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      Trump is trying to pay his way into a US baby boom. Experts say it won’t work

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      One of Donald Trump’s priorities for his second term is getting Americans to have more babies – and the White House has a new proposal to encourage them to do so: a $5,000 “baby bonus”.The plan to give cash payments to mothers after delivery shows the growing influence of the “pronatalist” movement in the US, which, citing falling US birthrates, calls for “traditional” family values and for women – particularly white women – to have more children.But experts say $5,000 checks won’t lead to a baby boom. Between unaffordable healthcare, soaring housing costs, inaccessible childcare and a lack of federal parental leave mandates, Americans face a swath of expensive hurdles that disincentivize them from having large families – or families at all – and that will require a much larger government investment to overcome.It is true that the US is seeing declining birthrates – and has been for some time. While fertility rates bounced around what demographers call “replacement level” – the rate at which the population replenishes ageing people with new ones – in the decades that followed the post-second world war baby boom, they have been on a steady downward trend since the 2010 Great Recession, so that now, US fertility rates sit at about 1.6 births per woman.But these numbers are far from alarming, according to demographers and policy analysts. US birthrates are still in line with those in other developed countries, where societies and economies are continuing to thrive, and concerns about the sustainability of programs such as social security can be fixed through other remedies, like raising the tax limit.In the US, the modest decline in fertility can be attributed to a drop in teen pregnancy rates, as well as more families with two working parents and delaying having children. But these elements alone do not explain the trends we’re seeing, says Paula Lantz, a social demographer and professor of health policy at the University of Michigan. While the number of people who don’t have any children isn’t changing, demographers are seeing the percentage of families who have two kids drop, and the percentage of those who have just one increase. “There is something else going on,” she said.That “something else”, Lantz and her colleagues say, is how challenging it is to raise a family in the US from a financial perspective. For many Americans, having a larger family means sacrificing quality of life.Between the costs of healthcare, including the thousands on average that Americans pay just to give birth in a hospital, childcare, housing and basics such as formula and diapers, having a baby in the US is a huge expense – one that experts say a single $5,000 payment would barely make a dent in.“I had a baby a few months ago, and a one-time payment of $5,000 wouldn’t do much if I didn’t also have paid leave that let me keep my job, good health insurance, family support, incredible childcare and the kind of job that allows me to both provide for my family and be there for pickup,” said Lily Roberts, the managing director for inclusive growth at the Center for American Progress. “Every mom in America deserves that, and every dad does too.”Stephanie Schmidt, the director of childcare and early education at the Center for Law and Social Policy, emphasized that the average cost of infant care in the US is $14,000 per year, with that number ticking up to closer to $25,000 a year in high-cost-of-living areas. “$5,000 gets you almost nowhere when you’re thinking about utilizing it to pay for the expenses of having a young child,” she said.Schmidt also noted that when other countries have tried similar approaches, they made little to no difference in how many children people choose to have.In Australia, where a $3,000 baby bonus was put in place in 2004 to reverse declining fertility rates, there was a brief spike in birthrates immediately after a bonus was offered, but those rates dropped again in subsequent years. Experts say this is because families simply move up their timelines, having the same number of kids they already intended to have, only earlier.