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      Dar Leaf, Michigan’s ‘constitutional’ pro-militia sheriff, vies for re-election

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      This article was produced as a collaboration between Bolts and the Guardian.On a sunny afternoon in July, a crowd of roughly 100 gathered to listen to their local sheriff campaign for re-election in south-western Michigan. A self-described “constitutional sheriff” with longstanding ties to militia groups, Dar Leaf has made a national name for himself in far-right circles with his fruitless investigation to uncover evidence for Donald Trump’s lies that the 2020 election was stolen.But that wasn’t what he wanted to discuss at his rally. Having come under intense scrutiny in the last three years for his election investigation and militia affiliations, Leaf spoke to his supporters about his office’s more mundane work – upgraded vehicles and new training – and urged them to ignore the attacks he’s faced.“Our eyes are forward, that’s why God put ’em in front of our head,” he said to laughter and applause. “We’ve got to keep moving towards that finish line.”Still, it’s his relentless effort to uncover voter fraud and his associations with far-right groups that have come to define him as he seeks to defeat three rivals in next week’s Republican primary.Taking up Trump’s unfounded grievances, Leaf sent deputies to interrogate local election officials and tried to seize voting machines, which he claimed flipped votes from Trump to Joe Biden. His activities fit in a broader network of far-right sheriffs who responded to Trump’s lies by wanting to police elections, and who may soon double down if the former president challenges the results of November’s elections.Leaf’s skepticism about elections and convictions about the excesses of the federal government fit in comfortably in Barry county, a deeply red and rural county just north of Kalamazoo that voted for Trump over Biden in 2020 by a two to-one margin.But locally, some Republicans want to turn the page. Two of his intra-party challengers in the 6 August primary have highlighted his investigation into the 2020 election as a key point of contrast.“The sheriff has propagated these lies,” says Joel Ibbotson, one of his three opponents. “I’m sick of that. I want it to end.”A years-long investigationWhen Trump falsely alleged a Democratic party plot to steal the 2020 election through widespread voter fraud, he found a sympathetic audience in Barry county and its sheriff.With the guidance of Stefanie Lambert, an election-denying lawyer who now faces felony charges for allegedly improperly breaching Michigan voting machines, Leaf launched an investigation into how the election unfolded in his county. He sent deputies to question local elections clerks, who saw his hunt as a form of intimidation. He repeatedly requested authorization to seize voting machines, but was denied by federal and state courts.Throughout the investigation, Leaf presented no evidence of irregularities, let alone of a plot to steal the election. He maintains that the investigation is ongoing, and said that he couldn’t elaborate on its status.Scott Price, a local pastor who supports Leaf’s re-election campaign, said Leaf was giving voice to widespread concerns about election integrity. “We’re grateful that we have somebody that has the courage and literally is willing to stand and take the heat for something that other people are saying didn’t even happen,” said Price.But some within Leaf’s own party resisted the investigation.Julie Nakfoor Pratt, the county’s Republican prosecutor, rejected Leaf’s inquiry into the 2020 election and denounced it as a waste of resources. In a lengthy statement before the county board of supervisors on 25 October 2022, Nakfoor Pratt explained why she could not act on Leaf’s allegations, pointing to the importance of probable cause and exhaustive detective work in prosecuting cases. She recounted her office’s investigation into a grisly homicide case as an example of the kind of rigor necessary in investigative policing.Without evidence, she said, a case couldn’t be prosecuted. “I will not put my signature on something if it’s not there,” said Nakfoor Pratt.When his office approached her with a search warrant for voting equipment, “there was no probable cause,” Nakfoor Pratt said. “It wasn’t insufficient: there was none.”View image in fullscreenEarlier this year, Lambert, the lawyer, shared troves of private documents that she claimed were signs of a conspiracy with Leaf. She had obtained them during discovery while representing Patrick Byrne, a Trump ally, in a defamation case brought by Dominion Voting Systems, which some conservatives have falsely accused of rigging the 2020 election. The documents show Serbian Dominion employees troubleshooting technical questions, but in a letter to US representative Jim Jordan, Leaf wrote that they revealed something more nefarious.“Serbian employees planned and conspired with premeditation to delete United States election data,” wrote Leaf, echoing a similar claim that Lambert made on the social media platform X.A constitutional sheriffSince long before the 2020 election, Leaf has been involved with the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA), an ultraconservative group that promotes the belief that sheriffs have the ultimate authority to interpret and enforce the constitution within their county. This philosophy came into focus for him during the Covid-19 pandemic when, angered by lockdown orders intended to mitigate the spread of the virus, Leaf refused to enforce social distancing rules.In an interview, Leaf said he first learned about the constitutional sheriffs in 2010, when Richard Mack, a former Arizona sheriff and the founder of CSPOA, reached out.“I think they were just calling sheriffs up, especially new sheriffs,” said Leaf, who was intrigued enough by their movement to attend a conference in Las Vegas. What he heard there, he said, “was a big wake-up call”.Most important, Leaf said, was what he learned about Printz v United States, a supreme court case brought by Mack and Jay Printz, a Montana sheriff who argued that a provision of a federal gun violence prevention bill that required law enforcement agencies to conduct background checks was unconstitutional. They won; the supreme court ruled that the federal government could not compel state agencies to enact such a measure.