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      Trump fangirl Liz Truss channels Maga menace at US conservative thinktank

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      Was that Donald Truss? Or Liz Trump? A former British prime minister turned up in Washington on Monday channeling the Maga menace who once lorded it in the Oval Office and now spends his days in a dingy courtroom.Liz Truss was at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative thinktank in Washington, within sight of the US Capitol dome, to promote her grandly titled book Ten Years to Save the West. Why does she keep coming back to America? It was not hard to figure out.Far from the London literary critics sharpening their knives, Heritage offers Truss a happy place, full of gushing sycophancy with an audience hanging on her every word. In this regard the 48-year-old has gone all Trumpy: the ex-president loves to surround himself with oleaginous flatterers who dare not cross him.How divine that the politicians who whine about “groupthink” and “safe spaces” are the ones who cling to groupthink and safe spaces.To illustrate the point, Truss’s war on “the global left” establishment evidently includes the Guardian. Last Friday, this reporter received an email from Heritage about the Truss event that said: “Due to space limitations, we unfortunately must rescind your in-person invite.”Curiously, come Monday morning, Truss posted a tweet encouraging members of the public to register the event and enclosing a link. So much for space limitations. But those who did attend were informed they couldn’t get a signed copy of the book due to “supply chain issues”.Others were still able to watch a live stream on YouTube where, three hours after it ended, the event had just over 700 views. (Heritage’s biggest hit on the site is a Tucker Carlson speech that attracted a million views.)Heritage is the thinktank behind Project 2025, a sprawling plan for a second Trump presidency. Wearing a dark blue jacket and trousers, white blouse and shiny black shoes, Truss noted that when she was first invited to Heritage as environment secretary in 2015, she was warned against not to go by then British ambassador Kim Darroch.“He says to me, ‘You’ve got to be wary of this organisation. They’ve spoken out against President Obama. They’ve even been critical of Prime Minister Cameron. Are you really sure, minister, that you want to go and see them?’” Truss recalled, speaking from a wooden lectern against a backdrop of the Stars and Stripes and a blue wall dotted with Heritage Foundation logos.“And I said, yes, I’m sure because I’m a conservative and they’re a conservative thinktank in the United States of America, our closest ally. So eventually, I prevail because I am a determined person but the car from the embassy dropped me off two blocks away from the Heritage Foundation so that the British flag wouldn’t be sitting outside the building.”Making a lot of sub-Trump hand gestures with open palms, Truss proceeded to deliver her standard speech railing against left-dominated institutions, an anti-growth coalition, the IMF and Conservatives in name only. Naturally there was a swipe at wokery as “another bad neo-Marxist idea developed from Foucault and all those crazy postmodernists in the 1960s, the idea that biological sex is not a reality”.She blamed these forces for making her the shortest serving British prime minister in history (49 days that sparked mayhem on the financial markets). She reeled off a list of foes, foreign and domestic, who joined the “pile on”. Among them was Joe Biden, who had the temerity to criticise her radical mini-budget’s tax plans “from an ice cream parlour in Oregon”. There was some laughter in the auditorium. So vanilla!The Trump fangirl had some advice to impart: “I come today with a warning to the United States of America. I fear the same forces will be coming for President Donald Trump if he wins the election this November.”Truss repeated her plea from the recent Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland for the right to grab a “a bigger bazooka” to combat the activist left with their money and “friends in high places”. She called for a “bonfire of the quangos” and, echoing Trump ally Steve Bannon, declared: “We need to dismantle the administrative state.”In her book, Truss writes that she was an early fan of the reality TV show The Apprentice and “enjoyed the Donald’s catchphrases and sassy business advice”. She also pays little heed to the convention that senior British politicians stay out of US elections.She told the audience on Monday: “I worked in cabinet whilst Donald Trump was president and while President Biden was president and I can assure you the world felt safer when Donald Trump was in office… Getting a conservative back in the White House is critical to taking on the global left.”Praise for Truss was laid on think by Nile Gardiner, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom and a former foreign policy researcher for Thatcher herself. He has been named one of the 50 most influential Britons in the US by the Daily Telegraph.In God we Truss; no lettuce jokes here. The baby-faced, bespectacled Gardiner proclaimed her book “an absolutely tremendous read”, “very robust”, “very gutsy”, “very courageous”, “a wonderful read”, “very powerful”, “a thrilling read”, “a tremendous book” and “a wonderful message”. He speculated that the current prime minister, Rishi Sunak, might be writing memoirs in the near future but “yours are far more conservative and interesting”.Truss and Gardiner sat on plush white armchairs with glasses of water on a table between them. Truss warned that another Biden term would mean “the promotion of leftwing ideology”, girls unable to use bathrooms in privacy and no policy to deal with immigration and the southern border. “Four more years of this would be a disaster for the US internally. I think Bidenomics has been a failure.”Gardiner wondered what a second Trump term would mean for Britain. Truss said free the world needs conservative leadership. “It’s only Britain that has a conservative government. We’ve got Biden in the US, we have Trudeau in Canada, we have Macron in France, we have Scholz in Germany and it’s not working. The west is not winning.”Trump has said he would encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” to any Nato country that doesn’t meet spending guidelines on defence. But Truss echoed Trump’s call for Europe to spend more. “There are too many countries free riding at the moment who are in serious threat. If Putin succeeds in Ukraine, he won’t stop there… Donald Trump is right to say to Europe: you need to pay up.”Elise Stefanik? Kristi Noem? Marjorie Taylor Greene? Forget it. Trump-Truss 2024 would have been unstoppable. If only she had been born in Kansas. More

