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      Telling a reporter ‘quiet, piggy’ was shocking – even for Trump | Margaret Sullivan

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      Catherine Lucey, who covers the White House for Bloomberg News, was doing what reporters are supposed to do: asking germane questions.Her query to Donald Trump a few days ago during a “gaggle” aboard Air Force One was reasonable as it had to do with the release of the Epstein files, certainly a subject of great public interest. Why had Trump been stonewalling, she asked, “if there’s nothing incriminating in the files”.His response, though, was anything but reasonable.It was demeaning, insulting and misogynistic.He pointed straight at Lucey and told her to stop doing her job.“Quiet. Quiet, piggy,” said the president of the United States.From what I could tell, none of her colleagues in the press corps immediately rose to her defense. Things just moved on – business as usual, in a sense.And yet, if I were making a timeline of Trump’s use of the press as a punching bag, this moment would deserve a place on it. Maybe it was his pointing. Maybe it was his direct command, as if he were in charge of what a reporter is allowed to ask.Maybe – probably – it was the nasty name-calling, which is meant to put a reporter in her place in front of the world. Maybe – probably – it was the lack of protest from other reporters.This, after all, is life in Trump’s America. Consider just the past day or so.Trump celebrated the Saudi crown prince, who, according to a 2021 US intelligence report, approved the killing of a Washington Post journalist, Jamal Khashoggi. (The crown prince has denied involvement in the killing.) The US president gave him a hero’s welcome to the White House.Trump insulted and threatened ABC News and its fine reporter Mary Bruce, who also asked germane questions, about Khashoggi as well as the Epstein files. “I think you are a terrible reporter. It’s the way you ask these questions,” he said. He called ABC a “crappy company” and said its license “should be taken away from ABC because your news is so fake and it’s so wrong”.We’re supposed to be used to this by now.Clearly, the president’s fervid supporters must approve of this sort of thing; they seem to see it as a way the president is using his power and position to diminish the “elite”, who he has taught them to despise.But getting used to it is dangerous. We all get worn down. “What can you do?” shrug even the caring among us.But, for me, “quiet, piggy” somehow breaks through. It should be a bridge too far, not business as usual.Wouldn’t it have been something to see the entire press corps shout back at Trump, in defense of their colleague? Wouldn’t it have been something to see them walk away from the gaggle?Why didn’t they?“Because access beats out solidarity, every day of the week,” Bill Grueskin, a former Miami Herald and Wall Street Journal editor who is a professor at Columbia Journalism School, posted on Bluesky. If any members of the press corps had somehow managed to push back and defend their colleague, they undoubtedly would have been punished by exclusion from these press briefings.So, yes, the access problem.And I’m sorry to say, they also don’t push back because they’re so used to it. After all, it’s nothing new. It’s just an especially egregious example of what’s been going on for years.I’ve been watching these moves of Trump’s for a long time. I was the Washington Post’s media columnist during the entire first Trump term, so I got an up-close look at how he constantly disparaged the press and its representatives – especially women, and even more especially, women of color.He often clashed, for example, with Yamiche Alcindor, who then covered the White House for the PBS NewsHour, condemning her supposedly “nasty” questions. This year, he called Alcindor, who now works for NBC, “second rate” and demanded that she, too, “be quiet”. He publicly called April Ryan, a longtime White House reporter, “a loser”.Nothing changes – it only worsens – because Trump gets away with it. His stalwart supporters don’t seem to care. The members of the press corps may write a sternly worded letter (or not), but they normalize it, too, by their inaction.Will this “quiet, piggy” moment make a difference? Only for those who care about decency in public officials and in American society.Maybe that’s an old-fashioned notion. And I’m not sure there are enough of us who remember that it matters.

      Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture More

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      In Tennessee, Democrats hope a ‘coalition of the pissed off’ will flip a red district

