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    New Orleans braces for Trump’s immigration crackdown: ‘We have rights’

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    New Orleanians are bracing for a major deployment of US border patrol officers to the city, as Donald Trump forges on with his mass deportation agenda and sweeping federal immigration crackdown in Democrat-led cities.Despite falling crime, as many as 250 federal agents are expected to descend on New Orleans imminently to begin laying the groundwork for “Operation Swamp Sweep”, which the Associated Press reported is due to launch in south-east Louisiana and Mississippi on 1 December with the stated aim of arresting 5,000 people.Trump floated sending in federal troops in September, when he declared New Orleans had “a crime problem”, adding: “We’ll straighten that out in two weeks.” The city’s violent crime rate is actually 20% lower than last year, including a historic drop in the number of murders.The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) operation will be led by Gregory Bovino, a senior border patrol commander. Bovino has already overseen aggressive campaigns in Los Angeles, Chicago and, now, Charlotte and other cities in North Carolina, where the crackdowns have triggered large-scale protests and sometimes volatile interactions between federal agents and protesters amid aggressive arrest tactics.In Chicago, activists organized demonstrations and filed lawsuits over arrests and the use of excessive force, including deployment of teargas and pepper spray.Activists in Charlotte have already looked to their actions as a blueprint and now, following weeks of reports of raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) circulating across the greater metro area, New Orleans residents are preparing to resist also. Both border patrol officers from the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency and ICE agents come under the umbrella of DHS.Residents are sharing plans to report ICE sightings, alert landscapers and other manual workers to the threat of enforcement and help escort children to and from school when ICE is in the area. They are also rallying around neighbors believed to be under threat – often because they are undocumented or the Trump administration no longer recognizes a temporary status granted under the Biden administration – using community text threads, social media and whistleblowing – literally blowing whistles in the street if officers are believed to be approaching.There were reports of construction workers being instructed to stay home on Friday, in case border patrol arrived that early, and businesses such as restaurants and gas stations are being urged not to serve ICE agents.New Orleans’ Mexican-American mayor-elect, Helena Moreno, told the AP there is “a lot of fear” in the city and that she’s working to ensure those who could be targeted by federal agents know their legal rights. “I’m very concerned about due process being violated, I’m very concerned about racial profiling,” she said.Local immigrant advocacy group Unión Migrante already posts about ICE sightings and shares resources in English and Spanish on its social media pages. It also holds regular “Know Your Rights” workshops where people learn what protections they have during a immigration investigation, what to do if they get pulled over in the car by an agent, how to legally film ICE agents and police, and hear legal advice from immigration lawyers.With enforcement ramping up across the region, volunteer Alfredo Salazar said the workshops are crucial. “I look Latino and I worry I could be arrested for it,” he told local TV channel Fox 8. “It’s not just me, but thousands of us here that look Latino. So we have to educate people that we have rights to defend ourselves and freedom of speech.”The city is known for its rich blend of French, Spanish, African, Native American and Asian cultures, and 14% of its foreign-born metro population are Latino. In Kenner, a suburb of New Orleans, where 13 people were arrested earlier this month in a raid at a boat launch, it’s 30%, the highest in the state.Rachel Taber, also an advocate and organizer with Unión Migrante, told the news site NOLA.com that immigrants and their family members have been contacting lawyers, giving people power-of-attorney in case they are detained, and locating passports in the event they need to travel to reunite with relatives.The mission has the enthusiastic backing of Louisiana’s Republican governor, Jeff Landry, a staunch Trump ally, who has made a vigorous push to align state policy with sweeping federal immigration efforts and has targeted New Orleans’ immigration policies to make enforcement a priority.The GOP-dominated state legislature passed a law threatening prison time for law enforcement officials who delay or ignore federal enforcement efforts. Another measure directs state agencies to verify, track and report anyone in the country illegally who is receiving state services. Another more bans city policies that prohibit cooperation with federal immigration agencies.In September, Landry had also requested a national guard deployment to New Orleans even though violent crime is down and the city’s elected leaders maintained that violent crime is down and federal troops are unnecessary. Landry’s office has been approached by the Guardian for comment.Meanwhile, the New Orleans police department (NOPD) was released from a federal reform pact on Wednesday that has long shielded its officers from having to participate in immigration enforcement. Anne Kirkpatrick, NOPD’s superintendent, told WBOK radio earlier this week that officers would collaborate with federal agents, but not on raids or deportations.“We will not be participating in the removal, but we will always be there,” she said. “They’re coming, so I am going to be a collaborator. But I also want to emphasize something to our community: To be in our country undocumented is illegal. To be illegal is not criminal.”DHS assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement: “Every day, DHS enforces the laws of the nation across the country. We do not discuss future or potential operations.” More

