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      US House passes government funding package to avert shutdown

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      The US House passed a three-month government funding package on Wednesday, sending the bill to the Senate with just days left to avert a shutdown set to begin next Tuesday.The vote was 341 to 82, with 132 Republicans and 209 Democrats supporting the legislation. All 82 votes against the bill, which will extend government funding until 20 December, came from House Republicans.The Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, unveiled the legislation on Sunday after his original funding proposal failed to pass last week. Johnson’s original bill combined a six-month funding measure with the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (Save) act, a controversial proposal that would require people to show proof of citizenship when they register to vote. Fourteen House Republicans and all but two House Democrats voted against that bill last Wednesday, blocking its passage.Days later, Johnson announced that the House would move forward with a “very narrow, bare-bones CR” that will extend government funding for three months, conceding to Democrats’ weeks-long demands.“Since we fell a bit short of the goal line, an alternative plan is now required,” Johnson said in a “Dear Colleague” letter sent on Sunday. “While this is not the solution any of us prefer, it is the most prudent path forward under the present circumstances. As history has taught and current polling affirms, shutting the government down less than 40 days from a fateful election would be an act of political malpractice.”The newly approved bill also includes an additional $231m for the Secret Service “for operations necessary to carry out protective operations including the 2024 Presidential Campaign and National Special Security Events”, following the two recent assassination attempts against Donald Trump.During the floor debate over the bill on Wednesday, Tom Cole, the Republican chair of the appropriations committee, urged his colleagues to support the legislation and avert a shutdown that he described as pointless.“It’s Congress’s responsibility to ensure that the government remains open and serving the American people,” Cole said. “We are here to avert harmful disruptions to our national security and vital programs our constituents rely on.”The bill was considered under suspension of the rules, meaning Johnson needed the support of two-thirds of the chamber to pass the bill. House Democratic leaders had indicated most of their caucus would support the funding package now that it was devoid of rightwing “poison pills”, and all present Democrats voted in favor of its passage on Wednesday.“We have an obligation in this chamber: to rule, to govern, to say to the American people: ‘We’re here on your behalf,’” Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the appropriations committee, said during the debate. “The legislative process is not one where one gets everything that they want. It is about compromise. It is about coming together to recognize that we do have this obligation and this responsibility.”The bill attracted significant opposition from hard-right Republicans, who have voiced staunch criticism of short-term continuing resolutions in the past.“We irresponsibly continue to spend money that we do not have, that we have not collected, and we continue to retreat to the corners of our safe political spaces and hide behind them in order to try to sell something to the American people,” Chip Roy, a hard-right Republican of Texas, said during the debate. “The American people look at us, and they go: ‘What on earth is wrong in Washington?’”Roy predicted that the passage of the continuing resolution would lead to the House approving a much broader full-year funding bill, known as an omnibus, before their December recess. Johnson has firmly denied that accusation, telling reporters at a press conference on Tuesday: “We have broken the Christmas [omnibus], and I have no intention of going back to that terrible tradition … We’ll deal with that in the lame duck.”During the floor debate, Cole suggested that the results of the November elections would provide Congress with clearer guidance on how to proceed on a full-year funding package.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“We’re either going to shut the government down, without achieving anything by shutting it down, or we’re going to keep it open and keep working on our problems and, frankly, give the American people an opportunity in the election – through their votes and their voice – to decide who’s coming back here,” Cole said. “And I suspect that will clarify a lot of decisions in front of us.”The bill now advances to the Senate, which will have less than a week to pass the legislation to prevent a shutdown. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader, voiced confidence that the chamber would move swiftly to pass the bill and send it to Joe Biden’s desk before next Tuesday.“Both sides will have to act celeritously and with continued bipartisan good faith to meet the funding deadline,” Schumer said in a floor speech on Monday. “Any delay or last minute-poison pill can still push us into a shutdown. I hope – and I trust – that this will not happen.”Schumer reiterated his frustration over the last-minute nature of the funding deal despite widespread expectations that negotiations would ultimately end with a three-month continuing resolution. Schumer blamed the delay on Trump, who had urged Republican lawmakers to reject any funding bill that did not include “election security” provisions.“This agreement could have very easily been reached weeks ago, but Speaker Johnson and House Republicans chose to listen to Donald Trump’s partisan demands instead of working with us from the start to reach a bicameral, bipartisan agreement,” Schumer said. “That is outlandishly cynical: Donald Trump knows perfectly well that a shutdown would mean chaos, pain, needless heartache for the American people. But as usual, he just doesn’t seem to care.”It remains unclear how or when Trump might retaliate against Johnson for failing to pass a funding bill linked to “election security” measures. Johnson has downplayed any suggestion of a potential rift between him and Trump, insisting there is “no daylight” between their positions.“President Trump understands the current dilemma and the situation that we’re in,” Johnson told reporters earlier on Tuesday. “So we’ll continue working closely together. I’m not defying President Trump. We’re getting our job done, and I think he understands that.” More

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      US Congress agrees to funding deal to avert shutdown in blow to Trump

