search, and the less there is to collect,” he said. Beyond using a secondary device, he suggested securely deleting data, moving it to a hard drive or storing it in a password-protected cloud account.A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson rejected claims that CBP had stepped up device searches under the new administration or singled out travelers over their political views.“These searches are conducted to detect digital contraband, terrorism-related content, and information relevant to visitor admissibility, all of which play a critical role in national security,” the spokesperson told the Guardian in a statement.“Allegations that political beliefs trigger inspections or removals are baseless and irresponsible.”The statement acknowledged, however, that there had been heightened vetting under Trump and the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Under the leadership of the Trump Administration and Secretary Noem, we have the most secure border in American history,” it said. “This has allowed CBP to focus to actually vet and interview the people attempting to come into our country.”Alistair Kitchen, the Australian writer who was denied entry to the US in June, said the DHS’s denial of political targeting directly contradicts what he was told on arrival.Border officials “bragged actively that the reason for my targeting, for my being pulled out of line for my detainment, was explicitly because of what I’d written online about the protests at Columbia University”, he told the Guardian.While he doesn’t plan to return to the US under the Trump administration, Kitchen said that if he ever did, he would either not take a phone or bring a burner.“Under no conditions would I ever hand over the passcode to that phone,” he added. “I would accept immediate deportation rather than hand over the passcode. People should think seriously before booking travel, especially if they are journalists or writers or activists.”Various foreign nationals told the Guardian they are rethinking travel plans for tourism, family visits, academic events and work.Donald Rothwell, a professor who teaches international law at the Australian National University, says he no longer plans to accept speaking invitations to the US over fears of being detained or denied entry – which, he noted, could also trigger red flags on his record for future travel.He’s even considered traveling without a device at all, but is concerned his academic commentary in the media could be used against him regardless.“I might be commenting on matters that could be quite critical of the United States,” he said. “For example, I was very critical of the legal or lack of legal justification for the US military strikes on Iran in June.”Kate, a Canadian whose name has been withheld due to privacy concerns, said she has wrestled with complicated decisions about whether to travel across the border to see American relatives, including for an upcoming wedding. During a trip earlier this year, she deleted her social media apps before going through customs.Despite DHS assurances that travelers are not flagged for political beliefs, she said “it’s hard to believe things that this government is saying”.“It would be really nice to have trust that those kinds of things were true, and that these kinds of stories that you hear, while absolutely horrific, are isolated incidents,” she said.“But I do feel like in many ways, the United States has sort of lost its goodwill.” More

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      The senate race in Iowa that could signal a blue wave for the 2026 midterms

