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      What’s in a pantsuit? Kamala Harris’ and Donald Trump’s fashion choices say a lot about their personalities − and vision for the future

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      Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and Republican contender Donald Trump could not be more different – and this split between them extends far beyond politics and into their fashion choices.

      While Harris tends to wear form-fitting pantsuits and feminine tops, Trump opts for ill-fitting, boxy, navy suits and long red ties.

      All American politicians often wear American flag pins on their lapels, as well as red, white and blue clothing. But my research shows how fashion plays an important, symbolic role in politics that goes far beyond patriotism. A person’s appearance reflects their identity and how they want others to perceive them.

      It makes sense that political campaigns often work with professional stylists to dress and style their top candidates, as a way to define and reflect politicians’ different personalities, identities and policy positions.

      Kamala Harris arrives to speak at the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 22, 2024, wearing a dark blue pantsuit.
      Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

      Harris’ professional, feminine look

      Harris typically wears an updated version of Hillary Clinton’s famous power pantsuits.

      While Clinton’s pantsuits during the 2016 presidential campaign had rigid silhouettes that did not show the shape of her body, Harris’ pantsuits are more relaxed and less formal.

      As a senator, Harris, alongside other Democratic female politicians, wore a white pantsuit to commemorate and celebrate the suffragettes.

      Harris now typically wears dark, bold hues, almost monochromatic ensembles, with either dark high heels or sneakers.

      At the Democratic National Convention in August 2024, Harris accepted the presidential nomination wearing a perhaps unsurprising navy blue pantsuit with the standard politician’s American flag pin on the lapel. She topped off the look with medium-heel dress shoes and a dark blue pussycat bow blouse, sometimes also called a lavallière. The pussycat bow blouse, which was popularized in the 1970s among professional women, is a feminine version of a traditional tie.

      This type of tie has a soft, floppy bow at the neck that can be tied in numerous ways.

      Harris’ decision to regularly wear pussycat bow blouses shows that she has a feminine flair, and it’s also a nod to past feminist icons who wore that type of bow.

      When Harris wears sneakers – which are often Chuck Taylors – with a pantsuit, it reminds me of how the actress Helen Hunt’s character wore practical commuter sneakers with business clothing in the 1990s and 2000s “Mad About You” TV series.

      The unlikely combination of a pantsuit with sneakers shows that Harris is a busy, professional woman – who is also youthful, energetic and relatable to other women.

      Walz’s American dad style

      Tim Walz speaks at a campaign rally in Volant, Pa., on Oct. 15, 2024, wearing one of his signature flannel shirts.
      Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

      Harris’ running mate, Tim Walz, has also received public attention for his clothing choices.

      At the Democratic National Convention in August, former President Barack Obama remarked about Walz regularly wearing plaid, flannel shirts. “You can tell those flannel shirts he wears don’t come from some political consultant. They come from his closet, and they have been through some stuff,” Obama said.

      Walz’s typical outfits, including plaid shirts, jeans and a well-worn suit with the shirt collar unbuttoned and no tie, signals that he is authentic and relatable to the average American.

      This unofficial uniform also helps cement the public perception of Walz as an archetypal American coach and dad.

      The Harris-Walz campaign has capitalized on Walz’s image by selling merchandise that seems like something out of his closet.

      The campaign’s camouflage hat, which spells out “HARRIS WALZ” in a bold, orange font, has become an extremely popular item – selling out and resulting in the manufacturer scrambling to find materials and sewing machines to make more hats.

      Donald Trump and JD Vance attend a 9/11 remembrance ceremony at the World Trade Center at Ground Zero in New York City on Sept. 11, 2024.
      Adam Gray/AFP via Getty Images

      Vance’s and Trump’s aesthetics

      Republican politicians also show who they are, or who they want to be, through their fashion choices. Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance, for example, has noticeably changed his appearance from when he first became involved in politics a few years ago to when he became a senator in 2023.

      In 2017, Vance often wore jeans, a button-down, open-collar shirt and an unbuttoned blazer during his book tour. When he was elected as a senator in 2023, he began wearing suits and ties.

      More recently, Vance began dressing in the unofficial Make America Great Again uniform, consisting of a tailored dark blue suit, red tie and white shirt with dark shoes. With this outfit choice, Vance is wrapping himself in red, white and blue, referencing the American flag and signaling his patriotism.

      Trump wears a nearly identical political uniform that has become instantly recognizable and closely associated with conservative politicians.

      When Trump selected Vance as his running mate in July 2024, Vance also dyed his gray hair to brown to possibly appear more youthful. Perhaps it became more important for Vance to appear younger after 81-year-old President Joe Biden stepped down from the Democratic ticket and 60-year-old Harris became the presidential candidate.

      Beyond the campaign, in February 2024, Trump released 1,000 pairs of limited edition high-top sneakers called “Never Surrender.” These shoes, which quickly sold out, were covered in gaudy, gold lamé and had an American flag printed around the collar of the sneakers.

      I recently found several examples of pairs of Trump sneakers for sale on eBay and other online shops for thousands of dollars.

      People at a Trump rally in Las Vegas hold a pair of his gold sneakers on Sept. 13, 2024.
      Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images

      Fashion on both sides

      Harris’ monochromatic blouses and pantsuit with sneakers combination, alongside Walz’s Midwestern dad outfits, will likely help the campaign’s effort for its candidates to appear as relatable to many working class voters and women.

      Likewise, Trump’s classic MAGA red hat and tie, in addition to Vance’s similar uniform of navy blue suit, white button-down shirt and red tie, evoke their focus on masculine conservatism.