“The case proved that local officials have the right, the power and the duty to stand against the far reaching inclusions by our own Federal Government,” Mack later wrote in his book.The ideas behind the constitutional sheriffs movement are shared by a startling number of sheriffs.Still, actual membership in CSPOA appears low. One study, produced by the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism and the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting, identified 69 sheriffs who publicly endorsed the CSPOA or claimed membership in the organization. A national CSPOA conference in Las Vegas this year drew about 100 attendees, among them January 6 defendants, conspiracy theorists and rightwing influencers – but few actual sheriffs.Leaf was in Vegas, though, telling attendees excitedly: “I’m getting goose-bumpy here.”‘You can’t get away from his name’Since assuming the office of sheriff two decades ago, Leaf has developed a passionate following in Barry county.“Dar is the most well-known person in the community,” said Barry county resident Olivia Bennett, who described Leaf as a family friend. “You just can’t get away from his name.” Bennett’s father served in Leaf’s “posse”, a word Leaf uses to describe a group of citizens who don’t work for the sheriff’s office but assist him in his duties.“My dad would come home and say different things, like, ‘If terrorists come, they’re going to come from these small towns first,’ and I just thought it was stuff my dad said,” Bennett said. “When later, I heard Dar speaking about it, I realized, ‘Oh no, my dad got these beliefs from Dar himself.’“Dar really does make people feel scared and make it sound like he’s the only one who can really protect you,” Bennett added.Leaf has long flexed his beliefs that sheriffs are guardians of order. “We’re not here to intimidate people,” he told local media in 2014. “This is still a badge, it’s not a swastika. We have to prepare for the worst. We have to prepare for things you don’t like talking about.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSince joining the CSPOA, Leaf has strived to introduce his community to the group’s lofty ideas about sheriffs’ unique role in upholding the constitution. Leaf hosts bi-monthly study groups focusing on Christian faith and common law and leads a course on militias, titled Awaken the Sleeping Militia Clause, promising attenders willing to pay the $175 entry fee that they’ll “learn a militiaman’s duty” and earn a certificate of completion.In one meeting, whose recording Bolts and the Guardian reviewed, Leaf expounds on Michigan’s new red flag law, which allows police to take firearms away from individuals who a judge has determined pose a threat to themselves or others. He describes it as illegitimate, implying that he had the authority to make that determination within his county.“No, my people did not consent to that,” said Leaf. “It’s a jurisdictional thing.”View image in fullscreenDuring a separate meeting this spring, Leaf updated members on the CSPOA’s April conference in Las Vegas. He said he was especially pleased to hear from Richard Fleming, a doctor who pleaded guilty in 2009 to felony charges of mail and healthcare fraud and has made a name of himself since then as a proponent of the unsubstantiated theory that Covid-19 was created as a bioweapon.Fleming’s claims, Leaf said, “are pretty much being ignored by the cabal that’s trying to take over the world”.Lockdowns and militiasAs Covid-19 spread across the country in March 2020, Leaf vowed to strike back against stay-at-home orders that he viewed as an example of governmental overreach.During that period, Gretchen Whitmer, the Michigan governor, briefly prohibited the use of motor boats, permitting only kayaking and canoeing as a form of outdoor recreation. The order, which Whitmer later walked back, infuriated many residents of Barry county.Leaf said he would not enforce the order. “The sheriff came out and said, ‘I don’t care if your boat has a motor on it or not. If you’re getting in a heated argument with your wife, go on the lake and go fishing, if that’s what it takes to cool off,’” said Ibbotson, who used to be an outspoken supporter of the sheriff and is now running as one of his primary challengers.Leaf took part in a rally against Michigan’s stay-at-home orders, and called them tantamount to an “unlawful arrest”. Also at the event were members of a militia called the Wolverine Watchmen, a group that was later implicated in a plot to kidnap Whitmer.When William and Michael Null, two brothers from Barry county who attended the event, were accused of taking part in the kidnapping plot, Leaf defended them. The group, he suggested, could have been planning to “arrest” the governor. “In Michigan, if it’s a felony, you can make a felony arrest,” he told a local news outlet. The Null brothers were later acquitted, during a trial that showcased how deeply involved FBI informants and agents had been in pushing the militia members’ rhetoric toward a kidnapping plot.When asked about the controversy and about concerns that he might be too closely connected to militias, Leaf smiled and looked a little bewildered.“Of course,” Leaf said. “There should be militias connected with every sheriff.”Pushback from RepublicansLeaf’s growing embrace of far-right politics has ruffled residents, including some of his former supporters.“When he had mentioned that the Null brothers were perhaps just trying to do a citizen’s arrest on the governor, that was the final straw for me,” said Ibbotson, who decided to challenge him in the Republican primary.Ibbotson, who owns a logistics company, said he wanted the office to drop the election issue. Election administration, he said, should be in the hands of the county and township clerks.“My goal through this, even if I lose, is to make it unpopular to talk about election integrity, in the sense that the sheriff has propagated these lies,” said Ibbotson. “I’m sick of that. I want it to end.” Ibbotson says he has hired formerly incarcerated drivers to work in his business in hopes of reducing recidivism.Leaf’s second challenger, Richelle Spencer, is a sergeant in the Barry county sheriff’s office, who has worked as a narcotics detective and in the K9 unit, says she decided to run for sheriff despite her aversion to politics. She said that the unending election investigation and Leaf’s involvement in the CSPOA has sowed divisions.“Everybody is ready for something different in the sheriff’s office – we’re ready for some stability, I can tell you that,” said Spencer.