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      He has compared abortion access to the Holocaust and pushed conspiracy theories about the 9/11 terrorist attacks, 2020 presidential election and climate crisis. Christopher Prosch is betting that Maga still rules in the US heartland.On Tuesday, the far-right Republican will take on Democrat Catelin Drey in a special general election for Iowa state senate district 1 after the previous incumbent, Republican Rocky De Witt, died in June.A victory for Drey would break Republicans’ supermajority in the state senate and deny governor Kim Reynolds the ability to stack agencies and courts with Maga loyalists. It would also give Democrats fresh hope that a blue wave is forming before next year’s midterm elections.State legislatures rarely gain the limelight but have emerged as vital power players in recent years on issues such as abortion rights and, this week, gerrymandering in Texas and California. They have also become petri dishes for the Republican party’s embrace of extremism in the age of Donald Trump.Prosch is founder of Felix Strategies, a public relations firm based in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, whose work includes “strategic communications for Christian conservative leaders and organizations”. He was a canvasser for Kristi Noem in her congressional race in 2010 and has consulted on numerous campaigns since.“He is deep in the Maga Trumpland,” said Heather Williams, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC). “He is the kind of candidate that not that long ago would have never seen the light of day on a ballot. He said … a litany of all the Maga perspectives and points of view and beliefs.”Following his nomination, Prosch reportedly began deleting contentious posts from his social media and affiliated accounts, according to the Iowa Starting Line news site, which took screenshots and published several of them.Hosting a podcast two years ago, Prosch equated the Holocaust with reproductive freedom. “Who was worse?” he asked. “The Nazi Germans who killed 10 million Jews and many other people? Or the left’s policies to target an entire generation of babies to death.” He also opined that victims of rape or incest should carry pregnancies to term.Prosch has used social media to share conspiracy theories about the safety of vaccines and a cover-up of what caused the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.He has championed the false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen by Joe Biden and, in 2022, his firm Felix Strategies posted a message that said: “Global cooling..global warming..climate change…whatever they’re calling it, it’s all a lie!”Prosch’s own website describes him as “a strong pro-life conservative who believes life is a precious gift from God that must be protected”. It also expresses support for Trump’s efforts to crack down on illegal immigration, drive “woke” ideology out of schools and bar transgender athletes from school sports.The Republican proposes eliminating Iowa’s state income tax and “is dedicated to raising his children in a loving, strict Christian home”, the site says. “Christopher believes that leaders should be guided by the principles found in the Bible and the Constitution.”Prosch did not respond to emailed requests for comment.His opponent, Drey, is a 37-year-old marketing executive and founder of the group Moms for Iowa, a grassroots organisation focused on curbing gun violence and championing reproductive rights. She has served on local boards and statewide political committees and wants to increase state education funding in the district.Speaking from Sioux City, which is at the heart of senate district 1, Drey said: “The No 1 concern that folks in senate district 1 right now have is Iowa’s affordability crisis and I think folks across the country would feel that. We’ve seen policies come down from the federal level, as well as the state level, that are making it very difficult for people to make ends meet here.”Iowa’s Republican administration has made it harder for local municipalities to spend money to benefit their communities, Drey added, with middle and working classes paying more than their fair share in taxes and struggling to afford a house.Democrats have been soul searching since they lost the White House and both chambers of Congress last November. A range of voices from the centre and left of the party have coalesced around a focus on the cost of living, likely to be exacerbated by Trump’s tariffs and tax-and-spend legislation known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.But the party, whose approval rating is at a historical low, is also wrestling with an image problem of being seen as too elitist and out of touch. On Friday, the thinktank Third Way urged Democrats to stop using words such as “microaggression”, “safe space”, “existential threat”, “birthing person” and “Latinx”, which it argues make the party seem out of touch with regular voters.Drey said: “The biggest frustration for the working class is certainly feeling left behind by the ‘coastal liberal elite’ and, as much as I may identify with the overall policy goals of said coastal elites, I am a regular person who lives and works in this community. I see the way that bad policy affects my family and my neighbours.“If the Democrats can get back to a message that is, ‘We are of you and from you and we understand what it is like to want to strive for a beautiful life,’ then I think that is what resonates with people. Trying to convince folks that things are actually better when they’re not feeling that is tone deaf, to be quite frank. This is a party that can work from the bottom up in terms of shifting the balance of power and making life better for the folks that need it.”Drey has valuable support on the campaign trail from JD Scholten, an Iowa state representative who is also a professional baseball pitcher for a minor league team, the Sioux City Explorers. Art Cullen, a leading newspaper editor in Iowa, said: “He’s popular in Sioux City and he’s been door knocking for her.”Cullen believes that the election will be more of a referendum on the governor, Reynolds, than on Trump. “People are sick of Kim Reynolds,” he continued. “People are getting tired of the wackiness: banning books, making a big to-do over trans people.“Republicans are concentrating on all that stuff and not on, how good are our schools and why are our property taxes so high? The Republican-dominated legislature punted and went home without addressing rising property taxes.”Senate district 1 has a history of swinging between parties, with Democrats winning it in 2018 and Republicans reclaiming it in 2022. Last year, the district supported Donald Trump by an 11-point margin. Registered Republicans outnumber Democrats in the district by 38% to 31%.Republicans had a two-thirds supermajority in the state senate prior to the death of De Witt at the age of 66. If Democrats prevail on Tuesday, they would have the ability to block the confirmation of Reynolds’ picks for cabinet positions and judges.Democratic candidates have over-performed in recent state legislative elections, flipping Trump districts in Iowa and Pennsylvania. A third win would continue the momentum before next year’s midterm polls for the US House of Representatives and Senate.Williams of the DLCC said the party is looking to Tuesday to demonstrate that “Democrats can win elections – we can connect with voters on economic issues and they can trust us on them – and that Republicans are in trouble. This president’s policies and approach are deeply unpopular and Republicans will not be rewarded at the ballot box for it.” More

