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Experience, integrity and Trump: key takeaways from New York’s mayoral debate
Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee and current frontrunner for New York City mayor, faced off with Andrew Cuomo, the former New York governor now running as an independent, and Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate, at the first New York mayoral election debate on Thursday night.Here are some key takeaways from the evening.1. Trump’s threats to New York City loomed largeThe Republican president’s threats to New York City dominated plenty of conversation during the debate.In response to the first question, which asked candidates to provide a headline on their legacy as mayor, Mamdani answered: “Mamdani continues to take on Trump, delivers on affordability.”All three candidates agreed they would not support Trump sending the national guard to the city. Mamdani repeated his assertions that he is the best candidate to “stand up to Donald Trump and actually deliver”, while Cuomo argued that Trump would try to take over the city and become “Mayor Trump” if Mamdani wins. Sliwa suggested it was better not to be “tough” with the president or risk goading him.Mamdani forcefully criticized Trump’s deportation efforts, but echoed his opponents by saying he would work with the president if elected. All three candidates were asked about the last time they spoke with Trump. Sliwa said that the last time spoke with Trump was “many years ago” when he was “praising him for saving the annual Veterans Day parade”. Mamdani said that he had never spoken with Trump, while Cuomo said that he believed he had spoken to him after the assassination attempt on the then presidential candidate last year. However, in August, the New York Times reported that Trump had recently spoken directly with Cuomo about the mayor’s race. On the debate stage on Thursday, Cuomo denied the report. 2. Two main weaknesses were under fire: Cuomo’s character and Mamdani’s inexperienceCuomo started the night by attacking Mamdani, calling him too unqualified and inexperienced to lead New York City.“This is no job for on-the-job training,” Cuomo said. “If you look at the failed mayors, they’re ones that have no management experience.”Mamdani, the 33-year-old state assembly member from Queens who is a self-described democratic socialist, pushed back on Cuomo and cited his years in the New York state assembly as well as his lived experience in New York City. Mamdani touted himself as “someone who has actually paid rent in the city” and “who has had to wait for a bus that never came, someone who actually buys his groceries in this city”.Cuomo shot back: “What the assemblyman said is he has no experience.”Mamdani fired back: “What I don’t have in experience, I make up for in integrity, and what you don’t have in integrity, you could never make up for in experience.”3. Tensions rose around Israel and the ceasefire in Gaza The candidates sparred over Israel and Gaza, with Mamdani once again facing questions about his past remarks on Israel. Cuomo tried to demand Mamdani denounce Hamas, prompting Mamdani to say: “Of course I believe that [Hamas] should lay down their arms … All parties have to cease fire and put down their weapons.”Mamdani also said that since the primary, he’s learned through conversations with Jewish New Yorkers more about antisemitism and how the phrase “globalize the intifada” could be hurtful.Cuomo repeated his usual attack lines on Mamdani, suggesting he was a danger to Jewish New Yorkers while Mamdani called out Cuomo for failing to visit mosques.After Cuomo was previously lambasted for being unable to name a mosque he visited as governor, Mamdani noted that the former governor had visited a single one and said on Thursday: “It took Andrew Cuomo being beaten by a Muslim candidate [in the primary] to set foot in a mosque.”4. Sliwa attempted to stand out, sans red beretSliwa, the Republican nominee and founder of the Guardian Angels, spent much of the night taking shots at both Mamdani and Cuomo. He dismissed Mamdani’s plans and ideas as “fantasies”, mocked Cuomo for losing the Democratic primary and went after the former governor over allegations of sexual harassment.Positioning himself as an outsider, Sliwa tried to distance himself from the political establishment.“Thank God I’m not a professional politician, because they have helped create this crime crisis in the city that we face,” he said at one point. When Cuomo argued that he was the only candidate on stage who could handle Trump, Sliwa responded: “You think you’re the toughest guy alive. You lost your own primary.”In another fiery moment from Sliwa during a discussion on policing, Sliwa said to Cuomo of his father: “I knew Mario Cuomo. You are no Mario Cuomo, Andrew Cuomo.”5. Mamdani evades having to endorse Kathy Hochul When the three candidates were asked if they supported the re-election campaign of New York’s Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, none of them raised their hands.Mamdani’s response was notable, as the governor has publicly endorsed him for mayor. “I’m focusing on November, and I appreciate her support, and I appreciate her work,” the Democratic nominee said. More
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Mamdani, Cuomo and Sliwa spar in New York mayoral debate
