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      Ted Cruz compares threats to ABC by FCC chair to those of mob boss

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      Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, compared Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr’s threats to revoke the broadcast licenses of ABC stations over late-night host Jimmy Kimmel’s commentary to “mafioso” tactics similar to those in Goodfellas, the 1990 mobster movie.“Look, Jimmy Kimmel has been canned. He has been suspended indefinitely. I think that it a fantastic thing,” Cruz said at the start of the latest episode of his podcast Verdict with Ted Cruz. There were, however “first amendment implications” of the FCC’s role, the senator, a Harvard Law School graduate who clerked for US supreme court chief justice William Rehnquist, added.Cruz, a formerly fierce political rival of Donald Trump turned strong supporter, called Carr’s comments “unbelievably dangerous” and warned that government attempts to police speech could harm conservatives if Democrats return to power.“He threatens explicitly: ‘We’re going to cancel ABC’s license. We’re going to take him off the air so ABC cannot broadcast any more’ … He says: ‘We can do this the easy way, but we can do this the hard way.’ And I got to say, that’s right out of Goodfellas. That’s right out of a mafioso coming into a bar going, ‘Nice bar you have here. It’d be a shame if something happened to it,’” Cruz said.“I hate what Jimmy Kimmel said. I am thrilled that he was fired,” Cruz also said. “But let me tell you: if the government gets in the business of saying, ‘We don’t like what you, the media, have said. We’re going to ban you from the airwaves if you don’t say what we like,’ that will end up bad for conservatives.”During an Oval Office event on Friday, when Trump was asked about Cruz’s comments on Carr, the president raised the issue of licenses and suggested stations might be “illegally” using the airwaves to broadcast critical coverage of him in news reports.“When you have networks that give somebody 97% bad publicity,” the president said, “I think that’s dishonesty.”“I think Brendan Carr is a patriot. I think Brendan Carr is a courageous person. I think Brendan Carr doesn’t like to see the airwaves be used illegally and incorrectly,” Trump said. “So I disagree with Ted Cruz on that.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe president’s claim that news coverage on ABC, NBC and CBS was almost entirely negative appears to have been based on a subjective analysis of “the networks’ spin” by NewsBusters, a conservative media watchdog group founded by Trump’s nominee to serve as US ambassador to South Africa, the activist L Brent Bozell III. More

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      Senate fails to pass short-term funding bill, with both parties blaming the other for looming government shutdown – US politics live

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      The Republican-controlled Senate has failed to pass a short-term funding bill that would prevent a government shutdown at the end of the month.Earlier, continuing resolution (CR) cleared the House, but ultimately stalled in the upper chamber – unable to reach the 60 votes needed to overcome the filibuster.Democrats remain resolute that they will continue to block any bill if it doesn’t include significant amendments to health care provisions. Today, senator John Fetterman, of Pennsylvania, was the lone Democrat to vote for the GOP-drawn CR. While Republican senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Rand Paul of Kentucky, joined their colleagues across the aisle and voted no.The Trump administration officially announced plans to raise the fee companies pay to sponsor H‑1B workers to $100,000, claiming the move will ensure only highly skilled, irreplaceable workers are brought to the US while protecting American jobs.“I think it’s going to be a fantastic thing, and we’re going to take that money and we’re going to reduce taxes, we’re going to reduce debt,” Trump said.Lutnick criticized the H‑1B visa program, saying it has been “abused” to bring in foreign workers who compete with American employees.“All of the big companies are on board,” Lutnick said.President Donald Trump, along with commerce secretary Howard Lutnick, unveiled a new immigration program called the “Gold Card,” which would create an expedited visa pathway for foreigners who pay $1 million to the US Treasury.If visa holders are sponsored by a corporation, they must pay $2 million.“Essentially, we’re having people come in, people that, in many cases, I guess, are very successful or whatever,” Trump said. “They’re going to spend a lot of money to come in. They’re going to pay, as opposed to walking over the borders.”After a reporter asked President Donald Trump about his thoughts on cancel culture amid surging debates about free speech, the president claimed that networks gave him overwhelmingly negative coverage, citing – without evidence – that more than 90% of stories about him were “bad.”“I think that’s really illegal,” he said.Trump told reporters that the level of negative coverage made his election victory “a miracle” and said that the networks lack credibility with the public.He also repeated a false claim that the Federal Communications Commission licenses US TV networks. While the FCC requires the owners of local television stations, which are often affiliated with national networks that produce programming, to obtain licenses, the FCC states on its website: “We do not license TV or radio networks (such as CBS, NBC, ABC or Fox) or other organizations that stations have relationships with, such as PBS or NPR.”President Donald Trump scolded House Democrats who voted against a resolution honoring slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk.In a 310-58 vote, the resolution passed nine days after a gunman assassinated Kirk while he was speaking to a crowd at Utah Valley University. Several Democrats who opposed the resolution said they condemned Kirk’s murder, as well as political violence, but could not support a figure who used his speech. Many critics have pointed out that Kirk had disparaged Martin Luther King Jr. and called the Civil Rights Act of 1964 a “huge mistake.”“Just today, the House Democrats voted against condemning the political assassination of Charlie Turk,” the president said during his remarks at the White House today. “Who could vote against that?”President Donald Trump is expected to announce a new $100,000 fee for H-1B visa applications, Bloomberg reports, in what marks the administration’s latest move to deter legal immigration.The presidential proclamation is slated to be signed today.Trump aides have previously argued that the H-1B program, designed to bring skilled foreign workers to the US, suppresses wages for Americans and discourages US-born workers from pursuing STEM fields.The additional fee would add to the already costly process to obtain an H-1B visa, which could go from about $1,700 to $4,500. About 85,000 H-1B visas are granted every year. More than half a million people are authorized to work in the US under H-1B visas. While these are temporary, and typically granted for three years, holders can try to extend them, or apply for green cards.Republican senator Ted Cruz compared Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr’s threats to revoke ABC’s broadcast license to “mafioso” tactics similar to those in Goodfellas, the 1990 mobster movie.On his podcast Verdict with Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican called Carr’s comments “unbelievably dangerous” and warned that government attempts to police speech could ultimately harm conservatives if Democrats return to power.“He threatens explicitly: ‘We’re going to cancel ABC’s license. We’re going to take him off the air so ABC cannot broadcast anymore’… He says: ‘We can do this the easy way, but we can do this the hard way.’ And I got to say, that’s right out of GoodFellas. That’s right out of a mafioso coming into a bar going, ‘Nice bar you have here. It’d be a shame if something happened to it,’” Cruz said.“I hate what Jimmy Kimmel said. I am thrilled that he was fired,” Cruz said. “But let me tell you: If the government gets in the business of saying, ‘We don’t like what you, the media, have said. We’re going to ban you from the airwaves if you don’t say what we like,’ that will end up bad for conservatives.”The acting inspector general of the department of education, Heidi Semann, said that her office would be launching a probe into the department’s handling of sensitive data.It comes after several Democratic lawmakers, led by senator Elizabeth Warren, wrote to the department’s watchdog – asking her to review the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) “infiltration” of the education department.“Because of the Department’s refusal to provide full and complete information, the full extent of DOGE’s role and influence at ED remains unknown,” the letter states.In response, Semann – whose office serves as an independent entity tasked with rooting out waste, fraud and abuse within the agency – said the following: “Given the sensitive nature of the data it holds, it is crucial that the [education] Department ensures appropriate access to its data systems and maintains effective access controls for system security and privacy protection purposes.”

      On Capitol Hill today, a flurry of action and inaction, after the House passed a stopgap funding bill – written by Republicans to stave off a government shutdown – only for Democrats to reject it in the Senate. In kind, GOP lawmakers blocked a Democratic version of the bill. Funding expires at the end of September, and with congressional lawmakers on recess next week the threat of a shutdown is perilously close.

      In response, legislators from both sides of the aisle have spent the day shirking blame and claiming the other party would be responsible for a shutdown on 1 October. Senate majority leader John Thune said that “Democrats are yielding to the desires of their rabidly leftist base and are attempting to hold government funding hostage to a long list of partisan demands.” While his counterpart, Chuck Schumer said that Republicans “want” the shutdown to happen. “They’re in the majority. They don’t negotiate, they cause the shutdown – plain and simple,” he said.

      Also on the Hill today, a resolution honoring murdered conservative activist Charlie Kirk passed the House of Representatives with bipartisan support, but only after causing considerable consternation among Democrats. All Republicans in attendance voted in favor of the resolution, which describes Kirk as “a courageous American patriot, whose life was tragically and unjustly cut short in an act of political violence”. Ninety five Democrats supported the resolution, while 58 opposed it. Several Democrats who opposed the resolution said they condemned Kirk’s murder, and political violence at large, but could not support a figure who used his speech.

      Meanwhile, a federal judge dismissed Donald Trump’s $15bn defamation lawsuit against the New York Times over its content. US district judge Steven Merryday said Trump violated a federal procedural rule requiring a short and plain statement of why he deserves relief. He gave Trump 28 days to file an amended complaint, and reminded the administration it was “not a protected platform to rage against an adversary”.

      The Trump’s administration also asked the supreme court on Friday to intervene in a bid to refuse to issue passports to transgender and non-binary Americans that reflect their gender identities. It’s one of several disputes in regard to an executive order Trump signed after returning to office in January that directs the government to recognize only two biologically distinct sexes: male and female. A lower court judge had blocked the policy earlier this year, and an appeals court let the judge’s ruling stay in place.

      And on foreign policy, Donald Trump and Xi Jinping “made progress on many very important issues” during their call this morning, according to a Truth Social post from the president. Trump said that the pair discussed “trade, fentanyl, Russia’s war in Ukraine, and the TikTok deal”. The president also said he and Xi would have a face-to-face meeting at the APEC summit in South Korea next month, he would travel to China “in the early part of next year”, and Xi would also come to the US at a later date.
      A top donor to Donald Trump and other Maga Republicans has privately mocked the US president’s longtime position that he has an upper hand in trade negotiations with China, in a sign that even some loyal supporters have been uneasy with the White House strategy.Liz Uihlein, the billionaire businesswoman who co-founded office supply company Uline with her husband, Richard, sent an email to her staff earlier this year that contained a cartoon in which Trump can be seen playing cards with Chinese president Xi Jinping. In the cartoon, Trump claims: “I hold the cards”, to which Xi responds: “The cards are made in China.”The email, seen by the Guardian, appears to have been sent in April by an administrative assistant on Liz Uihlein’s behalf. Uihlein prefaced the cartoon with a short remark: “All – The usual. Liz”.The barb is significant because it was sent by an important political ally to Trump and his movement. Liz and Richard Uihlein were the fourth largest political donors in the presidential election cycle, having given $143m to Republicans, according to Opensecrets, which tracks political giving.A Uline spokesperson said Liz Uihlein had no comment. A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.Also on Capitol Hill today, Alex Acosta, the former US attorney for southern Florida who also served as the labor secretary during the first Trump administration, testified before lawmakers on the House Oversight Committee today in a closed-door deposition.Acosta negotiated the deal in 2008 that saw Jeffrey Epstein plead guilty and receive no federal charges for soliciting minors. At the time he served a 13-month prison sentence in a county jail and received various work privileges.Then, in 2019, Epstein was eventually charged with federal sex trafficking crimes, which shone the spotlight back on Acosta – now the labor secretary under Trump – who resigned from his cabinet position.The 2008 plea deal has come up again throughout the Oversight committee’s investigation into the handling of the Epstein case. Democrats on the committee have called it a “sweetheart deal”, and after today’s deposition several of those lawmakers characterised Acosta was “evasive” and “non-credible”.“It’s very difficult to get straightforward answers out of him regarding what happened during this time, what he knew of the relationship between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein,” said congresswoman Yassamin Ansari, a Democrat who sits on the Oversight committee.Earlier today, Republican congressman James Comer said that the committee, which he chairs, has begun receiving documents from the treasury department relating to the Epstein case.“When we met with the victims, and we said, ‘what can we do to expedite this investigation to be able to provide justice for you all?’, they said, ‘follow the money, follow the money’,” Comer told reporters today.A reminder, government funding lapses on 30 September. The Senate isn’t back from recess until 29 September, meaning that any vote to avoid a shutdown would need to happen less than 48 hours before the deadline.In response, congressional Democrats just wrapped a press conference where they said that any blame for a government shutdown lays squarely at the feet of their Republican colleagues.“The bare minimum here is for Republican leadership to simply sit down with Democratic leadership to hammer out a path forward. Now they’re leaving town instead of sitting down with Democrats,” said Democratic senator Patty Murray, who serves as the vice-chair of the Senate appropriations committee.Minority leader Chuck Schumer said today that plans by House lawmakers to not return from recess until 1 October – effectively stymieing Democrat’s hopes of negotiations before government funding expires at the end of this month – was proof that Republicans “want” the shutdown to happen.“They’re in the majority. They don’t negotiate, they cause the shutdown – plain and simple,” Schumer added.Per my last post, on the Senate floor today, majority leader John Thune said he is unlikely to call back lawmakers next week (when Congress is on recess). Instead, he shirked any blame for government funding expiring, and said the“ball is in the Democrats’ court” now.“I can’t stop Democrats from opposing our nonpartisan continuing resolution. If they want to shut down the government, they have the power to do so,” the South Dakota Republican said. “If they think they’re going to gain political points from shutting down the government over a clean, non partisan CR, something they voted for 13 times under the Biden administration, I would strongly urge them to think again.” More

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      US House passes resolution to honor Charlie Kirk in vote that divided Democrats

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      The killing of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk last week has triggered a wave of political disquiet in Washington, with some House Democrats fearing a messaging trap over a Republican resolution to honor him while other lawmakers worry about the broader political temperature following government pressure on broadcasters.Democrats ultimately decided to side with the Republicans to pass the resolution, with 95 Democrats in support. Fifty-eight Democrats opposed it, 38 voted present and 22 did not vote.The five-page resolution, introduced by the House speaker, Mike Johnson, and co-sponsored by 165 House Republicans but no Democrats, praises Kirk as a “courageous American patriot” who sought to “elevate truth, foster understanding, and strengthen the Republic”.The House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, had told Democrats in a closed-door caucus meeting Thursday morning that leadership would vote for the resolution, but his team was not whipping the vote, leaving lawmakers to decide for themselves, multiple people present told Axios.Several Democrats who opposed the resolution said they condemned his murder, but could not support his speech.“I cannot vote yes on this resolution because it grossly misrepresents Charlie Kirk’s methods, views and beliefs while citing Christian nationalist language. I will always condemn heinous acts of violence, but this resolution ignores the false and hateful rhetoric that was too often present in his debates,” said Colorado’s Diana DeGette, who voted present.Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who voted no, said in a statement: “We should be clear about who Charlie Kirk was: a man who believed that the Civil Rights Act that granted Black Americans the right to vote was a ‘mistake,’ who after the violent attack on Paul Pelosi claimed that ‘some amazing patriot out there’ should bail out his assailant, and accused Jews of controlling ‘not just the colleges – it’s the nonprofits, it’s the movies, it’s Hollywood, it’s all of it.’ His rhetoric and beliefs were ignorant and sought to disenfranchise millions of Americans – far from ‘working tirelessly to promote unity’ as asserted by the majority in this resolution.”But Maryland’s Jamie Raskin said he voted yes on the measure because it “repeatedly condemns all political violence, extremism and hatred in unequivocal terms”, while adding: “We should overlook whatever surplus verbiage is contained in this Resolution designed to make the vote difficult for Democrats. We cannot fall for that obvious political trap and should rise above it.” The measure calls Kirk’s shooting “a sobering reminder of the growing threat posed by political extremism and hatred in our society”.The internal Democratic tensions reflect broader concerns about political polarization following Kirk’s killing on 10 September at Utah Valley University.The struggle has extended beyond infighting on Capitol Hill, as the Federal Communications Commission chair, Brendan Carr, has now been criticized by a handful of Republicans after he pressured ABC to suspend the late-night host Jimmy Kimmel over comments about Kirk’s killing.“We all should be very cautious,” Jerry Moran, a Republican senator from Kansas, told Politico. “The conservative position is free speech is free speech, and we better be very careful about any lines we cross in diminishing free speech.”The House energy and commerce chair, Brett Guthrie, whose committee oversees the FCC, said on Thursday: “Just because I don’t agree with what someone says, we need to be very careful. We have to be extremely cautious to try to use government to influence what people say.”However, more than a dozen Republicans told Politico they were not concerned by Carr’s intervention, largely framing Kimmel’s suspension as a business decision rather than government coercion.Donald Trump, while at a state visit and press conference in London with the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, blamed the Kimmel suspension on an exaggerated claim of supposedly bad ratings while simultaneously admitting the Kirk issue played a role.“Jimmy Kimmel was fired because he had bad ratings more than anything else,” Trump said. “And he said a horrible thing about a great gentleman known as Charlie Kirk.”Eleven Democrats in the Senate, including the minority leader, Chuck Schumer, said they were “outraged” by Carr’s comments, and demanded answers by 25 September, telling the FCC chair in a letter: “This is precisely what government censorship looks like.”Democratic leaders in the House took it a step further and demanded Carr’s resignation, accusing him of “corrupt abuse of power” in forcing ABC to suspend Kimmel’s late-night show through regulatory threats. They warned that House Democrats would “make sure the American people learn the truth, even if that requires the relentless unleashing of congressional subpoena power”. More

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      What does Donald Trump think free speech means? – podcast

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      Archive: CBS, Good Morning America, The Charlie Kirk show, ABC News, Katie Miller Pod, CBS Austin, PIX11 News, Fox News
      Listen to Science Weekly’s episode on the data behind political violence
      Listen to Politics Weekly, all about Trump’s state visit to the UK
      Purchase Jonathan Freedland’s new book, The Traitor’s Circle, here
      Send your questions and feedback to politicsweeklyamerica@theguardian.com
      Support the Guardian. Go to theguardian.com/politicspodus More

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      As boys shift to the right, we are seeing the rise of the ‘new chill girl’ | Naomi Beinart

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      Since Donald Trump returned to office, I have noticed a phenomenon at my high school that I call the “new chill girl”. A group of kids is talking casually about something. Seemingly out of the blue, one of the boys makes an off-handed joke. Maybe it’s racist or sexist or homophobic, but whatever the poison, they inject it and the group dynamic shifts ever so slightly. As a general rule, the boys continue as usual while the girls – who tend to be more politically progressive – face a choice: they can speak up, which usually results in them getting the reputation as annoying and unable to take a joke, or they can let it pass and be regarded as a chill girl who isn’t angry or woke. Since November 2024, the latter reaction has become far more common.This kind of fearful silence is becoming more common outside of high schools, too. In December 2024, Disney removed a transgender character from a new series. This April, the New York Times reported that a new Trump administration regulation bars government employees from adding pronouns to their email bios. Two days after that, Gannet, one of the US’s largest newspaper chains, cited Trump’s opposition to diversity, equity and inclusion when announcing that it would no longer publish statistics on employee diversity.This cultural shift promotes nostalgia for an earlier time, before the birth of DEI, when women wore aprons and let their husbands earn the money. As of August, the “trad wife” influencer Hannah Neeleman, better known as Ballerina Farm, has amassed 10 million followers on Instagram alone. Her videos of kneading sourdough and raising her eight kids mark a return to the ideal of women as homemakers. Last November, she appeared on the cover of Evie, a conservative magazine that openly praises Trump.This trickles down to us. In the Trump era, left-leaning teenage girls feel less comfortable expressing political views that could be derided as “woke”. This isn’t because most of them are becoming rightwing: last November, 58% of women ages 18-30 voted for Kamala Harris. It’s because the political atmosphere has changed and progressive-minded girls now feel more afraid of the consequences of speaking their minds.The girls I talked to say it’s riskier to be outspokenly blue. A high school girl reported that boys “are becoming more emboldened, more confident to make these [bigoted] jokes”. Another said that since Trump took office, casual racism and sexism have become common: “We see [the behavior] more and it’s happening to us.” Young women feel social pressure to remain passive in the face of offensive remarks. Your guy friends “will think you’re attacking them”, one girl said, adding that “it’s not worth it” to speak out against every incident. You need to “pick your battles”.A third girl added that the desire to not be known as one of those “super woke” girls is enough to make someone clamp their lips, knowing that if the girl objects, “there is no chance [boys] will ever take you seriously again.” These opinions are harsh, but they’re true. Pew Research Center reports that as of March, 45% of girls ages 13-17 feel “a great deal” of pressure to fit in socially, and as cultural conservatism grows, that changes what fitting in means. Even in comparatively liberal spaces, like my high school, girls who wince at locker room talk risk exclusion. No one wants to hang out with the stickler, so no one wants to become her. And therefore, juvenile illiberalism lives on.Trump has damaged our country in many blatant ways, but what I’m seeing is more subtle. Tectonic shifts don’t always make it to CNN. The cultural effects of this openly racist and sexist government on young people may skew gender relations as we enter the workforce, enabling sexual assault and discrimination and keeping women from positions of power. The divide between young women and young men is growing massively, with no end in sight. Trump is distorting American society, and I fear distorting us.

      Naomi Beinart is a high school student More

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      FBI director Kash Patel fails to recognize name of Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof in Senate questioning – live

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      In a remarkable moment during his appearance before the House judiciary committee on Wednesday, the FBI director, Kash Patel, appeared not to recognize the name of the white supremacist murderer, Dylann Roof, who killed nine Black congregants at Mother Emanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015.At the start of a series of questions on violent extremism coming from both sides of the partisan divide, Sydney Kamlager-Dove, a Democratic congresswoman from Los Angeles, asked Patel to tell her if he disagreed with the characterization that several violent extremists were motivated by rightwing views.“So Dylann Roof, who followed white supremacist propaganda, murdered nine Black parishioners in Charleston in 2015. Do you deny this?” Kamlager-Dove asked Patel.“I’m sorry, Dylan Ruth?” Patel asked, puzzled.“Roof,” Kamlager-Dove corrected him.“Roof. Can you give me some more information?” Patel asked.“You’re head of the FBI, you probably know this,” Kamlager-Dove said. “If you don’t know, that’s fine.”“If you can give me a reminder, I’ve got a lot in front of me,” Patel said.“It was national news,” Kamlager-Dove said. She then moved on to ask if Patel disagreed with the statement that “Robert Bowers murdered 11 Jewish worshippers in Pittsburgh in 2018–”“I do remember that,” Patel interjected.“And it was the deadliest antisemitic attack. So do you admit that that happened?” Kamlager-Dove asked.“I’m not saying the other thing didn’t happen, I’m just asking for a little information,” Patel replied.After the hearing, the congresswoman shared video of the exchange on social media with the comment: “The Director of the FBI doesn’t know who Dylann Roof is? It’s incredibly shameful and concerning that Kash Patel doesn’t know about one of the most heinous hate crimes against Black Americans in the last decade.”Outside DC, and on the campaign trail, Kyle Sweetser, who is running as a Democratic candidate for US Senate in Alabama, delivered a speech this week where he accused Donald Trump of “tearing” down the economy.Sweetser, who voted for Trump in both the 2016 and 2020 elections, noted that he once “believed” the president’s promises to “shake up Washington”.But now, the president’s widespread tariffs, Sweetser says, have pushed him across the aisle and into electoral politics.“His [Trump’s] favorite thing to do is raise OUR prices with HIS tariffs. Those tariffs have hurt businesses like mine and driven up prices on just about everything,” he said.Sweetser, who owns a construction company, spoke at last year’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and has said the January 6 attack led him to become a “Republican voter against Trump.”At an event for rank-and-file Alabama Democrats in downtown Mobile, Sweetser said that instead of strengthening our economy, Trump has “made it harder for families and small businesses to get by.”“I’ve come to understand that Trump isn’t the answer – he never was. His policies are cruel, reckless, and defy logic,” he said. “ He sees himself above the law, and with the Republican Party groveling at his feet, bending over backwards to praise their so-called King, he can get away with anything – no matter the cost to the American people.”But Sweetser also called out a wing of the Democratic party rallying around progressive policies and candidates – like Zohran Mamdani, the NYC mayoral candidate surging ahead in the polls.“I’m a common sense, Southern Democrat – not a New York City socialist. I’m a hardworking American who owns more guns than shoes,” Sweetser said.Despite calling for Americans to treat the trans community with respect, Sweetser did note today that he doesn’t “think it’s fair for men to participate in women’s sports” and urged the party at large to “reevaluate” its “image and policies.”“We need to start talking about the most important issues. Not focusing on everyone’s pronouns,” he added.Sweetser is running to fill the Alabama Senate seat in 2026 — left open by Tommy Tuberville, the incumbent Republican running for governor. He faces a stiff challenge from the state’s attorney general and GOP front runner, Steve Marshall.In a remarkable moment during his appearance before the House judiciary committee on Wednesday, the FBI director, Kash Patel, appeared not to recognize the name of the white supremacist murderer, Dylann Roof, who killed nine Black congregants at Mother Emanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015.At the start of a series of questions on violent extremism coming from both sides of the partisan divide, Sydney Kamlager-Dove, a Democratic congresswoman from Los Angeles, asked Patel to tell her if he disagreed with the characterization that several violent extremists were motivated by rightwing views.“So Dylann Roof, who followed white supremacist propaganda, murdered nine Black parishioners in Charleston in 2015. Do you deny this?” Kamlager-Dove asked Patel.“I’m sorry, Dylan Ruth?” Patel asked, puzzled.“Roof,” Kamlager-Dove corrected him.“Roof. Can you give me some more information?” Patel asked.“You’re head of the FBI, you probably know this,” Kamlager-Dove said. “If you don’t know, that’s fine.”“If you can give me a reminder, I’ve got a lot in front of me,” Patel said.“It was national news,” Kamlager-Dove said. She then moved on to ask if Patel disagreed with the statement that “Robert Bowers murdered 11 Jewish worshippers in Pittsburgh in 2018–”“I do remember that,” Patel interjected.“And it was the deadliest antisemitic attack. So do you admit that that happened?” Kamlager-Dove asked.“I’m not saying the other thing didn’t happen, I’m just asking for a little information,” Patel replied.After the hearing, the congresswoman shared video of the exchange on social media with the comment: “The Director of the FBI doesn’t know who Dylann Roof is? It’s incredibly shameful and concerning that Kash Patel doesn’t know about one of the most heinous hate crimes against Black Americans in the last decade.”As our colleague Lucy Campbell reports on the UK live blog, Donald Trump has just completed his toast to King Charles at the state banquet in the UK.Trump’s remarks were laced with a heavy dollop of praise for his own leadership.“We are, as a country, as you know, doing unbelievably well,” Trump said, reading from printed remarks. “We had a very sick country, one year ago, and today I believe we are the hottest country anywhere in the world. In fact, nobody’s even questioning it.”This is a slight departure for Trump from a claim that he has made dozens of times this year, in a variety of settings. More usually, Trump claims that, during the presidency of Joe Biden, the United States was “a dead country”. What prompted his revised diagnosis of the state of the US under Biden is unclear.Trump also did not, as he usually does, attribute the appraisal that the US is now “the hottest country” in the world to the king of Saudi Arabia, as he has done since visiting Riyadh in May. (Trump did not actually meet the Saudi king, who is elderly and in poor health, on that trip, but that has not stopped him from repeatedly claiming since then that it was the king who told him the US was “dead” a year ago, and is now “the hottest”.)Trump also overlooked centuries of imperialism and unprovoked military aggression of the part of the UK and the US to claim: “Together, we’ve done more good for humanity than any two countries in all of history.”Also today, FBI director Kash Patel appeared before the House judiciary committee today. He answered questions from lawmakers about the department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files.In several exchanges Patel sparred with Democratic representatives. When congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland – who also serves as the committee’s ranking member – asked why Patel had not released the full tranche of Epstein records, the FBI director said he was hamstrung by recent court orders preventing him from doing so. “I’m not going to break the law to satisfy your curiosity,” Patel said.Raskin also played clips of Patel on a podcast where he urged the Biden administration to “put on your big boy pants” and release Epstein’s so called “client list”. Patel had previously claimed that the FBI was in possession of the list.More broadly, Raskin denigrated Patel’s management of the FBI, including the firing of senior officials for, what they claim, are politically motivated reasons. “You share [J Edgar] Hoover’s dangerous obsession with blind loyalty over professionalism,” Raskin said. “For you, it’s blind loyalty to Donald Trump and keeping his secrets.”Later, California congressman Eric Swalwell, also a Democrat, went back and forth with Patel over whether he spoke to attorney general Pam Bondi about the president’s name appearing in the Epstein files. When Swalwell pushed Patel for answer, the FBI director snapped back with an unrelated diatribe: “Why don’t you try serving your constituency by focusing on reducing violent crime in this country, and the number of pedophiles that are illegally harbored in your sancturary cities in California.”After Swalwell attempted to discuss Patel’s history of listing several “political enemies” for investigation, the FBI director said: “I’m going to borrow your terminology and call bullshit on your entire career in Congress. It has been a disgrace to the American people.”A group of 95 members of Congress have written a letter to Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, condemning the arrest of protected immigrants known as Dreamers and demanding to know how many have been detained and deported in recent months.In a letter shared with the Guardian and submitted to Noem on Wednesday morning, Democratic representatives denounced the recent rise in the wrongful detention and deportation of immigrants residing in the US under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) program.The representatives’ letter is also addressed to Todd Lyons, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), the federal agency tasked with carrying out the Trump administration’s mass deportation program.In the letter, co-written by House members Delia Ramirez of Illinois and Sylvia Garcia of Texas and backed up by the dozens of other signatories, the representatives condemned the “blatant disregard” of the protections afforded to people under Daca.The members of Congress also included various examples of the detention and even deportation in the second Trump administration of Daca recipients, who are known as Dreamers after the Dream Act, legislation first introduced in 2001 to protect a large group of undocumented people who had been brought to the US as children.As Donald Trump’s second state visit to the UK continues, guests are due to start arriving for the state banquet shortly, with the dinner expected about 3.30pm EST/8.30pm BST, to top off a day off pomp, pageantry and parades in Windsor.Prime minister Keir Starmer will want to make the most of the face time with Trump, with the aim of this unprecedented visit to keep relations sweet with the administration, as opposed to securing any immediate big-ticket deals or international agreements.Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch is expected to meet the president for the first time. And a number of American business leaders, who accompanied Trump on Air Force One yesterday, will also attend the dinner, as the UK government tries to court investment and boost growth. Among those expected are Apple’s Tim Cook, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang and Open AI’s Sam Altman.Both King Charles and Donald Trump are expected to deliver short speeches at today’s banquet.You can follow the latest developments at our dedicated live blog below:Per my last post, classes at Utah Valley University have resumed today – one week after Charlie Kirk’s murder on campus.Following the shooting on 10 September, the university closed and students and faculty were sent home. There will be a vigil on campus in Kirk’s honor, scheduled for Friday 19 September.Republican congressman James Comer, who also serves as chair of the House oversight committee, has called the CEOs of the leading online forum and messaging companies – Discord, Twitch, Steam and Reddit – to a hearing on 8 October.“The hearing will examine the radicalization of online forum users, including instances of open incitement to commit politically motivated acts,” Comer said. This comes after the news that Tyler Robinson, the man charged with killing conservative activist Charlie Kirk, used Discord to communicate that he had killed Kirk.Comer added that the leaders of these platforms must appear before lawmakers to explain “what actions they will take to ensure their platforms are not exploited for nefarious purpose”.At a Senate committee hearing on Tuesday, FBI director Kash Patel said that the department was investigating other members of the Discord group chat in which Robinson was providing updates.The Federal Reserve has cut interest rates by a quarter point – the first time in nearly a year. Rates now stand between 4% and 4.25%, the lowest since November 2022. Fed chair Jerome Powell is due to host a press conference at around 2:30pm ET where our business blog will be bringing you all the details:Barack Obama addressed the recent killing of Charlie Kirk and told a crowd in Pennsylvania on Tuesday the country was “at an inflection point”, but that political violence “is not new” and “has happened at certain periods” in US history.Obama added that despite history, political violence was “anathema to what it means to be a democratic country”.The former president made the remarks at the Jefferson Educational Society, a non-profit in Erie, Pennsylvania. He explicitly denounced political violence, addressing the fatal attacks this year of Kirk and the Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman. He called both incidents “a tragedy” and said that Donald Trump has further divided the country rather than work to bring people together.“There are no ifs, ands or buts about it, the central premise of our democratic system is that we have to be able to disagree and have sometimes really contentious debates without resorting to violence,” he said.For the full story, click here:With the hearing of fired CDC director Susan Monarez and fomer public health official Debra Houry now over, here’s a look at today’s key developments so far – both on Capitol Hill and beyond:

      Susan Monarez said that there had been “several explanations” about her removal from the top role at the CDC. “I had refused to commit to approving vaccine recommendations without evidence, fire career officials without cause or resign,” she said, adding: I told the secretary that if he believed he could not trust me, he could fire me … I was fired for holding the line on scientific integrity.”

      Asked by Senator Bernie Sanders why she refused to rubber-stamp vaccine recommendations without seeing them or the evidence behind them, the former CDC director explained that it wasn’t negotiable. “I refused to do it because I have built a career on scientific integrity, and my worst fear was that I would then be in a position of approving something that would reduce access of life-saving vaccines to children and others who need them,” she said.

      Both Monarez and Houry expressed their concerns about the decisions that the vaccine advisory committee meeting tomorrow will make. “I know that the medical community has raised concerns about whether or not, again, they have the commensurate backgrounds to be able to understand the data and the evidence and to evaluate it appropriately.” Meanwhile Houry said she had “significant concerns” as the public had not been able to weigh in.

      Health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr did not express condolences for the police officer killed at the CDC shooting, Monarez said. David Rose was the police officer who was killed during the recent shooting at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. The perpetrator had blamed the Covid-19 vaccine for making him depressed and suicidal.

      Houry also called for Kennedy’s resignation. Speaking at the hearing, she said: “After seeing his Senate finance testimony, and the number of misstatements, seeing what he has asked our scientists to do, and to compromise our integrity, and the children that have died under his watch, I think he should resign.”

      The Trump administration is using civil rights laws to wage a campaign against the University of California in an attempt to curtail academic freedom and undermine free speech, according to a lawsuit filed on Tuesday by faculty, staff, student organizations and every labor union representing UC workers. The lawsuit comes weeks after the Trump administration fined the University of California, Los Angeles $1.2bn and froze research funding after accusing the school of allowing antisemitism on campus and other civil rights violations.

      The Trump administration has aggressively rolled back efforts across the federal government to combat human trafficking, a Guardian investigation has found. The sweeping retreat threatens to negate decades of progress in the drive to prevent sexual slavery, forced labor and child sexual exploitation, according to legal experts, former government officials and anti-trafficking advocates.
      As he brought the hearing with fired CDC director Susan Monarez, and former public health official Debra Houry to a close, Republican chair Bill Cassidy spoke about his years as a practising physician, specializing in liver issues.He noted that in Thursday’s vaccine advisory panel meeting, ending the recommendation for the birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine is reportedly set for discussion.“Why should a child be vaccinated for a sexually transmitted disease when they’re at birth? The child passes through the birth canal and is exposed to the same secretions of one would otherwise, and that passage through the birth canal makes that child vulnerable to the virus being transmitted,” Cassidy said. “If that child is infected at birth, more than 90% of them develop chronic, lifelong infection.”Cassidy summarized the impact of the vaccine on infection rates in the decades following the approval of a birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine. “Now, fewer than 20 babies per year get hepatitis B from their mother,” he added. “That is an accomplishment to make America healthy again, and we should stand up and salute the people that made that decision, because there’s people who would otherwise be dead if those mothers were not given that option to have their child vaccinated.”Dr Debra Houry just said that Robert F Kennedy Jr should resign.
      After seeing his Senate finance testimony, and the number of misstatements, seeing what he has asked our scientists to do, and to compromise our integrity, and the children that have died under his watch, I think he should resign.
      And another update on that front. Senator Cassidy has just said that Senator Mullin told reporters that “he was mistaken” in saying that the meeting between secretary Kennedy and Dr Monarez on 25 August was recorded.“But in case he’s mistaken, that he was mistaken,” Cassidy said, invoking laughter from those in the hearing room. “If there is a recording, it should be released, and would beg the question of what other conversations were recorded.”Per my earlier post, where senator Mullin made claims that Monarez was lying about her meeting with Kennedy – where she told him that if he felt she was untrustworthy he could fire her.Republican senator Bill Cassidy – the committee chair – has called out Mullin’s “implication” that he has a recording of that meeting.“I will note that if materials have been provided to Senator Mullin, and invoked in official committee business, they’re committee records and all other senators on the committee have the right to see those records,” he said. “This is allegiance to President Trump’s values, and so I ask that that recording be released.”He added:
      I’ll also note that we put in a request for any documents or communications that would bring transparency to the situation. We have not yet received those documents. If a recording does not exist, I asked Senator Mullin to retract his line of questions.
      When asked by Democratic senator Ed Markey, of Massachusetts, whether Dr Monarez and Dr Houry feel that politics is driving the change to vaccine recommendations, including hepatitis B vaccines, instead of science in children’s health, both former officials agree.“I’m thankful to Senator Cassidy for really raising hepatitis B via social media,” Houry said of the series of posts by the Republican chair of the committee, which sought to debunk misinformation around testing and the vaccine. “I think there’s a lot of moms that don’t know they have hepatitis that can then transmit it to their baby, and even the mom is hepatitis B negative, we don’t know what the home situation is.”Republican senator Markywane Mullin, of Oklahoma, is saying that Monarez is “not being honest” about her recollection of the conversation with secretary Kennedy.“I tell my kids all the time, you know one thing I want from you. I can deal with any situation we walk into, as long as I know you’re being 100% honest with me,” he said.Mullin has provided no evidence about how why he feels she is not telling the truth.“Your personality and your answers aren’t correct,” Mullin said in an exchange with the fired CDC director. More

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      Trump at first says he is ‘not familiar’ with Minnesota Democrat’s assassination

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      In response to a question about why he did not order flags lowered to half-staff to honor Melissa Hortman, the Democratic speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives who was assassinated alongside her husband this summer, Donald Trump initially said he was “not familiar” with the case.The question came up during a briefing in the Oval Office on Monday, in light of the president’s order last week to lower flags in response to the killing of rightwing activist Charlie Kirk.Trump was pressed on why he and Republicans continued cast blame the left for a rise in political violence when elected officials and activists from both parties have been targets.The exchange began when the reporter asked about the tributes paid by the White House to Kirk, the founder of the conservative youth activist group Turning Point USA and a close ally of the president and his family.“Do you think it would have been fitting to lower the flags to half-staff when Melissa Hortman, the Minnesota house speaker, was gunned down by an assassin as well?” asked Nancy Cordes, the chief White House correspondent for CBS News.“I’m not familiar. The who?” Trump replied, leaning in across the Resolute Desk.“The Minnesota house speaker, a Democrat, who was assassinated this summer,” she said.“Oh,” Trump replied. “Well, if the governor had asked me to do that, I would have done that.”Trump did not mention the Minnesota governor Tim Walz – a Democrat and the vice-presidential nominee in 2024 – by name, but suggested that had he made the request, the White House might have obliged.“I wouldn’t have thought of that, but I would’ve, if somebody had asked me,” Trump said. “People make requests for the lowering of the flag, and oftentimes you have to say no, because it would be a lot of lowering.”At the time, Trump said that speaking to Walz, a close friend of Hortman, would have been a “waste of time”.“I could be nice and call, but why waste time?” Trump said then, referring to Walz as “whacked out” and a “mess”.Kirk was fatally shot last week while speaking at Utah Valley University. In the wake of his death, Trump and other prominent conservatives have sought to place the blame for political violence squarely on Democrats, vowing to crack down on the left-wing groups and institutions they allege “fund it and support it”.As Republicans grieve the loss of Kirk, they have largely ignored the violence against Democrats, including Hortman’s assassination, the arson attack on the home of Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, the violent assault on Paul Pelosi, the husband of former speaker Nancy Pelosi, and a thwarted plot to kidnap the Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer.House Republicans and a handful of Democrats gathered at prayer vigil for Kirk on Capitol Hill on Monday. In brief remarks, Representative Tom Emmer, a Republican from Minnesota, reflected on several recent incidents of political violence, including Hortman’s killing by “another evil coward” who also shot a second Democratic state lawmaker that night.Trump, who survived two assassination attempts during the 2024 presidential campaign, denied on Monday that he had blamed just “one side” before accusing the “radical left” of causing “tremendous violence”.“The radical left really has caused a lot of problems for this country,” he said. “I really think they hate our country.”Earlier on Monday, vice president JD Vance, a close friend of Kirk’s, said he hoped for national “unity” while hosting the slain activist’s podcast. But then he insisted that this was not a “both sides problem” and that Democrats were primarily to blame, despite widespread condemnation of Kirk’s killing by party officials and elected leaders.During the lengthy episode, Vance made no reference to Hortman or other acts of political violence, such as the 6 January assault on the US Capitol.“Something has gone very wrong with a lunatic fringe – a minority, but a growing and powerful minority on the far left,” he said, and committed to using the levers of the federal government to “dismantle the institutions that promote violence and terrorism in our own country”. More

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      JD Vance threatens crackdown on ‘far-left’ groups after Charlie Kirk shooting

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      JD Vance assailed what he called the “far left” and its increased tolerance for violence while guest-hosting Charlie Kirk’s podcast on Monday, saying the administration would be working to dismantle groups who celebrate Kirk’s death and political violence against their opponents.Vance, hosting the podcast from his office next to the White House, spoke to high-profile members of the Trump administration and some of Kirk’s long-time friends in the movement, including Tucker Carlson and Trump adviser Stephen Miller.Vance said the administration would “work to dismantle the institutions that promote violence and terrorism in our own country”.The administration would be working to do that in the coming months and would “explore every option to bring real unity to our country and stop those who would kill their fellow Americans because they don’t like what they say”, Vance said.Miller also detailed how the administration would use the federal government to achieve this goal.“With God as my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, [Department of] Homeland Security and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle and destroy these networks,” Miller said, adding that they would do this “in Charlie’s name”.Vance added: “When you see someone celebrating Charlie’s murder, call them out. Hell, call their employer. We don’t believe in political violence, but we do believe in civility, and there is no civility in the celebration of political assassination.”Miller said he had been feeling “incredible sadness, but there’s incredible anger” and would be focusing his “righteous anger” on the “organized campaign that led to this assassination, to uproot and dismantle these terrorist networks”.Detailing what he believes is a “vast domestic terror movement”, Miller pointed to what he said were “organized doxing campaigns, the organized riots, the organized street violence, the organized campaigns of dehumanization, vilification, posting people’s addresses, combining that with messaging designed to trigger, incite violence, and the actual organized cells that carry out and facilitate the violence”.The political leanings of the shooter who killed Kirk are not yet clear. Bullet casings found with the shooter’s gun were inscribed with references to video games and online culture. Still, prominent figures on the right – before a shooter was apprehended – declared war on the left, claiming it was responsible for Kirk’s death.There is no evidence of a network supporting the shooter, and Miller did not provide substantiation of his claims that there is a “vast domestic terror movement” at play.Since Kirk’s death, rightwing influencers have found examples of people they say are glorifying or celebrating the violence and have sought to get them fired. One post that Miller retweeted said people should go beyond contacting employers and should go after professional licenses for lawyers, teachers and medical professionals because they “cannot be trusted to be around clients, children, or patients”.Trump has also said the problem today is on the left, not the right. “When you look at the agitators – you look at the scum that speaks so badly of our country, the American flag burnings all over the place – that’s the left, not the right,” Trump said on Sunday.On the podcast, Vance said that after he left Kirk’s family in Arizona, he read a story in the Nation, a leftwing publication, where the author detailed Kirk’s views and, he said, took a quote about several prominent Black women out of context to imply it applied to all Black women.The magazine is not a “fringe blog” but a “well-funded, well-respected magazine whose publishing history goes back to the American civil war. George Soros’s Open Society Foundation funds this magazine, as does the Ford Foundation and many other wealthy titans of the American progressive movement”, Vance said, hinting at the organizations the administration might target.Vance later mentioned that the foundations that helped fund the magazine are tax-exempt, a sign that the government could go after that status.“Charlie was gunned down in broad daylight, and well-funded institutions of the left lied about what he said so as to justify his murder,” Vance said. “This is soulless and evil, but I was struck not just by the dishonesty of the smear, but by the glee over a young husband’s and young father’s death.”The writer of the Nation article said on Bluesky that she was not paid by the Ford Foundation or Open Society to write the article.Vance said he “desperately” wants national unity and appreciated the many condolences he has received from Democratic friends and colleagues, but he said there was no unity without confronting the truth. “The data is clear, people on the left are much likelier to defend and celebrate political violence,” he said, citing the results from a recent YouGov poll. “This is not a both-sides problem. If both sides have a problem, one side has a much bigger and malignant problem, and that is the truth.”On the show, Vance also interviewed Kirk’s friends and political allies, showing how Kirk worked to keep the warring factions of the right aligned behind Trump and tried to bring in other political movements by elevating them into roles in the administration. They shared how Kirk was omnipresent in the transition after Trump won the White House.Robert F Kennedy Jr said Kirk was a “spiritual soulmate” to him and that his endorsement of Trump, at a Turning Point rally in Arizona amid fireworks and sparklers on stage, was “Charlie’s orchestration”. Kirk helped shepherd Kennedy into his role as health secretary, Kennedy said, and also helped his daughter-in-law get a role in the administration.On breaks between guests, the live stream rolled footage of Kirk during his typical college campus visits debating about the Trump administration’s first 100 days or the left’s views on immigration.Since Kirk’s killing, Turning Point USA has seen a massive rise in inquiries to start new chapters on high school and college campuses. Andrew Kolvet, a spokesman for the organization, said on X that the group received over 32,000 inquiries over the course of two days. Turning Point currently has about 900 official college chapters and 1,200 high school chapters.“Charlie’s vision to have a Club America chapter (our high school brand) in every high school in America (around 23,000) will come true much much faster than he could have ever possibly imagined,” Kolvet wrote. More