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      Trump names JD Vance, once one of his fiercest critics, as 2024 running mate

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      Donald Trump has named JD Vance, the Ohio senator who has aligned himself with the populist right, as his running mate at the Republican national convention on Monday.“After lengthy deliberation and thought, and considering the tremendous talents of many others, I have decided that the person best suited to assume the position of Vice President of the United States is Senator JD Vance of the Great State of Ohio,” wrote Trump on Truth Social.When Trump first ran for office, Vance’s eventual nomination to run alongside him would have seemed implausible. Vance, a venture capitalist who rocketed into the public eye with his 2016 memoir turned Netflix movie Hillbilly Elegy, was once among Trump’s conservative critics.“I’m a never-Trump guy, I never liked him,” Vance said during an October 2016 interview with Charlie Rose. Trump was, by Vance’s estimation at the time, a “terrible candidate”.He even wondered aloud, in texts to a former roommate, whether Trump was more of “a cynical asshole like Nixon”, or worse, “America’s Hitler”.Since then, Vance has undergone a dramatic transformation into a Maga power figure and close ally of the former president who has supported some of Trump’s more authoritarian impulses, like questioning the results of the 2020 election and, in a 2021 podcast interview, suggesting Trump should purge civil servants from the federal government if re-elected.Vance’s response to the assassination attempt at a Trump rally on Saturday was also notable. “The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs,” Vance wrote on X. “That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”Vance has already vied for Trump’s blessing once before, while campaigning for a seat representing Ohio in the US Senate. During the primary, Vance pitched himself as a Trump-style rightwing populist. He criticized “elites”, fired off contemptuous tweets about crime in New York City, promoted the racist and antisemitic “great replacement” theory on Tucker Carlson’s show and grew a beard. He faced a storm of negative ads from the conservative, free market-oriented Club for Growth, which pointed to his past identity as a “never Trumper” as proof of his phoneyness.The tech billionaire Peter Thiel, who had previously backed Vance’s venture capital startup, poured record-breaking sums of money into the race, and Trump endorsed Vance – ushering in his victory in the primary. When he beat the former Democratic congressman Tim Ryan in the November 2022 general election, it cemented his place in the Maga right.“I think we need more people like him in politics, who are energetic, dynamic, clear-headed about their ideology,” Vivek Ramaswamy, the biotech entrepreneur who ran for president during the Republican party primaries, said of Vance. “The only negative of it – if there is a negative to point out – is he’s probably one of the best we have in the US Senate, and he’s a principled fighter.”Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr, celebrated the announcement on the convention floor.“I watched JD go into sort of – let’s call it enemy territory, from a media perspective, doing the most liberal TV shows, and prosecute the case for my father and against the Democrat lunacy that we’ve seen,” he said.Outside the floor of the convention in Milwaukee, news spread slowly on Monday that Trump had picked Vance.“I think it’s a great choice. I like that he’s young. I like that he’s from Ohio. There’s a lot of positives about him. Future of the party,” said Nick D’Alessandro, an alternate delegate from New York.Larry Johnson, a convention attendee from West Virginia, said he thought Vance could bring more attention to Appalachia: “I think for a long time that area has been kind of overlooked.”Asa Hutchinson, the former Arkansas governor who was one of the most outspoken Trump critics during the Republican party said Vance was a “strategic” choice.In an early response from the Democratic party, the Democratic National Committee chair, Jaime Harrison, wrote that the “Trump-Vance ticket would undermine our democracy, our freedoms, and our future”.In office, Vance has consistently aligned with the populist right, calling into question the US’s role in foreign conflicts and backing rightwing domestic legislation. In 2023, for example, he introduced a bill that would make English the official language of the US.In a fundraising email, Trump speculated that media outlets “will say MAGA-Patriots like YOU won’t vote for me with JD Vance on the ticket. NOW’S THE TIME FOR US TO PROVE THEM WRONG!” More

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      Who is JD Vance, Trump’s vice-presidential pick?