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      Republicans will be left holding the bill for Trump’s policies in the midterms | Sidney Blumenthal

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      The elections of 4 November were the end of a grandiose illusion. After his 2024 victory, Donald Trump claimed he had an “unprecedented and powerful mandate”, that his “mandate” was “massive” and that his “Maga movement” was irresistible, the wave of the future. It lasted 10 months, in which he had betrayed his chief promise to lower inflation, turned the public against him on every issue and Republicans at last faced a battering by voters.Trump’s image of omnipotence has rested upon a pyramid of dread. His ability to maintain the servility of the Republican Congress, whose members are intimidated by the danger that if they defy him he would support primary opponents to run against them, has been the political foundation for all the other forms of fear he incites throughout American institutions. Trump could not have leveraged himself as “dictator on day one” without congressional abdication. The Republicans immediately fell into lockstep. But within two weeks of the 4 November elections, only one Republican in the House voted against the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, which Trump had called a “hoax” before he felt compelled to bend in the cyclone to sign the bill – and yet still suppresses the files.The Republicans in Congress now have another fear that places them in a terrible tightening vise. They have allowed Trump to avoid accountability and in next year’s midterms – of which these elections are an augury – they will be held mercilessly to account in his stead. Trump is the cause for which they will suffer the effect. He will not be on the ballot. Only they will pay the butcher’s bill.The Republicans are helpless. Through their abject obedience to him they have permitted Trump to sever their organic connection to their voters. None dare venture any longer to town halls in their districts. They cower before their constituents’ wrath over Trump. He is more unpopular than any president of recent time, including himself after January 6, with the exception of George W Bush at the end of his presidency in the financial collapse. The colossus who proclaims “I have the right to do anything I want to do, I’m the president” has reduced the Republicans to ciphers. They are not public servants, but his sycophants. Their lord, however, is not their protector. The closer they attach themselves to him, the more vulnerable they become. The voters repudiate Trump by rejecting Republicans.If the Republicans had paid more attention to his career, they would have observed that he always maneuvers to set up fall guys to take the rap. Trump has his Roy Cohns and his Michael Cohens. “He directed me to make the payment,” Cohen testified about the hush money paid to Stormy Daniels in order to shut her up to affect the outcome of the 2016 election. Trump was ultimately convicted in 2024 of 34 felonies of business fraud in an election scheme. “Michael has great liability to me!” Trump tweeted. Cohen served two and a half years in prison for tax evasion, lying to a bank, and campaign finance violations for the payments to Daniels and Karen McDougal, a Playboy model with whom Trump had an affair. “The man doesn’t tell the truth,” said Cohen. “And it is sad that I should take responsibility for his dirty deeds.” Trump called Cohen, who testified in the trial, a “rat”, a Mafia term for an informant. “The more people that follow Mr Trump as I did blindly are going to suffer the same consequences that I’m suffering,” Cohen told a congressional committee in 2019. The Republicans collectively are now Michael Cohen.A Marist-NPR poll on 19 November sent a shock wave. Democrats held a towering 14-point advantage. Then a Marquette University poll rolled in later that day showing Democrats with an 11-point advantage among likely voters. In the 2018 midterms, a Democratic lead of around seven to eight points on the generic ballot translated into a gain of 40 seats. The latest numbers might project roughly 60 seats. The supposedly dead Democrats would easily carry a large majority. With those margins, they would also likely take the Senate.If that seems too breathless, consider what the recent 4 November elections portend. Republican turnout cratered; Democratic enthusiasm ran high. The polls, which were weighted on the basis of the 2024 results, were distorted in showing closer races than the final counts. In the New Jersey gubernatorial contest, in the highest voter turnout in an off-year election in two decades there, the Republican vote count declined 42% for the Republican candidate, Jack Ciattarelli, compared with Trump’s 2024 total. In the Virginia gubernatorial race, the Republican vote count dropped by nearly 45% compared with 2024, while the Democratic vote fell by only 22%.The final polls significantly underestimated the winning margins for the Democratic candidates, Abigail Spanberger in Virginia and Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey. Late polls had Spanberger leading by seven to 11 points, while others suggested a lead as narrow as 2.5 points or a virtual “dead heat”. In New Jersey, final polls had the race even closer. A RealClearPolling average showed Sherrill’s lead at approximately four to eight points, with some polls placing the race within a single point’s margin of error. Spanberger won by 15 points, Sherill by 13. The polls generally, in election after election, miscalculated the Democratic margin of victory by approximately five to nine percentage points compared with the actual results.All of Trump’s gains were swept away in every demographic group. In the two New Jersey cities with the greatest percentage of Hispanic voters, Union City and Perth Amboy, Sherill won by 69 points compared with Kamala Harris’ 17, and by 56 points compared with nine, respectively. Sherill won all 21 counties. The Democrats picked up enough state legislative seats, including in a district held by Republicans for more than three decades, to achieve a super-majority in the assembly.In Virginia, Spanberger outperformed Harris