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      ‘A new political era’: fresh Democratic faces seek office to prevent their party from ‘sleepwalking into dystopia’

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      Earlier this year, Liam Elkind seized an opportunity to ask his longtime congressman, Jerry Nadler, what everyday New Yorkers like himself could do to help Democrats stand up to Donald Trump. Nadler’s response, according to Elkind, was to “donate to the DCCC” – the group that helps House Democrats keep their seats. Deeply unsatisfied, the 26-year-old decided to run for office against the 17-term incumbent.In Georgia, Everton Blair also sought answers from his long-serving congressman, David Scott, at a panel event earlier this year. When Blair asked him about Democrats’ legislative strategy, the 80-year-old lawmaker was dismissive. “I don’t know who sent y’all,” he said. Blair, 34, is now making a bid for Scott’s seat.Jake Rakov began to worry when he noticed his former boss, 70-year-old California congressman Brad Sherman, repeating the same anti-Trump talking points he’d deployed eight years prior. To Rakov, 37, it was a sign that the Democratic party’s ageing establishment “wasn’t going to learn”. He is now one of two millennial-aged Jakes challenging Sherman.View image in fullscreenA year after Joe Biden’s age and fitness for office emerged as a major liability in the 2024 presidential election, followed by Trump’s return to power , demand for generational change has reached a fever pitch. A wave of younger, social-media savvy candidates, frustrated by what they see as an ossifying, out-of-touch Democratic establishment, is launching primary challenges against some of their party’s most senior incumbents.The insurgents charge that party elders have failed to act with urgency as Trump targets Democratic cities, voters and values, and they say they’re no longer willing to wait their turn.“If what happened last year was not a wake up call for the Democratic party that we need to do things differently and that we need to let some new voices in, then we should all be deeply worried about the future of the Democratic party,” said Luke Bronin, a 46-year-old who is running against Connecticut congressman John Larson, 77.The 119th Congress is the third oldest in US history, and three members – all Democrats – have died in office this year. More than a dozen House Democrats who will be 70 or older by election day 2026 are facing challengers, according to an analysis by Axios, though not all have said whether they plan to seek re-election.But the push to replace longtime incumbents isn’t just about age, says Saikat Chakrabarti, 39, a former chief of staff to New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who is running for the San Francisco congressional seat long held by the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi.They say it’s about energy, vision and, crucially, how hard they’re willing to fight – which could explain why octogenarian brawlers like Maxine Waters haven’t faced calls to step aside while some relatively younger members, such as 50-year-old André Carson, have drawn challengers.“It’s being a part of a system for so long you just don’t actually think it’s your job to renew it,” Chakrabarti said.View image in fullscreenPelosi, 85, who stepped down from her leadership position to make room for a new generation in 2022, has not yet said whether she plans to seek re-election. ​A spokesperson for Pelosi declined to comment.While their campaigns are ​​textured by local​ issues and cultural references – Elkind touts his go-to bagel order (un-toasted everything with whitefish salad) and Chakrabarti pitches a publicly owned utility for San Francisco​ – their broader ​messages chime: Democratic elders have grown complacent, clinging to a broken status quo​ – with devastating consequences.Democrats’ popularity has cratered to record lows and the party has bled voters – especially young people, first-timers, and Black and Latino Americans.But the incumbents are pushing back. They argue their years of experience have delivered tangible results. “These guys would start off with zero seniority, just when the district needs the most help,” Sherman, the California congressman, said in an interview. He dismissed claims he’s been timid on Trump, noting he introduced articles of impeachment against him in 2017 and, earlier this year, confronted the president at an in-person briefing on the Palisades fire that devastated parts of his district.“The key to fighting Donald Trump is beating him in the 2026 election,” Sherman said. “If we don’t take the House back in 2026 we may not have elections in 2028.”Many challengers align politically with the incumbents they’re trying to unseat – several have voted for their opponent in the past. They argue the intraparty divide is not left-versus-center but a clash between “the fighters and the folders” – those who see the Trump era as a troubling but passing chapter and those who see it as a constitutional emergency that will determine the survival of American democracy.The younger candidates say the party needs to “meet voters where they are” – on social media, on podcasts, at red county diners and rambunctious town halls. They want leaders who can speak plainly about the ways the Trump administration is hurting working-class Americans – and how Democrats would help.But they also say it can’t only be about Trump. The party needs a full-scale reimagining of what Democrats stand for and how they communicate that to voters – a type of messaging they’ve struggled to articulate in the Trump era.Democrats haven’t always embraced primaries. They can be costly and time-consuming, and create headaches for general election races. But in the midst of deep party introspection and generational friction, more are embracing the contests as a way forward.Groups such as Leaders We Deserve, led by former Democratic national committee vice-chair David Hogg, are actively backing young candidates challenging “asleep-at-the-wheel” incumbents. The effort sparked an internal firestorm and ultimately led Hogg to step down from his role at the DNC.Republicans are watching the primary battles unfold with glee. “Democrats are engaged in a battle between the socialists and the party dinosaurs – and it’s only getting uglier,” Mike Marinella, spokesperson for the national Republican congressional committee, said.Next year’s elections will test Democrats’ desire for generational change but it may not resolve their identity crisis. Some districts will elevate centrist candidates, while others might embrace a democratic socialist. Some crave an anti-establishment streak, ideology aside.And some veteran lawmakers have already chosen to relinquish power. In May, Democratic congresswoman Jan Schakowsky announced that her 14th term representing Illinois’s ninth district would be her last, saying in a statement: “It is now time for me to pass the baton.” Before she made the decision public, Kat Abughazaleh, a 26-year-old progressive political influencer, had already launched a campaign for the seat, asking Democrats: “What if we didn’t suck?”Primed for Congress, but not waiting for an openingAmong the contenders in Democratic primaries are local and state political leaders for whom Congress makes sense as a next logical step. In years past, they might have opted to wait for a retirement and then seek an endorsement from the outgoing congressman. Not any more.View image in fullscreenAt 46, Luke Bronin has a lengthy résumé of service: a lawyer, former Obama administration official, navy reserve intelligence officer and, most recently, mayor of Hartford, Connecticut. But he stresses that he’d also bring “an outsider’s commitment to making some bigger changes”.Bronin has spoken with Larson, the longtime incumbent in Connecticut’s first district, including an hourlong conversation in recent months. What was missing, he said, was any recognition that the job has fundamentally changed since Larson arrived in Washington in 1999.