“They want to make sure they get [the benefit] before that policy is changed by the next government,” said Ron Lee, the director of the Center on the Economics and Demography of Aging at the University of California, Berkeley.Plus, most of the other countries that have tried baby bonuses also have robust social and healthcare systems, so the cash payments went further than they would in the US. “It’s not working in those contexts, so it’s certainly not going to work in ours,” said Lantz.To change minds and behaviors, there need to be much more substantial policy changes, experts say, that address the housing crisis, offer childcare subsidies, make healthcare accessible and affordable and guarantee paid family leave.“[This] would have such a more significant impact for families because it’s not a one-time investment,” said Schmidt.Deliberate efforts to address the climate crisis could also encourage more people to have children as younger people are delaying or forgoing starting families because of climate anxieties, says Lee, pointing to surveys that suggest this trend. Evidence also shows that people have fewer children during times of political uncertainty and instability – a dynamic experts say this administration is only intensifying.“If the problem they’re trying to solve is addressing a low birthrate, then create the conditions to make birth possible and make raising a family possible,” said Mary Ignatius, the executive director of advocacy group Parent Voices California.That isn’t to say that $5,000 wouldn’t be well-received, says Roberts. It might help pay for a month or two of childcare; help families buy a new crib, stroller and other gear, all of which are poised to become more expensive with rising tariffs; or offset hospital costs.For lower-income families especially, research shows that receiving no-strings cash bonuses can help them reach a point of financial stability, especially when kids are younger.But experts emphasize that other actions taken by the administration to dismantle programs that already support American families and children belie any honorable intentions. To date, the Trump administration has proposed eliminating Head Start, a program that supports families with very low incomes in accessing childcare, as well as cutting funds to Medicaid, which provides healthcare coverage for low-income Americans. (Congress also let the child tax credit – which expanded eligibility for pay outs of up to $3,600 for American families – expire in 2021, even though it’s been credited with lifting millions of children out of poverty.)“Those are the things that women need to be able to make the choices of how they want to be a parent,” said Ignatius. “Eliminating the programs at Medicaid, Head Start, TANF [temporary assistance for needy families], food stamps – that equates to much more than $5,000 in support for low-income families.”The dismantling of the federal workforce in the Department of Education, the justice department, which oversees juvenile justice initiatives, and the Department of Health and Human Services, where staff responsible for distributing funds for state welfare and foster care programs were gutted, will also have a negative impact on American families. “Even the little things that improve a family’s life, like children’s museum grants and public libraries, are reeling from cuts”, said Roberts. “All American families are going to feel the impact of this administration, and creepy plans to give moms a medal absolutely won’t make up for what they’re taking away.”For Schmidt, the White House’s actions speak to a fundamental disconnect between statements that encourage Americans to have children and actions that make doing so increasingly out of reach. “There is such an emphasis in this administration on birth, and such a lack of support for people once they’re here,” she said. 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      Does Nayib Bukele’s campaign against democracy give a blueprint for Trump?