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      US congressional leaders have agreed to a short-term funding deal in a move that averts a damaging pre-election government shutdown and also amounts to a snub for Donald Trump.The prospect of a shutdown at the expiration of the current government funding on 30 September had been looming after Republicans insisted on tying future funding to legislation that would require voters to show proof of US citizenship – known as the Save Act and backed by Trump but opposed by Democrats.After weeks of backroom maneuvering, the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, announced a compromise that provides funding for another three months while decoupling it from the Save Act. Any other path would have been “political malpractice”, he added.The new package continues present spending levels while also giving $231m in emergency funds to the beleaguered Secret Service to enable it to provide added protection for Trump – the Republican presidential nominee, who has been the subject of two failed apparent assassination attempts – as well as his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris, before the presidential election on 5 November.It represents a climbdown for Johnson, who had previously adhered to Trump’s demand that government funding be conditioned on passing the Save Act. The bill – has become an article of faith for the former president and his supporters due to their belief, unsupported by evidence, that electoral fraud is rife.Writing to congressional colleagues, Johnson made it clear he was bowing to the inevitable.“While this is not the solution any of us prefer, it is the most prudent path forward under the present circumstances,” he wrote. “As history has taught and current polling affirms, shutting the government down less than 40 days from a fateful election would be an act of political malpractice.”The temporary settlement – known as a continuing resolution and which will have the effect of postponing haggling over spending until after the presidential election – was welcomed by Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader, who nevertheless said it could have been reached earlier.“While I am pleased bipartisan negotiations quickly led to a government funding agreement free of cuts and poison pills, this same agreement could have been done two weeks ago,” Schumer said. “Instead, Speaker Johnson chose to follow the Maga way and wasted precious time.”Trump is believed to have been in favour of provoking a shutdown by insisting on the Save Act’s passage – believing that the Biden administration, including Harris, the vice-president, would be blamed, as he was for a five-week closure when he was president in 2018.Johnson held talks with Trump, even visiting his club in Mar-a-Lago in Florida, over how to resolve the impasse.The compromise “officially defies” Trump, Politico wrote in its Monday Playbook column, noting that the ex-president had not, at the time of publication, responded to Johnson’s move.The website Punchbowl argued that Johnson and Trump had been guilty of a political misjudgment in pushing the Save Act, suggesting that the speaker had weakened his position in the process.“The Save Act hasn’t been the political hammer that Johnson or Trump hoped it would be,” it wrote. “Thus Johnson ends up with little here. Not empty handed but close. And he’ll be negotiating a spending deal during a lame-duck session held in what’s certain to be a highly polarised post-election period with his own political future on the line.” More

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      US House will vote on funding bill as shutdown deadline nears

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      The US House will vote Wednesday on a government funding bill that appears doomed to fail, with less than two weeks left to prevent a partial shutdown starting 1 October.The Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, announced Tuesday that the chamber would move forward with the vote, despite vocal opposition from members of his own conference. The announcement came one week after that opposition forced Johnson to delay a planned vote on his bill, and the speaker has only faced more resistance in the days since.Donald Trump has increased pressure on Johnson to reject any funding measure unless it includes “election security” provisions, a stance that the former president doubled down on hours before the vote.Johnson’s proposed bill combines a six-month stopgap funding measure, known as a continuing resolution, with the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (Save) Act, a controversial proposal that would require people to show proof of citizenship when they register to vote.“It’s very, very serious stuff, and that’s why we’re going to do the right thing,” Johnson said Wednesday. “We’re going to responsibly fund the government and we’re going to stop non-citizens voting in elections.”Critics of the Save Act note that it is already illegal for non-citizens to vote, and they fear such a law would hinder legitimate voters’ efforts to cast their ballots. House Democrats remain overwhelmingly opposed to the proposal, and only a few of them are expected to support Johnson’s bill on Wednesday.“Speaker Johnson must reject the most extreme voices in his party and quick move toward a four corners agreement so we can avoid a costly Republican-led shutdown,” said Pete Aguilar, the House Democratic caucus chair, on Wednesday. “The American people want to see an end to the chaos and division.”Given Republicans’ narrow House majority and Democrats’ widespread opposition to the bill, Johnson can only afford a handful of defections within his conference on Wednesday. But a number of hard-right Republicans have already indicated they will vote against the bill, as many of them have rejected any kind of continuing resolution amid demands for more budget cuts.Hard-right Republicans worry that, once the vote fails on Wednesday, Johnson will turn his attention to passing a more straightforward continuing resolution without the Save Act attached, although the speaker has dismissed those concerns. Asked on Wednesday about his next steps if the bill failed, Johnson deflected.“Let’s see what happens with the bill,” Johnson told reporters. “We’re on the field in the middle of the game. The quarterback is calling the play. We’re going to run the play.”Marjorie Taylor Greene, a hard-right Republican congresswoman from Georgia, attacked Johnson’s strategy as a “classic bait and switch that will enrage the base.“Johnson is leading a fake fight that he has no intention of actually fighting,” Greene said Tuesday on X. “I refuse to lie to anyone that this plan will work and it’s already [dead on arrival] this week. Speaker Johnson needs to go to the Democrats, who he has worked with the entire time, to get the votes he needs to do what he is already planning to do.”Trump, who has championed baseless claims of widespread non-citizen voting, has has similarly insisted that the SAVE Act must be congressional Republicans’ top priority before election day.He said Wednesday on his social media platform, Truth Social: “If Republicans don’t get the SAVE Act, and every ounce of it, they should not agree to a Continuing Resolution in any way, shape, or form.”But even if Johnson could get his bill across the finish line in the House, the Democratic Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, has made clear that the proposal faces no chance of passage in the upper chamber. In a floor speech delivered Wednesday, Schumer reiterated that only “bipartisan, bicameral cooperation” would prevent a shutdown next month.“For the last two weeks, Speaker Johnson and House Republican leaders have wasted precious time on a proposal that everyone knows can’t become law. His own Republican Conference cannot unite around his proposal,” Schumer said. “I hope that, once the speaker’s [continuing resolution] fails, he moves on to a strategy that will actually work: bipartisan cooperation. It’s the only thing that has kept the government open every time we have faced a funding deadline.”At a press conference on Tuesday, McConnell issued a severe warning to House Republicans that a shutdown so close to election day could jeopardize the party’s standing with voters and thus cost them seats in Congress.“The one thing you cannot have is a government shutdown,” McConnell said. “It would be, politically, beyond stupid for us to do that.” More

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      Mike Johnson scraps vote on funding bill after Republicans signal opposition