“He goes away and does these speaking engagements and when he’s doing that, he’s not available to us,” she added, “and he’s not aware of what’s going on in his own community.”Leaf’s third challenger, Mark Noteboom, a deputy in the sheriff’s office, has had a direct hand in Leaf’s investigation. Noteboom declined to share specifics about the investigation, but told Bolts and the Guardian that he felt “the clerks in Barry county did absolutely nothing wrong. They did everything they were supposed to do, and they did it the right way.” Noteboom added that as sheriff he would focus on improving conditions in the county jail and other local issues.“You’re the sheriff of Barry county, not the sheriff of the United States,” he added.At the CSPOA event in March, Leaf addressed the gathering on the topic of his investigation in Barry county and the status of election integrity nationwide. His police work, Leaf said, had been hampered by Dana Nessel, attorney general of Michigan and a Democrat who has been investigating Lambert and others for allegedly improperly seizing and tampering with voting machines. Deputies in his office didn’t want to touch the case.“That was the first major stumbling block,” said Leaf. Local crime had also pulled him away from the investigation. “We had a missing person and we took quite a while, a lot of manpower, to go find. I had to put my light-duty deputy off to go find this missing person.”There were so many leads, the investigation had become so expansive, and the end wasn’t even in sight more than two years after Leaf initiated the investigation. Still, he said, he had not given up. It was on him and other sympathetic minds to keep up with the search.“Keep chuggin’,” he advised the room. “Keep charging the castle!” More

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      Donald Trump sure makes a lot of ‘jokes’ about ruling as a dictator, doesn’t he? | Moustafa Bayoumi

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      Last Friday, Donald Trump told an audience of Christian conservatives to “get out and vote, just this time. You won’t have to do it any more. Four more years, you know what? It’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you won’t have to vote any more, my beautiful Christians.”Selling the idea to US citizens that their next vote will be their last one just doesn’t seem like a winning proposition to me, but what do I know? I’m not running to be elected dictator on day one of my second presidency.That campaign pledge is of course what the former president told Sean Hannity last December. Hannity posed a question to Trump, who weeks earlier had called his political opponents “vermin”. “You are promising America tonight, you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?” Hannity asked.“Except for day one,” Trump responded. “I want to close the border, and I want to drill, drill, drill.”Democrats rang all the alarm bells then, as they are ringing them now, responsibly warning us of our impending authoritarian future under Trump. And Trump’s supporters? They just thought he was kidding. “Of course he’s joking,” one attendee who’s been to more than a dozen Trump events told the Washington Post last December. “You can’t be a dictator with a constitutional republic.”Whether this attendee is right isn’t the point. The issue is how one side hears jackboots marching just over the hill, ready to trample on our democracy. And the other side hears only guffaws.And this disconnect continues, day by day, week by week, month by month. After Trump’s comments on Friday, the prominent Democrat and California representative Adam Schiff stated: “Democracy is on the ballot, and if we are to save it, we must vote against authoritarianism.” Meanwhile, on CNN’s State of the Union, Senator Tom Cotton dismissed any worry about Trump’s call to end voting by 2028 by saying that Trump was “obviously making a joke”.I don’t find Trump’s jokes funny, but what’s really missing from this conversation is how much Trump’s so-called sense of humor draws from the information strategies of the contemporary far right, and how much the Democrats end up playing right into his hands.There was a time when satire and irony belonged primarily to the left. From Jonathan Swift to Jon Stewart, humor was the knife to cut deepest into the excesses of political authority. There is thankfully still some residual humor on the left today – John Oliver comes to mind – but, as a political party, the Democrats could learn a thing or two about comic timing. (Their timing for stepping down from high office, admittedly, is sublime.) Eschewing political humor, Democrats seem comfortable opting for a moralizing politics, which truth be told can be as politically off-putting as it is well-meaning.Today’s right wing, on the other hand, “weaponizes irony to attract and radicalize potential supporters”, according to media studies scholar Viveca Greene. She argues that today’s far right uses irony and humor “to challenge progressive ideologies and institutions”, and in so doing, the right is able “to create a toxic counter public”.Greene is mostly concerned with the alt-right – that is to say, the more extreme elements of the right wing – but Trump’s signature contribution to this discourse is to mainstream alt-right communication strategies on to a national stage. And a kind of plausible deniability plays an enormous role in this rhetorical ecosystem.Did Trump just call for democracy to end in the next election cycle? Oh, come on. He’s just being funny! (But yes, he did.) Did Trump guarantee to root out the “radical left thugs” that “live like vermin” in our country? That’s hilarious! (He said he will.) Did Trump promise that he will be president for three terms? Stop! My sides are aching! (You bet he did.) Will Trump “terminate” the US constitution if he’s elected? So funny! It’s like he’s saying: “You’re fired!” to a piece of paper! (It’s on the record.)And with every rightwing excess and with each lousy joke, often at the expense of politically marginal populations (such as Muslims and immigrants), the Democrats predictably recoil in public and performative horror. Yet by doing so they only add to their perceived unfunny “wokeness” and provide more material for the political comedian who will next seek to legislate our very laughter at his own pathetic humor, as if a monstrous dad joke just became our Dear Leader.Wouldn’t it be smarter to draw attention to Trump’s ridiculousness rather than his threats? Isn’t there some cliche out there about choosing honey over vinegar? Can the Democrats rediscover the extraordinary political power of satire before it’s too late? The demands on humor on a national stage have never been greater, and that’s no laughing matter.

