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      Trump says he has ‘no choice’ but to back EVs after Musk endorsement

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      Donald Trump has for months denigrated electric vehicles, arguing their supporters should “rot in hell” and that assisting the nascent industry is “lunacy”. He now appears to have somewhat shifted his view thanks to the support of Elon Musk, the world’s richest person.“I’m for electric cars, I have to be because Elon endorsed me very strongly,” Trump, the Republican nominee for US president, told supporters at a rally in Atlanta, Georgia, on Saturday.The transactional nature of this relationship with Musk was made clear by the former president and convicted business fraudster, however. “So I have no choice,” said Trump, who then went on to say that electric vehicles were suitable for a “small slice” of the population and that “you want every type of car imaginable” to be available.Trump also claimed that $9tn would be needed to build a network of electric car chargers, which is not a figure that has been cited by the industry or White House. Joe Biden’s administration has vowed to build 500,000 chargers, far fewer than the approximately 28m needed, and secured several billion dollars for this, although progress on this buildout has been painfully slow.Musk, the chief executive of Tesla who has pushed increasingly strident rightwing views via his ownership of Twitter/X, has backed Trump’s return to the White House despite the candidate’s repeated antipathy to electric cars on the campaign trail. Last month Musk denied reports he was planning to donate $45m a month to a Super Pac focused on getting Trump elected; he declined to clarify how much he planned to donate.Trump has warned that the president’s embrace of electric cars will bring a “bloodbath” to the US automotive industry, falsely claimed that battery-powered cars don’t work in cold weather and that they aren’t able to travel long distances. “You’re not going to be able to sell those cars,” he has warned of Mexico-made EVs in the US market.A new Trump administration will “immediately terminate Joe Biden’s insane electric vehicle mandate”, Trump has said. There is no such mandate, although Biden has overseen a tightening of vehicle pollution rules that should help make EVs more attractive and has signed legislation providing a tax rebate for new EV buyers.Last year, more than 1 million electric cars were sold in the US for the first time and analysts expect numbers to climb further this year, approaching a tipping point where even a withdrawal of government support for them will not slow the growth in sales.Several barriers still remain, however, such as the comparatively high cost of electric cars compared with gasoline and diesel models, a lack of chargers and supply chain snags. Environmental advocates, who point out that transportation is the largest source of US greenhouse gas emissions as well as a nexus of deadly air pollution, argue that more needs to be done to shift Americans away from gas-guzzling cars, or out of cars altogether.“The writing is on the wall: around the world, the future of personal transportation is electric, independent of whatever the United States decides to do,” said Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic senator and owner of two Chevy Bolts, last week.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“And that’s great. They’re quieter, faster and more fun to drive. They don’t have tailpipe emissions stinking up highways and neighborhoods. Repair and maintenance costs are nearly nonexistent.” More

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      US supreme court won’t stop Trump sentencing from going ahead – live

