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      House Democratic veterans back moves to limit Trump’s military authority

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      A group of 12 House Democratic military veterans have thrown their weight behind efforts to constrain Donald Trump’s military authority, announcing they will support a War Powers Act resolution in response to the US president’s go ahead for airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.The veterans – some of whom served in Iraq and Afghanistan – were strongly critical of Trump’s decision to launch what they called “preventive air strikes” without US congressional approval, drawing explicit parallels to the run-up to some of America’s longest recent wars.“Twenty years ago, in their rush to appear strong and tough, politicians – from both parties – failed to ask the hard questions before starting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” they wrote in a letter led by Representative Pat Ryan to Trump sent on Monday. “We refuse to make those same mistakes.”Their intervention comes as multiple war powers resolutions are gaining momentum on Capitol Hill, with the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, pushing for a vote as early as this week to rein in the president’s military actions. The veterans did not specify which measure they would support, as competing versions are being drafted by different Democratic factions alongside a bipartisan effort.The War Powers Resolution of 1973 was enacted to limit the US president’s ability to commit armed forces to fight abroad without congressional consent in the form of a vote.Representatives Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, and Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, have been championing one bipartisan resolution, while the ranking Democrats on the House foreign affairs, armed services and intelligence committees are preparing an alternative, according to Punchbowl News.Democratic aides described the latter to the outlet as providing cover for members uncomfortable with backing the Massie-Khanna approach, though lawmakers will not be discouraged from supporting both measures.The adamance against the legality of America’s involvement has only intensified since Trump’s Saturday night strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites, and the line from centrist to progressive Democrats has been to charge the president with executive overreach.The New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called for Trump’s impeachment, describing the attacks as “a grave violation of the constitution and congressional war powers”, while the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, accused the president of misleading Americans and dramatically increasing the risk of war.For the 12 veteran House members, the issue cuts to the heart of their military oath.“We all swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Article 1 Section 8 explicitly requires a vote by Congress to declare war,” they wrote, demanding clear answers about military objectives, estimated costs and potential American casualties before any escalation.The signatories included representatives Gilbert Ray Cisneros Jr, Eugene Simon Vindman, Chris Deluzio, Jimmy Panetta and Ted Lieu.Still, their letter walked a careful line on the broader Middle East conflict, labeling Iran as “evil” and pledging continued support for Israel while warning against the strategic limitations of military action. “While destroying nuclear sites may achieve initial tactical success, it far from guarantees longterm strategic victory,” they argued.The dispute has built on uncomfortable divisions within Trump’s own party, most notably with conservative influencers and independent news media that lean to the right, with Massie and senator Rand Paul emerging as Congress’s most vocal Republican critics of the Iran strikes.But Trump has since escalated his rhetoric, posting on Truth Social about potential “regime change” in Iran and asking: “MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!”Congressional leaders have also expressed frustration over the administration’s failure to provide adequate consultation before the weekend operation.While Schumer received a call from Trump officials, he was reportedly not told which country would be targeted, and Jeffries “could not be reached until after” the strikes had begun, according to the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt. More

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      Free buses, more housing, taxing the rich: how Zohran Mamdani has gone viral in the New York mayor’s race