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      Trump is wrong about crime – but right about the fear of it | Austin Sarat

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      In most of America’s largest cities, crime, especially violent crime, is down. But the fear of crime is increasing.Donald Trump has made a career out of ignoring the reality of crime rates and of stoking that fear. Well before he entered politics and throughout his political career, he has talked about city life as life in a proverbial jungle.In 2022, he talked frequently about the “ blood-soaked streets of our once-great cities” and said: “Cities are rotting, and they are indeed cesspools of blood.” And he never strays far from that playbook.On 11 August, the president returned to his demagogic characterizations of America’s urban areas when he deployed national guard and federal law enforcement agents to the streets of Washington DC. He said the city was awash in “crime, bloodshed, bedlam, and squalor”.He claimed that “crime is out of control in the District of Columbia”. In fact, violent crime in the District of Columbia is the lowest it has been in more than three decades.But Trump didn’t just ignore the data. He leaned into a different problem in Washington: fear of crime.Referring to Washingtonians who like to jog, the president said: “People tell me they can’t run any more. They’re just afraid.”And he was not content to target just the nation’s capital. “You look at Chicago,” he said, “how bad it is. You look at Los Angeles, how bad it is. We have other cities in a very bad – New York is a problem. And then you have, of course, Baltimore and Oakland. We don’t even mention that any more. They’re so far gone. We’re not going to let it happen.”Never mind that, like Washington, as CNN reports, Chicago, Baltimore and other cities also have had “substantial declines in 2024, 2025 or both”.So far, Democratic political leaders have repeated those statistics as if that in itself will carry the day. In so doing, they are repeating a mistake made by Joe Biden when he asked people to focus on economic statistics that showed declines in the rate of inflation rather than their lived reality.Unfortunately, the statistics matter much less than the fear of crime. That fear is a real problem, and Democrats need to acknowledge and respond to it.Let’s start with the District of Columbia. A Washington Post-Schar School poll conducted in mid-August found that 31% of Washingtonians said crime was an “‘extremely serious’ or a ‘very serious’” problem in the District. Last year, the same poll found that number to be 65%. Some of this decline can be attributed to the fact that residents of the city overwhelmingly oppose what the president has done and don’t want to be seen as lending it legitimacy.But however you measure it, fear of crime is not just a District of Columbia problem.In New York City, 75% of residents say that crime is a serious problem. As an essay posted on Vital City puts it: “Whatever crime statistics show, most of us are worried that it could happen to us. That feeling is nebulous and hard to overcome … We the people say crime is a serious problem, and most of us will continue, for now, to look over our shoulders and worry when someone we love leaves home.”National surveys suggest that “Americans’ fear of crime is at a 30-year high”. Other survey evidence highlights the fact that “73% say crime has ‘some’ or ‘major’ impact on how they live their lives”. Among Black and Hispanic Americans, that number is even higher.Not surprisingly, many Americans now favor long prison sentences for convicted criminals.Explanations vary for the paradox that as crime rates fall, fear of crime persists.Crime stories often dominate local news coverage, and the more gruesome the crime, the greater the coverage. That is why fear of crime is driven not by a dispassionate examination of data but by the power of individual stories of victimization.That pattern is intensified by social media. Studies have shown that social media usage stokes crime fear.Demographics also matter. Crime fears are greater among older people, and, as the population ages, those fears increase.Fear of crime is also associated with a generalized sense of disorderliness in our communities and the world. And, as the economist and criminal justice scholar John Roman argues, because “our collective tolerance for disorder is declining”, our fear of crime is increasing.Of course, it doesn’t help that Trump uses the bully pulpit and his public visibility to emphasize and exaggerate the crime problem as part of his authoritarian project. But blaming Trump for the fear of crime problem is not any more of a winning political strategy than reciting the latest data on falling crime rates.Democrats can’t and shouldn’t run away from either the crime problem or the fear of crime problem. They will have no credibility in offering responses to the former until they establish credibility on the latter.They would be well-advised to tackle the fear problem openly and to embrace responses, like investing in programs that repair public spaces and revitalize neighborhoods, while also being clear that people who fear crime have reason to want to see more police on the street.Trump knows the potency of the fear of the crime problem. That’s why he boasted that after his deployment of national guard in Washington, DC, “People are feeling safe already … They’re not afraid any more.”But we don’t need the national guard to do what local police can do when they are well-trained, responsive to the needs of all communities and well-resourced. The best long-term response to the president’s agenda for American cities is to make sure that the people who live there have more confidence in their safety and less fear of crime.

