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    Trump threatens to invoke Insurrection Act as Bondi faces Senate – US politics live

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    Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of US politics as Donald Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy more troops into Democrat-led cities.“We have an insurrection act for a reason. If I had to enact it I would do that,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday, adding, “if people were being killed and courts were holding us up or governors or mayors were holding us up, sure I would do that.”It came after a federal judge in Oregon temporarily halted a National Guard deployment in Portland although troops from Texas could be deployed in Chicago as soon as today despite a lawsuit from Illinois against the move.Meanwhile, Pam Bondi is likely to grilled over troop deployments as she faces the Senate judiciary committee. The attorney general is also likely to face questions over the indictment last month of the former FBI director James Comey, deadly strikes on boats believed to be carrying drugs off the coast of Venezuela, as well as the brewing controversy over the release of documents related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.Trump is also due to welcome the Canadian PM, Mark Carney, to the White House with trade talks expected to be the main focus of discussions.Later, he will meet American-Israeli former hostage Edan Alexander as the world marks the two-year anniversary of the 7 October attacks. In Egypt, indirect talks are taking place between Israel and Hamas over Trump’s 20-point plan for Gaza.And, of course, this all comes amid the backdrop of the ongoing government shutdown, now entering its second week. Stay with us for all the latest developments.In other news:

    A career federal prosecutor in Virginia has told colleagues she does not believe there is probable cause to file criminal mortgage fraud charges against New York attorney general Letitia James, according to a person familiar with the matter. The prosecutor, Elizabeth Yusi, oversees major criminal cases in the Norfolk office for the US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia and plans to soon present her conclusion to Lindsey Halligan, a Trump ally, who was installed as the US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia last month.

    The US supreme court has declined to hear an appeal from Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell of her sex trafficking conviction. Maxwell in 2022 was sentenced to 20 years in prison for sex trafficking and related crimes.

    The Trump administration said that funds from a US government program that subsidizes commercial air service to rural airports are set to expire as soon as Sunday because of the government shutdown.

    Jimmy Kimmel emerged as more popular than Donald Trump after a spat with the president’s administration temporarily left the talkshow host off the air in September, according to a recent poll.

    Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has urged Donald Trump to scrap tariffs on his country’s imports and sanctions against its officials, as the two men held what the Brazilian presidency called a “friendly” video call. More

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      Elon Musk and Peter Thiel mentioned in Epstein documents released by Democrats

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      Democratic lawmakers on Friday released documents from the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein that may show interactions between the disgraced financier and prominent conservatives, including Elon Musk, Steve Bannon and Peter Thiel.The six pages of documents made public with redactions come from a batch provided by the justice department to the House oversight committee, which is investigating how the sex-trafficking charges against Epstein, who died in 2019 in federal custody, were handled.Copies of Epstein’s calendar released by the committee’s Democratic minority show a breakfast planned with Bannon, an influential Donald Trump ally, in February 2019. Other schedules mention a lunch with Thiel in November 2017 and a potential trip by Musk to Epstein’s private island in December 2014.A manifest from 2000 for Epstein’s plane includes Prince Andrew, whose relationship with Epstein is well documented, while a financial disclosure the Democrats released shows Epstein paying someone listed as “Andrew” for “Massage, Exercise, Yoga” that same year.Earlier this year, Musk accused Trump of being in the so-called “Epstein files” on social media after the tech mogul criticized Trump’s tax and spending legislation.Then in July, Musk publicly said: “How can people be expected to have faith in Trump if he won’t release the Epstein files?”Pointing to the significance of the latest records’ release, Sara Guerrero, a spokesperson for the oversight committee, said: “It should be clear to every American that Jeffrey Epstein was friends with some of the most powerful and wealthiest men in the world. Every new document produced provides new information as we work to bring justice for the survivors and victims.”Meanwhile, Eric Swalwell, a Democratic representative of California, wrote on X following the records’ release, saying: “Trump OUTS @elonmusk as being in Epstein Files. Revenge for Elon outing Trump? Elon, what do you know about Trump’s involvement?”In response to the latest release, the Republican-led committee took to X and accused Democrats of selectively deciding which records to publicize.“This is old news. It’s sad how Democrats are conveniently withholding documents that contain the names of Democratic officials. Once again they are putting politics over victims. That’s all Robert Garcia and Oversight Dems know how to do. We are releasing them all soon,” the statement said, referring to Robert Garcia, the committee’s ranking member.Garcia, a Democrat of California, pushed back on X, writing in a separate statement: “We don’t care how wealthy or powerful you are – or if you are a Democrat or Republican. If you are in the Epstein documents and files we are going to expose it, and bring justice for the survivors. Release ALL THE FILES NOW!”The documents are the latest in the saga over the government’s handling of the Epstein case.In the House, Democrats have joined with a small group of Republicans on a petition that will force a vote on legislation to compel the release of the Epstein files. The push needs 218 signatures to succeed, which it is expected to soon get after Democrat Adelita Grijalva this week won a special election to an Arizona seat that became vacant when her father died.However, any legislation that passes the House will also need approval by the Senate, whose Republican leaders have shown little interest in the issue. Trump, who has called the furor over Epstein a “Democrat hoax” would also need to sign the bill.The Guardian has requested comment from Musk and Thiel.

