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      What does the American dream mean in 2024? New York fashion week had thoughts

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      I’m writing this as New York fashion week comes to a close, and it’s been a whirlwind six days of shows and antics. Rihanna kept everyone waiting for almost an hour at Alaïa. Wu-Tang Clan popped up with a surprise performance onboard the Tommy Hilfiger ferry and Luar closed out the week with a front-row appearance by Madonna. As for the catwalks? There was one dominant theme that you couldn’t miss, from chinos to varsity jackets and knitted sweaters: preppy is well and truly back.This way of dressing originally took its inspiration from Ivy League sports clubs and campuses. It is a trend that is heavily rooted in class and identity and it comes at a time when these issues are at the forefront of American politics, with the 2024 presidential election less than two months away. Politics was also, naturally, a hot topic on and off the catwalks. Prabal Gurung took his post-show bow in a T-shirt emblazoned with “VOTE” on the front and “Harris/Walz” on the back. Anna Wintour and Jill Biden hit the streets of Manhattan alongside designers including Thom Browne, Michael Kors and Tory Burch as part of a non-partisan voting awareness march organised by the Council of Fashion Designers of America and Vogue. And fresh from her appearance at the DNC, Ella Emhoff, the 25-year-old stepdaughter of Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, was the model and front-row guest of choice for a string of designers including Burch and Coach.But the preppy trend provided the most food for thought. It feeds into a wider commentary from designers on the American dream and what that concept means and looks like in 2024. Immigration is a key part of the notion, and it also happens to be one of the crucial policies that both US parties are grappling with.Ralph Lauren, the son of Jewish immigrants who grew up in the Bronx and now has a reported net worth of £5.3bn, is often held up as the embodiment of the term. His picture-perfect spectacle on Thursday night in the Hamptons oozed an old-money lifestyle that is certainly one version of the dream. Speaking at a reception before the show, where waiters clad in white RL polo tops handed out champagne and miniature lobster rolls, the actor Laura Dern mused on Lauren’s version of preppy. “There is always deep iconography connected to America,” she said. “He loves American traditions and family has always been embedded in his stories. It’s always playful and hopeful. With everything going on, to feel hopeful is a nice feeling.”View image in fullscreenIf Lauren’s world is a version of the American dream as lived by the 1%, Willy Chavarria’s commentary was a little more democratic. Chavarria, who was born in California near the Mexican border, is the son of an Irish-American mother and Mexican-American father. The designer said he wanted to “celebrate immigration and those people who have built the country and are still the backbone of the country”. His show was held in a disused bank on Wall Street, and guests arrived to find a giant US flag hoisted above them and a copy of the American constitution on their seats. Chavarria said he added the accent to the show’s name, América, because this is how the word “is heard through the voice of an immigrant or the child of an immigrant”. The clothes riffed on uniforms – cargo pants and neat button-down shirts – and were said to be a celebration of the workforce. In a nod to farm workers, some wore bandanas wrapped around their faces. “The collection is a story of empowerment,” the designer said. And while Chavarria’s price point is out of reach for most blue-collar workers (trousers cost about £600), it did feel as if he was planting the seed for a new type of American style. “It’s really about the fact that all of us belong, all of us have purpose, and all of us have the ability to make change in this country, especially starting with the vote.”With an invitation that mirrored the American green card, Off-White’s Ib Kamara was also thinking about immigration. Kamara said he had decided to show in New York rather than the brand’s usual slot at Paris because he wanted to bring the brand, which was founded by the late American designer Virgil Abloh, “home”. Kamara explained that, growing up in Sierra Leone, “America was a dream”. “If you want luxury, you come to America. It’s a dream place. You feel hopeful when you come.”Stuart Vevers, the British designer and creative director of Coach, who sent Emhoff down the catwalk wearing an “I heart NY” T-shirt, also spoke about hope. “There’s a sense of optimism in the next generation,” Vevers said. “There’s a lot of hope. They’re going to change things.”To read the complete version of this newsletter – complete with this week’s trending topics in The Measure and your wardrobe dilemmas solved – subscribe to receive Fashion Statement in your inbox every Thursday. More

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      Swing state voters respond to the presidential debate: ‘Trump couldn’t even look at her!’