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      The House Republican speaker, Mike Johnson, hastily scrapped a planned vote on his government funding package on Wednesday after at least eight members of his own conference signaled opposition to the plan, raising more questions about how Congress will avert a partial shutdown before the end of the month.Johnson had combined a six-month stopgap funding bill with the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (Save) Act, a controversial proposal that would require people to show proof of citizenship when they register to vote.Donald Trump had already further complicated Johnson’s efforts by insisting on Tuesday that Republicans should not pass any government funding bill without addressing “election security”, as he leveled baseless accusations against Democrats of “trying to ‘stuff’ voter registrations with illegal aliens”.Johnson acknowledged he did not have enough support to pass the bill, given that he could only afford four defections within his conference if every House Democrat opposed the plan. Johnson told reporters on Capitol Hill that he and his team would work through the weekend to reach an agreement on funding the government.“No vote today because we’re in the consensus-building business here in Congress. With small majorities, that’s what you do,” Johnson said. “We’re having thoughtful conversations, family conversations within the Republican conference, and I believe we’ll get there.”Johnson’s bill would have extended government funding until 28 March, more than two months after the new president takes office in January. If Congress does not take action on federal funding this month, the government could partially shut down starting 1 October.Despite the lack of appetite for a government shutdown so close to election day on 5 November, Democrats and some Republicans balked at Johnson’s proposal. Democrats largely oppose the Save Act, which Republicans claim is necessary to prevent noncitizens from casting ballots. Critics of the Save Act note that it is already illegal for noncitizens to vote, and they warn that the policy could prevent valid voters from casting their ballots. The House passed the Save Act in July, but Senate Democrats have shown no interest in advancing the bill.In a “Dear Colleague” letter sent on Monday, the House Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, condemned Johnson’s proposal as “unserious and unacceptable”. He called on Congress to pass a stopgap bill, known as a continuing resolution, that would keep the government funded past election day and allow lawmakers to pass a full-year spending package before the new year.“In order to avert a GOP-driven government shutdown that will hurt everyday Americans, Congress must pass a short-term continuing resolution that will permit us to complete the appropriations process during this calendar year and is free of partisan policy changes inspired by Trump’s Project 2025,” Jeffries said. “There is no other viable path forward that protects the health, safety and economic wellbeing of hardworking American taxpayers.”Even among fellow Republicans, Johnson had encountered resistance. At least eight Republicans had indicated they would oppose the bill, complaining that it did not do enough to cut government spending. Thomas Massie, a Republican congressman `of Kentucky who has repeatedly clashed with Johnson, mocked the speaker’s proposal as “an insult to Americans’ intelligence”.“The [continuing resolution] doesn’t cut spending, and the shiny object attached to it will be dropped like a hot potato before passage,” Massie said on Monday.Johnson had simultaneously fielded criticism from the congressman Mike Rogers, the Republican chair of the House armed services committee, who expressed concern about how the stopgap bill might affect military readiness. The defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, has described passing a full-year spending bill for the Pentagon as “the single most important thing that Congress can do to ensure US national security”.Johnson will now confer with fellow House Republicans to try to cobble together a majority, but even if he does manage to drag his bill across the finish line, the proposal has virtually no chance of passage in the Democratic-controlled Senate.In his own “Dear Colleague” letter sent on Sunday, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, suggested that Democrats would only pass a clean funding bill with no “poison pills” attached.“As I have said before, the only way to get things done is in a bipartisan way,” Schumer said. “Despite Republican bluster, that is how we’ve handled every funding bill in the past, and this time should be no exception. We will not let poison pills or Republican extremism put funding for critical programs at risk.”Trump’s ultimatum, meanwhile, could put Johnson in a bind, and it increases the risk of a partial government shutdown taking effect just weeks before Americans go to the polls.Trump said on Tuesday on his social media platform, Truth Social: “If Republicans in the House, and Senate, don’t get absolute assurances on Election Security, THEY SHOULD, IN NO WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM, GO FORWARD WITH A CONTINUING RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET.” More

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      US Congress faces growing calls to withdraw Netanyahu invitation: ‘a terrible mistake’

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      A group of prominent Israelis – including a former prime minister and an ex-head of Mossad, the foreign intelligence service – have added their voices to the growing domestic calls in the US for Congress to withdraw its invitation to Benjamin Netanyahu to address it next month, calling the move “a terrible mistake”.The plea, in an op-ed article in the New York Times, argues that the invitation rewards Netanyahu, Israel’s current prime minister, for “scandalous and destructive conduct”, including intelligence failures that led to last October’s deadly Hamas attack and the ensuing bloody war in Gaza which shows no sign of ending.“Congress has made a terrible mistake. Mr Netanyahu’s appearance in Washington will not represent the State of Israel and its citizens, and it will reward his scandalous and destructive conduct toward our country,” the article’s six authors argue in a blistering critique that also accuses the Israeli prime minister of failing to secure the release of scores of hostages taken in last year’s attack and still held captive.The article’s authors were Ehud Barak, a former prime minister; Tamir Pardo, an ex-director of Mossad; David Harel, the president of Israel’s academy of sciences and humanities; the novelist David Grossman; Talia Sasson, a former director in the state attorney’s office; and Aaron Ciechanover, a Nobel prize-winning chemist.Their august status and biting criticism will reinforce the opposition of many Democrats to Netanyahu’s appearance before a joint session on Capitol Hill on 24 July – a sentiment strengthened by his accusation last week that the Biden administration is hampering Israel’s war effort by deliberately withholding weapons, a charge the White House denies.The invitation was originally extended by the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, and endorsed by Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic House minority leader, and the Democratic Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, despite the latter’s earlier denunciation of Netanyahu and call for fresh Israeli elections.Several Democrats have said they will boycott Netanyahu’s congressional appearance, most notably Bernie Sanders, the leftwing senator for Vermont, who has branded the prime minister “a war criminal”.Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat in the House rules committee, has called the invitation to Netanyahu “deeply troubling” and also vowed to stay away. Other critical Democrats have included former House speaker Nancy Pelosi.In comments that will be grist to the Democrats’ mill, the six Israelis write: “Inviting Mr Netanyahu will reward his contempt for US efforts to establish a peace plan, allow more aid to the beleaguered people of Gaza and do a better job of sparing civilians.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Time and again, he has rejected President Biden’s plan to remove Hamas from power in Gaza through the establishment of a peacekeeping force.”Setting out the domestic opposition to Netanyahu among Israelis, they add in a scathing conclusion: “Giving Mr Netanyahu the stage in Washington will all but dismiss the rage and pain of his people, as expressed in the demonstrations throughout the country. American lawmakers should not let that happen. They should ask Mr Netanyahu to stay home.” More

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      House speaker appoints two Trump loyalists to intelligence committee