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      “I have no doubt the government are watching,” said Ingrid Escobar, an activist lawyer who has proved a thorn in the side of El Salvador’s authorities. “There are cars that follow me – I have them identified.”Since president Nayib Bukele launched a sweeping crackdown on gangs, Escobar has advocated for the tens of thousands locked up without due process. She points to a photo of Geovanni Aguirre, a childhood friend and trade unionist who worked in San Salvador’s mayor’s office. He disappeared into the prison system in 2022.“The threat is real,” said Escobar. “There are activists and unionists in prison. There are others with arrest orders out for them. Yes, we are afraid.”This is the dark side of the “Bukele model”, which extols an ultra hardline approach to crime spearheaded by a populist leader – but also entails an assault on civil society and democratic institutions, and the accumulation of near absolute power. All with soaring approval ratings.It has made Bukele, 43, the envy of populist authoritarians worldwide, including many in and around the Trump administration. “President Nayib Bukele saved El Salvador,” TV host Tucker Carlson gushed after interviewing him. “He may have the blueprint for saving the world.”But El Salvador’s embattled civil society and independent press – the only counterweights to Bukele’s power that remain – warn the regime may yet take a still darker turn.View image in fullscreen“Bukele still benefits from his popularity, but El Salvador could go the way of Nicaragua, where public opinion has swung against the regime,” said Pedro Cabezas, an environmental defender. “And then it comes down to military control.”Fears that Donald Trump might take cues from Bukele spiked last month when he deported more than 200 migrants to Cecot, El Salvador’s mega-prison, and then defied the supremecourt when it ordered that his administration “facilitate” the return of one of them, Kilmar Ábrego García.For Salvadorians, this was reminiscent of Bukele’s actions back in 2020, when he defied a supreme court ruling to stop detaining people for violating quarantine during the pandemic.Some now see this is a turning point.Over the following years Bukele went on to march the army into the legislature to intimidate lawmakers; fire judges who opposed him; modify the electoral system in his favour; and start a state of exception, suspending Salvadorian’s constitutional rights, which shows no sign of ending.Bukele followed the authoritarian playbook – with great success. Last year Salvadorians voted to give him an unconstitutional second consecutive term.All of this has to be seen in the context of what life was like under the MS-13 and Barrio 18 gangs, said Amparo Marroquín, a professor at the Central American University. “The levels of violence were brutal, especially in the poorer neighbourhoods. It paralysed the social life of the country.”By locking up 85,000 people without due process, many of whom likely have nothing to do with the gangs, Bukele provided a brutal solution. The gangs’ territorial control was broken, homicides fell, and many Salvadorians enjoyed a kind of freedom they had not experienced for years.On the outskirts of San Salvador, one taxi driver pointed to the side of the road. “The gangs dumped bodies here like it was nothing,” he said. “Sometimes in pieces, over hundreds of metres.”“It used to be that every time you left home you ran the risk of being robbed or even killed,” he said. “The president changed that.”Bukele has ridden this wave of relief, with approval ratings consistently around 80% – even if this figure masks an undercurrent of fear.“Around the same number say they would be afraid to express an opinion that was not aligned with the president,” said Noah Bullock, executive director of Cristosal, a human rights organisation. “And nobody in this country has any doubt that the government can do whatever it wants to whoever it wants.”One veteran of El Salvador’s civil war, who asked not to be named, said he lost a teenage son to a gang shooting in 2010, and that he had been happy to see the gangs brought low.View image in fullscreen“But now the soldiers bother us. I don’t feel safe, I don’t know how to explain it,” he said, searching for the words. “It’s like there are more gangsters with credentials in their hands.”Now the only counterweights to Bukele’s power that remain are civil society organisations and the independent press – and he is turning the screws on both.Bukele has portrayed both as political enemies working against him and the Salvadorian people, and the message has been faithfully amplified by his media machine.“Bukele is like an antenna,” said Cabezas, the environmental defender. “Then there are the repeater antennae: the ministries, the legislative, all the institutions of the state. And then comes the army of trolls.”At the same time, Bukele pressures civil society through regulations, audits and exemplary persecution, such as in the case of five environmental defenders who were at the forefront of El Salvador’s campaign to ban metal mining – which Bukele recently overturned.“These leaders are known at the national and even international level,” said Cabezas. “Now, imagine you are someone who doesn’t have that kind of profile, and you see the state persecuting them. You’d wonder what they would do to you.”Cristosal found that 86% of civil society organisations in El Salvador now self-censor to avoid reprisals.Meanwhile journalists are subject to harassment and targeted with spyware.“It has become normalised for security forces to demand journalists’ phones in the streets, to threaten them with arrest, or even hold them for a time,” said Sergio Arauz, president of El Salvador’s association of journalists.Trump’s freezing of USAID, which supported 11 media outlets in El Salvador, and various civil society organisations, was a gift to Bukele.View image in fullscreenYet the government stops short of all-out repression – and journalists continue to produce damaging investigations into corruption and the negotiations Bukele’s government held with the gangs.“I think Bukele understands that there is an international cost if he attacks journalists too much, and the question is whether he is willing to pay that cost,” said Marroquín.“When you cross that line, there is no going back,” added Marroquín.When Bukele was in the Oval Office last month, denying that he could return the wrongly deported Ábrego García, Trump was sat next to him, visibly admiring the spin and aggressive handling of the press.“Sometimes they say that we imprisoned thousands,” said Bukele, as he defended his mass incarceration spree. “I like to say that we actually liberated millions.”Trump smiled and asked: “Who gave him that line? Do you think I can use that?”To what extent Trump wants to emulate the “Bukele model” is an open question, but it’s far from clear Bukele’s methods would work in the US, which both lacks a social crisis of the gravity of El Salvador’s gangs and still has a range of formal checks on Trump’s power, from the independent judiciary to the federal system.“American democracy is more resilient – but Americans should not take it for granted,” said Juan Pappier of Human Rights Watch. “Bukele managed to destroy the Salvadoran democracy in two or three years. And putting institutions back to together is a daunting task.” More