“I didn’t hear a sense of urgency that we need to hear from every single member of Congress,” Bronin said.Bronin thinks Democrats need to be “relentless and clear” about the ways Trump is making life worse for Americans, and “equally relentless and clear” about the Democratic party’s vision for improving their daily lives. He wants to see “an intense focus on issues like housing and healthcare and childcare”, and for Democrats to spread these messages in friendly and unfriendly forums.In a statement, the Larson campaign said the district needs a “proven fighter” to protect against Trump’s attacks on social security and Medicare.“That’s Congressman Larson. That’s why he’s backed by progressive groups, labor, and working people alike,” the campaign said. “What they don’t need is someone pretending to be a new voice who’s actually been in politics [for] decades that’s always been more focused on running for higher office than delivering results.”Chakrabarti, who has spend much of his political career working to elect progressives to Congress, said he began to seriously consider a run himself after listening to a New York Times podcast interview with Pelosi just days after the November election. He had expected Democrats’ crushing defeat to trigger a reckoning – but instead heard a defense of the status quo.It confirmed for Chakrabarti what he had long feared: the Democratic party was “sort of sleepwalking into this dystopia”.But progressives like Chakrabarti take hope from the success of state assemblyman Zohran Mamdani in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary this summer.“When I look at the moment today, the appetite for change, it completely dwarfs what I saw in 2018,” Chakrabarti said, referring to the election year in which Ocasio-Cortez toppled one of the most senior House Democrats as a political unknown.“We’re at the point of a dawn of a new political era.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe crowded primariesSeveral candidates have filed to run in Georgia’s 13th district, a solidly blue area in the Atlanta suburbs, a sign of the vulnerabilities among older members and the enthusiasm to replace them. Scott, who has served in Congress since 2003, has not yet announced whether he will run again. Questions over his health and fitness for office have become public fodder – he lambasted a photographer for taking a photo of him in a wheelchair last year.Some are younger than the average age in Congress (58.9); all are younger than Scott, 80. One contender, state senator Emanuel Jones, is 66. In 2024, Scott fended off a crowded field of primary challengers to keep his seat.Jasmine Clark, 42, was first elected to the state house in Georgia in 2018. She has a PhD in microbiology, an expertise that has served her well in analyzing bills and communicating during the pandemic. If elected, would be the first woman with a science PhD in Congress.View image in fullscreenShe wants the district to have a fighter who can call out the rampant misinformation and disinformation coming out of the Trump administration. The Atlanta area is feeling the consequences of this information environment, she said, pointing to a shooting earlier this month at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by a man alleged to be fixated on the Covid-19 vaccine.“When you have the same people in the same place for a really long time, that stagnation leads to stagnation of ideas as well,” she said. “There should be a healthy turnover, where you still have institutional knowledge while ushering in new ideas. But for whatever reason, we don’t really see that in Congress.”View image in fullscreenEverton Blair, who served on the Gwinnett county board of education, is touting his deep ties to the district where he was born and raised. He sees a lot of opportunities left on the table because of inactive representation.“There’s a general sense of despondency and just apathy right now that we address and we combat by bringing those very voices and people back into the conversation and making sure that they feel represented well,” Blair said.“The leaders who got us into this mess are not the leaders who can get us out of it,” he added.Scott did not respond to a request for comment.In California, Jake Rakov, who served as a deputy communications director for Brad Sherman, the 15-term incumbent he’s challenging, is making a similar case. He hasn’t spoken to his old boss in years, but he has been talking to the congressman’s constituents. Many, he said, are shocked that any member – let alone their own – has been in Congress for nearly 30 years.“We’ve got people in office who’ve been there since the 1990s and are still legislating like it’s the 1990s,” he said, adding: “It is so antithetical to our idea of a representative democracy that it just is immediately offensive to people when they hear about it.”Sherman has also drawn a challenge from Jake Levine, a veteran of the Biden and Obama administrations whose mother lost her home in the January fires. “It’s time for something new,” Levine says in his campaign launch video.Sherman argued that calls for generational change aren’t new. Estimating that he’s taken about 5,000 votes in Congress over the past decade, the overwhelming majority of which his challengers would agree with, Sherman asked: “If you did something right 5,000 times in a row – 100% of the time – is there any chance that you should get fired?”The upstartsUpstart candidates traditionally face steeper challenges against incumbents, but, with the help of slick online content, they’re finding new ways to gain traction. In an Arizona special election earlier this year, Deja Foxx, a 25-year-old influencer and activist, came in a distant second behind a longtime Democratic official whose father held the seat until his death – but she still managed to win more than 22% of votes.Katie Bansil, a 34-year-old political newcomer who works in finance, is challenging congressman Frank Pallone, 73, in New Jersey’s sixth congressional district over his support for Israel’s war in Gaza. Since launching her campaign, Bansil, who immigrated to the US from the Philippines and grew up in New Jersey, says she’s seen a growing desire for new leadership.View image in fullscreen“I started calling him ‘the asterisk’, because a lot of people have told me, ‘Oh, I just vote for the guy that is labeled as the incumbent,’” she said. “But I think people are actually waking up to the truth about what’s going on.”A spokesperson for Pallone said the congressman has “proven himself to be an effective champion of progressive causes”.“With daily assaults from the Trump administration on our democracy and institutions, Pallone will continue to use every tool to stop the Republican authoritarian agenda of stealing from the poor to give to the rich,” the spokesperson said.Liam Elkind, the challenger to Jerry Nadler, announced his campaign with a splashy video that opened with dirt being shoveled into a grave and his voiceover: “The Democratic party is dying.”“Our system often tells people to wait their turn,” Elkind said. “And look where we are.”A Rhodes scholar, Elkind founded the non-profit food delivery service Invisible Hands during the pandemic. He says that work – along with own experiences as a young person living in one of the most expensive cities in the world – would shape his approach to the job.Like many his age, Elkind doesn’t have health insurance. When he recently went to get a vaccine and was told it would cost $500, “I turned my ass around,” he quipped. “But look, that’s the day-to-day lived reality of a whole lot of people in this country.”View image in fullscreenA spokesperson for Nadler emphasized the congressman’s political strength, noting that he won his most recent election with 80% of the vote.“But this is the great thing about America, it’s a democracy – hopefully still – and anybody can run,” Robert Gottheim, the spokesperson, said, adding that Nadler would “put his over-30-year record of accomplishments against anyone including someone who appears to have no record of accomplishment to speak of”.Elkind said he voted for Nadler and respected his long record as a progressive voice for New York. But, he argued, the moment demands new energy and a break from the past.“The house is on fire, and we need leaders who can meet this moment,” he said. “We deserve to know that the next time a child is kidnapped off of our streets, that our congressman will be on that street in the next hour with a megaphone demanding that child’s release and then will travel to whatever foreign gulag the president has decided to stash that kid in.” More

