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      John McCain’s son says he will vote Democrat as he slams Trump Arlington visit

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      The son of the late Republican senator John McCain – whose war record was disparaged by Donald Trump – has added his voice to criticism of the former president’s controversial Arlington cemetery visit, accusing him of violating a sacred burial site for political purposes.First Lieutenant Jimmy McCain, an intelligence officer in the 158th infantry regiment of the national guard, said Trump’s behaviour at the cemetery – America’s most revered burial ground for fallen military personnel and military heroes – was in line with previous acts of disrespect.He told CNN that Trump’s attitude to military service has driven him away from the Republican party of his father, adding that he had changed his registered voter affiliation to Democrat and planned to vote for Kamala Harris in the forthcoming presidential election.Trump’s reputation for disdaining military personnel is rooted in his first presidential run in 2016, when he said McCain Sr, who died in 2018, did not deserve the war hero status accorded to him because he had been captured during the Vietnam war.He has since been reported to have called US soldiers buried at a first world war cemetery in France “suckers” and “losers” and questioned the value of the Congressional Medal of Honor, generally given for acts of military heroism.McCain said the shift in his political affiliation had been party influenced by Trump’s comments about his father. “Hearing things [from Trump] like, he was a loser because he was captured – I don’t think I could ever overlook that,” he said.But he also suggested Trump had effectively violated the service of fallen soldiers in last week’s episode. “These men and women that are laying in the ground there have no choice,” said McCain, whose grandfather and great-grandfather are buried at Arlington.The Republican presidential nominee has drawn broad condemnation and a rebuke from the US army after a visit to the cemetery ostensibly to mark the third anniversary of a suicide bombing that killed 13 American servicemen during the US pullout from Afghanistan in 2021 devolved into a campaign photo opportunity.Members of Trump’s campaign staff reportedly pushed aside a female cemetery worker when she tried to enforce federal regulations prohibiting taking camera and film equipment into section 60, the facility area reserved for those killed in the Afghan and Iraq campaigns.Pictures and footage were subsequently published of a smiling Trump giving the thumbs up while posing alongside some of the fallen servicemen’s family members, who had invited him. The graves of other personnel – whose families did not give permission – can be clearly seen in the background. Some of them have condemned the visit.Trump has defended it and released supportive statements from relatives of six of the armed forces members killed in the 2021 Abbey Gate bombing.On a statement on his Truth Social site on Wednesday, he went further, accusing Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, of making up the story and claiming there had been no altercation.“There was no conflict or ‘fighting’ at Arlington National Cemetery last week,” he wrote. “It was a made up story by Comrade Kamala and her misinformation squad. She made it all up to make up for the fact that she and Sleepy Joe [Biden] have BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS for the INCOMPETENT AFGHANISTAN Withdrawal.”But speaking to CNN, McCain suggested his actions were driven by feelings of insecurity about his own lack of military service experience.“It was a violation,” he said. “I just think that for anyone who’s done a lot of time in their uniform, they just understand that inherently – that it’s not about you there. It’s about these people who gave the ultimate sacrifice in the name of their country.”“Many of these men and women who served their country chose to do something greater than themselves. They woke up one morning, they signed on the dotted line, they put their right hand up and they chose to serve their country. And that’s an experience that Donald Trump has not had. And I think that might be something that he thinks about a lot.” More

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      Trump claims ‘no conflict’ during Arlington national cemetery visit despite US army statements – live

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      Donald Trump claimed in a Truth Social post on Tuesday that “there was no conflict” during his visit to Arlington national cemetery last week, calling it “a made up story” by his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris. Trump wrote:
      There was no conflict or “fighting” at Arlington National Cemetery last week. It was a made up story by Comrade Kamala and her misinformation squad.
      The US army accused the Trump campaign of turning a wreath-laying ceremony on 26 August to mark the deaths of US soldiers in Afghanistan into a photo opportunity.The army also accused two campaign workers representing Trump of pushing aside an official who told them it was forbidden to take pictures at the graves of military members who had recently died.An army spokesperson said a female Arlington national cemetery official was “abruptly pushed aside” during an argument with Trump aides over photos and filming on the grounds for partisan, political or fundraising purposes. A spokesperson for the military said the episode was “unfortunate”, and it was “also unfortunate” that the cemetery “employee and her professionalism has been unfairly attacked”. The employee is not pressing charges.This blog is pausing coverage. We’ll be back soon.

      Kamala Harris will travel to Pittsburgh on Thursday and will remain there while she prepares for next Tuesday’s presidential debate with Donald Trump, according to reports. The Harris campaign is still negotiating with ABC News about rules for the 10 September debate, a Harris campaign official said.

      Kamala Harris is expected to announce new proposals meant to boost small businesses and entrepreneurs ahead of a campaign speech on Wednesday in New Hampshire, according to a report.

      The Harris campaign launched the “Fighting for Reproductive Freedom” bus tour aimed at advocating for women’s reproductive rights starting today in Palm Beach, Florida. The second gentleman, Douglas Emhoff, the Minnesota first lady, Gwen Walz, the Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar and the Harris-Walz campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodríguez are among those who will be on the tour.

      The Harris campaign and the Democratic National Committee announced it will transfer $25m to support down-ballot candidates.