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      The Zelenskyy-Trump deal – podcast

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      After the heated exchange between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office in February, the prospect of a deal between the US and Ukraine was uncertain.“Every week, it feels like we get a new position from Donald Trump,” Andrew Roth, the Guardian’s global affairs correspondent based in Washington DC, tells Michael Safi. “Sometimes we get multiple new positions from Donald Trump in a single morning. Nobody really believed that that was going to happen until the two names were on the dotted line.”And yet, last week the countries agreed a momentous minerals deal, agreeing to split future profits of the minerals industry in Ukraine 50/50.“We’re talking about natural gas, oil, possibly, but more importantly we’re talking about critical earth minerals. These include a couple of things, lithium, graphite, titanium. These are rare, important, critical minerals that are used in all kinds of industries around the world,” says Roth.Does US economic interest in Ukraine bring the country closer to peace?Support the Guardian today: theguardian.com/todayinfocuspod More

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      Trump blocks grant funding for Harvard until it meets president’s demands

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      The US Department of Education informed Harvard University on Monday that it was ending billions of dollars in research grants and other aid unless the school accedes to a list of demands from the Trump administration that would effectively cede control of the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university to the government.The news was delivered to Dr Alan Garber, Harvard’s president, in a deeply partisan letter from Linda McMahon, the education secretary, which she also posted on social media.“This letter is to inform you that Harvard should no longer seek grants from the federal government, since none will be provided,” McMahon wrote.The main reason for the crackdown on Harvard is the school’s rejection of a long list of demands from the Trump administration’s antisemitism taskforce, prompted by campus protests against Israel’s brutal military campaign in Gaza following the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October 2023. McMahon also accuses the university of “a systematic pattern of violating federal law”.As Garber explained in a message to the Harvard community last month, the university decided to sue the federal government only after the Trump administration froze $2.2bn in funding, threatened to freeze an additional $1bn in grants, “initiated numerous investigations of Harvard’s operations, threatened the education of international students, and announced that it is considering a revocation of Harvard’s 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status”.The government’s “sweeping and intrusive demands would impose unprecedented and improper control over the university”, Garber wrote.In its lawsuit against the Trump administration, Harvard said the government’s funding cuts would have stark “real-life consequences for patients, students, faculty, staff [and] researchers” by ending crucial medical and scientific research.The text of McMahon’s letter, much like a Truth Social post from Donald Trump, is littered with all-caps words. “Where do many of these ‘students’ come from, who are they, how do they get into Harvard, or even into our country – and why is there so much HATE?”“Harvard University has made a mockery of this country’s higher education system. It has invited foreign students, who engage in violent behavior and show contempt for the United States of America, to its campus,” McMahon claims.The university recently published its own, in-depth investigation of allegations that Gaza solidarity protests had crossed the line into antisemitism, and a second that looked at anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and anti-Palestinian bias.But McMahon’s letter is not mainly about the claim that Jewish students feel unsafe at Harvard – a view the school’s president, who is himself Jewish, has some sympathy with – but is filled with extended diatribes about a series of other grievances, including: the supposed far-left politics of Penny Pritzker, a member of the university’s governing board who previously served as US commerce secretary during the Obama administration; the complaints of Harvard alumnus and Trump supporter Bill Ackman; what McMahon calls the “ugly racism” of Harvard’s efforts to diversify its student body; complaints about what Fox News has termed a “remedial math” course which is intended to address gaps in new students’ math skills following the Covid pandemic; accusations that the Harvard Law Review has discriminated against white authors; and two brief fellowships the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health offered to the former mayors of New York and Chicago, Bill de Blasio and Lori Lightfoot.In language that seemed to echo Donald Trump’s own, McMahon told Harvard’s president that De Blasio and Lightfoot, who were recruited to share their experiences of bringing universal pre-kindergarten to New York, and leading Chicago through the pandemic, are “perhaps the worst mayors ever to preside over major cities in our country’s history”.“This is like hiring the captain of the Titanic to teach navigation,” McMahon wrote.“Harvard will cease to be a publicly funded institution, and can instead operate as a privately-funded institution, drawing on its colossal endowment, and raising money from its large base of wealthy alumni,” McMahon wrote. “You have an approximately $53bn head start.” More

