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    Indivisible: the mass movement leading the progressive fight against Trump

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    After the biggest day of protest of the second Trump presidency, when millions of people rallied in more than 1,300 cities and towns across the country, Ezra Levin addressed thousands of faithful progressive activists.For the previous few months, as Trump reclaimed the White House and Democrats struggled to oppose him, the drumbeat of opposition had steadily grown. Protest was back in the air. Democrats were finding their way. And it was because of activists like them, Levin told the crew gathered on a weekly organizing call for Indivisible, the progressive movement that started during Trump’s first term.The day of the Hands Off protests, 5 April, was an “inflection point” in the movement against Trump, the Indivisible co-founder and co-executive director said.The pressure had mounted. Trump’s approval rating had tanked. Elon Musk, a frequent villain in protests and pushback, was in retreat, returning to his car company after its stock fell following sustained demonstrations and boycotts. A growing number of universities, law firms and private organizations had started pushing back on Trump’s agenda of retribution.“Who are they going to be when democracy reasserts itself? They now have to think about that. All of these institutions, all of these leaders, are sticking their finger into the wind, and they’re trying to see which way the wind is blowing. And on Saturday, we changed the weather. That’s what we did together,” he said.Indivisible, a progressive grassroots organization with a national office and thousands of offshoots in cities and towns around the country, grew out of a Google Doc created by Levin and his wife, Leah Greenberg, when Trump won in 2016. At the time, the document suggested progressives use the Tea Party tactic of constituents pressuring their members of Congress to derail Trump’s agenda.View image in fullscreenNow, more than eight years later, the organization has matured and formed a critical flank of the opposition, using its millions of members across the country to quickly spin up town halls, rallies, educational events and protests. Since Trump won in November, progressive activists have launched or restarted more than 1,200 chapters, reigniting a level of activity the organization hasn’t seen since the early days of Trump’s first term.“If your theory of winning against the authoritarians is mass peaceful protest, what’s the first word? Mass. It’s got to be big,” Greenberg said during a recent Indivisible call. “It’s got to be overwhelming. And you don’t just snap your fingers and get there. You build. You build over time.”The tactics meet new obstaclesTrump’s first term began with the massive Women’s March protest. His second term started with a question mark for the resistance: how would the adrift Democrats oppose a man they revile who shocked them by winning the popular vote? And how could the opposition be effective without elected power?Those questions cleaved the party. Some suggested sitting back while the Republicans fought within their own ranks and Trump took it too far, like Democratic strategist James Carville, who wrote in the New York Times that Democrats should simply “roll over and play dead” for now.Indivisible capitalized on the leadership vacuum. When Democrats were voting for Trump nominees or priorities, it was time to call or show up at their offices. When Democratic leaders showed some spine by holding protests or breaking filibuster records, they deserved praise.This time, the organization had models for success – it helped block the repeal of the Affordable Care Act in 2017, one of the first big wins for the left in the first Trump administration, by pressuring moderate Republicans at town halls to keep it.David Karpf, a professor at George Washington University who studies political advocacy and strategy, said Indivisible created a “vessel for localized outrage”.Trump was not an anomaly, the organization acknowledges, but an increasingly authoritarian threat, and his rise transformed the Republican party into a group of loyalists. It also acknowledged that “a lot of people are burned out on the idea of protesting and marching” after the first Trump term and the racial uprisings in 2020.“Too often in Trump 1.0, we embraced the aesthetics of protests instead of using them as part of a strategy. Let’s be clear: protest is a strategic tool to achieve your goal. It is not a form of self-expression or therapy,” the 2024 guide says.They also had to reckon with Democrats’ serious losses in 2024. Some in Democratic circles were quick to blame groups like Indivisible for pushing Democrats too hard on issues like trans rights and the war in Gaza. This sense of indignation from the establishment toward the grassroots created a chasm in the party.Indivisible members first started whipping up Democrats in February to form the party into a more uniform anti-Trump bloc, though that wasn’t taken kindly by some. Some Democratic lawmakers told Axios that they were upset at Indivisible and other groups, who should be calling Republicans instead.“It’s been a constant theme of us saying: ‘Please call the Republicans,’” the representative Don Beyer said in February. In some places, local Indivisible groups are still turning up to pressure Democratic lawmakers, including the representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez.Building a movement again required first aligning Democrats with a basic truth, at least in Indivisible’s eyes: the country is in a constitutional crisis that needs the opposition party to use every tool to block the Trump agenda.One of the first big tests came when Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer helped pave the way for a Republican bill to keep the government open. Indivisible chapters across the country resoundingly called for him to be replaced as leader.During weekly organizing calls since November led by Levin and Greenberg attended by thousands, questions hit on common themes: whether Trump would crack down on protests (he already has, but don’t give him more power by staying home), how to protest against the courts (many judges are lifetime appointments, so they’re not necessarily swayed by protests), impeachment (not a practical move right now) and the benefit of a proactive policy agenda right now (now is the time for defense, offense comes later).Levin and Greenberg often allude to the experts who study authoritarians. Timothy Snyder, a professor and author of On Tyranny, is frequently cited, as are historian Heather Cox Richardson and Erica Chenoweth, who studies mass movements.“These are the experts in how authoritarianism takes over. And what they tell us is, do not wait for somebody else to come and save you. If you wait for that, it will be too late,” Levin said. “When institutions fall, it is up to people to organize. That’s the tool we’ve got.”The married couple who grew a movementCo-directors Levin and Greenberg work from their Washington home, where they are also raising two young children, so their days include a constant stream of messages about work and household tasks.In weekly calls with thousands of people across the group’s nationwide chapters, they sit shoulder to shoulder in front of the camera, a guitar beside them on the wall.Both attended Carleton College in Minnesota, a private liberal arts school, but didn’t meet until they were working in Washington, in the early Obama years.Greenberg is from Maryland, where politics is in the water, she told a group of new Indivisible chapter leaders on a recent call. She started organizing before she knew the word for it, running anti-sweatshop campaigns in middle school. Much of her professional work was in anti-human trafficking policy and advocacy. She also worked as a staffer and then on the campaign for