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      Trump news at a glance: president backs Ukraine to ‘get their land back’ from Russia and lambasts UN

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      Donald Trump has said he believes Ukraine can regain all the land that it has lost since the 2022 Russian invasion in one of the strongest statements of support he has given Kyiv.Writing on Truth Social after meeting Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the UN on Tuesday, the US president said “Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form”.Trump echoed those comments during a meeting with French president Emmanuel Macron shortly after. Trump said Ukraine’s ability to fight back might prove that Russia is a “paper tiger”.“I feel that way. I really do feel that way. Let them get their land back,” the president added.Trump says Ukraine can get back all the land lost to Russia since 2022The US president delivered his upbeat assessment by claiming Russia was in big economic trouble, after meeting Zelenskyy in New York.He wrote: “After getting to know and fully understand the Ukraine/Russia Military and Economic situation and, after seeing the Economic trouble it is causing Russia, I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back.“With time, patience, and the financial support of Europe and, in particular, Nato, the original Borders from where this War started, is very much an option. Why not?”Read the full storyTrump calls for nations to expel foreigners in UN speechDonald Trump launched a full-on assault on the UN during his general assembly speech, describing it as a feckless, corrupt and pernicious global force that should follow the example of his own leadership.In an inflammatory speech on the 80th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations, Trump called for countries to close their borders and expel foreigners, accused the UN of leading a “globalist migration agenda”, and told national leaders that the world body was “funding an assault on your countries”.The Guardian’s Andrew Roth said the speech was red meat for Trump’s supporters, and observers from across the aisle in the US quickly identified Trump’s likely audience as his own base.Read the full storyTV hosts celebrate return of Kimmel after backlash Late-night television hosts credited people who boycotted Disney for getting Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night TV show back on the air after the corporation had indefinitely suspended Kimmel amid pressure from the Trump administration.“We got word that our long national late-nightmare is over,” Stephen Colbert said during his show on Monday night. “Once more, I am the only martyr in late night, unless … CBS, you want to announce anything?” Colbert joked, referencing CBS’s decision to cancel his show earlier this year. “Still no?”Read the full story‘Pay no attention’: global health agencies dismiss Trump’s claim on painkillersGlobal health agencies and regulators have dismissed unscientific advice from Donald Trump that made an unproven link between autism and the use of everyday painkillers and vaccines.In a sign of how worried foreign governments are about the US president’s comments, the health secretary of the UK, which is one the US’s closest allies, told the British public they should not “pay any attention whatsoever to what Donald Trump says about medicine”.Read the full storyTrump cancels Democrat meeting as federal shutdown loomsDonald Trump on Tuesday said he would not meet with top congressional Democrats to discuss their demands for keeping the federal government open, prompting Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer to accuse the president of “running away from the negotiating table before he even gets there”.Read the full storyMacron phones Trump over motorcade hold-up Emmanuel Macron had to walk half an hour by foot through New York after his speech to the United Nations on recognising Palestine as a state.Video footage shows him getting out of his car to talk to police officers after they stop his vehicle to make way for the expected arrival of the motorcade of Donald Trump.Read the full storyHegseth dissolves women’s military committee over ‘divisive feminist agenda’Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, ended an advisory committee on women in the armed services on Tuesday, saying it was putting forth a “divisive feminist agenda”.“The committee is focused on advancing a divisive feminist agenda that hurts combat readiness, while Secretary Hegseth has focused on advancing uniform, sex-neutral standards across the Department,” said Kingsley Wilson, press secretary for the Pentagon.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      A lawyer for 11 west Africans deported by the US to Ghana said they had been returned to their home countries despite many fearing for their safety. Under Donald Trump’s drive to ramp up expulsions, the US has sent migrants to third countries, including Rwanda, Uganda and El Salvador, prompting accusations that deportee rights have been violated.

      Jerome Powell pushed back hard against claims the US Federal Reserve allows politics to drive decisions, in the midst of an extraordinary battle over its independence. Donald Trump, who is seeking to increase his administration’s control over the Fed, has branded Powell “a very political guy” after he declined to bow to the president’s public demands for drastically lower interest rates.