      This article was amended on 26 September 2025. The seat won by Adelita Grijalva is in Arizona, not New Mexico, as we originally said. More

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      US authorities remove Trump-Epstein statue from National Mall

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      An impromptu statue of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein holding hands was unceremoniously removed from the National Mall in Washington just a day after a group of anonymous artists erected it there.The piece showed the president and the late convicted sex offender, who were friends in the past, looking joyful together, with wide grins and feet kicked back.A plaque stated that it was built in honor of friendship month. “We celebrate the long-lasting bond between President Donald J Trump and his ‘closest friend’ Jeffrey Epstein,” the accompanying text stated.The Secret Handshake, the group that created the art, had obtained a permit that allowed it to keep the statue displayed in the capital until 8pm on Sunday.But the National Park Service, the federal agency that oversees the area, removed the statue because “it was not compliant with the permit issued”, Elizabeth Peace, a spokesperson for Department of the Interior, said to CNN.Trump, who usually is adept at shaking free of any scandal, has not been able to temper the widespread curiosity and also anger from some on the right over the administration not disclosing the so-called Epstein files – all the material the authorities have on the business dealings, crimes and investigations into same regarding the New York financier, who killed himself in jail while awaiting federal trial in 2019 on sex-trafficking offenses. His accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, is serving a long prison sentence.A Secret Handshake artist who identified himself as Patrick but would not provide his full name to the Guardian said in a telephone interview that the group built the Trump-Epstein statue to “honor the one and only true friend Donald Trump seems to have in his life”.In 2002, Trump told New York magazine that Epstein was a “terrific guy” and “a lot of fun to be with” but has repeatedly said in recent times that the two fell out long ago. The White House has called Epstein “a creep”.Epstein had also told the journalist Michael Wolff that he was Trump’s “closest friend for 10 years”.Trump recently said he was “not a fan” of Epstein and that he stopped talking to him because Epstein “stole people that worked for me”.Patrick said he was confused by the authorities’ decision to remove the statue.“The Trump administration has mostly been all about rebuilding statues that have already been torn down, of Confederate generals and other racist tropes and figures from the past” he said. “I would argue that Trump is a racist figure from the past, so why would you tear that down?”In a statement to the New York Times, the White House said: “Democrats, the media and the organization that’s wasting their money on this statue knew about Epstein and his victims for years and did nothing to help them while President Trump was calling for transparency, and is now delivering on it with thousands of pages of documents.” More

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      Four arrested after images of Trump and Epstein projected on to Windsor Castle ahead of president’s visit

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      Four people have been arrested after images of Donald Trump alongside deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were projected on to Windsor Castle, where the US president is set to be hosted by King Charles during his state visit to Britain.Trump arrived in Britain late on Tuesday for an unprecedented second state visit, and will be greeted by Charles on Wednesday for a day of pomp at Windsor Castle, about 25 miles west of London.Earlier on Tuesday, protesters unfurled a massive banner featuring a photograph of Trump and Epstein near Windsor Castle, and later projected several images of the two on to one of the castle’s towers.The police said in a statement four adults were arrested on suspicion of malicious communications after an “unauthorised projection” at Windsor Castle, which they described as a “public stunt”. The four remain in custody.View image in fullscreenDemocrats in the US House of Representatives last week made public a birthday letter Trump allegedly wrote to Epstein more than 20 years ago, though the White House has denied its authenticity.The letter was also projected on to the castle, along with pictures of Epstein’s victims, news clips about the case and police reports.The release of the letter has brought renewed attention to an issue that has become a political thorn in the president’s side.Though he has urged his supporters to move on from the topic, appetite for details about Epstein’s crimes and who else may have known about them or been involved with him has remained high.Trump was friends with Epstein before becoming president but had a falling out with the former financier years before his 2019 death in prison.The birthday letter contained text of a purported dialogue between Trump and Epstein in which Trump calls him a “pal” and says, “May every day be another wonderful secret.” The text sits within a crude sketch of the silhouette of a naked woman. More