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      South Park has become the most important TV show of the Trump 2.0 era | Jesse Hassenger

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      I’ll admit it: I’m more of a Simpsons guy than a South Park guy. Nothing really against those South Park guys – I’ve caught plenty of episodes over its astonishing near-30-year run, and loved the 1999 big-screen movie. But while I haven’t always maintained clockwork viewership of The Simpsons, either, those characters have proved durable enough to revive my interest in episodes old and new. South Park has a thinner bench by comparison, and as the show itself astutely pointed out years ago, it’s difficult for a satirically minded animated sitcom to explore ground that The Simpsons hasn’t covered already. South Park’s political bent, too, has often seemed less varied than the warmer (but still sometimes cutting) social ribbing of Matt Groening’s signature show. It’s a fine line between omnidirectional satire and libertarian crankiness.And yet the 27th season of South Park has accomplished something vanishingly few of its peers, whether in animation or topical comedy, have been able to do: getting laughs taking shots at the second Trump administration. It’s not that the White House is beyond reproach. Quite the opposite problem, much-documented: the Donald Trump cabal is so outsized in its stupidity and cruelty that it’s hard to distend it into a “funny” caricature, even a bleak one. In Trump’s second term, it has only gotten bleaker; jokes that were worn out by the end of 2020 are getting retold with a nasty vengeance, and the bar for cathartic laughter has been raised considerably.For a comedy fan, this winds up translating to an aversion. The occasional shots taken by The Simpsons somehow don’t land as squarely as they did when aimed at presidents I liked much, much more. I watch Saturday Night Live every week, and mostly dread James Austin Johnson’s accurate but ultimately defanged impression. (Some weeks, Johnson himself seems bummed out to be doing it.) I respect the hell out of Stephen Colbert, but I have never sought out his Trump commentary; I don’t need any more clapter – the reaction encouraged by comedy that wants your approval more than your laughter – in my life. South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone seemed to agree; Parker’s 2017 announcement that they’d grown bored of taking shots at Trump – then barely into his first presidential term – was one of the show’s many controversies over the years.So how is it that South Park’s revived anti-Trump blows this season have managed to land? A big part of it is precisely Stone and Parker’s allergy to clapter and the grandstanding that inspires it. They obviously resent anything they read as putting on airs and sometimes in the past, this came across as its own form of preachiness, with “everybody chill”-style speeches at an episode’s end that would secretly sound just as prescriptive as the self-righteousness they wanted to send up. With their most recent Trump parody, though, there isn’t much moralizing – just gratifyingly mean caricatures of deserving figures such as Trump, JD Vance and homeland security secretary Kristi Noem. Some (not all) of their past roastings have verged on point-and-laugh bullying; here are targets worthy of that derision.Some of this derision speaks through the language of South Park itself. Trump isn’t vocally or visually imitated; he’s depicted in a series of repurposed photos, with the same voice and animation technique that Parker and Stone used to bring Saddam Hussein to life in the South Park movie. He’s also given the same sexual partner: a muscled-up and put-upon version of Satan, who has found himself in another toxic relationship. Calling Trump a wannabe dictator doesn’t break new ground, but there’s something satisfying in Stone and Parker using their personal toolkit to draw a line between Trump and Hussein; if they thought it was a histrionic comparison, they’d be making fun of it instead of making it. Similarly, there’s real spite animating the depiction of Noem as a dog-murdering zealot whose glamorous face needs to be repeatedly lacquered and reaffixed to her head as she commands an army of Immigration and Customs Enforcement thugs.Not all of the season’s satire has involved making real-life figures regulars on the show. Because South Park’s ensemble has rarely felt as vast or believably developed as Springfield of The Simpsons (or even Arlen on King of the Hill), it’s also flexible enough to turn Randy, Stan’s desperately trend-following dad, into a ketamine-microdosing, tech-bro moron addicted to the soothing, empty reassurances of ChatGPT – the focus of the most recent episode, to the point where most of the core child cast doesn’t appear. Surprisingly, this season has deployed forever favorite Cartman more sparingly so far, again getting self-referential in the season’s second episode, where the id-driven and arguably evil little kid is incensed to find out that podcasters have stolen his “shtick” – his pervasive hatefulness, repackaged as a challenge to debate where the aggressor is always the self-appointed winner. Ascribing this “master debater” title to Cartman (alongside a fellow kid serving as an obvious Charlie Kirk/Ben Shapiro stand-in) somehow manages to make this ridiculous behavior funny in its petty smallness without glorifying it.A South Park diehard would probably describe this praise as a fair-weather fan only enjoying the show when it goes after the “right” targets. Maybe that’s true, but it’s also a lot easier to take some joy in savaging Vance as a meme-faced version of a Fantasy Island sidekick than, say, accusing George Lucas and Steven Spielberg of cultural rape. It’s probably wishful thinking to wonder if Parker and Stone might actually move the needle of the perception on tech bros, debate-me podcasters and Trump-world ghouls, especially among the dude demo. But it’s also just a blessed change of pace to see say-anything, first-amendment types finding a fresher target than the wokeness bogeyman. While countless standups continue to whine about being silenced, Parker and Stone seem highly aware of their rarified position (and, as Paramount contractors, also aware of what actual political-corporate interference looks like). In a world where Trump’s actual political opponents seem terrified to actually fight him, some well-deserved, point-and-laugh meanness has become a surprising novelty. More