      Keir Starmer is facing demands from Labour MPs to reprimand Donald Trump’s administrationafter the US president falsely claimed London wanted to “go to sharia law” under its “terrible mayor”, Sadiq Khan.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 22 September 2025. More

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      Trump says Ukraine could regain all territory lost to Russia since 2022 invasion after meeting Zelenskyy at UN – live

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      In a post on Truth Social, Donald Trump said that Ukraine is in a position to “fight and win back” all of the territory it has lost since the beginning of the 2022 Russian invasion.“Why not? Russia has been fighting aimlessly for three and a half years a War that should have taken a Real Military Power less than a week to win,” Trump wrote, in a rare full-throated endorsement of Ukraine’s potential.“Ukraine would be able to take back their Country in its original form and, who knows, maybe even go further than that! Putin and Russia are in BIG Economic trouble, and this is the time for Ukraine to act,” Trump said in his lengthy social media meditation. He added that the US will continue to supply Nato with weapons for purchase.Earlier, in a bilateral meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump said that the “Russian economy is terrible right now” and Ukraine has done a “pretty amazing” job at staving off the Kremlin’s forces.Donald Trump’s meeting with Arab and Muslim leaders at the United Nations has concluded. The president did not answer any questions, but White House pool reporters noted that he said he had a “very good meeting” and teased his intention to follow up with a meeting with Israel.The Associated Press also noted that special envoy Steve Witkoff offered a thumbs-up in response to a question about how the meeting went.China’s representative to the Security Council criticized the use of sanctions, a strategy that the Trump administration has shown renewed interest in at this meeting of the UN General Assembly.“Abusing unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction under the pretext of the crisis does not contribute to a political settlement,” the representative said.The United States has previously levied sanctions against China, and Chinese companies, for supporting Russia.Secretary of state Marco Rubio touted Donald Trump’s role in negotiations to end the war in Ukraine during a meeting of the UN Security Council, while also noting that the president was open to levying “additional economic costs” on Russia and selling additional defensive weaponry and “potentially offensive weaponry” to Ukraine.“The president is a very patient man,” Rubio said, “but his patience is not infinite.”“The United States remains as committed as it has ever been to a peaceful resolution to this dangeorous conflict, but there will come a moment where we will have to conclude that perhaps there is no interest in a peaceful resolution,” he added.Defense secretary Pete Hegseth has decided to close a Defense Department advisory committee dedicated to recruiting and retaining women in the military.In a social media post announcing the closure of the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services, Pentagon spokesperson Kingsley Wilson wrote: “The Committee is focused on advancing a divisive feminist agenda that hurts combat readiness, while Secretary Hegseth has focused on advancing uniform, sex-neutral standards across the Department.”The advisory committee was founded in 1951 under Harry Truman’s presidency. The Military Times reported earlier this year that the committee was one of 14 defense advisory committees flagged for potential termination, though many of those would require congressional approval to be disbanded.Here’s more from my colleague Rachel Leingang:Speaking to the UN General Assembly today, South African president Cyril Ramaphosa said that “trade is now being used as a weapon against a number of countries in the world.”The comment may have been a reference to Donald Trump’s tariffs – which include a 30% levy against South Africa. In May, Ramaphosa met Trump in the Oval Office, where the president played Ramaphosa a video that he falsely claimed proved genocide was being committed against white people under “the opposite of apartheid”.Here’s more on the state of the US-South Africa relationship from my colleague David Smith:Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer criticized Donald Trump for canceling a meeting with top Congressional Democrats, scheduled for Thursday, ahead of an approaching government funding deadline at the end of the month.At a press conference, Schumer said Trump should “stop ranting” and that “time is of the essence” as the 30 September deadline approaches.“Mr. President, do your job,” Schumer said.Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy is also speaking currently at a UN meeting of the Security Council. “One of the prominent members of this council is doing everything to prolong the largest war in Europe since World War II,” Zelenskyy said. “Russia does this with its veto power.”“China is also represented here, a powerful nation on which Russia relies completely,” he added. “Without China, Putin’s Russia is nothing.”Zelenskyy also nodded to his recent meeting with Donald Trump. “We expect America’s actions to push Moscow toward peace,” he said.Donald Trump’s multilateral meeting with several leaders of Arab and Muslim countries has begun.In brief remarks to reporters, Trump said, “We want to end the war in Gaza.”“This is my most important meeting,” he added. “We’re going to end something that should have probably never started.”During his pull aside with Macron, Donald Trump flagged that his next meeting – a multilateral sitdown with several leaders of Arab and Muslim countries – will be crucial to address the ongoing crisis in Gaza.“We’re going to see if we can do something about it. We want to stop that. We want to get our hostages back, or their hostages back.”Much like his address to the general assembly today, the president said that we can’t “forget” the October 7 attack by Hamas in his meeting with Macron. In response, the French president said “nobody forgets the seventh of October”.This week, France joined Britain, Canada, Portugal and Australia to formally recognize Palestinian statehood. For his part, Donald Trump has branded the move as a “reward to Hamas”.In a meeting with French president Emanuel Macron, Donald Trump reiterated his recent comments on Truth Social that Ukraine has the potential to win back all the territory it has lost to Russia in the three and a half years since the most recent war in the region began.Trump said that Ukraine’s ability to fight back might prove that Russia is a “paper tiger”.“I feel that way. I really do feel that way. Let them get their land back,” the president added.In a post on Truth Social, Donald Trump said that Ukraine is in a position to “fight and win back” all of the territory it has lost since the beginning of the 2022 Russian invasion.“Why not? Russia has been fighting aimlessly for three and a half years a War that should have taken a Real Military Power less than a week to win,” Trump wrote, in a rare full-throated endorsement of Ukraine’s potential.“Ukraine would be able to take back their Country in its original form and, who knows, maybe even go further than that! Putin and Russia are in BIG Economic trouble, and this is the time for Ukraine to act,” Trump said in his lengthy social media meditation. He added that the US will continue to supply Nato with weapons for purchase.Earlier, in a bilateral meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump said that the “Russian economy is terrible right now” and Ukraine has done a “pretty amazing” job at staving off the Kremlin’s forces.Earlier, president of the EU commission Ursula von der Leyen said that Donald Trump was “absolutely right” about European countries continuing to buy Russian energy products. A move the president described as “inexcusable” in his address to the UN general assembly today.“We’re on it. We have reduced already massive gas supply from Russia, completely gotten out of Russian coal, and massively also reduced the oil supply. But there’s still some coming to the European continent,” von der Leyen said during a pull aside meeting with the presiden. “So what we do now? We put sanctions out to those ports where, for example, energy is coming from Russia. And we want to put tariffs on oil supplies that are still coming to the European Union.”Ryan Routh, the man who attempted to assassinate Donald Trump at the president’s Florida golf course last year, has been found guilty in federal court today.Routh, 59, was convicted on five counts, including attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate and possessing a firearm as a convicted felon. In September 2024, he was spotted with a rifle hiding in the bushes at the president’s West Palm Beach club as Trump’s golfing party approached. Routh represented himself in court, and prosecutors accused him of plotting for months to kill Donald Trump during his successful run to return to the White House.“Today’s guilty verdict against would-be Trump assassin Ryan Routh illustrates the Department of Justice’s commitment to punishing those who engage in political violence,” said attorney general Pam Bondi.Jurors deliberated for just a few hours before returning with a guilty verdict. According to reports from the courtroom, as the verdict was being read, Routh attempted to stab himself in the neck with a pen.Fox News reports that four marshals then dragged Routh out of the court room, shackled him, and brought him back. More