      Donald Trump claimed that “there was no conflict” during his visit to Arlington national cemetery last week, calling it “a made-up story” by his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris. The US army accused two campaign workers representing Trump of pushing aside an official who told them it was forbidden to take pictures at the graves of military members who had recently died.

      Jimmy McCain, the son of the late Republican senator John McCain, condemned Trump’s visit to the Arlington national cemetery last week as a “violation”. “These men and women that are lying in the ground there have no choice” of whether to be a backdrop for a political campaign, he told CNN.

      Fred Trump III, the nephew of Donald Trump, said the Republican presidential nominee “just doesn’t give a shit” about members of the US military. “He just doesn’t. Donald believes in Donald,” he told MSNBC.

      The offices of Donald Trump’s campaign and Republican National Committee were briefly evacuated last week after staff thought they discovered listening devices under a desk, according to a local police report.

      A federal judge ordered Donald Trump and his campaign to stop using the song Hold On, I’m Coming co-written by the late R&B artist and songwriter Isaac Hayes, after Hayes’s estate sought an emergency injunction to stop the Trump campaign from using the song at campaign events.

      The Manhattan district attorney’s office urged the judge overseeing Donald Trump’s hush-money criminal case to rule on his motion to vacate his conviction, and not wait until a federal judge considers a separate motion filed by Trump last week to move the case into federal court.

      Pat Toomey, the former Republican senator for Pennsylvania, said he will not be voting for Donald Trump or Kamala Harris in the November election. Toomey said he voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020 but that he could not bring himself to support the Republican presidential candidate, citing Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.

      A rightwing thinktank report proposing sweeping restrictions to abortions and fertility treatments was endorsed by JD Vance years before he became a fervent backer of Donald Trump and – eventually – his vice-presidential running mate known for his derisive views on childless women.

      Robert F Kennedy Jr was asked if he would be vice-president under Donald Trump hours after the former president survived an assassination attempt in July, it has been revealed. Kennedy reportedly rejected the suggestion from Calley Means, an entrepreneur who sometimes advised him on chronic diseases and was acting as an intermediary, according to the New York Times.

      Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate leader, warned his opposite number, the Republican minority leader, Mitch McConnell, that history will judge him “poorly” because he paved the way to rightwing policies out of touch with the American people.
      Seven Republican states sue over Biden administration’s new student debt relief planRepublican-led states are again attempting to halt the Biden administration’s plans to implement a student debt forgiveness program.Seven states have filed a lawsuit challenging a new debt relief plan and said efforts were under way at the US Department of Education to start canceling loans as soon as this week, Reuters reported. That news came after the supreme court last week rejected the Biden administration’s bid to revive a different student debt relief plan.“We successfully halted their first two illegal student loan cancellation schemes; I have no doubt we will secure yet another win to block the third one,” Andrew Bailey, the Missouri attorney general, said in a statement.Kamala Harris will travel to Pittsburgh on Thursday to prepare for next Tuesday’s presidential debate with Donald Trump, according to reports.Harris will remain in Pittsburgh until the debate takes place on 10 September, CNN reported, citing sources familiar with the planning.In Pittsburgh, Harris will participate in intensive debate prep, informally known as “debate camp” led by Karen Dunn, a Washington-based lawyer who helped prepare Harris for her 2020 vice-presidential debate, and Rohini Kosoglu, a longtime Harris policy aide, the Washington Post reported.Harris is expected to meet voters in Pittsburgh and stay on the campaign trail in the key battleground state while also preparing for the debate, according to CNN.In recent weeks, Harris has held at least one debate prep session at Howard University, her alma mater, in Washington, according to the Post.The Harris campaign is still negotiating with ABC News about rules for the 10 September debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, NBC News reported, citing a Harris campaign official.No agreement has been reached on the final rules, the official said.The offices of Donald Trump’s campaign and Republican National Committee were briefly evacuated last week after staff thought they discovered listening devices under a desk, according to a local police report.About 50 employees were evacuated on Thursday afternoon after people heard beeping under a staff member’s desk at the Trump campaign offices in West Palm Beach, Florida, according to the local police department.Three devices were found by police and security, who subsequently swept the floors of the building, the Washington Post reported. Employees returned to the building later that afternoon. The devices were identified as “a cricket noisemaker prank” that can be bought on Amazon, it said.A security official who worked in the building told the police he believed “the devices were part of a prank. The suites were canvassed for any additional devices and evidence yielding negative results”, the New York Times reported.The Philadelphia Eagles said it is aware of “counterfeit ads being circulated” that claim the American football team has endorsed Kamala Harris for president.Posters appeared on the streets of Philadelphia showing Harris wearing an Eagles helmet and holding an American football, with “KAMALA” in large bold letters and the tagline “Official candidate of the Philadelphia Eagles”.NBC Philadelphia reported spotting at least six of the counterfeit ads around the city before they were taken down on Monday. It is unclear who was responsible for them, it said.A rightwing thinktank report proposing sweeping restrictions to abortions and fertility treatments was endorsed by JD Vance years before he became a fervent backer of Donald Trump and – eventually – his vice-presidential running mate known for his derisive views on childless women.In 2017, months into Trump’s presidency, Vance wrote the foreword to the Index of Culture and Opportunity, a collection of essays by conservative authors for the Heritage Foundation that included ideas for encouraging women to have children earlier and promoting a resurgence of “traditional” family structure. The essays lauded the increase in state laws restricting abortion rights and included arguments that the practice should become “unthinkable” in the US, a hardline posture the Democrats now say is the agenda of Trump and Vance, who they accuse of harbouring the intent to impose a national ban following a 2022 supreme court ruling overturning Roe v Wade and annulling the federal right to terminate a pregnancy.The report also includes an essay lamenting the spread of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) and other fertility treatments, with the author attributing them as reasons for women delaying having children and prioritising higher education rather than starting families.IVF has emerged as an issue in November’s presidential race after Trump said last week that he favoured it being covered by government funding or private health insurance companies – a stance seeming at odds with many Republicans, including Vance, who was one of 47 GOP senators to vote against a bill in June intended to expand access to the treatment.Donald Trump has a knack for rallying a remarkable range of political opinion around a common goal: preventing his return to the White House.That now includes prominent names from his own Republican party and top aides who worked under him as president. From former White House officials and national security staff to a once-worshipful press secretary, a host of one-time Trump fans are now lining up to join Democrats in declaring him unfit for another term in office.White House lawyers who served Republican presidents going back to Ronald Reagan and retired senior military officers have also denounced Trump as a danger to democracy.Adding to Trump’s humiliation, even members of his own cabinet – who once pledged their fealty with a subservience that would not displease Vladimir Putin – are declining to endorse him for re-election in November.Read the full story: Republicans are lining up to oppose Trump. Will it make a difference?A federal judge ordered Donald Trump and his campaign to stop using the song Hold On, I’m Coming by the late R&B artist and songwriter Issac Hayes.The decision came after Hayes’s estate sought an emergency injunction to stop the Trump campaign from using the song at campaign events, alleging the campaign does not have approval.Judge Thomas Thrash Jr ruled Trump and his campaign not to use the song “without proper license”, but he did not grant the estate’s request to order the campaign to take down recordings of past events in which it had used the song.Trump regularly used the song as his exit music for much of the past year, including at the Republican National Convention in July, according to the New York Times.