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      Republicans have controlled Tennessee’s seventh congressional district for four decades. The party finished about 21 points ahead of the Democrats when the seat was last contested, alongside Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election last November.Twelve months on, that lead has narrowed dramatically, according to opinion polls – and a challenger is attempting to build a “coalition of the pissed off” to overturn it altogether.With a special election scheduled for next month, Democrats have nominated Aftyn Behn, a progressive state representative in the district, as their candidate. As Trump’s approval rating continues to fall amid cost-of-living concerns, she is attempting to stage the biggest challenge in a generation to Republicans in the district, and flip the seat for the first time since 1983.“If you are dissatisfied, if you are not OK with what’s going on, then I’m your candidate,” Behn said. “If you think things are fine, I am not your candidate. If you are upset with the cost and chaos, I am your candidate.“We have been working to build a coalition of the disenchanted, a coalition of the pissed off, and I think it’s working to our favor.”After the resignation of the Republican representative Mark Green earlier this year, the party tapped Matt Van Epps, an army veteran supported by several billionaires and publicly backed by Trump. Two separate polls put Van Epps just eight points ahead of his Democratic rival.Van Epps did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the race, which amounts to a key test for the Democratic party and its ability to tap into voters’ indignation toward Trump amid persistent inflation and affordability concerns.Voters in Tennessee’s seventh congressional district seat, which comprises parts of Nashville, and middle and west Tennessee, will head to the polls on 2 December. Early voting has begun.Ken Martin, the Democratic National Committee chair, has campaigned with Behn, and the DNC has been providing volunteers and phone bank support. Kamala Harris made a surprise appearance at an event for Behn this week, her first event as a campaign surrogate since leaving office. Trump, meanwhile, hosted a tele-rally with Van Epps last week, and the Republican National Committee has devoted similar resources and funding to his campaign.‘Epicenter of the crisis’“Tennessee is a state that has bought and sold to the highest bidder, and politicians are doing that bidding,” said Behn. “My campaign doesn’t accept corporate Pac [political action committee] money. We are not bankrolled by special interests. Unfortunately, that is the legacy right now, which I’m trying to break.”Under Trump, the federal government “has not delivered on their promise of affordability”, said Behn. “And Tennessee is at the epicenter of the affordability crisis.“We have some of the most expensive housing and rent. It is one of the worst places for workers in the country. We’re hitting all these metrics that are making it nearly impossible to survive in the state, which is why I’m running.”Tennessee is 10th in the US states in Consumer Affairs’ grocery cost burden rankings, which measure the share of income consumers in each state are required to spend on groceries. Housing has meanwhile become increasingly expensive across the state, according to the non-partisan policy research center Sycamore Institute, which attributed this to growing population, the Covid-19 pandemic, and a lag in home construction.Behn recently led a campaign against a push by Elon Musk’s Boring Company to build a high-speed underground tunnel for Tesla vehicles from downtown Nashville to the city’s airport. Despite vast local opposition, state Republicans circumvented local officials to unanimously provide the firm with access to state-owned land at no cost. Construction began last month.“Unfortunately, our government right now works clandestinely for the puppet masters rather than the people,” added Behn. “It’s a fight that I was willing to take, and I think it can be extrapolated to the broader resentment towards the billionaire boys’ club, and these multinational greedy corporations, selling us out and rigging the system in favor of themselves.”In Tennessee, Medicaid cuts under Trump and the expiration of Affordable Care Act subsidies are estimated to increase the uninsured population in the state by 210,000 people by 2034, according to analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation.At the same time, Trump’s tariffs are hitting the state hard, with a report by Pew Research finding last month that Tennessee is one of the states most vulnerable to tariffs, as global products contributed 21.9% of its gross domestic product in 2024.Van Epps has refused to participate in a debate with Behn ahead of the election. Her campaign has sought to create entry points for voters curious, or willing, to cross party lines. Behn has appeared on conservative talk radio shows and run a field campaign designed to knock on doors throughout the district, prioritizing voter contact in a state where turnout consistently ranks among the lowest in the US.“We’re running one of the most competitive races the state has ever seen, and I think people really appreciate that,” claimed Behn. “As a state legislator, I have organized the most town halls of any one of my colleagues. I have open communication. I’m highly accessible and that is how I’ll be as this district’s next congresswoman.“Whereas you have my opponent who is hiding from the press, hiding from the people, and only speaking to select closed-door cadres of people,” she continued. “I think it speaks to the moment – how you have a fighter for government, transparency, accountability, who believes in everyone participating in our democracy, versus a closed-door, special-interest candidate, who only is beholden to a special group of people, of which most folks don’t have access to.” More

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      Trump’s ‘affordability’ efforts are a mess of absurdity and magical thinking | Steven Greenhouse