      The candidates’ styles don’t tell voters any details about campaign promises or political policies, but they do give an idea of who the candidates think they are. More

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      The Guardian view on the US presidential election 2024: a Democratic government is the one we need

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      The mood may be one of despair. But this election is critical to the country’s future? The best hope lies with Kamala. Only her government can shape the future we want to see
      It is hard to imagine a worse candidate for the American presidency in 2024 than Donald J Trump. His history of dishonesty, hypocrisy and greed makes him wholly unfit for the office. A second Trump term would erode the rule of law, diminish America’s global standing and deepen racial and cultural divides. Even if he loses, Mr Trump has shown that he will undermine the election process, with allies spreading unfounded conspiracy theories to delegitimise the results.There are prominent Republicans – such as the former vice-president Dick Cheney – who refused to support Mr Trump owing to the threat he poses. Gen Mark Milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff under Mr Trump, calls his former boss a “fascist”. America was founded in opposition to absolute monarchy. The Republican nominee models himself after the leader he most admires: Russia’s autocratic president, Vladimir Putin.Mr Trump’s authoritarianism may finish US democracy. He has praised and promised to pardon those convicted in the January 6 insurrection. He has suggested bypassing legal norms to use potentially violent methods of repression, blurring the lines between vigilantism, law enforcement and military action, against groups – be they Democrats or undocumented immigrants – he views as enemies.His team has tried to distance itself from the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 and its extreme proposals – such as mass firings of civil servants and erasing women’s rights – that poll poorly. But it is likely that, in office, Mr Trump would adopt many of these intolerant, patriarchal and discriminatory plans. He aims to dismantle the government to enrich himself and evade the law. If Republicans gain control of the Senate, House and White House, he would interpret it as a mandate to silence his critics and entrench his power.Mr Trump is a transactional and corrupting politician. His supporters see this as an advantage. Christian nationalists want an authoritarian regime to enforce religious edicts on Americans. Elon Musk wants to shape the future without regulatory oversight. Both put self-interest ahead of the American people. Democracy erodes slowly at first, then all at once. In office, Mr Trump appointed three supreme court justices, who this summer blocked efforts to hold him accountable for trying to overturn the 2020 election: their immunity ruling renders the president “a king above the law”, in the words of the liberal justice Sonia Sotomayor.A historic presidentSince Kamala Harris stepped into the spotlight following Joe Biden’s exit, her campaign has been a masterclass in political jujitsu, deftly flipping Mr Trump’s perceived strengths into glaring weaknesses. With a focus on joy, the vice-president sharply contrasted with Mr Trump’s grim narrative of US decline. In their sole televised debate, Ms Harris skillfully outmaneuvered Mr Trump, who fell into her traps, appearing angry and incoherent. She is confident and composed. He sounds unhinged.The Trump agenda threatens to dismantle voting rights, women’s rights and minority rights – not just reversing decades of social progress but burying it. Mr Trump was behind the shredding of reproductive rights. The conservative forces rallying to him are now intent on imposing a national abortion ban, with – should he win – dire implications for IVF and birth control. Republicans have been hurt in the polls by being associated with such unpopular policies – a weak spot that Ms Harris should keep exploiting.The vice-president has energised Democrats with savvy media appearances while appealing to swing voters. Progressives, determined to defeat Mr Trump, remain committed to freedom and equality. But Ms Harris has disappointed those who have urged her to take a stand on US complicity in Israel’s bombing of civilians in Gaza and Lebanon. Downplaying war crimes, as arms flow to Israel, has already harmed Democratic chances in key swing states like Michigan.In a political system where style often rivals substance, perception is crucial. While Ms Harris hasn’t made her race and gender central to her campaign, her victory would be historic: she would be the first woman, and the first woman of color, to be president. Symbolism matters to her base. Her candidacy rallied key constituencies – the young, women, African Americans and Hispanics – who were cooling on Mr Biden. This election is a leap of faith in Ms Harris, who offers a sense of possibility for the future, while Mr Trump clings to a reactionary past.Protecting democracyDespite his criminal conviction and being declared a rapist by a judge, Mr Trump remains dangerously close to reclaiming the presidency. Many voters still back a man who was the worst US president ever. But probably not a majority of US voters. Republicans benefit from a skewed electoral system: Democrats have won the popular vote in all but one election since 1992, and secured the overall popular majority for the Senate in every six-year cycle since 1996. Yet the country has often been led by Republican presidents and a GOP-controlled Senate, and therefore a Republican-dominated supreme court. In a close race in November, that could mean Mr Trump doesn’t need to win the election – just a court case.Mr Biden has been a transformational political figure, but he didn’t transform the country. He aimed to tackle inequality, broken public services and the climate crisis with a $4tn plan funded by taxing the rich. His goal was to restore his party’s political credibility by marrying social liberalism with economic justice. But corporate influence and the Democrats’ slim Senate majority shrank his ambitions. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shifted his focus to national security, as America experienced rising prices. However, Mr Biden made historic investments to green the economy and refocused industrial policy to take on China. Ms Harris’s plans aim to recapture the spirit of Mr Biden’s insurgency.The US economy is stronger than it has been in decades, yet Mr Trump consistently outpolls Ms Harris on economic issues. This perhaps reflects decades of neoliberalism. Real wages for blue-collar workers have stagnated since the 1970s, while inflation-adjusted house prices have doubled. Polls show 70% of Americans feel significant political and economic reform is needed, putting Democrats at a disadvantage as they are linked to the status quo.Political hope fades when we settle for what is, instead of fighting for what could be. Ms Harris embodies the conviction that it’s better to believe in democracy’s potential than to surrender to its imperfections. The Republican agenda is clear: voter suppression, book bans and tax cuts for billionaires. Democrats seek global engagement; the GOP favours isolation. The Biden-Harris administration laid the groundwork for a net zero America. A Trumpian comeback would undo it. A Harris win, with a Democratic Congress, means a chance to restore good governance, create good jobs and lead the entire planet’s climate efforts. Defeating Mr Trump protects democracy from oligarchy and dictatorship. There is too much at stake not to back Ms Harris for president. More