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      Donald Trump has selected JD Vance, the junior senator of Ohio and author of the bestselling memoir Hillbilly Elegy, as his running mate in the presidential race.The announcement, made on Monday during the first day of the Republican national convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, marked the culmination of Vance’s stunning political evolution over the past several years.Vance was once an outspoken critic of Trump, mocking him as “America’s Hitler” and “a total fraud”. But Vance came to embrace Trump as he sought a Senate seat in 2022, and he eventually won the former president’s endorsement in a crowded Republican primary.“He’s the guy that said some bad shit about me,” Trump said at a rally in 2022. “If I went by that standard, I don’t think I would have ever endorsed anybody in the country.”Vance echoed that assessment, telling rally-goers, “The president is right. I wasn’t always nice, but the simple fact is, he’s the best president of my lifetime, and he revealed the corruption in this country like nobody else.”Vance first rose to fame in 2016 following the publication of Hillbilly Elegy, which detailed his upbringing in south-western Ohio and his later ascension to Yale law school. The book was later adapted into a 2020 film starring Glenn Close and Amy Adams.In the months following Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential election, Vance’s account of his family’s experiences with poverty and drug addiction came to be viewed by some critics as a revealing portrait into the lives of Americans who helped determine the outcome of the election.“It dropped into a national shouting match that has pitted a hazily defined entity called ‘the white working class’ against an equally hazy ‘coastal elite’ as the Sunni and Shia of the American political scene,” the author Hari Kunzru wrote for the Guardian in 2016. “Readers looking to understand the class fault lines within white America will be enlightened by Vance’s narrative of class mobility, but as a guide to the new political terrain Hillbilly Elegy is uneven, and frustratingly silent about the writer’s real commitments.”View image in fullscreenOnce Trump took office, Vance became an oft-cited conservative voice frequently called upon to explain the president’s political brand to baffled cable news viewers. Vance was initially viewed as an anti-Trump Republican, as a CNN analysis found that he liked many tweets that were harshly critical of the then president in 2016 and 2017.But that tone sharply shifted once Vance entered the 2022 Senate race, as he shaped his campaign around hard-right proposals like finishing the wall along the US-Mexico border. During the election, Democrats accused Vance of endorsing the racist conspiracy theory known as “Great Replacement” after he suggested the opposing party was attempting to “transform the electorate” amid an immigrant “invasion”.“You’re talking about a shift in the democratic makeup of this country that would mean we never win, meaning Republicans would never win a national election in this country ever again,” Vance told voters in 2022.Vance’s hard-right tactics were ultimately successful, as he defeated Democrat representative Tim Ryan by six points in the election. In the year and a half since he joined Congress, Vance has served as one of Trump’s most vocal and aggressive supporters on Capitol Hill. After the assassination attempt against Trump on Saturday, Vance accused Joe Biden of inciting the attack.“Today is not just some isolated incident,” Vance posted on X. “The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”As Trump’s running mate, Vance will now have a much larger platform to spread that message. More

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      Judge who dismissed Trump criminal case is ‘future supreme court justice’, Gaetz says