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      Top Democrat accuses Trump of dismantling efforts to prosecute sex crimes

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      A top House Democrat on Tuesday accused Donald Trump of “systematically dismantling” efforts to prosecute sex crimes and hunt down traffickers, as the president faces continued pressure to make public investigative files related to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.The memo from House judiciary committee ranking member Jamie Raskin and his staff, shared exclusively with the Guardian, said that beyond refusing the demands for transparency around Epstein, who died in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, Trump has also undercut efforts to hold people accused of similar crimes accountable by “systematically dismantling the offices and programs we rely on to combat human trafficking and prosecute sex crimes”.“President Trump in office has repeatedly taken the side of criminal sex predators and violent abusers against their victims, and this pattern goes well beyond his strenuous efforts to bury the Epstein Files,” Raskin wrote in the memo.“Far from aiding victims and survivors, President Trump consistently sides with their abusers,” he said. “His all-of-government policy to aid traffickers and sex criminals and abandon survivors has made American women dramatically less safe.”White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers called the accusations “total nonsense” before criticizing former president Joe Biden and his handling of immigration. “Their party’s president spent the last four years coddling and apologizing for criminals and sexual predators. Joe Biden’s wide open border allowed hundreds of thousands of innocent children to be kidnapped across the southern border by smugglers and gang members illegally residing in our communities,” Rogers said.She added that Trump had “totally secured our border to stop the trafficking of children” and “implemented tough-on-crime policies to hold these disgusting monsters accountable to the fullest extent of the law”.Raskin’s memo to Democratic members of the judiciary committee comes in advance of testimony scheduled for Wednesday by FBI director Kash Patel, at which Democrats are expected to press him for details on the bureau’s handling of its investigation into Epstein.Appearing before the Senate judiciary committee on Tuesday, Patel acknowledged shortcomings in how an investigation into Epstein was handled that led to the financier pleading guilty in 2008 to charges related to procuring a child prostitute. However, the director insisted that court orders prevented him acceding to Democrats demands to release more files related to Epstein.In the memo, Raskin argues: “The Trump Administration’s sympathetic alignment with powerful sex traffickers and rapists goes far beyond its efforts to suppress the truth of what happened in one explosive case,” and pointed to several policies Trump implemented that he believes help criminals.Among those are its dismantling of USAID, which he described as one of the most effective agencies at documenting trafficking routes and undermining efforts to use forced labor to scam Americans.“Closing USAID has blinded federal law enforcement to developing threats overseas, allowing trafficking networks to strengthen in power, influence, and size, almost certainly leading to an increase in the number of women and children trafficked into the United States,” Raskin said.About half of the federal law enforcement personnel who would normally be investigating criminals and terrorists are now focused on deportations as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants, the memo said. This includes one in five FBI agents, almost two thirds of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and three quarters of the Drug Enforcement Administration, among other agencies.“By diverting extraordinary amounts of money and personnel to its immigration crackdown, the Trump Administration has undermined the investigation and prosecution of nearly every other law enforcement priority, including human trafficking and child exploitation,” Raskin wrote.Trump has also cancelled hundreds of grants to local law enforcement agencies and non-profits that were used to help victims of such crimes, according to the memo. Federal funds are no longer flowing to trainings of sexual assault nurse examiners in disadvantaged areas or victim advocates employed at rape crisis centers, nor to American Sign Language interpretation for survivors of domestic violence.Trump’s immigration crackdown has intruded into efforts to help trafficking survivors, with the memo saying one organization has been told it cannot use grant money to help anyone in the country illegally. Such a notice may violate federal law, and the groups receiving the grants typically have no way of knowing their clients’ immigration status, Raskin said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAnother group that received federal funding to work with child abuse victims had its funding terminated after more than three decades, then partially restored with instructions that “its affiliates to never again mention race, class, and gender diversity in it training materials”.“These findings reveal the Trump Administration’s structural bias in favor of human traffickers, rapists, and sexual violators and against their victims, survivors, and opponents. The question of why this alignment exists cannot be answered in this memo, but the pattern is unmistakable,” Raskin wrote.He also noted that several top officials, including defense secretary Pete Hegseth and health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, have been accused of inappropriate conduct, while the Trump administration acted to facilitate the return of “misogynist influencer” Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan from Romania, where they faced charges including rape. Dozens of those who were pardoned of charges related to January 6 had also faced trafficking and sex abuse charges before and after the insurrection, Raskin said.The memo comes amid a spike in interest in the Epstein case, which began in July after the justice department released a report concluding that his death was a suicide, and saying no further information about the matter would be released. The assertions flew in the face of conspiracy theories Trump and his senior officials have encouraged that held Epstein was at the heart of a wide-ranging conspiracy involving global elites.A bipartisan group of lawmakers is circulating a petition in the House of Representatives that would force a vote on legislation mandating the release of the Epstein files. The petition needs just one more signature to succeed.Trump opposes the effort, calling it a “Democrat hoax”, but sent a deputy attorney general to interview Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell and petitioned unsuccessfully for release of grand jury transcripts related to the financier’s indictment.The House oversight committee is also investigating the Epstein matter, and earlier this month released a “birthday book” containing a sexually suggestive drawing Trump appears to have made for his one-time friend. More