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      Zohran Mamdani trailed Andrew Cuomo, the frontrunner to be the next New York City mayor, by 30 points just a few months ago.Now, just ahead of the Democratic primary on Tuesday, the 33-year-old democratic socialist has bridged the gap with Cuomo, a politician so of the establishment that a giant bridge north of New York literally bears his last name.The surge in support for Mamdani, an aspiring rapper turned state politician, with a penchant for turning out snappy social media videos and a track record of progressive, leftwing ideas, has shown his clear ability to win over young voters. It also didn’t hurt when he won the backing of the progressives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders this month.Mamdani’s rise has lent a new edge to an election that was in danger of becoming a procession for Cuomo, the former New York governor who resigned in disgrace in 2021 after being accused of sexual harassment.For a Democratic party struggling to stand up to Donald Trump and his “make America great again” acolytes, the closely watched election will offer an insight into what rank-and-file Democrats desire: a good old boy promising a steady hand on the tiller, or a fresh outsider who has energized parts of a weary New York electorate with plans to freeze rent and make buses free citywide.Mamdani’s rise has been boosted by a social media following that dwarfs his rivals’.He has almost a million followers across Instagram and TikTok, where he posts funny and self-aware videos selling himself to the public. The clips frequently show him walking through New York, or riding the subway, things that are unlikely to come naturally to the multimillionaire Cuomo.After supporters commented on Mamdani’s frequently exuberant hand gestures in the videos, he posted a clip where he promised to keep his hands in his pockets, removing them twice only to have them slapped down by a man on the street.“This election is in your hands,” a caption read on the video, in which Mamdani urged people to register to vote. The video was left to roll at the end as Mamdani laughed at the shtick.Born in Uganda to Indian parents, Mamdani moved to New York City when he was seven years old, and had a long-term interest in politics. Last week, a former classmate shared a video in which she recalled how Mamdani won a “mock presidential election” in 2004. A cricket and soccer player – “he usually played defense or defensive midfield, and would sprint down the field and score”, a former teammate told the Guardian – he was elected to represent an area of Queens in the state assembly in 2021.View image in fullscreenMamdani has bold ideas for what he would do as mayor. In a city with a longstanding affordable housing crisis, he wants to freeze rent increases for people in applicable buildings, and build 200,000 new units over the next 10 years. He says he would eliminate fares on city buses, something which would cost at least $630m but, according to Mamdani, would generate $1.5bn in economic benefits. (New York City has an annual budget of $115.1bn for 2026.) He says he can fund his proposals by increasing the corporate tax rate and bringing in a flat tax on people earning more than a million a year.But Mamdani’s limited political record, more than his proposals, has come under scrutiny as he has flown closer to the sun.There was more than a whiff of jealousy from Mamdani’s opponents during the Democratic debate on 4 June, with even his progressive rivals taking a shot. Jessica Ramos, a state senator – theoretically a more powerful position than Mamdani’s role as state representative – lamented that she had not run for mayor four years earlier, adding: “I thought I needed more experience, but turns out you just need to make good videos.”Ramos’s slight mirrored Cuomo’s persistent refrain that Mamdani lacks the experience to be mayor. As Mamdani has risen in the polls, Cuomo has stepped up the attacks on his rival, painting him as too radical and inexperienced to lead the city in a barrage of TV ads and mailed-out flyers. In one proposed mailer, a pro-Cuomo group appeared to have darkened the skin and beard of Mamdani, who would be New York’s first Muslim mayor, a move Mamdani criticized as “​​blatant Islamophobia”. A spokesperson for the group said the ad had been proposed by a vendor and upon review “it was immediately rejected for production and was subsequently corrected”.For his part, Mamdani has repeatedly sought to tie Cuomo to Trump, pointing out that many of his donors backed Trump in the presidential election.“Oligarchy is on the ballot. Andrew Cuomo is the candidate of a billionaire class that is suffocating our democracy and forcing the working class out of our city,” Mamdani’s campaign said in an email to supporters on Tuesday.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn a more pointed critique of his opponent, Mamdani said on the debate stage: “I have never had to resign in disgrace. I have never cut Medicaid, I have never stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from the MTA, I have never hounded the 13 women who credibly accused me of sexual harassment, I have never sued for their gynecological records, and I have never done those things because I am not you, Mr Cuomo.”The New York Democratic primary will use ranked-choice voting, allowing voters to select multiple candidates, which Mamdani hopes could boost his chances. Last week, he announced he was “cross-endorsing” with Brad Lander, a fellow progressive who on Tuesday was arrested by Ice agents while visiting an immigration court.The winner of the primary is not guaranteed to become the 111th mayor of New York, but it is highly likely in a city where registered Democrats heavily outnumber Republicans. The incumbent, Eric Adams, who won the 2021 election as a Democrat but is running this year as an independent candidate, is deeply unpopular in the city. Last year, Adams was charged with taking bribes and accepting foreign campaign contributions. The charges were dropped in April after the Trump administration intervened.While popular with young people and the left of the party, Mamdani has lagged behind Cuomo among Black and Latino voters – though a recent poll showed Mamdani gaining support from both.The Cuomo campaign and its backers have also raised the issue of Mamdani’s criticism of Israel’s war on Gaza. He has said the country is committing genocide, a characterization that Cuomo, a fiercely pro-Israel Democrat who has courted the city’s large Jewish population, has sought to exploit. In a recent post on X, Cuomo all but accused Mamdani of fomenting antisemitism. Mamdani says he has built a coalition including Jewish New Yorkers, and would form a department to investigate hate crimes.In an election where Cuomo’s strategy has been to largely avoid the press and the public, the energy has been with Mamdani.A rally with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York congresswoman and a fellow democratic socialist, drew thousands of people to a music venue in Manhattan in mid-June, and Mamdani’s appearances at hip music venues across the city have drawn enthusiastic crowds.“For the longest time, mayoral candidates have been kind of the same type of guy. Either they’re like legacy New York politics people, or businessmen that kind of pivoted through,” said Tomas Carlson, a 23-year-old Mamdani supporter.“This is the first time in a while where I saw a candidate that had new ideas. And I think the Democratic party in general, we need a sort of fresh breath of air.” More

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      Democrats say they were left in dark about plans for US strikes on Iran