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      Trump says he believes Ukraine can regain all land lost to Russia since 2022 invasion

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      Donald Trump has said he believes Ukraine can regain all the land that it has lost since the 2022 Russian invasion in one of the strongest statements of support he has given Kyiv.The US president delivered his upbeat assessment by claiming Russia was in big economic trouble in a post on Truth Social after meeting the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in New York.He wrote: “After getting to know and fully understand the Ukraine/Russia Military and Economic situation and, after seeing the Economic trouble it is causing Russia, I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form.“With time, patience, and the financial support of Europe and, in particular, NATO, the original Borders from where this War started, is very much an option. Why not?”Trump added: “Russia has been fighting aimlessly for three and a half years, a war that should have taken a Real Military Power less than a week to win.”The US president said this was not making Russia look distinguished, but instead a paper tiger, pointing to the long queues for petrol inside the country. He added: “Putin and Russia are in BIG Economic trouble, and this is the time for Ukraine to act.” He also promised “to supply weapons to NATO for NATO to do what they want with them”.Earlier, Trump said that he planned to enforce his demand that Nato countries stop importing Russian oil – including Hungary, led by his close ally Viktor Orbán.In his speech to the UN general assembly the US president renewed his demand for Europe to end its “embarrassing” purchase of oil and gas from Russia, saying until it did so he would not impose his long-promised economic punishment on Moscow.Trump also said he believed Nato aircraft should shoot down Russian aircraft if they entered its airspace, but later qualified his remarks by saying it depended on the circumstances.He made his remarks alongside Zelenskyy, whom he described as a “brave man”. Asked if he still trusted the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, Trump said he would know in a month’s time.It came after the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, had given less wholehearted support for shooting down Russian planes in Nato airspace, saying this should only happen “if they’re attacking”.View image in fullscreenIn his speech to the UN Trump mocked Nato allies’ failure to curb oil imports, saying: “China and India are the primary funders of the ongoing war by continuing to purchase Russian oil. But inexcusably, even Nato countries have not cut off much Russian energy and Russian energy products … I found out about it two weeks ago, and I wasn’t happy.“They’re funding the war against themselves. Who the hell ever heard of that one? In the event that Russia is not ready to make a deal to end the war, then the United States is fully prepared to impose a very strong round of powerful tariffs.“But for those tariffs to be effective, European nations, all of you … gathered here right now, would have to join us in adopting the exact same measures.”Trump did not specify the measures, but he has been stalling on a package that includes tariffs against countries that do business with Russia, such as India and China. He has already imposed 50% tariffs on India, but is also in the middle of negotiations that could see those lifted.Regarding Orbán, the Hungarian prime minister, Trump said: “He’s a friend of mine. I have not spoken to him [about importing Russian oil], but I have a feeling if I did, he might stop, and I think I’ll be doing that.”In response to Trump’s demands, the EU is trying to bring forward the date by which it ends the import of liquid natural gas imports from Russia to 2026 – a year earlier than planned. The EU is opposed to imposing vast tariffs on China or India, but is looking at more targeted measures against Indian and Chinese oil refineries.Trump said he would be discussing the issue with EU leaders, adding: “They can’t be doing what they’re doing. They’re buying oil and gas from Russia while they’re fighting Russia … They have to immediately cease all energy purchases from Russia. Otherwise, we are all wasting a lot of time.”The EU’s 19th sanctions package also proposes export controls on another 45 companies that are deemed to be cooperating on sanctions evasion. Those include 12 Chinese, two Thai and three Indian entities that have enabled Russia to circumvent the bloc’s sanctions.View image in fullscreenHungary’s foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, told the Guardian that Hungary could not wean itself off Russian energy supplies. He said: “We can’t ensure the safe supply [of energy products] for our country without Russian oil or gas sources,” while adding that he “understood” Trump’s approach.“For us, energy supplies are a purely physical question,” he said. “It can be nice to dream about buying oil and gas from somewhere [besides Russia] … but we can only buy from where we have infrastructure. And if you look at the physical infrastructure, it’s obvious that without the Russian supplies, it is impossible to ensure the safe supply of the country.”Budapest relies on the Druzhba oil pipeline and the TurkStream gas pipeline to receive Russian hydrocarbons.Slovakia, the second EU country still importing Russian oil, said it had already spoken to the US about the issue, and received a sympathetic response. “As long as we have an alternative route, and the transmission capacity is sufficient, Slovakia has no problem diversifying,” said the economy minister, Denisa Saková.Hungary and Slovakia are the two countries that have most frequently called for the EU to reduce its support for Ukraine. More

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      Ryan Routh found guilty of 2024 attempted assassination of Trump in Florida

