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      Key takeaways from Michael Wolff’s book on Murdoch, Fox and US politics

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      Michael Wolff’s new book, The Fall: The End of Fox News and the Murdoch Dynasty, was eagerly awaited even before the Guardian published the first news of its contents on Tuesday.Since then, other outlets have reported more revelations familiar in tone and sometimes in cast list from the gadfly author’s blockbusting trilogy of Trump tell-alls: Fire and Fury, Siege and Landslide.In response, Fox News pointed to a famous impersonation of Wolff by comedian Fred Armisen when it said: “The fact that the last book by this author was spoofed in a Saturday Night Live skit is really all we need to know.”Nonetheless, what have we learned about Rupert Murdoch, Fox and US politics from The Fall so far? Here are some key points:Murdoch did not expect Dominion to prove so costlyDominion Voting Systems sued Fox News for $1.6bn, over the broadcast of Donald Trump’s lies about voter fraud in 2020. According to Wolff, in winter 2022, an irate Rupert Murdoch told friends of his then-wife, Jerry Hall, “This lawsuit could cost us fifty million dollars.” When the suit was settled, in April, it cost Fox a whopping $787.5m.Murdoch thought Ron DeSantis would beat TrumpMurdoch reportedly predicted the Florida governor would beat Trump for the Republican nomination next year, siphoning off evangelical voters because “it was going to come out about the abortions Trump had paid for”. But it seems Murdoch’s radar was off again: a few months out from the first vote in Iowa, notwithstanding 91 criminal charges, Trump holds gigantic polling leads over DeSantis, whose campaign has long been seen to be flatlining.Murdoch wishes Trump dead …Murdoch, Wolff says, directs considerable anger Trump’s way, at one point treating friends to “a rat-a-tat-tat of jaw-clenching ‘fucks’” that showed a “revulsion … as passionate … as [that of] any helpless liberal”. More even than that, Wolff reports that Murdoch, 92, has often wished out loud that Trump, 77, was dead. “Trump’s death became a Murdoch theme,” Wolff writes, reporting the mogul saying: “‘We would all be better off …?’ ‘This would all be solved if …’ ‘How could he still be alive, how could he?’ ‘Have you seen him? Have you seen what he looks like? What he eats?’”… but Lachlan just wipes his bottom on himRupert Murdoch’s son, Lachlan Murdoch, is in pole position to take over the empire. According to Wolff, the younger man is no Trump fan either. As reported by the Daily Beast, Wolff writes: “In the run-up to the 2016 election, the bathrooms at the Mandeville house featured toilet paper with Trump’s face, reported visitors with relief and satisfaction. [Lachlan] told people that his wife and children cried when Trump was elected.”Rupert has choice words for some Fox News starsThe Daily Beast also reported on the older Murdoch’s apparent contempt for some of his stars. Considering how, Wolff says, Sean Hannity pushed for Fox to stay loyal to Trump, the author writes: “When Murdoch was brought reports of Hannity’s on- and off-air defence of Fox’s post-election coverage, he perhaps seemed to justify his anchor: ‘He’s retarded, like most Americans.’”Hannity may have been on thin iceAlso reported by the Daily Beast: Wolff says Murdoch considered firing Hannity as a way to mollify Dominion in its defamation suit, with Lachlan Murdoch reportedly suggesting that a romantic relationship Hannity had with another host could be used as precedent, given the downfalls of media personalities including Jeff Zucker of CNN.DeSantis may have kicked Tucker Carlson’s dogAccording to the Daily Beast, and to a lengthy excerpt published by New York magazine, Wolff writes that in spring of this year, Ron DeSantis and his wife, Casey DeSantis, visited another leading Fox host, Tucker Carlson, and his wife, Susie Carlson, for a lunch designed to introduce Murdoch’s favored Republican to his most powerful primetime star. What Wolff says follows is worth quoting in full:
      The Carlsons are dog people with four spaniels, the progeny of other spaniels they have had before, who sleep in their bed. DeSantis pushed the dog under the table. Had he kicked the dog? Susie Carlson’s judgment was clear: She did not ever want to be anywhere near anybody like that ever again. Her husband agreed. DeSantis, in Carlson’s view, was a ‘fascist’. Forget Ron DeSantis.
      Carlson saw a presidential run as a way to escapeCarlson has said he “knows” his removal from Fox after the Dominion settlement was a condition of that deal. Dominion and Fox have said it wasn’t. On Wednesday, New York magazine published Wolff’s reporting that Trump openly considered making Carlson his vice-presidential pick. But Wolff also fleshes out rumours Carlson considered a run for president himself – reported by the Guardian – and says the host seriously pondered the move “as a further part of his inevitable martyrdom – as well as a convenient way to get out of his contract”. This, Wolff says, left Rupert Murdoch “bothered” – and “pissed at Lachlan for not reining Carlson in”.Wolff is no stranger to gossip …… often of a salacious hue. Roger Ailes, the former Fox News chief, features prominently throughout The Fall, a font of off-colour quotes and pungent opinions, including that Trump, whom he helped make president, is a “dumb motherfucker”. Ailes died in disgrace in 2017, after a sexual harassment scandal. According to a New York Times review, Wolff describes the Fox-host-turned-Trump-surrogate Kimberly Guilfoyle “settl[ing] into a private plane on the way to Ailes’s funeral”, adding: “What was also clear, if you wanted it to be, was that she was wearing no underwear.”Jerry Hall called Murdoch a homophobeSticking with the salacious, the Daily Beast noted a focus on “Murdoch’s attitude towards homosexuality”. Hall, the site said, is quoted as responding to a discussion of someone’s sexuality by asking: “Rupert, why are you such a homophobe?” Repeating the charge, the former model reportedly told friends: “He’s such an old man.” More