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      Senior Democrats have claimed they were left in the dark about operation Midnight Hammer, the US’s highly coordinated strike on Saturday on Iran’s nuclear enrichment program.Neither Mark Warner, a US senator of Virginia, nor Jim Himes, a representative of Connecticut, both top Democrats on the Senate and House intelligence panels, were briefed before the attack, according to reports.But that came amid claims that Republican counterparts were given advance notice of the operation, which involved 125 aircraft – including seven B-2 bombers carrying 14 bunker busters weighing three tons – and 75 Tomahawk missiles launched from US submarines. Axios reported that the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, had been informed shortly before the attacks began at 6.40pm eastern time.Himes’s committee staff received notification about the strike from the Pentagon only after Donald Trump made the announcement on social media soon before 8pm, according to the outlet.The president’s defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, told a press conference early on Sunday that the strikes “took months and weeks of positioning and preparation so that we could be ready when the president called”.“It took misdirection and the highest of operational security,” Hegseth said, in part alluding to the US’s deployment of B-2 bombers to the Pacific island of Guam earlier on Saturday.The US attack of Iran came as most Democrats had left Washington for the Juneteenth holiday – but the apparent lack of forewarning to lawmakers on intelligence committees is striking. Top lawmakers are typically informed of military operations in advance.“Cost, duration, risk to our troops, strategy – the basics before we make a decision of this consequence,” said Chris Coons, a senior Democratic member of the Senate foreign relations committee, last week.Arizona senator Mark Kelly told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday that the White House should have been “right up front” in coming to Congress “and asking for authorization to do this”.“That’s the constitutional approach to this,” Kelly said. “He could have talked to us about what the goal is and what the plan is ahead of time.”Tim Kaine, a Virginia senator who sits on the armed services as well as the foreign relations committees, said Congress needed to be informed ahead of time.“Congress needs to authorize a war against Iran,” he said. “This Trump war against Iran – we have not.” Senators are expected to receive a briefing on the strikes next week. But the signs that an attack was imminent were there to see: additional US military assets had been moved into the region, and the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, had postponed a briefing with the Senate intelligence committee last week.Moderate and progressive Democrats have been in conflict over the engagement of US forces in support of Israel. Trump’s use of force could now deepen the ideological schism.Senator Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, told CNN on Sunday that “the destruction of these facilities is a positive in the sense that it will set back Iran’s program”. But he warned that Iran could now “sprint for a bomb”.He added that the strikes were “not constitutional” and Congress should be brought in “on an action this substantial that could lead to a major outbreak of war”. But Schiff refused to be drawn in on whether the world was safer following the strike. “We simply don’t know,” he said.Schiff maintained that in absence of a briefing “this is an order that should not have been given”.Prominent Democrats with 2028 presidential aspirations have been notably silent on the 10-day war between Israel and Iran. “They are sort of hedging their bets,” said Joel Rubin, a former deputy assistant secretary of state during the Obama administration.“The beasts of the Democratic party’s constituencies right now are so hostile to Israel’s war in Gaza that it’s really difficult to come out looking like one would corroborate an unauthorized war that supports Israel without blowback.”But some had spoken out. Ro Khanna, a California congressman, called the White House threats of an attack on Iran “a defining moment for our party”. That came as progressive and isolationist lawmakers on the right found themselves uncomfortably aligned.Khanna had introduced legislation with the Kentucky Republican US House member Thomas Massie that called on Trump to “terminate” the use of US armed forces against Iran unless “explicitly authorized” by a declaration of war from Congress.Following the strike, Khanna posted on X: “Trump struck Iran without any authorization of Congress.”Khanna said Congress needed to “immediately return” to Washington to vote on the measure he and Massie co-authored. Kaine said he would bring a similar resolution to the Senate in the coming days.Massie said in response to the strikes: “This is not Constitutional.”The independent US senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who caucuses with the Democrats, said supporting the Israeli prime minister Benjamin “Netanyahu’s war against Iran would be a catastrophic mistake”. He introduced legislation prohibiting the use of federal money for force against Iran.The New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said on X that the decision to attack Iran’s nuclear sites was “disastrous”.“The President’s disastrous decision to bomb Iran without authorization is a grave violation of the Constitution and Congressional War Powers. He has impulsively risked launching a war that may ensnare us for generations. It is absolutely and clearly grounds for impeachment,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote.Halie Soifer, the chief executive officer of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, said in a statement: “This is an incredibly difficult moment for the vast majority of American Jews, who are supportive of Israel, concerned about the security and safety of the Israeli people and Jews in the United States and around the world, and fearful that president Trump lacks a clear strategy about what happens next with Iran.”On NBC’s Meet the Press JD Vance, the US vice-president, maintained that it was untrue to say that Saturday’s strikes in Iran exceeded Trump’s presidential authority.Schiff, meanwhile, declined to support calls for impeachment proceedings against Trump, saying the failure to brief Democrats ahead of the strike was “another partisan exercise”. More