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      The man accused of trying to assassinate Donald Trump on his West Palm Beach golf course two months before Trump clinched his second presidency in the 2024 White House election has been found guilty by a jury in Fort Pierce, Florida.Ryan Routh – who now faces up to life in prison at a later sentencing hearing – reportedly tried to use a pen to stab himself in the neck as the guilty verdict was read in court. Officers quickly swarmed him and dragged him out of the courthouse.Jurors in Routh’s trial returned a verdict of guilty on all charges after deliberating for less than three hours.The government charged Routh, 59, with five criminal counts, including attempted assassination of a major presidential candidate, possessing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence and assaulting a Secret Service agent, after an incident on 15 September last year when he was spotted with a rifle hiding in bushes as Trump’s golfing party approached.Prosecutors said Routh, 59, had purchased a military-grade weapon, researched Trump’s movements and utilized a dozen burner phones as part of a plot to kill Trump that was motivated by political grievances.“Today’s guilty verdict against would-be Trump assassin Ryan Routh illustrates the Department of Justice’s commitment to punishing those who engage in political violence,” US attorney general Pam Bondi said in a statement on X.“This attempted assassination was not only an attack on our [now] president, but an affront to our very nation itself,” Bondi added before thanking prosecutors and law enforcement for “protecting” Trump and “securing this important verdict”.In a post on Truth Social, Trump thanked the attorney general, deputy Todd Blanche, and the justice department team for Routh’s conviction, calling it “meticulously handled”. He also thanked “the Judge and Jury for their time, professionalism, and patience”, adding:“This was an evil man with an evil intention, and they caught him. I would also like to thank the Secret Service, Department of Florida Law Enforcement, and the wonderful person who spotted him running from the site of the crime, and acted by following him, and getting all information on car type and license plate to the Sheriff’s Office, IMMEDIATELY, which led to his arrest and conviction.“What incredible instinct and foresight this person had – A very big moment for JUSTICE IN AMERICA!”Routh’s attempt on Trump’s life on 15 September 2024 came just nine weeks after the then presidential candidate narrowly survived a previous attempted assassination at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. In the earlier case, 20-year-old Thomas Crooks fired eight shots at Trump, with one bullet grazing his ear, before being killed by Secret Service counter-snipers, officials have said.At the trial, Routh represented himself despite having no legal expertise. In court filings, he suggested his case should be settled by a golf match.If Trump won, the president could execute Routh, the filing suggested. If Routh won, he said, he would become president.Routh also requested a putting green for match practice and asked for “female strippers” to be present.His self-representation intermittently threatened to derail proceedings. The presiding judge, Aileen Cannon – who dismissed an unrelated case against Trump involving federal classified documents – advised Routh to keep his comments relevant after he remarked that “modern trials seem to eliminate all that is human”. But Routh continued his musings on the “history” of human existence.Routh was once a North Carolina construction worker who had moved to Hawaii and styled himself as a mercenary leader. He tried to recruit soldiers from Afghanistan, Moldova and Taiwan to fight the Russians in Ukraine.Prosecutors said Routh made 17 trips to scope out Trump’s golf course. Over the course of his two-week trial, prosecutors called 38 witnesses, including two bothers who testified about receiving a box from Routh five months earlier that contained wires, pipes and bullets.After investigators arrested Routh, the brothers said they opened the box to find a 12-page letter in which he wrote: “This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump, but I failed you. I tried my best and gave it all the gumption I could muster. It is up to you now to finish the job.”Routh ultimately was spotted by a Secret Service agent as he hid in nearby shrubbery while aiming a rifle at a member of Trump’s security detail. An agent fired on Routh, who initially fled the scene but was later captured driving north.Police later said the perimeter of the golf course was not fully secured as Trump was not an incumbent president and his visit was not scheduled. Routh was captured after a tipoff from a witness who had made a record of a license plate number of a car into which a man had jumped into after running out of the bushes.Routh chose not to testify in his own defense but instead called three witness, two of whom testified about his character. He told the court that he hoped they would show jurors he was incapable of killing Trump, who retook the Oval Office in January.“Give it your worst,” Routh told Cannon after she warned him about using character witnesses. “We can analyze every moment of my life. We are here to ascertain the truth – we are going to give the jury everything.”He called Marshall Hinshaw, a longtime friend, asking him if his “personal opinion” of Routh was that he was “peaceful and gentle, and nonviolent?”“I would say so,” Hinshaw said. “I would not expect you to harm anyone, Ryan.”Routh asked Hinshaw about his parenting style. “You are not aware of me hitting or spanking my children?” Routh asked.“No, maybe the other way around,” Hinshaw said. As the questioning continued, Cannon said: “This must cease. I am going to ask you to wrap up.” She later warned that she would bar Routh from addressing the jury if his closing argument was “disconnected”.Routh also called Michael McClay, a US Marine Corps veteran and expert in sniper tactics. McClay noted that Routh’s rifle – a Chinese-made variant of the AK-47 – would routinely misfire and that its scope appeared to be attached with putty, tape and glue.“Is there any way you could put a chance of success rate?” Routh asked McClay. McClay replied: “With the severity and seriousness of this, I am not going to guess that.”“I respect that,” Routh said.Routh’s line of questioning went further astray when he asked McClay, “If someone is not dedicated to their mission 100%, is an exit plan vital to those who are cowards?”McClay answered: “I don’t understand.” More

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      Jerome Powell dismisses Trump’s criticism of ‘political’ Fed as ‘cheap shot’