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      Texas teacher fired for showing Anne Frank graphic novel to eighth-graders

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      A Texas teacher was fired after assigning an illustrated adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary to her middle school class, in a move that some are calling “a political attack on truth”.The eighth-grade school teacher was released after officials with Hamshire-Fannett independent school district said the teacher presented the “inappropriate” book to students, reported KFDM.The graphic novel, written by Ari Folman and illustrated by David Polonsky, adapts the diary of 13-year-old Anne Frank, who wrote while hiding in an annexe in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam.The district sent an email to parents on Tuesday, notifying them that the book, which district officials say was not approved, would no longer be read.“The reading of that content will cease immediately. Your student’s teacher will communicate her apologies to you and your students soon, as she has expressed those apologies to us,” read the email, reported KFDM.By Wednesday, district officials had emailed parents, informing them that the teacher had been fired following an investigation into the incident.“As you may be aware, following concerns regarding curricular selections in your student’s reading class, a substitute teacher has been facilitating the class since Wednesday, September 13, 2023,” said the district to parents, adding that a search for a new instructor was under way.District officials have not released details about the incident, including which school the teacher taught in.Eighth-grade students were reportedly shown a section of the graphic novel where Frank reflected on her own genitals and wanted to see a female friend’s breasts, according to KFDM.Discussions of sexuality were included in the original written version of Anne Frank’s diary, but were edited out in subsequent reprints.A spokesperson for Hamshire-Fannett ISD declined to comment on the incident during a phone call with the Guardian.Notably, this particular graphic novel has been subject to book bans before.A Florida high school removed the graphic novel after a chapter of Moms for Liberty, an extremist advocacy group, objected to the book’s sexual contents and claimed it did not teach the Holocaust accurately, the Associated Press reported.The graphic novel was also removed from Texas’s Dallas-Fort Worth’s Keller independent school district.The latest firing in Texas comes as education laws restricting teaching of race, sexuality and other topics are being implemented in classrooms across the US.The Republican governor, Greg Abbott, signed legislation in 2021 severely limiting how educators can teach topics of race and gender. Texas has also banned more books than any other state, with more than 430 books banned in Texas schools.Clay Robison, a spokesperson with the Texas State Teachers Association, called the latest incident “troubling” to the Guardian.“No teacher should be fired for teaching the Diary of Anne Frank to middle school students,” Robison said. “Teachers are dedicated to teaching the truth, the whole truth,” he said, emphasizing the diary’s importance.Robison added that many Texas teachers are experiencing fear, anger and anxiety about navigating restrictions in the classroom.“It’s a political attack on truth,” Robison said of legislative attempts to limit education. “It’s not a woke agenda. It’s not a liberal agenda. It’s a truth agenda.” More

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      Rupert Murdoch often wishes Donald Trump dead, Michael Wolff book says

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      Rupert Murdoch loathes Donald Trump so much that the billionaire has not just soured on him as a presidential candidate but often wishes for his death, the author Michael Wolff writes in his eagerly awaited new book on the media mogul, The Fall: The End of Fox News and the Murdoch Dynasty.According to Wolff, Murdoch, 92, has become “a frothing-at-the-mouth” enemy of the 77-year-old former US president, often voicing thoughts including “This would all be solved if … ” and “How could he still be alive, how could he?”The Fall was announced last month and will be published in the US next Tuesday. The Guardian obtained a copy.Wolff has written three tell-all books about Trump – Fire and Fury, Siege and Landslide – and one about Murdoch, The Man Who Owns the News. In his second Murdoch book, he says he may be “the journalist not in his employ who knows [Murdoch] best”.Wolff also describes his source material as “conversations specifically for this book, and other conversations that have taken place over many years … scenes and events that I have personally witnessed or that I have recreated with the help of participants in them”.After Trump entered US politics in 2015, winning the White House the following year, he, along with an increasingly extreme Republican party, Fox News and other properties in Murdoch’s rightwing media empire formed a symbiotic relationship.But Murdoch has long been reported to have soured on Trump – a process which, according to Wolff, saw Murdoch personally endorse the Fox News call of Arizona for Joe Biden on election night in 2020 that fueled Trump’s campaign of lies about voter fraud, culminating in the deadly January 6 attack on Congress.By the beginning of this year, Wolff writes, what Murdoch “adamantly didn’t want … was Trump.“Of all Trump’s implacable enemies, Murdoch had become a frothing-at-the-mouth one. His relatively calm demeanor from the early Trump presidency where, with a sigh, he could dismiss him merely as a ‘fucking idiot’ had now become a churning stew of rage and recrimination.“Trump’s death became a Murdoch theme: “We would all be better off …? “This would all be solved if …” “How could he still be alive, how could he?” “Have you seen him? Have you seen what he looks like? What he eats?”Trump has regularly claimed to be exceptionally fit for his age, claims backed by doctors when he was in the White House. He also claims to be more mentally fit for office than Biden, his 80-year-old successor, claims many observers increasingly doubt.After Trump left office, Wolff writes, Murdoch “like much of the Republican establishment … had convinced himself that Trump was, finally, vulnerable. That his hold on the base and on Republican politicians had weakened enough that now was the time to kill him off, finally.”But now, as another election year approaches, Trump is in rude political health.Notwithstanding 91 criminal charges – for state and federal election subversion, retention of classified information and hush-money payments – and assorted civil cases, Trump leads the Republican primary by vast margins in national and key state polling, the overwhelming favourite to win the nomination to face Biden in another White House battle. More

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      For Elon Musk, the personal is political – but his march to the right affects us all