      Austin Sarat, William Nelson Cromwell professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College, is the author or editor of more than 100 books, including Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America’s Death Penalty More

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      Donald Trump accused of ‘turning military on American citizens’ over plans to send National Guard to Chicago – US politics live

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      Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. My name is Tom Ambrose and I’ll be bringing you the latest news lines over the next few hours.We start with news that Donald Trump has been accused of “turning the military on American citizens” after a Pentagon official confirmed that planning is under way to send National Guard troops to Chicago.Illinois attorney-general Kwame Raoul also told CBS News that the president’s actions are both “un-American” and “unwise strategically”.Accusing the president of “turning our military on American citizens in his ongoing attempts to move our nation toward authoritarianism,” he added:
      His actions are not just un-American. They are unwise strategically. Our cities are not made safer by deploying the nation’s service members for civilian law enforcement duties when they do not have the appropriate training.
      To be clear: We have made no such request for the type of federal intervention we have seen in Los Angeles or Washington DC. There is no emergency in the state of Illinois.
      It comes as lieutenant-governor Juliana Stratton accused Trump of pursuing “political theatrics, not safety,” since crime in Chicago is already declining and there was no local request for troops.In a statement to ABC7 Chicago, she said:
      Tonight’s reporting from the Washington Post that President Trump is preparing to deploy federal troops in Chicago proves what we all know: he is willing to go to any lengths possible to create chaos if it means more political power-no matter who gets hurt.
      As lieutenant-governor and throughout my career, I’ve fervently fought for the reformation of our criminal legal system and under the Pritzker-Stratton administration, we’ve made tremendous progress.
      Crime in Chicago is declining and there’s absolutely no rationale for this decision, other than to distract from the pain Trump is inflicting on working families with his dangerous agenda. Illinois, governor Pritzker and I are here to stand for your rights, your freedoms, and will protect you against whatever storms of hate and fear come our way.
      Earlier on Sunday, Hakeem Jeffries, House minority leader and New York Democratic congressman, said Donald Trump has “manufactured a crisis” to justify sending federalized national guard troops into Chicago next, over the heads of local leaders.Read our full report here:In other developments:

      France summoned the American ambassador Charles Kushner after he wrote a letter to president Emmanuel Macron alleging France had failed to do enough to stem antisemitic violence, a French foreign ministry spokesperson said on Sunday.

      Sergei Lavrov, Moscow’s most senior diplomat, praised efforts by Donald Trump to end the war, in an interview on NBC on Sunday, while US vice-president JD Vance said Washington would “keep on trying” to broker talks in the absence of a deal.

      In the opening weeks of Donald Trump’s second term, Gavin Newsom wagered that peacemaking was best: a tarmac greeting for Air Force One, an Oval Office visit and a podcast slot for Maga’s biggest names. But then Trump came for California, and its governor dropped the niceties. Read the full report here.

      The president and his allies have been accused of executing a “pattern of lawfare” akin to those exerted by authoritarian regimes in Hungary and Russia after adopting a new strategy to target political opponents: allegations of mortgage fraud. Read the full report here.

      The justice department is alleging in a new court filing that three Smartmatic executives who were indicted last year on bribery and money-laundering charges transferred money from a 2018 voting machine contract with Los Angeles county into slush funds that were originally set up to pay bribes to overseas election officials. More