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      I study the history of Nazi resistance. Here’s what the US left can learn from it | Luke Berryman

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      Around the end of 2022, I had an idea for a book about the history of resistance to Nazism. I wanted to show that Nazism has faced nonconformity, refusal and protest ever since it was born in 1920. I also wanted to explore beyond a handful of famous heroes and cast a spotlight on people who changed history without entering popular memory. When I began my research, Donald Trump had just announced his candidacy for the Republican ticket in 2024. When I gave the manuscript to the publisher a little over two years later, he was president-elect.His comeback, the darker version of Maga that came with him, and the Democratic party’s collapse gave fresh relevance to the stories of resistance to far-right extremism that I was finding. Even as I was piecing them together, they began to intrude on the present. It was a haunting transformation – and it helped me to understand why the resistance to Trump has been flawed from the moment he stepped on to the political stage.We’ve never been shy about broadcasting our opinions. We’ve worn pussy hats, put up lawn signs, and trolled Trump and his supporters, both online and off. But while such acts may get attention, their capacity to create change is less certain.This can even be true for mass protests. Americans have sometimes underestimated the effectiveness of protest – recent demonstrations in Los Angeles and across the country are an important part of resistance. In the era of social media and the 24-hour news cycle, though, protests can risk becoming a spectacle. And when the government is given a chance to portray them as violent, their effectiveness is extinguished – because they end up benefiting the forces they mean to challenge. The resisters that I researched, by contrast, were laser-focused on creating change. Whether they were satirists drawing anti-Nazi cartoons in 1920s Germany or former neo-Nazis becoming peace advocates in the 21st-century US, they sought to improve life for themselves and others in the here and now, in any way that they could, no matter how small.The German activist Emmi Bonhoeffer is a powerful example. She built a support group for the Holocaust survivors who testified in the 1960s Frankfurt Auschwitz trials, where Nazis were tried for their roles at the death camp. In doing so, Bonhoeffer resisted the Nazis’ desire for both their crimes and their victims to be forgotten. Her group – most of them homemakers – ultimately helped nearly 200 people as they took the stand. They inspired similar groups to form around other war crimes trials in Germany, too. But they didn’t advertise. They didn’t have a slogan or an outfit or a flag. They didn’t even bother to give their group a name. Their first and only concern was to clear a path toward justice for at least some of the Nazis’ victims. For Bonhoeffer, resistance wasn’t about getting attention. It was about creating change.What’s more, the resistance to Trump has always been stained by a judgmental streak. Whether we’re denouncing them as a “basket of deplorables” or mocking them on social media, we invariably devote too much energy to belittling his supporters. This has convinced us of our own moral rectitude. In turn, this has made us complacent, and complacency only deepens our inaction.The resisters that I learned about pulled no punches when it came to judging Adolf Hitler and his inner circle. But they spent more time judging themselves than his supporters. Consider the German émigré Sebastian Haffner. In the late 1930s, he wrote an extraordinary autobiographical book about his life as a so-called “Aryan” in Hitler’s Germany. It was only published in 2000, posthumously, after his son discovered it hidden in a desk drawer. For Haffner, publication didn’t really matter. The book was, first and foremost, an imaginative space in which he subjected his own behavior and thinking and privilege to relentless scrutiny. Through this process of self-scrutiny, he grew into one of the Nazis’ most effective critics in exile.The judgmental streak has also given some of our attempts to resist Trump a holier-than-thou quality that diminishes our capacity for empathy. We’re too quick to believe that 77 million Americans voted for Trump out of stupidity, not desperation or disenfranchisement. By contrast, I was always struck by the sense of shared humanity among the resisters that I discovered – like the lower-level British intelligence officials who persuaded members of the German public to help them smoke out Nazi war criminals after 1945; or Leon Bass, the Black American soldier who drew on his own experiences of segregation to deepen his understanding of the suffering of the Jewish people he liberated from Buchenwald.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionLike every far-right leader in history, Donald Trump has intoxicated his supporters with nostalgia for a past that never existed in order to push a corrupt and hateful agenda of his own. Eventually, many will realize that he’s lied to them. Perhaps they’ll lose their jobs because of his economic policies, or see law-abiding friends and family deported because of his immigration policies. Perhaps their children will suffer from measles because of his health policies. Whatever the case, when their moment of realization comes, we must be ready to embrace them, and to weep with them for what they’ve lost. If there’s one thing that I learned while writing my book, it’s that effective resistance to the far right is never just about defeating the enemy. It’s about creating a better future for everyone.What’s giving me hope nowTeachers and librarians are championing the written word as a tool of resistance. Colleagues in the field of Holocaust education are collaborating on free and innovative events to inform the public about the collapse of democracy in early 20th-century Europe – and to establish what we can learn from it today. And, as I argue in my book, the arts can connect us to our own humanity, and to the humanity in others. Supporting your local art museum, attending a concert or joining a book club should all be cause for hope – because in a divided, partisan society, such acts constitute resistance.

      Luke Berryman, PhD, is an educator and author of the forthcoming book Resisting Nazism, to be published by Bloomsbury in 2026 More

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      Cheering support and instant condemnation: US lawmakers respond to attack on Iran

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      American politicians reacted to the news of the US bombing of nuclear targets in Iran with a mix of cheering support and instant condemnation, reflecting deep divisions in the country that cross party lines as Washington grapples with yet another military intervention overseas.Donald Trump announced on Saturday night that the US had completed strikes on three nuclear sites in Iran, directly joining Israel’s effort this month to destroy the country’s nuclear program.Earlier this week, the US president had signaled that Iran would get two weeks before he would make a decision about joining Israel’s military effort or steering clear – a timeline that evidently was shattered this weekend as the waiting posture was quickly reversed.The US attack came after more than a week of missile, drone and airstrikes by Israel on Iran’s air defences and offensive missile capabilities and its nuclear enrichment facilities. But it was widely held that only the US had the offensive firepower to reach a core part of Iran’s nuclear operations that were buried deep underground – an attack that has now taken place.The move sparked condemnation from Democratic California congressman Ro Khanna, a progressive in the party who has been critical of any US military action against Iran. Khanna and hard-right Republican congressman Thomas Massie were planning to introduce a measure that would force Trump to get congressional approval to enter Israel’s conflict with Iran.Khanna posted on X that Congress needed to vote on such action.“Trump struck Iran without any authorization of Congress. We need to immediately return to DC and vote on @RepThomasMassie and my War Powers Resolution to prevent America from being dragged into another endless Middle East war,” he said.Massie himself tweeted on X: “This is not Constitutional.”Massie and Khanna represent a rare moment of cross party cooperation in the deeply divided US political landscape, though some other Republicans also expressed doubt. Far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene – a stalwart of Trump’s Make America Great Again (Maga) politics – has been critical of any US attack on Iran and posted simply on X: “Let us all join together and pray for peace.”US Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat of New York, demanded of Senate majority leader and South Dakota Republican John Thune that he should immediately call a vote on the matter.Schumer said the US Congress must enforce the War Powers Act “and I’m urging leader Thune to put it on the Senate floor immediately”. The law is also known as the War Powers Resolution of 1973 and is intended as a check on the US president’s power to devote the United States to armed conflict without the consent of the US Congress.Meanwhile, at a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Saturday, on his “fighting oligarchy” tour, leftist Vermont senator Bernie Sanders read out Trump’s statement announcing the attack, prompting boos and rapid, loud chanting of “no more war” from the crowd. Sanders said: “I agree.”He then called the attack “alarming” and added: “It is so grossly unconstitutional”.New York Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went further and called for Trump’s impeachment – something that has been tried twice before. “The President’s disastrous decision to bomb Iran without authorization is a grave violation of the Constitution and Congressional War Powers. He has impulsively risked launching a war that may ensnare us for generations. It is absolutely and clearly grounds for impeachment,” she said on X.Hakeem Jeffries, the top Democrat in the House, said Trump had “misled” Americans. “The risk of war has now dramatically increased, and I pray for the safety of our troops in the region who have been put in harm’s way,” he said in a statement.He added: “Trump misled the country about his intentions, failed to seek congressional authorization for the use of military force and risks American entanglement in a potentially disastrous war in the Middle East.”The US vice-president, JD Vance, reposted Trump’s post on X announcing the US strikes, where the president had said: “We have completed our very successful attack on the three nuclear sites in Iran … There is not another military in the world that could have done this … Now is the time for peace!” Vance did not add any comment when he reposted. Both he, particularly, and Trump campaigned in the presidential election against US involvement in foreign wars.Other Democrats also came out strongly against the attack, echoing Khanna’s stance. “President Trump has no constitutional authority to take us to war with Iran without authorization from Congress, and Congress has not authorized it,” said Virginia congressman Don Beyer.Illinois congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi told the Guardian: “If Iran was not fully committed to building a nuclear bomb in an accelerated timeframe I’d be shocked if they are not now – have we just unleashed something that’s worse than what was happening before?”However, the strike on Iran also had support among some Democrats, notably Pennsylvania Democratic senator John Fetterman, who has been a hawkish supporter of Israel and advocated for the US to join Israel’s assault on Iran.“This was the correct move by @POTUS. Iran is the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism and cannot have nuclear capabilities,” Fetterman posted.More predictably, hawks among Republican ranks reacted to the attack with congratulations to Trump for making the decision to intervene.“This was the right call. The regime deserves it. Well done, President @realDonaldTrump. To my fellow citizens: We have the best Air Force in the world. It makes me so proud. Fly, Fight, Win,” said Iran hawk South Carolina Republican senator Lindsey Graham, who has long advocated for taking a hard line in support of Israel’s attack on Iran, on X.Former Republican congressman Matt Gaetz likened the attack to the US killing of the powerful Iranian general Qassem Suleimani in 2020 as he was being driven away from Baghdad international airport. “President Trump basically wants this to be like the Solimani strike – one and done. No regime change war. Trump the Peacemaker!” Gaetz said on X.Thune earlier in the evening, prior to Schumer’s comments, had said: “The regime in Iran, which has committed itself to bringing ‘death to America’ and wiping Israel off the map, has rejected all diplomatic pathways to peace. The mullahs’ misguided pursuit of nuclear weapons must be stopped. As we take action tonight to ensure a nuclear weapon remains out of reach for Iran, I stand with President Trump and pray for the American troops and personnel in harm’s way.”Oklahoma senator and Republican Trump loyalist Markwayne Mullin posted on X: “America first, always.”Reuters contributed reporting More