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      Trump’s proposal for mass deportation of immigrants is a moral abomination | Moira Donegan

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      If you didn’t know any better, you might think, from recent media coverage, that the problem with Donald Trump’s proposal to round up and expel as many as 20 million immigrants is that it’s not likely to work.The Republican presidential nominee has made the mass deportation pledge central to his case for a second term. On the campaign trail, he diverts every question, no matter what the issue, back to the supposed danger and malignancy of immigrants and the urgency of getting rid of them. The economy? It will be better when there are fewer immigrants competing for jobs, he says. Housing prices? They’ll come down when millions of people are kicked out of the country, he claims. Crime will come down when the immigrants are gone, he says, because murder is “in their genes”.The vision he is offering is profoundly racist: Trump’s proposal, which is not limited to undocumented immigrants, is based on the assumption that nonwhite people are the cause of all of the US’s problems, and that everything that is wrong will be made right as soon as they’re gone. His proposed solution to everything – from crime to housing costs to inflation – is to deploy the armed forces to literally round up our friends, family members and neighbors by the millions, in a vast program of ethnic cleansing.It is a terrifying, horrifically immoral, and contemptibly bigoted proposal; racist, indifferent to humanity, and hostile to the principles of pluralism and equality. If it was enacted, it would be among the worst human rights catastrophes of all time. It would destroy families and lives, tear communities apart, inculcate ethnic hatred and distrust. To be accomplished, it would also practically require tremendous amounts of violence and force. Some of those marked for forced removal would hide, and some of their friends would turn them in. Worksites and immigrant neighborhoods would be raided, as cops flooded in and innocent people scattered. Mothers and fathers would be ripped from the arms of their screaming children. There is no other way to accomplish what Trump wants to accomplish: what he is proposing would require atrocity.For him, this may in fact be the point. At the Republican national convention last summer, the crowd in Milwaukee smiled as they held signs aloft reading “MASS DEPORTATION NOW”. Trump’s appeal has always been this vision of a future that, through violence, can be made to look more like what these people imagine of the United States’ past – namely, one with many fewer people of color in it.But what is strange about the coverage of Trump’s mass deportation plan is how little its moral perversity has factored into coverage, either by the media or in the attacks lobbed at it by Democrats.CBS and NBC, for their part, seem to have determined that Trump’s pivot to calling for a gigantic scale ethnic cleansing operation is not in itself newsworthy. Instead, they have run stories pointing out that the plan would be expensive and logistically difficult, with the federal enforcement agencies requiring an estimated $216bn in funding to deport the US’s roughly 11 million undocumented people over the next four years. (Ice, they note, received a comparatively paltry $9bn last year.)Construction, agriculture, real estate development business leaders, they note, are skeptical at the idea, noting how much of their own labor force is composed of immigrants: they claim, probably correctly, that the move would lead to large increases in housing and food costs. And economists worry that the broader impact on the economy could be devastating: one economic thinktank found that deporting 1.3 million immigrants would reduce jobs for native-born workers, increasing unemployment by 0.8%.For their part, the Harris campaign has largely taken this line on the issue, preferring to focus on Trump’s mass deportation plan not as a moral horror but as an irresponsible economic move. This is the line taken by Harris campaign surrogate and billionaire Mark Cuban, who has made the threats to the labor force posed by Trump’s plan a key part of his pitch to Harris-skeptical small business owners in swing states.This all may be true enough. It is likely that a mass deportation effort would not only strain the resources of the federal government, but also gut the US private sector labor force, not to mention the disruptions it would cause to productivity when, say, an underslept mother is slow or weepy at her shift because the father of her children was taken from their home by goons. It is likely, too, that the number of jobs created by the mass deportation scheme – the cops and thugs who will be needed to round up the immigrants, the lawyers and judges who will be needed to shove them through the court system, the chefs and guards and drivers who will be needed to feed and transport and monitor them inside the internment camps that such a project will inevitably require – will likely not provide enough jobs to offset the lost tax revenue.But there is something morally depraved about talking about Trump’s plan in these terms. The cost of mass deportation cannot be measured only in whether it will be beneficial or detrimental to the pocketbooks of native-born Americans: doing so supposes both that only those born in the US are worthy of concern, and also that the only thing we have to lose is money. What is being proposed is a vast cruelty, a human tragedy, and a costly national investment in racism. That we are speaking of this proposal in primarily economic terms, rather than moral ones, suggests that the cost to the US has already been quite high.

      Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist More

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      Trump and Harris are neck-and-neck. This is a five-alarm fire | Robert Reich

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      With two weeks to go before election day, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are essentially tied.Neither candidate is ahead by even a single point in the New York Times’s polling average of five critical battleground states – Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada, Wisconsin and North Carolina.How is this possible? Even if polls were systematically off and Harris were ahead of Trump by, say, 5%, I’d still be appalled that so many Americans in swing states were supporting Trump.I’ve spent most of my life fighting bullies, from the grade-school bullies who teased and threatened and occasionally pummeled me, to the white supremacists of the 1960s who murdered my friend Mickey Schwerner when he was trying to register Black voters in Mississippi.I’ve protested Lyndon Johnson’s Vietnam war and worked to get Richard Nixon – whose henchmen broke into the Watergate complex and who then tried to cover up his illegal acts – impeached.I watched Ronald Reagan bully Americans into accepting the cruel hoax of “trickle-down” economics and legitimize corporate bashing of labor unions.I witnessed George W Bush insist on invading Iraq based on a lie that Iraq contained “weapons of mass destruction”, invading Afghanistan because it contained terrorists, and establishing a gulag of torture chambers across the world.When I was US secretary of labor, I fought Republican bullies who wanted to make it easier for CEOs and their major investors to become richer by shafting their workers. Later, I fought Wall Street bullies who gambled away other people’s money and then, when their bets turned bad, got bailed out by taxpayers.But in all my years, I have never come across a bully more squalid than Donald Trump.He is the bully of all bullies. He emits dangerous lies like most people breathe.He has demeaned and degraded our system of self-government, attempted a coup against the United States, divided Americans with venomous bigotry, and rewarded his rich backers with tax cuts and regulatory rollbacks.Trump created a supreme court that took away women’s rights over their own bodies and immunized presidents from criminal liability.In recent weeks, he has become even more untethered from reality, more unhinged, even less coherent.He says that if he gets back in power he will wreak vengeance on his political opponents – including many loyal Americans who have stood up to him – calling them the “enemy within” and openly threatening to use the US military against them.He says he wants to cleanse America of “scum” and “vermin”, including refugees, immigrants, and Democratic officials like Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi.He is threatening to strip television networks of their ability to broadcast news because of coverage he doesn’t like.On Sunday, he said he had subpoenaed the records of CBS, claiming that the network’s edit of Harris’s recent appearance on 60 Minutes was misleading.He refuses to be bound by the results of the upcoming election. This means America will likely suffer weeks or months of litigation following election day, perhaps even accompanied by violence.I felt hopeful in late July, when Joe Biden selflessly bowed out of the election and passed the baton to his vice-president, Kamala Harris.And even more hopeful as Harris has proven herself a tough, exuberant, powerful campaigner and force for positive change. Her debate performance against Trump was the best I’ve ever seen.But at this moment, I’m frankly worried. How can so many Americans be blind to who Trump is and what he intends to do?I don’t believe it’s all due to misogyny and racism. Surely, gender and race continue to play a large part in our politics, but they alone cannot explain what is happening.Nor do I think it’s because of our collective amnesia about the chaos Trump wrought during his presidency. Most of us recall how horrific it was, including a pandemic that for months he refused to acknowledge or act on.Part of the reason may be that we want to normalize our politics and pretend that this election is like any other, even in the face of all the evidence to the contrary.To accept the reality of who Trump is and what he aims to do is simply too frightening.Part of it also may be that many Americans would prefer blowing up the system as a whole – destroying democracy and our institutions of self-government – than settle for gradual change because they feel the system is hopelessly rigged against them.Beyond these possible explanations lie specific people who are also responsible for bringing us to the brink of this disaster.High on my list is Rupert Murdoch – whose Fox News, New York Post and editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal have amplified Trump’s lies, spreading them repeatedly to tens of millions of Americans.There’s also Elon Musk, the richest person in the world, whose X platform, formerly known as Twitter, has become a font of disinformation, incendiary conspiracy theories, pro-Trump garbage and hateful lies about Harris.Musk continues to claim, for example, that Democrats are flying huge numbers of undocumented immigrants into swing states to vote illegally. One such post got 34m views.Musk’s pro-Trump Super Pac has hired an estimated 400 staffers in the seven key battleground states and a platoon of Republican party operatives.The New York Times reports that Trump and Musk are speaking directly multiple times a week. That’s a likely violation of campaign finance laws barring coordination between candidates and Super Pacs.Trump’s other major financial backers include a cavalcade of billionaires – notably Miriam Adelson (wife of deceased casino magnate Sheldon Adelson), Liz and Dick Uihlein (owners of packaging-materials company Uline), and Timothy Mellon (scion of the Gilded Age baron Andrew Mellon).Another contributing reason Trump is running neck-and-neck with Harris is the silence of respected business leaders.Heading the list is Jamie Dimon, CEO and chair of JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s largest bank, who calls himself “a patriot before I’m the CEO of JPMorgan” and who regularly speaks out about the injustices and inequalities of contemporary America.A lifelong Democrat, Dimon is considered the “spokesman” of American business.Yet when it comes to denouncing the biggest threat to American democracy since the civil war, Dimon’s silence has been deafening.Who else is responsible? I wouldn’t be surprised if Vladimir Putin were again seeding the election with hackers and bots favoring Trump, as Putin did in 2016.At this juncture – two weeks from election day, with the race virtually tied in battleground states – none of us who cares about the future of this country can any longer afford to be a mere spectator.This is an all-hands-on-deck moment. A five-alarm fire. A category 5 hurricane.Do whatever you can.