      Moustafa Bayoumi is a Guardian US columnist More

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      Trump favorite Kari Lake wins Arizona’s Republican Senate primary

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      Kari Lake, the far-right firebrand and favorite of Donald Trump, has won Arizona’s Republican Senate primary.The Associated Press projected the race at 8.44pm Arizona time on Tuesday night. Lake rose to prominence as a gubernatorial candidate in 2022, when she refused to concede the race to her Democratic challenger Katie Hobbs.Having secured a primary victory, she will face off against the Democratic US representative Ruben Gallego for an open Senate seat vacated by the centrist independent senator Kyrsten Sinema.Lake, endorsed by Trump, was widely favored to win the primary against Mark Lamb, the sheriff of Pinal county. Lamb, who has far less name recognition and campaign funding than Lake, pulled in about 40% of the vote as of Tuesday night – a potential sign of general election trouble for Lake, who has alienated the more moderate voters required to win statewide in Arizona.Her contest, along with several key down-ballot races, is considered a gauge for the relative strength of the Maga movement in a key swing state that has been racked with election chaos brought on by a far-right flank pushing false claims about election fraud.Lake, a former news anchor who rocked into the national stage by becoming one of the most ardent and telegenic faces of election denialism, once carried a sledgehammer on stage and told supporters she would use it on electronic voting machines.The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee quickly launched an ad against Lake, where she talks about how abortion pills should be illegal and brands her as a “power-hungry liar who only cares about herself”. Gallego tweeted: “It’s official – my opponent is Kari Lake. Arizona, the choice is clear: Kari wants to ban abortion. I will always protect abortion rights.”Election prognosticators Sabato’s Crystal Ball and the Cook Political Report rank the race as leaning Democratic, citing Lake’s election denialism and belief in abortion restrictions as factors moving the race toward Democrats. Polling on the matchup between Gallego and Lake has generally shown Gallego up a few points over Lake.The race is key nationally for the balance of power in the US Senate – Democrats need to keep it in their control to maintain their 51-49 majority in the chamber. It’s one of few close races around the country expected to see massive funding and attention as November nears.Far-right election deniers starred in several other key Republican primary races. Abe Hamadeh, who repeatedly tried to have his loss in the 2022 attorney general election overturned and has spread conspiracy theories about election security, is leading in a crowded Republican primary in the state’s deep-red eighth congressional district, where Trump made the rare move to endorse two candidates, including Hamadeh.His Republican rivals included venture capitalist Blake Masters, who Trump endorsed last-minute, as well as state senator and fake elector Anthony Kern, Ben Toma, the speaker of the Arizona house; Trent Franks, who resigned from Congress after staffers claimed he asked them to serve as surrogates for him; and political newcomer Pat Briody.View image in fullscreenMeanwhile, Mark Finchem, who has still not accepted that he lost his bid for secretary of state in 2022 has the lead in a race against relative moderate Republican Ken Bennett for a state senate seat.In Arizona’s Maricopa county – which includes Phoenix – election deniers vied for positions that could give them oversight in future elections. Early results show a mixed bag for election-defending county officials.Stephen Richer, the Maricopa county recorder who became a nationally known voice for defending elections and sued Lake for defamation over election falsehoods, was behind in his race for reelection as of Tuesday night. He is falling behind Justin Heap, a state representative who will not say whether he believes the 2020 or 2022 elections were stolen, but has called Maricopa county elections a “laughing stock” and supported bills that stemmed from election conspiracies. Another challenger, Don Hiatt, has said the 2020 election was stolen and wants to curtail voting access and is in third.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionDebbie Lesko, an outgoing Republican congresswoman who is endorsed by Trump and voted to overturn election results on 6 January 2021, has a strong lead in the primary to join the county board of supervisors over another election denier, Bob Branch, a professor at the Christian college Grand Canyon University.The Maricopa county board of supervisors and recorder played a crucial role in 2020 standing up to pressure from Trump and his allies in their scheme to overturn the results of that year’s presidential election.The recorder and many board members have faced ongoing threats, some of which have been prosecuted and led to prison sentences. The pressure has remained intense in the lead-up to this year’s elections, with errors such as printing problems in the 2022 election adding fuel to rightwing conspiracies.Amid the threats and harassment, two supervisors, Bill Gates and Clint Hickman, decided not to run for re-election.For Gates’s seat, moderate former state lawmaker Kate Brophy McGee is far ahead in the primary against Tabatha LaVoie, who said on her campaign website that she wanted to restore voter confidence because: “Our County cannot continue to raise doubts about the integrity of our elections.”Jack Sellers, currently the board chair, is trailing far behind Mark Stewart, currently a council member in the Phoenix suburb of Chandler. Stewart won’t say whether he would have certified results in 2020 or 2022 and claims he will restore confidence in county elections.Thomas Galvin, who was not on the board in 2020 but has defended county elections since taking office after beating election-denying candidates in 2022, is fending off a challenge from Michelle Ugenti-Rita, a former state lawmaker and Lake-endorsed candidate who promised to “fight for election integrity” and “take back Maricopa County from the establishment”.On the Democratic side, former state senator Raquel Terán is trailing in her primary for Arizona’s third district, for the seat that will be vacated by Gallego. A longtime organiser against anti-immigrant laws in the state, Téran focused her campaign on protecting abortion rights. Her main rival former city council member in Phoenix, Yassamin Ansari, had raised more funds and secured several key labour endorsements, and has the lead as of Tuesday night.And in what is likely his last unsuccessful bid for office, the former Maricopa county sheriff Joe Arpaio, notorious for his harsh immigration regime, was trounced in a local mayoral race to lead the Phoenix suburb of Fountain Hills. Arpaio, 92, was recently kissed on the cheek by Trump at a rally in Arizona. In his run for mayor, one of his main ideas was to make the town’s eponymous fountain go higher. More