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      Prosecutors accept modified $175m Trump bond in New York civil fraud case

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      New York state lawyers and an attorney for Donald Trump settled their differences on Monday over a $175m bond that Trump posted to block a large civil fraud judgment while he pursues appeals.The agreement cut short a potential day-long court hearing in Manhattan that was to feature witnesses.As part of a deal struck during a 20-minute recess, lawyers for former president Trump and Knight Specialty Insurance Company agreed to keep the $175m in a cash account that will gain interest but faces no downside risk. The account so far has grown by more than $700,000.The bond stops the state from potentially seizing Trump’s assets to satisfy the more than $454m that he owes after losing a court case brought by the Democratic New York attorney general, Letitia James. She had alleged that Trump, along with his company and key executives, defrauded bankers and insurers by lying about his wealth.The ex-president and presumptive Republican nominee denies the claims and is appealing the judgment.Judge Arthur Engoron, who in February issued the huge judgment after concluding that Trump and others had deceived banks and insurers by exaggerating his wealth on financial statements, presided over Monday’s hearing and at times was caught in a testy exchange with Trump’s attorney Christopher Kise.Engoron challenged Kise with examples of how the money Trump had posted might not be available for collection if the judgment were upheld, leading Kise to respond in one instance that the judge’s “hypothetical is … wildly speculative”.At another point, Kise expressed frustration with the James’s office, saying: “It appears that no matter what we do they’re going to find fault with it.”But Andrew Amer, an attorney for New York state, proposed settlement terms soon after he began speaking at the hearing. He said the state wanted extra assurances because Trump had raised the money with help from a relatively small out-of-state insurance company.As part of the deal, Knight Specialty Insurance, a Wilmington, Delaware-based part of the Los Angeles-based Knight Insurance Group, will have exclusive control of the $175m and will submit to the jurisdiction of the New York state court while agreeing not to move the money into mutual funds or other financial instruments.Speaking to reporters in the hallway outside Trump’s separate criminal hush-money trial, his attorney Alina Habba, said Engoron “doesn’t even understand basic principles of finance.“We came to an agreement that everything would be the same,” she said. “We would modify terms and that would be it.”Trump also railed against Engoron, accusing him of not understanding the case.“He challenged the bonding company that maybe the bonding company was no good. Well, they’re good. And they also have $175m dollars of collateral – my collateral,” he said. More

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      The Guardian view on arming Ukraine: US Congress votes against appeasement | Editorial

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      In chaos theory, the flapping of butterfly wings can cause a hurricane on the other side of the world. This weekend, Ukraine experienced a butterfly moment. Donald Trump’s efforts to conceal the fact that he bought the silence of a porn star before the 2016 election landed him in court, facing charges that preoccupy him enough for congressional Republicans to reject his policy of prematurely ceding territory to Russia in return for peace in Ukraine. Kyiv will now get billions of dollars to buy the weapons crucial for it to defend against, and push back, the Russian advance. It is fitting that Mr Trump’s divisive appeasement has been defeated – for now – by a bipartisan defence of democracy.The presumptive Republican nominee had, in an election year, counted on using his mendacious, inflammatory rhetoric to further convert his party into a truth-denying sect prepared to abandon the rule of law for the rule of revenge. Instead, he is required to attend every day that the Manhattan court is in session, for a trial expected to last at least six weeks. The proceedings will be closely followed around the world. But they will not be televised. It will be a circus, but without its ringmaster. Deprived of the camera’s attention, the former president won’t be able to bully Republican lawmakers or rally his followers so effectively.Mr Trump’s diminished status was not lost on many Republicans in Congress. President Joe Biden had first called on them to back Ukraine with arms and cash last October. However, it was not until Mr Trump’s attention was elsewhere that the House on Saturday passed the $61bn aid bill for Ukraine. The vote was 311 for and 112 against, with all the Democrats and 101 Republicans voting in favour of the bill and 112 Republicans voting against. It can only be good news that there are still Republicans who want America to be governed effectively. It also signals that Ukraine should deal with Russia from a position of strength not weakness.In the last two months, most Democrats and a sizeable number of Republicans have voted to pass bills to avoid government shutdowns and commit to traditional national security priorities. This governing coalition is on the right side of history. But it may not last. Mr Trump faces four separate indictments. The current case is about sex, money, deception and blackmail. It’s more tawdry than the other, weightier trials about alleged election interference and the mishandling of classified documents. However, only the jury in New York is likely to produce a verdict before the election in November.Mr Trump is an unscrupulous demagogue without the slightest qualification to be president. The US, under his presidency, was maintained at the edge of chaos, between too much and too little control. The long-festering problems in the GOP gave rise to a leader only nominally affiliated with it.By being the first president since Herbert Hoover to lose the House, the Senate and the presidency in a single term, Mr Trump has gained a reputation for being a loser. But the billionaire is not interested in restoring Republican dominance, only shaping it into a cult of personality. He will only fail if he faces active, sustained opposition. Mr Biden has done that by highlighting the choices that divide congressional Republicans. But challenging Mr Trump also means challenging the system that produced him. Mr Biden still has work to do on that score.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. More

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      Rightwing media mock Marjorie Taylor Greene after Ukraine aid bill passes

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      A New York Post front page on Monday blaring “Nyet, Moscow Marjorie”, its mocked-up picture showing Marjorie Taylor Greene wearing a Soviet cap, was the latest sign of sections of the US right turning on the extremist, pro-Trump Georgia congresswoman over her opposition to military aid for Ukraine.“The score in Congress is now ‘Jewish space lasers lady 0, common sense 1’,” the Murdoch-owned tabloid said, celebrating the fact that Greene and other “Republican renegades” failed to stop passage of the Ukraine aid on Saturday, though they long delayed it.“Jewish space lasers” refers to one of the many conspiracy theories Greene has spread since entering national politics, in that case concerning a supposed cause of wildfires.The aid bill that passed the Republican-led House on Saturday despite opposition from Greene and other GOP rightwingers also funnels military support to Israel and Taiwan.Greene was defiant, telling Fox News Mike Johnson’s “speakership is over” after he oversaw passage of the aid bill, and calling for the Louisiana Republican, a stringent rightwinger himself, “to do the right thing to resign and allow us to move forward in a controlled process”.She again threatened to trigger the motion to remove the speaker that she filed last month – a move that also generated significant criticism in rightwing media circles.But though 112 members of the House voted no on Ukraine aid, and though Johnson must lead the chamber with only a tiny majority, Greene faces an uphill path to remove him, should Democrats who supported the military aid bill stay ranged on his side in an unusual bipartisan coalition that has emerged in recent weeks after legislative paralysis overcame the House.On Saturday, Johnson told reporters: “Three of our primary adversaries, Russia, Iran and China, are working together … and they’re a global threat to our prosperity and our security. Their advance threatens the free world, and it demands American leadership.“If we turn our backs right now the consequences could be devastating. It’s an old military adage, but we would rather send bullets to the conflict overseas than our own boys, our troops.”In opposing such aid, Greene has widely been seen to be doing the bidding of Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president who had strongly opposed more aid to Ukraine in its fight against Russian invaders. However he appeared to soften last week after having dinner with Andrzej Duda, Poland’s far-right president, in New York after Trump had spent the day in court for jury selection at his criminal trial, with a post on social media that did not directly oppose more US aid for Ukraine.Poland is very wary about the power of an emboldened neighbor, Russia, to threaten eastern Europe.Meanwhile, Greene has said she has hopes of being named Trump’s running mate.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut rightwing criticism of Greene and her cohorts in opposing Ukraine aid has been gathering nonetheless.Last week, before Ukraine aid passed, Fox News itself posted an op-ed column with the stark headline: “Marjorie Taylor Greene is an idiot. She is trying to wreck the GOP.”On Friday, Ken Buck – a recently retired conservative congressman who did much to name Greene “Moscow Marjorie” – spoke to CNN.“Moscow Marjorie has reached a new low,” he said. “You know, during the Russian Revolution, [Vladimir] Lenin talked about American journalists who were writing glowing reports about Russia at the time as ‘useful idiots’.“And I don’t even think that Marjorie reaches that level of being a useful idiot here. She is just mouthing the Russian propaganda, and really hurting American foreign policy in the process.” More

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      Liz Cheney urges US supreme court to rule quickly on Trump’s immunity claim

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      The former congresswoman and co-chair of the House January 6 committee Liz Cheney is urging the US supreme court to rule quickly on Donald Trump’s claim that he has immunity from prosecution for acts he committed while president – so that his 2020 election interference trial can begin before the 2024 election this November.“If delay prevents this Trump case from being tried this year, the public may never hear critical and historic evidence developed before the grand jury, and our system may never hold the man most responsible for January 6 to account,” Cheney wrote in an opinion article for the New York Times, published on Monday.Trump faces four federal election subversion charges, arising from his attempt to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden in 2020, fueled by his lie about electoral fraud and culminating in the deadly attack on Congress by extremist supporters, urged on by the then president, on 6 January 2021.Cheney warned: “I know how Mr Trump’s delay tactics work,” adding: “Mr Trump believes he can threaten and intimidate judges and their families, assert baseless legal defenses and thereby avoid accountability altogether.”The special counsel Jack Smith, prosecuting the case against Trump, has urged the court to reject Trump’s immunity claim as “an unprecedented assault on the structure of our government”.Cheney, a Republican and the daughter of the former vice-president Dick Cheney, was ousted from her congressional seat, representing Wyoming, after she became one of the strongest voices from the GOP demanding Trump be held accountable for inciting and failing to stop the January 6 insurrection.She has since said she would prefer Democrats to win in the 2024 elections over members of her own party as it has become more extreme, because she feared the US was “sleepwalking into dictatorship” and that another Trump White House presented a tangible “threat” to American democracy.Cheney said in her New York Times article: “The special counsel’s indictment lays out Mr Trump’s detailed plan to overturn the 2020 election … [and that] senior advisers in the White House, Justice Department and elsewhere repeatedly warned that Mr Trump’s claims of election fraud were false and that his plans for January 6 were illegal.”She added: “If Mr Trump’s tactics prevent his January 6 trial from proceeding in the ordinary course, he will also have succeeded in concealing critical evidence from the American people – evidence demonstrating his disregard for the rule of law, his cruelty on January 6 and the deep flaws in character that make him unfit to serve as president. The Supreme Court should understand this reality and conclude without delay that no immunity applies here.”The court’s nine-member bench leans very conservative, especially after Trump nominated three rightwing justices while he was president. The court hears oral arguments in the immunity case on Thursday.Trump and his team urged the court to find that presidents have absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts they take in office and therefore dismiss the federal criminal case. More

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      Who will Trump pick as his 2024 running mate? A VP shortlist

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      Donald Trump has secured the necessary delegates to win the Republican presidential nomination for a third consecutive election. That result was never in much doubt, but the contest to be Trump’s running mate is harder to predict. Once again, the Republican primaries demonstrated his strength among white men in rural areas, leading to speculation that he will choose a woman or person of colour to broaden his appeal in November.Here are some factors to consider and a look at the likely contenders.Why does Trump need a new running mate?Former vice-president Mike Pence was a useful ally during the 2016 and 2020 campaigns, a Christian conservative who shored up support among Republicans suspicious of the thrice-married reality TV star. But Pence’s refusal to comply with his boss’s demand to overturn the 2020 election led to a falling out and made Pence a perceived traitor and target of the January 6 insurrectionists. After a failed bid for president in 2024, Pence recently said in an interview that he will not be endorsing Trump.What is Trump looking for in a 2024 VP?He may decide he needs a female running mate to make himself less toxic to suburban women, especially with abortion rights looming large as an election issue. But history suggests that he will have three priorities: a person who displays loyalty; a person who looks like they are from “central casting”; a person who knows their place and will not outshine him on the campaign trail.Will Trump’s VP pick matter in the 2024 election?Probably not a lot. There is little evidence that a woman on the ticket draws more female voters or that a running mate’s home state will necessarily back them. Dan Pfeiffer, a White House communications director under President Barack Obama, told the New York Times: “The vice-presidential pick is something that generates a massive amount of press coverage but has the most minimal of impacts on the election.”But perhaps a bad pick can do damage: Republican nominee John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin in 2008 probably didn’t help. This year, however, Joe Biden and Donald Trump are, again, the two oldest candidates in history, giving new meaning to their VP picks being only “a heartbeat away from the presidency”.How many VPs have gone on to become president?Fifteen. Eight of these succeeded to the office on the death of a president, including Lyndon Johnson, who was sworn in onboard Air Force One after the assassination of John F Kennedy. Gerald Ford was the only unelected vice-president and president following the resignations of Spiro Agnew and Richard Nixon. Biden served as vice-president under Barack Obama, who was succeeded by Trump, who was then defeated by Biden for the presidency.What to know about the Republicans on Trump’s vice-president shortlistView image in fullscreenGreg AbbottAge: 66Occupation: Governor of TexasThe Texas politician is a Trump loyalist and hardliner on border security who has fought a series of legal battles with the Biden White House. Trump said he “would very much consider Abbott” for vice-president during a joint Fox News interview in February. Abbott, who uses a wheelchair, said he was “committed to governing Texas” and to his own re-election campaign.View image in fullscreenTucker CarlsonAge: 54Occupation: Conservative political commentator and writerThe former Fox News host is a strong ideological match. Like Trump, he relishes offending liberals, praising autocrats such as Vladimir Putin of Russia and Viktor Orbán of Hungary (he conducted fawning interviews with both) and pushing the far-right “great replacement” theory that western elites are importing immigrant voters to supplant white people. Although Carlson once wrote of Trump in a text message, “I hate him passionately”, more recently he has praised him as “sensible and wise”.View image in fullscreenBen CarsonAge: 72Occupation: Retired neurosurgeonBorn in Detroit to a single mother with a third- grade education who worked multiple jobs to support her family, Carson rose to become a leading neurosurgeon – a life story that the Trump campaign could promote as it seeks to win over aspirational Black votes. As housing secretary, Carson was among Trump’s longest-serving cabinet members. He remained loyal to the outgoing president after the 6 January 2021 riot at the US Capitol and campaigned with him in Iowa before the caucuses.View image in fullscreenRon DeSantisAge: 45Occupation: Governor of FloridaDeSantis tried and failed to dethrone Trump as king of the Republican party, flaming out during the primary season. He once made a campaign ad in which he read Trump’s book about getting rich, The Art of the Deal, to one of his children and encouraged them to “build the wall” along the US-Mexico border by stacking toy bricks. But when he ran for president, Trump branded him “Ron DeSanctimonious” and seems unlikely to forgive the perceived disloyalty.View image in fullscreenByron DonaldsAge: 45Occupation: US representative for Florida’s 19th congressional districtThe Freedom Caucus Republican is one of Trump’s most prominent African American supporters and backed him against state governor Ron DeSantis in the primary election. He is short on experience, having only started in Congress in 2021. At an event hosted by Axios, Donalds suggested that he would be willing to decline to certify the 2028 election results if he were vice-president.View image in fullscreenTulsi GabbardAge: 42Occupation: Rightwing media personality.The former Democratic congresswoman and presidential candidate has rebranded herself as a rightwing media personality. She campaigned for election-denier Kari Lake and other Republicans in the 2022 midterm elections. Her provocative critiques of the western foreign policy establishment, and her overtures to dictators such as Putin and Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, are likely to resonate with Trump. Asked in March by Fox News if she would consider a vice-presidential slot, Gabbard replied: “I would be open to that.”View image in fullscreenMarjorie Taylor GreeneAge: 49Occupation: Republican congresswomanThe far-right flamethrower from Georgia personifies the age of Trumpism with her pugnacious style, bizarre conspiracy theories, indications of support for political violence, and racist, antisemitic and Islamophobic statements. She once suggested that, if she had led the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, the mob would have been armed and victorious in its efforts to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 victory (she later claimed this was “sarcasm”).View image in fullscreenNikki HaleyAge: 52Occupation: Politician.The former South Carolina governor was Trump’s first ambassador to the United Nations and, as the daughter of Sikh immigrants from India, could help neutralise charges of sexism and racism against him. But her persistence as his most durable opponent during the Republican primary, in which she questioned his age and mental acuity, would be hard for Trump – who called her “Birdbrain” – and the Maga base to forgive. They are also at odds on aid to Ukraine.View image in fullscreenKari LakeAge: 54Occupation: Candidate for US Senate in Arizona.The firebrand former TV anchor was the breakout Republican star of the midterm elections but lost the race for governor of Arizona, a result she has never accepted. She was endorsed by Trump and continued to repeat his election lies while campaigning as a surrogate for him during the Republican primary. But she may be seen as more valuable running for Senate because she could help Republicans take control of that chamber if she wins.View image in fullscreenKristi NoemAge: 52Occupation: Governor of South Dakota.The former pageant queen and congresswoman is serving her second term as South Dakota’s governor after a landslide re-election victory in 2022. She gained national attention after refusing to impose a statewide mask mandate during the coronavirus pandemic. She quashed speculation about her own presidential ambitions by endorsing Trump early. But her conservative stance on abortion – and media reports of an affair with the former Trump aide Corey Lewandowski – could be an electoral liability.View image in fullscreenVivek RamaswamyAge: 38Occupation: Business executive.The former candidate for the Republican presidential nomination is a political neophyte who shook up the Republican primary debates, acting as unofficial Trump surrogate and earning the scorn of Haley. Trump condemned Ramaswamy as “not Maga” when he gained traction in the opinion polls but has since praised the biotech entrepreneur, who dropped out and threw his weight behind the former president. Ramaswamy is a young person of colour, although his views on the climate crisis are out of step with young voters.View image in fullscreenSarah SandersAge: 41Occupation: Governor of Arkansas.She was a devoted White House press secretary, tirelessly promoting Trump’s agenda and insisting that he was neither racist nor sexist. Last year she was inaugurated as the first woman to serve as governor of Arkansas and she is currently the youngest governor in the country. Her father, former governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, is the creator of The Kids Guide to President Trump and an ex-pastor who might help shore up the Christian evangelical vote.View image in fullscreenTim ScottAge: 58Occupation: Senator for South Carolina.The Black evangelical Christian made his own bid for the presidency but dropped out two months before the Iowa caucuses, endorsing Trump and telling him: “I just love you.” The senator might be seen as a way to build on Trump’s recent progress among male African American voters. Asked about potential running mates during a Fox News town hall in February, Trump pointed to Scott and said: “A lot of people are talking about that gentleman right over there.” Scott is single but, with impeccable timing, recently presented his girlfriend with an engagement ring.View image in fullscreenElise StefanikAge: 39Occupation: US representative for New York’s 21st congressional districtThe New York politician is the highest-ranking woman in the Republican conference in the House of Representatives and one of the first members of Congress to endorse Trump. Once a moderate, she gained national prominence last year after embarrassing the heads of three top universities about antisemitism on their campuses during a congressional hearing, which prompted two of them to later resign. She has also parroted Trump’s use of the term “hostages” to describe those convicted of crimes on January 6.View image in fullscreenJD VanceAge: 39Occupation: US senator for OhioThe venture capitalist rose to prominence with his 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Elegy. A one-time Trump critic, he is now an ardent supporter and claims to be fighting for the working class by taking on liberals who “populate the upper echelons of American government, business, media, entertainment and academia”. He echoes the former president’s populist views on immigration and an “America First” foreign policy on Ukraine. Donald Trump Jr told Newsmax in January: “I’d love to see a JD Vance. People who are principally in alignment as well as aggressive.” More

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      Trump cancels North Carolina rally due to storm in first public address since New York trial

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      Donald Trump called for debates with Joe Biden before cancelling his own appearance at a planned rally in Wilmington, North Carolina as a rain storm approached the airport where it was staged on Saturday.Trump called as he was approaching the international airport to tell rally goers that the event would be rescheduled “bigger and better”. This would have been the first time he addressed supporters in public after a week of relative silence in a New York courtroom.“I’m devastated that this could happen but we want to keep everybody safe,” Trump said, his voice amplified by speakers to thousands of supporters, many of whom had lined up since early morning in hot and humid conditions.“I think we’re gonna have to just do a rain check. I’m so sad,” Trump said.Between 7,000 and 8,000 people gathered on the tarmac at the Aero Center at Wilmington airport, though organisers had only given supporters a few days of advanced notice.Trump has spent the last week at the defense table at a trial in New York City fending off criminal charges of campaign finance fraud. Ahead of his appearance, the Trump campaign splashed a social media message posted to Truth Social in which Trump called for debates with Joe Biden, the US president and his rival in the November election.“I am calling for Debates, ANYTIME ANYWHERE ANYPLACE,” the post said. “The debates can be run by the corrupt DNC or their subsidiary, the Commission on Presidential debates (CPD).”Trump and the RNC pulled out of the Commission on Presidential Debates after the final debates of the 2020 campaign season.Wilmington is home turf for Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter in law and newly installed chairwoman of the Republican National Committee. Lara Trump grew up Wilmington and graduated from high school here.North Carolina voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020 but in increasingly narrow margins. Demographic changes and the impact of changes to abortion law may make the state much more competitive for Biden this year.View image in fullscreen“Oh god, I’ve been wanting to come forever,” said Ron Raynor from Jackson, North Carolina, about an hour drive north of Wilmington. Raynor said he’s a process server, but also drives for ride share apps and works on other projects. “That’s a lot of work, but that’s what it takes. It takes hustle. We’ve got to hustle because of this economy. The way it is, you’ve got to work twice as hard to make the same amount of money that you were making under Donald Trump. The sleepy Joe Biden policies are not working for me. I didn’t sign up for that.”Reuters contributed to this report More

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      Melania Trump to hit campaign trail for husband after early absence

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      Her biggest fashion statement as first lady was a green jacket emblazoned with the words “I really don’t care, do u?” More recently, Melania Trump has given the impression that she doesn’t care whether her husband, Donald, returns to the White House. That is about to change.On Saturday Melania, 53, will appear at a fundraiser at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, for the Log Cabin Republicans, the biggest Republican organisation dedicated to representing LGBT conservatives. It will be her first appearance at a political event since Trump, 77, launched his bid to regain the presidency.It comes at the end of a week that saw Melania’s husband become the first former US president in history to stand criminal trial. The case, involving a hush-money payment by Trump to an adult film performer, would be enough to test any marriage. Yet it seems that the former and possible future first lady is again prepared to campaign for her spouse – up to a point.“It’s not going to be in volume but you’ll see her at key moments,” said Mary Jordan, author of The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump. “She likes to heighten the interest in her appearances by being scarce. It’s very intentional, like a movie star who doesn’t want exposure. She’s hyper-aware of her persona and her celebrity. This is a model who learned to get covers of magazines so she wants to be in control.”The former Slovenian model, who married Trump in 2005, became only the second foreign-born first lady in US history. She delayed moving to the White House after Trump won the 2016 election because she was renegotiating their prenuptial agreement, according to Jordan’s book, and in one notorious incident was seen swatting his hand away. She had a rivalry with Trump’s daughter Ivanka. But she came to love the trappings and prestige of being first lady.Since Trump’s defeat in 2020 she has maintained a low profile. Her main public appearances have included a memorial service for former first lady Rosalynn Carter, a funeral for Trump’s older sister and the funeral for her mother, Amalija Knavs. Last year she addressed a naturalisation ceremony in Washington, telling new Americans that citizenship means “actively participating in the democratic process and guarding our freedom”.But her absence is often more notable than her presence. Melania has been missing from Trump’s run of campaign rallies and court appearances. When he celebrated Super Tuesday primary election victories with a party at Mar-a-Lago, his children Don Jr, Eric and Tiffany were there but his wife was not.It is a potentially worrying sign for Trump in a country that traditionally prizes political candidates with loyal spouses and wholesome families. The spouse is often a vital surrogate, able to step in at fundraisers or other events; few doubt the authenticity of the love affair between Joe and Jill Biden. But the Trumps, who typically sleep in separate rooms and lead separate lives, have never followed anyone else’s playbook.Just as in the 2016 campaign, Jordan believes that Melania will pick and choose her moments for maximum effect. “She doesn’t like being on the political road but she likes to be a celebrity and she will be out there,” she said. “There were parts of being first lady that she loved and so you’re just going to see her pick her shots. She’ll go to events that she can have maximum control over. She won’t do too many because she absolutely knows newspapers write about it and she’s on TV.View image in fullscreen“Everything she does is very thought out and calculated at. Yes, we’re going to be seeing her at key moments but we’re not going to be seeing her as other political spouses are. She never has and never will act like any other political spouse the country’s ever seen. When he started running the first time, people were like, wow, this is crazy, this is such a valuable asset staying at home. But she’s definitely doing it her way.”It might be assumed that this week would be an especially rough one for Melania. Jury selection has been under way for Trump’s trial in New York on charges of falsifying business records tied to a $130,000 hush-money payment made to buy Stormy Daniels’ silence about an alleged sexual encounter that took place not long after Melania gave birth to their son Barron.Melania, who rarely betrays emotion in public, is known to have been furious about reports of the affair when they first surfaced, flying off to Palm Beach and taking a separate car to his first State of the Union address. But she is now said to be more sympathetic to Trump, privately calling the proceedings “a disgrace”, the New York Times reported.Jordan, a reporter for the Washington Post newspaper, commented: “She was mortified at the time and furious at her husband when she found out originally. But now she thinks that this is being used as a political weapon against her husband and she’s focusing her anger on that.”Indeed, the New York trial is unlikely to deliver surprise revelations that Melania is not aware of already. Kurt Bardella, a Democratic strategist, said: “This is what she signed up for. She knows who this guy is. It’s no surprise that he’s a serial philanderer. Whatever trade-offs she has made to live the life that she wants to live, she is comfortable with them. She makes her own choices and I couldn’t care less.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBardella, a former senior adviser for Republicans on the House of Representatives oversight committee, added: “I do think that when you are auditioning to be the first family of America there is an expectation from the public that you are open and transparent about what your real family situation is and those who have fallen short of that have paid a political price over the years. For the party that wraps itself and this cloak of so-called family values all the time, it’s interesting that they seem to completely bypass that when it comes to their leader.”Melania’s current main focus has been preparing Barron for university after he graduates from a private high school in May (Trump complained on social media this week that he might miss his son’s graduation because of the New York trial). But Trump often brings up her name at rallies, sometimes with some rare self-deprecation, and has assured crowds that they will see her on the campaign trail.Melania is thought to be one of the few people that Trump trusts to be straight with him. The former White House counselor Kellyanne Conway told a congressional panel investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol: “He listens to many of us, but he reserves fear for one person, Melania Trump.”Indeed, Melania helped persuade Trump to select Mike Pence, rather than Chris Christie or Newt Gingrich, as his vice-presidential candidate in 2016. She also encouraged him to support the celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz’s losing effort in Pennsylvania’s Senate race in 2022. Melania is now said to be lobbying for Conway to return to the fold in an official capacity.She is also known to have admonished Trump on occasion for vulgar outbursts or mockery of people with disabilities. But there is no evidence that she intends to act as a brake on his radical rightwing policy agenda.Speaking last month at the Politics and Prose bookshop in Washington, Katie Rogers, author of American Woman: The Transformation of the Modern First Lady, from Hillary Clinton to Jill Biden, said: “There was this idea that she would be a secret resistance figure early on. First ladies channel and mirror their husbands, even in this case. She shares his grievances. She has the same anger over how her family is perceived and covered as he does. They’re more united in that dynamic than people think.”Rogers, a White House correspondent for the New York Times and former Guardian reporter, said she did not know if the couple would remain married through a second term. “I know they have an agreement in place in the event that they’re not. But she likes the role.”Biden v Trump: What’s in store for the US and the worldOn Thursday 2 May, 3-4.15pm ET, join Tania Branigan, David Smith, Mehdi Hasan and Tara Setmayer for the inside track on the people, the ideas and the events that might shape the US election campaign. Book tickets here or at theguardian.live More