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      The US Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, pushed back hard against claims the central bank allows politics to drive decisions, in the midst of an extraordinary battle over its independence.Donald Trump, who is seeking to increase his administration’s control over the Fed, has branded Powell “a very political guy” after he declined to bow to the president’s public demands for drastically lower interest rates.The White House has launched an unprecedented campaign to overhaul the Fed’s rate-setting board of governors, installing an administration official and trying to fire a Biden appointee over unconfirmed claims of mortgage fraud.But on Tuesday, Powell, who is typically diplomatic when speaking publicly, roundly dismissed one of the common allegations made by Trump and his allies: that the Fed is somehow political when making key decisions about the world’s largest economy.“Many people don’t believe” the Fed is simply allowing economic data to drive its decisions, Powell acknowledged at an event in Rhode Island. “But the truth is, mostly people who are calling us political, it’s just a cheap shot.”He did not mention Trump by name. But the president has become the most prominent critic of the Fed and Powell since returning to office.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIt comes a week after the central bank ordered its first rate cut since December, a move to stabilize a wobbling labor market, even as Trump’s tariffs continue to push up prices.“Near-term risks to inflation are tilted to the upside and risks to employment to the downside – a challenging situation,” Powell reiterated on Tuesday.Stephen Miran, the Trump official now serving as a Fed governor, takes a different view. He dissented from every other policymaker on the central bank’s board of governors last week to advocate for a deeper rate cut.“Relatively small changes in some good prices have led to what I view as unreasonable levels of concern,” Miran argued in a speech earlier this week, claiming that tariffs would ultimately lead to “substantial swings in net national savings” for the country.Reuters contributed reporting More

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      Georgia governor’s race heats up with entrance of two skeptics of Trump’s 2020 election claims

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      The entrance into the Georgia governor’s race of two prominent figures on the right who stood up to Donald Trump’s effort to steal the 2020 election shows how the election interference crisis continues to reverberate in the state’s politics.On Wednesday, Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, announced his candidacy. Raffensperger was the recipient of the “perfect phone call” by Trump in 2020 in the wake of his electoral loss in Georgia, pressuring Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes” and overturn the results.The recording of that phone call led to investigations in Georgia and Washington. Raffensperger’s rejection of stolen election claims and his unwillingness to subvert Georgia election law for partisan purposes landed him near the top of Trump’s enemies list.At a rally in Atlanta during the campaign, Trump called Raffensperger and the outgoing Republican governor, Brian Kemp, “disloyal” and said “they’re doing everything possible to make 2024 difficult for Republicans to win”. Kemp is term-limited and cannot run again in 2026.In his announcement address, Raffensperger said: “I’m a conservative Republican, and I’m prepared to make the tough decisions. I follow the law and the constitution, and I’ll always do the right thing for Georgia no matter what.”Raffensperger pledged to work toward capping seniors’ property taxes, banning puberty-blocking drugs from minors and eliminating the state income tax.And last Tuesday, former lieutenant governor and erstwhile Republican Geoff Duncan announced his candidacy for governor. Duncan was elected lieutenant governor in 2018 as a Republican, forgoing re-election in 2022 after drawing heated reaction from Trump supporters after repudiating stolen election claims. Duncan testified before the special purpose grand jury in Fulton county examining election-interference claims.Duncan published a book about reforming the Republican party in 2021, and briefly considered running for president under the No Labels brand as an independent in 2024. Presenting himself as a political iconoclast, Duncan announced last month that he had formally switched parties.In the absence of the election-interference case that followed Trump’s efforts in 2020, both Duncan and Raffensperger would have been considered orthodox conservative Republicans by Georgia political standards.But Georgia’s Republican party can no longer be described as orthodox, except in its loyalty to Trump. Delegates to the Georgia GOP convention in January overwhelmingly voted to bar Raffensperger from qualifying as a Republican candidate while they expelled Duncan entirely, citing his appearance at the Democratic National Convention endorsing Kamala Harris in the presidential election.The move was largely symbolic; state law provides for no mechanism for a political party to bar a candidate. Nonetheless, the animus from the 2020 election persists.In dueling open letters last year, the Georgia GOP chair, Josh McKoon, described Duncan as “prostituting” himself to CNN as a Trump critic.“[Y]our desperate and ridiculous endorsements of Joe Biden and now Kamala Harris for president, coupled with your inexplicable opposition in 2022 to [Republican Senate candidates] Burt Jones and Herschel Walker, not to mention your comical attempt to run for president as an independent candidate, are violations of the oaths of loyalty you repeatedly swore when you qualified as a Republican candidate for office,” McKoon wrote.Duncan legislated as a “100% pro-life” lawmaker, and supported a 2019 state law banning most abortions – a position he is now repudiating as a Democratic candidate, along with prior positions on gun control and Medicaid expansion. His argument to voters is that cross-party appeal is necessary to beat a Republican in the general election.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I’ve never wavered on taking on Trump,” Duncan said in his announcement video. “I’m running for governor to put Georgians in the best position to once again love their neighbors and to make Georgia the frontline of democracy and a backstop against extremism.”Duncan enters a Democratic race that grows increasingly crowded. He faces the state senator Jason Esteves, an Atlanta-area legislator and former Atlanta school board chairperson, as well as former labor commissioner and DeKalb county CEO Michael Thurmond and former Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms. Other candidates are expected to announce their bids in coming weeks.Among Republicans, Georgia’s attorney general, Chris Carr, and lieutenant governor, Burt Jones, have already declared their candidacies for governor. Carr stepped down from chairing the Republican Attorneys General Association after learning it had paid for a robocall urging supporters to come to Washington DC and “stop the steal” on 6 January 2021. Carr and Kemp are political allies.Jones is favored by Trump and was a mainstay on the 2024 campaign trail.“Chris Carr and Brad Raffensperger have one thing in common: They are both Never Trumpers,” Jones wrote on Instagram following Raffensperger’s announcement. “There is only one candidate in this race that’s always supported and has the full and complete endorsement of [Trump].”Jones, a Republican state senator in 2020, served as one of the 16 fake electors for Trump – all of whom signed a document, submitted to the National Archives, claiming Trump won Georgia.Fulton county’s district attorney, Fani Willis, had considered charging Jones in the election-interference case, but a Fulton county judge barred her in 2022 from investigating the lieutenant governor after she appeared at a fundraiser for Jones’s opponent. An outside prosecutor determined Jones’s actions as a state senator did not merit “further investigation or further actions” and considered the case closed. More