the former representative Tom Perriello.Levin was born and raised in rural Texas, where he described his family as low-income. He told the new leaders that he, like many people, was radicalized by the country’s healthcare system. He worked on anti-poverty policy and served as staff for the Texas representative Lloyd Doggett.When Trump won in 2016, they, along with other former congressional staffers, wrote a guide that detailed how progressives could fight back using the Tea Party model (minus the racism and on very different policy lines) to get members of Congress to listen. Written in about two weeks, the guide flew around political and activist circles, crashing the Google doc with its virality.They thought the most likely outcome of publishing the guide was losing their jobs; they didn’t intend to start an organization, much less one that’s grown this much. A footnote in the guide says: “PS: we’re doing this in our free time without coordination or support from our employers. We’re not starting an organization and we’re not selling anything.”People started forming local groups, gathering in living rooms and basements and calling themselves Indivisible, before a national organization officially existed. In early January 2017, Levin and Greenberg wrote an op-ed in the New York Times and Levin went on Rachel Maddow’s show to talk about it. At that time, whenever a new Indivisible group would join, he would get an email. While he did the show, his pocket in his pocket was buzzing nonstop. “I could literally feel it growing in real time,” he said.Levin is bombastic, prone to a full-throated characterization of what they’re up against. Trump and his allies are “malicious muppets”. When a Democratic elected official who voted against progressive principles comes up, he doesn’t hesitate to launch into a critique. Greenberg is more wonkish, laying out the steps it takes to achieve a broad opposition movement and peel off independents or moderate Republicans and responding to questions about immigration and deportation policies.“We successfully get to the right combination of risk and caution between the two of us,” Greenberg said. “It’s been eight years. When we first started, we had to learn each other’s work personalities.”They now also have to protect themselves and their family from the ire of the right, who have accused Levin and Greenberg of orchestrating criminal activity, paying protesters and astroturfing Trump opposition, in posts often laced with antisemitism.Levin and Greenberg didn’t want to comment to the Guardian about safety threats, but told an organizing call that they expected this kind of response when they wrote the 2024 version of the Indivisible guide. “We knew what we were getting into. We knew this was an authoritarian regime,” Levin said. The fact the right is fighting them shows Indivisible is effective and that the right is scared of these widespread protests, he said.“They think we’re the leaders of this. Look, we could be gone tomorrow. It doesn’t matter. There are thousands and thousands of people across the country who are leading this movement. They are up against much more than just little old me and Leah,” Levin said.But on the weekly calls, which are public, Levin also often jokes that he looks forward to seeing clips of him and Greenberg circulating in rightwing media.“Shoutout to the special people on the call who are Maga infiltrators,” he said on a call on 27 March. “Look, I know a lot of Trump supporters were looking for a lower price of eggs and bread, and they got this fascist nut in the White House. You’re probably looking for ways to organize, too. Welcome.”The local chaptersIndivisible has nearly 2,000 active groups registered across the country. In the past six months, the number of new or reinstated chapters has kept growing considerably: 101 in January, 319 in February, 395 in March, down a bit to 261 in April.“This is by far the biggest surge in new Indivisible groups forming since that initial wave in 2017 when the movement began,” Levin said.In November, after Trump’s win, about 135,000 people joined a call hosted by a coalition of progressive groups, which Greenberg helped lead. After Indivisible released its revamped guide, 31,000 people joined a zoom to discuss it. In the months since then, Levin and Greenberg have drawn about 7,000 people weekly to their organizing calls.The structure of local groups feeding into a national movement is common among social movements, including the movements for civil rights and migrant farmworkers, said Hahrie Han, a political science professor who studies organizing and collective action at Johns Hopkins University.“The key is to develop national purpose, but local action,” Han said. “You need all the ships sailing in the same direction, obviously, otherwise it doesn’t add up to anything bigger. But you need people to feel like they’re independently strategizing and developing their own locus of control over the work that they do.”Cyndi Greening, a Wisconsin retiree who fought for women’s rights and abortion access during her career and intended to spend her retirement gardening and flinting, spent the first couple months after Trump’s second victory in despair. But she started joining the weekly calls and learning what she could do with her chapter. Her first group meeting for Chippewa Valley Indivisible had 28 people; she now has more than 900 members.Many local Indivisible leaders, including Greening, have been called “fake protesters” or “paid actors” by the right. They’ve also been falsely accused of approving violence to achieve their goals.Levin described nonviolence as critical to the movement, saying: “There’s nothing that the administration would like to see more than some sort of violence in the streets that they can then use as an excuse to crack down on normal, everyday Americans organizing and protesting. So we embrace nonviolence as a hard-headed strategic matter.”Lots of Indivisible chapters are run by older white women, partly because they were the people who hadn’t already been organizing before Trump’s first term, Greenberg said, which often raises questions. “We think older women organizing is amazing, because they’re bringing their skills, they’re bringing their resources, they’re bringing their experiences from their previous lives,” she said.Mary Jane Meadows runs one of the longest-running Indivisible chapters, started after Trump’s 2016 win. The group, based in north-east Mississippi, provided a life raft in a deep-red part of the country, where people were initially scared to talk about their distaste for the president. She was not previously politically active.The chapter was initially mostly white women, but the group has worked to diversify by reaching out to other organizations and holding events together, building trust along the way.“We began on this journey never knowing where it would take us,” Meadows said. “And we found community and we found purpose and a voice. And now, our machine is ready to go into battle.”Each week on the Indivisible calls, someone will ask what comes next. How can they get more people involved? When can they start round-the-clock sit-ins and general strikes and mass boycotts?“Those require enormous amounts of planning, preparation, building of muscles, building of potential,” Greenberg told a recent group. “We should just be real about the fact that those are not things that people are capable of doing right now.”Some also ask whether progressives should be crafting a policy agenda for when Democrats have more political power. Thinking about a policy platform can happen alongside pushing back on Trump, but it can’t be the sole focus.For now, Levin and Greenberg say, the goal is to build a broad-based coalition that aligns behind a simple message of no to Trump. That group will not agree on everything – and that’s OK for now.You have to make it to the next round of free and fair elections first, Levin said. More