New York City’s three mayoral candidates faced off on Thursday night in the first of two televised debates, less than three weeks before voters head to the polls.On stage were Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, former governor Andrew Cuomo – now running as an independent after losing the Democratic primary to Mamdani in June – and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa. Mayor Eric Adams, who dropped out of the race several weeks ago, did not participate.During the two-hour-long debate, the candidates clashed over a variety of local and national issues, including crime, policing, affordability, housing and transportation, as well as how they would handle the Trump administration and the recent Gaza ceasefire deal.Mamdani and Cuomo, the race frontrunners, wasted no time and began sparring – with Sliwa between them – almost immediately.Cuomo is notably attempting a political comeback after resigning as governor of New York in 2021 in the wake of multiple allegations of sexual harassment. He started the night echoing his performance in the primary debates, painting Mamdani as too unqualified and inexperienced to lead the city.“This is no job for on-the-job training,” Cuomo said. “If you look at the failed mayors, they’re ones that have no management experience.”Mamdani, the 33-year-old state assemblyman from Queens and self-described democratic socialist, pushed back on Cuomo by citing his five years in the New York state assembly and his lived experience in New York City. He touted himself as “someone who has actually paid rent in the city” and “who has had to wait for a bus that never came, someone who actually buys his groceries in this city”.Cuomo shot back: “What the assemblyman said is he has no experience.”Mamdani fired back: “What I don’t have in experience, I make up for in integrity, and what you don’t have in integrity, you could never make up for in experience.”View image in fullscreenAt one point, Cuomo was pressed on the allegations that preceded his resignation and his handling of nursing home deaths during the Covid-19 pandemic. He was asked why voters should trust that he has the “character to be mayor”.Cuomo defended his record and denied the allegations, saying “none of that came to anything”.Throughout the night, Sliwa, the Republican nominee and founder of the Guardian Angels, took shots at both candidates, describing Mamdani’s plans as “fantasies” and mocking Cuomo for losing the Democratic primary. He also went after the former governor on the allegations of sexual harassment.Donald Trump was a major specter during the debate’s first hour, with each candidate addressing some of his policies and how they would engage with his administration if elected.Mamdani said he’d be willing to work with Trump “if it means delivering on lowering the cost of living for New Yorkers”, but warned that “if he ever wants to come for New Yorkers in the way that he has been, he’s going to have to get through me as the next mayor of this city”.Cuomo said he’d work with Trump but that he would fight the president if he tries to “hurt New York”, while Sliwa said he would “sit and negotiate” with him.“You can be tough, but you can’t be tough if it’s going to cost people desperately needed federal funds,” Sliwa said.All three candidates agreed that Trump should not send national guard troops to New York City.Sliwa pushed back when Cuomo suggested that he was the only candidate who could handle Trump: “You think you’re the toughest guy alive. You lost your own primary.”The recent ceasefire deal in Gaza was also addressed on the debate stage. Mamdani, who has been critical of the Israeli government and vocal about Palestinian rights, was asked about his views on Hamas.“Of course I believe that they should lay down their arms” he said. “A ceasefire means ceasing fire. That means all parties have to cease fire and put down their weapons, and the reason that we call for that is not only for the end of the genocide, but also an unimpeded access of humanitarian aid.”Cuomo went after Mamdani and claimed the latter was refusing to “denounce Hamas” and that he was speaking in “code” with his answer. Mamdani pushed back, calling Cuomo the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “legal defense team during the course of this genocide”.Mamdani also said that in talking to Jewish New Yorkers, he was discouraged from using the phrase “globalize the intifada”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“What I’m looking to do as the first Muslim mayor of this city is to ensure that we bring every New Yorker together – Jewish New Yorkers, Muslim New Yorkers, every single person that calls the city home. They understand they won’t just be protected, but they will belong,” he said, prompting Cuomo to call Mamdani “a divisive personality across the board”.Both Sliwa and Cuomo praised the Trump administration for its role in for brokering of the ceasefire deal, which many have said directly mirrored the deal Biden brokered during his administration.View image in fullscreenMamdani was also asked about past comments he made on social media, including comments he made in 2020 about the New York police department during the nationwide protests against police brutality sparked by the killing of George Floyd. Mamdani called the department “racist” and demanded the defunding of the the police in social media posts.Earlier this week, Mamdani appeared on Fox News and apologized