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      Texas senate gives final approval to redrawn congressional map that heavily favours Republicans

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      The Texas senate has given final approval to a redrawn congressional map that gives Republicans a chance to pick up as many as five congressional seats, fulfilling a brazen political request from Donald Trump to shore up the GOP’s standing before next year’s midterm elections.It will now be sent to governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, who is expected to quickly sign it into law, however Democrats have vowed to challenge it in court. The Texas house of representatives approved the map on Wednesday on an 88-52 party-line vote, before the senate approved it early on Saturday.The effort by Trump and Texas’ Republican-majority Legislature prompted state Democrats to hold a two-week walkout and kicked off a wave of redistricting efforts across the country.Democrats had prepared for a final show of resistance, with plans to push the senate vote into the early morning hours in a last-ditch attempt to delay passage.Senator Carol Alvarado revealed her filibuster plans to delay its final passage, in a post on social media. “Republicans think they can walk all over us. Today I’m going to kick back,” Alvarado’s post read. “I’ve submitted my intention to filibuster the new congressional maps. Going to be a long night.”But the planned filibuster was thwarted by a procedural motion by Republicans. It now heads to the governor for final approval.Alvarado’s delay tactics were the latest chapter in a weeks-long showdown that has roiled the Texas Legislature, marked by a Democratic walkout and threats of arrest from Republicans.Democrats had already delayed the bill’s passage during hours of debate, pressing senator Phil King, the measure’s sponsor, on the proposal’s legality, with many alleging that the redrawn districts violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting voters’ influence based on race – an accusation King vehemently denied.“I had two goals in mind: that all maps would be legal and would be better for Republican congressional candidates in Texas,” said King, a Republican.“There is extreme risk the Republican majority will be lost” in the US House if the map does not pass, King said.The vote comes after California Democrats set a special election for November in which they will ask voters to approve a new congressional map in their state. That map would add up to five seats for Democrats, a move designed to offset the new map in Texas. California governor Gavin Newsom launched that effort after Texas began its push to redraw its maps.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionRepublicans currently hold 25 of Texas’s 38 congressional districts. Under the redrawn map, they would be favored in 30 districts. Abbott called a special session last month to draw new maps after Trump requested that he do so.The new map eliminates Democratic-held districts in Austin, Houston and the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and replaces them with Republican ones. It also tweaks the lines of two districts currently held by Democrats in south Texas to make them more friendly to Republicans. Swift lawsuits are expected challenging the new districts under the Voting Rights Act amid allegations the new lines make it harder for voters of color to elect their preferred candidates.Lawmakers passed the maps after Democrats in the Texas house of representatives left the state for two weeks, denying Republicans the necessary quorum to conduct legislative business. The Democrats returned to the state on Monday after California Democrats began moving ahead with a plan to redraw their state’s congressional map.Even after Democrats returned to Austin, protests continued at the state capitol this week as Republicans pushed the new map through. The efforts were galvanized by Nicole Collier, a Democratic state representative from Fort Worth who refused to sign a “permission slip” necessary to leave the house floor. Collier refused and remained confined to the house floor and her office until Wednesday.The Texas push set off an unusual mid-decade redistricting battle before next year’s midterm elections, in which Republicans are expected to lose seats in the US House. Republicans currently have a three-seat majority and the president’s party typically performs poorly in a midterm election. Republicans are also expected to redraw the maps in Florida, Ohio, Missouri and potentially Indiana.With the Associated Press More

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      Trump news at a glance: president denies he was briefed about raid on aide-turned-critic John Bolton’s home

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      Donald Trump has said he did not know a raid by the FBI on the home of his former adviser turned critic, John Bolton, was planned and that he expected to be briefed by the justice department on it.“I tell the group I don’t want to know, but just you have to do what you have to do. I don’t want to know about it,” Trump said, adding “I’m not a fan of John Bolton. He’s a real sort of a lowlife. He’s not a smart guy. But he could be very unpatriotic. I’m going to find out.”JD Vance denied the raid was politically motivated. “We don’t think that we should throw people – even if they disagree with us politically, maybe especially if they disagree with us politically – you shouldn’t throw people willy-nilly in prison,” the vice-president told NBC. “You should let the law drive these determinations, and that’s what we’re doing.”Here are the key Trump administration news stories of the day:FBI raids home of Trump’s ex-national security adviserThe FBI raided Bolton’s home on Friday morning.The federal search of Bolton’s house in the Washington DC area was as part of an investigation involving the handling of classified documents, the Associated Press reported, citing a person familiar with the matter. A government source confirmed the raid to the Guardian, but did not disclose further details.Read the full storyDoJ releases Ghislaine Maxwell interview transcriptsThe US Department of Justice has released the transcript and audio recording of an interview conducted by Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, with the convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.Read the full storyTrump targets Chicago and New York as Hegseth orders weapons for DC troopsDonald Trump has threatened to take his federal crackdown on crime and city cleanliness to New York and Chicago, as the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, ordered that national guard troops patrolling the streets of Washington DC under federal control will now be armed.Read the full storyHegseth fires top US general after Iran assessment angers TrumpPete Hegseth has fired a general whose agency’s initial intelligence assessment of damage to Iranian nuclear sites from US strikes angered Donald Trump, according to two people familiar with the decision and a White House official.Read the full storyUS man wrongly deported released to await trialKilmar Ábrego García has been freed from criminal custody in Tennessee so he can rejoin his family in Maryland while awaiting trial on human smuggling charges, after a court ordered his release.Read the full storyCanada to drop counter-tariffs on some US goods Canada will drop its counter-tariffs on some American goods in the coming days, Mark Carney has said, as the country’s prime minister looks to end a protracted trade war with the US.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      The US government has taken an unprecedented 10% stake in Intel under a deal with the struggling chipmaker and is planning more such moves, according to Donald Trump and the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, in the latest extraordinary intervention by the White House in corporate America.