      Donald Trump claimed that “there was no conflict” during his visit to Arlington national cemetery last week, calling it “a made up story” by his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris. The US army accused two campaign workers representing Trump of pushing aside an official who told them it was forbidden to take pictures at the graves of military members who had recently died.

      Jimmy McCain, the son of the late Republican senator John McCain, condemned Trump’s visit to the Arlington national cemetery last week as a “violation”. “These men and women that are laying in the ground there have no choice” of whether to be a backdrop for a political campaign, he told CNN.

      Fred Trump III, the nephew of Donald Trump, said the Republican presidential nominee “just doesn’t give a shit” about members of the US military. “He just doesn’t. Donald believes in Donald,” he told MSNBC.

      Donald Trump said he had “every right” to interfere with the results of the 2020 presidential election in a Fox News interview that aired on Sunday. The Harris campaign said Trump’s comments “makes it clear that he believes he is above the law”.

      The Harris campaign launched the “Fighting for Reproductive Freedom” bus tour aimed at advocating for women’s reproductive rights starting today in Palm Beach, Florida. The second gentleman, Douglas Emhoff, the Minnesota first lady, Gwen Walz, the Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar and the Harris-Walz campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez are among those who will be on the tour.

      The Harris campaign and the Democratic National Committee will transfer $25m to support down-ballot candidates.

      Kamala Harris is expected to announce new proposals meant to boost small businesses and entrepreneurs ahead of a campaign speech on Wednesday in New Hampshire, according to a report.

      The Manhattan district attorney’s office urged the judge overseeing Donald Trump’s hush-money criminal case to rule on his motion to vacate his conviction, and not wait until a federal judge considers a separate motion filed by Trump last week to move the case into federal court.

      Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate leader, warned his opposite number, the Republican minority leader, Mitch McConnell, that history will judge him “poorly” because he paved the way to rightwing policies out of touch with the American people.

      Pat Toomey, the former Republican senator for Pennsylvania, said he will not be voting for Donald Trump or Kamala Harris in the November election. Toomey said he voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020 but that he could not bring himself to support the Republican presidential candidate, citing Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.

      Robert F Kennedy Jr was asked if he would be vice-president under Donald Trump hours after the former president survived an assassination attempt in July, it has been revealed. Kennedy reportedly rejected the suggestion from Calley Means, an entrepreneur who sometimes advised him on chronic diseases and was acting as an intermediary, according to the New York Times. More

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      Schumer says McConnell will ‘go down poorly in history’ for rightwing policies

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      The Democratic leader of the US Senate, Chuck Schumer, has warned his opposite number, the Republican minority leader, Mitch McConnell, that history will judge him “poorly” because he paved the way to rightwing policies out of touch with the American people.In an interview with Punchbowl News conducted at the Democratic national convention in August but published on Monday, Schumer accused McConnell of enabling Donald Trump’s remaking of US politics and the judiciary. By helping to shift the supreme court sharply to the right through the former president’s three appointments to the top judicial bench, McConnell had played a part in abolishing the federal right to an abortion in the ruling ending Roe v Wade, and much more, Schumer contended.“Not just on Roe, but on issue after issue where they’re so far out of touch with the American people … Even when McConnell thought Trump was wrong, he went along with [Trump] too many times,” Schumer told the political news site.He concluded that McConnell’s “role in history, in my opinion, will go down poorly”.That the leaders of the two main parties in the US Senate should trade barbs is not at all surprising, given the track record of acrimony between them. Schumer and McConnell have frequently been at loggerheads over judicial appointments, campaign finance laws and other policy areas.But Schumer’s comments may wield an extra sting as they come just four months before McConnell is set to step down as minority Senate leader. The Republican has led his party’s group in the Senate since 2007, making him the longest serving party leader in the chamber in US history.In recent months, McConnell, who has indicated he will complete the remaining two years of his term, has struck a more independent posture from Trump. That is especially the case on foreign policy, on which he has criticized the former president’s isolationist stance on Ukraine.In his Punchbowl News interview, Schumer encouraged his counterpart to go further in that direction. He said McConnell could improve his legacy by resurrecting what he called the “old Republican party”.“He can salvage some of that reputation – and I’m not trying to tell him what to do – by trying to get the old Republican party back. He will ally with us in not being isolationist. He feels that passionately.”Schumer mused that if Trump were to lose badly in November’s presidential election against Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, there would be greater hope of a return to a more collaborative form of the Republican party. “If he loses by quite a bit, we may find the old Republican party and we’ll be able to work with them,” Schumer said.He added: “I know from my Senate experience and my friendship with Senate colleagues that many of them, even if they go along with Trump, don’t like him and don’t think he’s good for their party or what they believe in.“Exhibit A is Mitch McConnell.” More

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      Young male voters are flocking to Trump – but he doesn’t have their interests at heart | Steven Greenhouse

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      It’s the most startling thing I’ve seen in this year’s presidential campaign – the astoundingly large gap between how young men and young women plan to vote this November. Among women under age 30, an overwhelming 67% plan to vote for Kamala Harris, while just 29% say they’ll back Donald Trump. But among young men, a majority – 53% – plan to vote for Trump, while 40% say they’ll support Harris, according to a New York Times/Sienna College poll. That’s an astonishing 51-percentage-point gender gap.It’s easy to understand why so many young women favor Harris – she has an inspiring life story, champions reproductive freedom and would break the biggest glass ceiling of all by becoming the first female president. But I’m mystified why so many young men back Trump.Many of them seem to like Trump’s machismo. They like that he talks tough. They see him as an icon of traditional manhood. But all this raises an unavoidable question: should Trump be looked to as an icon of manhood considering that he boasted of grabbing women’s genitals, was found liable for sexual assault and had an affair with an adult film star soon after his wife gave birth? That shouldn’t be anyone’s model of manhood.Many young men seem to admire Trump’s king-of-the-jungle vibe: he roars, he bellows, he boasts that no one can ever beat him (unless they cheat). But when you cut through Trump’s tough talk and look at the record, it becomes clear that Trump did very little for young men in his four years as president.Whoops, I should note that if you’re a young man making more than $1m a year, Trump did do a lot for you, thanks to his colossal tax cuts for the richest 1%. But for the more than 99% of young men who don’t make $1m a year, sorry, Trump didn’t do diddly for you, other than cut your taxes a wee bit, a tiny fraction of the tax cuts that he gave to the richest Americans.I recognize that many young men feel uncomfortable about the Democratic party, partly because some Democrats unfortunately treat men as a problem – and sometimes as the problem. If the Democrats were smart, they’d see that young men – like every other group in society – have problems that they need help with, problems like affording a home, finding a good-paying job, obtaining health insurance, affording college and having enough money to raise a family.Regardless of how you feel about Harris, the truth is that her policies will do far more for young men than Trump’s policies will. It’s not even close. She is serious about lifting up young men and young women, and she has plans to do so.Unlike Trump, Harris will help with soaring rents and home prices. She has pledged to build 3m new homes to help drive down housing prices. In another big step to make housing more affordable, she plans to give a $25,000 subsidy to first-time home buyers. Unlike Trump, Harris is also attacking the problem of high grocery prices – she has promised to crack down on price-gouging at the supermarket.For many young men, health coverage and high health costs are a problem. On those matters, Trump will only make things worse. He has repeatedly promised to repeal Obamacare. That would be a disaster for millions of young men and women because they would no longer be able to be on their parents’ health plan until age 26. What’s more, repealing Obamacare will push up healthcare prices.Many young people complain about their mountains of student debt. Trump won’t help on that; he has condemned the idea of forgiving student loans. In contrast, Harris wants to expand Biden’s debt cancellation program, which is hugely popular with young Americans. What’s more, Trump backed huge cuts in student aid – a move that would make it harder for young people to afford college. Harris is eager to make college more affordable by increasing student grants. Not only that, she is looking to what Tim Walz, her running mate, has done as Minnesota’s governor. He has made Minnesota’s state universities and community colleges free for students from middle-class and lower-income families.If you’re a young man frustrated by how little your job pays, you should know that Trump – doing a big favor for his corporate allies – did nothing to raise the $7.25-an-hour federal minimum wage. Harris strongly supports raising the minimum wage.Trump has made two big promises to make your life more affordable. Without giving details, he says he will cut auto insurance prices nationwide in his first 100 days in office. He also says he will cut energy and electricity prices in half during his first year in office. If you believe those far-fetched promises, then you’ll probably believe me when I say I have a bridge to sell you.If you’re a young father or if you hope to have a family someday, you should know that Harris’s policies will do far more for you than Trump’s. Recognizing how expensive it is to raise a family, Harris has called for creating a children’s tax credit of $3,000 per child per year and $6,000 for a newborn.To improve work-family balance, Harris has long pushed to enact paid family and medical leave so that people can take much-needed paid time off to spend with their newborns or care for sick parents or children. (Most Republicans oppose a paid leave law because their corporate donors oppose it.) Trump doesn’t have similar pro-family policies – his main policy proposals are huge tax cuts for corporations and the ultra-rich and large tariffs on imports that will dangerously push up inflation.Although many young Americans don’t realize it, Biden and Harris have worked hard to create good-paying jobs for those who don’t go to college. Biden and Harris fought to enact three important pieces of legislation – an infrastructure bill, a green energy bill and a computer chips bill – that will create about 1m construction jobs, factory jobs and other jobs across the US, many of them unionized jobs with strong benefits.If you’re one of the many young people at Starbucks, REI, Apple or elsewhere who support unionizing as a way to increase your pay and improve your working conditions, you should know that Harris is a strong supporter of unions and enthusiastically backs legislation to make it easier to unionize. But billionaire Trump dislikes labor unions. When he was president, he and his appointees did dozens of things, large and small, to weaken unions and create roadblocks for workers seeking to unionize.There’s no denying that Trump’s tough talk makes many young men feel good. But tough talk is cheap. It won’t help anyone pay the rent, afford college or raise a family. Harris doesn’t talk as tough as Trump, but her record and her policies make undeniably clear that she will do far more for America’s young men and women than Trump will.

      Steven Greenhouse, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, is an American labor and workplace journalist and writer More

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      Why are so many Democratic politicians appearing on Fox News?

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      Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden’s transport secretary, introduced himself to Democrats at their convention earlier last month in unusual fashion. “I’m Pete Buttigieg and you might recognize me from Fox News,” he told the crowd in Chicago.The comment drew laughter, but beneath it was a certain truth: in the final two months of the 2024 election, politicians and campaign aides are less siloed in their ideologically aligned media bubbles in an effort to poach potentially persuadable voters.Buttigieg said he is proud to go on conservative outlets to speak on behalf of the Harris-Walz campaign because their arguments and facts might not otherwise be aired to that audience. So too have the Democratic governors Gavin Newsom, Josh Shapiro, Wes Moore and Gretchen Whitmer, and senators Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, John Fetterman and Chris Coons also dropped in on the network.Meanwhile, Trump campaign adviser Corey Lewandowski has been on MSNBC’s The Beat with Ari Melber, and JD Vance on CNN. Presidential hopeful Kamala Harris told CNN she would find a place in her cabinet for a Republican if elected.In an election that is likely to turn on a small number of undecided voters in a handful of swing states, and considering that the Harris-Walz campaign has been on a bus tour of heavily Republican, mainly pro-Trump rural Georgia where there aren’t many votes to get, the cross-border forays into enemy TV territory makes sense.“We have so many hyper-close elections in swing states that even if you only get a point or two that you take away from Republicans and put in your column can be the 10,000 votes that give you that swing state,” said the University of Virginia political analyst Larry Sabato.The same is true for going on a cable news station holding perceived political biases. When Buttigieg goes on Fox News, Sabato says, he is “not just addressing Republicans, but also getting Democrats indebted to him for the unpleasant task he’s performing”.But the media too likes to play the game – albeit for different reasons. The issue of the media, and its perceived political biases, has become a central campaign issue in the US and there is a deep public hostility to journalists. For the more partisan television networks like Fox and MSNBC, there is an advantage to having people from the other side on – as it may somewhat defuse accusations of one-sidedness.It is also a long tradition. Fox News used to have a now-distant show called Hannity & Colmes that was presented by conservative Sean Hannity and liberal Alan Colmes. Typically, Colmes would come off worse – and indeed was often the subject of much mockery.“Both play a game here,” said Sabato. “Fox News chooses people who are quote-unquote Democrats who haven’t been in the game for sometime or who are out of sync with the party, and the same is true with Republicans on CNN. They feel an obligation – if not balanced, then at least a voice to the other side.”The passage of Democrats to Fox may also be entirely pragmatic given the power of the channel. Nielsen Media Research shows Fox News is the highest-rated network in all swing states. According to a recent YouGov poll –54% of Republicans, 22% of Democrats and 28% of independent voters had watched the cable station in the past month.An Axios/Harris 100 Poll also found that Fox News has gained ground this year with more independents and Democrats in terms of trust. Jessica Loker, vice-president of politics at the network, told Bloomberg that the network sees ratings go up when Democrats are on. The Fox News anchor Bret Baier told Axios: “If you build it, they will come.”A Fox News spokesperson confirmed that the outlet has seen, even before the Democratic convention in Chicago, a 41% increase in Democrat guests, excluding strategists, in the year to August.But that comes as politicians are fighting daily battles over media representation, most recently over whether microphones at the ABC-hosted Harris-Trump debate on 10 September would be muted when it is the other person’s turn to speak. Before that, the campaigns were locked in disputes over which network would host and when.“The inner workings of the political process are so much the subject matter, and that includes how the political process interacts with the media,” said Robert Thompson, director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture. “If they’re talking about microphones, or if it’s a fair place, then they’re not talking about the issues that they should be talking about in a debate, which they may or may not actually talk about that debate.”Moreover, Thompson points out, “the whole debate over doing a presidential debate on ABC or Fox demonstrates how much everyone assumes that each one of these operations are part of a set of established political ideologies.”“The things being debated are newly self-generated parts of how journalism has become so intimately part of the story as opposed to being the medium by which we communicate these two people,” said Thompson.And it is apt to go wrong. Last week, MSNBC’s Ari Melber threatened to sue Lewandowski for lying about him over comments he made over the attempted Trump assassination. Trump is suing ABC News and George Stephanopoulos over the anchor’s assertion that a jury concluded Trump had raped magazine writer E Jean Carroll. So, it seems, even if Democrats are venturing on to hostile territory more and more, the terrain still remains thoroughly part of a battlefield. More

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      Republicans are lining up to oppose Trump. Will it make a difference?

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      Donald Trump has a knack for rallying a remarkable range of political opinion around a common goal: preventing his return to the White House.That now includes prominent names from his own Republican party and top aides who worked under him as president. From former White House officials and national security staff to a once-worshipful press secretary, a host of one-time Trump fans are now lining up to join Democrats in declaring him unfit for another term in office.White House lawyers who served Republican presidents going back to Ronald Reagan and retired senior military officers have also denounced Trump as a danger to democracy.Adding to Trump’s humiliation, even members of his own cabinet – who once pledged their fealty with a subservience that would not displease Vladimir Putin – are declining to endorse him for re-election in November.It’s not entirely a one-way street. For his part, Trump has managed to win over Robert F Kennedy Jr, scion of the US’s most renowned Democratic family and erstwhile presidential candidate, and Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic member of Congress.Trump has added the pair to his transition team but the impact of their endorsement was tempered by Democrats swiftly reminding voters that Kennedy once described Trump as “a terrible president” and his policies as “absurd and terrifying”. Neither will more reasoned Republicans be reassured by Kennedy’s anti-vaxxer views, which have drawn the scorn of at least one major party donor.The anti-Trump messages are principally aimed at persuading Republicans who may formerly have voted for him that they should put country before party to keep a dangerous populist from a second term in the White House. Opinion polls say that 9% of likely voters who support Trump are prepared to at least consider switching to the Democratic candidate, Kamala Harris.In early August, her campaign launched “Republicans for Harris” to target voters thought most likely to switch, particularly those who backed Trump’s rival in the primaries, Nikki Haley.On Monday, 200 Republicans who worked for President George W Bush and the former presidential candidates Senators Mitt Romney and John McCain, released an open letter in support of Harris and her running mate, the Minnesota governor, Tim Walz.The letter warned that there was more to fear from Trump than a repeat of his first term because he is now bound up with the authoritarian plan to impose rightwing control across the entire US government, including non-partisan federal agencies, known as Project 2025.“Of course, we have plenty of honest, ideological disagreements with Vice President Harris and Gov Walz. That’s to be expected. The alternative, however, is simply untenable,” the letter said.“At home, another four years of Donald Trump’s chaotic leadership, this time focused on advancing the dangerous goals of Project 2025, will hurt real, everyday people and weaken our sacred institutions. Abroad, democratic movements will be irreparably jeopardized as Trump and his acolyte JD Vance kowtow to dictators like Vladimir Putin while turning their backs on our allies. We can’t let that happen.”The signatories included Jean Becker, President George HW Bush’s chief of staff; David Nierenberg, the campaign finance chair for Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign; and two former chiefs of staff for McCain.View image in fullscreenThe Trump campaign communications director, Steven Cheung, scorned the letter as written by nonentities.“It’s hilarious because nobody knows who these people are. They would rather see the country burn down than to see President Trump successfully return to the White House to Make America Great Again,” he told Fox News.But many Trump supporters will have heard of Stephanie Grisham who served as White House press secretary and routinely appeared on conservative media outlets promoting the then president. Grisham spoke at the Democratic national convention in August where she described how she was once “a true believer” but by the end of Trump’s presidency had concluded that “he has no empathy, no morals, and no fidelity to the truth.“Trump mocks his supporters. He calls them basement dwellers,” she told the DNC and millions of Americans voters watching on television.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionGrisham, who was the first senior White House official to resign after Trump stoked the January 6 insurrection, called on Americans to vote for Harris.“I love my country more than my party. Kamala Harris tells the truth. She respects the American people and she has my vote,” she said.A former member of Congress, Adam Kinzinger, who was one of just 10 Republicans to vote to impeach Trump after the attack on the Capitol, also denounced him from the Democratic convention podium for having “suffocated the soul of the Republican party”.Other Republicans have joined the criticisms of Trump by saying that it is not enough to stand by and not vote in November.A dozen former White House lawyers who served Republican presidents from Ronald Reagan to George W Bush backed Harris in a letter warning that returning Trump to office “would threaten American democracy and undermine the rule of law in our country”. The letter appeals to “all patriotic Republicans, former Republicans, conservative and center-right citizens, and independent voters to place love of country above party and ideology” and vote for Harris.“We cannot go along with other former Republican officials who have condemned Trump with these devastating judgments but are still not willing to vote for Harris. We believe this election presents a binary choice, and Trump is utterly disqualified,” it said.That appears aimed at former officials such as John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, and former defense secretary Mark Esper who have both denounced Trump as unfit for office but declined to endorse Harris.The letter signed by the 200 former officials said the last presidential election was decided by “moderate Republicans and conservative independents” in swing states who “put country far before party” to defeat Trump four years ago.“We’re heartfully calling on these friends, colleagues, neighbors, and family members to take a brave stand once more, to vote for leaders that will strive for consensus, not chaos; that will work to unite, not divide; that will make our country and our children proud. Those leaders are Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov Tim Walz,” it said.Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s center for politics, said the appeals by the anti-Trump Republicans are aimed at a narrow slice of the electorate given that he doubts many voters are truly undecided.“A lot of those undecided are just people who are not going to tell the pollster who they’re voting for. There just aren’t that many undecideds. It’s people’s way of avoiding an argument. Also, I don’t think it changes one Republican’s mind who wasn’t open to the idea of not voting for Trump and there aren’t that many of them,” he said.“But it can make a difference for people who pay attention and who are movable. It also makes a difference for Democratic-leaning independents. It justifies the decision to support Harris they’ve already made. For that reason it matters because these are people, many of them, who’ve worked closely with Trump in the White House and they’ve seen up close how incompetent he is and how unsuited he is for the presidency. It’s critical to get these people on the record.” More

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      The right’s obsession with childless women isn’t just about ideology: it’s essential to the capitalist machine | Nesrine Malik

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      A woman without biological children is running for high political office, and so naturally that quality will at some point be used against her. Kamala Harris has, in the short period since she emerged as the Democratic candidate for US president, been scrutinised over her lack of children. The conservative lawyer Will Chamberlain posted on X that Harris “shouldn’t be president” – apparently, she doesn’t have “skin in the game”. The Republican vice-presidential candidate, JD Vance, called Harris and other Democrats “a bunch of childless cat ladies miserable at their own lives”.It’s a particularly virulent tendency in the US, with a rightwing movement that is fixated on women’s reproduction. But who can forget (and if you have, I am happy to remind you of a low point that still sticks in my craw) Andrea Leadsom, during the 2016 Conservative party leadership election, saying that Theresa May might have nieces and nephews, but “I have children who are going to have children … who will be a part of what happens next”. “Genuinely,” she added, as if the message were not clear enough, “I feel that being a mum means you have a real stake in the future of our country, a tangible stake.”It’s an argument about political capability that dresses up a visceral revulsion at the idea that a woman who does not have a child should be vested with any sort of credibility or status. In other comments, Vance said that “so many of the leaders of the left, and I hate to be so personal about this, but they’re people without kids trying to brainwash the minds of our children, that really disorients me and disturbs me”. He appears so fixated on this that it is almost comical: a man whose obsession with childless women verges on a complex.But his “disorientation and disturbance” is a political tendency that persists and endures. It constantly asks the question of women who don’t have children, in subtle and explicit ways, especially the higher they rise in the professional sphere: “What’s up with that? What’s the deal?” The public sphere becomes a space for answering that question. Women perform a sort of group plea to be left the hell alone, in their painstaking examinations of how they arrived at the decision not to have kids, or why they in fact celebrate not having kids, or deliberations on ambivalence about having kids.Behind all this lies some classic old-school inability to conceive of women outside mothering. But one reason this traditionalism persists in ostensibly modern and progressive places is that women withdrawing from mothering in capitalist societies – with their poorly resourced public amenities and parental support – forces questions about our inequitable, unacknowledged economic arrangements. A woman who does not bear children is a woman who will never stay home and provide unremunerated care. She is less likely to be held in the domestic zone and extend her caregiving to elderly relatives or the children of others. She cannot be a resource that undergirds a male partner’s career, frailties, time limitations and social demands.A mother is an option, a floating worker, the joker in the pack. Not mothering creates a hole for that “free” service, which societies increasingly arranged around nuclear families and poorly subsidised rights depend on. The lack of parental leave, childcare and elderly care would become profoundly visible – “disorienting and disturbing” – if that service were removed.“Motherhood,” writes the author Helen Charman in her new book Mother State, “is a political state. Nurture, care, the creation of human life – all immediate associations with mothering – have more to do with power, status and the distribution of resources … than we like to admit. For raising children is the foundational work of society, and, from gestation onward, it is unequally shared.”Motherhood, in other words, becomes an economic input, a public good, something that is talked about as if the women themselves were not in the room. Data on declining birthrates draws comment from Elon Musk (“extremely concerning!!”) . Not having children is reduced to entirely personal motivations – selfishness, beguilement with the false promise of freedom, lack of values and foresight, irresponsibility – rather than external conditions: of the need for affordable childcare, support networks, flexible working arrangements and the risk of financial oblivion that motherhood frequently brings, therefore creating bondage to partners. To put it mildly, these are material considerations to be taken into account upon entering a state from which there is no return. Assuming motherhood happens without such context, Charman tells me, is a “useful fantasy”.It is a binary public discourse, obscuring the often thin veil between biological and social actualisation. Women who don’t have children do not exist in a state of blissful detachment from their bodies and their relationship with maternity: a number have had pregnancies, miscarriages, abortions and periods. A number have entered liminal stages of motherhood that don’t conform to the single definition from which they are excluded. A number extend mothering to various children in their lives. Some, like Harris herself, have stepchildren (who don’t count, just as May’s nieces and nephews didn’t). A number have become mothers, just not in a way that initiates them into a blissful club. They experience regret, depression and navigate unsettlement that does not conform to the image of uncomplicated validation of your purpose in life.But the privilege of those truths cannot be bestowed on creatures whose rejection of the maternal bond has become a rejection of a wider unspoken, colossally unfair contract. Women with children are handed social acceptance for their vital investment in “the future”, in exchange for unrewarded, unsupported labour that props up and stabilises the economic and social status quo. All while still suffering sneeriness about the value of their work in comparison with the serious graft of the men who win the bread.On top of that, women have to navigate all that motherhood – or not – entails, all the deeply personal, bewildering, isolating and unacknowledged realities of both, while being subject to relentless suffocating, infantilising and violating public theories and notions that trespass on their private spaces. With that comes a sense of self-doubt and shame in making the wrong decision, or not being as content with those decisions as they are expected to be. It is a constant, prodding vivisection. That, more than anything clinical observers feel, is the truly disorienting and disturbing experience.

      Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist More

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      Trump shares posts of Gold Star families praising cemetery visit and criticizing Harris

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      Donald Trump shared statements from the relatives of 13 soldiers killed during the chaotic US evacuation from Kabul as they hit out at Kamala Harris after she criticized the former president’s involvement in a ceremony honoring the service members.The dispute over the ceremony at Arlington national cemetery, during which Trump campaign aides allegedly shoved a cemetery worker so they could film Trump laying a wreath, contravening rules against political activity at the site, escalated after the vice-president said Saturday that Trump “disrespected sacred ground, all for the sake of a political stunt”.But eight members of the “Gold Star” families who lost relatives posted messages on Trump’s Truth Social platform Saturday saying they had invited Trump to the ceremony and criticized the Biden-Harris administration for the Afghanistan pull-out three years ago.“Why did we want Trump there? It wasn’t to help his political campaign,” Mark Schmitz, father of Marine lance corporal Jared Schmitz, said in one video. “We wanted a leader. That explains why you and Joe didn’t get a call.”Darren Hoover, the father of Marine staff Sgt Taylor Hoover, said Harris lacks “empathy and basic understanding” about the event, and emphasized that Trump’s appearance was respectful.The army said this week that a cemetery official was “abruptly pushed aside” while interacting with Trump’s staff.On Saturday, congressional Democrats called on the army to deliver a report on what had taken place at the cemetery on Monday. Harris later posted on Twitter/X that the military burial site is “not a place for politics”.“Let me be clear: the former president disrespected sacred ground, all for the sake of a political stunt,” Harris added, and said she would “never politicize” such an event.The dispute continued on Sunday, when former Democratic congresswoman and Iraq veteran Tulsi Gabbard, now a member of Trump’s transition team, told CNN’s State of the Union that she was at the ceremony and saw “a very grave and somber remembrance and honoring of those lives that were lost”.Gabbard said she saw Trump “spending time at the invitation of these Gold Star families with them” and did “not see or hear about any kind of altercation until something came out in the news later on”.Gabbard rejected Harris’s statement saying she stood with the veteran’s families. Gabbard told CNN: “President Biden and Harris, I heard, were invited by some of these family members. They not only didn’t come – they didn’t even respond to that invitation.”Senator Tom Cotton continued the Republican pushback, telling NBC’s Meet the Press that the Gold Star families had invited Trump, but also Joe Biden and Harris, and he disputed that photos and video were meant for political purposes.“Joe Biden was sitting on a beach. Kamala Harris was sitting in her mansion in DC … She was four miles away. Ten minutes. She could have gone to the cemetery and honored the sacrifice of those young men and women,” Cotton said.A White House official and a Harris aide disputed Cotton and Gabbard’s account that the president and Harris had been invited to the ceremony, according to NBC News.As the political fallout from the Arlington ceremony continues, it has drawn in Utah governor Spencer Cox, a moderate Republican who kept his political distance from the Republican presidential candidate until the attempted assassination on Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July.Cox, a Latter-day Saint, later said he believes God had a hand in saving Trump’s life, even calling it a miracle.Cox attended the controversial ceremony and published photos from the event on his official account. Cox’s re-election campaign later issued an apology.“Honoring those who serve should never be ‘political’,” it read, adding that the campaign was committed “to ensure that we run the best campaign possible and we’ll accomplish that by not politicizing things that shouldn’t be politicized”. More