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      Just when Keir Starmer thought he’d got Jeffrey Epstein off his plate – look who’s coming to dinner | Marina Hyde

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      Quick update on Keir Starmer’s government of “national renewal”: having just lost his deputy and housing secretary over her failure to pay the required stamp duty, the prime minister has also lost his US ambassador over his known close association with a known paedophile sex trafficker. Hang on – he’s now also lost his director of political strategy for relating some dirty jokes about Diane Abbott.Meanwhile, an increasing number of people think the solution to all this is Andy Burnham taking over, suggesting the current Greater Manchester mayor could run in a parliamentary seat that has only notionally become free because the previous Labour MP was suspended from the party after being found to have sent messages hoping a couple of constituents would soon be dead/“mown down”, and is now apparently “off sick”. On top of which, we’re having the Americans round. US president Donald Trump touches down in the UK tonight on the eve of the most hideously ill-starred dinner party since the vomiting scene in Triangle of Sadness. I don’t think the nation could possibly feel any more renewed.It’s been a few days since Peter Mandelson’s emails to Jeffrey Epstein were held up in front of the public using the hazmat tongs, and the more I’ve thought about them, the more I come back to one of the more obscure lines. Writing in apparent anguish on the eve of Epstein’s incarceration in 2008, Mandelson opines to him: “It just could not happen in Britain.” Maybe he was right, unwittingly or otherwise. Britain is very, very good at a sort of institutionalised looking away. Maybe Mandelson was – unwittingly or otherwise – characterising something grim about this country that pious old Keir Starmer would no doubt be hugely affronted to be caught up in. Except, the prime minister is caught up in it – in fact, he’s at the very centre of it. He is the one who looked away.It’s hard not to feel there is something necrotic and beaten about a government whose leader would appoint someone he knew had been very close to Epstein, who the entire world by that point knew was – and forgive me for repeating the words – a paedophile sex trafficker. Association with him was already known to be such a horror show that the late Queen Elizabeth II had to sack her own son for it. And there is something worse about Starmer’s horrifying lack of curiosity even as the facts closed in, right till the bitter end, with No 10 dithering for staggeringly long last week over a set of quite the most disqualifying emails, while Starmer fannied about defending Mandelson at the dispatch box.This was, of course, the other dispatch box to the one at which Sir Keir plied his holier-than-thou trade in opposition. There’s an old online rule that declares that if you tell someone off for their spelling or grammar, you will always end up making your own howler while you’re doing it. Starmer spent his years in opposition telling off the Tories at every turn, instead of – for instance – coming up with a creative and coherent plan for growth. Inevitably, we now seem to be strapped in to watching him and his administration warrant a daily telling-off, as offences and immoralities mount up. Why does this keep happening to him, etc?As for Epstein, we know that at the time Mandelson was writing to him telling him to fight for early release, police in Palm Beach, Florida had identified 36 girls who the “financier” had sexually abused. Yet for all the many years of grim and grotesque revelations, it still feels as though we know remarkably little about him. Who was he, this mysterious paedo Gatsby, and where did all his money come from?Shortly after his death, New York magazine ran a fascinating story in which real hedge-funders expressed pointed bemusement over how Epstein made his money, since none of them had really had any dealings with him. As one big hedge-fund president, Doug Kass, put it: “I went to my institutional brokers, to their trading desks and asked if they ever traded with him. I did it a few times until the date when he was arrested. Not one institutional trading desk, primary or secondary, had ever traded with Epstein’s firm.” As Kass had said to a journalist: “There’s another guy who reminds me of Madoff that no one trades with.” Or as another hedgie remarked: “It’s hard to make a billion dollars quietly.” And yet Epstein had made no noise at all in the financial world. They could barely find one investor. Their general theory was that the “hedge fund” was simply a cover for a blackmail scheme.Perhaps most amazing, really, is the fact that Epstein will be a ghost at the feast tomorrow night for more than one attender, as Trump continues to butch out his long and close association with precisely the type of evildoer his Maga followers are convinced runs the world. Epstein is a guy who really does fit the very template of their darkest conspiracy theories – rich and powerful, involved in the trafficking of minors, connected in a network of some of the most powerful people in the world. This is all the sort of stuff they’ve been going on about for years – yet who should keep rearing his head in the story, but their own beloved president.Isn’t it intriguing how many of them (currently) just can’t bring themselves to believe it? Something to discuss over the starter tomorrow night at Windsor Castle, perhaps, as long as everyone can keep their food down.

      Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

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      UK needed ‘unconventional’ US ambassador when picking Mandelson, minister says

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      The UK government believed an “unconventional presidential administration” required an “unconventional ambassador” when it appointed Peter Mandelson as US ambassador, a cabinet minister has said.But the Scotland secretary, Douglas Alexander, told broadcasters Mandelson would not have been given the role had the prime minister known the depth of his association with the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.Keir Starmer is facing increasing questions over what he knew and when of Mandelson’s ties with Epstein. The prime minister sacked him on Thursday after emails showed he sent supportive messages even as Epstein faced jail for sex offences.Alexander told Sky News he had reacted with “incredulity and revulsion” to the publication of emails between Mandelson and Epstein, adding he was “not here to defend him”.“The reason he was appointed was a judgment, a judgment that given the depth of his experience as a former trade commissioner for the European Union, his long experience in politics, and his politics and doing politics at the highest international levels, he could do a job for the United Kingdom.“We knew this was an unconventional presidential administration and that was the basis on which there was a judgment that we needed an unconventional ambassador.”But speaking on BBC Breakfast, Alexander said “nothing justifies” Mandelson’s appointment in light of what had emerged in the past week.He was reported to have told Epstein to “fight for early release” shortly before he was sentenced to 18 months in prison, and told him “I think the world of you” the day before the disgraced financier began his sentence for soliciting prostitution from a minor in June 2008.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMandelson’s friendship with Epstein had been known about, but Bloomberg and the Sun published emails showing that the relationship continued after his crimes had emerged. More

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      As the Epstein case shows, Trump’s Maga faithful care about only one kind of sex-crime victim | Emma Brockes