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      Judge blocks Trump executive order targeting law firm linked to Robert Mueller – US politics live

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      A US judge on Friday overturned a Trump executive order targeting Jenner & Block, a big law firm that employed a lawyer who investigated him.Trump’s executive order, called Addressing Risks from Jenner & Block, suspended security clearances for the firm’s lawyers and restricted their access to government buildings, officials and federal contracting work.Trump accused the law firm of engaging in activities that “undermine justice and the interests of the United States”, claiming that it participated in politically driven legal actions. In the executive order, Trump specifically criticized the firm for hiring Andrew Weissmann, an attorney who worked on Robert Mueller’s investigation into allegations of Russian influence in Trump’s 2016 campaign.The firm sued to block Trump’s order, arguing it violated the constitution’s first and fifth amendments.A US district judge ruled on Friday that Trump’s directive violated core rights under the US constitution, mirroring a 2 May ruling that struck down a similar executive order against law firm Perkins Coie.Apart from Jenner and Perkins Coie, two other firms – WilmerHale and Susman Godfrey – have sued the Trump administration to permanently block executive orders he issued against them.The US departments of state and treasury acted on Friday to lift sanctions on Syria, following Donald Trump’s meeting with the new Syrian leader, the former Islamist rebel Ahmad al-Sharaa, last week in Saudi Arabia.A statement from the treasury explained that the Office of Foreign Assets Control had issued a license “to provide immediate sanctions relief for Syria” which “ authorizes transactions prohibited by the Syrian Sanctions Regulations, effectively lifting sanctions on Syria”.The state department also issued a waiver required by the 2019 Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act to suspend sanctions. “This is just one part of a broader U.S. government effort to remove the full architecture of sanctions imposed on Syria due to the abuses of the Bashar al-Assad regime”, the treasury said.The treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said the authorizations would “encourage new investment into Syria. Syria must also continue to work towards becoming a stable country that is at peace”.The administration did not say how long it would waive the congressional sanctions, but the law limits any presidential waiver to six months.For more permanent relief, administration officials are debating the extent to which Syria’s transitional government should be required to meet tough conditions.After meeting Sharaa, Trump told reporters that he was impressed with the former commander of al Qaeda’s franchise in the Syrian civil war. Sharaa, he said, was a “young, attractive guy; tough guy, you know. Strong past. Very strong past. Fighter.”A US federal judge did not mince words when calling a Trump executive order unconstitutional, which sought to target Jenner & Block, a big law firm.According to the judge, the Trump administration went after the law firm because of the causes it champions, the clients it represents and a lawyer the firm once employed.“Going after law firms in this way is doubly violative of the Constitution,” US District Judge John D Bates said in a ruling on Friday.Trump signed an executive order in March, targeting Jenner & Block by suspending security clearances and restricting their access to government buildings, officials and federal contracting work. This was, Trump claimed, because of politically motivated “lawfare” the firm engaged in.By attempting to push forward this executive order, Trump attempted to “chill legal representation the administration doesn’t like, thereby insulating the Executive Branch from the judicial check fundamental to the separation of powers”.Bates added that the Trump executive orders against law firms “follow the same recipe: other than personalized touches in their first sections, they generally direct the same adverse actions towards each firm and decry the threat each firm poses to national security and the national interest.”Bates was appointed to the District of Columbia in 2001 by President George W Bush. He blocked Trump’s executive order completely.A US judge on Friday overturned a Trump executive order targeting Jenner & Block, a big law firm that employed a lawyer who investigated him.Trump’s executive order, called Addressing Risks from Jenner & Block, suspended security clearances for the firm’s lawyers and restricted their access to government buildings, officials and federal contracting work.Trump accused the law firm of engaging in activities that “undermine justice and the interests of the United States”, claiming that it participated in politically driven legal actions. In the executive order, Trump specifically criticized the firm for hiring Andrew Weissmann, an attorney who worked on Robert Mueller’s investigation into allegations of Russian influence in Trump’s 2016 campaign.The firm sued to block Trump’s order, arguing it violated the constitution’s first and fifth amendments.A US district judge ruled on Friday that Trump’s directive violated core rights under the US constitution, mirroring a 2 May ruling that struck down a similar executive order against law firm Perkins Coie.Apart from Jenner and Perkins Coie, two other firms – WilmerHale and Susman Godfrey – have sued the Trump administration to permanently block executive orders he issued against them.Cases of measles, a viral infection that was considered eliminated from the US since 2000, have climbed slightly to 1,046.There have been 22 new cases in the past week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said, a small increase that signals outbreaks are slowing down.Ten of those cases came from Texas. Other states with active measles outbreaks include Michigan, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee. Indiana said its state’s outbreak was over.Two young children and an adult have died from measles-related illnesses this year, the AP reports. The virus that causes measles is airborne and highly contagious, although preventable through vaccines.Here are the key takeaways from Harvard’s legal battle over the Trump administration’s international student ban, from my colleague Anna Betts.Some of Harvard’s sports teams would be virtually wiped out by the Trump administration’s move to make the Ivy League school with the nation’s largest athletic program ineligible for international student visas.Harvard’s 42 varsity sports teams are the most in the nation, and Sportico reported last month that 21% of the players on the school’s rosters for the 2024-25 seasons – or 196 out of 919 athletes – had international home towns. The site noted that some could be US citizens or green card holders who wouldn’t need one of the international visas at issue in the Trump administration’s escalating fight with the university.Seven of the eight rowers on the men’s heavyweight crew team that just won the Eastern Sprints title – and is headed to the national championships – list international home towns on the school’s website. Mick Thompson, the leading scorer last season, and Jack Bar, who was a captain, are among a handful of Canadians on the men’s hockey roster; 10 of the 13 members of the men’s squash team and more than half of the women’s soccer and golf rosters also list foreign home towns.The supreme court temporarily paused judicial orders requiring the so-called “department of government efficiency”, established by Donald Trump and spearheaded by his billionaire adviser Elon Musk, to turn over records and answer questions in the coming days and weeks concerning its operations.The court put on hold Washington-based US district judge Christopher Cooper’s orders for Doge to respond to a government watchdog group’s requests for information after finding that Doge is probably a government agency covered by the federal Freedom of Information Act.The supreme court’s action, called an administrative stay, gives it additional time to consider the justice department’s formal request to block Cooper’s order while litigation proceeds in a lower court.This morning a federal judge in Boston swiftly blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to revoke Harvard’s ability to enrol international students, mere hours after the university sued the DHS. In its lawsuit Harvard condemned the administration for unconstitutional retaliation over its refusal to surrender to the White House’s political demands. It said the government’s move would “erase a quarter of Harvard’s student body”, force it to retract admissions for thousands of people, and has already thrown “countless” academic programs, clinics, courses and research laboratories into disarray. “Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard,” the university wrote in its legal complaint.Harvard’s president Alan Garber wrote in a letter to the university’s community:
      The revocation continues a series of government actions to retaliate against Harvard for our refusal to surrender our academic independence and to submit to the federal government’s illegal assertion of control over our curriculum, our faculty, and our student body.
      We condemn this unlawful and unwarranted action. It imperils the futures of thousands of students and scholars across Harvard and serves as a warning to countless others at colleges and universities across the country who have come to America to pursue their education and fulfill their dreams.
      US district judge Allison Burroughs granted the university’s request for an immediate temporary restraining order, which she said was necessary because Harvard had “made a sufficient showing … that, unless its motion for a temporary restraining order … is granted, it will sustain immediate and irreparable injury before there is an opportunity to hear from all parties”. She has set a hearing for 29 May to consider the administration’s actions.Trump doubled down earlier, telling reporters that “Harvard’s going to have to change its ways” and said he was also “looking at a lot of things” when asked if his administration was looking at stopping other universities besides from taking in foreign students. Before Burroughs’s ruling, a White House spokesperson had also earlier dismissed Harvard’s lawsuit as “frivolous”.While there are now two weeks of reprieve, there were reports of Chinese students at Harvard cancelling flights home today and seeking legal advice on staying in the United States as the Trump administration continues to wage war on the Ivy League university – and others – and amid years of tensions between the two countries. Per the New York Times (paywall), Trump’s attacks on elite institutions like Harvard have the potential to “reshape the broader relationship between [the US and China] by cutting off one of the few remaining reasons that people in China still admire the United States”.

      The Trump administration accused Columbia University of violating the civil rights of Jewish students by “acting with deliberate indifference” toward what it described as a “hostile environment” for Jewish students on campus.

      Trump ordered the nation’s independent nuclear regulatory commission to narrow regulations and expedite new licenses for reactors and power plants, seeking to shrink a multi-year process down to 18 months. The requirement was part of a batch of executive orders signed by Trump earlier today aiming to boost US nuclear energy production amid a boom in demand from data centers and AI.

      Vice-president JD Vance said that the US under Trump will choose carefully when to use military force and will avoid involvement in open-ended conflicts in a speech that signalled a huge shift in 21st-century US foreign policy.

      Trump said that a 25% tariff he said he will impose on Apple will also apply to Samsung and other smartphone makers who don’t make their products in the United States. “When they build their plant here, there’s no tariffs,” he said.

      Trump said he’s not looking for a trade deal with the EU – which he announced earlier today will be slapped with 50% tariffs from 1 June – but said he’d be open to talking about a delay if companies were willing to build their plants in the US.

      US special envoy Steve Witkoff held more than two hours of talks with an Iranian delegation in Rome today about Tehran’s nuclear program and agreed to meet again in the near future, a senior US official said.
      US special envoy Steve Witkoff held more than two hours of talks with an Iranian delegation in Rome today about Tehran’s nuclear program and agreed to meet again in the near future, a senior US official said.“The talks continue to be constructive – we made further progress, but there is still work to be done. Both sides agreed to meet again in the near future. We are grateful to our Omani partners for their continued facilitation,” the official said.Trump says he’s not looking for a trade deal with the EU – who he announced earlier today will be slapped with 50% tariffs from 1 June.He says the EU is “too slow-moving” and “if they build their plants [in the US] then they have no tariff at all”.
      I’m not looking for a deal. We’ve set the deal, it’s at 50%. But there’s no tariff if they build their plant here … If somebody wants to build a plant here I can talk to them about a little bit of a delay, while they’re building their plant, which is something that might be appropriate, maybe.
      Trump says that a 25% tariff he said he will impose on Apple will also apply to Samsung and other smartphone makers.“Or it would not be fair,” he says, adding that the White House will “appropriately have that done by the end of June”.“When they build their plant here, there’s no tariffs. So they’re going to be building plants here,” he says.When Trump first announced the tariff Friday morning, he targeted Apple CEO Tim Cook, who said recently that the company was shoring up manufacturing in India.“I said that’s okay to go to India, but not going to sell into here without tariffs,” Trump says.Trump says his administration “will do something very soon” to make it possible for people to come to the US and “have a road towards” citizenship.Following the signing of those executive orderes, Trump has been taking questions from the media.Asked by a reporter if his administration was looking at stopping other universities besides Harvard from taking in foreign students, Trump said:
      We’re taking a look at a lot of things.
      Citing the “billions of dollars” Harvard receives, Trump adds:
      Harvard’s going to have to change its ways.
      Here’s the clip of JD Vance saying the Trump administration has “reversed course” on US foreign policy, affirming that there will be “no more undefined missions, no more open-ended conflicts”.Donald Trump has ordered the nation’s independent nuclear regulatory commission to narrow regulations and expedite new licenses for reactors and power plants, seeking to shrink a multi-year process down to 18 months, Reuters reports.The requirement was part of a batch of executive orders signed by Trump just now aiming to boost US nuclear energy production amid a boom in demand from data centers and AI.Licensing for reactors in the US can take over a decade at times, a process designed to prioritize nuclear safety but which has discouraged new projects.“With these actions, President Trump is telling the world that America will build again, and the American nuclear renaissance can begin,” said Michael Kratsios, director of the White House office of science and technology policy.The moves include a substantial overhaul of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that includes looking at staffing levels and directing the energy and defense departments to work together to build nuclear plants on federal lands, a senior White House official said.The administration envisions the Department of Defense taking a prominent role in ordering reactors and installing them on military bases.The orders also seek to reinvigorate uranium production and enrichment in the United States, the senior White House official said.Trump declared a national energy emergency in January as one of his first acts in office, saying the US had inadequate supplies of electricity to meet the country’s growing needs, particularly for data centers that run artificial intelligence systems.Most of Trump’s actions have focused on boosting fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas, but administration officials also support nuclear power, which in recent years has attracted growing bipartisan support.I spoke too soon. Reuters is reporting that Donald Trump is making the nuclear announcement now and signing his executive orders.His secretary of the interior, Doug Burgum, said there will be four orders signed.Executive orders were on Donald Trump’s schedule for 1pm ET today. It’s obviously now way past that time but, as you may know, Trump often runs a tad late to these things. He has also been unusually quiet on Truth Social for the past six hours … so I’ll bring you the latest on what’s happening with the orders when we know more.Earlier, Reuters reported that as early as today Trump was due to sign executive orders meant to accelerate nuclear energy development. Trump is expected to streamline the regulatory process for new reactor approvals and enhance fuel supply chains, the news agency reported citing four sources familiar with the matter. The report saw shares of nuclear power companies surge. More

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      A huge Democratic victory in Omaha offers a lesson for the party | Katrina vanden Heuvel

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      For the last several months, the Trump administration’s reckless use of executive power, trade policy, gutting federal agencies and defying court orders has gone largely unchecked. National Democrats have limited means of opposition – so the best hope for accountability will be electoral accountability.This may help explain why last Tuesday’s election results in America’s 41st biggest city generated such outsized excitement from progressives. John Ewing Jr, a longtime county treasurer, was elected the first Black mayor of Omaha, defeating the incumbent Jean Stothert, who was seeking a fourth term after holding that office since 2013. More than that, Ewing won big, by nearly 13 points, marking a huge shift after Stothert won her last race by 30.Ewing ran a substantive, highly localized campaign that built upon decades of credibility he earned as a public servant – supplemented by the longstanding work of the Nebraska Democratic party to build coalitions in a traditionally deep-red state. In swinging this race by 43 points, they have both inspired hope that the political winds may be shifting, and provided a model for Democrats to succeed in 2026 and beyond.The results in Omaha are meaningful not for the scale of the city, but for how it may reflect the country as a whole. Omaha’s congressional seat – Nebraska’s second – is a true swing district, one of only three in the country that voted for Kamala Harris in 2024 while also electing a Republican to Congress. It’s a diverse, medium-sized, midwestern city – and if that isn’t enough to convey its heartland status, it’s nearly in the geographic center of the contiguous United States.For all of these reasons, it’s instructive for Democrats to understand the strategy of the chair of the Nebraska Democratic party, who now serves as president of the Association of State Democratic Committees (ASDC) and a DNC vice-chair: Jane Kleeb. In a moment when so much media attention has been focused on internal procedural drama surrounding certain other vice-chairs, Kleeb and the Nebraska Democratic party have continued their longstanding focus on the day-to-day work.In the waning days of the Omaha mayoral election, Stothert attempted to negatively polarize voters against Ewing by nationalizing the race – and, in particular, hammering the GOP’s favorite wedge issue target of late: trans people. As my colleague John Nichols wrote about last week for the Nation, this did not work. Instead, Ewing refused to take the bait and kept his focus on tangible municipal issues – such as housing, street paving and even a struggling streetcar project. In a simple graphic released three days before the election, the Nebraska Democratic party proudly declared: “Jean is focused on potties. John is focused on fixing potholes.”As thousands of Democrats across the country seek election up and down the ballot in 2026, they too could decline to debate on Republican terms and instead run campaigns relentlessly focused on improving their constituents’ lives.Successful as this campaign was, it also builds upon statewide efforts from the Nebraska Democratic party to compete in unfavorable territory. Kleeb has long advocated for Democrats to perform direct outreach to rural voters – and it’s not the same thing as pandering. Instead, it means recognizing real problems that, say, farmers are experiencing and offering practical solutions.In her words: “In rural and small towns we may not use the word ‘climate change’ in the first five sentences, but everything we’re doing is talking about protecting the land and water.”And progressives in Nebraska know a thing or two about the value of avoiding toxic political labels. When the navy veteran, mechanic and union leader Dan Osborn ran a populist, independent campaign for Senate last year, the Nebraska Democratic party stepped aside and chose not to run a candidate. While Osborn and the state party had their differences – and he ultimately lost – this unorthodox strategy showed serious upside. Osborn came closer to defeating the incumbent Republican than any other challenger in the 2024 cycle; now he’s looking at a 2026 run in much more favorable circumstances.With lessons to learn from the success in Nebraska, it is encouraging that Kleeb now holds a prominent leadership position in the national Democratic party – the same role that Ken Martin held before he became chair. As head of the ASDC, Kleeb is well positioned to work with all 50 state chairs to get them the resources they need – and it will be all 50, as she and the DNC recently announced that the national organization will be contributing more to state parties as part of a re-emerging 50 state strategy.But even if Kleeb’s ascendance only meant that the Democratic party got better at competing in Nebraska, it could prove decisive. Given that the House is currently held by Republicans by a handful of seats (give or take whatever disgraced resignations happen between now and next November), the race in Nebraska’s second district could very well be the tipping point for control of the lower chamber. Representative Don Bacon, who held on to his seat by less than 2 points last cycle, may well retire before he has a chance to lose.Whether the race for Congress in 2026 comes down to Omaha itself or someplace like it, Democratic victories will depend on a nationwide effort to invest as deeply in local concerns as Kleeb and Ewing have. That strategy can be summed up with a mantra that Kleeb has repeated time and time again – what you may call Jane’s refrain: “When we organize everywhere, we can win anywhere!”

      Katrina vanden Heuvel is editorial director and publisher of the Nation, she is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and she has contributed to the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times More

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      Newark mayor says prosecutors tried to ‘humilate’ him by forcing redo of fingerprints and mugshot

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      Ras Baraka, the Democratic mayor of Newark, said federal prosecutors were seeking to “humiliate and degrade” him by making him give fingerprints and have a mugshot taken for a second time on Thursday.The move came after a court appearance on a trespassing charge stemming from his arrest at an immigration detention center where he was protesting with several members of Congress.The charges against Baraka have unfolded amid fears that the Trump administration is seeking to prosecute Democratic politicians, judges or others who have opposed its policies.Baraka appeared in court for a roughly 15-minute procedural hearing before magistrate judge André Espinosa. The hearing covered mostly scheduling for discovery in the case, which stemmed from an encounter on Friday outside the Delaney Hall immigration detention center.Assistant prosecutor Stephen Demanovich said the government disputed Baraka’s claims that he committed no crime and was invited on to the facility’s property. Confusion over whether Baraka had been fingerprinted and processed after his arrest unfolded after the judge brought the proceedings to a close.As the parties began to walk away, the judge added that the mayor would need to be processed by the US Marshals Service and that it would take 10 minutes. Baraka, looking confused, said he had already been processed after his arrest. The judge said “agents” had processed him but not the marshals.“Let’s go,” Baraka said, before indicating he would go with the marshals.Speaking to a crowd of supporters outside court, Baraka addressed why it took him a while to emerge from the building.“They’re trying their best to humiliate and degrade me as much as they possibly can,” he said. “I feel like what we did was completely correct. We did not violate any laws. We stood up for the constitution of this country, the constitution of the state of New Jersey.”The trespassing charge against Baraka carries a maximum sentence of 30 days in prison.One of Baraka’s attorney’s, Rahul Agarwal, said the defense expected to seek to dismiss the charges because the mayor was arrested by federal agents on private property. He added that it was a “selective prosecution” and that only the mayor had been arrested.Demanovich said the government disputed that but did not go into detail.Baraka has been an outspoken opponent of Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and a vocal opponent of the facility’s opening.In video of the Friday altercation shared with the Associated Press, a federal official in a jacket with the homeland security investigations logo can be heard telling Baraka he could not enter because “you are not a Congress member”.Baraka then left the secure area, rejoining protesters on the public side of the gate. Video showed him speaking through the gate to a man in a suit, who said: “They’re talking about coming back to arrest you.”“I’m not on their property. They can’t come out on the street and arrest me,” Baraka replied.Minutes later, several Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents, some wearing face coverings, surrounded him and others on the public side. Baraka was dragged back through the gate in handcuffs.Delaney Hall is a two-storey building next to a county prison and formerly operated as a halfway house. In February, Immigration and Customs Enforcement awarded a 15-year contract to the Geo Group Inc to run the detention center.Politicians and activists have said facility has been reopened in contravention of local ordinances and without the necessary permits. It is the largest such facility in the north-eastern US, and the first to open during Trump’s second term, according to Ice.A trial date for Baraka has not yet been set.The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      Democrats are failing against Trump. We need a new generation in 2026 | Alexandra Rojas

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      After more than 100 days of the Trump administration, it’s clear how unprepared Democratic leadership has been for this moment.Words can hardly describe just how far Donald Trump, Elon Musk and the administration have gone to serve the interests of their fellow billionaires, undermine our economy and kill hundreds of thousands of jobs while dragging our basic civil liberties and constitution through the buzzsaw to illegally disappear countless immigrants and send them to privately funded domestic prisons and torture camps abroad.It’s why the absence of true oppositional leadership has been deafening. After spending an entire campaign cycle naming Trump as an existential threat to our democracy and rule of law – which he is – the party’s leadership has folded at the first chance to wield the power they have, revealing hypocrisy and cowardice.Chuck Schumer surrendered the entire federal budget and Marco Rubio, who is now championing the administration’s campaign of disappearing immigrants, was confirmed unanimously to Trump’s cabinet by the US Senate.Every choice Democratic leadership has made to sacrifice its base and become more like the bad guys we were supposed to be fighting has led us here. And now, people are losing faith in Democrats’ ability to solve our country’s biggest problems – the party is polling at a historic low.Americans have long been ready for the political revolution Bernie Sanders has talked about, but the party and the DC elite haven’t been. Aside from the many polls that highlight the national popularity of Sanders and the policies he supports over the last eight years, voters have made it abundantly clear that it’s time to usher in a new generation of leaders who won’t act like doormats for Trump and Elon Musk. They see this party – just like our government and our economy – as captured by the wealthy few.Waiting for 2028 is not the answer – no president alone can provide the change we need. Massive transformation in this country has never happened without a Congress willing to act – from FDR’s New Deal to the Civil Rights Movement. As the 2026 midterm elections approach, we have an opportunity to take action.When I first started at Justice Democrats in 2017 under Trump’s first presidency, we had a vision as big as a presidential-sized campaign. What if we ran a 50-state campaign to run people in Democratic primaries and take back Congress? Though we haven’t been successful in every race, over the last four cycles, Justice Democrats has been a part of unseating five 15+ year incumbents who collectively served 108 years in office, we have beaten the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) and corporate Democrats in open seats, and we have gone up against hundreds of millions of dollars of opposition spending.Our mission since the beginning has been simple and focused: to build a mission-driven team of working-class leaders in Congress who champion solutions as big as the problems we face. We have recruited and elected leaders like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush, Summer Lee and more over the years.Our work towards this mission has not been perfect, and there has been so much we have learned along the way from the thousands of volunteers, organizers, staff, leaders, donors and allies we have met along the way. But together we have built a powerful bench of progressives in Congress who are the most politically courageous and working-class people to ever walk the halls of one of the most powerful bodies in the world.We know it’s not 2017 any more and the forces we are up against – in the White House and the billions spent to influence our media, our elections, our politicians – are even greater than they once were. It still probably sounds far-fetched to clean up the House and Senate – replace every bought-and-paid-for Democrat and Republican we have in Congress. But we believe it is our collective duty to try.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionLast month, we announced our first new Democratic congressional primary candidate since the 2022 cycle: Donavan McKinney, a working-class Detroiter and state representative, against the incumbent US representative Shri Thanedar, AKA Detroit’s Elon Musk. Thanedar is a self-funded multimillionaire businessman who since 2021 alone spent over $17m of his own wealth to bankroll his congressional campaigns while spending more taxpayer money than any other member of Congress on ads to promote himself last year.This race embodies the fight for the future of the Democratic party. Are we going to elect more multimillionaires backed by corporate lobbies to play possum in the face of fascism, or are we going to elect people who will fight to fix America’s crises with the urgency of someone who has lived through them?A new world needs new leaders. The 2026 cycle presents a historic opportunity for generational and working-class transformation in the Democratic party and in our politics.

      Alexandra Rojas is executive director of Justice Democrats More

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      Michelle Obama 2.0 – the reinvention of the former first lady

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      Hello and welcome to The Long Wave. This week, I review Michelle Obama’s new podcast, IMO, which is surprising in the ways it breaks with the Michelle of the past.I came to sneer – and stayed to cheerView image in fullscreenFirst, a disclaimer: I had never fully bought into the Michelle Obama hype. I felt her now legendary line “When they go low, we go high” encapsulated a troubling and complacent form of respectability politics, in which Black people have to maintain coolness and grace under fire to be taken seriously. As the first lady, Michelle often seemed like a sanitising presence, wheeled out so that her national treasure status could serve as a smokescreen to obscure more honest and damning assessments of Barack Obama’s political record.Also, I am not a huge fan of the celebrity podcast genre, which is a vehicle for high-profile figures to chat to their friends in return for huge pay packets. So I was sceptical when Michelle’s podcast was launched in March. Yet when I listened to it, I was immediately charmed and hooked. In truth, I came to sneer and stayed to cheer. She is honest, reflective and vulnerable in ways that are profoundly resonant of a universal Black female experience, something that her icon status had rarely spoken to previously. The irony is that just as Michelle is finding her voice, her popularity appears to be falling – the podcast received poor ratings on launch, though it’s arguably the best thing she’s ever done.A great orator has the conversation of her lifeView image in fullscreenThe most arresting thing about IMO, despite the genuinely interesting high-profile Black guests such as Keke Palmer and the Wayans brothers, is Obama herself. She has always been one of the great orators in US politics – one of the superpowers that made her and Barack, another impressive public speaker, such a compelling couple on the world stage. In her podcast, Michelle uses this talent to reflect on her life and the challenges of ageing, losing her parents and the constant demands placed upon her.The fact that she co-hosts the show with her brother, Craig Robinson – a genial and down-to-earth foil for her confessions – gives the podcast such an intimate air that you feel like you’re in the presence of everyday people, not celebrities. I found myself listening not to hear any snippets of political gossip or insight into the Obamas’ lifestyle, but to receive some exceptionally articulated wisdom from an older Black woman who has seen a lot and gone through milestones we will all experience.She is also funny. Her account of how differently men and women socialise is familiar and hilarious. Michelle describes catching up with her female friends as a “multiday event”, something that leaves Barack perplexed as to why it takes two days for a basic meetup.There is pathos and uncertainty, too. In a recent episode, Michelle talks about the death of her mother, who lived in the White House during the Obamas’ tenure. Michelle says that, at 61, only now does she feel that she has finally become an adult, having had to reckon with her own mortality after the loss of her parents. The former first lady has revealed that she is in therapy, and that she is still trying to navigate this phase of her life.And, in a striking segment, she speaks with barely restrained annoyance about her reasons for not attending Trump’s inauguration, an absence that triggered divorce rumours that have been swirling for months. She says “it took everything in [her] power” to choose what was right for her in that moment. Yet that decision was met with “ridicule” because people couldn’t believe she was saying no to the inauguration for any other reason than she just did not want to be there – they had to “assume my marriage was falling apart”. Oof. It caught my breath.Beyond Black Girl Magicskip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionView image in fullscreenThis Michelle is worlds away from the Michelle of the 2010s. The publishing juggernaut and icon of Black social mobility, who rose to first lady from a bungalow in the south side of Chicago, was the product of a particular moment in feminist and racial discourse.The start of that decade brought the rise of Black Girl Magic, a cultural movement that focused on the exceptional achievements and power of Black women. It intersected with Black Joy, which moved away from defining the Black experience primarily through racism and struggle. Both unfolded against the backdrop of “lean in” feminism, which glorified hard graft, corporate success and having it all. The result was the marketing of women such as Michelle to promote popular narratives of inspiration and empowerment.That energy has since dissipated, losing steam culturally and overtaken by more urgent battles. The gains of the Black Lives Matter movement triggered a rightwing backlash against diversity and inclusion that is spearheaded by Trump. Now the Obamas seem like relics of a naively optimistic and complacent time.‘We got out of the White House alive – but what happened to me?’View image in fullscreenBut all that change and disappointment seems to have freed Michelle from the expectation that she should project graceful power and guru-like wisdom at all times. The podcast may not be the runaway hit it might have been 10 years ago, but that speaks to its authenticity and refreshing lack of a cynical big marketing campaign. Michelle is not trying to catch a moment – she even looks different. Gone is the silk-pressed hair, the minimalist jewellery and the pencil dresses. She now embraces boho braids, long colourful nails and bold gold jewellery. In an episode of IMO, she asks herself: “What happened that eight years that we were in the White House? We got out alive; I hope we made the country proud. But what happened to me?” There is so much urgency in her voice. And though her high-octane political experience may not be relatable to the average person, that question is one that I and many women of a certain age are asking as we emerge, blinking into the light, from the tunnel of navigating racism, establishing careers against the odds and having families. What happened to me?To receive the complete version of The Long Wave in your inbox every Wednesday, please subscribe here. More

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      Ice has become Trump’s private militia. It must be abolished | Mehdi Hasan

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      On Friday, the Democratic mayor of Newark was arrested and detained in his own city by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents. His crime? Trying to gain access and inspection rights to a privately operated detention center that he says is in violation of multiple city lawsuits.Three Democratic members of Congress accompanied Ras Baraka to the Delaney Hall facility in Newark, as they exercised their own congressionally mandated right to enter Ice detention facilities for oversight purposes, without prior notice.While Baraka was taken away in handcuffs, two of the House Democrats – Bonnie Coleman Watson and LaMonica McIver – were shoved and manhandled by Ice agents outside the facility. The third, Rob Menendez, angrily accused Ice of feeling “no weight of the law and no restraint on what they should be doing. And that was shown in broad daylight today when they not just arrested the mayor of Newark but when they put their hands on two members of Congress standing behind me. How is this acceptable?”It’s a good question. Elected Democrats are now under both legal and physical assault from a rogue agency, which behaves less like federal law enforcement and more like Donald Trump’s private militia. And yet, elected Democrats refuse to call for its abolition. They seem to have decided that the continued existence of Ice is “acceptable”.Despite the feverish claims from Republican politicians and Fox anchors about the Democratic party being “soft” on immigration enforcement, we’re a long way from 2018, when “abolish Ice” was an actual slogan on the left and deployed by both prominent progressive activists and rising Democratic party stars, such as then newly elected Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Even Kirsten Gillibrand, a moderate New York senator, said she wanted to “get rid of [Ice], start over, reimagine it and build something that actually works”. Kamala Harris, then a California senator, said she believed in “starting from scratch” with Ice.These days, however, elected Democrats, even of the progressive variety, have run a mile from the one-time campaign to dismantle Ice. The new Congressional Progressive Caucus chair, Greg Casar, for example, told Semafor last month he had “changed” his mind on “Abolish Ice”. Ocasio-Cortez did not utter the words “abolish Ice” on her recent “Fighting Oligarchy” tour with Bernie Sanders. And nor, for that matter, did the independent senator from Vermont, who once said he wanted to “break up” Ice.What on Earth are elected Democrats, especially progressives, waiting for? How many more abuses of power and violations of the law does Ice have to commit? How unpopular does Trump have to get on the issue of immigration – especially on the issue of Ice deportations – before the so-called opposition take a much bolder stance on the future of Ice?Consider some of the Ice horror shows from the past 30 days alone:

      On 8 May, Ice agents “held a young girl’s face to the ground” while they detained her mother in Worcester, Massachusetts. A video of the incident from Telemundo Nueva Inglaterra shows the teenage girl screaming as multiple agents and officers chase her and grab her legs.

      On 7 May, Ice agents detained Jensy Machado, a US citizen, in northern Virginia with “guns drawn”, to quote the Virginia Democratic congressman Don Beyer. Despite his attempt to show his Real ID and prove his legal status, they put him in cuffs.

      On 5 May, Ice agents detained Daniel Orellana, a 25-year-old Guatemalan, at a gas station in Framingham, Massachusetts. When they were told they had apprehended the wrong man, according to Orellana’s girlfriend, one of the agents said: “OK, but we’re going to take you anyway.”

      On 4 May, a group of Ice agents detained a man filling up gas in his truck at a gas station in Oxnard, California – and left his children behind on their own. “They arrested someone,” said an eyewitness. “They left the children inside the truck.”

      On 26 April, court papers filed by the Department of Homeland Security admitted that Ice agents did not have a warrant when they arrested the Palestinian activist and green-card holder Mahmoud Khalil in March.

      On 24 April, in the middle of the night, Ice agents burst into the home of a family of US citizens in Oklahoma City, while executing a search warrant issued for someone else. The agents ordered the family outside into the rain in their underwear, the mother said, and confiscated their phones, laptops and all their cash savings as “evidence”.

      On 22 April, Ice agents detained a mother and her two-year-old daughter, a US citizen, during a routine check-in with the agency in New Orleans and then deported the mother back to Honduras with her American child. A Trump-appointed federal judge said he had a “strong suspicion that the government just deported a US citizen with no meaningful process”.

      Also on 22 April, Ice agents in plain clothes, without badges or warrants, detained two men during a raid on a courthouse in Charlottesville, Virginia. Two bystanders who dared to ask those agents to show them a warrant were ordered not to “impede” the arrest and have since been threatened with prosecution by Ice.

      On 14 April, Ice agents stopped an undocumented Guatemalan couple in their car in New Bedford, Massachusetts, while looking for another man. When Juan Francisco and Marilu Méndez’s lawyer told them over the phone to stay in the car until she got there, the Ice agents used a large hammer to smash the rear window of the car and drag them out.

      Also on 14 April, we learned that Ice agents detained a 19-year old Venezuelan asylum seeker and deported him to the Cecot prison in El Salvador – despite his lack of criminal convictions or even tattoos. During the arrest, according to his father, one Ice agent said: “No, he’s not the one,” as if they were looking for someone else, but another agent said: “Take him anyway.”
      All of these incidents are just from the past month. Go back further, and I could go on and on and on.So where are the Dems on this? Why aren’t they calling for an end to a lawless, violent, deadly, institutionally racist, sexually abusive agency, whose employees’ union endorsed Trump for president in both 2016 and 2020, and whose former acting director, Tom Homan, has become this administration’s gung-ho “border czar” and “the face of Trump’s cruelty”, to quote my Zeteo colleague John Harwood?Forget about talk of “reform”. At this point, there is no way to improve or “fix” Ice. It has to be abolished. Shut down. Scrapped. To quote Gillibrand in 2018, the entirety of immigration enforcement in the United States must be “reimagined”.Meanwhile, as some Democrats obsess over opinion polls and worry about looking “soft” on the border, the actual experts on authoritarianism are sounding the alarm. The political scientist Lee Morgenbesser has compared Ice to a “secret police” and says the agency “is fast becoming a key piece in the repressive apparatus of American authoritarianism”. Historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat calls Ice the “foot soldiers” of the “fascists”. Even the “anti-woke” libertarians over at Reason magazine say Ice is on a “militaristic mission that effectively turns nonviolent immigrants into fugitives”.Why would a future Democratic president or Democratic-controlled Congress want to keep such a Gestapo-like outfit? And, sorry, but when did it become a political taboo to call for the abolition of a government agency? Republicans have spent decades trying to shut down a plethora of federal government departments. The current Trump administration has gutted USAID, established under John F Kennedy in 1961. Trump has signed an executive order to try to force the “closure” of the Department of Education, which was first conceived of by Andrew Johnson in 1867. Republicans in Congress have introduced a bill to abolish the IRS, which goes back to 1862 and Abraham Lincoln.So why can’t timid Democrats call for the abolition of Ice, which was created only in 2003 by George W Bush, making it even younger than Leonardo DiCaprio’s current girlfriend?Both Ice and its Republican supporters in Congress see an opportunity right now. “The agency,” reports the New York Times, “is hoping to receive a large windfall from Republicans in Congress so it can spend as much as $45bn over the next two years on new detention facilities, a more than sixfold increase from what Ice typically spends to detain migrants.”If Democrats are serious about stopping fascism, then they have to do everything in their power to prevent the ongoing expansion and further empowerment of Homan and his army of masked Ice thugs.And if Democrats are ever able to win back office, there is only one right move here, politically, financially, and, above all else, morally: abolishing Bush and Trump’s Ice, once and for all.

      Mehdi Hasan is a broadcaster and author, and a former host on MSNBC. He is also a Guardian US columnist and the editor-in-chief of Zeteo More

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      Biden destroyed Harris bid by staying in race too long, top adviser says in book

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      Joe Biden “totally fucked us” by leaving it too late to drop out of the 2024 US presidential election, a former top campaign aide to Kamala Harris has told the authors of a new book.David Plouffe, who was manager of Barack Obama’s winning 2008 campaign and a senior adviser in his White House, was drafted in to help Harris’s bid for president after the declining Biden withdrew from the race last summer.Harris’s 107-day sprint against Donald Trump was “a fucking nightmare”, Plouffe is quoted as saying by authors Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson in Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again. A copy was obtained by the Guardian.“And it’s all Biden,” Plouffe adds, reflecting on the former US president’s decisions to run for re-election and then to cling on for more than three weeks after a catastrophic debate performance against Trump raised questions about his mental acuity and age. “He totally fucked us.”Plouffe, along with some other former Obama staffers, has previously been critical of Biden and his role in the Democratic defeat. In the wake of Harris’s loss he posted a message on X – formerly known as Twitter – that the Harris campaign had begun in a “deep hole”. He later deleted his account.The book describes how Plouffe had received calls from donors worried about Biden’s diminishing energy, cognitive skills and ability to deliver a speech. He in turn pressed the White House and Democratic party if they felt sure that the then president could win another election and was repeatedly told he could.But Tapper, chief Washington correspondent for CNN, and Thompson, a national political correspondent for Axios, spoke to around 200 people for the book, including members of Congress and White House and campaign insiders. Some had been sounding the alarm about Biden’s mental acuity and about desperate efforts by his close staff and allies to hide the extent of his deterioration.One senior aide, who quit the White House because they did not think Biden should run, admits to the authors that “we attempted to shield him from his own staff so many people didn’t realize the extent of the decline beginning in 2023”.“I love Joe Biden. When it comes to decency, there are few in politics like him. Still, it was a disservice to the country and to the party for his family and advisers to allow him to run again.”A prominent Democratic strategist says of Biden’s determination to seek re-election: “It was an abomination. He stole an election from the Democratic party; he stole it from the American people.”Original Sin is one of several eagerly awaited books about the 2024 election and an alleged White House conspiracy.Biden, 82, seemingly tried to preempt its revelations last week with media appearances on BBC Radio 4’s Today program and ABC’s talkshow The View. Biden has signed with Creative Artists Agency for representation and hired communications strategist Chris Meagher to help burnish his public reputation.But the 27 June 2024 debate in Atlanta was no anomaly, the book argues. Since at least 2022 Biden has been increasingly prone to lose his train of thought and struggle to remember the names of top aides. His speeches can be incoherent and difficult to hear. When he proved incapable of delivering a two-minute video address without stumbling, aides filmed him with two cameras so the edit would be less obvious.Original Sin tells how prominent figures tried to intervene in various ways. Obama visited the White House in 2023 and warned Biden: “Just make sure you can win the race.”Ari Emanuel, a Hollywood powerbroker and significant Democratic donor, yelled at longtime Biden ally Ron Klain: “Joe Biden cannot run for re-election! He needs to drop out! He can’t win! What’s the plan B?” Klain admitted there was no plan B.And Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader in the Senate, confronted the president after the debate last July at his home in Rehoboth, Delaware, and appealed to his desire to preserve his legacy. He warned Biden that, he if stayed in the race and lost to Trump then 50 years of “amazing, beautiful work goes out the window. But it’s worse than that – you will go down in American history as one of the darkest figures.”On their way out, the book reports, Biden put his hands on Schumer’s shoulders and told him: “You have bigger balls than anyone I’ve ever met.”Biden stepped aside on 21 July and quickly endorsed Harris, but it was too late, the authors contend. He had already helped usher in the fate that he most wanted to avoid: the return of Trump to the White House. More