to the police department for those remarks. He added that he has also apologized to officers in private meetings.On Thursday, Mamdani said that despite his previous calls for defunding the police, he no longer believed that should happen, and that he is “looking to work with police officers not to defund the NYPD, looking to ensure that officers can actually do one job when they’re signing up to join that department”.Mamdani touted his plan to create a department of community safety that would send dedicated mental health teams to handle relevant 911 calls.Cuomo pledged to hire 5,000 more officers and assign 1,500 of them to the subways, raise starting salaries, and “work on the relationship between the community and the police”.Sliwa called for hiring 7,000 officers and reinstating qualified immunity to officers.On mass transit, Mamdani described his plans for “fast and free” buses while Cuomo claimed such a program would be subsidized by wealthy bus riders and the buses would effectively become mobile homeless shelters.When the issue of affordability came up, and candidates were asked how much they spend per week on groceries. Cuomo said about $150, Sliwa said about $175 and Mamdani said about $125.Mamdani, who has made affordability the focus of his campaign, reiterated some of his longstanding pledges to increase taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers, freeze rent increases on rent-stabilized apartments and build more housing.He also called out Cuomo for not addressing a pressing issue for most of the debate. “I just have to say it’s been an hour and 20 minutes of this debate, and we haven’t heard Governor Cuomo say the word ‘affordability’. That’s why he lost the primary,” Mamdani said.A poll released last week showed Mamdani leading, with 46% of likely voters supporting him, followed by Cuomo, at 33%, and Sliwa, at 15%.The final mayoral debate is scheduled for Wednesday 22 October.Election day is Tuesday 4 November. Early voting begins on 25 October and runs through 2 November. More
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John Bolton indicted on charges of mishandling and transmitting classified information – US politics live
A federal grand jury has indicted John Bolton, the former national security adviser in Donald Trump’s first term, on charges of mishandling and transmitting classified information.The indictment, filed in Maryland, appears to ultimately have had sign off from career prosecutors in the US attorney’s office there despite initial reluctance to bring a case before the end of the year.The 18-count indictment against Bolton involves 8 counts of unlawfully transmitting national defense information and ten counts of retaining classified information under the Espionage Act, according to the 26-page indictment.A federal appeals court on Thursday rejected the Trump administration’s request to lift a lower court’s order that temporarily blocks the deployment of National Guard troops in Illinois during its appeal.The ruling allows a temporary restraining order against the deployment issued by US District judge April Perry in Chicago last week to remain in place.A three-judge panel of the Chicago-based 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals, made up of judges nominated by George HW Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump, concluded that that “the facts do not justify the President’s actions.”Trump had asserted the power to deploy National Guard troops in Illinois after claiming federal immigration enforcement officer had faced violent protests as they attempted to arrest people.“Immigration arrests and deportations have proceeded apace in Illinois over the past year, and the administration has been proclaiming the success of its current efforts to enforce immigration laws in the Chicago area,” the court said.The court said there had likely been a violation of Illinois’ constitutional right to sovereignty, made worse by the fact that Texas National Guard troops were sent into the state.The court did pause a portion of Perry’s order that had barred the federalization of Illinois National Guard troops, allowing the troops to remain under federal control.The Trump administration announced Thursday that it is urging US employers to create new fertility benefit options to cover in vitro fertilization and other infertility treatments.In an announcement from the Oval Office, Donald Trump also said his administration had cut a deal with the drug manufacturer EMD Serono to lower the cost of one of its fertility drugs and list the drug on the government website TrumpRx.The justice department says that Donald Trump’s former national security advisor, John Bolton, has been charged with 10 counts of unlawful retention of national defense information and eight counts of transmission of that information.The indictment alleges that Bolton used personal email and messaging app accounts to send documents classified as high as Top Secret.The documents contained intelligence about what the government terms “future attacks, foreign adversaries, and foreign-policy relations.”The indictment also alleges that Bolton, like Trump after he left office in 2021, kept secret documents in his home. The documents Bolton kept included “intelligence on an adversary’s leaders as well as information revealing sources and collections used to obtain statements on a foreign adversary,” the government alleges.