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      How does an Obama speechwriter befriend a Joe Rogan fan? Via surfing

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      What do men want? Democrats need to know after their election drubbing by Donald Trump and the “manosphere” last year. They have responded by commissioning “Speaking with American Men”, a strategic plan that will study “the syntax, language and content that gains attention and virality” in online spaces.News of the two-year $20m project reinforced critics’ view that Democrats have become the party of an aloof, college-educated liberal elite whose pursuit of working class men resembles a Victorian explorer wielding a butterfly net. Which makes the publication of David Litt’s book, It’s Only Drowning, a timely contribution to Democrats’ ongoing post-mortem.Litt is a former senior speechwriter for Barack Obama dubbed “the comic muse for the president” for his work on White House Correspondents’ Association dinner monologues. The 38-year-old has written speeches and jokes for athletes, chief executives and philanthropists and was head writer and producer in the Washington office of the comedy studio Funny or Die.It’s Only Drowning, his third book, centres on an improbable friendship that develops between Litt, a Yale-educated liberal with a fear of sharks, and his brother-in-law Matt Kappler, a tattooed truck-driving electrician who listens to podcaster Joe Rogan and never registered to vote.Their chasmic differences in background, education, ideology and lifestyle initially seem unbridgeable but, when Litt asks Kappler to help him learn how to surf, the shared experience provides neutral ground for connection.“What started as a surfing book became a story about basically a will-they won’t-they?, except it’s whether an Obama speechwriter and a Joe Rogan superfan can become friends,” Litt says in an interview at the Guardian’s office in Washington. “Like a lot of Democrats, my natural inclination is to be a little annoying and condescending. I certainly wasn’t doing that when I was the one who desperately needed to learn from him.”View image in fullscreenLitt, who divides his time between Washington and Asbury Park, New Jersey, describes himself as a high-functioning, high-anxiety person who experienced situational depression during the coronavirus pandemic. He had a feeling of overwhelming dread, difficulty getting out of bed and found himself endlessly doomscrolling.His wife Jacqui’s brother, by contrast, seemed to be thriving. Kappler is a guitar player, a motorcycle enthusiast and a daredevil surfer. Litt reflects: “I had always thought of him as a crazy person, and I still do, but he was able to deal with the ups and downs of life in a world that’s on fire in a way that I began to envy.“He did well during the pandemic and he seemed resilient in a way that, to be totally honest, I didn’t. I definitely was not about to get tattoos or try to drive a truck because I would bump into things, but I could see myself trying to surf and that’s what happened.”It would not be easy. At the age of 35, it required developing new muscles and confronting intense fear and humiliation. Still, Litt moved to the Jersey Shore and enlisted Kappler to help with surfing lessons. After months of struggle, he set the ambitious goal of riding a big wave in Hawaii.Surfing became a metaphor for confronting fear, both physical and existential, and an antidote to Litt’s habitual overthinking. He says: “Weirdly, the feeling I get, that sense of dread when a wave is about to crash down right on top of me, is actually somewhat analogous to the feeling I get when reading the news these days. It’s that sense of looming disaster and there’s nothing you can do about it.”And most importantly, Litt came to consider Kappler a friend. “One of the only things more difficult than learning to surf is making a new friend in your 30s, so I feel like I might be even more proud that I was able to accomplish that than riding an overhead wave on the North Shore.”As he tells this story, Litt reflects on America’s deep political and cultural divisions and how they were exacerbated by the pandemic. Differences in taste and lifestyle become “identifiers” declaring political allegiance. Litt admits that, had Kappler been a friend rather than family, he would probably have cut off contact after learning that Kappler refused the Covid shot.“He played electric guitar in a ska band that is a big deal on the Shore; I played ultimate frisbee. He was into death metal and I was into Stephen Sondheim. So we never had anything in common. In the run up to the pandemic all of these differences weren’t always political but then somehow they started to feel like they were telling us what team we were on. It felt like we’d been drafted into opposite sides of the culture war.”Litt does not pretend that there was a Hollywood ending in which he and Kappler found common ground and changed each other’s minds. But he does argue in favour of shared activities that allow for connection and understanding between individuals with differing views.“What we found was this neutral ground. Surfing is a space that is not politically coded and you can talk about something that isn’t one of the gazillion fault lines in our society right now. It’s hard to find those spaces but, for the exact same reason, it’s worth trying.“I heard from a lot of people in the run-up to this book coming out who said, ‘I have a friend or family member where politics is tearing us apart. We can’t talk about anything in the news and how do I convince them?’ What I would say now is talk about something else. Don’t talk about what’s in the news.“Start by looking for that neutral ground and forgetting about this idea of common ground, because the reason it feels like we have no common ground is that we don’t. We just disagree on a lot of important things as a society.”Litt knows that, had Kappler been registered to vote, he would certainly not have done so for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. Back in 2016, Kappler said he would have backed either Trump or Bernie Sanders because they were the most entertaining.Litt says: “Truly the biggest divide between us politically is that I think about politics a lot and that’s part of how I define myself. Matt watches the news, he cares about what’s going on in the world, but that’s not his identity. He’s not a political person.“One of the problems that Democrats have right now is we’re very much the party of news junkies and most Americans are not news junkies.”Celebrity politics and cultural influence have moved towards Republicans and the likes of Rogan and Elon Musk, who appeal to anti-establishment sentiment and claim to prioritise common sense over political parties. A new generation of rightwing podcasters and influencers started out as entertainers and latched on to issues later.“Democrats are still lagging.” Litt says. ‘The new media voices that are developing, many of them are great, but they tend to be political first and entertainment second, or politics as entertainment, and so they don’t appeal as much to people who don’t find politics entertaining and those are the voters we’re going to need in ‘28.”Democrats also have a well documented class problem. It has come to be seen by many as the party of Hollywood celebrities and college-educated elites, with a whiff of contempt for blue collar workers in the heartland, summed up by Hillary Clinton’s dismissal of half of Trump supporters as a “basket of deplorables.”The party’s perceived shift toward identity politics and social justice issues alienated some working class voters who once formed its base. Ahead of the 2016 election, Senator Chuck Schumer declared: “For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia.”It turned out to be bad maths. Last November Republicans swept the White House and both chambers of Congress. Trump won 56% of voters without a college degree, compared with 42% who favoured Harris, a shift from 2020 when Trump and Joe Biden were roughly even.Litt points out the homogeneity of Democratic circles and the lack of organic relationships with working-class people, particularly those without college degrees. This disconnect hinders their ability to understand their issues or effectively communicate.Recalling his time volunteering for Harris’s ill-starred election campaign, he says: “I would sometimes be on conference calls and people would talk about a policy or message and say, ‘Do we think this is going to work? Do we think this is going to be effective?’ I would basically say, well, let me go surfing and find out.“Nobody else said, ‘Oh, let me go talk to my working class friend,’ because Democrats often do not have working friends who don’t have college degrees. The people who are in office, and the people who work for those who are in office, almost all are college educated and almost all their friends are college educated.“You have Democrats sit in rooms where literally everyone has a college degree, and they say, how come people without college degrees don’t feel like we’re thinking about them or that we’re welcoming to them? Well, look around the room.”Litt acknowledges that he is writing about a friendship with one other white man, the smallest possible sample size, making it hard to draw sociological conclusions about working class people of colour.But he also notes that Republicans have sought to “repolarise” the country on educational and culture war lines while making race less important in determining how people vote. Polls show that Trump did make big inroads with Latino men and, to a lesser extent, with African American men.Litt says: “I don’t know that race stopped mattering but I do think there was a Democratic view that race mattered so much more than anything else, especially for people who are not white.“What we saw is very clearly no, that’s not true and was maybe not the most empirically based attitude to have. The base of the Democratic party is still Black women but I do think there was some some of that racial depolarisation.”Democrats do have a strong policy agenda for blue collar workers but have failed to communicate it, Litt argues. His friendship with Kappler will not explain everything. But he offers it as a start for a party that somehow allowed Trump – a millionaire businessman who cuts taxes for the rich – to steal its clothes.“If you had asked me three years ago, do you have a lot to learn from your brother-in-law, I would have said not really, and one of the things I had to learn was that’s a deeply obnoxious attitude. I’m still a professional Democrat – I can still be plenty annoying – but I think I am less self-righteous than I used to be. And it turns out life is more fun and you’re more persuasive that way. So why not?” More

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      Outrage as DHS moves to restrict lawmaker visits to detention centers