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      The US supreme court has declined to halt Donald Trump’s upcoming sentencing for his conviction in state court in New York on felony charges involving hush money paid to an adult film star, Stormy Daniels, and a related gag order until after the 5 November election.The decision by the justices came in response to a lawsuit by the state of Missouri claiming that the case against Trump infringed on the right of voters under the US constitution to hear from the Republican presidential nominee as he seeks to regain the White House, Reuters reports.Trump is set to be sentenced on 18 September in Manhattan. He was found guilty in May of all 34 counts of falsifying business records in a criminal hush-money scheme to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.He is the Republican party nominee for president in the election in November, facing Kamala Harris for the Democrats.The Guardian’s George Chidi was at the Trump rally in Georgia this weekend, where the former president picked a fight with the state’s popular Republican governor. Here’s his analysis from the campaign trail:All Donald Trump had to do on Saturday in Georgia is show up, bring the tent together and not pick a fight with other Republicans. It might have been money in the bag.Instead, Trump attacked Governor Brian Kemp, who is substantially more popular in Georgia than he is. Early in his comments, Trump pointed to a few recent high-profile murders in Atlanta, saying: “Atlanta is like a killing field, and your governor should get off his ass and do something about it.”Maga is not a majority in Georgia, if anywhere. Republicans cannot win this state when conventional conservatives abandon the party, as Herschel Walker’s Trump-inflected US Senate challenge against Raphael Warnock demonstrated two years ago.Georgia’s split-ticket-voting conservatives love Kemp and are indifferent at best to Trump. And Trump gave them no love on Saturday.“If it wasn’t for me, he wouldn’t be your governor. I think everybody knows that,” Trump bloviated, describing them as disloyal.Then Trump went after Kemp’s wife, who told people she wrote her husband’s name in for president in the Republican presidential primary this year.On and on …On Saturday, Trump handed his opponents soundbites about what he thinks about Georgia, its popular governor, and how he expects the state election board to overturn an election he may lose, that will be replayed on YouTube ads on every iPhone between the Fox Theater and the Lake Lanier for the next 91 days.And Republican political professionals know it.Earlier this morning, the Guardian reported that five secretaries of state were preparing to send Elon Musk a letter urging changes to X’s AI search assistant, Grok.As the Guardian’s Lauren Aratani reported, Grok told users that the ballots were “locked and loaded” and that “the ballot deadline has passed for several states” in nine states where the ballot deadline had not, in fact, passed.It seems the secretaries of state have gone ahead and sent the letter. Scripps News obtained a copy.“We urge X to immediately adopt a policy of directing Grok users to CanIVote.org when asked about elections in the US,” the officials from Minnesota, Michigan, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Washington wrote.Here’s more from Lauren:For those watching the veepstakes …Kamala Harris’s team is tamping down rumors and reporting that she has chosen a running mate. Here’s a Harris spokesperson, emphasizing that she has “made no decision on a running mate yet”:Harris is expected to announce her running mate tomorrow before a rally in Philadelphia. Reuters reported today that the search had narrowed to two governors: Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Tim Walz of Minnesota.Read more about it here:Donald Trump’s campaign attorney Jenna Ellis will cooperate with Arizona prosecutors in a fake electors case, the state attorney general’s office announced.Arizona’s attorney general Kris Mayes has agreed to drop nine felony charges against Ellis in exchange for her cooperation in an investigation into Republicans’ plan in 2020 to deliver the state’s 11 electoral votes to Trump rather than the rightful winner, Joe Biden.“Her insights are invaluable and will greatly aid the state in proving its case in court,” Mayes said. “As I stated when the initial charges were announced, I will not allow American democracy to be undermined – it is far too important. Today’s announcement is a win for the rule of law.”Ellis worked closely with Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who has pleaded not guilty to felony charges. Mark Meadows, Trump’s former chief of staff, has also pleaded not guilty for his role in trying to submit a document to Congress falsely declaring Trump as the winner.The White House has responded to the latest revelations that there is more free travel that the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas did not declare publicly, supplied by the conservative billionaire Harlan Crow.Press spokesperson Andrew Bates said: “As president Biden said at the LBJ Library last week, the supreme court is ‘mired in a crisis of ethics’ and today’s news strengthens the case he made for common-sense reforms that are backed by constitutional experts across the political spectrum – as well as the vast majority of the American people.”Bates added: “Congress should pass an enforceable code of conduct for the supreme court, in line with the requirements that every other federal judge already follows. The most powerful court in the United States shouldn’t be subject to the lowest ethical standards, and conflicts of interest on the supreme court cannot go unchecked.”In her interview broadcast by Fox News this morning – a friendly interview with Fox and Friends – Usha Vance discussed her husband’s swiftly infamous attacks on “childless cat ladies” among his Democratic foes, claiming the controversial remark was merely a “quip”.You can read more on those remarks here.But Usha Vance also addressed controversy over other past remarks that have come back to haunt JD Vance as the Ohio senator attempts to establish himself as an effective running mate for Donald Trump.In remarks to a former friend, reported last week, Vance said: “I hate the police.”“JD certainly does not hate the police,” his wife said in the interview broadcast by Fox on Monday, though she added: “He maybe had a negative interaction once or twice and made a remark like that, I don’t know.”The Yale law school friend to whom Vance made the remark about the police, Sofia Nelson, now a public defender in Detroit, is transgender.Last year, Vance introduced the Protect Children’s Innocence Act, a law to stop minors accessing puberty blockers, hormone therapy and other transition-related care.Nelson attended Yale with JD and Usha Vance and attended their wedding in 2014 – a time when Usha Vance was a registered Democrat.Nelson recently gave correspondence with JD to the New York Times, which added it to mounting evidence of his former distrust and dislike for Trump.