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      The personal is political. The phrase was popularized by 1960s second-wave feminism but it sums up Elon Musk’s ideological journey. Once a “fundraiser and fanboy for Barack Obama”, to quote his biographer, Walter Isaacson, the sometime world’s richest man now plays thin-skinned, anti-woke warrior – a self-professed free-speech purist who in fact is anything but.His rebranding of Twitter to X having proved a disaster, he flirts with antisemites for fun and lost profits. He threatens the Anti-Defamation League with a multibillion-dollar lawsuit. The ADL never suggested the name “X”. That was a long-term fetish, now a clear own-goal.Like the building of Rome, Musk’s march to the right did not take only one day. A series of events lie behind it. Musk is a modern Wizard of Oz. Like the man behind the curtain, he is needy. According to Isaacson, outright rejection – and gender transition – by one of Musk’s children played an outsized role in his change. So did Covid restrictions and a slap from the Biden White House.In March 2020, as Covid descended, Musk became enraged when China and California mandated lockdowns that threatened Tesla, his electric car company, and thus his balance sheet.“My frank opinion remains that the harm from the coronavirus panic far exceeds that of the virus itself,” he wrote in an intra-company email.But Musk jumped the gun. Moloch would take his cut. In the US, Covid has killed 1.14 million. American life expectancy is among the lowest in the industrialized west. Thailand does better than Florida, New York and Iowa. For their part, Ohio, South Carolina and Missouri, all Republican-run, trail Thailand. Bangladesh outperforms Mississippi. Overall, the US is behind Colombia and Croatia. Under Covid, Trump-voting counties became killing fields.But in May 2020, amid a controversy with local government in California, Musk tweeted, “take the red pill”. It was a reference to The Matrix, in which Neo, the character played by Keanu Reeves, elects to take the “red pill” and thereby confront reality, instead of downing the “blue pill” to wake happily in bed. Ivanka Trump, of all people, was quick to second Musk: “Taken!”Musk’s confrontation with California would not be the last time he was stymied or dissed by those in elected office. In summer 2021, the Biden administration stupidly declined to invite him to a White House summit on electric vehicles – because Tesla was not unionized.“We, of course, welcome the efforts of all automakers who recognize the potential of an electric vehicle future and support efforts that will help reach the president’s goal. And certainly, Tesla is one of those companies,” Biden’s press secretary said, adding: “Today, it’s the three largest employers of the United Auto Workers and the UAW president who will stand with President Biden.” Two years later, the UAW has gone on strike. At midnight on Thursday, 13,000 workers left the assembly lines at General Motors, Ford and Chrysler.For all of his talk of freedom, Musk sidles up to China. This week, he claimed the relationship between Taiwan and China was analogous to that between Hawaii and the US. Taiwan is “an integral part of China that is arbitrarily not part of China”, Musk said. Such comments dovetail with Chinese talking points. He made no reference to US interests. He is a free agent. It’s not just about Russia and Ukraine.Musk’s tumultuous personal life has also pressed on the scales. In December 2021, he began to rail against the “woke mind virus”. If the malady were left unchecked, he said, “civilization will never become interplanetary”. Musk apparently loves humanity. People, however, are a different story.According to Isaacson, the outburst was triggered in part by rejection and gender transition. In 2022, one of his children changed her name to Vivian Jenna Wilson, telling a court: “I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form.” She also embraced radical economics.“I’ve made many overtures,” Musk tells Isaacson. “But she doesn’t want to spend time with me.” His hurt is palpable.James Birchall, Musk’s office manager, says: “He feels he lost a son who changed first and last names and won’t speak to him anymore because of this woke mind virus.”Contradictions litter Musk’s worldview. Take the experiences of Bari Weiss, the professional contrarian and former New York Times writer. In late 2022, she was one of the conduits for the Twitter Files, fed to receptive reporters by Musk in an attempt to show Twitter’s bias against Trump and the US right. On 12 December, Weiss delivered her last reports. Four days later, she criticized Musk’s decision to suspend a group of journalists, for purportedly violating anti-doxxing policies.“He was doing the very things that he claimed to disdain about the previous overlords at Twitter,” Weiss charged. She also pressed Musk over China, to his dismay. He grudgingly acknowledged, she told Isaacson, that because of Tesla’s investments, “Twitter would indeed have to be careful about the words it used regarding China.“China’s repression of the Uyghurs, he said, has two sides.”“Weiss was disturbed,” Isaacson writes.Musk is disdainful of Donald Trump, whom he sees as a conman. This May, on X, Musk hosted a campaign roll-out for another would-be strongman: Ron DeSantis. A glitch-filled disaster, it portended what followed. The Florida governor continues to slide in the polls, Vivek Ramaswamy nipping at his heels.Musk remains a force. On Monday, he is slated to meet Benjamin Netanyahu, the indicted rightwing prime minister of Israel who will be in New York for the United Nations general assembly. Like Musk, Netanyahu is not a favorite of the Biden White House. Misery loves company. More