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      ‘Trump lost, and it wasn’t close’[Donald] Trump lost, and it wasn’t close. [Kamala] Harris was a strong performer, but I think I’m still concerned as far as her Israel-Gaza stance. I think she punted, to be frank. That was a missed opportunity for Trump. She was able to make appeals to Americans on both sides of the political spectrum, while he chose to be the same old, same old.I thought there would be a limit to the unwavering loyalty some have for Trump. I used to think he used his base to leverage control over the rich and Republicans in power. In truth, he’s the fool of the right. Loyalty to country and loyalty to party have never been the same thing in my eyes. I don’t vote a straight ticket.I voted Democrat in 2020, and was too young to vote in 2016. If I thought the entire Democratic party was willing to harm those that didn’t vote for them in any way, I would abandon them. I trust Harris more than what I’ve seen from Trump. – Tobi, 24, public school teacher, Michigan ‘Kamala just didn’t throw knockout punches’It was like watching an exhibition boxing bout where Kamala just didn’t throw knockout punches. She drew him in time and time again, but ultimately failed to land. The setups were relatively impressive, but she failed to follow up with compelling or sufficiently detailed policies or plans. Doing so would have further demonstrated just how superior a candidate she truly is. She was on her toes, and had a once effervescent showman looking like an old, flat-footed has-been.I will vote for Kamala because you cannot vote for the opposition. That said, if I was undecided, I’d be extremely concerned that a candidate who is already in office cannot articulate plans to remedy very real socioeconomic problems that many believe she is partly responsible for creating. If they debate again and Trump could land that message for more than just his closing remarks, I think we could see some flashes of what made him compelling to undecided or protest voters. – Sam Smith, works in tech, Lake Tahoe, Nevada‘It was a good watch, which was a relief after the last debate’View image in fullscreenIt was a good watch, which was a relief after the last debate which made me want to assume the fetal position until November. I thought Harris did well to bait Trump on his non-answers and get him off message – it’s no surprise Trump was mostly bluster and not a lot of substance.I do feel like she was at least able to give some substantive answers around her plan for improving the economy, her plan for making life easier for people like me, who are about to be first-time homeowners, about to have kids, middle-class people who are working. I just wish Harris went into more specifics about her intended approach to issues like immigration and Israel-Palestine, which would have made a great contrast to Trump’s vague and angry rhetoric.I voted for [Joe] Biden in the last election, and I intend on voting for Harris this election. I’ve been pretty solid in that camp even though I’m so frustrated with a two-party system. It astonishes me that a vote for a Black and Asian woman right now represents something closer to maintaining the status quo, while a vote for an older white man is something that feels really radical and dangerous. – Paul B, 32, content strategist, Pennsylvania‘Trump was strong but evaded questions’Trump was strong but evaded questions and his answers seemed to help him win an election more than governing. Harris seemed more truthful but did not differentiate herself more from Biden’s wins or failures.She said she is not Biden or Trump but then did not clearly elucidate how she can move Gaza and Ukraine wars to closure. I am an independent and first-time voter. I liked the economy under Trump but am now leaning towards Harris.
      – HS, works in consulting, North Carolina‘Harris showed she can see what America needs at this moment in time’I thought Harris definitely won the debate. She was clear, precise and showed she was capable and willing to serve the people of the United States. My mind was made up before but Harris showed she can see what America needs at this moment in time. My favorite moment was when she told Trump that Putin would eat him for lunch. That is no lie!As a Republican, I’m truly embarrassed by Trump. He’s not what Republicans are about – I’m conservative because I believe people need to earn what they get. There are people who need help, but if you’re capable you should work. The Republican party has changed and I’m not sure I want to change with them. – Ted Kemm, retired industrial engineer, Pennsylvania‘The handshake – a much-needed effort to return to civil politics’I thought it was intense. It drew a clear contrast between the two candidates. Putting aside policy and partisanship, one candidate was focused on attacking his opponent and the other candidate was talking to the American people, making a strong effort (whether you believe her or not) that she can be a president for all Americans. I think it beautifully juxtaposed the vitriolic rhetoric of how politics has become lately (on the right) with a return to civility, compassion and unity (on the left).My favorite moment was the handshake. Ignoring the “power dynamics” part of it, I thought it was a much-needed effort to return to older, civil politics where everyone can at the very least shake each other’s hands. I think the handshake we saw at the 9/11 memorial might not have happened if she had not shook his hand at the debate. It’s a powerful, unifying gesture that certainly needs to be normalized again.My one hope for this debate was that we would see how Harris handles the pressure of debating someone like Trump on a national stage. She overall showed strength and arrested my concerns. In 2016 I voted for Trump (first election), in 2020 I voted for Biden and in 2024 I will proudly vote for Harris. – Josh, 27, engineer, North Carolinaskip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion‘I was impressed by how well prepared Harris was’I thought this debate highlighted the contrast between the candidates. On one side, there was a man we all know, Trump, who used the same fearmongering rhetoric and blatant lies to admonish our country for his personal game. The line about immigrants eating pets is a perfect example of how he’s willing to embrace misinformation as long as it suits him. He blamed every issue in our country on migrants.My favorite moment was when Kamala pointed out that Trump never talks about “you”, which is true. He doesn’t talk about wanting things to be better for us, and only talks about making the country great in his image. I also loved how Kamala kept looking at him directly, then at the camera when she was addressing us. Trump couldn’t even look at her! She showed us how easy it is to upset him, and how easy it would be for world leaders to manipulate him with flattery or criticism.I was leaning towards Kamala prior to the debate, as I would never vote for Trump. I was impressed by her strength and how well prepared she was. It helped me feel more confident about voting for her. My first vote went for [John] McCain. In 2016, I was denied voting for Bernie Sanders in the primary due to my libertarian voter registration, and I voted for Gary Johnson in the election. I voted for Biden in 2020, and plan to vote for Harris-Walz this year. – Amber, 35, stay-at-home mom and student, Arizona‘I did not feel Harris did well in the debate’Contrary to what I read in all the media, I did not feel Harris did that well in the debate. She kept belittling Trump, whom I don’t particularly like, but I found it ironic that she did this and made calls for all of us to find unity and move on together. I did not find her believable, except on the topic of abortion, in which I think she presented her case convincingly, and also on healthcare. She seemed extremely reactive, which is not a quality I look for in a leader.Trump, on the other hand, did not stare at her during the exchanges and just said what was on his mind. After this debate, I’m not even sure if I will vote for her. I will definitely not vote for Trump. I have voted Democratic all my life, I have also worked on the Obama campaign. I’m 67 years old and I’m thinking this might be the first time that I will not vote, and that maybe I won’t vote again. Politicians in this country have become so divisive.
      – Alexander Stafford, retired teacher, Georgia‘Trump saying he has concepts of a plan for healthcare gave me a hearty chuckle’I think it was a near best-case scenario for the Harris campaign; while I wish there were a couple of areas where she would have fleshed out her policy points, and better explained some of the areas where her position has demonstrably changed, I think a key goal was to provide pushback on the falsehoods that were expressed in the first debate as well as to remind voters of who Trump really is and the chaos of his first term.My favorite moment was when Trump was pressed for his plans to improve healthcare in the US with his response being that after eight years he has “concepts of a plan” – that gave me a hearty chuckle. I voted for Biden in 2020 and was planning on voting for whoever the Democratic candidate was, but the debate made me much more confident in casting that vote specifically for Harris. – James, 31, works in healthcare, Wisconsin‘Harris signed, sealed and delivered’View image in fullscreenIt was tough to watch in the sense that there was always this sense of: Is it going to go awry? How is she going to be able to handle that man with his anger and his insults? I was proud of how she handled it.I am certainly voting for Vice-President Harris. She was poised, intelligent and most importantly human. She wasn’t a robot. She had little stumbles or misspoke at times; however she came across as genuine, and was prepared but not in a stilted way.I hope the debate managed to persuade undecided voters. I’m giving my fellow Americans a lot of credit here, but I’m hoping that they saw that not only is he a loose, dangerous cannon that shouldn’t be president, but that it also showed that Harris has got the seriousness, the maturity, the intelligence and experience to do this.Overall he sunk his boat and she really raised hers, although she was already doing wonderfully. But I think she signed, sealed and delivered it.– Suzanne Baker, 65, retired anthropology professor, Michigan More