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      On Monday, Donald Trump appeared in two, unrelated stories involving the sexual abuse of women. The first was a ruling by the US federal court of appeals, upholding an earlier judgment in which the president was found liable for $83.3m in damages for defaming the writer E Jean Carroll – a woman whom, it was ruled in civil court in 2023, had been sexually abused by Trump. On the same day, Trump’s alleged contribution to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s “birthday book” was shared by Democrats on social media in the form of a lewd drawing the president denied having made. The E Jean Carroll news caused no public inconvenience for Trump; the Epstein story went up like a mushroom cloud in what has become the most politically dangerous episode of his presidency.What, exactly, is the difference then between the sexual abuse of E Jean Carroll, for which Trump has been found liable in a civil court, and the trafficking and abuse of victims by Epstein, in which there is no direct evidence of Trump’s involvement? For that matter, why does Trump’s record of gross references to grabbing women “by the pussy” and calling them “fat” and “ugly” elicit barely a shrug from supporters, while his friendship with Epstein, a man referred to in the press, variously, as the “billionaire paedophile”, the “paeodophile financier”, and, surely coming down the pike at some point, the “hell-based paedophile money manager”, has triggered not only fury among the Maga faithful but accusations of a Trump cover-up?Trump people would argue it’s a question of degree: Epstein occupies the worst and most taboo category of sex offender – a child abuser, in which no grey area exists. This assumes the existence, within Maga circles, of a continuum ranging from paedophile sex trafficking (very bad), through other categories of sex offending (less bad but still quite bad), to “date rape” and the whole of #MeToo (lot of fuss about nothing). But this isn’t how Trump supporters have calibrated their outrage. Instead, what we have seen is mass, Maga hysteria over Epstein, in which even the likes of Tucker Carlson have made veiled accusations against Trump, and complete indifference to every other accusation made by women against the president.It is a feature of misogyny, of course, that the flipside of abusing women and curtailing their rights is selective sentimentalisation. Animating the Maga movement is the desire for a return to traditional gender roles and pronatalism, a force driven, one assumes, by a sense of frustrated male entitlement that has built up over decades of gains made by the women’s movement. A hatred of women as extreme as the one seen within the current Republican movement requires a moral counterweight. And what better source of moral clarity – what starker moral issue, one that brooks no dissent or equivocation from anyone on either side – than the defence of abused girls? In the rightwing media, the only stories relished as much as those about Epstein’s crimes, are ones about violent offences committed by immigrants.As a result, the use to which “child abuse” is put within the rightwing ecosystem is not only as a bat signal for conspiracy theories, designed to increase the reach of each story, but as a pretext for everyone in that world to feel, perhaps fleetingly, very good about themselves, moral crusaders in a horrible world. In the case of Epstein, there’s the bonus of liberal names being ensnared in the net. In Epstein’s “birthday book”, Bill Clinton appears to have left a whimsical message referring to Epstein’s “childlike curiosity”, and “drive to make a difference”. And Peter Mandelson appears in a bathrobe to address Epstein as “my best pal”. (Sidenote: there can be few situations in which being gay in public life is an advantage over being straight – but downplaying one’s involvement with Epstein is definitely one of them.)The curious thing about all this is that, per the biases that govern how victims of sexual abuse are perceived, E Jean Carroll is a pretty good victim: an older woman (she was 52 when Trump abused her in 1996), doing a mundane chore (shopping), in a public place (Bergdorf Goodman). And yet the judgment of the civil courts in her favour in 2023 elicited no sympathy among Trump supporters, in or outside Congress, and since then the president has suffered no apparent drop in political fortunes.But here’s the rub: Carroll is an adult woman, liberal, successful, stylish, and articulate – everything that threatens and triggers Trump’s base. The only female victim worth defending in Trumpland is the fallen girl, a figure straight out of a Victorian lithograph, and one who inspires such fervour, such delusions of nobility, that if it comes to a straight contest, she may win out over Trump.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion

      Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist More

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      Donald Trump says Charlie Kirk has died after being shot at university event – latest updates

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      Charlie Kirk, a Trump ally and rightwing activist, has been shot and killed at an event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, on Wednesday. Here’s what we know so far:

      Kirk, 31, died after being shot during a presentation on campus. Donald Trump first announced the death in a Truth Social post.

      Donald Trump wrote: “The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead. No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie. He was loved and admired by ALL, especially me, and now, he is no longer with us. Melania and my Sympathies go out to his beautiful wife Erika, and family. Charlie, we love you!”

      Campus police are investigating the incident. The university said the suspect is not in custody. A person arrested earlier has been released and is no longer a suspect.

      Kirk, the executive director of Turning Point USA (TPUSA), was shot at about 12.10pm local time while appearing at an event. In video posts circulating on social media, Kirk can be seen getting struck while speaking and sitting beneath a tent. Kirk was there as part of the American Comeback tour, which is hosted by the TPUSA chapter at Utah Valley. Video footage shows students on campus running away from the sound of gunshots.

      Kirk was about 20 minutes into a presentation when a shot was fired from a nearby building, the university told CNBC. The university has said a “single shot” was fired towards Kirk.

      Political leaders in the US immediately condemned the attack. Joe Biden, the former US president, tweeted: “There is no place in our country for this kind of violence. It must end now. Jill and I are praying for Charlie Kirk’s family and loved ones.”

      Senior Democrats and Republicans also condemned the shooting. Gavin Newsom, Josh Shapiro, Chuck Schumer and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were among Democrats who condemned the attack. JD Vance, Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem and Pete Hegseth paid tribute to Kirk and asked the public to pray for him.

      The House speaker, Mike Johnson, told reporters in the Capitol: “Political violence has become all too common in American society. This is not who we are. It violates the core principles of our country.”

      In an internal email to staff members that was posted online on Wednesday, the Turning Point USA COO, Justin Streiff, said: “It is with a heavy heart that we, the Turning Point USA leadership team, write to notify you that earlier this afternoon Charlie went to his eternal reward with Jesus Christ in Heaven … However, in the meantime, Turning Point USA and Turning Point Action will be closed for business until Monday, the 15th – likely longer.”