“Anyone who abuses a position of power and jeopardizes our national security will be held accountable,” Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, said. “No one is above the law.”When Donald Trump was indicted for the same crime by special counsel Jack Smith in 2023, in an indictment that cited evidence that Trump showed a ghostwriter working for his former chief of staff Mark Meadows “a four-page report” detailing US plans for striking Iran.According to audio of the conversation obtained by CNN, Trump even acknowledged that the document he showed the writer was “highly confidential, secret information” he could not make public because it was “still a secret”.A federal grand jury has indicted John Bolton, the former national security adviser in Donald Trump’s first term, on charges of mishandling and transmitting classified information.The indictment, filed in Maryland, appears to ultimately have had sign off from career prosecutors in the US attorney’s office there despite initial reluctance to bring a case before the end of the year.The 18-count indictment against Bolton involves 8 counts of unlawfully transmitting national defense information and ten counts of retaining classified information under the Espionage Act, according to the 26-page indictment.John Bolton, who served as Donald Trump’s national security advisor during his first term, but turned into a fierce Trump critic, has reportedly been indicted on federal charges by a grand jury in Maryland, officials tell MSNBC and CNN.At the White House a reporter asked Trump for his reaction to the news that Bolton was just indicted by a grand jury in Maryland.The president said: “I didn’t know that. You’re telling me for the first time, but I think he’s a bad person. I think he’s a bad guy.”“That’s the way it goes, right? That’s the way it goes,” said the president who vowed retribution on his political enemies while campaigning to be restored to office last year.Bolton becomes the third Trump critic to be indicted by his justice department in the past month, along with James Comey, the former FBI director, and Letitia James, the New York attorney general.Bolton has reportedly been under investigation for retaining classified information after leaving office, and showing it to associates.The United States is “on a trajectory” toward authoritarian rule, according to a stark new intelligence-style assessment by former US intelligence and national security officials, who warn that democratic backsliding is accelerating under the Trump administration – and may soon become entrenched without organized resistance.The report, titled Accelerating Authoritarian Dynamics: Assessment of Democratic Decline, was released on Thursday by the Steady State, a network of more than 340 former officers of the CIA, NSA, state department, and other national-security agencies.“These are people who have seen these indicators develop in countries that shifted dramatically away from democracy towards authoritarianism,” Larry Pfeiffer, a former senior intelligence official who spent two decades at the NSA, told reporters on Thursday. “And we’re seeing those things happening in our country today.”The analysts conclude with “moderate to high confidence” that the US is moving toward what scholars call “competitive authoritarianism”, a system in which elections and courts continue to function, but are “systematically manipulated” to consolidate executive power and weaken checks and balances. According to the assessment, these trends are increasingly visible in the US, as part of a broader effort by Donald Trump in his second term to “ensure loyalty and ideological conformity” across the federal government.Amid escalating tensions with Venezuela, and US military strikes on suspected drug smugglers in the Caribbean, the US admiral who commands military forces in Latin America will step down at the end of this year, the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth announced on social media.The admiral, Alvin Holsey, just took over the US military’s Southern Command late last year for a position that normally lasts three years.A source told Reuters that there had been tension between him and Hegseth and questions about whether he would be fired in the days leading up to the announcement.The New York Times reports that an unnamed US official said that Holsey “had raised concerns about the mission and the attacks on the alleged drug boats.”Hegseth, in his social media post, did not disclose the reason for Holsey’s plan “to retire at year’s end.”Hegseth’s post noted that Holsey began his career “through the NROTC program at Morehouse College in 1988.” Morehouse is a private, historically black college in Atlanta.In February, Donald Trump abruptly fired the air force general CQ Brown Jr as chair of the joint chiefs of staff, sidelining a history-making Black fighter pilot and respected officer as part of a campaign to purge the military of leaders who support diversity and equity in the ranks.In 2021, Holsey recorded a public service announcement urging Black Americans to take the covid-19 vaccine.Trump on his social media site said he’s “outraged” by a vote planned on Friday by the International Maritime Organization to impose a global fee on the carbon emissions produced by container ships.