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      Trump news at a glance: immigrants offered money to leave US and White House walks back film tariff plan

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      The Trump administration will offer undocumented immigrants $1,000 to leave the US as part of its latest crackdown on immigration, drawing criticism for saying that participation in the program “may help preserve the option” for an individual to re-enter the US “legally in the future”.“It is an incredibly cruel bit of deception for DHS [Department of Homeland Security] to be telling people that if they leave they ‘will maintain the ability to return to the US legally in the future’,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, in a social media post.The White House meanwhile said it was “exploring all options” on protecting the US film industry, a day after Donald Trump triggered a drop in production company shares by announcing a 100% tariff on movies produced outside the US.Here are the key stories at a glance:Undocumented immigrants offered $1,000 to leave USThe Trump administration announced a new program offering a $1,000 payment to people in the US without immigration status as an incentive to return to their home country voluntarily. The Department of Homeland Security outlined the initiative, pledging “financial and travel assistance” to undocumented immigrants who agree to leave the country using an app called CBP Home.Read the full storyWhite House says ‘no final decisions’ on foreign film tariffsThe White House said on Monday that no final decisions have been made about imposing tariffs on foreign films, just a day after Donald Trump declared a 100% tariff on all movies produced outside the United States – an announcement that sparked widespread alarm across the global film industry.Read the full storyTrump to continue Biden’s court defense of abortion drug mifepristoneDonald Trump’s administration on Monday pushed forward in defending US rules easing access to the abortion drug mifepristone from a legal challenge that began during Democratic former president Joe Biden’s administration.Read the full storyTrump orders reopening of Alcatraz prison Donald Trump has said he is directing the administration to reopen and expand Alcatraz, the notorious former prison on an island off San Francisco that has been closed for more than 60 years. California Democrats and civil rights activists were critical of the announcement and questioned the feasibility of converting the historic site back into a high-security prison.Read the full storyApp used by Waltz suspends service over suspected hackThe communications app used by Mike Waltz, Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, says it is temporarily suspending services following a reported hack that exposed some of its potentially sensitive messages. Oregon-based Smarsh, which runs the TeleMessage app, said it was “investigating a potential security incident” and was suspending all its services “out of an abundance of caution”.Read the full storyAdvocates reject RFK Jr’s national autism databaseAutism researchers and advocates are pushing back against the creation of an autism database – meant to track the health of autistic people in a major research study – and pointing to the ways such databases could be misused.Read the full storyTrump cuts will lead to more deaths in disasters, expert warnsThe Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to disaster management will cost lives in the US, with hollowed-out agencies unable to accurately predict, prepare for or respond to extreme weather events, earthquakes and pandemics, a leading expert has warned.Read the full storyMichigan attorney general drops all charges against seven pro-Palestinian protestersMichigan’s attorney general, Dana Nessel, announced on Monday that she was dropping all charges against seven pro-Palestinian demonstrators arrested in May last year at a University of Michigan encampment, after a Guardian report detailed her extensive links to university regents calling for prosecution.The announcement came just moments before the judge was to decide on a defense motion to disqualify Nessel’s office over alleged bias.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      A Trump ally who promoted hydroxychloroquine for Covid-19 despite limited evidence has reportedly been appointed to a top US pandemic prevention role.

      Mexico’s president downplayed growing fears of US military intervention to fight drug trafficking, citing good communication with Trump after a sharp weekend exchange heightened tensions.