“He achieved great success and became very rich by being a Never Trumper who explained the white working class to the liberal elite,” Nelson told the Times, referring to Vance’s authorship of Hillbilly Elegy, a 2016 bestseller about his Appalachian youth.“Now he’s amassing even more power by expressing the exact opposite.”Usha Vance told Fox: “It is hard to know that sometimes politics comes in the way of friendships.”More:There is a little more explanation of the supreme court ruling today that Donald Trump’s criminal sentencing next month won’t be pushed back beyond the presidential election as a result of a legal challenge.The Missouri attorney general went to the highest court with the unusual request to sue the state of New York after the supreme court justices in the last big decision of their term granted Trump broad immunity from prosecution – in a separate case brought in Washington, DC relating to federal charges over interference in the 2020 election, the Associated Press reports.The news agency described Missouri’s legal challenge as “a long shot” in Trump’s long-running legal saga.Andrew Bailey, the AG in question, argued the New York case’s gag order, which Missouri wanted stayed until after the election, wrongly limited what Trump can say on the campaign trail, and that Trump’s eventual sentence could affect his ability to travel.New York, meanwhile, said the limited gag order does allow Trump to talk about the issues important to voters, and the sentence may not affect his movement at all. The Democratic New York attorney general, Letitia James, argued that appeals are moving through state courts and there’s no state-on-state conflict that would allow the supreme court to weigh in at this point.The decision by the supreme court today not to delay sentencing following Donald Trump’s criminal conviction came in response to a lawsuit by the state of Missouri claiming that the case against Trump infringed on the right of voters under the US constitution to hear from the Republican presidential nominee as he seeks to regain the White House in this November’s election.The supreme court’s order was unsigned. Conservative justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito indicated they would have heard Missouri’s case, Reuters reports.Trump was found guilty in May of falsifying business records to cover up a $130,000 payment to the adult film star Stormy Daniels in exchange for her silence before the 2016 election about a sexual encounter she has said she had with Trump in the past, which he denies. Prosecutors have said the payment was designed to boost his presidential campaign in 2016, when he defeated the Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton.Missouri’s Republican state attorney general, Andrew Bailey, filed a 3 July lawsuit against New York state asking the supreme court to pause Trump’s impending sentencing and the gag order placed on him by New York state judge Juan Merchan, who presided in the case.The US supreme court has declined to halt Donald Trump’s upcoming sentencing for his conviction in state court in New York on felony charges involving hush money paid to an adult film star, Stormy Daniels, and a related gag order until after the 5 November election.The decision by the justices came in response to a lawsuit by the state of Missouri claiming that the case against Trump infringed on the right of voters under the US constitution to hear from the Republican presidential nominee as he seeks to regain the White House, Reuters reports.Trump is set to be sentenced on 18 September in Manhattan. He was found guilty in May of all 34 counts of falsifying business records in a criminal hush-money scheme to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.He is the Republican party nominee for president in the election in November, facing Kamala Harris for the Democrats.Donald Trump is taking good political advantage of the falling financial markets today by blaming his rival for the presidency this November and calling the dive the “Great Kamala crash of 2024”.Shares on Wall Street and in London have fallen heavily amid a global stock market rout triggered by fears of a recession in the US, kicked off by something close to a panic sale on the Nikkei in Tokyo earlier today.Trump, the Republican nominee for president, hopped onto his platforms, Truth Social and his campaign communications machine, and blamed his rival in this November’s election, Kamala Harris.“Of course there is a massive market downturn. Kamala is even worse than Crooked Joe,” Trump posted online, referring to Joe Biden, the US president. There were a couple of other posts, and his election campaign put out an email. Then he went off in all caps.“VOTERS HAVE A CHOICE – TRUMP PROSPERITY, OR THE KAMALA CRASH & GREAT DEPRESSION OF 2024, NOT TO MENTION THE PROBABILITY OF WORLD WAR lll IF THESE VERY STUPID PEOPLE REMAIN IN OFFICE. REMEMBER, TRUMP WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING!!!” he posted.Kamala Harris is poised to secure the Democratic presidential nomination this evening.Harris’s nomination will become official after a five-day round of online balloting by Democratic national convention delegates ends on Monday night and the party announces the results. The party had long contemplated the early virtual roll call to ensure Biden would appear on the ballot in every state, the Associated Press reports.Already Harris has telegraphed that she doesn’t plan to veer much from the themes and policies that framed Biden’s candidacy, such as democracy, gun violence prevention and abortion rights. But her delivery can be far fierier, particularly when she invokes her prosecutorial background to lambast Trump and his 34 felony convictions for falsifying business records in connection with a hush money scheme.
      Given that unique voice of a new generation, of a prosecutor and a woman when fundamental rights, especially reproductive rights, are on the line, it’s almost as if the stars have aligned for her at this moment in history,” said Democratic senator Alex Padilla of California, who was tapped to succeed Harris in the Senate when she became vice-president.
      Last Friday, Jaime Harrison, chair of the Democratic National Committee, announced that the vice-president had earned the majority of delegates’ votes to become the party’s nominee to challenge Donald Trump in November, though her nomination would not be official until Monday, the end of the virtual roll-call vote.Hello again, US politics blog readers, the state of the blog this hour can be summed up with the phrase bated breath.Everyone is waiting for Kamala Harris to announce the name of her running mate. It could come today or tomorrow and one report has the shortlist down to two. Elsewhere, Donald Trump is calling the stock market dive the “Kamala crash” and Joe Biden is about to meet with his national security team in the situation room at the White House, with Harris also attending, as tensions rise again in the Middle East.Stick with Guardian US live blogs for the news as it happens. Our west coast colleagues will take the blog on later today.Meanwhile, here’s where things stand:

      Top Democratic US senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, has written to a lawyer about his client’s providing yet more travel on his private jet for US supreme court justice Clarence Thomas which has not been declared to the public. The client? Harlan Crow.

      Kamala Harris has narrowed her search for a vice-presidential running mate to two finalists, Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro and Minnesota governor Tim Walz, Reuters reports, citing unnamed sources familiar.

      A Virginia man was charged with making violent online threats against US vice-president Kamala Harris days after she began her US presidential campaign last month. The man was charged in federal court after saying online that he could resort to burning the US vice-president alive. FBI agents seized a rifle and a handgun from his home.

      Harris has crept just ahead of her Republican rival, Donald Trump, in the 2024 presidential election, according to some influential new polls. The race is neck and neck, but Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, now leads Trump by 1.4 points in a national polling average presented yesterday by Nate Silver in his Silver Bulletin newsletter.

      Harris is very close to naming her choice of vice-presidential candidate to join her on the Democratic ticket to fight the 2024 election against Donald Trump this November. She has been talking to final contenders over the weekend and she needs to announce her choice before tomorrow evening, when Harris and her running mate are due to appear together at a rally in Philadelphia to raise the curtain on their campaign together.
      There’s some more news on Robert F Kennedy Jr.The independent presidential candidate arrived at a New York court today to fight a lawsuit alleging he falsely claimed to live in New York as he sought to get on the ballot in the state.Kennedy appeared and sat at his attorneys’ table during legal arguments on Monday morning, ahead of a civil trial expected to start later in the day in the state capital of Albany. Under state election law, a judge is set to decide the case without a jury, the Associated Press reports.The lawsuit alleges that Kennedy’s nominating petition falsely said his residence was in New York’s northern suburbs while he actually has lived in Los Angeles since 2014, when he married actor Cheryl Hines, known for Curb Your Enthusiasm.The suit seeks to invalidate his petition. The case was brought by Clear Choice Pac, a Super Pac led by supporters of Joe Biden. Kennedy has the potential to do better than any independent presidential candidate in decades, having gained traction with a famous name and a loyal base. Strategists from both major parties worry that he could win enough votes to tip the election.A senior Democratic US senator has written to a lawyer about his client’s providing yet more travel on his private jet for US supreme court justice Clarence Thomas which has not been declared to the public.Thomas failed to disclose publicly that he had taken a flight provided by the conservative donor Harlan Crow that fell outside what he had belatedly revealed to the public about freebie luxury travel and gifts, the New York Times reports.The letter is dated today and was sent by the Democratic US senator for Oregon Ron Wyden to Michael Bopp, a lawyer who represents Crow. It says that Thomas and his wife, Virginia, flew on a return trip between Hawaii and New Zealand in 2010 on Crow’s private jet, but that journey was not listed in financial disclosure forms justices fill our annually.This is the latest in a series of revelations about Thomas over the last year, and some other justices, mainly Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch on the supreme court, about gifts and favors, as well as alleged political bias. Thomas relatively recently said he didn’t need to disclose free travel and hospitality from “friends” such as Crow, unless individuals had business directly before the supreme court.He later amended disclosures, but more details are trickling out about other perks that he has not declared.Last month, Joe Biden called for sweeping reforms of the supreme court. He said the recent decision granting some immunity to presidents from criminal prosecution makes them a king before the law. And he said the scandals involving justices and free travel etc had caused public opinion to question the court’s fairness and independence and impeded its mission. Biden called for a binding code of conduct for the supreme court and term limits for justices.Nearing his 100th birthday and in hospice care in his hometown in Georgia since February 2023, former US president Jimmy Carter reportedly has one goal: voting for Kamala Harris against Donald Trump.“I’m only trying to make it to vote for Kamala Harris,” Carter told his son Chip this week, as his grandson Jason Carter recounted to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.Harris, Carter’s fellow Democrat, will face the Republican Trump for the presidency on 5 November. Carter’s 100th birthday will fall on 1 October.A Democrat who was in the White House from 1977 to 1981, Carter is the oldest living president. In ill health for several years, his family announced that he entered hospice care on 18 February 2023.Carter is due to turn 100 on October 1. The presidential election is on November 5. As the Journal-Constitution noted, early voting in Georgia begins on 15 October. Full report here.The person who emerges as Kamala Harris’s vice-presidential choice for the Democratic ticket in this election will be informed of her decision tonight or in the morning, Reuters reports, citing three unnamed sources with knowledge of goings-on.The news agency reported moments ago that the competition has narrowed to two names, the governors of Pennsylvania and Minnesota, respectively, Josh Shapiro and Tim Walz.The Harris campaign plans an announcement via social media, featuring the nominee and her running mate, campaign officials familiar with the arrangements told Reuters.Over the weekend, Harris met with her vetting team, including former attorney general Eric Holder, whose law firm Covington & Burling LLP scrutinized the finances and background of potential running mates. Holder and his office made in-depth presentations on each of the finalists, according to multiple sources familiar with the process.Harris is weighing the decision with her husband, Doug Emhoff, brother-in-law Tony West and a small circle of aides and advisers, the sources said.Kamala Harris has spent the last few days interviewing contenders to be her running mate on the Democratic ticket this election and may have whittled her list from six to just two in recent hours, if a report via anonymous sources from Reuters comes true.The news wire says it’s down to Pennsylvania’s governor, Josh Shapiro, and Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz.Guardian US has not verified this report. At the top of the day there apparently were still six guys in the race, although some outlets appeared to be homing in on Shapiro, Walz and the US senator from Arizona Mark Kelly as the top three.Harris and her No 2 will debut as the presumptive Democratic ticket at a rally in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania tomorrow evening. So if it’s not Shapiro that would be hard for him to swallow.If it’s really down to two, here are our thumbnails on them.Shapiro, a congressional aide turned state representative and state attorney general, the 51-year-old father of four was elected governor in 2022. Close to two years later, he maintains historically high approval ratings. What are regarded as pros and cons of choosing him? Report here.Walz has captured the internet’s attention and swayed Democrats’ messaging recently by succinctly summing up how he views Republicans: they’re weird. Before he took up politics, Walz, 60, was born and raised in small-town Nebraska and became a teacher, first in China, then Nebraska, finally Minnesota. Report here.Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has narrowed her search for a vice-presidential running mate to two finalists, Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro and Minnesota governor Tim Walz, three sources with knowledge of the matter said today.Harris, the US vice-president, is expected to announce her selection by Tuesday, ahead of her first scheduled public appearance with her running mate in the evening at Temple University in Philadelphia, Reuters reports.It was unclear if a final decision has been made, the sources told the news wire. The rally will kick off a five-day, seven-city tour of the battleground states likely to decide the 5 November election.Speculation had focused on six men in all – four governors, a senator and a cabinet secretary in the Biden administration.The independent US presidential candidate, Robert F Kennedy Jr, called Donald Trump “a terrible human being”, the “worse [sic] president ever” and “barely human”.“He is probably a sociopath,” Kennedy said in texts to an unnamed person, the New Yorker reported on Monday.Kennedy has been linked to a job in any second Trump administration, not least after Kennedy’s son posted footage of such a move appearing to be discussed. Kennedy attended the Republican convention in Milwaukee in July.On Monday, a spokesperson for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Kennedy’s reported remarks.They were included in an in-depth New Yorker profile otherwise remarkable for containing the story of how Kennedy came to dump a dead bear in the city’s Central Park 10 years ago.Last month it was reported that Kennedy held recent talks with Trump about endorsing his campaign for a second presidency and – if successful – taking a job in his administration. The election is on 5 November.Read Martin Pengelly’s report in full here.In the realm of how many flip-flop emojis you can garner, however, RFK Jr is running behind Trump’s veep pick, his underperforming and apparently lowly valued running mate JD Vance, a Republican Ohio senator and Maga convert.Meanwhile, here’s an interesting image from the campaign trail: More

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      JD Vance’s wife says his ‘childless cat ladies’ comment was a ‘quip’

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      Women offended by JD Vance’s contention that the US is run by “childless cat ladies” should realise it was merely a “quip”, the Republican vice-presidential nominee’s wife, Usha Vance, claimed in an interview broadcast on Monday.“I took a moment to look and actually see what he had said and tried to understand what the context was and all that, which is something that I really wish people would do a little bit more often,” Vance told Fox News in remarks that doubled down on a controversy that has emerged as one of her husband’s most persistent.“And the reality is, he made a quip in service of making a point that he wanted to make that was substantive and had actual meaning. And I just wish sometimes that … we would spend a lot less time just sort of going through this three-word phrase or that three-word phrase.”But JD Vance’s three-word phrase lies at the heart of his rocky rollout as Donald Trump’s running mate.Speaking in 2021, a year shy of election to the US Senate in Ohio and when best known as the author of the bestseller Hillbilly Elegy, Vance told the then Fox News host Tucker Carlson that the US was run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.“It’s just a basic fact – you look at [vice-president] Kamala Harris, [US transportation secretary] Pete Buttigieg, AOC [congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] – the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children. And how does it make any sense that we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it?”Buttigieg now has children, adopted with his husband, Chasten, in 2021.Vance has come under sustained fire over a host of allegedly misogynistic remarks, including about women who choose not to have children or cannot have them at all.Harris, a stepmother of two, is now the Democratic nominee for president, preparing to name her own running mate to face Trump and Vance.On Fox and Friends, Usha Vance – who has three children – insisted her husband “was really saying … that it can be really hard to be a parent in this country and sometimes our policies are designed in a way that make it even harder”.She did not mention, and was not asked about, her husband’s support for a national abortion ban (having even compared abortion to slavery), or his presence among Senate Republicans who blocked a bill to establish the right to in-vitro fertilisation (IVF), a treatment that helps millions of Americans who might otherwise not be able to have children.In a recent statement, Aida Ross, a spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee, said: “Trump and Vance’s extreme … agenda wouldn’t just ban abortion nationwide with or without Congress – it would also threaten access to IVF for millions of women. Vance can try to cover for his anti-choice record all he wants, but the American people see through the spin.”Usha Vance insisted that with his “childless cat ladies” remark, her husband had really meant to say: “What is it about our leadership and the way that they think about the world that makes it so hard sometimes for parents? And that’s the conversation that I really think that we should have and I understand why he was saying that.”Asked what she would say to women “hurt or offended” by her husband’s remarks – prominently including the actor Jennifer Aniston – Vance said: “I think I would say first of all that JD absolutely at the time, and today, would never ever, ever want to say something to hurt someone who was trying to have a family who was really struggling with that. And he made that clear at the time, and he’s made that clear today.“And we have lots of friends who have been in that position. It is challenging and never ever anything that we want to mock or make fun of.“And I also understand there are a lot of other reasons why people may choose not to have families, and many of those reasons are very good.”Vance was also asked about another controversy affecting her husband – that over remarks in which he said: “I hate the police.”“JD certainly does not hate the police,” Vance said, though she added: “He maybe had a negative interaction once or twice and made a remark like that, I don’t know.”The former friend to whom Vance made the remark, Sofia Nelson, now a public defender in Detroit, is transgender.Last year, Vance introduced the Protect Children’s Innocence Act, a law to stop minors accessing puberty blockers, hormone therapy and other transition-related care.Nelson attended Yale law school with JD and Usha Vance and attended their wedding in 2014. Back then, Usha Vance was a registered Democrat.Nelson recently gave her correspondence with JD to the New York Times, which added it to evidence of his former distrust and dislike for Trump.“He achieved great success and became very rich by being a Never Trumper who explained the white working class to the liberal elite,” Nelson told the Times. “Now he’s amassing even more power by expressing the exact opposite.”Usha Vance told Fox: “It is hard to know that sometimes politics comes in the way of friendships.” More

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      Ashwin Ramaswami takes on a fake elector for a Georgia state senate seat

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      The top of a ticket might normally be expected to have a profound impact on local races, especially with new vigor thanks to Kamala Harris replacing Joe Biden. The problem in Georgia is that there are almost no local races worth discussing because the state is gerrymandered to microscopic proportions.There is exactly one state senate race that’s predictably competitive for a Democratic pick-up in Georgia. And that one race is spicy.The Republican state senator Shawn Still will face trial in the Fulton county election interference case along with Donald Trump and 17 other co-defendants. He is accused of being one of the so-called fake electors in the scheme.Facing Still in November for the suburban Atlanta seat is Ashwin Ramaswami, a 25-year-old techie graduate of Forsyth county’s renowned public schools, impossibly earnest, unusually young, reflective of this district’s increasingly diverse demography, and utterly indefatigable. He is everywhere all at once and – perhaps unintentionally – wearing people down with high-end nerd glam and the zeal of a challenger.Ramaswami is a computer science graduate from Stanford University with a law degree from Georgetown, which he somehow managed to obtain while bouncing between startups and Google internships and fellowships with venture capital outfits and work for the federal government on election cybersecurity.He turned 25 at the end of July, four months ahead of the cutoff where he would have been too young to run for the Georgia senate.Most people on his trajectory end up in a 70-hour-a-week consulting job, earning a salary that reads like a phone number that they don’t have time to spend.“I just soon realized that just going off into tech and making money that way wasn’t really for me,” he told the Guardian. “It wasn’t that interesting, to be honest, because there are so many bigger issues going on, right?”If a devoutly Hindu candidate who is young enough to be on his parent’s health insurance does not sound like the profile of a Georgia politician, it is because politics is playing catchup with Atlanta’s rapid demographic changes and its increasingly international character.Georgia’s 48th state senate district crosses north Fulton, Forsyth and Gwinnett counties and is in the heart of the region’s affluent tech community. Nearly a third of its residents are foreign born. Ramaswami’s parents are from the same part of India as Kamala Harris’s mother, he said. (He is not related to Vivek Ramaswamy, former Republican presidential candidate and conservative firecracker.)Politically the district has been a purple mosaic of longtime Republican voters increasingly competing with newer, younger, Democratic transplants. The former Georgia GOP chairman David Shafer – one of the defendants in the Trump case here – held this seat when he was a state senator. It passed to Democrat Michelle Au, an Asian American physician, before the legislature carved it up in redistricting. Still won it by 11 points in 2022.The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee believes Still’s seat has a 7-point Republican lean now, discounting the effects of the indictment on the race. Two senate seats held by Democrats are within striking distance of a Republican. All of Georgia’s remaining senate districts require a wipeout wave election to be seriously competitive.Still, 52, owner of a swimming pool subcontracting company and a former finance chairman for the Georgia Republican party, did not return calls or emails asking for comment. But he has presented himself as a relatively moderate Republican and maintains his innocence in the case, describing his role as necessary to preserve legal challenges to the 2020 election in Georgia.View image in fullscreen“We went to the meeting. We listened to the attorneys. We signed our names exactly as we were prescribed,” he said on the Alan Sanders Show last month. “I never thought for a moment I had anything to hide.” Still characterizes the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, as “corrupt” for bringing charges, and said he would go to court immediately to clear his name if he could. An appellate court hearing to see if the case moves forward is scheduled for October.Twenty years ago, most people who lived in the district were white. Not so now, Still said.“We are in a minority to majority state,” Still told Sanders. “If people think that we can keep doing things the way that we’ve always done it, we are going to be in for a pretty rude awakening and wake up one day and never be able to win office again.”Still has campaigned aggressively to hold his seat, including and especially in the Indian community, which has a significant number of Republican supporters. “They’ve been very welcoming, because we share the same values, about family, about public safety, about education,” Still said. “If they see that you share their values, it’s OK if you don’t look like them, or worship like them, right.“In the past, I think a lot of Republicans have just kind of written off smaller groups like that. And we can’t afford to do that any more.”Education is a key component of Ramaswami’s pitch. The high school Ramaswami attended in the district – from which he graduated second in his class – is now majority students of color and 28% Asian.Ramaswami speaks often about the value of a product of these schools representing the community in the legislature. He can speak authentically and with authority about the somewhat absurd expectations parents in this part of Georgia place on their children’s achievements. Ramaswami is the kid that blows the grading curve.Up until recently, he also sounded like it.Constant campaigning has started to scrape the geek off of him, a bit. Conversations with voters and donors – and anyone he can corral – has that effect over time, he said.“You do it over and over again and then you get better, right?” he said. “Like, I wasn’t good at this when I was starting, but I figured I need to get better at it. I want to actually, you know, serve my community.”Ramaswami’s campaign has been relentless, even by the heightened standards of swing state politics. He has become a fixture in public in the north metro area, knocking on doors and showing up to churches and mosques and synagogues and temples and perhaps backyard pool parties and pickup basketball games. That retail politicking has been coupled with an intense social media and digital media campaign, fueled by more than $400,000 in fundraising – more than double that of his opponent.“I didn’t know him at the time, but the first thing I ever heard about him was from other people who do politics in north Fulton and Johns Creek talking about how often they’re getting texts and campaign emails from him,” said Alex Vanden Heuvel, a 27-year-old political consultant with FTR Political Strategies. “Anytime we bring it up, that’s the first thing out of anybody’s mouth is his digital game, like he’s always in your inbox, always in your texts.”Sara Henderson, a Georgia-based political consultant, knows Ramaswami and likened the persistence of his campaigning to being sold an extended warranty.“Every second of the day. It doesn’t turn it off,” she said. “Twenty-four seven. I think that it’s good in a way, to see that excitement and that, like, ‘I’m in it for the right reasons.’ But there’s also some learning that needs to happen about political nuance and knowing the right timing … Sometimes the squeaky wheel gets the grease, but it doesn’t always get the grease it needs.”But the goal is name recognition, Ramaswami said. His internal polling suggests he is now more recognizable than Still is.“It has actually been the case for a lot of my career, where I feel like I’m just doing normal things and then somehow that’s, like, 10 times more than what everyone else does,” Ramaswami said. “So, you know, I’m glad that it’s setting a new standard. I don’t feel overworked.” More

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      Trump ally calls GOP attack on Harris’s racial identity a ‘phony controversy’

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      Donald Trump ally Byron Donalds and ABC host George Stephanopoulos sparred on Sunday over Republicans’ attack line questioning Kamala Harris’s racial identity.During an interview on ABC’s This Week, the Republican Florida representative called the issue a “phony controversy” and said “I don’t really care.” He then proceeded to double down on the issues – which the former president brought up earlier this week at the NABJ conference – by saying: “When Kamala Harris went into the United States Senate, it was AP that said she was the first Indian American United States senator … Now she’s running nationally, obviously the campaign has shifted. They’re talking much more about her father’s heritage and her Black identity.”Donalds then added: “It doesn’t really matter.”In response, Stephanopoulos said: “If it doesn’t matter, why do you all keep questioning her again? She’s always identified as a Black woman. She’s biracial. She has a Jamaican father and Indian mother she’s always identified as both. Why are you questioning that?”“Well George, first of all, this is something that’s actually a conversation all throughout social media right now. There are a lot of people trying to figure this out. But again, that’s a side issue, not the main issue,” Donalds replied.Stephanopoulos followed up, saying: “Sir, one second. You just did it again. Why do you insist on questioning her racial identity?” to which Donalds said: “You want me to talk?”“I want you to answer my question,” Stephanopoulos replied.Donalds’ comments come despite some Republican figures including South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham and House speaker Mike Johnson saying their party should avoid that kind of attack.In an interview with Fox News on Sunday, Graham said: “Every day we’re talking about her heritage and not her … record … is a good day for her and a bad day for us.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMeanwhile, Axios last month reported Johnson encouraging Republican members to take aim at Harris’s policies instead of her heritage. The outlet further reports that during a closed-door meeting, Donalds himself “encouraged members in the meeting to ‘hold off on editorializing’ on Kamala. Just stick to her disastrous record,” according to a Republican lawmaker who was present.The attacks against the vice-president’s racial identity also come as Trump says he would debate her on Fox News while Harris insists on ABC, the original network chosen for the second presidential debate.In a post on Truth Social, Trump wrote: “The Debate was previously scheduled against … Biden on ABC, but has been terminated in that Biden will no longer be a participant, and I am in litigation against ABC Network and George Slopadopoulos, thereby creating a conflict of interest.”Harris’s team has not agreed to Trump’s request to carry out the debate on the Republican-friendly network, with campaign spokesperson Michael Tyler saying: “Donald Trump is running scared and trying to back out of the debate he already agreed to and running straight to Fox News to bail him out.” More

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      Trump calls union leader who endorsed Kamala Harris ‘a stupid person’

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      The United Auto Workers’ decision to endorse Kamala Harris’s presidential run has apparently gotten under the skin of Donald Trump, who has responded by insulting the union’s leader as “a stupid person”.In a new interview with Fox News on Sunday, as reported by the Hill, the former president said of union chief Shawn Fain: “Look, the United Auto Workers I know very well – they vote for me. They have a stupid person leading them, but they vote for me. They’re going to love Donald Trump more than ever before.”Trump’s remarks allude to the harsh 100% tariff he has proposed on imported cars. Economists have warned that such a tariff would raise product costs for Americans, but Trump has insisted on it, saying it reflects how he would prioritize the auto industry if returned to White House in November’s election.“We’re going to take in a fortune but we’re going to tariff those jobs,” Trump said.“We’re bringing back the automobile industry and we’re going to do that with tariffs,” Trump said.Fain and the UAW – one of the US’s largest and most diverse labor unions – nonetheless gave their coveted endorsement to the vice-president, saying in a statement that Harris had a “proven track record of delivering for the working class”.Trump’s comments about Fain and the UAW come just days after Fain announced that the union – one of the country’s largest and most diverse – is endorsing Harris for president.“We can put a billionaire back in office who stands against everything our union stands for, or we can elect Kamala Harris who will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with us in our war on corporate greed,” said the statement announcing the UAW’s endorsement for November’s White House election.Trump and the UAW have frequently traded barbs, with Trump calling for Fain to be “fired immediately” during his speech at the Republican national convention in July.In response, the UAW called Trump a “scab” – a derogatory term for someone who abandons or refuses to join a labor union – as well as a corporate businessman whose main interest is protecting the wealthy.When the UAW endorsed Joe Biden before the president quit his re-election campaign in July, Trump took to his Truth Social platform to attack Fain, calling him a “dope” and urging autoworkers to defy the union’s endorsement by voting for him instead.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOn Sunday, Fain appeared on CBS News’s Face the Nation and elaborated on his union’s decision to endorse Harris.“When you put Kamala Harris and Donald Trump side-by-side, there’s a very telling difference in who stands with working-class people and who left working-class people behind,” Fain said.He continued: “Trump’s been all talk for working-class people.“One of the biggest issues facing this country is inflation. It’s not policy-driven. It’s driven by corporate greed and consumer price gouging and that’s what Donald Trump stands for. The rich get richer and the working class gets left behind.” More

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      Trump exploits the end of the American dream | Letters

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      Stephen Reicher says Trump implies that the people need him as their saviour, to buck “the establishment” (Donald Trump is a misogynistic, billionaire felon. Here’s why Americans can’t stop voting for him, 26 July). It appears to me that he is exploiting the collapse of the American dream. Most “ordinary” people have realised that neither they nor their children will be better off in the future; that the dream is an illusion. And here comes the man promising to revitalise it, claiming that he is the incarnation of their dreams and that he, who has been successful as an establishment outsider, is the one person who can offer them hope again. This appears to be irresistible to all those who feel that the promise that hard work would guarantee a better life has not been upheld.Finally, they see others – in their view, less hard-working people – being supported and promoted, often by way of equality-enhancing measures or dismantling white male privilege, which they themselves have perceived as well-deserved entitlements. Their messiah confirms it, exploiting latent racism. It’s a message that they love to believe, regardless of whatever their leader does in reality. Emotions trump rationality, and Trump sets them free. Frightening, in particular for a German aware of how German democracy lost out to agitators a century ago.Dr Joachim H SpangenbergCologne, Germany While much of Stephen Reicher’s arguments regarding Donald Trump’s success is true, he fails to recognise the key issue – that US revolutionary fervour is politically agnostic. In much the same way that Barack Obama’s initial promise of “fundamental transformation” identified a problem with the system and its structures, Trump also primarily focuses on his supposed intent to bring genuine societal change.Unfortunately, what unites these two American icons is that neither had or has any intention of doing anything of the kind. The problem then, given the rules of the US electoral process, is that a substantial (or majority) demographic that craves meaningful change is only permitted to choose between candidates selected by the only two political parties possessing the financial backing of economic interests that do not want change.Dr Clive T DarwellManchester I appreciate Stephen Reicher’s analysis, especially the dynamic of how every violation of law by Trump demonstrates that he is a victim. Victimhood supersedes rule of law, because laws are a product of the establishment, government, etc, out to control people’s freedom. Yes, but let’s acknowledge that Trump has never won a popular majority, even in 2016. It’s only because of the electoral college that a few swing states control the outcomes.Also note the increased activities of Republicans to disenfranchise people of colour. Trump’s distorted, destructive views don’t work with the majority of American voters, which is why they’re hellbent on depriving people of the vote. Maga supporters will continue to be stoked by fear, but many more Americans are waking up to how to think rather than be consumed by fear. Gratefully, Kamala Harris can lead us into the future. And even then, the US will be plunged into violence of great proportion.Margaret WheatleyProvo Canyon, Utah Prof Reicher states his case cogently, but misses two points. First, within the hearts of many, there lies a deep desire for a simple answer to complex problems. Second, I and mine have done no wrong, it was the others who got us into this mess. Harness those who desperately want to believe these points to your populist cause and you are well on your way to elected office.David HastingsBalbeggie, Perth and Kinross More

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      This Texas border city is tired of being a ‘pawn’ in Trump’s ‘political games’