      Current and former Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) officials are concerned over a new agency rule requiring disaster victims to have an email address in order to apply for federal aid.

      The Trump administration has unilaterally stripped hundreds of thousands of federal workers of their union contracts after a federal appeals court overruled an injunction which halted the plans.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 21 August 2025. More

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      Ghislaine Maxwell transcripts: Epstein associate says she ‘never’ saw Trump receive a massage – live

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      The transcripts are more than 300 pages, but here it goes …

      Blanche said, on record, that their conversation wasn’t “promising to do anything” for Maxwell. But that anything she said couldn’t be used against her, unless she provided false statements or there was a retrial in her case.

      According to Maxwell, Epstein didn’t have any video or photographic evidence of any high-profile individuals committing sexual offences. And to that point, Maxwell said she didn’t hear or witness any instances of Epstein blackmailing powerful people.

      Maxwell recruited a number of masseuses for Epstein but “never checked their age or credentials”. She added that, throughout her time with Epstein, she never heard any examples of “sexually inappropriate contact” between Epstein’s guests and in-house masseuses.

      Despite her claims that Epstein didn’t extort anyone, Maxwell does not believe that Epstein died by suicide. She chalked that up to “mismanagement” at the bureau of prisons.

      In the interview Maxwell said she does believe that Epstein “did a lot of, not all, but some of what he’s accused of”. But she maintains that “he became that man over a period of time”.

      Maxwell said that she “never” saw Donald Trump receive a massage. She also said that she “never witnessed the president in any inappropriate setting in any way,” adding that he was “a gentleman in all respects” whenever she saw the president.

      Maxwell also didn’t recall former president Bill Clinton receiving a massage while travelling with Epstein.

      One notable point is that Maxwell denied ever recruiting masseuses from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club. “I’ve never recruited a masseuse from Mar-a-Lago for that, as far as I remember. I can’t ever recollect doing that,” she told Todd Blanche. A reminder that Trump claimed his falling out with Jeffrey Epstein stemmed from the convicted sex offender’s efforts to hire workers away from Trump’s Florida club.

      Maxwell did not remember whether Trump submitted a letter for Epstein’s 50th birthday album, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. She also couldn’t remember asking Trump to contribute.
      Donald Trump announced that he named Sergio Gor to be the next US ambassador to India and special envoy for South and Central Asian affairs, according to a post on Truth Social.Gor is currently the director of the White House presidential personnel office, and is slated to remain in that position until his confirmation.“For the most populous Region in the World, it is important that I have someone I can fully trust to deliver on my Agenda and help us, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN,” Trump wrote on Friday.Carol Alvarado, a Texas Democratic senator from Houston, says she intends to filibuster tonight in the Texas senate to delay Republicans from passing a redrawn congressional map.“Republicans think they can walk all over us. Today I’m going to kick back.I’ve submitted my intention to filibuster the new congressional maps. Going to be a long night,” she wrote in a post on X, accompanied by a picture of sneakers.Democrats have gone back and forth with Phil King, the bill’s GOP sponsor, since this morning, trying to get him to admit that he considered race in drawing the maps.The local television station KVUE has more on the rules Alvarado will have to follow as she filibusters the new congressional map.Alvarado will not be able to eat or drink and must stand at her desk the whole time without breaks for the bathroom, the outlet reported.The national guard personnel deployed on the streets of Washington DC will now be armed, a defense official confirmed to The Guardian.Defense secretary Pete Hegseth authorized the nearly 2,000 of the national guard members to carry “service-issued weapons,” the official said.“The Interim Commanding General of the D.C. National Guard retains the authority to make any necessary force posture adjustments in coordination with the D.C. Metropolitan Police and Federal law enforcement partners,” said the defense official.The Pentagon and the US army had said last week that troops would not carry weapons.In a Truth Social post, President Donald Trump announced that his administration is undergoing a “major tariff investigation” into imported furniture and is expected to release its findings within 50 days.Trump said the US will impose tariffs (at a rate still to be determined) on foreign-made furniture, in efforts to revive the industry in states including North Carolina, South Carolina, and Michigan.Defense secretary Pete Hegseth fired ​​Lt Gen Jeffrey A Kruse​, the military’s top intelligence officer. The Washington Post first reported the story.Kruse, who served as Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) director, is the second senior Air Force general in a week to be forced out or retire unexpectedly. On Monday, Air Force chief of staff Gen David Allvin announced he was stepping down after just two years in the role, a position typically held for four years.A spokesperson for the DIA told CBS News that deputy director Christine Bordine will assume the role of acting director “effective immediately.”“The firing of yet another senior national security official underscores the Trump administration’s dangerous habit of treating intelligence as a loyalty test rather than a safeguard for our country,” said senator Mark Warner, vice chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, in a statement.The firing comes a few months after details of the agency’s preliminary assessment of damage to Iranian nuclear sites from US strikes leaked to the media. It found that Iran’s nuclear program has been set back only a few months by the US strikes, contradicting assertions from Trump and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.The transcripts are more than 300 pages, but here it goes …

      Blanche said, on record, that their conversation wasn’t “promising to do anything” for Maxwell. But that anything she said couldn’t be used against her, unless she provided false statements or there was a retrial in her case.

      According to Maxwell, Epstein didn’t have any video or photographic evidence of any high-profile individuals committing sexual offences. And to that point, Maxwell said she didn’t hear or witness any instances of Epstein blackmailing powerful people.

      Maxwell recruited a number of masseuses for Epstein but “never checked their age or credentials”. She added that, throughout her time with Epstein, she never heard any examples of “sexually inappropriate contact” between Epstein’s guests and in-house masseuses.

      Despite her claims that Epstein didn’t extort anyone, Maxwell does not believe that Epstein died by suicide. She chalked that up to “mismanagement” at the bureau of prisons.

      In the interview Maxwell said she does believe that Epstein “did a lot of, not all, but some of what he’s accused of”. But she maintains that “he became that man over a period of time”.

      Maxwell said that she “never” saw Donald Trump receive a massage. She also said that she “never witnessed the president in any inappropriate setting in any way,” adding that he was “a gentleman in all respects” whenever she saw the president.

