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    Trump White House: after Susie Wiles, who else could be in the cabinet

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    The former US president Donald Trump, due to return to the White House in January, has not yet engaged in formal discussions regarding his new cabinet. Nevertheless, amid his plane journeys, television appearances and rallies, speculation and rumours have swirled around several figures who could find roles in his administration.Confirmed offers of a roleSusie WilesView image in fullscreenConfirmed role: Chief of staffTrump has named Susie Wiles as his White House chief of staff, the first woman to hold the influential role. She was previously the campaign manager for his successful bid for re-election. Although her political views remain somewhat ambiguous, she is seen as having led a successful and streamlined presidential race. Supporters believe she could introduce a level of organisation and discipline that was frequently absent throughout Trump’s first term, marked by a series of changes in the chief of staff role.Expected cabinet picksElon MuskView image in fullscreenPotential role: unspecifiedElon Musk, who turned into a fully fledged cheerleader for Trump and who holds billions in federal contracts, has reportedly sought a role in a second Trump administration in charge of the regulators that oversee him. Trump has appeared to rule out a cabinet role for Musk, but has said he wants the tech billionaire to have some sort of an unspecified role in his administration. The world’s wealthiest person has proposed the establishment of a Department of Government Efficiency.Robert F Kennedy JrView image in fullscreenPotential role: unspecifiedRobert F Kennedy Jr, the son of the assassinated Bobby Kennedy and nephew of JFK, whose independent campaign for president has at times reached as high as 10% of the vote, strongly believes he has a shot at a role in Trump’s cabinet after he backed the Republican. While senior members of Trump’s campaign have ruled out Kennedy getting a job in the Department of Health, Trump has said he would let him “do what he wants” with women’s healthcare if he makes it to the White House, citing how Kennedy would be able to “go wild” on food and medicines.Doug BurgumView image in fullscreenPotential role: ‘energy tsar’The Financial Times reports that Doug Burgum, governor of North Dakota, is being considered for an “energy tsar” role. The role and its powers have yet to be finalised. However, Trump has called the climate crisis “one of the great scams of all time” and has promised to “drill, baby, drill”. It’s expected any climate or energy secretary would be tasked with rolling back environmental regulations.In 2023, Burgum ran a short-lived campaign for the Republican nomination for president. He went on to become a highly visible, prolific Trump surrogate and advised Trump on energy policy.Mike PompeoView image in fullscreenPotential role: secretary of defenceMike Pompeo, a former CIA director and secretary of state and devoted ally of Trump, chose not to challenge his ex-boss for the Republican nomination. The staunch supporter of Israel and a sworn enemy of Iran is widely considered a key contender for a top role in the new administration, possible as secretary of defence.Richard GrenellView image in fullscreenPotential role: secretary of stateRichard Grenell, an ex-Fox News contributor who is among Trump’s closest foreign policy advisers, is probably in the running for secretary of state or other top foreign policy and national security posts. A former US ambassador to Germany and vocal backer of Trump’s America First credo on the international stage in his first term, he has advocated for setting up an autonomous zone in eastern Ukraine to end the war there, a position Kyiv considers unacceptable.Tom CottonView image in fullscreenPotential role: secretary of defenceThe far-right Republican senator from Arkansas emerged as a dark-horse contender to be Trump’s running mate in the final weeks of the vice-presidential selection process. In a notorious 2020 New York Times op-ed headlined Send In the Troops, Tom Cotton, likened Black Lives Matter protests to a rebellion and urged the government to deploy the US military against demonstrators by invoking the Insurrection Act. He is well liked among Trump donors and also seen as a contender for secretary of defence.Cotton has said he won’t take a role.Ben CarsonView image in fullscreenPotential role: secretary of housing and urban developmentA retired neurosurgeon and former US housing secretary, Ben Carson has pushed for a national abortion ban – a posture at odds with most Americans and even Donald Trump himself. During his 2016 run he ran into controversy when he likened abortion to slavery and said he wanted to see the end of Roe v Wade. When the supreme court reversed its decision in the Dobbs case, he called it “a crucial correction”. Carson could be nominated by Trump as housing and urban development secretary.Scott BessentView image in fullscreenPotential role: unspecifiedA key economic adviser to Trump and ally of JD Vance, Scott Bessent, the manager of Key Square macro hedge fund, is seen as a possible cabinet contender. The Wall Street investor and a prominent Trump fundraiser has praised Trump’s use of tariffs as a negotiating tool.Mike WaltzView image in fullscreenPotential role: secretary of defence, or secretary of stateA former US army green beret, who now serves as a congressman for Florida, Michael Waltz has solidified his reputation as a leading advocate for a tougher stance on China within the House of Representatives. He played a leading role in sponsoring legislation aimed at reducing the US’s dependence on minerals sourced from China. Waltz is known to have a solid friendship with Trump and has also voiced support for US assistance to Ukraine, while concurrently pushing for greater oversight of American taxpayer funds allocated to support Kyiv’s defence efforts. He has been tipped in the US media as a contender for either defence secretary or secretary of state.Robert LighthizerView image in fullscreenPotential role: trade or commerce secretaryRobert Lighthizer is Donald Trump’s most senior trade official. He is a firm believer in tariffs and was one of the leading figures in Trump’s trade war with China. Described by Trump as “the greatest United States trade representative in American history”, Lighthizer is almost certain to be back in the new cabinet. Though Scott Bessent and the billionaire hedge fund manager John Paulson probably have a better shot at becoming treasury secretary, Lighthizer has a few outside chances: he might be able to reprise his old role as US trade representative or become the new commerce secretary.Brooke RollinsView image in fullscreenPotential role: unspecifiedA former domestic policy adviser in the White House, Brooke Rollins has a close personal relationship with Trump. Considered by many to be one of Trump’s more moderate advisers, she backed the former president’s first-term criminal justice reforms that lessened prison sentences for some relatively minor offences.Donald Trump JrView image in fullscreenPotential role: unspecifiedAlthough he has been less prominent on the campaign trail than in previous election cycles, the 47th president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, was active behind the scenes and advocated for his friend JD Vance as running mate. He has built a loyal following in the Maga universe via his Triggered podcast and has taken a role along with his brother Eric Trump in the transition process to establish a new administration. The formal co-chairs of the transition are the Cantor Fitzgerald chief executive, Howard Lutnick, and Linda McMahon, the former wrestling executive who led the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term.Stephen MillerView image in fullscreenPotential role: unspecifiedA senior policy adviser in the early part of Trump’s first term who was the chief architect of the Muslim travel ban, Stephen Miller is expected to be back in the White House for a second Trump term that the president-elect has said will bring the largest mass deportation in US history. The anti-immigration extremist is also the founder of America First Legal, a group described by him as the right’s “long-awaited answer” to the American Civil Liberties Union, and is already helping drive plans for the second Trump term.Includes reporting by Reuters More