in more than 95% of Virginia’s counties and independent cities. The Democrats gained more than 16 points in small cities and 12 in rural areas. Before the election, Democrats held 51 seats and Republicans 48 in the house of delegates, with one vacancy. The Democrats won 13 seats and now have 64 delegates. Voter urgency to defeat Republicans was so persuasive that Jay Jones, the Democratic candidate for state attorney general, whose emails expressing his desire to shoot the Republican speaker of the house of delegates in the head were a central focus of the campaign, won by six points.Elections elsewhere demonstrated the same pattern. In Erie county, Pennsylvania, which Trump had narrowly won, the Democratic candidate for county executive beat the Republican by 25 points. For the first time since 2006, Democrats in Georgia won statewide nonfederal offices with two candidates gaining about 60% of the vote for seats on the Georgia public service commission. Little noticed, Democrats flipped two state senate seats in Mississippi, which broke the Republican super-majority.The claim that Trump’s 2024 election represented a fundamental realignment of American politics has swiftly turned into a mirage. He had won by a slender margin of 1.5 points, overwhelmingly on the issue of inflation, and dependent on winning the 7% of voters who decided in the last week for him by nine points, generally considered low-propensity voters. This time, many of them apparently either switched to vote for the Democrats or stayed home. The much touted newly consolidated Trump electorate has vanished. Trump in office has built no mandate. His coalition has disintegrated and been reduced to his base, which is beginning to splinter over continuing inflation, increases in premiums for Obamacare and the Epstein files.Projecting forward, accounting for the discrepancy between the polls and the results in 2025, conservatively giving the Democrats running for the Congress an additional five points to make up for it, and assuming similar party turnout, the outcome would be startling. If that formula is to be believed, Democrats would win more than 60 seats in the 2026 midterms and capture the Senate, too.The circumstances that produced the Democratic sweep in 2025 will not be replaced by election day next year with the dawning of Trump’s “Golden Age”. His economic damage through his draconian and chaotic tariffs, a major contributing factor to inflation and unemployment, the poisonous combination of stagflation, can hardly be unraveled quickly, even if the supreme court supports lower court rulings against his invocation of emergency authority as unlawful. The rest of Trump’s policies radically redistributing wealth and resources upward and immiserating the working and middle classes, which have had unanimous Republican support, will not be reversed. In 2026, the midterms will be fought on even more difficult ground for Republicans of an even lengthier period of economic decline.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump’s absence from the ballot eliminates his attraction to the low-propensity voters that previously backed him. In any case, they have mostly evaporated, as the 2025 results demonstrated. It is a further illusion about the past election that if Trump campaigns on the stump for Republicans it will benefit them. In fact, Trump’s vote in 2024 was for Trump, but even so the congressional Republicans actually performed better than Trump. Overall, Trump did better in 198 congressional districts and the GOP House candidates did better in 237. For districts with GOP incumbents, Trump did better in 29, but the House candidates did better in 191, according to calculations derived from the Downballot.Now Trump’s enveloping presence casts a shadow over Republicans which they cannot escape. His unpopularity is deep and settled. The more he appears next to them, the more intensely the larger public is galvanized against them, if they need the reminder that the Republicans and Trump are one and the same. The Republicans have trapped themselves, willingly so. He is their cement shoes.The key propulsive numbers for turnout in the 2026 election are to be found among those who strongly approve and disapprove of Trump. In the latest Marist Poll, 68% of Republicans strongly approve of Trump, while 81% of Democrats and 60% of independents strongly disapprove. Those numbers can get worse for Republicans. Polarization now works against them. The numbers are inexorable harbingers of 2026.Trump himself is an immutable factor. He is hardwired against flexibility and self-reform, which he believes is the core of his strength and appeal. He is certain that his intransigence is his greatest asset. If he never gives in, he will always win. His only road to victory is that everyone must fear him. He cannot admit a mistake. It would violate his canon of power. Any erosion of his followers’ subservience is taken as not only an unjustifiable attack on his authority, but on his very being.Trump perceives every challenge, no matter how sensible, as an existential threat. He prizes unstinting fealty above reason. He can respond in only one way. Refusing to acknowledge the repudiation of the 4 November elections, he explodes in rage and aggravates alienation.He must call Marjorie Taylor Greene for questioning him a “traitor”. He must shout at a Bloomberg News reporter for asking a question about the Epstein files: “Quiet, quiet, piggy!” He must label an ABC News correspondent who also asks a question about his suppression of the Epstein files “insubordinate”. He must declare that Democratic members of the Congress, all military and national security veterans, invoking the law that the armed forces and intelligence officials are obligated not to follow illegal orders, are “traitors” who should be “ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL” for “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!”But in the midterm elections to come, however distant they may still seem, it is the Republicans in the Congress who will stand alone to receive the final verdict before the people for their cowardice in collaborating with Trump and as contemptible exemplars of all his collaborators.

      Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to the Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth. He is a Guardian US columnist More

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      Marjorie Taylor Greene announces resignation; Trump and Mamdani have cordial White House meeting – as it happened

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      This concludes our live coverage of the second Trump administration for the day. Here are the latest developments.

      Donald Trump hosted Zohran Mamdani, New York’s mayor-elect, for an Oval Office meeting and news conference that was surprisingly cordial.

      Republican lawmakers and pro-Trump news outlets were stunned by how thrilled Trump seemed to be by Mamdani, throwing their plans to cast the democratic socialist as the face of the Democratic party into disarray.

      Marjorie Taylor Greene announced that she was resigning from Congress in January rather than fight a primary against a Trump-backed candidate.

      Perhaps no one was more aggrieved by Trump’s embrace of Mamdani than Elise Stefanik, the New York congresswoman who has made vitriolic attacks on Mamdani as a “jihadist” the platform for her run for New York governor against Mamdani supporter Kathy Hochul. When Trump was directly asked if he agreed with Stefanik that Mamdani is a jihadist, he dismissed the charge.

      Trump repeatedly stepped in to defend Mamdani from hostile questioning from outlets like the New York Post and Fox News. When a Fox News correspondent pressed Mamdani about whether he considers Trump to be a “fascist”, the president offered the mayor-elect an unusual life raft. “That’s OK,” Trump said while tapping Mamdani’s arm. “You can just say it, it’s easier than explaining it.”

      When asked by a reporter whether he would live in New York under Mamdani’s leadership, Donald Trump says “absolutely”, after his meeting with the mayor-elect today.