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      The far-right Florida Republican Matt Gaetz has hailed Aileen Cannon – the judge who dismissed the classified documents case against Donald Trump – as a “future supreme court justice”.“Future supreme court justice Cannon,” Gaetz posted Monday to social media, with a picture of the Florida jurist.In four years as president, Trump nominated three hardline rightwingers to the supreme court. Tilted 6-3 to the right, the court has delighted conservatives and enraged liberals by handing down epochal rulings against abortion, restricting gun control, granting presidential immunity and more.Trump nominated Cannon to the federal bench in November 2020, at the end of his time in power.Since leaving the White House, he has faced unprecedented legal jeopardy.In civil cases, Trump was fined millions for business fraud and defamation arising from a rape allegation a judge called “substantially true”.In criminal cases, Trump was convicted in New York on 34 criminal charges related to hush-money payments. He still faces four federal charges and 10 Georgia state charges arising from his attempt to overturn the 2020 election.Cannon was randomly assigned to Trump’s federal documents case, in which the special counsel Jack Smith brought 40 charges related to improper retention of classified information.The judge was widely criticised for perceived partiality to Trump, as she repeatedly delayed proceedings. Ultimately, on Monday, she threw the case out, ruling Smith improperly appointed.The decision seemed destined for appeal. The case could also potentially be refiled and handed to a different judge. Nonetheless, Trump supporters celebrated.Gaetz tweeted: “CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS CASE DISMISSED!!!!!!”His decision to call Cannon a “future supreme court justice” prompted angry responses. Ally Sammarco, an anti-Trump strategist and commentator, asked: “Are you admitting to a quid pro quo”?skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSuch upset was familiar. A dedicated provocateur who describes himself as a “Florida man, built for battle”, the 42-year-old Gaetz has been stirring trouble in Congress since 2017.Last year, he made history by leading the first removal of a House speaker by members of his own party.That Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy, has accused Gaetz of seeking revenge for ongoing investigations of alleged sexual and personal misconduct.On Monday, the Republican national convention began in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Gaetz is due to address the event this week.But he is also widely held to be preparing a run for Florida governor and on Monday he was due to appear in his home state, staging a “Never Surrender Rally” at a Baptist church in Pensacola.According to promotional materials, the event would offer Floridians a chance “to show your support and pray for president Donald J Trump”, after he survived an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania on Saturday. More

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      Focus on Bethel Park as classmates describe suspected Trump gunman

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      In Bethel Park, where the man who is suspected of opening fire at a Donald Trump campaign rally on Saturday lived with his mother and sister, the houses are small and built of brick, Walmart and Target form central social hubs, and moms watch over their children at a junior league baseball park next to a tributary of the Allegheny River.The attempted assassination of the Republican former president just 45 miles north has put a focus on Bethel Park, as investigators attempt to establish the motivations of the 20-year-old shooter.Authorities on Sunday identified the suspect as Thomas Matthew Crooks. Officials said they believe Crooks acted alone. But so far, they have not been able to uncover a motivation that drove the young man to unleash a hail of bullets at Trump, wounding the former president and killing a former fire chief who was shielding his daughters.The FBI said it would continue to investigate the attack as an attempted assassination and an act of domestic terrorism.“The information that we have indicates that the shooter acted alone,” said Kevin Rojek, supervisory special agent in charge of the FBI’s Pittsburgh field office. “At present, we have not identified an ideology associated with the subject, but I want to remind everyone that we’re still very early in this investigation.”The FBI said Crook had not been on their radar. Since his identification, a fragmentary portrait has emerged, almost by virtue of its omissions. He was employed as a dietary aide at Bethel Park Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. The nursing home’s administrator Marcie Grimm said Crooks “performed his job without concern and his background check was clean”.View image in fullscreenNor have there been significant clues found in his political affiliations. He had registered Republican but had also donated $15 to the liberal ActBlue political action committee on Joe Biden’s inauguration day. He had no past criminal cases against him, according to public court records.Claire, a young woman who had known Crooks through his elder sister and who did not provide a last name, said she could not quite believe the boy she had once knew had attempted to assassinate a US president.“He’s so young to want to go do that,” she said.She said Crooks had had a difficult time socially. “He wasn’t the most attractive-looking and I don’t think he did sports that can add appeal,’” she said.Former classmates who spoke to other news outlets filled in other memories. Some described Crooks as smart and shy. Others spoke of a long history of being bullied. An unnamed former classmate told the New York Post that Crooks was “a loner”. He said: “He probably had a friend group, but not many friends.”View image in fullscreenJameson Myers said that Crooks had tried out for the school rifle team but had not made the roster. “He didn’t just not make the team, he was asked not to come back because how bad of a shot he was, it was considered, like, dangerous,” Myers told ABC News. Jameson Murphy told the Post that Crooks was “a comically bad shot”.Max R Smith said to the Philadelphia Inquirer that Crooks “definitely was conservative”. “It makes me wonder why he would carry out an assassination attempt on the conservative candidate,” Smith said.With a nation on edge, establishing Crook’s motives is seen as a key to unlocking larger issues of deep political discord.“We’re looking into his background, his day-to-day activities, any writings and social media posts that might help us identify what led to this shooting,”, the FBI’s Rojek said. “We have not seen anything threatening at this time”. More

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      Blue Maga: We need to talk about the cult-like turn of the Democratic party | Mehdi Hasan

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      Is the Democratic party, the self-proclaimed party of liberal values and scientific data, morphing into a Maga-like cult in front of our eyes?Over the past few weeks, the calls for Joe Biden to step aside have been met not with thoughtful critiques or reasoned counter-arguments but with furious accusations of treason, disloyalty, and betrayal.Whatever happened to the importance of voicing dissent? Of speaking truth to power? Weren’t liberals supposed to be the folks who value open debate and discussion?Writing for the Guardian, 15 years ago, the cult expert Rick Ross warned us to “watch out for the tell-tale signs” of a cult, including “no tolerance for questions or critical inquiry”, “there is no legitimate reason to leave”, “former followers are always wrong in leaving, negative or even evil”, and “the group/leader is always right”.Anyone who has observed the behaviour of the Democratic party base, especially online; of elected Democrats on Capitol Hill; and of the Democratic president himself, since the CNN debate on 28 June, will have spotted some of those “tell-tale signs”.Let’s start with the Democratic base – those “hyper-partisans” who “act like members of a cult because they treat their political party like a religious identity”, to quote the political strategist Chris Sosa. I have spent the past few weeks watching the Very Online members of the base embracing an endless stream of “Blue Anon” conspiracy theories, pushed on behalf of the Dear Leader.Did Biden deliver a car-crash debate performance live on CNN or … did CNN’s “carefully considered FRAMING & LIGHTING design” make Biden look older and paler than he was, as one viral tweet (bizarrely) claimed? Did the president struggle to make sense in his ABC News interview with George Stephanopolous or … was it a result of ABC “destroying the sound quality in Biden’s interview to make him sound bad”, as another viral tweet (ridiculously) put it? Did the presumptive Democratic nominee take a clear hit in almost every post-debate poll or … was it actually the case that “President Biden’s poll numbers skyrocketed in swing states and CNN’s ratings plummeted”, as yet another viral tweet (falsely) declared?Conspiracy theories aside, these “hyper-partisans” have loudly railed against members of the press, with op-ed writers who question Biden dubbed “seditionists”; with demands to keep journalists who are deemed to be even vaguely anti-Biden “off air”; with campaigns to cancel media subscriptions in response to criticisms of Biden. (My own media company Zeteo has lost a bunch of paid subscribers since I wrote my last column for the Guardian: one demanded a “refund” because I asked Biden to step aside for Kamala Harris, while another told me to “support Biden or GTFO”.)Last week, my former MSNBC colleague Jen Psaki hosted a discussion with the Pod Save America co-host Jon Favreau, on Biden’s travails, and her show’s Twitter account advertised the interview in advance. The response? A torrent of anger, abuse, and attacks in the replies: “weak propagandist”, “JFC she is one of them”, “hard pass + unfollow”, “hell no”, “Eewwwwwwww”.If neither Psaki nor Favreau – respectively, President Biden’s former White House press secretary and President Obama’s former speechwriter – is now considered a kosher Democrat, then who is? If attacking them for disloyalty isn’t evidence of cult-like behavior, then what is?Then there are the party’s elected representatives, who are busy marching in lockstep with the White House in public, while losing their shit in private. “On Capitol