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      ‘Cat ladies’ come together to show support for Kamala Harris

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      A group of pet lovers and self-described “cat ladies” came together for the latest in a series of Zoom calls in support of Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign. The Tuesday evening call was hosted by Christine Pelosi, a political consultant and the daughter of Nancy Pelosi, and Nikki Fried, the chair of the Florida Democratic party.The call was not organized around racial and ethnic identity, but as a rebuff to comments made in 2021 by JD Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate, who told the then Fox News host Tucker Carlson that the US was being run by Democrats, corporate oligarchs and “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”.Tuesday’s meeting began with a slideshow of pet pictures that played over Dancing Queen by Abba. Nancy Pelosi, a surprise guest, bopped along to the tune before telling the audience that the purpose of the gathering was to show support for women’s freedom to “love how they wanna love, and live how they wanna live”.“When JD Vance couched his opinion on our freedom, we decided that the cat ladies are striking back,” Pelosi said. “He didn’t realize what an opportunity he was giving us, and what he would unleash.”The digital conference was organized by a group called Pet Lovers for Kamala. Originally, the group was focused on cat owners in particular, but Christine Pelosi said they found solidarity among dog owners, so they formed an inclusive group that includes owners of all animals.That included Donna Brazile, a former chair of the Democratic National Committee, and Jan Schakowsky, an Illinois congresswoman. Both appeared with their dogs.Christine Pelosi and the call’s other organizers gave tips for how to engage people via social media posts, phone and text banks, and by volunteering on behalf of Harris. Fried, who also served as Florida’s commissioner of agriculture from 2019 to 2023, said Harris winning was the only thing stopping the rest of the US going the way of her home state.“I had to sit next to Ron DeSantis for four straight years and see up close and personal the strangeness of Ron DeSantis,” Fried said. “We have been living under Project 2025. We have been the lab rats for the Heritage Foundation.”The Tuesday call also follows several other Zoom rallies put on by affinity groups to raise money for the presumptive Democratic nominee.Within 24 hours of Joe Biden announcing he was ending his campaign, nearly 100,000 Black people logged on to Zoom calls with the groups Win with Black Women and Win with Black Men in support of Harris’s campaign.Last week, Shannon Watts, best known for founding the gun violence prevention group Moms Demand Action, corralled more than 160,000 white women, and on Monday, a White Dudes for Harris call attracted more than 190,000 people and raised $4m for the vice-president’s campaign.A virtual meeting of Latino voters is slated for Wednesday and will be hosted by comedian George Lopez. More

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      JD Vance writes glowing foreword to Project 2025 leader’s upcoming book

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      JD Vance endorses the ideas of Kevin Roberts, leader of Project 2025, as a “fundamentally Christian view of culture and economics” and a “surprising – even jarring” path forward for conservatives, the Republican vice-presidential nominee writes in the foreword of Roberts’ upcoming book.The foreword was obtained and published in full by the New Republic on Tuesday. Roberts’ book is out in September. Its title was watered down recently to remove references to “burning down” Washington.In the foreword, Vance finds parallels between his upbringing and that of Roberts, and between their visions for what the US needs. Both grew up in poor families in parts of the country “largely ignored by America’s elites”, with Roberts in Louisiana and Vance in Ohio and Kentucky. They’re both Catholic, with Vance as a convert in his adult life. Both had grandparents who played big roles in their upbringing.Now both are in DC, with Roberts “just a few steps” from Vance’s office.Vance praises Roberts for using his perch as the president of the Heritage Foundation, a rightwing DC thinktank, to advance a more radical conservative vision rather than resting on the foundation’s laurels.“The Heritage Foundation isn’t some random outpost on Capitol Hill; it is and has been the most influential engine of ideas for Republicans from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump,” Vance writes. “Yet it is Heritage’s power and influence that makes it easy to avoid risks. Roberts could collect a nice salary, write decent books, and tell donors what they want to hear. But Roberts believes doing the same old thing could lead to the ruin of our nation.”The Trump campaign has tried to distance the former president from Project 2025, a conservative roadmap for a second Trump term that includes policy ideas unpopular with the voters Trump needs to win. But Vance’s ties to Roberts, like the foreword, make it harder for Trump to make the case he doesn’t know what the project is.In the hours before the foreword was published by news outlets, Project 2025’s director, Paul Dans, said he was stepping down from his role and that some of the project’s work was winding down, though it’s not clear what that means. The project consists largely of a 900-plus-page policy manifesto and an effort to find potential staffers for a second Trump term. Roberts said the plan to create a “personnel apparatus” for all levels of government would continue.Roberts has faced scrutiny in recent weeks for comments that the US is “in the process of the second American revolution, which will remain bloodless, if the left allows it to be”. His ties to a radical part of the Catholic church, Opus Dei, and belief that birth control should be outlawed were also revealed by the Guardian.Vance has previously said Roberts “is somebody I rely on a lot who has very good advice, very good political instincts”, he told news outlet Notus in January. He said that Heritage, under Roberts, went from a “relatively vanilla” thinktank to one willing to participate in the fights and debates on the right about where the party should head.On two subjects in particular, Vance praises the way Roberts lays out the stakes and his goals: reining in large tech companies and focusing on a Christian view of the family.He notes that Roberts argues the US founders would not have envisioned the way companies like Apple or Google would amass power to “censor speech, influence elections, and work seamlessly with intelligence services and other federal bureaucrats”, saying this “deserves the scrutiny of the right, not its support”.And Vance agrees with the way Roberts recognizes that “cultural norms and attitudes matter”.“We should encourage our kids to get married and have kids,” Vance writes. “We should teach them that marriage isn’t just a contract, but a sacred – and to the extent possible, lifelong – union. We should discourage them from behaviors that threaten the stability of their families.”This belief in the family also means that conservatives need to ensure that families aren’t just for people with wealth, which calls for creating better jobs and listening to young people when they say they can’t afford homes or families, he writes.“Roberts is articulating a fundamentally Christian view of culture and economics: recognizing that virtue and material progress go hand in hand,” Vance writes.In order to create the America Roberts and Vance envision, conservatives need to go on offense – not just remove policies they don’t like, but rebuild the country in what Roberts has referred to as a “second American Revolution”.“The old conservative movement argued if you just got government out of the way, natural forces would resolve problems – we are no longer in this situation and must take a different approach,” Vance writes. “As Kevin Roberts writes, ‘It’s fine to take a laissez-faire approach when you are in the safety of the sunshine. But when the twilight descends and you hear the wolves, you’ve got to circle the wagons and load the muskets.’“We are now all realizing that it’s time to circle the wagons and load the muskets. In the fights that lay [sic] ahead, these ideas are an essential weapon.” More

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      Kamala Harris and Donald Trump neck and neck in new poll – live

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      Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are neck and neck in the presidential race, according to a new Reuters and Ipsos poll.The poll, which was completed on Sunday, showed that the vice-president was supported by 43% of registered voters while the former president was supported by 42%.Last week, a Reuters and Ipsos poll showed that Harris was leading by 44% to Trump’s 42%.Reuters and Ipsos’s latest poll was conducted among 1,025 adults, including 876 registered voters, from 26 to 28 July.Kamala Harris will announce her vice-presidential pick as early as Monday before embarking on a multi-state battleground tour with her new running mate later in the week, two sources familiar with the planning said on Tuesday, Reuters reports.The high-stakes decision on who will run with the current vice-president as the wingman on her presidential ticket has taken center stage since she became the Democratic frontrunner for the 5 November election.Kamala Harris is expected to announce who will be her running mate in her campaign for president as early as Monday, the Reuters news wire is reporting this evening, as an exclusive, citing sources but as yet giving no more detail.This echoes what Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, said yesterday, that Harris would choose and announce “in the next six, seven days”, as we blogged earlier.But anything that echoes or strengthens that prediction is fascinating, so we’ll watch closely.Harris is the presumptive Democratic nominee for president in this election, after Joe Biden withdrew from his re-election campaign nine days ago and anointed Harris as his chosen successor at the top of the ticket.At this rate, she can expect to be officially voted in as the nominee at the party’s national convention next month, in Chicago.Kamala Harris will not attend the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) conference in Chicago, according to a source familiar with her schedule, citing logistical challenges getting to Chicago days after launching her campaign.The vice-president is heading to Houston this week to attend the funeral of the late Texas congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee as well as conducting a rapid search for her running mate.The source said Harris’s campaign offered to participate in a virtual fireside chat, or to host an in-person fireside chat with Harris at a later date, but the request was denied. The source said Harris’s team will continue to work toward a possible solution with the NABJ board.On the sidelines of the centrist WelcomeFest in Washington DC, Will Rollins, the Democratic nominee in a competitive California House district, said Republicans would have a “tricky” time trying to paint Kamala Harris as “dangerously liberal”.“Somebody who goes into law enforcement is not a leftwing ideologue,” said Rollins, a former prosecutor. Already he said she was having a positive impact on down-ballot races. His campaign alone raised a six-figure sum in the 48 hours after her ascent, he said.Rollins noted that when Harris came up in California politics, she was criticized by activists as too conservative, despite the image Republicans are portraying of her as far-left.“She in fact was branded as much too conservative for San Francisco. So I think as voters actually learned more about her actual record it’s going to work well for us,” he said.To underline the point, Rollins said he first met Harris when she was the state’s attorney general at an event with the then Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, whom he worked for at the time.“That kind of proves or disproves their attempt to paint her as an extremist. Here you have this Democratic statewide attorney general, who was working with a Republican governor in California at the time,” he said. “I actually think that’s one of the more underreported parts of her background, what she was able to do across party lines.”He also weighed in on who Harris might choose as her running mate. His choice was for fellow millennial, transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, who he called an “incredible communicator”.Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are neck and neck in the presidential race, according to a new Reuters and Ipsos poll.The poll, which was completed on Sunday, showed that the vice-president was supported by 43% of registered voters while the former president was supported by 42%.Last week, a Reuters and Ipsos poll showed that Harris was leading by 44% to Trump’s 42%.Reuters and Ipsos’s latest poll was conducted among 1,025 adults, including 876 registered voters, from 26 to 28 July.The departure of Paul Dans as the leader of Project 2025 could indicate the project’s work is winding down or at least will not be taking such a public role in the lead-up to the November election, though the policy ideas outlined in its extensive conservative roadmap remain public.Dans, a Donald Trump loyalist, worked in personnel-related roles in the first Trump administration, including as chief of staff at the office of personnel management.Although Kevin Roberts, the president of Heritage Foundation, claimed the change was always intended and followed a set timeline, the move underscores the unpopularity of Project 2025 for Trump, who has for weeks attempted to distance himself from it.Earlier this month, Trump claimed to “know nothing about Project 2025” and have “no idea who is behind it”. The disavowal from Trump came after Roberts said:
      We are in the process of the second American revolution, which will remain bloodless, if the left allows it to be.
      At a recent rally in Michigan, Trump quipped about the project: “I don’t know what the hell it is” and “they’re seriously extreme.” But the project includes many former Trump administration officials and its aims often align with Trump’s policy ideas, albeit with far more detail.Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, said he has “total confidence” in Kamala Harris’s running mate choice.Asked whether he would support Mark Kelly, the Arizona senator, as Harris’s running mate, Schumer said:
      I have total confidence that Vice President Harris will choose a great vice-presidential candidate.
      Asked whether he was concerned about the prospect of a special election in Arizona, CNN reports that Schumer replied:
      I have complete faith in Vice President Harris’ choice.
      Not even a day after audio of JD Vance telling donors that Kamala Harris was a threat and a “sucker punch” was leaked to the Washington Post, Vance continued to make headlines on Tuesday, as a previously unseen video of Vance was published by the Harris 2024 campaign.In the video, Vance can be seen telling an interviewer that not having “kids in your life” makes “people more sociopathic” and makes the US a little bit “less mentally stable”.This comes as Vance continues to face backlash over comments he made in 2021 that recently resurfaced where he criticized the vice-president and other Democrats as “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives”.On Monday evening, Donald Trump sat down with Laura Ingraham of Fox News and defended Vance’s comments, telling the host that his vice-presidential candidate was simply trying to show how much he values family life.Republican vice-presidential candidate, JD Vance, made headlines again on Monday evening, after an audio recording of Vance speaking privately to donors on Saturday about Kamala Harris was leaked to the Washington Post.Vance reporedtly told donors that Harris was a threat and “a bit of a political sucker punch” to the Trump Vance campaign.Vance also reportedly said:
      The bad news is that Kamala Harris does not have the same baggage as Joe Biden, because whatever we might have to say, Kamala is a lot younger. And Kamala Harris is obviously not struggling in the same ways that Joe Biden did.
      The comments contradict Donald Trump’s own statements on Harris since Biden withdrew from the race, as he has told reporters that he did not think switching out Biden for Harris “would make much difference”, adding: “I would define her in a very similar [way] that I define him.”Even Vance himself has told reporters that there was in effect no difference in running against Biden versus Harris.The Trump campaign has responded to the news of Project 2025 director Paul Dans’ departure. In a statement, it said:
      President Trump’s campaign has been very clear for over a year that Project 2025 had nothing to do with the campaign, did not speak for the campaign, and should not be associated with the campaign or the President in any way.
      Reports of Project 2025’s demise would be greatly welcomed and should serve as notice to anyone or any group trying to misrepresent their influence with President Trump and his campaign — it will not end well for you.
      The work of Project 2025 will continue despite its director, Paul Dans, stepping down from his role, Politico reported, citing a source.The report adds that the source said “the goal of Project 2025 was always to have their work done by the time of the Republican National Convention which ended in late July”.Here’s more on the news that Paul Dans, the director of Project 2025, has stepped down from his role at the Heritage Foundation.Kevin Roberts, the president of the conservative thinktank, has confirmed that Dans is leaving his post.Dans “built the project from scratch and bravely led this endeavor over the past two years” but is now “moving up to the front where the fight remains”, Roberts said in a statement.
      Under Paul Dans’ leadership, Project 2025 has completed exactly what it set out to do: bringing together over 110 leading conservative organizations to create a unified conservative vision, motivated to devolve power from the unelected administrative state, and returning it to the people.