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      Trump’s absurd Tylenol claims heighten the suffering of pregnant women in the US | Moira Donegan

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      Robert F Kennedy Jr continued his futile search for a single pharmaceutical cause of autism on Monday, when the Trump administration claimed that distorted recent studies and misstated scientific evidence to allege a link between women’s Tylenol use during pregnancy and the development of autism in children. Kennedy has long spoken with disturbing disgust about autistic people, claiming at one press conference that autistic children “destroy families” and “will never pay taxes. They’ll never hold a job. They’ll never play baseball. They’ll never write a poem. They’ll never go out on a date.” He had previously pledged to find the cause of autism by this month.As part of his apparent quest to eliminate this vast and varied group of people – who do, in fact, pay taxes, hold jobs, play baseball, write poems, go on dates, and function as beloved and caring members of functional families – Kennedy has already sought to restrict access to common vaccines. In June, he fired every member of the advisory committee on immunization practices, an influential group of vaccine experts whose recommendations had long shaped policy for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In place of the experts, he reconstituted the panel with a number of vaccine critics and cranks, whose incompetence has led to chaotic meetings and bizarrely changing vaccine recommendations. Donald Trump has recently joined his health secretary in casting aspersions on childhood vaccines – safe and effective treatments that have saved countless lives and are among the more wonderful miracles of human innovation. “It’s too much liquid,” the president said of the early childhood immunizations on Monday. “Too many different things are going into that baby at too big a number. The size of this thing, when you look at it.”Trump’s remarks came at what was supposed to be the debut for Kennedy’s new tactic: discouraging pregnant women from taking a common over-the-counter medication to ease pain or reduce fevers. At a rambling and shambolic press conference issued from the White House, Trump was unambivalent in his unproven assertions of the drug’s dangers. “Taking Tylenol is, uh, not good,” Trump said, flanked by Kennedy and Dr Mehmet Oz. “I’ll say it. It’s not good.” The president also offered his opinion that the weight-loss drug Ozempic doesn’t work, offering that his friends who take the drug are still fat. Kennedy, his face an uncanny color, stood awkwardly behind Trump, wearing a suit jacket that was visibly too small and with his head hanging slightly to the side; he looked a bit like a bored child at a prep school assembly. “Don’t. Take. Tylenol,” Trump continued, addressing pregnant women. “And don’t give it to the baby after the baby is born.”There is no evidence suggesting that Tylenol causes autism. A small number of studies have shown a correlation – not a cause – between acetaminophen use and incidents of neurological development disorders in early childhood. But these studies, aside from being inconclusive in their results, are also flawed in their methodologies: because pregnant women cannot be easily or ethically sorted into control groups, it is impossible for researchers to isolate Tylenol as a causal factor in the ensuing health of their children. There is as much evidence to suggest that those women whose children later developed autism got it from the Tylenol they took as there is to suggest that they got it because of a gust of wind, or because their mothers wore the color green. Fevers, however – which Tylenol is used to treat – pose proven risks to a fetus, and have been linked to cleft lip and palate, spina bifida, and congenital heart defects. “The conditions that people use acetaminophen to treat during pregnancy are far more dangerous than any theoretical risks and can create severe morbidity and mortality for the pregnant person and the fetus,” Dr Steven Fleischman, the president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said in a statement.Pregnant women do not lack for judgmental, frightening