Hill, Democrats panic about Biden but do nothing,” read the headline in the New York Times.Sound familiar?The party that mocked Republicans for slamming Trump in private while backing him in public is now doing the same with its own leader. At the time of writing, only about 20 congressional Democrats have called for Biden to step aside and yet reporting from the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC and more, suggest dozens more are saying the same behind closed doors. Most elected Democrats believe Biden will struggle to win against Trump in November, noted Politico’s Rachael Bade last week, “even if they don’t say it on record”.And what’s one of the main reasons why they won’t say it on the record? Because they’re afraid. That’s not my opinion – it’s theirs. “I wish I was more brave,” NBC News quoted one anonymous Democratic state party chair as saying. “I would be crucified by them if I spoke out of line.” This person spoke on the condition of anonymity, according to NBC, “because they fear retaliation from the president’s camp”.Again, sound familiar?So let’s talk about the Democratic president in the White House, who is fast becoming an unlikely and unexpected cult leader. And yet, do you remember Trump’s infamous declaration that “I alone can fix it”? Here’s Biden, in his interview with Stephanopolous:“And who’s gonna be able to hold Nato together like me? Who’s gonna be able to be in a position where I’m able to keep the Pacific Basin in a position where we’re – we’re at least checkmating China now? Who’s gonna – who’s gonna do that?”Do you remember how Trump obsessed over the size of his crowds, both at campaign rallies and at his inauguration? Here’s Biden, responding to a question from Stephanopolous on how he plans to “turn the campaign around”:“You saw it today. How many – how many people draw crowds like I did today? Find me more enthusiastic than today? Huh?”I could go on and on. When Biden pretends the polls are all wrong; attacks members of the press at a campaign rally; and calls into a morning show to mock the “elites”… who does he sound like? When members of the Biden campaign decide to accuse their critics of “bed-wetting”, deride a group of “self-important” liberal podcasters, and pick a fight with a Hollywood star … which campaign do they sound like?Consider this paragraph from the New York Times on Friday, referring to a Biden campaign event in Detroit which had the “flavor of a Trump rally at times”:“When Mr Biden referred to his political opponent, there were chants of ‘Lock him up’ – which the president did not discourage. When he criticized news media coverage, big cheers followed, with his supporters turning to boo and point fingers at reporters.”How does this not sound like “Blue Maga”?Now, there are both good reasons and bad to explain the cultish abyss into which the party seems to be descending. There is a genuine and understandable fear of a second Trump presidency and a legitimate frustration with “both sides” media coverage. However, there is also an undeniable tendency toward groupthink and hyper-partisanship, exacerbated by social media echo chambers and online grifters. Misinformation is rife across the political spectrum; conspiracism and paranoia is being normalized on the liberal left, not just the Maga right.So Blue Maga may not be violent or authoritarian like Red Maga, but the consequences of a second major political party in the United States succumbing to a weird online cult of personality could be disastrous for our democracy.Democrats who have spent the past decade (rightly) attacking Republicans for their blind and zealous devotion to Trump would do well to heed the advice of Friedrich Nietzche: “He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster.”