      Maxwell also didn’t recall former president Bill Clinton receiving a massage while travelling with Epstein.

      One notable point is that Maxwell denied ever recruiting masseuses from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club. “I’ve never recruited a masseuse from Mar-a-Lago for that, as far as I remember. I can’t ever recollect doing that,” she told Todd Blanche. A reminder that Trump claimed his falling out with Jeffrey Epstein stemmed from the convicted sex offender’s efforts to hire workers away from Trump’s Florida club.

      Maxwell did not remember whether Trump submitted a letter for Epstein’s 50th birthday album, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. She also couldn’t remember asking Trump to contribute.
      In Ghislaine Maxwell’s first interview with deputy attorney general Todd Blanche, on 24 July, she said that she “may have met” Donald Trump in 1990, before meeting Jeffrey Epstein.Maxwell went on to describe the relationship between the president and Epstein as “friendly”, although she didn’t know how the two men met or how they became friends.She added that she “never” saw the president receive a massage:
      I actually never saw the president in any type of massage setting. I never witnessed the president in any inappropriate setting in any way. The president was never inappropriate with anybody. In the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects.
      Maxwell also contested Trump’s claims she recruited masseuses from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. “I’ve never recruited a masseuse from Mar-a-Lago for that, as far as I remember. I can’t ever recollect doing that,” she said in the interview with Blanche.A reminder that the president said in July that his falling out with Jeffrey Epstein stemmed from the convicted sex offender’s efforts to hire workers away from Trump’s Florida club. “People were taken out of the spa, hired by him, in other words, gone,” the president said.The Department of Justice has released the transcripts and audio recordings of the interviews between Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend of child sex-offender Jefrrey Epstein, and the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche.The interviews between Blanche and Maxwell took place on 24 and 25 July 2025, with her legal representatives present. Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence for child sex trafficking.The justice department will also send the first tranche of records from the Jeffrey Epstein investigation to the House oversight committee, after receiving a subpoena for the files. Earlier this week, the committee chair, Representative James Comer, a Republican, said that his aim is to make the files public – while protecting the safety and identities of the victims.A court has ordered the release of Kilmar Ábrego García from criminal custody in Tennessee.On Friday, magistrate judge Barbara Holmes issued an order allowing the Maryland father of two to leave custody for the first time since his return to the US in June, after his wrongful deportation to El Salvador earlier this year.The 30-year-old was initially wrongfully deported by federal immigration officials in March. According to the Trump administration, Ábrego was affiliated with the MS-13 gang, a claim Ábrego and his family vehemently deny.During his detention at El Salvador’s so-called Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), Ábrego was physically and psychologically tortured, according to court documents filed by his lawyers in July.Following Ábrego’s wrongful deportation, the Trump administration faced widespread pressure to return him back to the US, including from a supreme court order that directed federal officials to “facilitate” his return.In June, the Trump administration returned Ábrego from El Salvador, only to hit him with a slew of human smuggling charges, which his lawyers have rejected as “preposterous”. His criminal trial is expected to begin in January.An update from the Texas senate, where Molly Cook, a Democratic lawmaker from Houston, is now questioning Phil King about the new Texas map.Her line of questioning appears designed to highlight that the senator is not completely blind to race in Texas. She points out that he’s likely done polling in his own races that breaks down results by race and has analysed other statewide racial data as part of his job as a legislator.“I have not drilled into racial data with regard to redistricting,” King says.When asked about the ongoing discussions about a possible bilateral meeting between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president said it will be “interesting to see” whether that goes ahead.Earlier he explained his decision to let the two leaders have a meeting together: “I could have been at the meeting, but a lot of people think that nothing’s going to come out of that meeting.”Trump went on to say that he’ll know “one way or the other” about his next steps in two weeks. “It’s going to be a very important decision. And that’s whether or not it’s massive sanctions or massive tariffs, or both, or do we do nothing and say ‘it’s your fight,’” he said.Earlier the president said he was “not happy” when asked about a US factory being hit during a Russian strike in Ukraine.The president just confirmed that he has spoken with the House speaker, Mike Johnson, and the Senate majority leader, John Thune, about a plan to raise $2bn from Congress to help fund his ‘beautification’ plans for DC.“I think it’s going to be very easy to get it’s going to be not a lot of money. I wouldn’t even know where to spend the number that you mentioned, but it’s going to be money to beautify the city,” he said in response to a reporter’s question in the Oval Office.“I’m not a fan of John Bolton. I thought it was a sleazebag, actually, and he suffers major Trump derangement syndrome,” the president said, speaking about the raid on his former national security adviser’s home.Trump repeated that he tries to “stay out of that stuff”, and that when it came to the search of Bolton’s home, he “purposefully” didn’t want to get involved. “I saw that just like everybody else,” he added.The president then spent time talking about how he too was subjected to a raid, referring to the FBI search of the his Mar-a-Lago estate in 2022 during an investigation into the handling of presidential and classified documents.“They went through everything you can imagine,” Trump said. More

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      Federal Reserve set to cut interest rates – but still Trump won’t be happy

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      Stocks soared on Friday following the strongest signal yet that US the Federal Reserve is gearing up to start cutting interest rates again this fall. But how long can this celebration last?While Wall Street cheered the biggest headline from the speech by the Fed chair, Jerome Powell, at the annual Jackson Hole symposium in Wyoming, Powell also delivered a reality check on where interest rates could settle in the longer term.“We cannot say for certain where rates will settle out over the longer run, but their neutral level may now be higher than during the 2010s,” said Powell.In other words: even if the Fed does start cutting interest rates again this year, they may not fall back to their pre-pandemic levels. It’s a signal, despite the short-term optimism on potential rate cuts, that the Fed’s long-term outlook is more unstable.“Markets might be ahead of their skis on how aggressive the Fed is going to be in reducing interest rates, because the neutral rate might be higher than some believe,” Ryan Sweet, an economist at Oxford Economics, said.Higher rates means borrowing money for loans, such as mortgages, will be more expensive. The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate was just under 3% in 2021, when interest rates were near zero.Now the average mortgage rate is closer to 6.7%. Paired with home prices at near-record highs, elevated mortgages mean many Americans will continue to struggle to purchase a home.Although Trump has been pushing the Fed for months to decrease rates to 1%, claiming that Powell is “hurting the housing industry very badly”, it seems unlikely that rates will return to such a level any time soon.The Fed is trying to achieve a Goldilocks balance. Rates that are too high risk unemployment, while rates that are too low could mean higher inflation. Policymakers are searching for a “neutral” level, where everything is just right.Many economists believed the central bank was close to achieving this balance before Trump started his second term. In summer 2022, as inflation scaled its highest levels in a generation, the Fed started raising rates, at the risk of hurting the labor market, in an attempt to get inflation down to 2%.Rates rose to about 5.3% in less than two years, but the jobs market remained strong. Unemployment was still at historically low even as inflation came down. Although some economists had feared rapidly increasing rates would throw the US economy into a recession, instead the Fed appeared to achieve what is known as a “soft landing”.But things were thrown into a tailspin when Trump returned to office, armed with campaign promises to enact a full-blown trade war against the US’s key trading partners.The president has long argued that tariffs would boost American manufacturing and set the stage for better trade deals. “Tariffs don’t cause inflation. They cause success,” Trump declared back in January, acknowledging that there might be “some temporary, short-term disruption”.But so far, success has been limited. Economists doubt the policies will generate a manufacturing renaissance, and Trump’s trade war has inspired new commercial alliances that exclude the US.All the while, US consumers are starting to see higher prices due to Trump’s tariffs.At Jackson Hole on Friday, Powell said tariffs had started to push some prices up. In June and July, inflation was 2.7% – up 0.4 percentage points since April, when Trump first announced the bulk of his tariffs.This is still only a modest increase in price growth, but the bulk of the White House’s highest tariffs only went into effect in early August. Fed policymakers are waiting to see whether Trump’s aggressive trade strategy will cause a one-time shift in price levels – or if the effects will continue.The once strong labor market has grown sluggish. Though there are fewer job openings, there are also fewer people looking for jobs. Powell called it “a curious kind of balance” where “both the supply of and demand for workers” have slowed. He noted that the balance was unstable and could eventually tip over, prompting more layoffs and a rise in unemployment.This instability in the labor market has made Fed officials more open to a rate cut. Powell pointed to a slacking in consumer spending and weaker gross domestic product (GDP), which suggests an overall slowdown in economic activity.Although it set the stage for a rate cut as soon as next month, Powell’s speech was far from optimistic.“In this environment, distinguishing cyclical developments from trends, or structural developments is difficult,” he said. “Monetary policy can work to stabilise cyclical fluctuations but can do little to alter structural changes.”From Powell, who is typically diplomatic and reserved in his public statements, this seemed to be a careful warning: when executive policies destabilise the economy, the Fed can only do so much to limit the damage. More

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      John Bolton raid shows weaponization of FBI against Patel’s ‘gangsters’ list

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      When Kash Patel, the FBI director, faced senators during his confirmation hearings on 30 January, he bristled at suggestions that his 2023 book contained an “enemies list”. The appendix to Government Gangsters, which included a list of names for 60 people, was simply documentation of those who had “weaponized” the government, he insisted.Seven months later, that denial appears increasingly hollow. Friday’s FBI search of the former national security adviser John Bolton’s home and office, reportedly to find classified documents, marks the fifth investigation targeting people from Patel’s book.Bolton now joins a growing list of Trump critics from Patel’s roll the administration has targeted with what appear to be retaliatory federal investigations: James Comey, the former FBI director, John Brennan, the former CIA director, Miles Taylor, the ex-homeland security official and Lt Col Alexander Vindman. All five people, investigated in just seven months, were on Patel’s 60-name list.Typically, federal prosecutors open cases based on tips, evidence or ongoing criminal activity. They don’t work their way through the index of a political book. While there is no public evidence that the book itself or any outside group is directing investigations, the overlap appears more than coincidence. The Biden justice department definitively closed both civil and criminal proceedings against Bolton in 2021 over his memoir about his time in the Trump White House. Bringing that investigation back to life requires a deliberate decision to re-litigate an already settled matter.Bolton’s investigation, like those into the other four on Patel’s list, is unprecedented in how it is calculated to target a critic. The justice department acknowledged opening criminal investigations into Comey and Brennan over their 2016-2017 Russia investigation roles. Taylor faced presidential orders revoking his security clearance and demanding investigations into his anonymous anti-Trump writings. The DC interim US attorney pressed representative Eugene Vindman for business records tied to Ukraine aid, targeting the twin brother of Alexander Vindman, who testified against Trump during his first impeachment.When asked for details about the raids and the reasoning behind them, a spokesperson for the FBI did not answer directly.“The FBI is conducting court authorized activity in the area,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “There is no threat to public safety. We have no further comment.”The systematic nature of these investigations exposes the fundamental contradiction in the administration’s approach. Officials claim to be combating the “weaponization” of justice while at the same time weaponizing it against a pre-compiled list of critics.Notably, Patel’s targets are both “deep state” bureaucrats and former Trump allies. Along with Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton, they include Trump’s own former officials like the former defense secretary Mark Esper and Stephanie Grisham, the press secretary, a suggestion that the list features anyone who crossed or flipped on the president, regardless of their previous loyalty. Patel on Friday morning posted on social media that “NO ONE is above the law”.Trump’s reaction to the Bolton investigation undermines claims of prosecutorial independence. Asked about the raids, the president claimed ignorance while launching familiar attacks: Bolton was “sort of a lowlife” and “could be a very unpatriotic guy – we’re going to find out”, he told reporters on Friday.By systematically investigating critics while claiming to restore justice department integrity, the administration is creating an environment in which political opposition becomes presumed as evidence of criminal behavior.This marks another example of evolution from Trump’s first term, when efforts to weaponize federal law enforcement were often chaotic and ultimately unsuccessful. The current approach appears more disciplined, with Patel’s book providing targets and Bondi’s working group providing bureaucratic cover. More

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      Trump’s presidential philosophy is government by shakedown | Steven Greenhouse