      Samuel Alito, the conservative supreme court justice, paused a lower court order that new congressional maps in Texas, gerrymandered to favor Republicans, are illegal.
      Normal service has resumed on Donald Trump’s social media account, after he spent Friday evening posting photos of himself with Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect of New York City, the president returned to type with a screed against the governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, in which he announced his intention to terminate Temporary Protected Status for Somali refugees in that state.Although Trump cast this as a change “effective immediately”, the president has no legal power to do so.As Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a lawyer with American Immigration Council, explains, there is “no legal means by which he can do this. It’s not a presidential power. TPS by law cannot be terminated early. Somali TPS is not set to expire until March 17, 2026. DHS may make an attempt to do this but it would be immediately struck down.”Trump’s post was likely prompted by claims from rightwing activists featured on Fox News they had uncovered fraud among Somalis in Minnesota. In his post, Trump claimed, without evidence, that “Minnesota … is a hub of fraudulent money laundering activity.”Michigan state police responded on Friday to a bomb threat at the home of Elissa Slotkin, a Democratic senator Donald Trump accused of “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” on his social media platform on Thursday.Slotkin was not home, according to her Senate office.Slotkin, a former CIA analyst who served in Iraq, joined five Democratic lawmakers who served in the military and intelligence community to remind those in active service that they can “refuse illegal orders”. The six lawmakers recorded a social media video that was released on Tuesday, and quickly became the focus of outrage on rightwing news channels.At a White House briefing, Karoline Leavitt, the press secretary, falsely said that the Democrats had encouraged active-duty military and intelligence officer to disobey lawful orders.On Friday, a dozen House Republicans who served in the military recorded a video of their own reminding soldiers that they have a duty to obey lawful orders.Justice Samuel Alito of the US supreme court temporarily blocked a lower court ruling that found Texas’ 2026 congressional redistricting plan likely discriminates on the basis of race.Alito’s order will remain in place until Monday at 5pm while the court considers whether to allow the new map favorable to Republicans to be used in the midterm elections.The court’s conservative majority has blocked similar lower court rulings because they have come too close to elections.Alito handles emergency appeals from Texas.Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Maga Republican congresswoman who was denounced by Donald Trump over her support for the release of the Epstein files, announced on Friday that she is resigning from office, effective in January.Greene explained her decision in a scathing 10-minute social media video in which she defended her record of support for Trump and far-right priorities, like the crackdown on immigration, the defeat of green energy policies and anti-trans initiatives, but said she did not want her district “to have to endure a hurtful and hateful primary” against her by a Trump-backed candidate.She went on to argue that she had broken with Trump over just a few issues, including the issuing of H-1B visas to skilled foreign workers, a ban on AI regulation, “50 year mortgages scams”, involvement in foreign wars and the release of files related to the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender Trump socialized with for more than 15 years.“Standing up for American women who were raped at 14, trafficked and used by rich powerful men, should not result in me being called a traitor and threatened by the President of the United States, whom I fought for,” Greene said.“Loyalty should be a two way street,” she said. “American First should mean America First and only Americans First, with no other foreign countries ever being attached to America First in our halls of government.” Greene has been an outspoken opponent of Israeli’s war on Gaza, with US support, calling it “a genocide”.“If I am cast aside by MAGA Inc and replaced by Neocons, Big Pharma, Big Tech, Military Industrial War Complex, foreign leaders, and the elite donor class that can’t even relate to real Americans, then many common Americans have been cast aside and replaced as well,” Greene said.She then hinted at a future role in politics, amid widespread speculation that she could be positioning herself to run for the 2028 Republican nomination.“When the common American people finally realize and understand that the Political Industrial Complex of both parties is ripping this country apart” Greene said, and understand that “common Americans, The People, possess the real power over Washington, then I’ll be here by their side to rebuild it.”