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      Two far-right Republicans have been appointed to the highly sensitive House of Representatives’ intelligence committee at the direction of Donald Trump, a move likely to antagonise the security establishment.Representatives Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Ronny Jackson of Texas, known for their fierce loyalty to Trump and vocal support of his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election result, were installed by the House speaker, Mike Johnson, ahead of other qualified GOP members and apparently without consulting the body’s chair, Mike Turner.Turner has sought to restore the committee’s bipartisan character following years of bitter party infighting between Republicans and Democrats.The appointments of Perry and Jackson to a committee that helps to shape US foreign policy and oversees intelligence agencies such as the FBI and the CIA has caused consternation on Capitol Hill. It also signals Trump’s hostility to organisations that he has vowed to purge if he is re-elected.Adam Kinzinger, a former Republican congressman who served on the House select committee that investigated the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol, called the move “insane” on a social media post.The pair were appointed to slots opened up by the resignations from Congress of Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin and Chris Stewart of Utah.Perry, a former chairman of the hard-right Freedom Caucus, was at the forefront of Trump’s efforts to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. His endeavours led to his phone being confiscated by the FBI, an organisation he will now have a role in scrutinising.“I look forward to providing not only a fresh perspective, but conducting actual oversight – not blind obedience to some facets of our Intel Community that all too often abuse their powers, resources, and authority to spy on the American people,” Perry wrote in a pointed statement posted on X.Last December, a federal judge ordered him to hand over 1,600 text messages and emails to the FBI concerning his efforts to keep Trump in office after his election defeat.Jackson, a former White House physician to both Trump and Barack Obama, came to public notice in 2018 when the then Republican president tried to appoint him as secretary of veterans affairs.He withdrew his nomination after allegations of professional misconduct emerged, including accusations of drinking on the job and inappropriate behaviour towards female colleagues. It was also said that he took the prescription-strength sedative, Ambien, while on duty.Jackson denied the allegations and said they were politically motivated. But they were upheld by a scathing Pentagon inspector general’s report that said Jackson “disparaged, belittled, bullied and humiliated” subordinates. The report resulted in his demotion from the rank of rear-admiral to captain by the US navy, in which he served.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWhile serving as Trump’s White House doctor, he was renowned for his extravagant claims about his patient’s supposedly robust health.A spokesman for Johnson said the speaker “has the utmost confidence in Congressmen Perry and Jackson to capably serve the American people on the intelligence committee”.However, the appointments recall the committee’s stewardship under Devin Nunes, a Trump acolyte who helped to turn into a partisan battleground as he used his position to combat allegations that the former president had won the 2016 presidential election with the help of Russian interference.Nunes was rewarded for his efforts by being given a Medal of Freedom by Trump and is now chief executive of the ex-president’s social media company, Truth Social.Talking to AP, Ira Goldman – a former Republican congressional aide and counsel to the committee in the 1970s and 1980s – accused Johnson of “giving members seats on the committee when, based on the public record, they couldn’t get a security clearance if they came through any other door”. More

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      Mike Johnson’s woes continue after exodus of staff in run-up to elections

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      The Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, is reeling from a sudden staff exodus as he struggles to keep his position and the GOP’s tiny majority in the run-up to November’s elections.In the latest in a spate of resignations, Johnson’s well-connected communications director, Raj Shah, a former White House deputy press secretary under Donald Trump, has confirmed he is leaving, Axios reported. He is expected to depart by the end of the summer.News of his impending departure comes a day after it was announced that three top policy staff members, Brittan Specht, Jason Yaworske and Preston Hill, had quit and would leave by the end of May.All three worked for the previous speaker, Kevin McCarthy, who was ousted in an internal party coup last October, but were retained by Johnson when he ascended to the speaker’s chair.The trio were reported to have committed to work for Johnson for six months and deemed valuable because they had served in top-table negotiations over budget and appropriations.Specht was McCarthy’s chief policy director, although Johnson replaced him with Dan Ziegler when he took office. Yaworske was the speaker’s key adviser on appropriations and budget issues, and had input into high-level haggling over spending bills.Hill oversaw House Republican policy on areas like artificial intelligence and on the education and the workforce committee, which has spearheaded high-profile hearings on antisemitism and free speech on university campuses.They are reported to be joining Michael Best Strategies, a lobbying group whose clients include T-Mobile and the confectionary giant Haribo, and whose senior staff include Reince Priebus, Trump’s former chief of staff.The mass departures from Johnson’s nine-member team follow the resignation last week of his office’s head of digital, Anang Mittal, who quit after superiors confronted him about colleague complaints about his work performance and allegedly “unprofessional outbursts”.Johnson’s office confirmed to Axios that a new digital director, Meredith Schellin, was expected to take over.The exit of Shah in particular is seen as a blow. With his White House experience, he was regarded as a link to Trump loyalists as Johnson has struggled to fend off attacks on his speakership from the far right.Johnson recently survived an attempt by the Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene to oust him, prevailing over her motion with the help of Democrats.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTaylor Greene, an outspoken opponent of aid to Ukraine in its war against Russia, accused Johnson of “passing the Democrats’ agenda” after he ushered a multibillion aid package to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan through a House vote.Johnson put a brave face on Shah’s departure while paying generous tribute to his contribution.“Because of the unprecedented circumstances under which I became Speaker, I needed an experienced leader with talent and gravitas to build and drive our message,” Johnson told Axios. “I am grateful Raj agreed to step up and serve. He has become a trusted advisor and built an incredible communications team. Raj has fulfilled his commitment to us and I wish him continued success.”The praise echoed a tribute he had earlier paid to the staffers he inherited from McCarthy.“Because the 118th Congress became the first in history to vote to change Speakers midstream, these friends committed to assist us for the first six months of the transition, and through some of the most difficult policy challenges in decades,” he told Punchbowl in an emailed statement. “We are truly happy for them as they now pursue their new opportunities in the private sector, and we know they will be a great success.” More

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      Michael Cohen learned that membership in Trump’s inner circle has a harsh cost | Sidney Blumenthal