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      Christine Blasey Ford to release memoir detailing Kavanaugh testimony

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      Christine Blasey Ford, the psychology professor who accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, pitching the then conservative US supreme court nominee into huge controversy, will release a memoir next year that she sees as a call for people to speak out about wrongdoing.Publisher St Martin’s Press said Ford’s book would share “riveting new details about the lead-up” to her Senate testimony and “its overwhelming aftermath”, including receiving death threats and being unable to live in her home.The publisher also said Ford would discuss “how people unknown to her around the world restored her faith in humanity”. The book, to be called One Way Back, will be published in March.In a statement, Ford said: “I never thought of myself as a survivor, a whistleblower, or an activist before the events in 2018.“But now, what I and this book can offer is a call to all the other people who might not have chosen those roles for themselves, but who choose to do what’s right. Sometimes you don’t speak out because you are a natural disrupter. You do it to cause a ripple that might one day become a wave.”Kavanaugh, a former Republican operative, was the second of Donald Trump’s three nominees to the supreme court, tilting the court decisively in favor of conservatives and leading to rightwing rulings including the removal of the right to abortion.Ford is a professor at Palo Alto University and Stanford University School of Medicine.In September 2018, she told the Senate judiciary committee Kavanuagh sexually assaulted her at a high-school party in the 1980s.He pinned her on a bed, she said, pressing his hand over her mouth while trying to remove her clothes.In prepared testimony, Ford said: “I believed he was going to rape me. I tried to yell for help … I thought Brett was accidentally going to kill me.”Ford escaped when a friend of Kavanaugh jumped on the bed, she said, famously telling senators: “Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two. They’re having fun at my expense.”The assault, Ford said, “drastically altered my life. For a very long time, I was too afraid and ashamed to tell anyone the details”. She told “very few friends” and her husband, she added.Kavanaugh angrily denied the accusation, and others about alleged drunken behaviour which roiled confirmation proceedings in a way not seen since the scandal over Clarence Thomas’s alleged sexual harassment of Anita Hill, in 1991.Backed by Republicans on the committee vociferously including the then chair, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Kavanaugh was confirmed to the court by 50 votes to 48. Only one Republican, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, declined to support him. More

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      ‘Authoritarian regimes ban books’: Democrats raise alarm at Senate hearing