      The White House lowered its flag to half-staff in Kirk’s honor.
      Former presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and the former vice-president Kamala Harris, have all condemned the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk in posts on social media.While the motive of the person who shot Kirk remains unknown, as police hunt for a suspect, all three Democrats argued that political violence must be condemned.“We don’t yet know what motivated the person who shot and killed Charlie Kirk, but this kind of despicable violence has no place in our democracy,” Obama wrote. “Michelle and I will be praying for Charlie’s family tonight, especially his wife Erika and their two young children.”“There is no place in our country for this kind of violence. It must end now,” Biden wrote on social media. “Jill and I are praying for Charlie Kirk’s family and loved ones.”“I am deeply disturbed by the shooting in Utah”, Harris wrote before news of Kirkj’s death was announced by Donald Trump. “Doug and I send our prayers to Charlie Kirk and his family. Let me be clear: Political violence has no place in America. I condemn this act, and we all must work together to ensure this does not lead to more violence.”The newly installed flag on the north lawn of the White House was lowered to half-staff on Tuesday afternoon, after Donald Trump announced the death of Charlie Kirk, who was fatally shot while debating students at Utah Valley University on Tuesday.Trump wrote on social media that he was ordering all American flags to be lowered across the country until Sunday evening.A spokesperson for Utah Valley University, Ellen Treanor, tells the Guardian: “A suspect was in custody, but they are no longer a suspect.”In a statement, Treanor added:
      It is with the tremendous sadness and shock that Charlie Kirk, who was invited by the student group TPUSA, was shot at about 12:20 when he began speaking at his planned event on the Utah Valley University Orem Campus. Kirk was immediately transported by his security team to a local hospital.
      Campus was immediately evacuated. Campus is closed and classes have been canceled until further notice. We are asking those still on campus to secure in place until police officers can safely escort them off campus.
      The incident is currently being investigated by four agencies: Orem Police, UVU Police, FBI, and Utah Department of Public Safety.
      Among those coming to terms with the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk on Wednesday is the progressive streamer, Hasan Piker, who was scheduled to debate Kirk at Dartmouth College in two weeks.On his Twitch live stream, Piker expressed horror at the shooting, and urged his followers not to celebrate it, but told viewers to stop writing in to tell him to wear a bulletproof vest or hire security for his public appearances.“I don’t have any security,” Piker told his viewers. “It shouldn’t be like this.” He went on to argue that only gun control could prevent mass shootings.“In a moment like this, a reasonable government would say: ‘Alright, enough is enough,’” Piker said. “If we had a responsible government and not a bunch of fucking psychopaths running the show,” he added, the US would already have had serious gun control following the massacre at at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012.“I need to really reconsider the way I do everything outside, for the forseeable future,” Piker said.“Before people say: ‘Wear a bulletproof vest,’ again, he got shot in the neck,” Piker said. “A bulletproof vest would not have saved Charlie Kirk.”“The only thing that could have potentially saved Charlie Kirk,” he added, “was if our administrations, prior to this one and this one as well, actually had reasonable gun control as a policy position, in the aftermath of, I don’t know, a hundred other school shootings.”The House speaker, Mike Johnson, told reporters in the Capitol a few minutes ago: “Political violence has become all too common in American society. This is not who we are. It violates the core principles of our country.”Writing on his social network, Donald Trump just announced the death of Charlie Kirk.Trump wrote:
      The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead. No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie. He was loved and admired by ALL, especially me, and now, he is no longer with us. Melania and my Sympathies go out to his beautiful wife Erika, and family. Charlie, we love you!
      A White House correspondent for the New York Post reports that she just spoke with Donald Trump on the phone about Charlie Kirk.“He’s not doing well,” Trump told Diana Nerozzi. “It looks very bad.”She then asked Trump how he was feeling. He replied: “Not good. He was a very, very good friend of mine and he was a tremendous person.”Videos circulating on social media showed an attender at the student event on Wednesday asking Charlie Kirk: “Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years?”In response, Kirk said: “Too many,” as the crowd clapped.In a follow-up question, the attender asked: “Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last 10 years?”Kirk replied: “Counting or not counting gang violence?”Seconds later, Kirk could be seen struck in the neck as he falls back in his chair.A spokesperson for Utah Valley University has retracted an earlier claim that a suspect in the shooting of Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist, is in custody.In a statement provided to Deseret News in Utah, university spokesperson Scott Trotter said: “We can confirm that Mr Kirk was shot, but we don’t know his condition. The suspect is not in custody. Police are still investigating Campus is closed for the rest of the day.”Trotter told the New York Times that police had taken someone into custody earlier but have determined that he was not the gunman.Kirk’s event in Utah today was the first of a 15-stop tour at universities across the country. Titled “The American Comeback”, the 31-year-old activist was due to speak at Colorado State University on 18 September.