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      Price-gouging is illegal in 37 US states. Let’s make it 50 | Bob Casey

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      Over the past few years, Erin Wiggle has approached every trip to the grocery store with a sense of dread. During each visit, the retired army veteran, small business owner and mother from Worcester Township, Pennsylvania, has seen her budget stretched thinner and thinner as prices keep ratcheting up for the goods her family relies on. Erin’s burden has grown heavier despite pandemic-related supply chain issues subsiding, and she has a growing sense that the companies making the products she needs are padding their profits at the expense of her family.Erin is right. Under the cover of inflation, companies have raised the prices of everyday household items to rake in record profits at the expense of American families. As my investigation into what I’ve called “greedflation” shows, from mid-2020 to mid-2022, corporate profits rose by 75% – five times as fast as inflation. In fact, corporate profits jumped so much that they played a major role in causing inflation – according to the Federal Reserve, corporate profits accounted for all the inflation from July 2020 through July 2021 and 41% of all inflation from July 2020 through July 2022.We should not let powerful corporations use a crisis to jack up prices way beyond what is necessary to make a profit. In fact, many states across the country have already steeled themselves to fight the most egregious examples of this shameful practice. Laws against price-gouging are on the books in 37 states and the District of Columbia, giving state attorneys general the power to investigate and prosecute companies that excessively raise prices during emergencies. In the US Senate, I’ve introduced legislation with my colleagues Elizabeth Warren and Tammy Baldwin to give the federal government power to do the same.In recent weeks, after Kamala Harris embraced our bill as a part of her economic agenda, the legislation has come under fire from various defenders of corporate greed. These critics appear to have missed the fact that the federal legislation is modeled on laws that are already in effect across the nation, where capitalism is still alive and well. In Texas, for example, where the attorney general has the power to take on companies that unfairly exploit state residents, the governor regularly touts the state as the best place to do business in the country.Similarly, the critics are ignoring the very real protections these laws have offered for consumers. In Pennsylvania, where a price-gouging ban was enacted in 2006, the office of the attorney general investigated hundreds of cases of businesses taking advantage of Covid-19 to price-gouge desperate consumers. The investigations ultimately led to fines and to restitution for many consumers who were taken advantage of in the early days of the pandemic, including hundreds of thousands from just one seller alone.Bans on price-gouging protect victims from companies that would take advantage of different crises to rip off scared consumers. In New York, the state was able to punish Walgreens for taking advantage of customers during the infant formula crisis when supply chain issues reduced the availability of baby formula across the country. In North Carolina, the attorney general won a series of cases against companies that gouged consumers following hurricanes. In both Kentucky and Idaho, companies were held accountable for artificially forcing up gas prices in the wake of pipeline closures.These laws don’t just prevent price-gouging on a case-by-case basis; they also send a message to companies about where and when to draw the line. In the 37 states with price-gouging bans, companies can still raise prices, and they can still bring in a healthy profit for their shareholders. It’s only when they seek to take advantage of a crisis to fleece consumers that they can expect the government to step in and stop them. Our bill would apply this standard to massive corporations that exploit consumers while specifically protecting small businesses under $100m in earnings that don’t have the same power to set prices.There are multiple factors that contribute to the high cost of living, but there is no question that corporate greed plays a role. While companies have a right to turn a profit – even a substantial one – American consumers deserve to pay fair prices. That means holding giant corporations accountable when they go too far to make a buck.Giving the federal government the power to investigate and prosecute large companies that price-gouge isn’t a campaign gimmick, nor is it the beginning of the end of capitalism in America. It’s simply a way of ensuring that when corporations are using a crisis as an excuse to jack up prices on consumers, we will not surrender – instead, we will fight back.

      Bob Casey is a US senator representing the state of Pennsylvania More

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      Why is our so-called democratic society suppressing freedom of speech? | Laura Flanders

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      Claud Cockburn, my grandfather, knew when it was time to leave Berlin.A young British journalist, he’d worked as a correspondent for The [London] Times in that city in the 1920s before transferring to New York and Washington DC. Returning to Germany in July 1932, he saw “storm Troopers slashing and smashing up and down the Kurfürstendamm”, and war propaganda: “huge exhibitions of ‘the Front’, soldier figures standing in a real-life size trench playing with a dummy machine gun”, he wrote.In a letter to my grandmother, Hope Hale, a US-based journalist just then pregnant with my mother, he described how fascism on the horizon felt: “It’s hard to imagine that this is something one is really seeing.”Until it wasn’t hard. As Cockburn wrote: “Hitler. He came to power. I was high on the Nazi blacklist. I fled to Vienna.”Cockburn’s story is retold in a forthcoming book by his son, journalist Patrick Cockburn, due out this fall from Verso. It’s a timely intervention, inviting us to consider how different what Claud called the “Devil’s Decade”, is from our own.The 1930s saw the press in fascist countries co-opted or suppressed. In Nazi Germany, Joseph Goebbels’ ministry of propaganda saw to it that only state-approved stories were told. Independent journalism was not just discouraged – it was dangerous. Writers were shot. Books were burned. To facilitate the Fuhrer’s dominance, the Third Reich subsidized the production of cheap radio receivers called Volksempfänger, which not only made money for friendly manufacturers but also channeled distraction and Nazi communication directly into people’s homes. In Italy, Mussolini’s regime did much the same, using media as a tool to consolidate power and propagate fascist ideology.Today, Elon Musk is no Joseph Goebbels. Still, as I write, the billionaire entrepreneur known for co-founding Tesla and SpaceX (his privately owned rocket-and-satellite company), and now owning X (formerly Twitter), has been accused of stoking bigotry and hate. Controlling content and its moderation (or lack of it), Musk is seeing to it that his powerful, free, social media platform pumps out pro-Maga propaganda, while joining with other tech billionaires to invest in the Trump-Vance campaign.That campaign has made calling journalists “enemies of the people” so central to its message that future generations will have to be reminded that Adolf Hitler did it first.Goebbels operated in a dictatorship where the media was entirely controlled by the state with the explicit goal of suppressing freedom of speech and promoting genocidal thinking. We operate within a supposedly democratic framework in which no minister of propaganda is forcing the newspaper of record to instruct its journalists covering Israel’s war on Gaza to restrict the use of the terms “genocide”, “ethnic cleansing”, “refugee camps” and “Palestine”. Some newspapers, like the New York Times, do it unforced.Homogenous, even in an age of media proliferation, the most influential media spent June in lock-step, disparaging one elderly candidate’s fitness for office after a stumbling performance in a debate. This August that same media devoted precious time to carefully “fact-checking” the drivel of the other elderly candidate after an entirely unhinged press conference. The same candidate has promised to suspend the constitution and be a dictator “on day one”.One is reminded of the headline over the New York Times report on Hitler becoming Chancellor: Hitler Puts Aside Aim to be Dictator. “There is no warrant for immediate alarm,” the editors wrote on 31 January 1933. “The more violent parts of his alleged program he has himself in recent months been softening down or abandoning.”Quitting the Times to found the Week, a newsletter that became famous for its scoops and takedowns of those in power, Claud’s work was not risk-free. His opposition to fascism and the complicity of western democracies in enabling its rise made him a target for enraged rulers and rightwingers in the UK and overseas. Too impecunious to sue, the Week was often threatened and finally banned, in January 1941.We like to think our media landscape today is shaped by subtler forms of control: media monopolies, mass-market pressure, extreme commercialism and digital surveillance. And then there’s Julian Assange. Assange, through Wikileaks, published classified documents that exposed US government killings in Afghanistan and Iraq. For that, Assange wasn’t shot, but he was locked up and charged under the Espionage Act, the first person to be so charged for an act of journalism since that act’s passage in 1917.This June, after five years in London’s grim Belmarsh prison, Assange agreed to plead guilty to one Espionage Act charge of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified US national defense documents. In exchange, Assange got his freedom, and so did that old word “treason”, dusted off for new, 21st-century use.Methods of information control evolve, but one phenomenon seems to remain: timidity. Living in Vienna, where loquacious diplomats, lawyers and refugees circulated stories and suspicions from all over Europe, Claud read the English daily papers and was struck “by the fact that what informed people were really saying – and equally importantly, the tone of voice they were saying it in – were scarcely reflected at all in the newspapers”.It is hard to imagine that one is really seeing what one is seeing until it isn’t.

      Laura Flanders is the host and executive producer of Laura Flanders & Friends, a nationally-syndicated TV and radio program. More

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      Trump and Harris head for swing states amid fallout from presidential debate – US politics live

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      Donald Trump’s campaign publicly claimed victory in the debate against Kamala Harris on Tuesday night, but at least some of his aides privately conceded it was unlikely that he persuaded any undecided voters to break for him, according to people familiar with the matter.“Will tonight benefit us? No, it will not,” one Trump aide said.The sentiment summed up the predicament for the Trump campaign that with 55 days until the election, Trump is still casting around for a moment that could allow his attack lines against Harris to break through and overwrite her gains in key battleground state polls.And it was an acknowledgment that despite their hopes of getting Happy Trump on stage, they got Angry Trump, who seemingly could not shake his fury at being taunted over his supporters leaving his rallies early and being repeatedly fact-checked by the moderators.Read the full story here.Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are focusing on swing states today. Harris is scheduled to hold rallies in North Carolina – in Charlotte and Greensboro, the Associated Press reported. Trump is heading west to Tucson, Arizona. Yesterday, the candidates marked the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.At a fire station in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, close to where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed, Trump posed for photos with children who wore campaign shirts. Joe Biden and Harris visited the same fire station earlier in the day.Hello and welcome back to our rolling US political coverage.An estimated 67.1 million people watched the presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, a 31% increase from the June debate between Trump and President Joe Biden that eventually led to the president dropping out of the 2024 race.The debate was run by ABC News but shown on 17 different networks, the Nielsen company said. The Trump-Biden debate in June was seen by 51.3 million people.Tuesday’s count was short of the record viewership for a presidential debate, when 84 million people saw Trump’s and Hillary Clinton’s first face-off in 2016. The first debate between Biden and Trump in 2020 reached 73.1 million people.There was a marked increase in younger and middle-aged viewers, with 53% more adults aged 18-49 tuning in to see Harris debate Trump than watched Biden do the same, according to Nielsen data.Read the full story here. More

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      ‘Do you have contempt for my views?’ How a leftwing film-maker and a Republican came together

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      “Donald Trump is a weak man pretending to be strong. He is a small man pretending to be big. He’s a faithless man pretending to be righteous. He’s a perpetrator who can’t stop playing the victim. He puts on quite a show but there is no real strength there.”It was no surprise to hear such rhetoric cheered to the rafters at the recent Democratic national convention in Chicago. But the words were not spoken by a Democrat. They came from the mouth of a stranger in a strange land: the former Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger.It was the latest example of how the Trump era has created strange bedfellows. The former first lady Michelle Obama hugging ex-president George W Bush. Liberal audiences in Washington DC standing to applaud the arch conservative Liz Cheney. Even Trump’s vice-president, Mike Pence, has earned grudging praise for defying his boss when it mattered most.But there are few odder couples than Kinzinger and Steve Pink, a leftwing Hollywood film director who aligns himself with the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic party. They came together to make The Last Republican, a debut documentary by Pink that follows Kinzinger’s year of living dangerously as a Never Trumper on Capitol Hill. It premiered at the Toronto film festival last week.The film opens with Kinzinger expressing his and his wife’s doubts about the project and telling Pink: “I recognise that you have contempt for what I believe, like, in terms of my political viewpoints. I think in any other situation you probably would be protesting my office. You’re just so far left.”Pink objects that is kind of mean. Kinzinger asks: “Do you have contempt for my views, Steve?”We do not hear Pink’s reply. But in a Zoom interview from Los Angeles, the 58-year-old elaborates: “When it comes to strictly politics, I wouldn’t say I hold them in contempt although, when I’m feeling belligerent, I do hold them in contempt because I have very deeply opposing views.“It was kind of extraordinary he took a risk with me as a film-maker because he says in the film I could make him look stupid and I could just do a hit piece. I was surprised by that and I was like, OK, I realise that, but who we are to each other despite our opposing political views is maybe more important than our political views themselves.”So why did Kinzinger agree to the project? The answer is as simple as it is unexpected. His favourite film, the 2010 sci-fi comedy Hot Tub Time Machine, was directed by Pink. They also both hail from Illinois.Pink adds: “I’m like, if you think I have contempt for your views, why did you choose me as a film-maker? He’s like, Hot Tub Time Machine is what sold me, and I was like, well, that’s good logic. I don’t know if I would have done that if I were you but we had common ground. Having a shared sense of humour is a great foundation to have more difficult conversations down the road, for sure.”Kinzinger grew up with cultural touchstones such as Ronald Reagan, Rocky and Red Dawn. The former air force pilot, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, was first elected to Congress in 2010. At first he was a loyal Republican; later Kevin McCarthy, destined to be speaker of the House of Representatives, offered to officiate Kinzinger’s wedding.View image in fullscreenBut Kinzinger broke from McCarthy, and the party, after the 6 January 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol and was among 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump. He and Cheney were then the only two Republicans who joined the House committee to investigate the January 6 attack.Both paid a price for refusing to submit to the cult of Trump and Maga (Make America great again). Kinzinger lost friends, was turned into a pariah by his own party and targeted by extremists and trolls with death threats. He did not seek re-election and formed a political organisation, Country First, to back anti-Trump candidates.Pink, whose documentary follows Kinzinger during his final year in office, comments: “That was my initial reason for wanting to make the film: here’s a guy whose political views I oppose who stood up against his party and Donald Trump in the wake of January 6 to take a principled stand in defence of our democracy in the defence of our constitution.“I thought that was a very brave thing to do. He sacrificed a lot. He had a pregnant wife at the time. He himself will tell you that he was shocked that he lost all of his friends and his family and the fact that he got thrown out of his own political party.”He adds: “He felt like part of your job description as a legislator, as a congressperson in our country is to uphold and defend the constitution. That’s the oath you take and so when he saw everyone around him being absolutely comfortable with violating that oath, it was absolutely shocking to him and kind of devastating and he was very isolated very quickly.”Perhaps the truly shocking thing is not that Kinzinger and a handful of others have dared to make a stand, but that so many members of the party of Abraham Lincoln, Dwight Eisenhower and Reagan have sold their political souls and capitulated? When the chronicles of the Trump era are written there will be a special place in infamy for enablers such as Pence, McCarthy, Kellyanne Conway, Rudy Giuliani, Elise Stefanik, Sean Spicer and many others.Pink observes: “It is more shocking and it’s more infuriating and Adam talks about that as well. He’s actually more furious with the people who remain silent and have just gone along with this thing. He finds that deeply shocking and deeply troubling. There’s no question about it.”The film-maker himself was taken aback by the high stakes when Kinzinger sat with his congressional staff mapping out his final 14 months in office. He could have pursued all kinds of legislation but said instead his priority was the preservation of democracy – and that the history books would look kindly on that.“I found that to be a very shocking thing to say. Wait, so your legislative agenda is democracy preservation? I didn’t think that was on the table. I thought it was about safer streets, less government regulation, something legislative? But his focus was going to be democracy preservation. That was a terrifying moment for me that it was even a question in a staff meeting.”Pink gained access to the January 6 committee hearings on Capitol Hill and chronicles how they faced much scepticism at first. The headline of a David Brooks column in the New York Times declared: “The Jan 6 Committee Has Already Blown It,” before the first gavel had been wielded. In fact the sessions made riveting theatre for those in the room and compelling television for those at home.Kinzinger offers an inside track on how it all came together, what he thought of his colleagues on the panel and how a text message from his wife informed his public remarks, bringing him close to tears. Pink says: “It was quite a moment for Adam and all the committee members to have worked as hard as they did and to be able to successfully get the message out, which clearly helped speed up the justice department’s investigation into the matter.”But there was backlash. The Last Republican plays some of the chilling and ugly voicemails that Kinzinger received because of the stand he made. One says: “You little cocksucker. Are you Liz Cheney’s fag-hag? You two cock-sucking little bitches. We’re gonna get ya. Coming to your house, son. Ha ha ha ha!” Others describe Kinzinger as “a piece of shit” and a “traitor”.A company provides 24-hour security at Kinzinger’s family home. He explains to Pink with a rueful laugh: “People wanna kill me so, you know, it sucks, right?It is a stark reminder of the incentive structure that Trump has built inside the Republican party: kiss the ring and you will be rewarded with endorsements and Maga stardom; cross him and you will be ostracised, challenged in a party primary and subjected to vile abuse and death threats.View image in fullscreenPink says: “At first when I talked to him about it, it hadn’t left the confines of the congressional office. When the death threats were coming in, weirdly they became commonplace. They had an increased Capitol police and even FBI interest in what was happening. Obviously, there’s a lot of protection around you in that context.“Whereas when the death threats started expanding to his family, to his wife, at his home, it was very stressful and it took a toll on him. There was almost a level of disbelief that there was so much hatred and that people took the time to actually express their hatred. It was shocking to him and it was very hard on Sofia and Adam for sure.”During the film Kinzinger also talks movingly about an incident in his past that seems unrelated but actually explains much about his political decision-making. One night in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 2006 he encountered a young woman holding her throat, which was bleeding profusely, and her boyfriend intent on killing her with a knife.Kinzinger recalls: “If somebody would have whispered ‘run’ to me I would have run. But there are two immediate thoughts that went through my head. The first one was like, if I act, I’m gonna die. The second one was, if I watch this lady die and I did nothing, I can’t live with myself the rest of my life.”The assailant was bigger and Kinzinger can still remember feeling the knife hand trying to stab him. But he wrestled the man to the ground and held him there until police arrived. The 46-year-old says that moment in Milwaukee utterly changed his life.Pink comments: “Here again was an example where he stepped into a situation without thinking of the consequences, purely on the basis that he thought it was the right thing to do. I was interested in the kind of person who actually does that. To me the film became less a story about a guy who sacrifices for his country and more about what he wouldn’t sacrifice.“Despite the apparent danger, he didn’t want to give up his willingness to serve and lose that desire to do that and fall prey to cynicism. It’s one thing to say that you’re courageous to sacrifice. It’s a different kind of courage to say what I don’t want to lose are these things that are important to me. Despite everything against me, I don’t want to lose these things that I believe in because those are the things that keep me going.”The anti-Trump coalition has been described as the biggest political force in America today. It has scrambled old alliances and thrown together progressives, independents and groups such as the Lincoln Project, conceived largely by old-school Bush and McCain Republicans – often middle-aged white men – who now find themselves rooting for a liberal woman of colour from California to win the presidency.Pink is still ready for an argument about policy but acknowledges that, for now, there is a higher priority. “I remain deeply conflicted in terms of my political views but we are in a crisis moment in our country and there’s no way to avoid the fact that the more important value right now is the thing that we agree on: that everyone should have a vote and that vote should count and we need to ensure, in order to preserve our democracy, a peaceful transfer of power. Those two things are fundamental.”He says of Republicans: “It’s not whether they’re heroes. I even say to him in the movie a courageous Republican is still a Republican. You don’t have to be a Republican to believe in the peaceful transfer of power and believe that everyone’s vote should count.“It is shocking that one of our two major political parties don’t hold those as essential values. It’s terrifying and we’re going to need to do the work to lessen the influence and power of people who don’t believe in those two fundamental values.”Kinzinger received a warm reception on the final night of the Democratic convention, not long before Kamala Harris took the stage to accept the party nomination. Her speech, and a subsequent CNN interview, indicate that she is tilting towards the centre on climate, healthcare and immigration. But when the alternative is Trump, even an old lefty like Pink believes the choice is clear.“Because I’m a political junkie, you see how politicians move to different spaces as part of a campaign and then their political philosophy is revealed when they are in power. I don’t take that much stock in if someone says to me, oh, Kamala’s position on X or Y is this, it should be that.“Do we believe in her political philosophy broadly speaking? I do. She would make a great leader of our country. The kind of president she will be remains to be seen and I look forward to seeing the kind of president she will be. I’m not troubled by any particular political position she holds in this time when she’s campaigning for president.”Harris would be the first woman and first woman of colour to serve as president, dealing perhaps the final symbolic blow to Maga: the result would show that it was Trump, not Barack Obama, who was the historic aberration.Pink describes himself as “bullish” about her chances. “The hypocrisy and narcissism and bullying and madness of Donald Trump have been exposed over and over and over and over and over again and yet he’s somehow managed to survive, being a formidable person in American politics. One of these days he’s not going to be and I hope that moment is upon us.”

      The Last Republican is screening at the Toronto film festival and will be released at a later date More

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      Donald Trump a de facto Russian asset, FBI official he fired suggests

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      Donald Trump can be seen as a Russian asset, though not in the traditional sense of an active agent or a recruited resource, an ex-FBI deputy director who worked under the former US president said.Asked on a podcast if he thought it possible Trump was a Russian asset, Andrew McCabe, who Trump fired as FBI deputy director in 2018, said: “I do, I do.”He added: “I don’t know that I would characterize it as [an] active, recruited, knowing asset in the way that people in the intelligence community think of that term. But I do think that Donald Trump has given us many reasons to question his approach to the Russia problem in the United States, and I think his approach to interacting with Vladimir Putin, be it phone calls, face-to-face meetings, the things that he has said in public about Putin, all raise significant questions.”McCabe was speaking to the One Decision podcast, co-hosted by Sir Richard Dearlove, a former head of MI6, the British intelligence service.The conversation, in which McCabe also questioned Trump’s attitude to supporting Ukraine and Nato in the face of Russian aggression, was recorded before the debate in Philadelphia on Tuesday, in which Trump made more controversial comments.Claiming Russia would not have invaded Ukraine had he been president, Trump would not say a Ukrainian victory was in US interests.“I think it’s in the US’s best interest to get this war finished and just get it done,” he said. “Negotiate a deal.”Claiming to have good relationships with Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the Ukrainian president, Trump falsely said his opponent, Kamala Harris, failed to avert war through personal talks.The vice-president countered that she had helped “preserve the ability of Zelenskiy and the Ukrainians to fight for their independence. Otherwise, Putin would be sitting in Kyiv with his eyes on the rest of Europe, starting with Poland.”In one of the most memorable lines of the night, Harris added: “And why don’t you tell the 800,000 Polish Americans right here in Pennsylvania how quickly you would give up for the sake of favor and what you think is a friendship with what is known to be a dictator who would eat you for lunch.”The candidates were not asked about recent indictments in which the Department of Justice said pro-Trump influencers were paid to advance pro-Russia talking points.McCabe was part of FBI leadership, briefly as acting director, during investigations of Russian interference in the 2016 election and links between Trump and Moscow. Trump fired McCabe in March 2018, two days before he was due to retire. McCabe was then the subject of a criminal investigation, for allegedly lying about a media leak. The investigation was dropped in 2020. In October 2021, McCabe settled a lawsuit against the justice department. Having written The Threat, a bestselling memoir, he is now an academic and commentator.Speaking to One Decision, McCabe said: “You have to have some very serious questions about, why is it that Donald Trump … has this fawning sort of admiration for Vladimir Putin in a way that no other American president, Republican or Democrat, ever has.“It may just be from a fundamental misunderstanding of this problem set that’s always a problem. That’s always a possibility. And I guess the other end of that spectrum would be that there is some kind of relationship or a desire for a relationship of some sort, be it economic or business oriented, what have you.“I think those are possibilities. None of them have been proven. But as an intelligence officer, those are the things that you think about.”Saying he had “very serious concerns” about the prospect of a second Trump term, McCabe said he would always be concerned about Russia’s ability to interfere in US affairs.He said: “Their desire to kind of wreak havoc or mischief in our political system is something that’s been going on for years, decades and decades and decades.“Their interest in just simply sowing chaos and division and polarization. If they can do that, it’s a win. If they can actually hurt a candidate they don’t like, or help one that they do like, that’s an even bigger win.” More

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      Harris-Trump debate watched by 67m people, beating pivotal Biden showdown

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      An estimated 67.1 million people watched the presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, a 31% increase from the June debate between Trump and President Joe Biden that eventually led to the president dropping out of the 2024 race.The debate was run by ABC News but shown on 17 different networks, the Nielsen company said. The Trump-Biden debate in June was seen by 51.3 million people.Tuesday’s count was short of the record viewership for a presidential debate, when 84 million people saw Trump’s and Hillary Clinton’s first face-off in 2016. The first debate between Biden and Trump in 2020 reached 73.1 million people.There was a marked increase in younger and middle-aged viewers, with 53% more adults aged 18-49 tuning in to see Harris debate Trump than watched Biden do the same, according to Nielsen data.Of the viewers who watched on cable networks, the highest number of viewers were on Fox News, with 9.1 million people tuning in on the channel known for its positive coverage of Trump.Harris was widely seen to have won the debate. A CNN flash poll of debate watchers showed 63% to 37% that Harris had performed better. Prior to the debate, those voters were split 50-50 on who would win. Of the Harris-supporting viewers polled by CNN, 96% said she had done a better job, while 69% of Trump supporting viewers said so.Trump’s campaign publicly claimed victory, but some of his aides privately conceded it was unlikely that he persuaded any undecided voters to break for him, people familiar with the matter told the Guardian.The viewership puts the debate roughly between the Seinfeld (76.3 million) and Friends (52.5 million) series finales.Minutes after it ended, Taylor swift endorsed the Harris-Walz ticket to her 283 million Instagram followers in a post that included a link to the government voter registration website Vote.gov. The site saw almost 338,000 new visitors in the hours that followed, a General Services Administration spokesperson told MSNBC.Swift’s endorsement is likely to be most influential among Americans under 35, since about 30% of that group say they are more likely to vote for someone Swift supports, according to polling conducted for Newsweek. The polling found that 18% of voters say they are “more likely” or “significantly more likely” to vote for a Swift-backed candidate, while 17% say they are less likely.No other debates are currently scheduled between the two presidential candidates, although the Harris campaign have asked for one, and the Fox News Channel has publicly offered alternatives. CBS will host a vice-presidential debate between Tim Walz and JD Vance on 1 October.Tuesday’s debate stakes were high to begin with, not only because of the impending election itself but because the last presidential debate set off a series of events that resulted in Biden’s withdrawal from the race.While CNN chose not to correct any misstatements by the candidates during Trump’s debate with Biden in June, ABC instead challenged statements that Trump made about abortion, immigration, the 2020 election and violent crime. More