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      Trump’s Republican convention speech live: former president to formally accept nomination

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      Good evening US politics blog readers, and thank you for joining us as we cover the last night of the Republican national convention. Donald Trump is set to formally accept the GOP’s nomination to be its presidential candidate with a speech at the convention’s end. Before that, we’ll be hearing from a slew of speakers in a night themed “Make America great once again”. These include Tucker Carlson, the rightwing commentator who has struck off on his own show after Fox News fired him last year, the former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, the Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO, Dana White, and the retired professional wrestler Hulk Hogan.As he usually is, Trump is the star of the show, and the convention has him scheduled to speak for a whole 90 minutes, beginning at 9pm CT. This will be his first public address since an assassin tried to kill him on Saturday, and he’s still sporting a bandage on his right ear from the attempt, which led to the death of a rally-goer. This will also be the highest profile speech Trump has made since his first debate with Joe Biden in late June. The president’s fatigued performance in that showdown has led to a growing wave of Democrats – reportedly including the party’s leaders in Congress – to urge that he reconsider his bid for a second term in office. The Republicans, meanwhile, have been united around Trump, and his speech this evening will serve as a chance for him to elaborate on his plans for a second term in office.Here’s what we’ll be watching out for:

      Will Trump cast himself as a unifier? After his brush with death on Saturday, the former president has tried to play up the theme in his statements, and several speakers at the convention thus far have tried to cast him as a family man – perhaps as a way to detract attention from his often tawdry legal troubles.

      Convention speakers over the past three nights have made plenty of rightwing policy promises – but not quite as many as expected. Though attendees have waved signs reading “Mass deportations now” and some speakers have claimed, without evidence, that undocumented people have cast ballots, there has not been much mention of conspiracy theories around the 2020 election, plans to use the national guard to carry out mass deportations, or Trump’s vow to have the justice department to retaliate against his enemies. Will the former president mention those themes in his speech?

      Who else might Trump attack? It’s a given that he’ll go after Biden, but the Democrat is facing a backlash not seen in decades to his re-election campaign, and could step aside. Some earlier convention speakers have made a point of criticizing Kamala Harris, perhaps as a hedge to her ascension as the Democratic candidate. We’ll see if Trump follows suit.
      We’ve put together an explainer going through the finer details of the closing evening of the Republican national convention, including when Donald Trump is expected to speak, how you can watch his address, and who else from the Trump family may be in the room.Give it a read here:Over the past three nights, several speakers at the Republican national convention have tried to rehabilitate Donald Trump’s image by telling the public that what they have heard about the former president isn’t quite right. The Guardian’s Ed Pilkington takes a closer look at the campaign to “Make Trump Human Again”: Even before Donald Trump takes the stage at the Republican national convention on Thursday night, promising a speech on national unity rather than the usual partisan rancour, his team has laboured hard in the wake of the rally shooting to give the impression that he is a changed man.Gone was the Trump of “this American carnage”, the victim of witch-hunts who, if returned to the White House, would unleash a whirlwind of retribution on his enemies and be a dictator on day one. In its place was Trump the candy-peddling grandfather, the kiss-me-goodnight father, the comforting mentor and patriotic healer.It was as if the official theme of the week, Make America Great Again, had been hurriedly replaced by a new slogan: Make Trump Human Again.Kai Trump, the former US president’s 17-year-old granddaughter, helped set the tone. In a convention address on Wednesday she shared her big secret about the 78-year-old Republican nominee.“To me, he’s just a normal grandpa. He gives us candy and soda when our parents are not looking.”The theme of a “caring and loving” Trump – Kai’s words – was reminiscent of the narrative that has long been projected by Joe Biden, who presents his candidacy as a choice for dignity, respect and civility. It was as if the Trump team had adopted Biden’s playbook as empathiser-in-chief.Good evening US politics blog readers, and thank you for joining us as we cover the last night of the Republican national convention. Donald Trump is set to formally accept the GOP’s nomination to be its presidential candidate with a speech at the convention’s end. Before that, we’ll be hearing from a slew of speakers in a night themed “Make America great once again”. These include Tucker Carlson, the rightwing commentator who has struck off on his own show after Fox News fired him last year, the former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, the Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO, Dana White, and the retired professional wrestler Hulk Hogan.As he usually is, Trump is the star of the show, and the convention has him scheduled to speak for a whole 90 minutes, beginning at 9pm CT. This will be his first public address since an assassin tried to kill him on Saturday, and he’s still sporting a bandage on his right ear from the attempt, which led to the death of a rally-goer. This will also be the highest profile speech Trump has made since his first debate with Joe Biden in late June. The president’s fatigued performance in that showdown has led to a growing wave of Democrats – reportedly including the party’s leaders in Congress – to urge that he reconsider his bid for a second term in office. The Republicans, meanwhile, have been united around Trump, and his speech this evening will serve as a chance for him to elaborate on his plans for a second term in office.Here’s what we’ll be watching out for:

      Will Trump cast himself as a unifier? After his brush with death on Saturday, the former president has tried to play up the theme in his statements, and several speakers at the convention thus far have tried to cast him as a family man – perhaps as a way to detract attention from his often tawdry legal troubles.

      Convention speakers over the past three nights have made plenty of rightwing policy promises – but not quite as many as expected. Though attendees have waved signs reading “Mass deportations now” and some speakers have claimed, without evidence, that undocumented people have cast ballots, there has not been much mention of conspiracy theories around the 2020 election, plans to use the national guard to carry out mass deportations, or Trump’s vow to have the justice department to retaliate against his enemies. Will the former president mention those themes in his speech?

      Who else might Trump attack? It’s a given that he’ll go after Biden, but the Democrat is facing a backlash not seen in decades to his re-election campaign, and could step aside. Some earlier convention speakers have made a point of criticizing Kamala Harris, perhaps as a hedge to her ascension as the Democratic candidate. We’ll see if Trump follows suit. More

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      Mike Pompeo says he will not run for president in 2024 election

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      Former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo said on Friday that he will not run for president in the 2024 election.The devoted ally and defender of Donald Trump opted out of a contest that would have put him into competition with his former commander in chief.After saying he was weighing a run in January, the former Trump administration official and CIA director released a statement on the decision. “To those of you who this announcement disappoints, my apologies,” he said, calling it a personal choice.“And to those of you this thrills, know that I’m 59 years old. There remain many more opportunities for which the timing might be more fitting as presidential leadership becomes even more necessary.”Pompeo, who also spoke about his decision on Fox News on Friday, would have been the second former Trump cabinet member to enter the race to challenge the former president for the 2024 GOP nomination, joining former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, who announced her campaign in February. Former vice-president Mike Pence is also considering entering the race and has stepped up his travel and activity in early voting primary and caucus states.Where Haley and Pence have openly expressed differences with Trump, Pompeo has had no public split with the former president and hasn’t been rebuked by him, as many of his would-be rivals have. Pompeo recently referred to Trump as a “great boss”.The former congressman graduated at the top of his class from the US Military Academy in 1986 before spending five years on active duty, deployed for a time as a cavalry officer commanding tank movements along the border between Nato-backed western Europe and Soviet-occupied eastern Europe.The retired Army captain is a Harvard-educated lawyer who practiced law in Washington and founded two Wichita businesses – an aerospace firm and later a petroleum equipment manufacturer – before entering politics.Pompeo – a witty and sometimes gruff politician – easily won four consecutive terms in the US House representing southern Kansas. He sat on the House intelligence committee as well as the select committee investigating the deadly 2012 attack on the US mission in Benghazi, Libya.The 2018 withdrawal from the Iran deal and imposition of crippling sanctions have prompted death threats against Pompeo, who remains under 24-hour security protection provided by the state department.“I can’t tell you how heartwarming and humbling it has been when strangers have told me they pray that I run to defend our nation’s Judeo-Christian heritage, our families and our country as the most exceptional in the history of civilization,” Pompeo’s statement said. More

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      What to expect from this year’s CPAC: Biden bashing, 2024 Republican primary chatter and lawsuit gossip

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      What to expect from this year’s CPAC: Biden bashing, 2024 Republican primary chatter and lawsuit gossipThe gathering of conservatives returns to Washington and could prove to be a crystal ball into the GOP’s 2024 outlookIts impresario is facing allegations of sexual assault. Its headline act is a twice impeached former US president under criminal investigation. And its after-dinner speaker is a local news anchor turned far-right election denier.Classified Trump schedules were moved to Mar-a-Lago after FBI search – sourcesRead moreWelcome to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), which claims to be the biggest and most influential gathering of conservatives in the world. It is also a perennial window to the soul of the Republican party.After going on the road to Florida and Texas because of their more relaxed coronavirus pandemic restrictions, CPAC returns to the Washington area on Wednesday for the first time since 2020, offering a four-day festival of political incorrectness, Maga merchandise and Joe Biden-slamming bombast.But this time the cavernous corridors of the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland, will fill with chatter about the Republican presidential primary in 2024 – and gossip about CPAC’s own organiser and public face, Matt Schlapp.An unnamed Republican staffer has filed a lawsuit accusing Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union, of groping his genitals as he drove Schlapp to a hotel in Atlanta, Georgia, last October. The man, who is in his late 30s, is seeking nearly $9.4m in damages in a complaint that included screenshots of purported text messages.Schlapp strenuously denies the allegation. Last month he tweeted a statement from lawyer Charlie Spies that said: “The complaint is false, and the Schlapp family is suffering unbearable pain and stress due to the false allegation from an anonymous individual.”Schlapp, who was director of political affairs in the George W Bush White House, is an influential supporter of former president Donald Trump. His wife, Mercedes Schlapp, served as Trump’s communications director between 2017 and 2019. The lineup of CPAC speakers announced so far suggests that the Schlapps remain firmly in Trump’s camp as he campaigns to win back the presidency in 2024.That lineup also includes Trump allies such as former housing secretary Ben Carson, senators Marsha Blackburn and Ted Cruz, representatives Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ronny Jackson, Jim Jordan, Scott Perry and Elise Stefanik, former White House senior adviser Stephen Miller, ex-White House press secretary Sean Spicer and Truth Social chief executive Devin Nunes.Then there is Trump’s son, Don Jr, his fiancée Kimberly Guilfoyle – infamous for hollering “The best is yet to come!” at the 2020 Republican national convention – and the main event: a speech by Trump himself that will be akin to an indoor campaign rally.It is a chorus that will try to make the case that reports of Trump losing his grip on the Republican base after seven years have been greatly exaggerated. But the 76-year-old celebrity businessman, whose electability has been questioned after last year’s midterms, will not have it all his own way.CPAC will also hear from both of his officially declared Republican primary rivals in next year’s presidential race so far: Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. Mike Pompeo, a former secretary of state and potential candidate, will also speak. Each address will be closely analysed for veiled critiques of Trump – and for applause and cheers, boos and heckles, or polite indifference from the crowd.Kurt Bardella, a Democratic strategist, believes that it would be a “massive mistake strategically” for hopefuls to tiptoe around Trump. “How do you expect to beat a guy if you’re not willing to talk about him directly and contrast yourself with him?” he said. “You’re not giving the voters a reason to change the channel.”CPAC’s tweets mockingly point out that Nancy Pelosi, former speaker of the House of Representatives, and Joy Behar, a comedian and co-host of television’s The View, have not been invited to the conference. But a more striking absence, at least according to what has been announced so far, is Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, widely seen as the most credible threat to Trump.Rick Wilson, who attended many CPACs before cofounding the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group, said: “DeSantis is not going: I think that’s because Schlapp, like many other Republicans, has made the probably correct calculus that Ron DeSantis is an overpriced stock and Donald Trump is still the best known quantity in the Republican party.”Florida-based Wilson, who has met DeSantis in person and found him to have to the “charisma of a toaster oven”, argues that the current audience for the governor falls into three groups. “Culture war weirdos who believe this whole ‘woke’ thing, which is a meaningful but not enormous part of the party. National Review writers who are desperate, desperate, desperate, desperate, desperate for anything other than Trump so they can say, ‘See, we’re past that. We can go back to normal.’“I have some bad news for them. Nobody’s ever inviting them back in the room in the Republican party of tomorrow, just as nobody’s ever inviting guys like me back in the room. It’s over. The party’s run by the mob, not by the intellectuals, and it’s never going to go back. Once a movement becomes a populist movement dominated by the grassroots of the base, it never goes back to being a thoughtful, intellectually driven movement.”The third and final group, he added, “are liberal Republican hedge fund billionaires from New York. The open borders, globalist US Chamber of Commerce are going out of their way to help DeSantis! The irony is DeSantis thinks he can have the most elite support and then trick the Maga base into thinking he’s a rah-rah like Trump. It just defies imagination.”CPAC traditionally ends with a less than scientific “straw poll” of attendees’ preferences for the Republican presidential nomination. Trump has dominated it for years. Last summer in Dallas, Texas, he won with 69% of the vote, ahead of DeSantis on 24%. Anything other than a victory for Trump next week would cause political shockwaves.Joe Walsh, a former Republican congressman who estimates that he attended four of five CPACs, said: “Trump and DeSantis will be the number one and two in the poll. Haley and Pompeo and anybody else who might speak at CPAC right now has no shot, no chance, no nothing. It’s the party of Trumpism and Trumpism will be reflected in CPAC.”Border security, crime, culture wars and parents’ rights are likely to feature prominently at the conference. CPAC’s Twitter bio has the hashtags “#AwakeNotWoke” and “#FirePelosiSaveAmerica” – an outdated reference to the retired House speaker. CPAC’s website promotes a documentary entitled The Culture Killers with the warning: “The woke wars are coming to a neighborhood near you.”CPAC will also give the biggest platform yet to growing dissent in the nativist wing of the Republican party over US support for Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression, roughly $50bn and rising. Biden is likely to face criticism for having travelled to Kyiv in the same week that Trump headed to the scene of a toxic train disaster in East Palestine, Ohio.A group of Trump-aligned Republicans led by Gaetz recently introduced a “Ukraine fatigue” resolution calling for an end to military and financial aid to the embattled nation. Greene tweeted this week, “Ukraine is the new Iraq”, while DeSantis condemned the aid as an “open-ended blank cheque”, telling Fox News: “The fear of Russia going into Nato countries and all that, and steamrolling, that has not even come close to happening.”Walsh predicted: “You’ll hear anti-support for Ukraine, pro-Russia, pro-Putin, take care of our borders. You’ll hear that isolationist build-a-wall-around-America attitude at CPAC because that is an animating force now in the party. I doubt Nikki Haley, who is not an isolationist, will even talk about Ukraine, because that’s not what the people in that auditorium want to hear.”Ronald Reagan spoke at the first CPAC in 1974 and towered over it for years. A showpiece dinner is named in the 40th president’s honour, though it might be argued that CPAC has drifted far from his views on immigration, Russia and the definition of conservatism itself. This year Kari Lake, a former TV host who ran for governor of Arizona last year and still refuses to accept her defeat, is the featured speaker at the Reagan dinner.Bardella, who attended CPAC when he was previously a Republican congressional aide, said: “I remember a CPAC that had keynotes from figures like Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty and Paul Ryan. Now we’re seeing figures like Donald Trump and Sean Spicer and, in the past, Steve Bannon.“CPAC at one point in time thought of itself as the establishment conservative cattle call for presidential candidates and now it’s become completely overrun by the extremists and the fringe who are the new establishment of the Republican party. There was a time where someone with the last name Cheney would be welcomed as a hero at an event like CPAC. Now someone with the last name Cheney is considered an enemy of the Republican party.”Another familiar CPAC staple is an exhibitors’ hall where conservative groups promote their work, sell books and seek recruits. Ronald Solomon, president of the Maga Mall, a clothing and merchandising company, will be there as always. Speaking from his home near Palm Beach, Florida, he said his range contains about a hundred Trump or Trump-related hats, compared to around eight for DeSantis.“After that lacklustre midterm he waned a little bit but now the popularity is coming back,” he said. “I am convinced that Trump will be the nominee.”TopicsCPACDonald TrumpUS politicsRepublicansRon DeSantisWashington DCJoe BidenfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Pompeo says Israel has biblical claim to Palestine and is ‘not an occupying nation’

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      Pompeo says Israel has biblical claim to Palestine and is ‘not an occupying nation’Trump’s secretary of state makes comments on podcast to defend former administration siding more openly with Israel Mike Pompeo, the former US secretary of state, has defended Israel’s decades-long control of the Palestinian territories by claiming that the Jewish state has a biblical claim to the land and is therefore not occupying it.Pompeo told the One Decision podcast that his religious beliefs, US strategic interests and his view of the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, as a “known terrorist” underpinned his support as the Trump administration’s top diplomat for the shift in US policy away from mediating a two-state solution and toward more openly siding with Israel.Democrats’ Ilhan Omar defence weakened by party’s own attacks over IsraelRead more“[Israel] is not an occupying nation. As an evangelical Christian, I am convinced by my reading of the Bible that 3,000 years on now, in spite of the denial of so many, [this land] is the rightful homeland of the Jewish people,” he said.Pompeo, who referred to the occupied West Bank by its Israeli name of Judea and Samaria, declined to support a two-state solution of an independent Palestine alongside Israel – an increasingly diminishing prospect after years of failed negotiations and the rise to power of politicians in Israel who advocate annexing the occupied territories.“I’m for an outcome that guarantees Israeli security and makes the lives better for everyone in the region,” he said.Pompeo, who once suggested that God sent Trump to save Israel, was speaking ahead of publication of a book, Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love, that has fuelled speculation he is laying the groundwork for a presidential run.As secretary of state he reversed a number of longstanding US policies, including overturning legal advice from 1978 that declared Israel’s settlements in the West Bank “inconsistent with international law”. Most western governments, such as the UK, say the settlements and Israel’s annexation of occupied East Jerusalem are a breach of the Geneva conventions and are therefore illegal.Pompeo was Trump’s CIA director before his appointment as secretary of state in 2018. He played an instrumental role in an administration thatrecognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moved the US embassy to that city from Tel Aviv. The move was widely criticised, including by Washington’s allies, as pre-empting a final agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.Pompeo said it is in the US’s interests to back Israel whatever its policies, and he blamed the Palestinians for the failure of peace negotiations.“What’s in America’s best interest? Is it to sit and wait for Abu Mazen [Abbas], a known terrorist who’s killed lots and lots of people, including Americans … to draw a line on a map? That’s what the state department would do,” he said.“The previous secretary of state ran back and forth from Tel Aviv to Ramallah and tried to draw lines on a map. We said: ‘That’s not in America’s best interest. Let’s go create peace,’ and we did.”Pompeo was part of the Trump administration team that negotiated the Abraham accords normalisation agreements between Israel and several formerly hostile countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Sudan. At the time he said the accords were part of the administration’s efforts to ensure that “that this Jewish state remains”.“I am confident that the Lord is at work here,” he said.TopicsMike PompeoIsraelRepublicansPalestinian territoriesUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Breakfast with Chad: Who sabotaged the Nord Stream pipelines?

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      The Fair Observer website uses digital cookies so it can collect statistics on how many visitors come to the site, what content is viewed and for how long, and the general location of the computer network of the visitor. These statistics are collected and processed using the Google Analytics service. Fair Observer uses these aggregate statistics from website visits to help improve the content of the website and to provide regular reports to our current and future donors and funding organizations. The type of digital cookie information collected during your visit and any derived data cannot be used or combined with other information to personally identify you. Fair Observer does not use personal data collected from its website for advertising purposes or to market to you.As a convenience to you, Fair Observer provides buttons that link to popular social media sites, called social sharing buttons, to help you share Fair Observer content and your comments and opinions about it on these social media sites. These social sharing buttons are provided by and are part of these social media sites. They may collect and use personal data as described in their respective policies. Fair Observer does not receive personal data from your use of these social sharing buttons. It is not necessary that you use these buttons to read Fair Observer content or to share on social media. More

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      Never Give an Inch review: Mike Pompeo as ‘heat-seeking missile for Trump’s ass’

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      ReviewNever Give an Inch review: Mike Pompeo as ‘heat-seeking missile for Trump’s ass’ The former secretary of state wants to be president. His vicious memoir will sell, but he may not find buyers at the pollsMike Pompeo is prescient, at least. Back in 2016, as a congressman, he warned Kansas Republicans of the danger posed by Donald Trump. Pompeo lamented that the US had already endured more than seven years of “an authoritarian president who ignored our constitution” – meaning Barack Obama – and cautioned that a Trump presidency would be no different.Schiff calls Mike Pompeo ‘failed Trump lackey’ after classified records claimRead more“It’s time to turn down the lights on the circus,” he said.Pompeo is an ex-army captain who graduated first in his class at West Point. But in the face of Trump’s triumphs, he turned tail and sucked-up. Pompeo was CIA director then secretary of state. On the job, his sycophancy grew legendary.“He’s like a heat-seeking missile for Trump’s ass,” a former ambassador recalled to Susan Glasser of the New Yorker.Never Give an Inch is Pompeo’s opening salvo in his bid for the Republican presidential nomination. On cue, he puckers up to Trump, the only declared candidate so far, and thanks Mike Pence, a likely contestant, for bringing him into the fold. But where others are concerned, Never Give an Inch doubles as a burn book.Pompeo strafes two other possible contenders: Nikki Haley, Trump’s first United Nations ambassador, and John Bolton, Trump’s third national security adviser.Trump, Pompeo says, branded Bolton a “scumbag loser”. Pompeo thinks Bolton should “be in jail, for spilling classified information”. The Room Where it Happened, Bolton’s tell-all book, evidently ruffled feathers. As for Pompeo’s own relationship with classified documents? “I don’t believe I have anything classified.” It’s not exactly a blanket denial.Turning to Haley, Pompeo dings her time as UN ambassador – “a job that is far less important than people think” – and her performance in that post.“She has described her role as going toe-to-toe with tyrants,” he observes. “If so, then why would she quit such an important job at such an important time?”Trump is largely spared criticism but his family isn’t. Ivanka Trump makes a dubious cameo. Jared Kushner is depicted as someone less than serious.Pompeo edited the Harvard Law Review. He can write. His memoir is tart and tight. Filled with barbs, bile and little regret, it is an unexpectedly interesting read. It is not the typical pre-presidential campaign autobiography. This one comes with teeth. Pompeo is always self-serving but never bland.He heaps praise on Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and has kind words for Volodymyr Zelenskiy.“I’m troubled by the evil that has befallen his country,” Pompeo writes of Ukraine, a year into the Russian invasion. He also says he is “encouraged” that Zelenskiy, a “onetime Jerry Seinfeld” has “turned into a kind of General Patton”.But while Pompeo deploys the word “authoritarian” more than a dozen times, he never does so in reference to Trump. Trump, remember, has lauded Vladimir Putin as “smart”; praised the Russian president’s war strategy as “wonderful” and “genius”; derided Nato as “dumb”; and unloaded on Joe Biden as “weak”.Pompeo, the brown-noser-in-chief, has zero to say about this.As for Netanyahu, Pompeo is silent on Trump’s reported “fuck him” for the Israeli leader. No Trump appointee has ever dared grapple with that breach of decorum.Pompeo is happy, of course, to blame Obama for alienating Viktor Orban from the US and western Europe, and to sympathize with the Hungarian leader’s efforts to “root his time in office in his nation’s history and Christian faith”. Pompeo’s loyalties are clear. In Hungary this week, Yair Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister’s son, slammed George Soros, the “global elite” and “radical leftist” control of the media.Pompeo is a fan of Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s defeated former leader, who he says “largely modeled his candidacy for president on President Trump”. Words written, presumably, before the mini January 6 in Brasília. Birds of a feather, etc.Pompeo also takes Pope Francis and the Catholic church to task over their relationship with China, and derides both the reformist Pope John XXIII and the liberation theology movement of the 1970s. In 2014, five decades after his death, John XXIII was canonized. Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, blurbed Pompeo’s book.As expected, Pompeo basically ignores the insurrection Trump stoked and the attack on Congress it produced. He refers to “mayhem at the Capitol” on 6 January 2021 and targets the “left” for looking to exploit the day’s events, but says nothing of Trump’s concerted effort to subvert democracy and overturn an election.Pompeo knows the GOP base. Three in five Republicans believe voter fraud birthed Biden’s victory. The same number say Trump did nothing wrong on January 6. Not surprisingly, Pompeo omits mention of his own tweets that day or his appearance before the House January 6 committee.“The storming of the US Capitol today is unacceptable,” Pompeo tweeted. “Lawlessness and rioting here or around the world is always unacceptable. Let us swiftly bring justice to the criminals who engaged in this rioting.”Asked about the tweets by committee staff, he responded: “I stand by it.”He also told Liz Cheney, on the record: “I thought the courts and the certification that took place were appropriate … the vice-president [Pence] made the right decision on the evening of 6 January” to certify Biden’s win.None of this appears on the page. Instead, Pompeo gleefully recalls how Trump approved of his loyalty.How well is all this working? Pompeo may well sell books but fail to move the needle. Polls show him at 1% in the notional presidential primary, tied with the likes of Paul Ryan, the former House speaker, and Ted Cruz, the Senate’s own squeegee pest. Pompeo trails Haley and Pence.The appetite for a Pompeo presidency seems … limited. Like Ron DeSantis, he is grim and humorless. Unlike the governor of Florida, Pompeo has no war chest.
      Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love is published in the US by HarperCollins
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      Washington Post condemns Pompeo for ‘vile’ Khashoggi ‘falsehoods’