“The United States will NOT stand for this Global Green New Scam Tax on Shipping, and will not adhere to it in any way, shape, or form,” the president wrote on Truth Social.He added: “We will not tolerate increased prices on American Consumers OR, the creation of a Green New Scam Bureaucracy to spend YOUR money on their Green dreams. Stand with the United States, and vote NO in London tomorrow!”The US Chamber of Commerce is suing the Trump administration over the $100,000 fee imposed on H-1B visa petitions.The country’s biggest business lobbying group argues that the new fee is unlawful because it overrides provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act that govern the H-1B program, including the requirement that fees be based on the costs incurred by the government in processing visas.Neil Bradley, the Chamber’s chief policy officer, said in a statement:“The new $100,000 visa fee will make it cost-prohibitive for US employers, especially start-ups and small and midsize businesses, to utilize the H-1B program, which was created by Congress expressly to ensure that American businesses of all sizes can access the global talent they need to grow their operations here in the U.S.”The University of Pennsylvania has become the latest educational institution to reject the White House’s proposed preferential funding compact, according to an email to the University community.“Earlier today, I informed the US Department of Education that Penn respectfully declines to sign the proposed Compact,” President J Larry Jameson wrote in a message to the Penn community Thursday, adding that his university did provide feedback to the department on the proposal.The “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” is a proposed agreement from the Trump administration that would impose restrictions on diversity, equity and inclusion programs and limits on international student enrolment.Penn’s refusal makes it the third of the nine institutions that had initially been offered the deal to publicly turn it down. No institution has agreed to sign the compact so far.Brown University announced it had rejected the offer Wednesday, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) did the same last Friday. After MIT’s rejection, the Trump administration said the compact was open to all colleges and universities that want to sign it.Senate Democrats blocked debate on a defense appropriations bill on the floor earlier this afternoon, which was seen as a test for whether regular individual bipartisan funding bills can gain any traction despite the shutdown, now dragging into its third week.The bill, which passed out of committee with strong bipartisan support earlier this year, needed 60 votes to advance, but the final vote was 50 to 44. Several Democrats including Jeanne Shaheen voted to advance the bill.Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer objected to considering the bill without also voting on the annual labor, health and human services appropriations bill.“Right now, the only thing that is on the floor is just the defense bill. [John] Thune needs unanimous consent to add anything else to it. We don’t even know if he’ll get that,” Schumer told reporters earlier ahead of the vote.
It’s always been unacceptable to Democrats to do the defense bill without other bills that have so many things that are important to the American people, in terms of healthcare, in terms of housing, in terms of safety.
Senate majority leader John Thune expressed frustration that they couldn’t take that first step and said the optics were bad for the Democrats.
If they want to stop the defense bill, I don’t think it’s very good optics for them. Particularly since this is just getting on it, and they would have multiple opportunities after this to block it if they want to.
“I believe it is critical that the Senate and Congress return to a bipartisan appropriations approach and try to begin rebuilding trust,” Shaheen said in a statement after voting. “This vote would allow us to consider Senate appropriations bills which were passed out of committee with overwhelming bipartisan support.”The other Democratic senators who voted with Republicans were Catherine Cortez Masto and John Fetterman. Majority leader John Thune changed his vote to “no” so that procedurally he can bring the bill up for consideration again.Cortez Masto and Fetterman have previously voted for the GOP’s House-passed bill to reopen the government while Shaheen has been at the heart of talks with GOP colleagues about finding a way to end the shutdown.Vladimir Putin told Donald Trump in their phone call today that supplying US Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine would harm the peace process and damage US-Russia ties, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters.As I said earlier, this comes a day before Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s meeting with Trump at the White House tomorrow in which he is set to push for more US military support, including the crucial long-range offensive missiles.Ushakov said the planned new summit between the two presidents will be preceded by a phone call between US secretary of state Marco Rubio and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov in the coming days.The Putin-Trump call took place at Russia’s initiative, Ushakov added.In a post on Truth Social, Donald Trump has just said:
If Hamas continues to kill people in Gaza, which was not the Deal, we will have no choice but to go in and kill them.
It comes after Hamas fighters have been captured on video in recent days ramping up their presence and reasserting the group’s authority by executing members of rival groups on the streets of Gaza.This is Trump’s clearest indication on the matter yet, after giving mixed messages in recent days, initially saying the violence “didn’t bother me much” as Hamas was clearing up “gangs”. Yesterday he appeared to concede that it could be “gangs plus” when asked if there was a possibility that Hamas was killing innocent civilians.“They will disarm, and if they don’t do so, we will disarm them, and it’ll happen quickly and perhaps violently,” Trump also said yesterday, though, as with the statement today, he hasn’t specified how he would follow through on his threat.A reminder that Volodymyr Zelenskyy is heading to the White House tomorrow to push for more US military support, including potential long-range offensive missiles. He will no doubt be nervous by Trump’s positive tone following his call with Putin.Trump has said he could supply the long-range weapons to Ukraine if Putin fails to come to the negotiating table. In its latest barrage, Russia launched more than 300 drones and 37 missiles to target infrastructure across Ukraine in overnight attacks, Zelenskyy said. Kyiv has ramped up its own attacks on Russian targets, including an oil refinery in the Saratov region today.Russia has been hitting Ukraine’s energy and power facilities for consecutive winters as the war drags into its fourth year.In the latest warnings to Russia, Trump said yesterday that Indian PM Narendra Modi had pledged to stop buying oil from Russia, and that the administration would push China to do the same. India has not confirmed any such commitment, though Reuters reported some Indian refiners are preparing to cut Russian oil imports, with expectations of a gradual reduction.US defense secretary Pete Hegseth said yesterday that Washington would “impose costs on Russia for its continued aggression” unless the war ends. More - in US Politics
Trump moves to push employers on IVF coverage and lower fertility drug costs
The Trump administration announced Thursday that it is urging US employers to create new fertility benefit options to cover in vitro fertilization and other infertility treatments.In an announcement from the Oval Office, Donald Trump also said his administration had cut a deal with the drug manufacturer EMD Serono to lower the cost of one of its fertility drugs and list the drug on the government website TrumpRx.These moves, Trump said, would lead to “many more beautiful American children”.“In the Trump administration, we want to make it easier for all couple to have babies, raise children and have the families they’ve always dreamed about,” Trump said.Employers are encouraged to offer the fertility benefit option separately from their medical coverage, similar to how dental and vision coverage is usually offered to employees. The labor department, the treasury and the health department will on Thursday also release guidance on how employers can legally create the option.However, Republicans who spoke at Trump’s announcement framed the benefit as a “recommendation”, indicating that employers will not be required to offer the coverage nor receive government subsidies for doing so. They also stressed that the benefit will be structured to give employers immense flexibility to determine what will or will not be covered.Without new incentives to offer IVF coverage, it is unclear how many employers will ultimately support it.Trump, who has called himself the “fertilization president”, made support for infertility treatments a major part of his re-election campaign, especially after the nation erupted in outrage when the Alabama supreme court deemed embryos “extrauterine children”. Because IVF can lead to the creation of unused or discarded embryos, that decision temporarily forced many Alabama IVF providers to stop working.Yet in the months since taking office, the Trump administration has remained quiet on the issue. In February, he signed an executive order directing the administration’s domestic policy council to make recommendations to “aggressively” reduce the price tag of IVF, which often costs tens of thousands of dollars and is frequently not covered by insurance.A detailed report on the recommendations was supposed to be made public by May. No report ever emerged.While IVF is extremely popular among Americans, the GOP’s deep ties to the anti-abortion movement have made it something of a political landmine among elected Republicans. The movement has long opposed IVF, as advocates believe that embryos are people.White House officials have in recent months discussed the possibility of supporting restorative reproductive medicine (RRM), a constellation of therapies that purport to restore people’s “natural” fertility.Although RRM is popular among anti-abortion advocates and adherents of the “make America healthy again” movement, several major medical organizations say there is little quality evidence that RRM is more effective at helping people have babies than mainstream fertility medicine.Trump did not mention RRM in his Thursday address. When a reporter asked if he had any thoughts on anti-abortion activists’ opposition to IVF, Trump said: “I think this is very pro-life.”Pronatalist rhetoric, which holds that having children is important to a county’s wellbeing and that the state should incentivize people to procreate, dominated the press conference that followed Trump’s address. Robert F Kennedy, the health and human services secretary, highlighted the falling US birthrate, while Mehmet Oz, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, claimed that Kennedy and Trump are “great leaders” because they have big families.People who want more children but can’t have them, Oz added, are “under-babied”.“There’s gonna be a lot of Trump babies,” Oz said. “It turns out the fundamental creative force in society is about making babies.” More