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      When running for president last year, Donald Trump wooed and wowed voters by vowing to reduce prices “starting on day one”. But once he was inaugurated, he seemed to pay precious little attention to prices and affordability.All that changed, however, when inflation-weary voters thrashed Trump and the GOP on election day this month – within days, the Trump administration launched a slapdash effort to focus on affordability. Unfortunately, the campaign is a hot mess: a pile of absurdity, contradictions, magical thinking, scapegoating and good ol’ Trumpian dishonesty, with Trump repeatedly blaring that “prices are down”.Two days after election day, Trump got his administration’s affordability drive off to a disastrous start when he said, “Our groceries are way down. Everything is way down … So I don’t want to hear about the affordability.”With those words, billionaire Trump – who spends a lot of time palling around with fellow billionaires – showed utter contempt for the millions of Americans who struggle with affordability every time they go the grocery store. Trump told them they got it all wrong. He told them that they shouldn’t bother him about the trivial issue of affordability when he has bigger things to worry about, such as, perhaps, his obsession with winning the Nobel peace prize. Trump in effect said: I don’t feel your pain.Trump’s statement about everything being “way down” was absurdly obtuse and dishonest. How in the world could every price be way down when his cherished tariffs were pushing up prices? Banana prices are up 6.9% over the past year, beef is up 14.7% and coffee up 18.9% (in part because of the huge, punitive tariffs Trump placed on Brazil’s coffee and beef). Between January and September, prices rose in five of the six main grocery groups tracked in the Consumer Price Index, including meats, poultry and fish (up 4.5%); non-alcoholic beverages (up 2.8%); and fruits and vegetables (up 1.3%).Despite these numbers, Trump keeps pushing his big lie about affordability. Since election day, he has said there’s “virtually no inflation”, “prices are way down” and “it is far less expensive under Trump than it was under sleepy Joe Biden”. Trump said all this even though prices overall have unarguably risen since Biden left office. Right now, inflation is running at a 3% annual clip, which is 50% higher than the Federal Reserve’s 2% goal. In another falsehood, Trump boasted that gas prices have fallen to nearly $2 a gallon, even though his Department of Energy says they average $3.19.Hit in the head by reality (and declining opinion polls), some Trump aides evidently told the Maga king that his “prices are down” rhetoric made him sound dangerously out of touch with typical Americans, many of whom are angry about prices continuing to climb after Trump promised to bring them down. Trump’s advisers seized on one quick fix to reduce some prices: roll back some of Trump’s beloved tariffs. That sensible idea contradicted Trump’s absurd assertion that new tariffs wouldn’t raise prices for US consumers.With some tariffs being rolled back on coffee, beef, tomatoes and bananas along with other tropical fruit, Trump will no doubt trumpet to the world that he’s cut prices as soon as those foods start declining in price. That would be like an arsonist boasting that he put out a fire that he had started.When Trump spoke last Monday to a “summit” of McDonald’s executives and franchisees, he once again showed that he’s out of touch – with typical Americans and the truth. He said, “This is … the golden age of America because we are doing better than we’ve ever done as a country.” He sought to calm angry consumers by adding: “Prices are coming down and all of that stuff.” That’s easy for a billionaire to say, but it’s hard for millions of Americans not to fret about prices “and all of that stuff” and not just because 42 million Americans faced having their food stamps cut off and 24 million face having their health premiums soar, often by over $1,500 a year, because Trump and the Republican-led Congress will not extend Obamacare subsidies.Sorry, Mr President, but Americans strongly disagree with your claim that it’s a golden age. According to a Pew poll in October, 74% of Americans think economic conditions are fair or poor, while just 26% think they are good or excellent. What’s more, according to a CNN poll last month, 61% of Americans say Trump’s policies have “worsened economic conditions in this country”.Scott Bessent, Trump’s treasury secretary, recently contradicted Trump’s boasts of a golden age. Bessent said that far from booming, some parts of the US economy “are in recession”. The manufacturing sector that Trump vowed to save appears to have contracted eight months in a row and lost about 33,000 jobs since January. Pointing to this economic weakness, Bessent called on the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates – a move that would help affordability.Seeing the huge public dismay about affordability, Trump has resorted to one of the oldest tricks in the book. He promised to, in effect, buy off disgruntled Americans, in this case, with “a dividend of at least $2,000 a person (not including high income people!)”. For many struggling Americans, that must sound like manna from heaven, but it’s unlikely that Congress, already alarmed about huge budget deficits, will enact that idea.Trump’s statement that the $2,000 won’t go to “high-income people!” feels like a confession that his “big, beautiful bill” gave far too much in tax cuts to the rich and too little to everyone else. It also shows that the public’s complaints are hitting home that Trump has become the president by, for and of the billionaires.In a recent speech, Bessent said that the administration is “improving affordability” by holding down spending, noting that this helps hold down interest rates. But Trump’s proposed $2,000-a-person payment would undercut all that. It would increase federal spending and thereby push up interest rates and probably inflation, too, by putting more money in consumers’ pockets.In another supposed fix for affordability, Trump put forward the hare-brained idea of creating 50-year mortgages, with the notion that this would help reduce monthly mortgage payments. But the truth is that 50-year mortgages, compared with 30-year mortgages, would do little to lower monthly mortgage payments. They would often reduce payments by just $100 or $200 a month. The bad news is that 50-year mortgages would, as David Dayen has written, often more than double the already huge amount of interest that homeowners pay and would greatly slow their accumulation of equity.In their affordability campaign, Trump and his truth-challenged crew are yet again blaming Biden for the country’s economic problems, including rising prices. JD Vance said: “We inherited a disaster from Joe Biden,” while Kush Desai, a White House spokesperson, said, “Cleaning up Joe Biden’s inflation and economic disaster has been a top focus for President Trump since day 1.”This is absurd, untruthful rubbish. As I’ve written, Biden handed Trump a very strong economy, with inflation way down, economic growth strong and unemployment low. But Trump’s policies, especially his tariffs, have created an economic mess, pushing up prices and slowing GDP growth.Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, says that 22 states are already in recession, with their economies damaged by Trump’s tariffs. Zandi fears that if big states like California and New York tumble into recession, the US could slide into a broad economic slump. During recessions, consumers overall have less money to spend, and inflation typically declines. Unfortunately, with Trump’s much-ballyhooed affordability campaign likely to do little to hold down prices, his most effective “tool” in achieving increased affordability could prove to be pushing the nation into recession.That’s something that struggling Americans really can’t afford.

      Steven Greenhouse is a journalist and author, focusing on labor and the workplace, as well as economic and legal issues More

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      Trump and Mamdani to meet in Oval Office on Friday after months of bickering