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      The US Department of Homeland Security is now requiring lawmakers to provide 72 hours of notice before visiting detention centers, according to new guidance.The guidance comes after a slew of tense visits from Democratic lawmakers to detention centers amid Donald Trump’s crackdowns in immigrant communities across the country. Many Democratic lawmakers in recent weeks have either been turned away, arrested or manhandled by law enforcement officers at the facilities, leading to public condemnation towards Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (Ice) handling of such visits.Lawmakers are allowed to access DHS facilities “used to detain or otherwise house aliens” for inspections and are not required “to provide prior notice of the intent to enter a facility”, according to the 2024 Federal Appropriations Act.Previous language surrounding lawmaker visits to such facilities said that “Ice will comply with the law and accommodate members seeking to visit/tour an Ice detention facility for the purpose of conducting oversight,” CNN reported.However, in the new guidance, the DHS updated the language to say that Ice “will make every effort to comply with the law” but “exigent circumstances (eg operational conditions, security posture, etc) may impact the time of entry into the facility”.The new guidance also attempts to distinguish Ice field offices from Ice detention facilities, noting that since “Ice field offices are not detention facilities” they do not fall under the visitation requirements laid out in the Appropriations Act.The Guardian has contacted Ice for comment.In response to the updated guidance, Mississippi’s Democratic representative and the ranking member of the House committee on homeland security, Bennie Thompson, condemned what he called the attempt by the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, to “block oversight on Ice”.“Kristi Noem’s new policy to block congressional oversight of Ice facilities is not only unprecedented, it is an affront to the constitution and federal law. Noem is now not only attempting to restrict when members can visit, but completely blocking access to Ice field offices – even if members schedule visits in advance,” Thompson said.“This unlawful policy is a smokescreen to deny member visits to Ice offices across the country, which are holding migrants – and sometimes even US citizens – for days at a time. They are therefore detention facilities and are subject to oversight and inspection at any time. DHS pretending otherwise is simply their latest lie.”Last month, the New Jersey representative LaMonica McIver was charged with assaulting federal agents during a visit to a detention facility in Newark alongside two Democratic members of the state’s congressional delegation. McIver called the charges against her “purely political … and are meant to criminalize and deter legislative oversight”.New Jersey’s governor, Phil Murphy, also condemned the charges, saying it was “outrageous for a congresswoman to be criminally charged for exercising her lawful duty to visit a detention site in her own district”.On the day of McIver’s visit, law enforcement also arrested the mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, who they charged with trespassing as he attempted to join McIver’s delegation visit. The charges against Baraka were later dropped and Baraka has since filed a lawsuit against the state’s top federal prosecutor over his arrest.Bonnie Watson Coleman, another New Jersey representative who was part of McIver’s visit, rejected the DHS’s claims that the lawmakers assaulted law enforcement officers.“The idea that I could ‘body-slam’ anyone, let alone an Ice agent, is absurd,” the 80-year-old representative said on X last month, adding: “We have an obligation to perform oversight at facilities paid for with taxpayer dollars.”Earlier this month, law enforcement officers forced the California senator Alex Padilla on to the ground as he attempted to ask a question to Noem during a press conference in Los Angeles.Despite repeatedly identifying himself, Padilla was handcuffed and forced into the hallway before law enforcement officers shoved the two-term US senator chest-first on to the floor. Following the incident, which triggered widespread outrage across both Democratic and Republican lawmakers, Noem said she did not recognize the two-term senator and claimed that he did not request a meeting with her. The two then reportedly met for 15 minutes after the incident.On Tuesday, the Illinois representatives Raja Krishnamoorthi and Jonathan Jackson were denied entry during their attempted visit to an Ice facility in Chicago.That same day, the New York City comptroller and mayoral candidate, Brad Lander, was forcibly arrested by multiple federal agents and detained for hours as he tried to accompany a Spanish-speaking immigrant out of a courtroom. The DHS claimed Lander “was arrested for assaulting law enforcement and impeding a federal officer”, an accusation Lander denies.Following his release, New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul, called his arrest “bullshit” and said that the charges against Lander had been dropped.A day later, the New York representatives Dan Goldman and Jerry Nadler were refused entry into Ice detention facilities in Manhattan’s 26 Federal Plaza, despite requesting a visit in advance via letter, the City reports. More

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      Tough, whip-smart and selfless: Melissa Hortman, ‘singular force for democracy’, remembered