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      Washington Post condemns Pompeo for ‘vile’ Khashoggi ‘falsehoods’Fred Ryan says former secretary of state ‘outrageously misrepresents’ Post journalist murdered by Saudi Arabian regime The publisher of the Washington Post, Fred Ryan, has blasted the former secretary of state Mike Pompeo for “outrageously misrepresenting” and “spreading vile falsehoods” about Jamal Khashoggi, the Post columnist murdered by the Saudi Arabian regime in 2018.Nikki Haley plotted with Kushner and Ivanka to be Trump vice-president, Pompeo book saysRead more“It is shameful that Pompeo would spread vile falsehoods to dishonor a courageous man’s life and service and his commitment to principles Americans hold dear as a ploy to sell books,” Ryan said.Pompeo’s memoir of his time in Donald Trump’s presidential administration, Never Give an Inch, was published on Tuesday.One of a slew of books from likely contenders for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination – if in this case one who barely registers in polling – the book recounts Pompeo’s time as CIA director and secretary of state under Trump.The Guardian obtained and reported a copy last week. In its own review, published on Tuesday, the Post called Pompeo’s book “vicious … a master class in the performative anger poisoning American politics”.The reviewer, the Pulitzer prize-winning reporter Tim Weiner, added: “Hatred animates this book. It’s got more venom than a quiver of cobras.”The murder of Khashoggi caused outrage around the world and stoked criticism of the Trump White House over its reluctance to criticise the Saudi regime, particularly the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, who grew close to Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser.US intelligence believes the prince approved the killing of Khashoggi, whose remains have not been found.On the page, Pompeo deplores Khashoggi’s murder. But he also writes that Khashoggi was not a journalist but “an activist who had supported the losing team” and criticises what he calls “faux outrage” over a killing that “made the media madder than a vegan in a slaughterhouse”.On Monday, Khashoggi’s widow, Hanan Elatr Khashoggi, told NBC News: “Whatever [Pompeo] mentions about my husband, he doesn’t know my husband. He should be silent and shut up the lies about my husband. It is such bad information and the wrong information … This is not acceptable.”Elatr Khashoggi also said she wanted “to silence all of these people who publish books, disparage my husband and collect money from it”.On Tuesday, Ryan said it was “shocking and disappointing to see Mike Pompeo’s book so outrageously misrepresent the life and work of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.“As the CIA – which Pompeo once directed – concluded, Jamal was brutally murdered on the orders of Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. His only offense was exposing corruption and oppression among those in power – work that good journalists around the world do every day.”Pompeo responded on Twitter, writing: “Americans are safer because we didn’t label Saudi Arabia a pariah state. I never let the media bully me. Just because someone is a part-time stringer for the Washington Post doesn’t make their life more important than our military serving in dangerous places protecting us all. I never forgot that.”Ryan said Khashoggi, who wrote for the Post while resident in the US, “dedicated himself to the values of free speech and a free press and held himself to the highest professional standards. For this devotion, he paid the ultimate price.”TopicsBooksMike PompeoJamal KhashoggiPolitics booksUS politicsTrump administrationUS foreign policynewsReuse this content More

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      Nikki Haley accuses Pompeo of ‘lies and gossip to sell book’ after vice-president plot claim

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      Nikki Haley accuses Pompeo of ‘lies and gossip to sell book’ after vice-president plot claimFormer UN ambassador hits back at former secretary of state as jockeying for Republican presidential primary hots up Nikki Haley said the former secretary of state Mike Pompeo’s claim that she plotted to replace Mike Pence as Donald Trump’s vice-president was “lies and gossip to sell a book”.Nikki Haley plotted with Kushner and Ivanka to be Trump vice-president, Pompeo book saysRead moreThe former United Nations ambassador spoke to Fox News on Thursday evening, after the Guardian obtained a copy of Pompeo’s forthcoming memoir, Never Give An Inch, and reported his comments about Haley.Haley resigned from the Trump administration in October 2018. Before that, Pompeo says, she set up a personal meeting with Trump in the Oval Office without checking with him.Pompeo writes that John Kelly, then Trump’s chief of staff, thought Haley had in fact been accompanied by Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner as they presented “a possible ‘Haley for vice-president’ option”.Pompeo also writes unfavourably of Haley’s performance as UN ambassador and criticises her resignation.Speaking to Fox News, Haley said: “I don’t know why he said it, but that’s exactly why I stayed out of DC as much as possible, to get away from the drama.”She also pointed out that Pompeo says in his book he does not know if the story is true.Haley and Pompeo are among possible contenders for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, a contest in which Trump remains the only confirmed candidate.But Haley seems set to run.She told Fox News: “We are still working through things and we’ll figure it out. I’ve never lost a race. I said that then I still say that now. I’m not going to lose now.”Haley turns 51 on Friday. In a remark seemingly directed at Joe Biden, who is 80, but also Donald Trump, who is 76, she said: “I don’t think you need to be 80 years old to go be a leader in DC. I think we need a young generation to come in, step up and really start fixing things. Can I be that leader? Yes, I think I can be that leader.”The former South Carolina governor has attracted support from Kushner’s family. She told Fox News Kushner and his wife were her friends, though she expected they would support Ivanka’s father.She said: “May the best woman win.”Pence, the senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley and even the former national security adviser John Bolton are among other possible candidates for the Republican nomination. But two men, Trump and the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, dominate polling so far.Confidence Man review: Maggie Haberman takes down TrumpRead moreOn Thursday, Ben Rhodes, a former foreign policy adviser to Barack Obama, wrote: “Pompeo and Haley poised for a real battle to see who can crack 1% in a Republican primary.”Pompeo’s description of Haley’s supposed meeting with Trump chimed with reports that in 2019 prompted Trump to deny considering replacing Pence as vice-president.On Thursday, Maggie Haberman, the New York Times reporter and author of the bestselling book Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America, noted that Kushner and Ivanka Trump “insisted to disbelieving colleagues and Pence allies that they had no role in the Haley/VP rumors”.TopicsBooksNikki HaleyMike PompeoRepublicansUS politicsUS elections 2024Politics booksnewsReuse this content More