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      Donald Trump has confirmed a long-awaited meeting with New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani will happen in Washington this week, setting up an in-person clash between the political opposites who for months have antagonised each other.The sit-down, which Trump said on social media would take place on Friday in the Oval Office, could possibly represent a detente of sorts between the Republican president and Democratic rising star.Calling Mamdani by his full name – and putting the mayor-elect’s middle name of Kwame in quotation marks – Trump posted on Wednesday night that Mamdani had asked for the meeting, promising: “Further details to follow!”Saying it was “customary” for an incoming New York City mayor to meet with the president, Mamdani spokesperson Dora Pekec said the incoming mayor planned to discuss with Trump “public safety, economic security and the affordability agenda that over one million New Yorkers voted for just two weeks ago”.Trump for months has slammed Mamdani, falsely labelling him a “communist” and predicting the ruin of his home town if the democratic socialist was elected. He also threatened to deport Mamdani, who was born in Uganda and became a naturalised American citizen in 2018, and to pull federal money from the city.But following the November elections – in which Republicans lost badly in Georgia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia, as well as New York – Trump has spoken more about affordability, which had been a focal point across the Democratic campaigns. Last week in a social media post he declared that the Republicans were the “Party of Affordability!” This comes as the president and his fellow Republicans insist the economy has never been stronger.Trump told reporters on Sunday night that he planned to meet with Mamdani, saying “we’ll work something out”. On Monday, Mamdani – who officially takes office in January – said that he hoped to meet Trump, confirming that his team had reached out to the White House to set up a possible sit-down.During his victory speech earlier this month, Mamdani, a 34-year-old who in just a few short months rose from obscure state lawmaker representing Queens to mayor-elect of the nation’s biggest city, said he wanted New York to show the country how to defeat the president.He’s also talked about “Trump-proofing” New York once he takes office in January while also promising to work with anyone, including the president, if it benefited New Yorkers. More

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      Trump signs bill to compel release of more Epstein documents

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      Donald Trump signed a bill Wednesday directing the justice department to release files from the investigation into the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, surrendering in the face of joint pressure from Democratic opponents and the president’s conservative base.The signature marked a sharp reversal for Trump, who had the authority as president to release the documents himself, but chose not to.Democrats have gloried in the controversy over the files and the possibility they may contain compromising information about Trump, who had a personal friendship with Epstein, who died in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.Trump sought to flip that script after signing the bill in a posting to Truth Social that pointed out Epstein’s ties to the Democratic party.“Perhaps the truth about these Democrats, and their associations with Jeffrey Epstein, will soon be revealed, because I HAVE JUST SIGNED THE BILL TO RELEASE THE EPSTEIN FILES!,” Trump wrote on Wednesday night.The justice department has 30 days to release all files related to Epstein, including the investigation into his death by suicide in a federal prison cell. The legislation permits redacting identifying information of victims, but specifically bars officials from declining to disclose information over concerns about “embarrassment, reputational harm or political sensitivity”.Trump waffled on the issue for years before finally succumbing to political pressure. On the campaign trail, he pledged to release the Epstein files. Once in office, he changed his position, calling the issue a “hoax” and railing against those who wanted to make the documents public.But he reversed course in recent days after it was clear the House of Representatives would pass legislation, saying “we have nothing to hide” and that “it’s time to move on from this Democrat Hoax perpetrated by Radical Left Lunatics in order to deflect from the Great Success of the Republican Party, including our recent Victory on the Democrat ‘Shutdown’”.After Trump indicated his approval of the bill, Republican holdouts swiftly moved it through the House and then the Senate. Mike Johnson, the US House speaker, had stalled the bill for months, and after the House passed it, Johnson said he hoped the Senate would amend it, which it did not.The justice department said earlier this year that it had released all the documents it could about Epstein without hindering investigations or revealing information about his victims.“Much of the material is subject to court-ordered sealing,” a justice department memo from July said. “Only a fraction of this material would have been aired publicly had Epstein gone to trial, as the seal served only to protect victims and did not expose any additional third parties to allegations of illegal wrongdoing.”It’s not clear what the department will release in response to the bill – the bill details a host of potential items that must be released, but provides exceptions for some materials.The bill calls for the attorney general to make unclassified Epstein-related documents publicly available “in a searchable and downloadable format”, including all investigations into Epstein, his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, flight logs and travel records, individuals referenced or named in connection with his crimes, entities that were tied to his trafficking or financial networks, immunity deals and other plea agreements, internal communications about charging decisions, documentation of his detention and death, and details about any file deletions.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe department will have 30 days to turn over the documents. The bill provides for some exceptions, including redactions of victims’ identifying information or personal files, any depictions of child sexual abuse, releases that would jeopardize active investigations or prosecutions and depictions of death or abuse.Members of Congress released tens of thousands of documents that resurfaced and added depth to relationships Epstein had with prominent figures, including Larry Summers, the former treasury secretary, and Michael Wolff, the writer and Trump biographer.Trump and Epstein were once friends, and Trump’s name is in some of the documents released by members of Congress so far, though the mentions do not mean he was a party to any of Epstein’s criminal activity.Documents released by Democratic members of the House oversight committee included an email from Epstein to Wolff in which Epstein said of Trump: “Of course, he knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine to stop.” In another, he called Trump the “dog that hasn’t barked”.Epstein emailed people about Trump regularly, usually derogatorily. “I have met some very bad people,” he wrote in one email. “None as bad as Trump. Not one decent cell in his body.” More

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      Trump news at a glance: 30-day countdown to release Epstein files begins after president signs bill