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      When, in the early days, Donald Trump’s diehard fans failed to show up in front of 100 Centre Street at the Manhattan courthouse to clamor about the rank injustice of the case of The People of the State of New York v Donald J Trump, the lonely defendant roused himself from his fitful slumbers to choreograph a dance of the marionettes. The political delegations that started appearing on 14 May attired for perfectly flattering cosplay in Trump matching red ties was a refrain of surrogates echoing insults and imprecations that if the former president were to mutter himself would earn him further contempt of court citations.Trump assembled around him a miniature court and hierarchy that populated a desolation row. In the front row were seated Eric Trump and his wife, Lara Trump, now installed as the co-chair of the Republican National Committee. There were the senators and congressmen, the failed presidential candidates and hopeful running mates who repeated Trump’s scripted talking points against the judge, the prosecutors and the justice system. There were the Fox News anchors, Jeanine Pirro, who exchanged smiles and nods with Trump, and Laura Ingraham, reprimanded by court officers for staring through forbidden binoculars as though she were on safari. There was former Trump White House adviser Boris Epshteyn, indicted in the Arizona fake electors scheme.The carnival of the Trump vassals was a pop-up court society that formed below the authoritarian ruler. Their ranked serfdom revealed the status pyramid. Like the witnesses, whoever they have been, the trial has dramatized the web of the only kind of relationship Trump knows: master and servant.Day after day, Trump’s underworld has been peeled away. His main line of defense is that the people he has chosen to associate with are sleazy, corrupt and dishonest, and therefore cannot be believed. Illustrating their rotten characters proves Trump must be innocent. Their offense is that they no longer serve him. The reams of hard physical evidence, meanwhile, must be ignored. Trump’s projection reached its risible apogee when his lawyer accused Stormy Daniels of profiting from selling merchandise, which she batted away with a quip: “Not unlike Mr Trump.”The courtroom drama has more than legal implications. While the testimony and evidence may nail Trump on 34 felony charges of business fraud, the trial has painted a vast canvas of human bondage. As the prosecution has built its case, each and every person called to the stand has described their own strange master-servant relationship with Trump.There was David Pecker, publisher of the National Enquirer and other tabloids, who oversaw the “catch-and-kill” hush-money operation to suppress information about Trump’s dalliances and to crank out smears of his opponents. “I felt that Donald Trump was my mentor,” he testified.There was the former teenage model and ingenue from Greenwich, Connecticut, Hope Hicks, whose association with the Trump Organization began by promoting Ivanka Trump as a fashion icon, and was elevated to Trump’s campaign press secretary and a White House counselor. When the Access Hollywood tape was disclosed a month before the election of 2016 on 7 October – “grab’ em by the pussy” – Trump “wanted to make sure that there was a denial of any kind of relationship”, Hicks testified. She ordered the campaign staff: “Deny, deny, deny.”Four days before the election in 2016, Trump directed her to deny the story of the payoff to Stormy Daniels, Hicks has said. Trump told her the next day that Michael Cohen, his personal lawyer, had paid the money. “I didn’t know Michael to be an especially charitable person or selfless person,” she testified. She averted her eyes from the defendant as she spoke, and under cross-examination by his lawyer broke down crying. Whether heartfelt or crocodile tears, they were either way a tribute to “the boss”.The stories of the two principal witnesses, Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen, like those of everyone else who has ever dealt with Trump, are divergent accounts of the Trump syndrome of domination and submission. Daniels refused to accept the dynamic from the start, felt dissociated from their sole, disagreeable sexual encounter, took the hush money when she could, and has since fought a running battle against him. Cohen traded himself for the grift and the glitz, thinking he had become a tough-guy prince of the city, until he became the fall guy. Then, after a stint in the pen, he became both penitent and vengeful. His rage against his former master is his servile rebellion.Stormy Daniels’ account is a passionless play in three clothes changes.Scene 1: Trump invites Stormy to his hotel suite at a Lake Tahoe golf tournament. Trump’s thuggish bodyguard, Keith Schiller, escorts her to his room. Stormy enters to find him lounging in silk pajamas. She cracks: “Does Hugh Hefner know you stole his pajamas?”Scene 2: A chagrined and humiliated Trump changes into a shirt and pants. He asks her whether she has ever had a sexually transmitted disease. She explains that she takes rigorous tests to continue working in the adult film industry. He presses whether “you ever had a bad test?” He asks about condoms. She asks about his wife. “Oh, don’t worry about that,” he replies. “We are – actually don’t even sleep in the same room.”He talks more about himself, cuts her off, “and it was almost like he wanted to one-up me”. He shows her a financial magazine with his picture on the cover. “At this point, I pretty much had enough of his arrogance and cutting me off and still not getting my dinner. So, I decided someone should take him on. So I said, are you always this rude, arrogant and pompous? You don’t even know how to have a conversation, and I was pretty nasty. I snapped. And he seemed to be taken aback. And I said, someone should spank you with that.” He rolls up the magazine, she takes it and orders him to “turn around”. He bends over. She swats him. “And he was much more polite.”He raises the idea that she should appear on The Apprentice. Being an “adult actress” would be no problem. “You remind me of my daughter,” he says. She puts a friend, another “adult actress”, on the phone to prove she’s present with the real Trump. Then she goes to the bathroom.In the courtroom, while Stormy testified, Trump loudly muttered, “Bullshit!” The judge told his lawyer to silence him. Trump’s curses were a substitute for himself taking the stand.Scene 3: Stormy comes out of the bathroom to find Trump lying on the bed in a T-shirt and boxer shorts. “He stood up between me and the door, not in a threatening manner. He didn’t come at me. He didn’t rush at me. He didn’t put his hands on me and nothing like that. I said, I got to go. He said, I thought we were getting somewhere, we were talking, and I thought you were serious about what you wanted. If you ever want to get out of that trailer park – basically, I was offended because I never lived in a trailer park.” Then, she felt like she “blacked out”.