      As Elon Musk steps back from leading Doge, experts say it failed to actually improve public services for the American people.

      A coalition of Democratic state attorneys general are suing in an attempt to block Donald Trump’s move to suspend leasing and permitting of new wind projects, saying it threatens to cripple the wind industry and a key source of clean energy.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 4 May 2025. This article was amended on 6 May 2025 to change an incorrect reference to Trump’s proposed film tariff being “10%”. More

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      Trump to continue Biden’s court defense of abortion drug mifepristone

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      Donald Trump’s administration on Monday pushed forward in defending US rules easing access to the abortion drug mifepristone from a legal challenge that began during Democratic former president Joe Biden’s administration.The US Department of Justice in a brief filed in Texas federal court urged a judge to dismiss the lawsuit by three Republican-led states on procedural grounds.While the filing does not discuss the merits of the states’ case, it suggests the Trump administration is in no rush to drop the government’s defense of mifepristone, used in more than 60% of US abortions.Missouri, Kansas and Idaho claim the US Food and Drug Administration acted improperly when it eased restrictions on mifepristone, including by allowing it to be prescribed by telemedicine and dispensed by mail.The justice department and the office of Missouri’s attorney general, Andrew Bailey, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Trump said while campaigning last year that he did not plan to ban or restrict access to mifepristone. Robert F Kennedy Jr, the health and human services secretary, told Fox News in February that Trump has asked for a study on the safety of abortion pills and has not made a decision on whether to tighten restrictions on them.Last year, the US supreme court rejected a bid by anti-abortion groups and doctors to restrict access to the drug, finding that they lacked legal standing to challenge the FDA regulations.Those plaintiffs dropped their case after the high court ruling, but US district judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee, allowed the states to intervene and continue to pursue the lawsuit.The US justice department moved to dismiss their claims days before Trump took office in January.In Monday’s filing, government lawyers repeated their arguments that Texas is not the proper venue for the lawsuit and that the states lack standing to sue because they are not being harmed by the challenged regulations.“Regardless of the merits of the States’ claims, the States cannot proceed in this Court,” they wrote.The three states are challenging FDA actions that loosened restrictions on the drug in 2016 and 2021, including allowing for medication abortions at up to 10 weeks of pregnancy instead of seven, and for mail delivery of the drug without first seeing a clinician in person. The original plaintiffs initially had sought to reverse FDA approval of mifepristone, but that aspect was rebuffed by a lower court.The Republican-led states have argued they have standing to sue because their Medicaid health insurance programs will likely have to pay to treat patients who have suffered complications from using mifepristone.They have also said they should be allowed to remain in Texas even without the original plaintiffs because it would be inefficient to send the case to another court after two years of litigation. More

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      Loyalty matters most in race to become Trump’s next national security adviser

