US Politics

From RFK Jr to Pete Hegseth, the president’s top aides have been disastrous. We shouldn’t be surprisedAs 2024 ended and Donald Trump’s cabinet picks were rolled out, commentators scrambled to decide which one was the worst. Was it Matt Gaetz for attorney general? Or Pete Hegseth, for secretary of defense? Or maybe Robert F Kennedy Jr to lead the Department of Health and Human Services?Soon after, the White House crowed that Trump had assembled “the greatest cabinet of all time”.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 Continue reading… More

María Corina Machado tells Fox News she would share her Nobel peace prize with US president after removal of Nicolás MaduroDeposed Maduro pleads not guilty after capture in shock US attack on VenezuelaUS foes and allies denounce Trump’s ‘crime of aggression’ in Venezuela at UN meetingMy colleague Sibylla Brodzinsky has reported on the relationship between the US and Colombia, home to significant oil reserves. Here is an extract from her story:Colombia has long been a close partner of the US in the fight against drug trafficking and enjoyed bipartisan support in Washington but relations have soured dramatically since Trump came to office.Colombia’s narcotics trade is largely controlled by illegal armed groups such as the Gulf Clan, the National Liberation Army (ELN) and dissident factions of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) guerrilla group, the majority of whose members demobilised after a 2016 peace deal … Continue reading… More

The more European countries act as colonies, unable and unwilling to stand up to Trump, the more they’ll be treated as suchThere is no two without a three, as we say in Italian. After their complicit silence on Israel’s war crimes in Gaza and their tacit acceptance of the US/Israel attack on Iran, Europeans now hesitate to condemn the US’s audacious military operation to bring about regime change in Venezuela. With few notable exceptions – such as Spain, the Netherlands and Norway – most European leaders have fudged their response. Spain, in fact, has acted without its EU partners, condemning the US attack alongside a group of Latin American countries. European governments seem unable to utter in the same breath that, although Nicolás Maduro was an illegitimate dictator, the US attack to topple him is a gross violation of international law.The French president, Emmanuel Macron, the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, and the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, at least made reference to international law, while emphasising that they shed no tears for the end of Maduro’s regime. Others, such as the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, strangely talked about looking into the legality of the US military action, as if there were any doubt about its nature. Worse still, Trump-friendly Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni defined this act of external military intervention as “legitimate” self-defence against narco-trafficking.Nathalie Tocci is a Guardian Europe columnist Continue reading… More

Speaker says Trump not looking to take control militarily as Democrats say briefing raises more questions than answersThe United States is “not at war” in Venezuela, the Republican speaker of the House Mike Johnson said on Monday, despite the weekend raid Donald Trump ordered to capture president Nicolás Maduro and announcement that the US would now “run” the country.The surprise incursion came after months of mounting US pressure on Venezuela, which has included a blockade of some oil shipments and airstrikes on vessels off its shores that have killed at least 110 people. Continue reading… More

Trump’s moves spark global wave of revulsion and fears that similar actions could happen in other countries – key US politics stories from Monday 5 January at a glanceThe deposed Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro pleaded not guilty to drugs, weapons and narco-terrorism charges on Monday, two days after his capture by US special forces in an operation ordered by Donald Trump that sent shockwaves around the world.As Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores addressed the court in lower Manhattan, the UN security council held an emergency meeting just a few miles to the north, where a dozen countries condemned the US “crime of aggression” and secretary general António Guterres suggested the operation constituted a breach of international law. Continue reading… More

It’s open to interpretationSee more of Fiona Katauskas’s cartoons here Continue reading… More

Board of directors vote to dissolve organization after nearly 60 years in operation after funding cuts under TrumpThe nonprofit charged by Congress with allocating funds to NPR, PBS and other US public radio and television stations announced is dissolving after massive federal funding cuts under Donald Trump.The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) announced on Monday that its board of directors had voted to dissolve the organization after nearly 60 years in operation. Continue reading… More

The Venezuelan leader entered a heartfelt not guilty plea – and told a member of the gallery he was a prisoner of warVenezuela crisis – latest updatesAt noon on Monday, Nicolás Maduro was escorted into a Manhattan federal courtroom following his capture early on Saturday in Caracas, completing the seized Venezuelan leader’s stunning journey from his capital city to a US courtroom.It was a surreal display amid the fallout of a brazen US military operation to grab Maduro that has roiled global politics and stunned observers in the US and overseas. Continue reading… More