      Mehdi Hasan is the CEO and editor-in-chief of the new media company Zeteo More

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      Ex-Secret Service agents say ‘massive realignment’ warranted after Trump rally shooting

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      Former US Secret Service agents spent the early aftermath of what authorities say was an attempt to assassinate Donald Trump at a political rally on Saturday speaking out about what might have prevented their previous employer from failing to halt the shooter before he opened fire.Evy Poumpouras, who served in the Secret Service’s presidential protective division during Barack Obama’s time in the White House, told NBC’s Today show that rallies like the one this weekend – in a relatively exposed rural tract of Butler county, Pennsylvania – “are the most anxious you’re ever going to be as an agent because you’re trying to secure all of it”.In her remarks Sunday, the author and journalist suggested local- and state-level law enforcement officers who collaborate with the Secret Service for such events were likely the first line of defense in the area surrounding the Trump rally venue – a position reportedly confirmed by agency spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi.At Saturday’s rally, a man with a rifle was able to climb atop the roof of a bottle manufacturing plant and fire several shots at the former president at a distance of only about 165 yards.Multiple people who were outside the venue but near that building – listening to Trump campaign for another presidency – reported trying to point out the gunman to police officers stationed there. But Poumpouras said a key question to answer moving forward is to determine whether those people were directly speaking to officers or if they were unsuccessfully trying to get their attention.“When you’re doing these rallies, you’re looking at thousands of people,” said Poumpouras, who surmised the shooter waited to get into position until after Trump began speaking and commanded the bulk of rally goers’ attention. “How much law enforcement do you have? Do you have one law enforcement official to – what – 1,000 [attendees]? And are they able to get that person’s attention?”The Associated Press said it was told by two law enforcement officials that a local police officer tried to confront Crooks on the roof before the shooting. But the officer retreated after Crooks pointed a rifle at him, and within moments the attacker fired toward Trump.One ex-commander of the Long Beach, California, police department’s special tactics team told NBC it was “a fundamental security failure” to allow someone on a rooftop so near the rally Saturday.Poumpouras also said government officials are in store for difficult conversations about whether they provide enough resources to adequately secure such gatherings. She said it wasn’t uncommon for her to solicit a certain number of agents to protect a certain occasion only to be told there wasn’t enough money or manpower to fulfill that request.“This all costs something,” she said.Once the shooting erupted, former Secret Service agent Jeff James said agents largely responded appropriately with respect to shielding Trump, who had a bullet wound to the tip of his right ear. Counter-snipers fired back at the gunman, mortally wounding him after he apparently killed one spectator and badly injured two others.Agents quickly draped themselves over Trump after he fell on the stage, prepared to put themselves between the former president and any other gunshots aimed at him.In an interview with Pennsylvania news station WTAE, James faulted agents for how long it took them to whisk Trump away and into an armored vehicle. Trump put his shoes back after they had been knocked off his feet, took a few moments to defiantly raise his fist and then repeatedly mouthed the word “fight” to his supporters before agents managed to get him out of view.“There may have been four more gunmen who were going to start opening fire,” James – who estimated that Trump came within three inches of being shot squarely in the face – told WTAE. “We always treat that attack as if that is just the precursor, and the real attack is still to come.”Ultimately, Saturday warranted “an intensive review” of Trump’s security along with “a massive realignment”, ex-Secret Service agent Joseph LaSorsa – who protected former presidents Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush – told Reuters.To that end, Joe Biden said Sunday he had ordered the Secret Service to ensure that Trump has adequate security, including at the Republican national convention beginning Monday in Milwaukee. The president also said he had ordered an independent review of security at the Trump rally.Kimberly Cheatle, the Secret Service director, has been invited to testify before Congress on 22 July.Trump’s assassination attempt was arguably the low point of a tumultuous last decade for the Secret Service. As documented by the Washington Post, the agency had previously drawn scrutiny after high-ranking members allegedly drove drunk through the White House grounds, struck a barricade and sped past a package dropped by a woman who had claimed to be “holding a … bomb”.The package contained a book, but that hardly quelled outrage, with other scandals ensnaring the Secret Service, which also investigates certain financial crimes.There were agents who purportedly hired prostitutes in Colombia and allowed a fence-jumper at the White House to get well into the building. Agents also took four days to realize a sniper fired shots at the White House, and they somehow allowed a man carrying a gun to share an elevator with Obama.Saturday was the first time a president or leading party Oval Office candidate had been shot since the 1981 attack on Ronald Reagan outside a hotel in Washington DC.The most recent of four assassinated US presidents was John F Kennedy in 1963. The assassination of his fellow Democrat and brother Robert F Kennedy in 1968 while he pursued their party’s White House nomination resulted in presidential candidates being afforded the protection of the Secret Service.Pleas from Kennedy’s son, Robert F Kennedy Jr, to be provided Secret Service protection himself as he runs an independent presidential campaign ahead of November’s election received an infusion of support after the attack at Trump’s rally Saturday, as Politico reported. More