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      The race is officially on to become Donald Trump’s next national security adviser – but in this White House, the personalities and egos surrounding the president can matter far more than the titles they hold.Speaking from Air Force One on Sunday evening, Trump suggested secretary of state Marco Rubio could continue to double-hat as the interim national security adviser. But he also praised Stephen Miller, whom he said was “at the top of the totem pole” for the appointment and said he was in effect already doing the job.“I think he sort of indirectly already has that job … because he has a lot to say about a lot of things,” Trump said of Miller on board Air Force One. “He’s a very valued person in the administration, Stephen Miller.”Rubio will have around six months to test drive the dual roles. “A lot of people say it really works in with what Marco is doing,” he said. “But we have a lot of people. I’m going to be naming somebody.”The two men represent distinct wings of Trump’s Republican support: Rubio is a former rival who has tried to shapeshift into a Maga Republican, preserving his role in the Trump administration and potentially setting up a 2028 presidential run. Miller is a rightwing ideologue who has staked out a reputation as the administration’s driving hawk on immigration and a Trump enforcer among his top aides.The fact that two men with such disparate backgrounds could both vie for the position indicates how the president relies more on the personalities around him than the positions they hold.Mike Waltz was always the odd man out – a hawk who reportedly conspired with Benjamin Netanyahu on options to bomb Iran, and perhaps more importantly failed to jell with key Trump aides like chief of staff Susie Wiles. Then there was Signalgate, when Waltz accidentally added the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg into a top-level group chat discussing strikes against Yemen’s Houthis.The country’s national security adviser is tasked with briefing the president and coordinating discussions among the key foreign policy and national security advisers. While Henry Kissinger famously served as secretary of state and national security adviser for two years during the Vietnam war, that was 50 years ago and there are doubts that Rubio can both travel the world as the US’s top diplomat and also fulfill a role where he should be attached to Trump’s hip at the White House.“If Rubio is going to maintain his role as secretary of state, there is absolutely no way for him to do both jobs sustainably,” said Edward Price, a former senior adviser to secretary of state Antony Blinken who also served on the national security council. “2025 is not 1975 [when Henry Kissinger served in both roles] in terms of the issues that the foreign policy establishment has to deal with and running a department of 80,000 people and being the nation’s top diplomat should be more than a 24/7 job.“If it’s not, you’re you’re not doing it right,” he said.The role of national security adviser “really can’t be performed by someone who’s also got a cabinet department to run”, said John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser during his first term, in a CNN interview.Miller is among the most ardent members of the Maga wing of Trump’s coterie. While he mainly focuses on domestic issues – in particular curating the government’s aggressive anti-immigration policy – he has also matched the president’s skepticism of Ukraine and his pro-Israel policies as well, particularly regarding the crackdown on anti-war protestors in the United States.But more importantly, he has proven himself as a powerful enforcer in the administration.The leaked transcripts of the Signal chats among top officials showed that Miller effectively cut off a discussion of whether or not the timing was right to strike the Houthis in Yemen by citing the desires of the president. “As I heard it, the president was clear: green light, but we soon make clear to Egypt and Europe what we expect in return,” he wrote, prompting defense secretary Pete Hegseth to respond: “Agree.”Many took that to signal his weight in the administration. “I think that Signal chat is exhibit A,” said Price. “He goes in there and speaks on an issue that, as homeland security Adviser and deputy chief of staff, really shouldn’t be clearly within his purview.” He said “the president has spoken, and this is what he said, and this is what we’re going to do. And everyone sort of got in line, and, you know, it’s clear that he’s the power center of this White House.”That matters far less than policy bonafides, of which Miller has few when it comes to US foreign policy. “Miller’s a very bright person, no one should underestimate him,” said Bolton. “If he were to become national security adviser, you would have a clear merging of the homeland and national security adviser jobs … but it’s hard to see what [he] would contribute to discussions on national nuclear weapons strategy.” More

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      TeleMessage app used by Mike Waltz suspends service over suspected hack

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      The communications app used by Mike Waltz, Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, says it is temporarily suspending services following a reported hack that exposed some of its potentially sensitive messages.Oregon-based Smarsh, which runs the TeleMessage app, said in an email to Reuters that it was “investigating a potential security incident” and was suspending all its services “out of an abundance of caution”.A Reuters photograph showed Waltz using TeleMessage, an unofficial version of the popular encrypted messaging app Signal, on his phone during a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.Waltz was ousted the following day and Trump named his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, to take on Waltz’s job on an interim basis. At the same time, Trump said he would nominate Waltz to be the US ambassador to the United Nations.The move capped weeks of controversy over Waltz’s creation of a Signal group to share real-time updates on US military action in Yemen. That chat drew particular attention because Waltz, or someone using his account, accidentally added a prominent US journalist to the group.Concerns over the security of Waltz’s communications were further heightened, when it was reported on Sunday that a hacker had broken into TeleMessage’s back-end infrastructure and intercepted some of its users’ messages.Tech news site 404 Media said the hacker provided them with stolen material, some of which the news site was able to independently verify.Smarsh did not immediately respond to a request by Reuters for more detail about the breach.Reuters contributed to this report More