      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His newest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com More

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      ‘Working-class New Yorkers are being pushed out of the city they built’: why Zohran Mamdani is running for mayor

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      In a quiet and unassuming coffee shop in Astoria, a once affordable, diverse neighborhood in Queens where rent is skyrocketing to the heights of other parts of New York, a man in a black jacket sits against the window.He doesn’t look the part of a large metropolitan city’s typical politician, but Zohran Mamdani represents this area in the state legislature as the assembly member for district 36 – the first south Asian man in the state assembly and only its third Muslim.On Wednesday, Mamdani, 33, announced his candidacy for mayor of New York.“There is a representation of sets of voters that typically, in the very best scenario, have been erased from the political fabric, and in the worst scenario, have been persecuted by the political system in the city,” Mamdani told the Guardian.“I represent Steinway Street – the same street that Michael Bloomberg created the demographics unit within the NYPD to illegally surveil Muslims on the basis of our faith [after 9/11]. And now the representative of that street is going to run for the same position that created that department.”Mamdani is a millennial who watches Love Island and Love is Blind. And before he was elected as a local representative in 2020, he assumed many identities, including a foreclosure prevention counselor and failed rapper – a career he said helped prepare him for this very moment.“I would stand and rap with this guy in the equivalent of a 14-seater public bus. As we waited for the bus to fill up, we would try and sell our CD,” Mamdani recounted.View image in fullscreen“Once you’ve done that, it’s a lot easier to ask people on the Broadway platform of the N/W train if they’ll sign your petition to get on the ballot.”Before moving to Queens at the age of seven and taking over local leftist politics, Mamdani was born in Kampala, Uganda, to parents Mahmood Mamdani, a Columbia University professor who specializes in study of colonialism, and Mira Nair, a director and producer of Mississippi Masala starring Denzel Washington and the film adaptation of the Reluctant Fundamentalist.When asked if he considers himself a nepo baby, Mamdani is diplomatic in his response.“I’ll leave that to others. There have definitely been opportunities that have been afforded to me,” Mamdani, who worked on the soundtrack for one of his mom’s films, Queen of Katwe starring Lupita Nyong’o, said.“But in local politics, I don’t think it has meant that much to the people of Astoria and Long Island City.”Though nearly a year away, the New York mayoral race is already crowded. The city’s comptroller Brad Lander threw his hat in the race in July; the Democratic primary, so far, includes two state senators, Zellnor Myrie and Jessica Ramos, as well as former comptroller and current assembly member, Scott Stringer.All of these candidates, including Mamdani, may also have to challenge incumbent mayor Eric Adams, who says he still plans on finishing his term and running for re-election – despite facing federal charges of bribery and fraud for allegedly accepting foreign campaign contributions and lavish gifts from Turkish nationals.A socialist, Mamdani distinguishes himself from the pack on political ideology – but it probably doesn’t hurt that he’s young, charming and often addresses large crowds with Obama-esque orations.“We are here to say these struggles are interconnected – whether it’s BLM or BDS, it’s all about justice. We are here to say you cannot disentangle this fight for freedom. You will not scare us away from this call for justice,” Mamdani said into a loudspeaker in Astoria Park during a 2021 protest against the Israeli occupation in the aftermath of violence against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.Unlike many other politicians, Mamdani doesn’t avoid the topic of Palestine. He cofounded his college’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter and has fought to make it a local issue.“I think Palestine has often been a glaring contradiction in our politics for many, many years. I could not understand why we would draw a line at universal beliefs when it came to Palestinians, why we thought that everyone deserved safety, everyone deserved justice, everyone deserve freedom, except for a certain class of people,” Mamdani said.“As we’ve seen over the past year with the genocide that our country has funded and continues to fund – an Israeli military bombing campaign that has expanded into Lebanon and Syria and Yemen – we are continuing in this country to find money to kill kids while we tell public housing tenants that we don’t have enough money to fix their boilers.”View image in fullscreenThe cost of living crisis plaguing New Yorkers is another issue Mamdani cares deeply for, which he said stems from his time as a foreclosure prevention counselor. During that time, he negotiated with lenders and the city on behalf of low- to middle-income homeowners in Queens who were delinquent on their mortgage payments and on the brink of eviction.“What I will bring to this race is an explicit and relentless focus to the number one issue of importance to New York City voters,” Mamdani said. “They can’t afford their rent. They can’t afford their childcare. They can’t afford transit. They can’t afford their groceries.“The mayor has an incredible set of powers to provide relief in each of those areas, and yet, at every opportunity that has been given is almost always taken the decision to exacerbate the cost of living crisis, and that’s why working-class New Yorkers are being pushed out of the city that they built, the one that they call home.”The young politician has built somewhat of a reputation for putting his body on the line for the causes he supports, sometimes literally. Mamdani is credited by hundreds of the city’s taxi drivers for helping secure life-changing debt relief for them.In 2021, Mamdani went on a 15-day hunger strike to protest of predatory loans that targeted the taxi drivers who purchased “medallions”, the physical certificate required to operate a yellow cab. The city eventually caved and struck a deal with medallion loan guarantors, securing $450m in transformative debt relief for these drivers.It was just one of the “handful of times” Mamdani was arrested for a cause.Mamdani was arrested again earlier this year at Hunter College, where the city’s rent guidelines board voted to increase the rents of rent-stabilized tenants 2.75% on one-year leases and 5.25% on two-year leases. If elected, Mamdani says he will immediately freeze these tenants’ rent upon assuming office.His policies have already garnered the support of one group: the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. The organization, which helped elect fellow socialist US house representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, who also represents some of the same areas as Mamdani at the federal level, endorsed Mamdani on Saturday.“NYC-DSA has officially decided to endorse Zohran Mamdani in the June 2025 Democratic primary election for mayor of New York City,” the political organization told members after its annual convention. “Now, it’s time for us to get to work to replace our corrupt, autocratic mayor with a proven socialist and a cadre-member of NYC-DSA.”Mamdani said he plans to work – every day of his campaign – on making New York more affordable.“We all love this city, and yet it doesn’t mean much if we can’t afford to stay here. We don’t want New York to be a symbol. We don’t want it to just be something that is unattainable for so many. We want it to be where people live, grow old and raise families.” More

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      Kamala Harris to hold town hall with undecided voters after Donald Trump rejects second debate offer – US politics live