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      Donald Trump announced on Wednesday night that he had signed the bill overwhelmingly approved by US legislators that directs the justice department to release more files related to Jeffrey Epstein, the deceased child sexual abuser.The president’s signing sets a 30-day countdown for the Justice Department to produce what’s commonly known as the Epstein files.The move follows months of resistance from the president and his political allies in Congress that fractured his Maga base and created rifts with some of his longtime supporters.Trump had fought against releasing the Epstein files, calling the issue a “hoax” and railing against those who wanted to make the documents public, despite promising their release on the campaign trail.But he reversed course in recent days after it become clear the House of Representatives would pass legislation. Trump said: “We have nothing to hide”.It’s not clear what the department will release in response to the bill – the bill details a host of potential items that must be released, but provides exceptions for some materials.Trump signs bill to compel release of more Jeffrey Epstein documentsThe bill calls for the attorney general to make unclassified Epstein-related documents publicly available “in a searchable and downloadable format”, including all investigations into Epstein, his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, flight logs and travel records, individuals referenced or named in connection with his crimes, entities that were tied to his trafficking or financial networks, immunity deals and other plea agreements, internal communications about charging decisions, documentation of his detention and death, and details about any file deletions.The department will have 30 days to turn over the documents. The bill provides for some exceptions, including redactions of victims’ identifying information or personal files, any depictions of child sexual abuse, releases that would jeopardize active investigations or prosecutions and depictions of death or abuse.Read the full storyTrump’s anti-climate agenda could result in 1.3m more deaths globally, analysis findsNew advances in environmental science are providing a detailed understanding of the human cost of the Trump administration’s approach to climate.Increasing temperatures are already killing enormous numbers of people. A ProPublica and Guardian analysis that draws on sophisticated modeling by independent researchers found that Trump’s “America First” agenda of expanding fossil fuels and decimating efforts to reduce emissions will add substantially to that toll, with the vast majority of deaths occurring outside the US.Read the full storyFull grand jury didn’t see final Comey indictment, prosecutors admitFederal prosecutors on Wednesday said they had never presented the final version of the indictment filed against James Comey to a full federal grand jury, a concession that adds to mounting challenges in their effort to prosecute the former FBI director.Prosecutors acknowledged the omission during a Wednesday hearing in which Comey’s lawyers argued the case against him should be dismissed because it was a selective and vindictive prosecution.Read the full storyJanuary 6 rioter who was pardoned by Trump arrested for child sexual abuseA man who took part in the 6 January attack on the US Capitol and was pardoned by Trump earlier this year has been arrested on multiple child sexual abuse crime charges in Florida, according to local authorities.The man, identified as 44-year-old Andrew Paul Johnson, was taken into custody in August in Tennessee and extradited to Florida where, according to arrest records, he faces charges of lewd and lascivious child molestation of a child under 12, lewd and lascivious child molestation of a child between 12 and 16, as well as lewd and lascivious exhibition, and transmission of material harmful to a minor.Read the full storyState department to cut 38 universities from research program over DEI policiesThe state department is proposing to suspend 38 universities including Harvard and Yale from a federal research partnership program because they engage in diversity, equity and inclusion hiring practices, according to an internal memo and spreadsheet obtained by the Guardian.The memo, dated 17 November, recommends excluding institutions from the Diplomacy Lab – a program that pairs university researchers with state department policy offices – if they “openly engage in DEI hiring practices” or set DEI objectives for candidate pools.Read the full storyNearly all immigrants detained in Trump Chicago raid had no criminal convictionMore than 97% of immigrants detained in the Trump administration’s “Operation Midway Blitz” in Chicago had no criminal conviction, according to federal court records.The data, released on Friday and first reported by the Chicago Tribune, sharply contradicts the Trump administration’s portrayal of the immigration sweeps as an effort to fight crime and, as Trump himself has described it, targeting the “worst of the worst”.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Larry Summers, the former president of Harvard University, will stop teaching at the school while it investigates his connection to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, a spokesman for Summers said on Wednesday.

      Democratic representative Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick of Florida was indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly funneling more than $5m worth of federal disaster funds from her company into her 2021 congressional campaign.

      Tom Steyer, the billionaire environmental activist who unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for president in 2020, will run for California governor, he announced on Wednesday.

      Saudi Arabia has agreed to allow US citizen Saad Almadi to return home to Florida, five months ahead of the scheduled lifting of travel restrictions and a day after Saudi crown prince and prime minister Mohammed bin Salman met Donald Trump at the White House.

      US and Russian officials have quietly drafted a new plan to end the war in Ukraine that would require Kyiv to surrender territory and severely limit the size of its military, it was reported on Wednesday as Russian drone and missile strikes killed at least 25 people in the city of Ternopil.

      A longtime FBI employee has filed a lawsuit alleging that he was fired for displaying a Pride flag at his desk, naming FBI director Kash Patel, the justice department and attorney general Pam Bondi as defendants.

      US officials are privately saying that they might not levy long-promised semiconductor tariffs soon, potentially delaying a centerpiece of Donald Trump’s economic agenda.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on Tuesday 18 November. More

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      Saudi Arabia releases US retiree jailed over critical tweets

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      Saudi Arabia has agreed to allow US citizen Saad Almadi to return home to Florida, five months ahead of the scheduled lifting of travel restrictions and a day after Saudi crown prince and prime minister Mohammed bin Salman met Donald Trump at the White House.Almadi, 75, was sentenced to 19 years of incarceration in the kingdom in 2021 after he wrote 14 tweets critical of the Riyadh government. Two years later, the charges were reduced to so-called “cyber crimes” and he was sentenced to a 30-year ban on leaving Saudi Arabia.The announcement that Almadi, a dual citizen and retired engineer who had lived in the US since the 1970s, would be free to leave the country came after the US president delivered a speech touting US-Saudi ties, including arms sales and investment deals, during a second day of public events in Washington.“Our family is overjoyed that, after four long years, our father, Saad Almadi, is finally on his way home to the United States!” the Almadi family said in a statement.“This day would not have been possible without President Donald Trump and the tireless efforts of his administration. We are deeply grateful to Dr Sebastian Gorka and the team at the national security council, as well as everyone at the state department,” it added.The statement by Almadi’s son, Ibrahim Almadi, also thanked various non-profit organizations, including the James Foley Fund and Hostages America, and House speaker Mike Johnson for supporting the elder Almadi’s cause. He later posted on X that his father was on his way to the US.Almadi is one of a handful of American dual citizens facing exit bans from Saudi Arabia following a crackdown on online dissent. His son has previously claimed that Almadi was pressured to sign papers renouncing his US citizenship.The case against Almadi centered on social media posts in which he was alleged to have urged Saudi citizens to seek Lebanese citizenship and faulted the kingdom’s defenses against Houthi rocket strikes.More controversially he expressed approval for the renaming of a street in the US capital after Jamal Khashoggi, the journalist and Washington Post columnist killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.US intelligence reports released by the Biden administration later assessed that the crown prince had approved of a plan to “capture or kill” Khashoggi.Asked about the killing on Tuesday, Trump said the crown prince “knew nothing” of Khashoggi’s kiling. The Saudi crown prince has denied any wrongdoing. He said at the White House that Saudi Arabia “did all the right things” to investigate Khashoggi’s death, which he called “painful” and a “huge mistake”.US pressure to release Almadi and allow him to return to the US has been building since Trump’s trip to Saudi Arabia in May. Many appealed to Trump claim that he is uniquely successful in repatriating US citizens detained overseas.When asked by a reporter in May about the case, Trump said he didn’t know about it but promised to take a look. A few weeks later, one of his national security aides, Gorka, met the younger Almadi at the White House.Johnson also met Almadi’s son. Johnson said: “President Trump is the president of deals and he loves to do business with the Saudis and we will win your father back.” More

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      Justice department will release Epstein files within 30 days, says US attorney general – US politics live

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      The US justice department will release files from its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein within 30 days, attorney general Pam Bondi has said, after Congress voted nearly unanimously to force Donald Trump’s administration to make them public.The scandal has been a thorn in Trump’s side for months, partly because he amplified conspiracy theories about Epstein to his own supporters. Many Trump voters believe his administration has covered up Epstein’s ties to powerful figures and obscured details surrounding his death, which was ruled a suicide, in a Manhattan jail in 2019 as he faced federal sex trafficking charges.At a news conference today, Bondi confirmed that the DOJ will release its Epstein-related material within 30 days, as required by legislation that passed the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and Senate yesterday. “We will continue to follow the law and encourage maximum transparency,” she said.But that release may not be comprehensive, as the agency may have to hold back material that could impact Trump-ordered investigations of Democratic figures who associated with Epstein.The department will also protect the identities of any sex-trafficking victims whose names appear in the documents, she said.The FBI intercepted phone calls, texts and other electronic communications of people who work or have worked for the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, as part of a federal corruption investigation of his former chief of staff and two Democratic operatives, according to letters to the targets reviewed by The Los Angeles Times.The former aide to Newson, Dana Williamson was arrested last week on federal charges that she allegedly stole $225,000 from a dormant state campaign account of the state’s former attorney general, Xavier Becerra.According to the 23-count indictment, Williamson conspired with Becerra’s former chief deputy in the California attorney general’s office and ex-chief of staff Sean McCluskie, along with lobbyist Greg Campbell to bill Becerra’s dormant campaign account for bogus consulting services.Williamson has pleaded not guilty to the charges.Prosecutors said the investigation began three years ago, during the Biden administration.The legal notifications from the FBI, mandated by the 1968 Federal Wiretap Act, are sent out to people whose private communications have been captured on federal wiretaps after investigations.A spokesperson for Newsom’s office said the governor did not receive a letter and the governor is not involved in the case against Williamson. Newsom was not mentioned in the indictments against the three aides.As of 3.52pm ET, on a grey afternoon in Washington, we’ve yet to hear from the White House about whether the press will watch Donald Trump sign the bill directing the justice department to release unclassified documents related to Jeffrey Epstein.We’ll make sure to update you if that changes.The president has nominated a new director of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB), in a move that allows the current acting director, Russell Vought, who also serves as the director of the office of management and budget, to remain in his position and continue dismantling the agency.Trump’s decision to nominate Stuart Levenbach, an official in the budget office, as the permanent director provides a crucial loophole that allows Vought to stay put, three weeks before he would otherwise have to step aside. Federal law says that an acting official can only serve for 210 days, unless the president nominates another person for the position.Vought took over the CFPB earlier this year, and has consistently pushed for the watchdog’s elimination, including trying to fire most of its staff.Today, Elizabeth Warren – the top Democrat on the Senate banking committee – said that Levenbach’s nomination was “nothing more than a front for Russ Vought to stay on as acting director indefinitely as he tries to illegally close down the agency”.Tom Steyer, the billionaire environmental activist who unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for president in 2020, will run for California governor, he announced on Wednesday.The 68-year-old joins a crowded field of candidates seeking to replace Gavin Newsom, and in a statement released this week pledged to focus on the state’s intractable affordability crisis.“Californians deserve a life they can afford. But the Californians who make this state run are being run over by the cost of living. We need to get back to basics. And that means making corporations pay their fair share again,” Steyer said.With Newsom termed out from running again, several prominent Democrats have entered the race, including former congresswoman Katie Porter; Xavier Becerra, a former US cabinet member; Antonio Villaraigosa, a former state lawmaker who served as the LA mayor; and Betty Yee, who was the state controller from 2015 to 2023. Congressman Eric Swalwell is expected to announce plans to run.Porter was considered the frontrunner until October when video emerged of her appearing frustrated with a journalist during an interview with a local news outlet and threatening to walk out. In the aftermath of the incident, Republican Chad Bianco, the Riverside county sheriff who is running for governor, took the lead in polling. Steve Hilton, a former David Cameron adviser and Fox News host, is also running as a Republican.A majority of nationally registered voters said they would back a Democratic congressional candidate if the 2026 midterms were held today, according to a new poll by NPR/PBS News/Marist University.While 55% of respondents said they would support a Democrat, 41% would support the Republican, and 3% would back another candidate.Notably, 39% of the Americans surveyed said that they blame Democrats for the record-breaking government shutdown. Trump received 34% of the responsibility, while 26% blame congressional Republicans.

      The US justice department will release files from its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein within 30 days, Pam Bondi, the attorney general, has said, after Congress voted nearly unanimously to force Donald Trump’s administration to make them public. At a news conference today, Bondi confirmed that the justice department will release its Epstein-related material within 30 days, as required by legislation that passed the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and Senate yesterday. “We will continue to follow the law and encourage maximum transparency,” she said.

      However, the department may have to hold back material that could affect Trump-ordered investigations of Democratic figures who associated with Epstein. They could argue that releasing certain documents would be prejudicial.

      The US Bureau of Labor Statistics has said it will not release a full US jobs report for the month of October, following the country’s longest ever federal government shutdown. Instead, the available figures will be published with November’s data in mid-December, the BLS said. The October data is expected to show negative job growth after about 100,000 federal workers participated in the deferred-resignation program and formally left payrolls in late September during the shutdown.

      In federal court today, Lindsey Halligan, the president’s handpicked choice for interim US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia, and another prosecutor acknowledged that the entire grand jury never saw the final indictment against James Comey. Halligan charged the former FBI director with lying to Congress in September. But when the prosecution was questioned by Judge Michael Nachmanoff today, they admitted that the a new version of the indictment was not presented to the full panel after it rejected one of the charges.

      The US has signalled to Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Ukraine must accept a US-drafted framework to end Russia’s war that proposes Kyiv giving up territory and some weapons, two people familiar with the matter have told Reuters. The sources, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter, said the proposals included cutting the size of Ukraine’s armed forces, among other things. Washington wants Kyiv to accept the main points, the sources said.
      In federal court today, Lindsey Halligan (the president’s handpicked choice for interim US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia) and another prosecutor acknowledged that the entire grand jury never saw the final indictment against James Comey.Halligan charged the former FBI director with lying to Congress in September. But when the prosecution was probed by Judge Michael Nachmanoff today, they admitted that the a new version of the indictment was not presented to the full panel, after they rejected one of the charges. Instead, Halligan gave the grand jury’s foreperson an updated version to sign. “The foreperson and another grand juror was also present,” she confirmed to Nachmanoff.“There is no indictment,” said Comey’s attorney Michael Dreeben, arguing that this error is grounds for dismissal.A Republican attempt to censure Stacey Plaskett, a Democratic delegate, over her real-time texts with pedophile Jeffrey Epstein collapsed on the House floor on Tuesday night, prompting a confrontation on the chamber floor and accusations that party leaders had struck a deal to protect members on both sides facing ethics controversies.The measure, which would have formally reprimanded Plaskett and removed her from the House intelligence committee over her text message exchanges with Epstein during a hearing, failed by a vote of 209 to 214.Republicans Don Bacon of Nebraska, Lance Gooden of Texas and Dave Joyce of Ohio voted with all Democrats against the resolution, while three other Republicans voted present.When newly released materials exposed Plaskett, a Democrat from the US Virgin Islands, for exchanging real-time messages with Epstein during a 2019 congressional hearing, all Democrats voted against her censure.Then, immediately after the vote, Democrats withdrew a planned censure resolution against Cory Mills, a Florida Republican representative facing allegations of stolen valor, financial misconduct and domestic abuse. Mills has denied the accusations.The sequence prompted Lauren Boebert, a representative of Colorado, to shout at fellow Republicans on the House floor, wagging her finger and at one point directly confronting Mills.Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican representative from Florida, attempted to raise a parliamentary inquiry asking Mike Johnson, the House speaker, to “explain why leadership on both sides, both Democrat and Republican, are cutting back-end deals to cover up public corruption in the House of Representatives”.“Get it, girl,” Boebert shouted in response.The US Bureau of Labor Statistics has said it will not release a full US jobs report for the month of October, following the country’s longest ever federal government shutdown.Instead, the available figures will be published with November’s data in mid-December, the BLS said.The October data is expected to show negative job growth after around 100,000 federal workers participated in the deferred resignation program and formally left payrolls in late September during the shutdown.The announcement will have major implications for the Federal Reserve, whose officials are debating whether to lower interest rates again when they meet next month.On this the New York Times notes: “Policymakers have grown more divided in recent weeks, with those inclined to cut rates emphasizing their concerns about the labor market and those hesitant to make a move focusing on the risks posed by inflation reaccelerating again. Typically, new economic data would help to resolve some of those differences. But the Fed will not have much new data in hand much new data before it has to make its decision on 10 December.”The US justice department will release files from its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein within 30 days, attorney general Pam Bondi has said, after Congress voted nearly unanimously to force Donald Trump’s administration to