“The next thing I know, I was on the bed, somehow on the opposite side of the bed from where we had been standing. I had my clothes and shoes off. I believe my bra, however, was still on. We were in the missionary position … I was staring at the ceiling. I didn’t know how I got there.” Trump didn’t wear a condom. It worried her.Prosecutor: “Was it brief?” Answer: “Yes.” Her hands shook getting dressed. “He said: ‘Oh, great. Let’s get together again, honeybunch. We were great together.’ I just wanted to leave.” She leaves quickly. She feels “ashamed”. He calls several times a week for a while. She visits him once at Trump Tower. She never gets a gig on The Apprentice.In scene 1, Stormy made fun of Trump decked out in Hefner’s signature silk pajamas, his laughable affectation without the artifice of Hef’s highfalutin Playboy philosophy. Trump, in fact, had long tried to burnish his image through proximity to Hefner. In 1990, Trump appeared with a model on a Playboy cover, which he flaunted at a campaign stop in North Carolina in 2016. In 2000, he made a cameo appearance in a softcore Playboy-produced film called Centerfolds, pouring champagne in a Playboy limousine. He attended several Playboy anniversary parties, in 2003 bringing his then girlfriend Melania Knauss and posed for a photo with Hefner. But Hef exploited Trump for his gilt-edged louche image more than Trump succeeded in exploiting Hefner. When Trump proposed a feature for Playboy, “The Girls of Trump”, it was rejected. Trump was strictly for cameos. Hefner was never Trump’s servant.Stormy sized up Trump’s weakness at first sight. It was not an inflection moment, but a confection moment. Trump’s hollow personality is in great part confected from copying the stylized mannerisms of a swath of male entertainers of an older generation. His shtick is patched together from a variety of sources – borrowing, for example, from the method of Don Rickles, the insult comedian, to whom Trump unsuccessfully tried to sell a condo in one of his properties, to the method of Bob Grant, a now forgotten racist demagogue with a daily program on CBS Radio in New York, on whose show Trump appeared.Trump has been especially obsessed with Frank Sinatra, ring-a-ding-ding. He once clumsily tried to impose his will on “the Chairman of the Board”. Their transaction was nasty, brutish and short. When Trump sought to hire Sinatra to play at his Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, he tried to renegotiate the contract to pay him less than he originally promised, telling him his fee was “a little rich”. Sinatra sent Trump a message to “go fuck himself”. “He actually did loathe him,” said Nancy Sinatra, his daughter.Trump has long tried to present himself in the image of a cool swinger in Sinatra’s Rat Pack: “I’m king of the hill, top of the heap.” But the improvised group of Sinatra’s friends, accomplished musicians, actors, dancers and wits – Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr, Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop – were famous for their talent, not for an empty fame. Together they performed a spontaneous, raucous Las Vegas act and made a heist movie, Ocean’s 11, about robbing all the Vegas casinos. One aspect of their style was the show of casual bravado that was a knowing tribute and parody of the mafia dons who built and presided in Vegas. Sinatra had deflected stage-door johnnies and hangers-on since he was a teenage heartthrob. Trump was a familiar type of blustering wannabe, with a thick wad of bills to be given a ringside table and to be avoided, until he became obnoxious and Sinatra had to tell him to “go fuck himself”.In the midst of the current trial, on 11 May, Trump held a rally in New Jersey, where he hawked a patently false story about Sinatra to connect with the Jersey crowd. Supposedly, like they were pals, according to Trump: “Frank Sinatra told me a long time ago, ‘Never eat before you perform.’ I said, ‘I’m not performing, I’m a politician, if you can believe it.’”If you can believe it, even in the wee small hours of the morning, Sinatra died in 1998, 17 years before “politician” Trump ran for office. On 21 January 2021, when Trump took off from Washington at Andrews air force base, after inciting the January 6 attack on the Capitol and being impeached a second time, he had the loudspeakers blaring out one of Sinatra’s theme songs, My Way, as if Sinatra was granting him a pardon.In scene 2, according to Daniels, Trump kept circling, shark-like, to learn if Daniels might be infected with venereal disease. Relieved at her answer, when he pounced, he didn’t use a condom, his triumph in scene 3. “Missionary position,” Stormy testified. He called her “honeybunch”, until she later criticized him and he called her “horseface”.In February 2017, Trump’s bodyguard Keith Schiller – head of Trump Organization security, then promoted to “director of Oval Office operations” – invaded the New York City office of Trump’s personal physician, Dr Harold Bornstein, to seize Trump’s medical records. Bornstein said he felt “raped”. Those records have never been released. The public has no clear idea of Trump’s medical history, of whether he was ever treated for any disease, sexually transmitted or otherwise.According to Daniels, Trump promised her a spot on his TV show, then she “blacked out”, finding herself vacantly staring at the ceiling. The casting couch routine is a time-worn technique pre-existing the talkies. Trump’s was a dismal variation on the theme of Harvey Weinstein. At the time, Weinstein was a king of Hollywood, producer of the classiest movies and winner of Oscars. Trump occupied a lower rung in the entertainment industry, faking his way through a reality gameshow. They did not cross paths much, though in 2009 Trump turned up at a Miramax premiere in New York of Nine, starring Daniel Day-Lewis as an Italian film-maker with a complicated love life. Trump posed for a photo with his arms around his wife and Weinstein’s.When Weinstein was convicted of sexual assault and rape, Trump stated it sent a “very strong message” and was a “great victory” for women. “I was never a fan of Harvey Weinstein,” he said. “I think he said he was going to work hard to defeat me in the election. How did that work out, by the way? He was a person I didn’t like.” This was after numerous women accused Trump of sexual assault but before he was adjudicated a rapist in the E Jean Carroll defamation case.Before Trump’s claim that the 2020 election was “rigged”, he charged that the Emmys were “rigged” for failing to award him for The Apprentice. In 2017, Stephen Colbert, as the host of the Emmy awards show, mocked Trump. “Unlike the presidency, Emmys go to the winner of the popular vote,” he said. Trump’s whining about the “rigged” Emmys was a rehearsal for his “Stop the Steal” coup.The offstage but oft-mentioned character who never appears as a live witness is Trump’s third wife, Melania, of the separate bedrooms, who was pregnant while Trump was inviting Stormy and a bevy of adult film stars into his Tahoe hotel suite. The overwhelming weight of testimony introduced in the trial is that Trump’s actions were motivated by a desire to suppress the information of his sexual liaisons because they would damage his election chances.Prosecutor: Why, in fact, did you pay that money to Stormy Daniels?Michael Cohen: To ensure that the story would not come out, [and] would not affect Mr Trump’s chances of becoming president of the United States.Prosecutor: If not for the election, would