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      US vice-president Kamala Harris will hold a town hall with undecided voters on CNN on Wednesday, after Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump rejected an offer to debate the Democratic nominee for a second time, reports Reuters.Trump will headline a rally Wednesday in Duluth, Georgia with guests Tucker Carlson and Robert F Kennedy Jr, as the race for the White House counts down to less than two weeks.Pennsylvania and Georgia are among seven battleground states that will decide who wins the presidency. Both candidates are likely to spend much of the rest of their campaigns in those states, trying to persuade the small sliver of voters who are still undecided to back them in the 5 November election.Harris tried and failed to push Trump to agree to a second presidential debate on CNN after she was considered to have won the first and only presidential debate between the two candidates, which took place in September on ABC News.Reuters reports that Hariss’s televised town hall will take place before a live audience of undecided voters from Pennsylvania in Delaware County, outside Philadelphia.Harris held a marginal 46% to 43% lead over the former president, according to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll.More on this story in a moment, but first, here are the latest updates:

      Surrogates campaigning for Trump and Harris are fanning out across the US this week. Harris’s vice-presidential pick, Tim Walz, will travel to North Carolina and Pennsylvania, while Trump’s running mate JD Vance will head to Reno, Nevada on Wednesday.

      UK prime minister Keir Starmer has insisted he can maintain a “good relationship” with Donald Trump after the Republican candidate’s campaign accused Labour of “blatant foreign interference” in the US election. The Trump campaign filed a legal complaint overnight against Labour officials travelling to US battleground states to volunteer for his Democrat rival Kamala Harris.

      Harris herself said she has no doubt that the US was ready for a female president, in an interview with NBC News’s Hallie Jackson. “I’m clearly a woman. I don’t need to point that out to anyone,” Harris said with a laugh. “The point that most people really care about is: can you do the job and, do you have a plan to actually focus on them?”.

      Harris courted Hispanic voters promoting small business loans for Latino men, in an interview with Noticias Telemundo’s Julio Vaqueiro. Harris pledged to drive more funds to community banks to help Latino men access small business loans. “Hispanic men often have more difficulty securing loans from banks because of their connections and the fact that things aren’t necessarily set up so that they will qualify,” she said.

      Trump also pitched to Hispanic voters, holding a morning round table with Latino leaders at his golf resort in Doral, Florida. Trump hit familiar talking points but took his time in getting to issues of importance to the voting bloc. The event concluded with a group of prominent evangelists praying as they stood around Trump with their hands on his shoulders, while he sat with his eyes closed.

      At the same event, the former president hurled a series of personal attacks at his opponent, calling Harris “lazy as hell” and “low IQ”. He was referring to Harris holding no public campaign events on Tuesday, instead recording the two interviews after a busy day of campaigning with Liz Cheney on Monday. At a later rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, Trump continued the invective: “Does she drink? Is she on drugs?”

      Vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz held a rally with former president Barack Obama in Madison, Wisconsin, where he slammed Trump’s staged campaign event at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s as a “stunt” and mocked Elon Musk for “jumping around, skipping like a dipshit” before holding another rally in Wisconsin that evening.

      Obama, meanwhile, ridiculed Trump’s boasts on the economy and cast his rambling speeches as a sign of mental deterioration. “You’d be worried if Grandpa was acting like this,” said Obama. “But this is coming from someone who wants unchecked power.”

      JD Vance, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, dodged a question about whether he would strip immigrants with legal authorisation of their status while campaigning in Peoria, outside Phoenix, Arizona. Vance urged supporters to “work our rear ends off for the next two weeks” to turn the swing state red.

      Despite some setbacks, Republicans vowed to press ahead in bids to block some overseas ballots. Court rulings rejected Republic National Committee efforts to block some Americans living abroad from voting in North Carolina and Michigan but the party will keep up its aggressive legal campaign.

      Arab Americans slightly favour Trump over Harris, according to a new poll. The survey, conducted by the Arab News Research and Studies Unit along with YouGov, shows a deadlock in Michigan, a key battleground state with a large Arab American population.
      Barack Obama rapped Eminem’s signature hit Lose Yourself to a crowd in Detroit during a campaign rally for Kamala Harris.He was preceded by Eminem himself, who told the crowd in his home city:
      It’s important to use your voice, I’m encouraging everyone to get out and vote, please … I don’t think anyone wants an America where people are worried about retribution of what people will do if you make your opinion known. I think vice-president Harris supports a future for this country where these freedoms and many others will be protected and upheld.”
      Obama opened his ensuing speech by saying: “I gotta say, I have done a lot of rallies, so I don’t usually get nervous, but I was feeling some kind of way following Eminem,” before segueing into Lose Yourself’s opening lines: “I notice my palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy, vomit on my sweater already, mom’s spaghetti, I’m nervous but on the surface I look calm and ready to drop bombs but I keep on forgetting …”He joked that he thought Eminem would be performing and he would be a guest star, adding: “Love me some Eminem.”The former president is an avowed music fan, sharing his favourite songs twice a year in official posts on his social media. Summer 2024’s selections included songs by contemporary pop names such as Beyoncé, Tyla and Rema alongside older tracks by Nick Drake, the Supremes and cosmic jazz musician Pharoah Sanders.Obama went on to excoriate Donald Trump in his speech, recalling how Trump expressed doubt about the election results in 2020:
      Because Donald Trump was willing to spread lies about voter fraud in Michigan, protesters came down, banged on the windows, shouting, ‘Let us in. Stop the count.’ Poll workers inside being intimidated … all because Donald Trump couldn’t accept losing … there is absolutely no evidence that this man thinks about anybody but himself.”
      He questioned Trump’s mental fitness for the role of president, saying:
      You’d be worried if Grandpa was acting like this. But this is coming from someone who wants unchecked power.”
      Keir Starmer has insisted he can maintain a “good relationship” with Donald Trump after the Republican candidate’s campaign accused Labour of “blatant foreign interference” in the US election.The Trump campaign filed a legal complaint overnight against Labour officials travelling to US battleground states to volunteer for his Democrat rival Kamala Harris.The letter, which was sent to the US Federal Election Commission, said that these volunteering efforts and reports of contact between Labour and the Harris campaign amounted to “illegal foreign national contributions”.A statement on DonaldJTrump.com on Tuesday night claimed that the “far-left” Labour party has “inspired Kamala’s dangerously liberal policies and rhetoric”.In response Starmer insisted he had a “good relationship” with Trump which would not be jeopardised by the complaint.The prime minister said that party officials volunteering for Harris ahead of the US presidential election on 5 November were “doing it in their spare time” rather than in their capacity working for Labour.Speaking to reporters travelling with him to the Commonwealth summit in Samoa, Starmer said:
      The Labour party … volunteers, have gone over pretty much every election. They’re doing it in their spare time, they’re doing it as volunteers, they’re staying I think with other volunteers over there.
      That’s what they’ve done in previous elections, that’s what they’re doing in this election and that’s really straightforward.”
      Asked if the complaint risked jeopardising his relationship with Trump if he becomes president again, the UK prime minister said:
      No. I spent time in New York with President Trump, had dinner with him and my purpose in doing that was to make sure that between the two of us we established a good relationship, which we did, and we’re grateful for him for making the time.”
      We had a good, constructive discussion and, of course as prime minister of the United Kingdom I will work with whoever the American people return as their president in their elections which are very close now.”
      US vice-president Kamala Harris will hold a town hall with undecided voters on CNN on Wednesday, after Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump rejected an offer to debate the Democratic nominee for a second time, reports Reuters.Trump will headline a rally Wednesday in Duluth, Georgia with guests Tucker Carlson and Robert F Kennedy Jr, as the race for the White House counts down to less than two weeks.Pennsylvania and Georgia are among seven battleground states that will decide who wins the presidency. Both candidates are likely to spend much of the rest of their campaigns in those states, trying to persuade the small sliver of voters who are still undecided to back them in the 5 November election.Harris tried and failed to push Trump to agree to a second presidential debate on CNN after she was considered to have won the first and only presidential debate between the two candidates, which took place in September on ABC News.Reuters reports that Hariss’s televised town hall will take place before a live audience of undecided voters from Pennsylvania in Delaware County, outside Philadelphia.Harris held a marginal 46% to 43% lead over the former president, according to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll.More on this story in a moment, but first, here are the latest updates:

      Surrogates campaigning for Trump and Harris are fanning out across the US this week. Harris’s vice-presidential pick, Tim Walz, will travel to North Carolina and Pennsylvania, while Trump’s running mate JD Vance will head to Reno, Nevada on Wednesday.

      UK prime minister Keir Starmer has insisted he can maintain a “good relationship” with Donald Trump after the Republican candidate’s campaign accused Labour of “blatant foreign interference” in the US election. The Trump campaign filed a legal complaint overnight against Labour officials travelling to US battleground states to volunteer for his Democrat rival Kamala Harris.

      Harris herself said she has no doubt that the US was ready for a female president, in an interview with NBC News’s Hallie Jackson. “I’m clearly a woman. I don’t need to point that out to anyone,” Harris said with a laugh. “The point that most people really care about is: can you do the job and, do you have a plan to actually focus on them?”.

      Harris courted Hispanic voters promoting small business loans for Latino men, in an interview with Noticias Telemundo’s Julio Vaqueiro. Harris pledged to drive more funds to community banks to help Latino men access small business loans. “Hispanic men often have more difficulty securing loans from banks because of their connections and the fact that things aren’t necessarily set up so that they will qualify,” she said.

      Trump also pitched to Hispanic voters, holding a morning round table with Latino leaders at his golf resort in Doral, Florida. Trump hit familiar talking points but took his time in getting to issues of importance to the voting bloc. The event concluded with a group of prominent evangelists praying as they stood around Trump with their hands on his shoulders, while he sat with his eyes closed.

      At the same event, the former president hurled a series of personal attacks at his opponent, calling Harris “lazy as hell” and “low IQ”. He was referring to Harris holding no public campaign events on Tuesday, instead recording the two interviews after a busy day of campaigning with Liz Cheney on Monday. At a later rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, Trump continued the invective: “Does she drink? Is she on drugs?”

      Vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz held a rally with former president Barack Obama in Madison, Wisconsin, where he slammed Trump’s staged campaign event at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s as a “stunt” and mocked Elon Musk for “jumping around, skipping like a dipshit” before holding another rally in Wisconsin that evening.

      Obama, meanwhile, ridiculed Trump’s boasts on the economy and cast his rambling speeches as a sign of mental deterioration. “You’d be worried if Grandpa was acting like this,” said Obama. “But this is coming from someone who wants unchecked power.”

      JD Vance, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, dodged a question about whether he would strip immigrants with legal authorisation of their status while campaigning in Peoria, outside Phoenix, Arizona. Vance urged supporters to “work our rear ends off for the next two weeks” to turn the swing state red.

      Despite some setbacks, Republicans vowed to press ahead in bids to block some overseas ballots. Court rulings rejected Republic National Committee efforts to block some Americans living abroad from voting in North Carolina and Michigan but the party will keep up its aggressive legal campaign.