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      Just a few blocks from a riverbank park in Eagle Pass that’s been turned into a no-go militarized zone by Texas troops, local pastor Javier Leyva was attempting a normal Sunday.He was cultivating fellowship with congregants of his First United Methodist church and other residents downtown, on the US-Mexico border. But, as so often, events were to intrude. A fringe, rightwing group was headed to town.His small city is under unwanted global scrutiny because of people migrating here and the forces that want to stop them.People sporadically cross the Rio Grande from Mexico after being denied legal entry into the US because of tight government restrictions. Sometimes there are tragic consequences, sometimes migrants are detained by US federal agents, other times they run afoul of the $11bn Texas border security plan known as Operation Lone Star, designed to deter migration.Leyva is tired of the heavy-handed and expensive law enforcement presence, that has transformed the picturesque riverbank and not only skews perceptions of Eagle Pass but is costly, while he sees local services suffer.“It’s all a political show and they’re using Eagle Pass as a pawn for their political games,” Leyva said. “I’m for border security, but if they would use that money for the infrastructure here, we’d be in hog heaven,” he said.About 23% of Eagle Pass residents are estimated to live below the federal poverty line, more than double the national rate, according to the US Census Bureau.Colonias, a Spanish word to describe low-income neighborhoods, are found along the border and often have street drainage issues or lack running water and sewer connections.Leyva says more infrastructure investments in the colonias are one of the ways the community would greatly benefit from taxpayer funds being spent by the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, on Operation Lone Star, which has blighted Eagle Pass and caused a clash with the federal government.The border town with a population of 28,000 has experienced many ups and downs in the spotlight of immigration issues.View image in fullscreenMigrants seek asylum sometimes in large numbers, but recently in very low numbers. At times, dozens of journalists descend upon the remote town 140 miles south-west of San Antonio. Year round, hundreds of military and law enforcement officers are deployed to the city from in-state and around the US.And within the last year, far-right groups have homed in on Eagle Pass as a destination for aggressive demonstrations against immigration and in favor of Donald Trump.While Leyva was delivering his sermon at church last weekend, a so-called Take Our Border Back Convoy was en route from Dripping Springs, Texas, to Eagle Pass, roughly a 200-mile (322km) drive, aiming to protest on both sides of the border.In response, the local police, Texas department of public safety (DPS) troopers and national guard soldiers deployed by Texas were on high alert and prominent in the quiet streets of Eagle Pass.A previous convoy by the same group in February rolled dozens of trucks and hundreds of outsiders into town, many armed, and led to a border patrol facility being evacuated after extremist threats.Last weekend, police once again set up roadblocks leading to Shelby Park, the municipal park on the Rio Grande that has been taken over by Operation Lone Star and militarized. And the city braced as several police and trooper units were called in to stake out different parts of downtown or to patrol, in a city that is already policed out of proportion to the local population.But, in the event, fewer than 10 vehicles arrived, with US flags flying and Trump bumper stickers, and stopped in a pawn shop parking lot.One participant told the Guardian they had come “to pray on both sides of the border”. In fact, the small group of about 20 people walked across the international bridge on to the Mexican side and used a megaphone to shout in the general direction of Mexico: “We don’t want the illegals coming across our border destroying America,” and: “We declare these borders closed in the name of Jesus Christ.”View image in fullscreenThe group’s flyer features a picture of retired army officer Michael Flynn. But there was no sign of him in Eagle Pass last Sunday. He was then president Trump’s first national security adviser, who was disgraced and pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about contacts with a Russian official. Trump pardoned him and Flynn said Trump should deploy the military to “re-run the 2020 election” in the swing states Joe Biden won.Despite the small turnout this time the uninvited visitors heightened the sense for ordinary residents that their city has become a battleground and that Christian faith is being usurped.“The convoy has been deceived,” Leyva said. “God didn’t send you here, you sent yourself using God as justification.”He added: “They think they’re trying to do the right thing, the patriotic thing. But they’re taking the law into their own hands and that’s not how this country runs.”Locals typically spend weekends shopping with family, dining at restaurants, and attending church services. Residents from the Mexican sister city, Piedras Negras, regularly cross the international bridge to shop downtown. People talk of experiencing peace in border living – a reality that the wider world doesn’t see or hear much about.Several blocks away from the Methodist church is immigration attorney Cesar Lozano’s law office where he specializes in cases dealing with asylum and deportation. Lozano is an immigrant himself and came to the US with his family from Durango, Mexico, as a child. He recalled the natural anxiety and nervousness that immigrating to a new country brings and is something he relates to among clients.With Eagle Pass in the spotlight, he said: “One side says it’s attention for us and there’s a lot of people that have benefited from the economic activity” – brought by multiple law enforcement agencies basing themselves in the area.“On the other side, it’s sad to see that we are on the map for the wrong reasons. We are used as props, no one used to care about us until now, we continue to be a venue for marches and convoys,” he said.Safety is the ultimate concern for residents whenever anti-immigrant groups or hostile individuals target the region, Lozano said, rather than when migrants arrive.A Tennessee man affiliated with a militia was arrested earlier this year by the FBI for plotting to travel to Eagle Pass while aspiring to kill both migrants and federal agents.During the February convoy, a friend of Lozano’s who works for the Mexican consulate in Eagle Pass was told to go home early because the authorities didn’t know what to expect from all of the people descending upon the region.Trump and his supporters talk of “open borders” and migration as spreading crime. Meanwhile, gaining entry to the US is difficult on many levels, whether people are undocumented or not.View image in fullscreen“The borders are not open and this is just political rhetoric,” Lozano said. “That’s ridiculous and insulting because my clients are going through a system where they’re vetted, must have a sponsor, have to go through background checks, and all the info submitted on applications is verified.”He questioned Operation Lone Star’s legality, as immigration enforcement is the exclusive responsibility of the federal government, which is in a long legal battle with the state.Meanwhile, downtown, Yocelyn Riojas is leading a group exhibition in Eagle Pass of more than 40 artists who have created works on the theme of “The Border is Beautiful.”“It’s meant to connect us with different perspectives of what our lives are like at the border,” Riojas said. “A lot of the artwork is nostalgic of earlier days, before this militarization.”Riojas said locals dislike the city’s lack of willingness to openly discuss political issues concerning things like the controversial buoys placed by Texas in the river and the mayor in effect signing away Shelby Park to the state.And she added: “If you don’t live here, then you have no understanding of what’s going on. Before anybody speaks for the community, they need to come learn and educate themselves on what is actually happening and how locals actually feel about the issues.” More