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      Americans have long glorified their constitution and the rule of law. But Donald Trump’s volatile and vindictive presidency has increasingly replaced that philosophy with something very different – call it “governing by shakedown”.Trump has often violated federal law, and sometimes the constitution, as he has sought to throttle his targets – whether universities, law firms or US trading partners – in the hope that they will cry uncle and agree to his demands. This style of governance would make any caudillo proud. But it should make anyone who cares about the rule of law – and avoiding authoritarian rule – very worried.By threatening to cripple this university’s finances or that country’s exports, Trump has become the global emperor of shakedowns. It has been great for him and his ego. He dominates negotiations and news cycles, and his White House cheerleaders rush to proclaim victory whenever he reaches a deal with one of his targets.Claiming that many universities haven’t done enough to combat antisemitism, Trump has demanded that Harvard, Columbia, Brown and other schools submit to his rightwing vision. Furious that some law firms have hired people or filed lawsuits he didn’t like, Trump has taken unprecedented steps to attack them unless they submitted to his demands. Trump has wreaked havoc on global diplomacy and supply chains by threatening America’s trading partners with stratospherically high tariffs unless they reached trade deals with Washington.Far too many Americans – whether senators, the media or the public – fail to realize that Trump’s attacks on these institutions evidently violate the law. Federal district courts have ruled in four cases that Trump’s broadsides against law firms violate their free speech rights. The US court of international trade ruled that Trump’s across-the-board tariffs against dozens of countries were illegal, concluding that Congress hadn’t given him “unbounded authority” to slap tariffs on nearly every country. (The administration is appealing that ruling.)As for Trump cutting off billions in aid and research grants to universities because of their alleged failures in responding to antisemitism, many legal experts say his administration has plainly failed to comply with anti-discrimination laws that require the government to follow specific procedures before penalizing universities, such as giving schools an opportunity for a hearing. Moreover, federal law says the government can halt funding to only particular university programs where noncompliance has been found, and not, for instance, to scientific research far afield from that.Last week, Trump expanded his shakedown efforts. He told the chipmaker Nvidia that he would let it sell high-end AI computer chips to China only if it paid 15% of the revenue from those sales to the US treasury. Nvidia agreed, even though Trump’s demand was of dubious legality; the constitution prohibits the government from placing a tax on exports.Trump also threatened Brazil with a 50% tariff unless it stopped prosecuting its rightwing former president, Jair Bolsonaro, for allegedly seeking to overturn Brazil’s presidential election. When Brazil’s current president rejected that demand, saying that Trump shouldn’t be telling a sovereign democracy how to run its justice system, Trump imposed the 50% tariff. Trump’s move is an outrage because he’s seeking to strong-arm a longtime US ally over how to run its justice system and because, as Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon said, this is “far outside his legal authority”.Many lawyers voiced shock and dismay when the law firm Paul, Weiss, a litigation powerhouse, reached a deal with Trump instead of fighting him. Paul, Weiss promised to provide Trump with $40m in pro bono legal services after he sought to cripple the firm by suspending its security clearances and barring its lawyers from federal buildings. All told, nine law firms have reached deals with Trump, promising nearly $1bn in pro bono services . Some legal experts call these deals illegal – one Yale law professor said “a contract that you make with a gun to your head is not a contract”.Columbia has reached a $221m settlement with the Trump administration, while Brown reached a $50m deal. While denying any liability, Columbia vowed to “work on multiple fronts to combat” antisemitism and other “forms of hatred and intolerance at Columbia”. The university also pledged not to use “race, color, sex, or national origin” in hiring decisions and said its admissions policies would be merit-based and wouldn’t “unlawfully preference applicants based on race, color, or national origin”.Columbia officials hailed one part of the deal – the Trump administration agreed to unfreeze $1.3bn in funding. That freeze was devastating Columbia’s research programs.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut David Pozen, a constitutional law professor at Columbia, denounced the deal, saying it “gives legal form to an extortion scheme”. Pozen described it as the “first-ever cutoff of congressionally appropriated funds to a university, so as to punish that university and impel it to adopt sweeping reforms, without any pretense of following the congressionally mandated procedures”. Pozen slammed this deal-by-deal style of governance as “coercive”, “arbitrary”, “deeply susceptible” to “corruption” and “corrosive to the democratic order and to law itself”.We shouldn’t be shocked that Trump acts this way. He loves dealmaking and lording it over others and he has long paid scant heed to following the law. But we should be shocked by the way the two other supposedly co-equal branches of government, Congress and the supreme court, have behaved. They have essentially rolled over in the face of Trump’s ruling by shakedown.Republican lawmakers in Congress have cravenly sat on their hands while Trump has boosted inflation and sabotaged economic growth by forcing tariffs on more than 90 countries, notwithstanding the strict restrictions Congress set on when and how a president can impose tariffs. Republicans have vowed never to raise taxes, but let’s not fool ourselves: Trump’s tariffs are a regressive sales tax that hits non-affluent Americans hardest. Republican lawmakers have also been quiet as mice while Trump has used a wrecking ball to threaten leading universities – institutions that played a vital role in making the US a world leader in medicine and many other fields of research.The supreme court has been strangely, worrisomely silent while Trump rules by shakedown, even as many district court judges have shown plenty of spine, ruling, for instance, that Trump’s across-the-board tariffs and assaults on law firms are illegal. When the supreme court wants to move quickly, it often finds a way. It would be great if the court moved to protect the rule of law, universities and academic freedom from Trump’s shakedowns. The court could and should issue a ruling as soon as possible that Trump violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by egregiously failing to follow its requirements before freezing universities’ funding. Similarly, the court could greatly reduce the economic mayhem that Trump’s tariffs are causing by quickly upholding the US court of trade’s ruling that Trump has far overstepped his authority to impose tariffs. But the high court been shamefully passive, even submissive.Congress and the supreme court need to wake up, step up and lay down the law. They must stop Trump’s rule by shakedown, which far too often involves capricious, vindictive dealmaking and ignores our legal rules and standards. Americans need to realize that Trump’s style of governance is dangerously eroding our rule of law and democracy.

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