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      A group of white male lawmakers were playing cards in a back room while their female colleagues gave speeches on the Minnesota house floor. They weren’t paying attention, and Melissa Hortman had had enough.“I hate to break up the 100% white male card game in the retiring room,” Hortman said in 2017. “But I think this is an important debate.”The comment upset some Republicans, who said it was racist for her to call them white men and wanted her to apologize. Her response: “I’m really tired of watching women of color, in particular, being ignored. So I’m not sorry.”The moment went viral – people made shirts and rallied in support of her comments. The Republican men knew that they had lost, the Minnesota senator Tina Smith said about the incident. “Melissa won the day.”“I think you have to call bullshit when you see bullshit,” Hortman said at the time. “And we see plenty of it.”It was one of many moments Hortman’s friends and colleagues have shared since the 55-year-old longtime legislator and her husband were murdered in what appears to be a politically motivated shooting spree in suburban Minnesota on Saturday.Her friends and colleagues have remembered her legislative accomplishments – an ability to bring people together, stay organized, find common ground and, perhaps most of all, actually get things done. She injected humor and levity into her work. She was whip-smart. She raised two kids and had a beloved rescue dog, Gilbert.“She demonstrates how being a steely negotiator and showing toughness isn’t in tension with being human and warm and likable,” said Steve Simon, the Democratic secretary of state who knew Hortman for three decades, since the two were in law school together.Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor, an ally and friend of Hortman’s, called her “the most consequential speaker in state history”. Democrats held a trifecta in 2023 – controlling both chambers of the legislature and the governor’s mansion – which allowed the left to achieve a host of its longstanding priorities, including protecting abortion access, universal school meals, childcare assistance and paid family leave, and felony voting rights restoration. The list was long, and Hortman held together her caucus through it all, gaining national attention for the “Minnesota miracle”. Those gains are Hortman’s legacy, the result of many years of laying the groundwork so that when Democrats had power, they could move quickly, Smith said.Walz, in an interview after her assassination with Minnesota Public Radio, said Hortman understood procedure, policy and people, and she had an incredible work ethic. He puts Hortman high on the list of consequential politicians in Minnesota history and counts her as one of the people who have affected him most. She didn’t seek credit, but if things got done, it was because of her, he said.“Melissa was a singular force of understanding how democracy worked in getting things done,” Walz said. “You didn’t have to agree with her politics to know that she was effective. She was decent when it came time, and if her point did not win out, she accepted it, shook hands and signed it.”The 2025 legislative session started acrimoniously. The House was tied at 67-67, but Republicans tried to press a temporary advantage into leadership power, leading Hortman and Democrats to boycott the session until Republicans would agree to a power-sharing agreement. Hortman gave up the speaker title, becoming speaker emerita, and got to work governing the tied chamber.The session proved difficult – Hortman described, with emotion, how hard it was to be the lone Democratic vote to repeal healthcare coverage for undocumented adults, but that she had agreed to it so the state could have a bipartisan budget and prevent a shutdown.Her Republican colleagues said they liked and respected her, despite their political differences. Lisa Demuth, the Republican house speaker, said she looked at Hortman as a mentor. They could disagree politically without being cruel, in public or in private, she said.When Demuth became minority leader, Democrats held complete control of the state government. Hortman didn’t need Demuth’s help to advance legislation, but she still wanted to meet with Demuth every week so they could get to know each other. When the chamber became tied, they had a two-year working relationship to build on, Demuth said. Hortman called the bipartisan group “Team House” this year.“I learned so much from her leadership and just who she was as a person that was willing to compromise and negotiate well and do really what she felt was best for Minnesota,” Demuth told the Guardian.They shared a love of Cheetos – snacks are essential for late-night governing – and talked about Hortman’s love of flowers. Hortman had a tree that bloomed every year, and that was her monitor for when the state budget should be done: before the tree bloomed. Demuth would ask, so how’s that tree? They missed the deadline this year.Even in rocky moments, Hortman was direct, true to her word and looking for creative solutions, Demuth said. The session started with Republicans forging ahead and Democrats boycotting, an undoubtedly rough time. “We both agreed that we had to find a way through,” Demuth said.Hortman grew up in Minnesota. She told MinnPost she decided when she was 10 years old she would be the first female president, while watching the 1980 presidential campaign. She left for college at Boston University, but returned home for law school at the University of Minnesota, then began work as a lawyer. Along the way, she interned for Al Gore and John Kerry.Keith Ellison, the Democratic attorney general, shared at a rally the day she was killed that she was a “beautiful human being”. He met her before she was a lawmaker, when she was a lawyer for the Legal Aid Society, a non-profit that provides legal services for people who can’t afford it, when she fiercely defended tenants, he said. In a statement after her passing, legal aid noted that Hortman had secured what was then the largest jury verdict for housing discrimination in Minnesota history.“If you did things that she did, you’d be on the right track in your life,” Ellison told the crowd. “She fought for people, she stood with people. She was a powerful political leader, but she also was a compassionate and kind person. Melissa proved that you could be a politician and a good person, and I know some people wonder about that sometimes, but she really was both.”Her swing district was not an easy win. She ran twice, losing both times, before winning on the third attempt by a few hundred votes in 2004. She kept her seat through 11 elections, rising up the ranks in her caucus, ultimately becoming speaker in 2018. She considered a run for Congress, previously one of her childhood dreams, but decided she could make more happen as a state lawmaker, she told MinnPost.Zack Stephenson met Hortman when he was 18 and volunteered on her second campaign. Then, as a college student, he suggested Hortman make him her campaign manager and a few of his friends full-time campaign staff during Hortman’s third run for office. They would take time off from college and work for free. Hortman would joke that, after two losses, she was so desperate she’d try anything. She won.Now a state representative, Stephenson got to work closely with his longtime mentor and friend in what became the final months of her life – he as co-chair of a house committee that worked on the budget and she as speaker emeritus. He’s one of many who called Hortman a mentor. “She was a leader who was not afraid to invest in other leaders. It didn’t threaten her,” he said.She talked about running for higher office at times, and Stephenson advocated for her to run for governor someday. But she also had a full life outside the office. In one classic example, Stephenson recalled a staff member who said his parents’ gardening business was having trouble finding seasonal help. Hortman, an avid gardener, asked how much the gig paid. “She’s like, ‘oh, yeah, great. I could pin my earbuds in, listen to disco music and just garden.’ And then she was talking about it for weeks,” he said.There are several pots of money in the state budget for tree-planting that she snuck in, he said, a testament to her love of the outdoors. She used to joke that her only two forms of exercise were cross-country skiing and doorknocking.The 2017 moment when she called out white male lawmakers brought her legislative career more attention and solidified her as a voice for her caucus, but she was always tough, Smith said. When Smith was lieutenant governor and Hortman was minority leader, the men in leadership roles once met without Smith and Hortman to try to strike a deal. Hortman called Smith early in the morning and told her they were being shut out, and they raced over to the capitol. She was determined and made clear she wouldn’t be dismissed, Smith said.“She was just so strong, like, what is going on here? This deal isn’t done until we say it’s done,” Smith said. “And it was a classic moment of her not being afraid to lean in and using her power and after it was over, we were like, can you believe those guys? I can’t believe they tried that.”Hollies Winston, the mayor of Brooklyn Park, where Hortman lived and represented, said she had to balance delivering for the local community and delivering for the whole state, and she did so “from a place of wisdom and empathy”.“She really moved the ball in terms of education and childcare, workers rights, public safety, criminal justice,” he said. But it’s the quieter moments he saw from her that truly showed her character – her willingness to serve as a mentor to youth in the area, who came to her home to learn about politics, her support for emerging voices at the statehouse.She was more interested in the work than the publicity, Simon said. She wasn’t seeking to promote herself, but to deliver results that would help the most people in Minnesota. Even her opponents knew she was “fundamentally selfless”, and it went a long way to helping her negotiate during tough moments, Simon said.“She went into politics to do something, not to be something,” Simon said.Sophie and Colin Hortman, her two children, released a statement after her death, saying their parents’ love for them was “boundless”. Their statement was a testament to their parents, whose “legacy of dedication to their community will live on in us, their friends, their colleagues and co-workers, and every single person who knew and loved them”.They called on people to honor their parents with a list of Hortman-approved acts of kindness: “Plant a tree. Visit a local park and make use of their amenities, especially a bike trail. Pet a dog. A golden retriever is ideal, but any will do. Tell your loved ones a cheesy dad joke and laugh about it. Bake something – bread for Mark or a cake for Melissa, and share it with someone. Try a new hobby and enjoy learning something. Stand up for what you believe in, especially if that thing is justice and peace.” More