      Arab Americans slightly favour Trump over Harris, according to a new poll. The survey, conducted by the Arab News Research and Studies Unit along with YouGov, shows a deadlock in Michigan, a key battleground state with a large Arab American population. More

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      ‘There’s vomit on my sweater already!’ Barack Obama raps Eminem’s Lose Yourself at Detroit rally

      by

      Barack Obama rapped Eminem’s signature hit Lose Yourself to a crowd in Detroit during a campaign rally for Kamala Harris.He was preceded by Eminem himself, who told the crowd in his home city: “It’s important to use your voice, I’m encouraging everyone to get out and vote, please … I don’t think anyone wants an America where people are worried about retribution of what people will do if you make your opinion known. I think vice-president Harris supports a future for this country where these freedoms and many others will be protected and upheld.”Obama opened his ensuing speech by saying: “I gotta say, I have done a lot of rallies, so I don’t usually get nervous, but I was feeling some kind of way following Eminem,” before segueing into Lose Yourself’s opening lines: “I notice my palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy, vomit on my sweater already, mom’s spaghetti, I’m nervous but on the surface I look calm and ready to drop bombs but I keep on forgetting …”He joked that he thought Eminem would be performing and he would be a guest star, adding: “Love me some Eminem.”The former president is an avowed music fan, sharing his favourite songs twice a year in official posts on his social media. Summer 2024’s selections included songs by contemporary pop names such as Beyoncé, Tyla and Rema alongside older tracks by Nick Drake, the Supremes and cosmic jazz musician Pharoah Sanders.Obama went on to excoriate Donald Trump in his speech, recalling how Trump expressed doubt about the election results in 2020. “Because Donald Trump was willing to spread lies about voter fraud in Michigan, protesters came down, banged on the windows, shouting, ‘Let us in. Stop the count.’ Poll workers inside being intimidated … all because Donald Trump couldn’t accept losing … there is absolutely no evidence that this man thinks about anybody but himself.”He questioned Trump’s mental fitness for the role of president, saying: “You’d be worried if Grandpa was acting like this. But this is coming from someone who wants unchecked power.”He also made reference to Trump’s stunt earlier this week, where he worked in a McDonald’s kitchen and drive-thru counter that was closed to the public. Harris, he said, “worked at McDonald’s when in college to pay her expenses. She did not pretend to work at McDonald’s when it was closed.”Tim Walz, also speaking at the rally, decried the stunt as “cosplaying … Fake orders for fake customers”. He also appealed to freedom of speech, saying Trump was “talking about sending the military against people who don’t support him. He’s naming names.” More

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      Starmer insists he can have a ‘good relationship’ with Trump despite election ‘interference’ claim

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      Keir Starmer has insisted he can maintain a “good relationship” with Donald Trump after the Republican candidate’s campaign accused Labour of “blatant foreign interference” in the US election.The Trump campaign filed a legal complaint overnight against Labour officials travelling to US battleground states to volunteer for his Democrat rival Kamala Harris.The letter, which was sent to the US Federal Election Commission, said that these volunteering efforts and reports of contact between Labour and the Harris campaign amounted to “illegal foreign national contributions”.A statement on DonaldJTrump.com on Tuesday night claimed that the “far-left” Labour party has “inspired Kamala’s dangerously liberal policies and rhetoric”.In response Starmer insisted he had a “good relationship” with Trump which would not be jeopardised by the complaint.The prime minister said that party officials volunteering for Harris ahead of the US presidential election on 5 November were “doing it in their spare time” rather than in their capacity working for Labour.Speaking to reporters travelling with him to the Commonwealth summit in Samoa, Starmer said: “The Labour party … volunteers, have gone over pretty much every election. They’re doing it in their spare time, they’re doing it as volunteers, they’re staying I think with other volunteers over there.“That’s what they’ve done in previous elections, that’s what they’re doing in this election and that’s really straightforward.”Asked if the complaint risked jeopardising his relationship with Trump if he becomes president again, the prime minister said: “No. I spent time in New York with President Trump, had dinner with him and my purpose in doing that was to make sure that between the two of us we established a good relationship, which we did, and we’re grateful for him for making the time.”“We had a good, constructive discussion and, of course as prime minister of the United Kingdom I will work with whoever the American people return as their president in their elections which are very close now.”The complaint cited a now-deleted LinkedIn post by Labour’s head of operations, which said almost 100 current and former party officials were travelling to the US to campaign for the Democrats in swing states including North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Virginia. The post added that there were 10 spots still available and promised that “we will sort your housing”.The letter, sent by Trump campaign lawyer Gary Lawkowski, mentioned newspaper reports of contact between senior Labour advisers and the Harris campaign and called for an immediate investigation.It drew a comparison to a programme in 2016 in which the Australian Labor party (ALP) sent delegates to help Bernie Sanders’ campaign. In that instance the US Federal Election Commission fined the ALP, which paid for its delegates’ flights and gave them daily stipends, and the Sanders campaign $14,500 each.Labour has said that activists’ trips are not organised or funded by the party and that any officials who campaign in the US election are volunteers who do so in their own time.Starmer met Trump during a trip to New York in September and visited Trump Tower for talks ahead of the US election. Trump heaped praise on Starmer ahead of their meeting, saying he was a “very nice” man who “ran a great race” in the UK election and was “very popular”.The Trump campaign’s complaint said: “When representatives of the British government previously sought to go door-to-door in America, it did not end well for them. This past week marked the 243 anniversary of the surrender of British forces at the Battle of Yorktown, a military victory that ensured that the United States would be politically independent of Great Britian [sic].”“It appears that the Labour party and the Harris for President campaign have forgotten the message.” More