you have paid that money to Stormy Daniels?Cohen: No, ma’am.Prosecutor: At whose direction did you pay the money?Cohen: Trump’s.One of Cohen’s revelations was that when the Hollywood Access tape emerged, it was Melania who invented the alibi that it was just boys’ “locker room talk”. “We needed to put a spin on this,” Cohen said, “and the spin that [Trump] wanted put on it was that this is locker room talk – something that Melania had recommended, or at least he told me that that’s what Melania had thought it was.”To maintain a degree of control in the marriage, Melania dances a tango. She has been vigilantly protective of her investment. She has renegotiated her pre-nup three times, according to Page Six, twice as a post-nuptial agreement. Nobody knows its provisions. But it may be reasonable to assume that Trump’s adamant refusal to acknowledge his sex with Stormy Daniels may relate to sums of money attached to episodes of adultery in the post-nup. Melania was reportedly furious after the disclosure of Trump’s $130,000 payment to Daniels.Cohen testified that he asked Trump,“How’s things going to go upstairs?” referring to Melania’s anger, and Trump responded with the coldest revelation to come out of the trial: “‘Don’t worry,’ he goes. He goes: ‘How long do you think I will be on the market for? Not long’.” Trump was contemplating what would happen after Melania made good on the latest post-nup.On the day that Stormy testified, in a bit of counter-programming, the chair of the Florida state Republican party announced that Barron Trump, Melania and Donald’s son, 18 years old, would be a delegate to the Republican national convention. Floating that story would show that Melania was on board. Two days later, the Florida Republican party issued a statement rescinding the original one, now stating that Barron Trump “regretfully declines to participate due to prior commitments”. Perhaps Melania had made her leverage known.Where’s my Michael Cohen? “I regret doing things for him that I should not have,” he said on the stand. “Lying, bullying people to effectuate the goal … to keep a loyalty and to do the things he asked me to do, I violated my moral compass and I suffered the penalty, as has my family.” His plea for redemption was something that never would have passed the lips of Trump’s tutor in viciousness.Roy Cohn owed nothing to Trump. Trump came to him as a supplicant to rescue him from a racial discrimination suit, which Cohn resolved through his trademark intimidation, delay and bluffing. Trump, the youthful bounder, also begged Roy to wheedle him past the rope line into Le Club, an exclusive celebrity hangout. Roy had been a darling of J Edgar Hoover and the counsel for Joseph McCarthy. Roy represented everyone in New York: the Catholic archdiocese, George Steinbrenner of the Yankees, Aristotle Onassis, and the bosses of the mafia families, Fat Tony Salerno, Carmine Galante, and John Gotti. Roy’s apprentice was Roger Stone, who introduced him to Ronald Reagan. Roy’s beard, his make-believe fiancee, was Barbara Walters. Roy was Trump’s godfather in the city.Michael Cohen owed everything to Trump. The personal injury lawyer from Long Island claimed he read The Art of the Deal twice before Trump hired him. He eagerly became Trump’s creature. He did whatever Trump asked of him, from lying about whatever needed to be lied about to threatening inquisitive reporters to trying to negotiate a Trump Moscow Tower.One of those tasks was paying off Stormy Daniels at Trump’s orders, he testified, and Cohen served two years in prison for tax evasion and campaign-finance violations, among other crimes, for his service to Trump. Trump was named in his federal indictment from the southern district of New York as Unindicted Co-Conspirator 1. Trump sent him a message during his trial: “Stay strong, I have your back. You’re going to be fine.” Cohen was a made man; Trump had made him. He was his complicit errand boy. Roy Cohn had taught Trump how to create a Michael Cohen. Then, Cohen flipped.Trump called him a “rat”, a term of art applied to an FBI informant snitching on organized crime. Running for re-election with indictments shadowing him this year, Trump began trolling for unofficial character witnesses. In January, he landed the biggest “rat” of them all for an endorsement: Sammy “The Bull” Gravano – a former hitman for the mob who confessed to involvement in the murders of 19 men and a stoolie who sent away his boss, the “Dapper Don” John Gotti, for life – stepped forward to stamp Trump “a legitimate guy”.“Thank you to Sammy the Bull,” Trump tweeted. “I hope Judges Engoron and Kaplan see this” – the judges in his financial fraud and E Jean Carroll defamation cases, which he would lose. “We need fairness, strength and honesty in our New York Courts. We don’t have it now!” But Sammy the Bull, who in 2017 was released from an Arizona prison where he was doing time for running a drug ring, has refrained from further commentary on Trump’s legal troubles. Trump has turned elsewhere for character witnesses.The cavalcade of Republican politicians to the Manhattan courthouse has been a demonstration of the party’s servitude to the defendant. Journalists in the courtroom have observed Trump writing and editing the talking points handed to the pols to spout. These Republicans are more than a sideshow: they’re walking witnesses to the degree to which Trump has transformed the Republican party into his accomplice. It is a made party.Tommy Tuberville, the village idiot of the Senate, who held up military promotions for months, blunderingly gave the entire game away, and conceivably could get Trump into further hot water, by stating that he and the others came on Trump’s behalf to “overcome the gag order”. He complained that the courtroom was “kind of dark, cold”, and that the seats “are very, very, very uncomfortable”.“I’ve not been in many courtrooms in my life,” he went on. “Hopefully I don’t have to go to too many more.” So far, Trump’s further trials have been conveniently delayed.Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, evangelical avatar, arrived on the shuttle to lend moral support to the immoral. “People are curious,” he explained about his motivation last year. “What does Mike Johnson think about any issue under the sun?’ I said, ‘Well, go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it. That’s my worldview. That’s what I believe.’”In Alabama, while working as an attorney for the far-right Alliance Defending Freedom, Johnson spoke out in favor of Judge Roy Moore’s posting of the Ten Commandments at the Montgomery judicial building. Moore lost a bid for the US Senate in 2017 after accusations of sexual assault and misconduct with underage girls. After Johnson’s little intervention at the Trump trial, he might edit the commandments down to six, dropping the bits about adultery, stealing, lying and greed. If he were especially self-aware about his courthouse antic, he could also drop the first one: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”Standing behind the metal barrier in front of the courthouse, careful not to enter, Johnson waved to Trump. He got the talking points for the courthouse rally, too. The trial, he said, was “a sham”. The gesture was a small price to pay after convincing Trump to help him fend off Marjorie Taylor Greene from carting him away in a tumbril. Empty flattery of Trump is worth the speakership. But Johnson’s bended knee has guaranteed that the Democrats will not vote to maintain him again, if there is another attempt to guillotine him.Mike Johnson is a Trump made man, too, enlisted as an accomplice in the January 6 coup and the subsequent effort to cover it up. He was instrumental in advancing the falsehood that Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic had “rigged software” that came from the deceased “Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela”, sought to nullify the votes of Arizona and Pennsylvania, and charged that the judges who rejected Trump’s bogus claims were committing an illegal “usurpation”. Once he became speaker, he ordered that in the film of the January 6 attack the faces of insurrectionists should be blurred “because we don’t want them to be retaliated against and to be charged by the DoJ”. It was too late, however, to obstruct justice. The justice department announced after Johnson’s order that it already had the footage.For Johnson, the courthouse demonstration to denigrate the justice system was consistent with his participation in the January 6 plot. After Johnson fended off the attempt to remove him, he must play a game to defend Trump in order to play Trump in order to defend himself from Trump’s feral acolytes. Everyone who has tried that game has eventually wound up devoured.For the chorus line of vice-presidential hopefuls, the courthouse was an off-Broadway tryout. They pirouetted to win Trump’s nod, but only one could be chosen: “One singular sensation”.Senator JD Vance, of Ohio, who in one of his several past incarnations denounced Trump as “America’s Hitler”, has since turned into a Trump trooper. The cultural contradictions of Trumpism no more bother the pious Vance than they do Mike Johnson. Vance has said he had come just “to support a friend … Sometimes it’s a little bit lonely to sit up there by yourself.” But Vance’s courtroom elegy as Miss Lonelyhearts was clipped. His good friend had previously described him at a campaign rally as “JD Mandel”, confusing him with another Ohio politician. If Trump needs Vance to win Ohio, he has already lost.Who was and who wasn’t present in the worshipful gaggle was a tale of two Dakotas. South Dakota governor Kristi Noem, aspiring running mate, was significantly absent from the courthouse, still busily justifying blasting her 14 months-old puppy and a goat after dragging them into a gravel pit. Her tale of slaughter in a recently published memoir was an exhibition of performative sadism to catch the eye of Trump. Her cruelty to animals was an unprecedented bid to secure the second slot under him. But the opprobrium she attracted terminated her short-lived campaign.The trigger-happy governor, quick on the draw, had put a clear bullseye on her target’s viciousness – Trump, not Cricket the dog. But there’s no getting back up on the horse for her. By the way, she has also disclosed offing three family horses. Trump infamously boasted that he could get away with shooting someone on Fifth Avenue, but Noem’s bragging about killing her dog on the farm unexpectedly became her retelling a murder-suicide.Trump’s other Dakota applicant, North Dakota governor Doug Burgum – who dropped out of the Republican contest before a single vote was taken, polling a barely detectable 1% – turned up at the courthouse to drone the Trump talking points that the trial was “election interference” and a “scam”. The colorless Burgum, without the slightest measurable constituency, should be considered the frontrunner as Trump’s vice-presidential pick. His advantage is not that he is bland and can never outshine Trump. Burgum’s asset is his assets. He sold his software company to Microsoft in 2001 for $1.1bn. Trump is frantic for cash.Trump has installed his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, as co-chair of the Republican National Committee, to replace Ronna Romney McDaniel, who had resisted shoveling every last penny of RNC funds into Trump’s legal defense fund. As slavish as McDaniel was to Trump, her sin was that it was not down to the last cent. She could not be subservient enough; so, she was defenestrated. Under Lara Trump, the party’s money will flow in an endless river to his campaign.Burgum, a political nobody, appears as a godsend to Trump. If Trump is the Republican goldencalf, Burgum is his potential cash cow. With him on the ticket, Burgum would be outside campaign finance restrictions and could open the spigot of his fortune for Trump. When it comes to Trump, the mercenary motive always prevails. For Burgum, it might be a cheap deal, a speculation as profitable in its own way as selling his firm Microsoft made him a billionaire. If Trump is elected, the non-entity would be a heartbeat away from the presidency. In the meantime, he simply has to perform like a Mike Pence dummy, until the moment inevitably arrives when Trump tries to coerce him to become a co-conspirator.By Thursday, 16 May, the supporting cast was down to the scraps of Freedom Caucus devotees, most prominently Lauren Boebert and Matt Gaetz. “And I want all of the news to start asking the question, ‘What is the crime?’” Boebert shouted outside the courthouse. “Because everyone in this court has not been informed of what the crime is. The defendant does not know the crime that was committed.” As she spoke, one bystander heckled: “Beetlejuice!” Boebert had been evicted from a Denver theater staging of “Beetlejuice” for allegedly vaping, making loud noises and groping her then boyfriend, owner of a dive bar named Hooch that features drag queen shows.After Gaetz appeared at the courthouse, he posted on Twitter/X a picture of himself there in a Trump-style red tie with a caption comparing himself to the Proud Boys, whose leader is serving a prison sentence for seditious conspiracy for the January 6 insurrection. “Standing back and standing by, Mr President,” wrote Gaetz. He understood Trump’s bottomless need for displays of subservience. In the courtroom, Gaetz was given a place of honor seated next to Eric Trump.The House ethics committee has yet to report on its investigation into Gaetz’s alleged sexual relation with a minor. Former speaker Kevin McCarthy, removed from the speakership by the people rallying at the courthouse, observed recently that the motive for his ousting was because “one person wanted me to stop an ethics complaint because he slept with a 17-year-old”.But the red-tie Trump brigade were not a snake line of Proud Boys armed with weapons ready to rush the courthouse to liberate the defendant. Their dim perception about the trial they came on Trump’s orders to deride blinded them to the tragic story of the chief witness, Michael Cohen. The Trump lackey, through a tortured ordeal, at last came to a harsh realization of how grotesquely Trump had manipulated, exploited and betrayed him, and now he stood lashed in the witness box by Trump’s lawyer for being Trump’s lawyer, the liar that Trump depended on. Outside the courtroom, Trump’s self-abasing retinue lines up to serve him like the old Michael Cohen.
      Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth. He is a Guardian US columnist More