      Charlie Kirk, a Trump ally and rightwing activist, has been shot at an event at Utah Valley University on Wednesday.

      The university said in a statement that Kirk was taken away by his security. Law enforcement have told the AP he is in hospital and in a critical condition.

      Campus police are investigating the incident. There are some conflicting reports about the detainment status of the suspect.

      Donald Trump has asked for prayers for Kirk. Trump wrote on Truth Social: “We must all pray for Charlie Kirk, who has been shot. A great guy from top to bottom. GOD BLESS HIM!”

      Kirk, the executive director of Turning Point USA (TPUSA), was shot at about 12.10pm local time while hosting an event. In video posts circulating on social media, Kirk can be seen getting struck while speaking and sitting beneath a tent. Kirk was there as part of The American Comeback Tour, which is hosted by the TPUSA chapter at Utah Valley. There is also video footage of students on campus running away from the sound of gunshots.

      Kirk was about 20 minutes into a presentation when shots were fired from a nearby building, the university told CNBC. The university has said a “single shot” was fired towards Kirk.

      FBI director Kash Patel has said that his agency is “closely monitoring” the situation.

      The shooting sparked immediate condemnation from Republicans and Democrats. Gavin Newsom, Josh Shapiro and Chuck Schumer condemned the attack. JD Vance, Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem and Pete Hegseth paid tribute to Kirk and asked the public to pray for him.

      Spencer Cox, Utah’s governor, said that he has been “briefed by law enforcement following the violence directed at Charlie Kirk during his visit to Utah Valley University today.” Cox added that “those responsible will be held fully accountable,” and uged “Americans of every political persuasion” to condemn the shooting. He offered his prayers to Kirk, his family and all those affected.

      Shortly before shots rang out, Kirk tweeted: “WE. ARE. SO. BACK. Utah Valley University is FIRED UP and READY for the first stop back on the American Comeback Tour.”
      Charlie Kirk is in critical condition at a hospital, after being shot at a speaking event at Utah Valley University, a law enforcement official tells the Associated Press.The university said earlier that a suspect was in custody, and the college campus has closed, and classes have been cancelled.Eva Terry, another Deseret News reporter who was also at the event, described the direction of the shot, saying: “It looks like it came from the middle to the right side of the audience.Describing the suspect, Terry said: “It looks like he was an older gentleman, probably in his late 50s to 60s, wearing what looks like a worker’s uniform.”Kirk was being asked a question about mass shootings when he was shot in the neck, according to eyewitnesses.Speaking to the Guardian, Deseret News reporter Emma Pitts who was at the event said: “He was on the second question and it was regarding mass shootings and the person he was debating had asked about if he knew how many mass shootings had involved a transgender shooter to which Kirk responded. Then he asked how many mass shootings had been in total in the last couple of years, I believe.“And then before he could even answer, we heard a gunshot and we just saw Charlie Kirk’s neck turn to the side and it appeared that he had been shot in the neck. There was blood, immediately a lot of blood,” Pitts added.“After the shots were fired, everyone immediately took to the ground … we were just trying to stay hidden. I don’t know how quickly it was, probably within a minute, everyone started running away … Since then the university has been completely evacuated,” said Pitts.Utah Valley University, based in Orem about 40 miles south of Salt Lake City, has closed its campus and is cancelling classes “until further notice”, according to statement.“Police are investigating. Leave campus immediately,” the university added.We’re also hearing from several leading Democrats across the country, condemning the shooting at Utah Valley University.Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro said in a post on X that “the attack on Charlie Kirk is horrifying and this growing type of unconscionable violence cannot be allowed in our society.” Shapiro added that “Political violence has no place in our country.”Similarly, California governor Gavin Newsom described the shooting as “disgusting, vile, and reprehensible.”On Capitol Hill, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said that he was “praying” for Kirk and his family, while echoing statements denouncing political violence.Alongside the president, several members of his cabinet have offered their prayers to Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist and Turning Point founder, who was shot during a speaking engagement at Utah Valley University.Vice-president JD Vance asked his followers to “say a prayer for Charlie Kirk, a genuinely good guy and a young father”, and attorney general Pam Bondi wrote that “FBI and ATF agents are on the scene. PRAY FOR CHARLIE.”Meanwhile, Kristi Noem, secretary of the Department for Homeland Security, said that she and her husband “are lifting up Charlie, Erika, and their family in our prayers right now”.Defense secretary Pete Hegseth added that Kirk was “an incredible Christian, American, and human being”. More