      Dans informed staff at the thinktank this week of his decision to step down, the Wall Street Journal reported. More

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      Project 2025 director to step down after ‘pressure from Trump campaign’

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      The leader of Project 2025 is stepping down from his role amid a power struggle over potential government staffing if Donald Trump wins in November.Paul Dans, the director of the project housed at the Heritage Foundation, “will be departing the team”, according to a statement to the Guardian from Kevin Roberts, the president of Heritage Foundation.The departure could indicate the project’s work is ending or at least will not be taking such a public role in the lead-up to the November election, though the policy ideas outlined in its extensive conservative roadmap remain public. “Project 2025” has become a shorthand term for its manifesto of conservative policies, but the project includes multiple pillars designed to influence a conservative president.Dans is leaving “after pressure from Trump campaign leadership” and an “ongoing power rift over staffing control” for a second Trump administration, Roger Sollenberger, a reporter for the Daily Beast, wrote on Twitter/X.Dans, a Trump loyalist, worked in personnel-related roles in the first Trump administration, including as chief of staff at the office of personnel management.In an internal email obtained by Semafor, Dans said the work of the project “was due to wrap” after the political parties’ nominating conventions, which for Republicans was earlier this month.“Our work is presently winding down, and I plan later in August to leave Heritage,” he wrote. “Electoral season is upon us, and I want to direct all my efforts to winning, bigly!”Roberts claims the change was always intended and followed a set timeline.“When we began Project 2025 in April 2022, we set a timeline for the project to conclude its policy drafting after the two party conventions this year, and we are sticking to that timeline,” Roberts said in the statement. “Paul, who built the project from scratch and bravely led this endeavor over the past two years, will be departing the team and moving up to the front where the fight remains. We are extremely grateful for his and everyone’s work on Project 2025 and dedication to saving America. Our collective efforts to build a personnel apparatus for policymakers of all levels – federal, state, and local – will continue.”It is not immediately clear what “winding down” its work entails, given that the policy playbook is already written and a personnel database already compiled.The departure underscores the unpopularity of Project 2025 for Trump, who has for weeks attempted to distance himself from it.Earlier this month, Trump claimed to “know nothing about Project 2025” and have “no idea who is behind it”. The disavowal from Trump came after Roberts said: “We are in the process of the second American revolution, which will remain bloodless, if the left allows it to be.”At a recent rally in Michigan, Trump quipped about the project, “I don’t know what the hell it is” and “they’re seriously extreme.” But the project includes many former Trump administration officials and its aims often align with Trump’s policy ideas, albeit with far more detail.Democrats have seized on the project as a stand-in for what Trump could do if he wins a second term, bringing it up at events, in interviews and in billboard ads around the country. They have called out some of the project’s provisions, like further restrictions to abortion and an end to policies that protect LGBTQ+ rights and diversity.Kamala Harris’s campaign said in a statement: “Project 2025 is on the ballot because Donald Trump is on the ballot. This is his agenda, written by his allies, for Donald Trump to inflict on our country. Hiding the 920-page blueprint from the American people doesn’t make it less real – in fact, it should make voters more concerned about what else Trump and his allies are hiding.”Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, Trump’s campaign leaders, have dinged the project publicly and noted how it doesn’t speak for Trump. LaCivita called the project “a pain in the ass”.“President Trump’s campaign has been very clear for over a year that Project 2025 had nothing to do with the campaign, did not speak for the campaign, and should not be associated with the campaign or the President in any way,” Wiles and LaCivita said in a statement on Tuesday. “Reports of Project 2025’s demise would be greatly welcomed and should serve as notice to anyone or any group trying to misrepresent their influence with President Trump and his campaign – it will not end well for you.”Project 2025’s four pillars started with a lengthy roadmap. Alongside the document, the group is creating a database of potential personnel for an incoming Trump administration, as well as training them on how the government should work as part of a “Presidential Administration Academy”. The final step will be a presidential transition playbook that seeks to help the next president hit the ground running once he takes office.The personnel piece, in particular, has led to some infighting among Republicans, though so have policy ideas that are unpopular in a general election, like restricting abortions. Trump doesn’t want to be seen as outsourcing any element of his administration to an outside group. And the foundation’s bold, public move to do so may not have endeared the thinktank to Trumpworld.Hiring staff after winning the presidency is always a huge undertaking, but if Trump and Project 2025 get their way, it would be herculean. Both Trump and the project want to drastically expand the number of political appointees in the federal government, firing civil servants whose roles typically have remained nonpartisan regardless of who is in office. Doing so would require thousands, if not tens of thousands, more political hires who are beholden to the president. Despite the clash, it’s likely there’s some overlap between candidates the project has vetted and would recommend, and the Trump administration’s picks. Many of Trump’s allies, like Steve Bannon, have praised or supported the project.While the project skews Trumpian, its goals represent generational changes in policy and how the government works that would last far beyond the next presidency. Roberts said on Bannon’s show that the project was building “not just for 2025, but for the next century in the United States”. The project has the left so upset, he added, because “they’ve never seen the political right be this organized, this focused, this rational about taking power and actually using it appropriately, as the constitution says.”In a Guardian profile on Roberts earlier this month, sources noted his ability to grab attention for conservative causes – a skill that could lead to backlash. One critic of Heritage’s Trumpian turn warned: “It’s not at all clear to me that the bet that Kevin is making is going to pay off.”Dans has appeared on Steve Bannon’s War Room show to boost the project and encourage War Room listeners to get involved as potential appointees in a second Trump administration. He called himself a “true-blooded deplorable” and explained how the project’s goal was about “infusing America First” in the conservative movement.“We need a new culture, we need this War Room audience to come to work in Washington,” he said in an appearance on the show last year.This week, he was back on the show, seeking to debunk the left’s narratives about the project and again imploring conservatives to help staff the government.“The swamp isn’t going to drain itself, we need outsiders coming in to do this,” he said, emphasizing that the project was not Trump’s, but had built a way to vet candidates for federal roles.In another video that resurfaced in recent weeks, Dans said that the project had a great relationship with Trump and that “Trump is very bought into this,” though emphasized that the project is intended to be “candidate-neutral”. More