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Former Trump adviser John Bolton indicted by justice department
A federal grand jury has indicted John Bolton, the former national security adviser in Donald Trump’s first term, on charges of mishandling and transmitting classified information.The indictment, filed in Maryland, appears to ultimately have been signed off on from career prosecutors in the US attorney’s office there despite initial reluctance to bring a case before the end of the year.The 18-count indictment against Bolton involves eight counts of unlawfully transmitting national defense information and 10 counts of retaining classified information under the Espionage Act, according to the 26-page indictment.The charges nonetheless come at a fraught moment for the justice department, which has been rocked by extraordinary pressure from Trump to expand a vendetta campaign to pursue criminal cases against his political enemies.In recent weeks, Lindsey Halligan, Trump’s handpicked US attorney in Virginia, obtained indictments against James Comey, the former FBI director, and the New York state attorney general, Letitia James, over the objections of career prosecutors.Bolton has been a thorn in Trump’s side for years since he departed the president’s first administration, criticizing him on cable news and assailing him for his own mishandling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club.Part of the criminal investigation into Bolton has focused on what resembled diary entries and private notes he made for himself on an AOL email account – and whether they contained classified information, according to people familiar with the matter.Bolton’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, has said the former national security adviser did nothing inappropriate with classified records. and documents with classified markings retrieved from his phone by the FBI were decades old.Bolton, a longtime federal government official with a top secret clearance who was UN ambassador before serving as Trump’s national security adviser from 2018 to 2019, is widely known as a diligent note-taker.After he left the administration in Trump’s first term, Bolton continued to work in Washington and the investigation has examined whether his assistants had access to those notes, the people said.Bolton’s AOL email account was also hacked by a foreign adversary, according to a redacted US intelligence assessment that was included in the search warrant affidavit from the search of Bolton’s house.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe potential for disclosures of classified information are relevant in Espionage Act cases, because the justice department looks at so-called “aggregating factors” when deciding whether to mount such a prosecution.Broadly, the department pursues cases that have a combination of four factors: willful mishandling of classified information, vast quantities of classified information to support an inference of misconduct, disloyalty to the US and obstruction. More
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US admiral to retire amid military strikes in Caribbean and tensions with Venezuela
Amid escalating tensions with Venezuela and US military strikes on suspected drug smugglers in the Caribbean, the US admiral who commands military forces in Latin America will step down at the end of this year, defense secretary Pete Hegseth announced on social media.The admiral, Alvin Holsey, just took over the US military’s southern command late last year for a position that normally lasts three years.A source told Reuters that there had been tension between him and Hegseth as well as questions about whether he would be fired in the days leading up to the announcement.The New York Times reports that an unnamed US official said that Holsey “had raised concerns about the mission and the attacks on the alleged drug boats”.Hegseth, in his social media post, did not disclose the reason for Holsey’s plan “to retire at year’s end”.The post noted that Holsey began his career “through the NROTC program at Morehouse College in 1988”. Morehouse is a private, historically Black college in Atlanta.In February, Donald Trump abruptly fired the air force general CQ Brown Jr as chair of the joint chiefs of staff, sidelining a history-making Black fighter pilot and respected officer as part of a campaign to purge the military of leaders who support diversity and equity in the ranks.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn 2021, Holsey recorded a public service announcement urging Black Americans to get the Covid-19 vaccine. More