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      A Senate hearing on book bans and censorship on Tuesday spotlighted the growing phenomenon in America and highlighted a partisan split on the issue, with Democrats decrying censorship as Republicans and rightwing activists push for many works to be taken out of schools and libraries, claiming it should be parents’ rights to do so.Many of the most commonly banned books deal with topics such as racism, sexuality and gender identity. Conservatives also argue that some books, many exploring queer identity and LGBTQ+ themes, include sexually explicit content inappropriate for students. School librarians opposing such book bans have been attacked and harassed.Other books that have long been parts of school curriculums have also been challenged after complaints that they contained racist stereotypes, such as Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird, which also includes a depiction of rape.Between July and December 2022, the non-profit PEN America recorded nearly 1,500 instances of individual book bans, which it broadly defines as when books are deemed “off-limits” for students in school libraries or classrooms, or when books are removed during an investigation to determine if there should be any restrictions.“Instead of inheriting a debate over what more can be done with and for our libraries, I was confronted with a book-banning movement upon taking office,” testified Alexi Giannoulias, Illinois’s secretary of state since January who also serves as the state librarian, on Tuesday.“Our libraries have become targets by a movement that disingenuously claims to pursue freedom, but is instead promoting authoritarianism. Authoritarian regimes ban books, not democracies,” Giannoulias said.Democratic lawmakers and education experts raised alarm bells over the rise in banned books.“Let’s be clear, efforts to ban books are wrong, whether they come from the right or the left,” said Dick Durbin, the judiciary committee chair and Democratic senator of Illinois. “In the name of protecting students, we’re instead denying these students an opportunity to learn about different people and difficult subjects.”Meanwhile, Republicans have widely backed the growing number of conservative activists seeking more control over school curriculums, including books – but also policies such as transgender students’ eligibility to use bathrooms – in the name of “parents’ rights”.“To all the parents out there who believe there’s a bunch of stuff in our schools being pushed on your children that go over the line, you’re absolutely right,” said Lindsey Graham, the committee’s top Republican.Graham briefly derailed the hearing, diverting the conversation to border security and migration, saying that fixing “Biden’s border crisis” should be the committee’s biggest priority.“The book issue is a parental awareness issue. It is not partisan to assert that children do better when their families know what’s going on in their lives,” testified Nicole Neily, the president of the conservative non-profit Parents Defending Education.According to its website, the group opposes “activists” who have sought to “impose ideologically driven curriculum with a concerning and often divisive emphasis on students’ group identities: race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and gender”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionArguing that parents and institutions should have the right to ban books containing sexually explicit content, Max Eden, a research fellow at the conservative thinktank American Enterprise Institute, read aloud a short passage recounting the author’s experience with child molestation from the book All Boys Aren’t Blue, a memoir about growing up Black and queer that is one of the most banned books.The Louisiana senator John Kennedy also read aloud explicit passages from two of the most-banned books, All Boys Aren’t Blue and Gender Queer, during the hearing.“Is this OK for kids?” said Eden. “Judging by the thoughts made by the media, NGOs and some Democratic politicians, it seems there is a politically significant contingent that believes this is all actually very good for kids. But personally, I’m not at all troubled by the fact that some moms believe that this isn’t appropriate, and that some school boards agree.”But Democratic lawmakers maintain that banning books restricts children’s ability to think for themselves, and the information access researcher Emily Knox, an associate professor at the University of Illinois, testified that books can help change a reader’s attitude toward difference, adding that campaigns to censor books were unconstitutional.“Of course there are books that are not age appropriate. But that’s what being a parent is all about – doing your best to keep an eye on what your children read and what they consume,” said Giannoulias.“No one is advocating for sexually explicit content to be available in an elementary school library or in the children’s section of a library,” said Durbin. “But no parent should have the right to tell another parent’s child what they can and cannot read in school or at home. Every student deserves access to books that reflect their experiences and help them better understand who they are.” More

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      Rudy Giuliani ‘mob scene’ turned Elon Musk off seeking advice, new book says

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      Elon Musk backed away from a plan to recruit Rudy Giuliani as a political fixer to help him turn PayPal into a bank in 2001 after he and an associate found the then New York mayor “surrounded by goonish confidantes” in an office that felt “like a mob scene”.“This guy occupies a different planet,” Musk, who would become the world’s richest man, said of Giuliani, then approaching the peak of his fame.Giuliani left office at the end of 2001 after leading New York through the 9/11 attacks, then ran for the Republican nomination for president in 2008, a campaign which soon collapsed.He became an attorney and ally to Donald Trump but missed out on a cabinet appointment when Trump won the presidency in 2016.Trump’s first impeachment was fueled by Giuliani’s work in Ukraine, seeking political dirt on opponents. Now 79, Giuliani has pleaded not guilty to 13 criminal charges of racketeering and conspiracy, regarding his work to advance Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia.The irony of the former mayor and New York US attorney being indicted on charges often used against figures in organised crime has been widely remarked. As a prosecutor, Giuliani made his name chasing down mafia kingpins.The latest picture of Giuliani as gangster is included in Elon Musk, a new biography of the 52-year-old Tesla, SpaceX and X (formerly Twitter) owner and sometime world’s richest man, by Walter Isaacson, whose other subjects include Leonardo Da Vinci and Steve Jobs.Isaacson’s book was widely excerpted in the US media before publication on Tuesday.The brief meeting between Musk and Giuliani came about, Isaacson writes, as Musk sought to turn PayPal, the online payments company he co-founded, into “a social network that would disrupt the whole banking industry” – a vision he now harbours for Twitter, which he bought in October 2022 and renamed as X this year.“We have to decide whether we are going to aim big,” Musk told those who worked for him, Isaacson writes, adding that some “believed Musk’s framing was flawed”.Describing stymied attempts to rebrand, Isaacson writes: “Focus groups showed that the name X.com … conjured up visions of a seedy site you would not talk about in polite company. But Musk was unwavering and remains so to this day.”Such discussions, Isaacson reports, led Musk and an investor, Michael Moritz, to go to New York, “to see if they could recruit Rudy Giuliani, who was just ending his tenure as mayor, to be a political fixer and guide them through the policy intricacies of being a bank.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“But as soon as they walked into his office, they knew it would not work.“It was like walking into a mob scene,” Moritz says. Giuliani “was surrounded by goonish confidantes. He didn’t have any idea whatsoever about Silicon Valley, but he and his henchmen were eager to line their pockets.”“They asked for 10% of the company, and that was the end of the meeting. ‘This guy occupies a different planet,’ Musk told Moritz.”Giuliani succeeded in lining his pockets after leaving city hall, making millions as a lawyer and consultant and giving paid speeches around the world.That picture has also changed. Faced with spiraling legal costs arising from his work for Trump and other cases including a $10m lawsuit from a former associate who alleges sexual assault, lawyers for Giuliani have said he is struggling to pay his bills. In New York, his luxury apartment was put up for sale. More

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      The Last Politician review: the case for Joe Biden, polling be damned

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      By the polling, Joe Biden is stuck in a footrace with Donald Trump, his 91-times criminally charged predecessor as president. More than three-quarters of voters say Biden is too old to govern effectively. Two-thirds of Democrats wish he would throw in the towel.The intersection of Biden’s work as vice-president to Barack Obama and what Franklin Foer calls the “dodgy business dealings of son Hunter” haunts the father still. More than three fifths of Americans now believe Joe Biden was involved in Hunter’s business. The impeachment specter hovers.Kamala Harris poses a further problem. The polls, again: 53% of independents disapprove of the vice-president, two in five strongly. Were Biden to leave the stage, few would be reassured.Under the subtitle “Inside Joe Biden’s White House and the Struggle for America’s Future”, Foer dives into our political morass. He emerges with a well-sourced look at Biden and his time in power. A staff writer at the Atlantic and former editor of the New Republic, Foer acknowledges his own doubts about Biden but also voices his admiration for the back-slapping politician from Scranton. Foer’s title, The Last Politician, points to his thesis: that Biden’s old-fashioned approach to politics drives and shapes all he does.Foer captures Biden’s successes and his cock-ups, his abilities and insecurities. At times, Biden is portrayed as overly confident. He is also caught wondering why John F Kennedy was not so tightly handled by his aides – or “babied”, as Foer reports it. Youth, vigor and acuity are all parts of the answer.The Last Politician is definitely news-laden, a must-read for political junkies. Biden’s staff finally spoke. Foer lays out how Biden’s age shapes his first term and his re-election odds; Harris’s shortcomings as vice-president; and Biden’s relationships with Volodymyr Zelenskiy of Ukraine and Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. Complications dominate.Biden’s “advanced years were a hindrance, depriving him of the energy to cast a robust public presence or the ability to easily conjure a name”, Foer writes. “His public persona reflected physical decline and time’s dulling of mental faculties that no pill or exercise regime can resist.”Biden was gaffe-prone as a younger politician. Now, his verbal and physical stumbles lead news cycles.Decades ago, Ronald Reagan’s typical day began with his arrival in the West Wing at 9am. Biden starts about an hour later. That’s an hour earlier than Trump, sure. But Foer writes: “It was striking that [Biden] took so few morning meetings or presided over so few public events before 10am.” Plenty has been written about Reagan’s capacity by the end of his term. When Reagan left the White House, after eight years, he was nearly 78. Today, Biden is nearly 81.“In private,” Foer writes, Biden “would occasionally admit that he felt tired.” Unstated is this: the cumulative effect of such realities of age leaves Biden on the cusp of being ignored, unable to woo swaths of the American public or drive his message and numbers. In the 2022 midterms, his popularity deficit kept him sidelined. For a politician, a shrug or a yawn can be more damning than disdain.Expect Republicans to quote Foer as they bash Harris. “Rabbit Ears” is the chapter title of Foer’s examination of the former California senator, a moniker bestowed by Biden’s inner circle. As they saw it, Foer writes, Harris was sensitive to “any hint of criticism … instantly aware” of the slightest dissatisfaction.She projected clinginess and uncertainty. “Instead of carving out an independent role, she stuck to the president’s side – an omnipresence at every Oval Office meeting.” Harris’s “piercing questions” impressed Gen Mark Milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, but lunches with Biden gradually fell “off the schedule”.Then again, Biden owed Harris little. She brutalized him in a debate, intimating he was a bigot. Then she dropped out of the Democratic primary before a vote was cast, the political equivalent of a face-plant.The relationship between Biden and Zelenskiy also had its ups-and-downs, Foer says. He lauds Biden for “quietly arming the Ukrainians”, helping them “fend off invasion” by Russia. He also describes tensions between the two leaders.Biden and Zelenskiy failed to establish swift rapport. Zelenskiy demanded Nato membership and offered “absurd analysis” of alliance dynamics, leaving Biden “pissed off”. In Foer’s telling, “even Zelenskiy’s most ardent sympathizers in the [Biden] administration agreed that he had bombed”, while Zelenskiy “at least subconsciously … seemed to blame” Biden “for the humiliation he suffered, for the political awkwardness he endured” at the hands of Trump.“Where Biden tended to expect Zelenskiy to open with expressions of gratitude for American support, Zelenskiy crammed his conversations with a long list of demands.” Sucking up to Ted Cruz didn’t help either.In the end, Foer is a Biden fan. He gives the Inflation Reduction Act, in his view the crowning achievement of the first term, an unqualified endorsement. Homing in on provisions that aim to “stall climate change”, Foer says the law stands as “an investment in moral authority”, enabling the US to “prod” other countries on environmental issues.Watching the latest spate of environmental cataclysms, it is hard to dispute that the climate crisis is real – all while Republican presidential aspirants continue their denials. But there is something amiss in Foer’s enthusiasm and the administration’s posture. For now, inflation holds more public attention. Nearly three-quarters of Americans see inflation as a “very important” issue. Climate crisis and the environment? Forty-four per cent.A hunch: voters are less worried about moral authority and more about grocery bills and prices at the pump. According to the polls, the Democrats have lost their grip on voters without a four-year college degree, regardless of race. A priorities gap is on display again.Issues that speak loudest to white progressives lack broad resonance. The faculty lounge makes a lousy focus group. Foer’s enthusiasm is premature.
      The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden’s White House and the Struggle for America’s Future is published in the US by Penguin More