make them public.The scandal has been a thorn in Trump’s side for months, partly because he amplified conspiracy theories about Epstein to his own supporters. Many Trump voters believe his administration has covered up Epstein’s ties to powerful figures and obscured details surrounding his death, which was ruled a suicide, in a Manhattan jail in 2019 as he faced federal sex trafficking charges.At a news conference today, Bondi confirmed that the DOJ will release its Epstein-related material within 30 days, as required by legislation that passed the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and Senate yesterday. “We will continue to follow the law and encourage maximum transparency,” she said.But that release may not be comprehensive, as the agency may have to hold back material that could impact Trump-ordered investigations of Democratic figures who associated with Epstein.The department will also protect the identities of any sex-trafficking victims whose names appear in the documents, she said.The US president says the United States is “going to be selling Saudi Arabia some of the greatest military equipment ever built” and says “the airplanes” would be “approved very quickly”.Yesterday, Trump confirmed the US would sell F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, marking the first sale of the advanced fighter jets to a Middle Eastern state other than Israel.Trump also says that $270bn in agreements and sales were being signed between “dozens of companies” today.Trump reiterates that he signed an agreement designating Saudi Arabia a major non-Nato ally at last night’s dinner with the crown prince.“We’re taking our military cooperation to even greater heights by formally designating Saudi Arabia as a major, non-Nato ally, which is something that is very important to them,” Trump said last night.The US currently has 19 other countries listed as major non-Nato allies, including Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait and Qatar.“A stronger and more capable alliance will advance the interests of both countries, and it will serve the highest interest of peace,” Trump said during the dinner.Donald Trump and Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, have been delivering remarks to the US-Saudi Investment Forum at the Kennedy Center. I’ll bring you any key lines that come out of that here.The US has signalled to Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Ukraine must accept a US-drafted framework to end Russia’s war which proposes Kyiv giving up territory and some weapons, two people familiar with the matter have told Reuters.The sources, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter, said the proposals included cutting the size of Ukraine’s armed forces, among other things. Washington wants Kyiv to accept the main points, the sources said.Earlier, we covered Axios’s report of a secret US 28-point peace plan, hammered out with Russia (and without any direct input from Ukraine and other European allies), that is now on the table to end the war. According to Axios’s sources, the plan’s 28 points fall into four general buckets: peace in Ukraine, security guarantees, security in Europe, and future US relations with Russia and Ukraine.And this morning, Politico reported, citing a senior White House official, that “they expect a framework for ending the conflict to be agreed by all parties by the end of this month – and possibly ‘as soon as this week’”.Trump administration officials told the outlet last night that they were on the brink of a major breakthrough and it seemed as though the plan would be presented to Zelenskyy as a fait accompli.“What we are going to present [to Ukraine] is reasonable,” the senior White House official told Politico, with the mood in the administration one in which Zelenskyy, under pressure on the battlefield and at home in the face of a mounting corruption scandal, must accept what’s on offer.You can follow my colleague Jakub Krupa’s coverage of the war here:Lawyers for James Comey are arguing that the case against the former FBI director is nothing more than a personal attack, born out of Donald Trump’s desire to prosecute his political adversary.“This is an extraordinary case and it merits an extraordinary remedy,” Comey’s defense lawyer, Michael Dreeben, said today at a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. Dreeben added that the president’s public comments about Comey are “effectively an admission that this is a political prosecution and not based on evidence”.A reminder that Comey is charged with lying to Congress in 2020, and has pleaded not guilty.On Monday, another federal judge found evidence of “government misconduct” in how Lindsey Halligan, the interim US attorney general for the eastern district of Virginia, secured criminal charges against the former FBI director, and ordered that grand jury materials be turned over to Comey’s defense team.Later today, we’re expecting a vote in the House that would repeal a provision tucked into the stopgap spending bill passed last week (which ended the record-breaking government shutdown) that allows senators to sue the federal government because their phone records were subpoenaed in 2023 by the special counsel investigating Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election.Most Republicans in the House have derided the measure, while the Senate majority leader, John Thune, remained convinced it was necessary. “The House is going to do what they’re going to do with it,” he said of the lower chamber lawmakers. “It doesn’t apply to them.” However, a number of GOP senators have indicated they’re happy to do away with the provision. This even includes some of the eight lawmakers whose phone data the FBI sought and obtained as part of Jack Smith’s investigation.That vote is currently scheduled for 8:15pm ET.The Senate has now officially received the bill, passed in the House, which calls on the justice department to release the complete Epstein files. On Tuesday the upper chamber passed the legislation with unanimous consent – which means it now heads directly to Donald Trump’s desk for his signature.As I noted in my last post, we’re not clear on when that will be, since his schedule hasn’t been updated. More