and dubiously factual instructions about their health. Everywhere, they are told that they risk the health of their fetus by partaking in a series of banal everyday activities – be it jogging or having coffee or eating a certain cheese – that they are told will lead, by obscure mechanisms that are never quite explained, to impossible and devastating health outcomes for their children-to-be. The admonishments are multiple and often contradictory, but they all tend to agree on one thing: that it is always good for women to deprive themselves of joy and relief – and to suffer more – for the sake of their fetuses.Health misinformation has thrived on the ignorance in which most women are kept about their bodies, particularly during pregnancy, and it feeds on the cruel combination of neglect and lack of interest with which many women have been treated by the medical system and the maximally judgmental and punitive treatment that they receive from others while pregnant. Frightened women, scared both for the health of their pregnancies and for the ways they will be blamed if something goes awry, seek out a way to secure a good outcome, and are met by charlatans, grifters and quacks who are happy to tell them lies in exchange for their attention and money. It is this very dynamic, fed like a sourdough starter in the damp and fecund social media environment of the pandemic, that Kennedy used to revive his own career after decades of scandal and disgrace.Now, this cynical exploitation of pregnant women’s fears, deployed to them at a time when they are most vulnerable, is coming from no less a place of authority than the White House itself.At the press conference, Trump advised pregnant women to simply endure their suffering. “A mother will have to tough it out,” he told them. Readers will forgive me if I posit that perhaps pregnant women in the US are already suffering enough. Six justices of the supreme court, three of them appointed by Trump himself, ruled in 2022 that they no longer have the federally protected right to terminate their pregnancies. The laws that have gone into effect since have cost several pregnant women their lives, as laws prohibit the medical interventions that could easily save them and allow them to die painful, premature and needless deaths. Other women have had their corpses desecrated for the sake of Trump’s anti-choice agenda, as hospitals and lawmakers use them as incubators against their will. Others are being forced to wait for care while they bleed and develop sepsis, risking their organs and their lives. The Trump administration has cut off Medicaid funding to some of the largest providers of sexual and reproductive healthcare, meaning many of the clinics that pregnant women rely on will now have to close. With doctors who provide gynecological and obstetric care fleeing states with strict abortion bans, many pregnant women in the US do not have access to competent medical care at all. As a result, more babies are being born sick, and more of them are dying. Women from states such as Florida report being forced to carry fetuses that have no chance of surviving, and then being forced to watch those infants suffer and die in the moments after birth. As Kennedy continues with his search for the causes of autism, his eugenic project will inevitably extract more and more coercion and violence on the bodies of pregnant women. Today’s fearmongering about Tylenol is only the beginning.It can seem darkly comedic at times how laughably incompetent Trump and his administration are. Kennedy’s ill-fitting suit; the president’s ramblings about his fat friends; the brazen indifference to truth in the absurd claim that Tylenol, perhaps the paradigmatic over-the-counter drug, is somehow this lurking danger. Trump’s idiocy and vulgarity give the lie to the pomp and dignity of his office; his now near-total capture of American political life mocks the promise of democracy. But pregnant women are not a punchline. Their hopes for their families, their fears for their bodies, their health, their comfort and their dignity – all of these are things Trump is willing to sacrifice at the altar of his own ego. Tylenol isn’t dangerous, but he is.

      Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist More