Donald Trump

Subterms

    More stories

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Mitch McConnell warns Trump to avoid ‘isolationist’ foreign policy in second term

      by

      Mitch McConnell, the Republicans’ outgoing leader in the US Senate, has called on Donald Trump to avoid an “isolationist” foreign policy during his looming second presidency – and urged him to back up a surge in American “hard power” by continuing to support Ukraine in its war against Russia.In a 5,000-word essay in Foreign Affairs magazine, McConnell, 82 – who retires as the GOP Senate leader at the end of this term in 2027 – takes issue with a strand of foreign policy thinking in the party’s pro-Trump “Make America great again” (Maga) movement, which casts China as the US’s biggest threat and advocates turning away from the war in Ukraine to tackle challenges in Asia.He also urges continued robust support for Nato, the military alliance which Trump has often criticised and has threatened to withdraw US backing from unless European members increase their share of defence spending.Warning Trump that he would confront a more dangerous world when he returns to the White House in January – and pinning much of the blame on Joe Biden’s outgoing administration – McConnell writes: “The response to four years of weakness must not be four years of isolation.”In a coded rebuke to senior pro-Trump figures such as JD Vance, the incoming vice-president, McConnell dismisses the idea that Ukraine should be abandoned in favour of an all-out confrontational approach towards China.“Even though the competition with China and Russia is a global challenge, Trump will no doubt hear from some that he should prioritize a single theater and downgrade US interests and commitments elsewhere,” he writes.“Such thinking is commonplace among both isolationist conservatives who indulge the fantasy of ‘Fortress America’ and progressive liberals who mistake internationalism for an end in itself.”He accuses some members of his own party of “retrench[ing] in the face of Russian aggression in Europe”, although he does not spare the left, which he says is reluctant to confront Iran and support Israel.But it is the swipe at Republican “isolationism” that is certain to attract more attention. McConnell, who has a tense relationship with Trump – calling him “stupid” and “despicable” after his 2020 presidential election defeat – will have a platform to push his foreign policy agenda in the Senate term, when he will become chair of the subcommittee on defence appropriations.Trump has frequently voiced misgivings about US military aid for Ukraine and has claimed he would end its war with Russia in 24 hours.For his part, Vance is on record as saying he does not “really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another”.Taking aim at those views directly, McConnell writes: “Republicans who consider Ukraine a distraction from the Indo-Pacific should recall what happened the last time a president sought to reprioritize one region by withdrawing from another. In the Middle East, [Barack] Obama’s premature withdrawal from Iraq left a vacuum for Iran and the Islamic State (also known as Isis) to fill.”Trump can only effectively confront China and the adversaries, he adds, by continuing to back Ukraine: “A Russian victory would not only damage the United States’ interest in European security and increase US military requirements in Europe; it would also compound the threats from China, Iran, and North Korea.”McConnell, who has said he will feel “liberated” by no longer holding the Repbulican leadership in the Senate, is also supportive of the US’s European allies – saying many of them have boosted their defence spending commitments – while taking a swipe at Hungary, whose far-right prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has been feted by Trump and his Maga acolytes.“After major surges in their defense budgets, US allies on the continent now spend 18% more than they did a year ago, a far greater increase than the United States,” he writes.But there are – inconveniently, for Orbán’s Republican admirers – exceptions to this trend, he continues. “One of the West’s most glaring vulnerabilities to the influence of Russia – and China and Iran – is Hungary’s self-abnegating obeisance to those countries,” McConnell writes. More

    • 163 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Pete Hegseth will lift NDA related to sexual misconduct allegations, Lindsey Graham says

      by

      Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of defense, is offering to release a woman from a non-disclosure agreement related to sexual misconduct allegations from 2017, Lindsey Graham revealed on Sunday.Speaking on NBC’s Meet the Press, the South Carolina senator said Hegseth assured him in a private meeting that he would lift the NDA, giving the accuser an opportunity to speak publicly about her allegations.“He told me he would release her from that agreement,” Graham said. “Just think about what we’re talking about; I’d want to know if anybody nominated for a high-level job in Washington legitimately assaulted somebody.”Hegseth has continued to deny the allegations. A statement from his lawyer, obtained by the Washington Post, confirmed a settlement was made while maintaining Hegseth’s innocence. According to police reports stemming from 2017, Hegseth took the unidentified woman’s phone before keeping her from leaving his hotel room, when he would then allegedly assault her.While the nomination has been picking up some steam again on the Hill, it still faces significant public skepticism. A recent AP-NORC poll found only 17% of respondents approve of Hegseth, with 36% disapproving and 37% lacking sufficient information to form an opinion.Graham drew parallels to the 2018 Brett Kavanaugh supreme court confirmation, dismissing what he characterized as unsubstantiated claims.“Five people accused Justice Kavanaugh of misconduct. Three were outright lies, the other two, I think, were not credible,” Graham said, a reference to the witness Christine Blasey Ford. “We’re not going to destroy [Hegseth’s] nomination based on anonymous sources.”Despite the ongoing controversy, Graham indicated he is prepared to support Hegseth’s confirmation, contingent on no new information emerging.He challenged the accuser to come forward publicly, saying: “If people have an allegation to make, come forward and make it.”Hegseth’s lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, previously told CNN that the settlement was made to prevent potential professional repercussions, characterizing the original agreement as a form of protection against potential career damage. More

    • 113 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      The forgotten faces of Christmas in China | Letter

      by

      Reading “made in China” on his toys for the first time, my young Chinese nephew asked me innocently whether Santa was Chinese. Oddly, like Santa’s elves, toy assembly workers in China remain remote and faceless to most of us in the west. In Britain, most Asian migrants work backstage, too, kept in kitchens or workshops, taking the first and last train, earning low wages and hidden from our eyes. In many countries this Christmas, instead of being acknowledged for alleviating our cost of living crisis, those foreign workers will be vilified for stealing our jobs and threatened with tariffs whose consequences economists are still not certain about.It is always easier to blame people who remain invisible and voiceless. Although our world has never been so interconnected, and hence our nations so reliant on each other’s labour, Chinese society remains poorly understood. In the west, Chinese people remain enigmatic, the ever-silent and under-represented minority. When scrutinised, it is often with a political lens as well, maybe showing some cognitive bias.The question today should be how much value the free movement of products and people has brought to our nations and how to ensure that it keeps doing so in the future. As evidenced by world history, curiosity and interest towards foreign societies has often been an engine of progress. Christmas is a time to reach out and be thankful to one another: it is hoped that this spirit will continue to animate our politicians and societies in this coming year.Hugo WongAuthor of America’s Lost Chinese; London More

    • 175 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Lindsey Graham contradicts Trump by saying January 6 investigators should not go to jail

      by

      US senator Lindsey Graham has said officials who investigated Donald Trump supporters’ deadly attack on the US Capitol in 2021 should not be imprisoned – despite what his fellow Republican has argued in advance of his second presidency.During an interview Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press, show host Kristen Welker asked Graham whether he agreed with Trump’s assertion on the program seven days earlier that those involved in the investigation of the January 6 Capitol attack “should go to jail”.“No,” said Graham, South Carolina’s senior senator as well as a ranking member of the chamber’s judiciary and budget committees.Welker directed the question at Graham during a segment meant to elicit quick answers, which she acknowledged by replying: “OK – that was very clear and concise.”The exchange offered an example of Graham’s occasional willingness to publicly disagree with Trump while still generally serving as a staunch ally – and it came amid a broader political dialogue about who should receive pardons in connection with an attack on Congress that was linked to multiple deaths, including the suicides of traumatized law enforcement officers.Trump has promised to begin his second presidency in January 2025 by issuing pardons to those who carried out the attack, though there may be some exceptions. He spoke to Welker on 8 December about how supporters of his were pressured into accepting guilty pleas in connection with the violent, desperate attempt to keep him in the White House after losing the presidency to Joe Biden in 2020.Having won the Oval Office back in November in his race against Vice-President Kamala Harris, Trump denied he would direct his second administration to arrest elected officials who investigated the Capitol attack, leading to federal criminal charges against him that have been dismissed. Nonetheless, he made it a point to tell Welker: “Honestly, they should go to jail.”Bernie Sanders, the liberal US senator, made a separate appearance on Sunday on Meet the Press and said Biden in turn should “very seriously consider” issuing pre-emptive pardons to those who investigated the Capitol attack, as others have suggested. Sanders didn’t provide any names, but a week earlier Trump mentioned the names of Bennie Thompson and Liz Cheney, once the chairperson and vice-chairperson respectively of the US House committee convened for that investigation.“You do not arrest elected officials … who undertake an investigation,” Sanders said, adding that doing so “is what authoritarianism [and] dictatorship is all about”.Sanders also said: “You just heard Lindsey Graham make that statement – I think that idea of Trump is not going to very far.”More than 1,250 people have pleaded guilty or otherwise been convicted in the January 6 attack. And at least 645 people have been sentenced to serve some time in prison, ranging from a few days to 22 years.During his 8 December interview with Welker, Trump blamed those convictions on “a very corrupt system” that he would hold in check with pardons, despite criticizing Biden’s recent pardon of his son, Hunter, on convictions of lying on gun ownership application forms as well as tax evasion.“I know the system,” said Trump, himself convicted in May in New York state court on charges of criminally falsifying business records to conceal hush-money payments to the adult film actor Stormy Daniels. More

    • 175 Shares139 Views

      in US Politics

      Anxious scientists brace for Trump’s climate denialism: ‘We have a target on our backs’

      by

      As the world’s largest gathering of Earth and space scientists swarmed a Washington venue last week, the packed halls have been permeated by an air of anxiety and even dread over a new Donald Trump presidency that might worsen what has been a bruising few years for science.The annual American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting drew a record 31,000 attendees this year for the unveiling of a slew of new research on everything from seismology to climate science to heliospheric physics, alongside a sprawling trade show and bouts of networking as scientists jostle to advance their work.As grad students and grizzled researchers huddled around pin-boarded presentations in a cavernous exhibition space, however, one person dominated muttered conversations: Trump. The president-elect has called climate science a “giant scam” and when last in office sought to gut US scientific funding and sidelined or even punished scientists deemed unfriendly to the interests of the chemical and fossil fuel industries.The prospect of an even more ideologically driven Trump administration slashing budgets and mass-firing federal staff has given America’s scientific community a sort of collective anxiety attack. “We all feel like we have a target on our backs,” said one National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist, who added that agency staff are already seeking to “pivot” by replacing mentions of the climate crisis with more acceptable terms such as “air quality”.View image in fullscreen“My god, it’s so depressing,” said another federal scientist about the incoming administration. A doctoral candidate, when asked about entering the workforce under Trump, simply puffed her cheeks and groaned. “If someone offered me a departmental position now, I’d jump,” said one Nasa researcher. “It’s hard, particularly for younger people. Hopefully we will survive it all.”The challenges posed by the incoming administration barely featured in the official AGU program, which was more focused on highlighting new research – from a dire new warning about the melting Arctic to innovations that leverage artificial intelligence – and general boosterism of the value of science to our lives. But the leadership of the organization acknowledged there was a sense of unease.“Some of the signals coming out right now make people nervous about what’s going to happen to their jobs, their livelihoods, let alone what their science is,” said Ben Zaitchik, a climate scientist who will be president-elect of the AGU next year. “You could say people are feeling beleaguered or besieged, but many are also motivated. At the same time, it’s a time of transition. So we just don’t know.”Trump – through his alteration of hurricane maps with a Sharpie pen, staring with uncovered eyes at a solar eclipse and suggestion that disinfectant injections could cure Covid-19 – is seen by many here at the meeting as a catalyst of scientific contrarianism.This has been underscored by the nomination of Robert F Kennedy, who holds an array of conspiracy theories about vaccines, wind farms and chemtrails, as the nominee for the US’s new health secretary, as well as Trump’s promise this week to cast aside environmental reviews for “any person or company investing ONE BILLION DOLLARS, OR MORE, in the United States of America”.View image in fullscreenBut scientists in the US face a broader crisis beyond the next president, amid a swirl of misinformation and declining trust in the profession among the American public. Overall trust in scientists has fallen by 10% since the pandemic, Pew polling has shown, with a growing partisan gap emerging in how science is viewed; nearly four in 10 Republicans now say they have little to no confidence in scientists acting in the public’s best interests.“When we get that kind of polling data, it is concerning,” acknowledged Lisa Graumlich, a paleoclimatologist and the current AGU president. Gone, it seems, are the halcyon days of celebrity 19th-century scientists such as Charles Darwin and Alexander von Humboldt, or even the reception to the polio vaccine in the 1950s, which was greeted with ringing church bells, with its inventor, Jonas Salk, routinely being greeted with applause and handshakes when he was seen in public.By contrast, Anthony Fauci, the face of the US response to the Covid pandemic, requires round-the-clock security protection due to ongoing death threats, even after his retirement. Climate scientists and meteorologists, too, have faced threats and harassment.“The conspiracy theories are out there, the misinformation is there,” said Graumlich. “Social media engines and the algorithms can take a person that isn’t necessarily prone to a conspiracy mindset and have them end up in this rabbit hole of misinformation.”Some researchers think scientists should adapt to this hyper-partisan environment by sticking to unadorned facts, rather than anything that could be seen as campaigning. “We have been come to be seen as just another partisan lobbying group,” said Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I want us to get back to a point where scientists are seen as the establishers of facts rather than arguing for policy. We need to get back to a situation where we have a shared set of facts.”Others are determined to press the case for science to guide decisions, if not in the White House then with Congress, which previously thwarted major Trump-demanded cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency and Nasa’s Earth science work.View image in fullscreenJay Famiglietti, a hydrologist at Arizona State University who has come to AGU meetings since 1989, attended this year’s event to reveal terrifying findings about the loss of available freshwater around the world, due to the climate crisis and agricultural practices.“People like me who are experts need to step up and say, ‘I think this should be done,’” said Famiglietti, who has tangled with a family member about Trump and has even taken to switching Fox News off from the TVs in his local gym.“I mean I am not going to chain myself to a wellhead but I’m going to make sure the right people in Congress, in Washington, know about it,” he said. “Some people might want to jump off a bridge if they think about the next few years but I don’t think we need to go into a shell or be overly careful. We need to choose our words well, know our audience, but I’m very much in support of full speed ahead.”Even if Trump does follow Florida’s lead by deleting all mention of the climate crisis within the federal government, an oblivious world will continue to heat up regardless, bringing disasters and rising costs to Americans. Scientists say they will still be there when such truths become politically palatable again.“We are sober about the future, but we’re not daunted,” said Graumlich. “The facts are still facts, science is still science. The fight is bigger than just one political cycle, I’ve been doing this for 40 years. We’re not backing down.” More

    • 113 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Judge revokes decision to retire, foiling Trump’s replacement plans

      by

      A US appeals court judge has taken the rare step of revoking his decision to retire from active service on the bench, depriving Donald Trump of the ability to fill a judicial vacancy.US circuit judge James Wynn, an appointee of Barack Obama on the fourth US circuit court of appeals based in Richmond, Virginia, disclosed his decision in a letter to Joe Biden on Friday.It marked the first time since Trump won the 5 November presidential election that a Democrat-appointed appellate judge has rescinded plans to take senior status, a form of semi-retirement for judges that creates vacancies presidents can fill.Two trial court judges have similarly done so, prompting complaints by conservatives including Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, who railed about an “unprecedented” spate of judges un-retiring post-election.Thom Tillis, the Republican senator who had fought to prevent Biden’s pick to fill Wynn’s seat from winning Senate confirmation, said on X that Wynn had engaged in a “blatant attempt to turn the judicial retirement system into a partisan game”.Wynn sent his letter a day after Biden’s nominee to succeed him, the North Carolina solicitor general Ryan Park, formally withdrew from consideration after his path to win Senate confirmation vanished.Senate Democrats and Republicans post-election cut a deal that cleared the way for votes on about a dozen of Biden’s remaining trial court nominees in exchange for not pushing forward with four appellate court nominees, including Park.A spokesperson for Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader, has said all four lacked sufficient votes to be confirmed.That left four seats without confirmed nominees that Trump could try to fill upon taking office on 20 January. But two vacancies were contingent upon two Democrat-appointed judges following through on their plans to leave active service.Those judges included Wynn, 70, who in January announced plans to take senior status contingent upon a successor being confirmed. On Friday, he told Biden he had changed his mind.“I apologize for any inconvenience I may have caused,” Wynn wrote.The Article III Project, a group run by Trump ally Mike Davis, late Friday announced it had meanwhile filed judicial misconduct complaints against the two trial court judges who likewise rescinded retirement plans post-election.Those judges are the US district judge Max Cogburn in North Carolina and the US district judge Algenon Marbley in Ohio. Neither responded to requests for comment. More

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump names Truth Social head as chair of intelligence advisory board

      by

      Donald Trump on Saturday named ally Devin Nunes, a former US lawmaker who now runs Trump’s Truth Social social media platform, to serve as chair of the president’s intelligence advisory board.Nunes, a longtime Trump defender who led the US House of Representatives intelligence committee during part of Trump’s first White House term, will remain Truth Social CEO while serving on the advisory panel, Trump said in a post on the platform.As committee chair, Nunes alleged that the FBI had conspired against Trump during its investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential elections in which Trump defeated Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.“Devin will draw on his experience as former Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and his key role in exposing the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, to provide me with independent assessments of the effectiveness and propriety of the U.S. Intelligence Community’s activities,” Trump wrote.The president’s intelligence advisory board is a White House panel that offers the president independent assessments of intelligence agencies’ effectiveness and planning.Trump on Saturday also named IBM executive and former US Department of Homeland Security official Troy Edgar to serve as the department’s deputy secretary, and businessman Bill White to serve as the US ambassador to Belgium.Edgar was Trump’s former chief financial officer and associate deputy undersecretary of management for homeland security. White is the former CEO of the Intrepid Museum in New York City, the current CEO of the Constellations Group and a longtime friend of TrumpIn a post on Truth Social, Trump said Edgar was “previously the Mayor of Los Alamitos, California, where he helped me lead the City and County revolt against Sanctuary Cities in 2018”. More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump eyes privatizing United States Postal Service during second term

      by

      Donald Trump in recent weeks has expressed a keen interest in privatizing the US Postal Service (USPS) because of its financial losses, the Washington Post reported on Saturday, citing three people with knowledge of the matter.Trump, who begins his second US presidency on 20 January, has discussed his desire to privatize the USPS with Howard Lutnick, his pick for commerce secretary, at his Mar-a-Lago home, the report said.As the Post noted, the move could disrupt consumer shipping and business supply chains while pushing hundreds of thousands of federal workers out of government.Nonetheless, Trump gathered a group of officials advising him on his transition back to the White House and asked them for their views on privatizing the agency. Informed of its annual financial losses, Trump said the USPS should not be subsidized by the government, according to the people who spoke with the Post on the condition of anonymity so that they could speak frankly about private conversations.Trump’s specific plans for possibly overhauling the USPS and privatizing it were not immediately clear. But he feuded with the agency during his first presidency, seeking to compel it to turn over key functions – including labor relations, managing relationships with its largest clients, rate-setting and personnel matters – to the federal treasury department.Meanwhile, before his defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 election after his first presidency, Trump argued that the USPS was incapable of facilitating mail-in voting because he was blocking the agency from accessing emergency funding. Ultimately, as the Post noted, the USPS delivered nearly 98% of voters’ ballots to election officials within three days despite the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.The USPS is older than the US itself, having been founded in 1775. It became a financially self-sustaining agency in 1970 and is one of the most well-liked federal agencies, according to a 2024 Pew Research Center study cited by the Post.In the fiscal year ending 30 September, the USPS lost $9.5bn after modernizing facilities and equipment did little to offset declines in mail volume as well as a parcel shipping business that was slower than anticipated, according to the Post’s reporting. The postal service’s annual financial report disclosed nearly $80bn in liabilities.Reuters contributed reporting More