“Until then, I’m going back to the people I love, to live life to the fullest as I always have, and look forward to a new path ahead. I will be resigning from office with my last day being January 5, 2026,” she concluded.The Georgia congresswoman has recently claimed that she was simply misled by the internet when she embraced the QAnon conspiracy theory and wrote on Facebook in 2018 that wildfires in California had been started by lasers from “space solar generators” controlled by “Rothschild Inc, international investment banking firm”.The armies of lefty America and of Maga were assembled ready to watch their champions do battle. After all, Donald Trump had called Zohran Mamdani a “100% Communist Lunatic” and “total nut job”. The incoming democratic socialist New York mayor in turn had called the Republican US president a “despot” and “fascist”.But anyone expecting to see fists fly and shirts torn in the Oval Office was in for a disappointment. Trump, 79, and 34-year-old Mamdani actually got on rather well. In fact beautifully, bewilderingly, bizarrely well. Instead of Batman v Superman, this was Toy Story besties Woody and Buzz Lightyear.Perhaps the old left v right binaries really are dead. This was a case of game recognising game – of Queens recognising Queens. Trump is now on much better terms with Zohran Mamdani than Marjorie Taylor Greene, his fellow Republican. Mamdani got a warmer reception from Trump than from the leaders of his own party – a world turned upside down.The buddy movie began with Trump sitting behind the Resolute Desk and Mamdani standing to his side, a statuette of George Washington behind him. “We have one thing in common – we want this city of ours that we love to do very well,” the president said, referring to New York.He added: “I think you’re going to have hopefully a really great mayor. The better he does – the happier I am. I will say there’s no difference in party, there’s no difference in anything, and we’re going to be helping him to make everybody’s dream come true, having a strong and very safe New York.”That great thud was the sound of White House reporters’ jaws hitting the floor of the Oval Office. That shredding noise was the sound of Republican strategists destroying their playbook to demonise Mamdani as the Marxist face of the Democrats.Three weeks ago, Donald Trump posted on his social network 20 photographs of his marble makeover of the bathroom in the Lincoln Bedroom. A few days later, his party was heavily defeated in elections as voters complained that he was more focused on redecorating the White House than bringing down the cost of living.Today, after claiming that he is focused on affordability at a friendly meeting with the mayor-elect of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, the president shared photographs of himself, grinning and giving a thumb-up sign, with Mamdani in the White House.Trump’s caption for the first of the photos was a sharp departure from his previous rhetoric about Mamdani being a “communist lunatic”. It was, Trump wrote on his social media platform, “a Great Honor meeting Zohran Mamdani, the new Mayor of New York City!”The highly anticipated Oval Office meeting between Donald Trump and Zohran Mamdani – the mayor-elect of New York City, the US president’s beloved home town – was hardly the combustible tête-à-tête many had predicted. For the moment at least, the two New Yorkers appeared relaxed, smiling and cautiously optimistic about the work they might accomplish together.Neither revived their hot campaign trail rhetoric, in which they cast each other as diametrically opposed political adversaries. Trump had labeled Mamdani a “100% communist lunatic” and urged voters to back his opponent, the former New York governor Andrew Cuomo. In turn, Mamdani assailed Trump as a “despot” and pledged to be the president’s “worst nightmare”.Republicans and pro-Trump media outlets were gravely disappointed by the lack of fireworks at Friday’s Oval Office meeting between New York’s mayor-elect, Zohran Mamdani, and Queens native Donald Trump, who had attacked the democratic socialist as “a 100% Communist lunatic”, before showering him with praise at the meeting Mamdani requested.In the hours before the meeting, the encounter was described by Fox News as Trump’s “showdown with socialism” and equated to a prize fight and billed as “the Battle of the Ages: capitalism versus communism” on pillow salesman Mike Lindell’s TV outlet.As Mamdani made his way to Washington on Friday morning, Rick Scott, a Republican senator from Florida, shared the selfie he posted from his flight with the ominous caption: “Here’s the new face of the Democrat party — a literal communist — on his way to the White House to be schooled by President Trump.”In the end, the meeting went so well for Mamdani that the Democratic Socialists of America mocked the Fox “showdown” graphic in a post that said simply: “Socialism won! Join DSA”.In the immediate aftermath of the meeting, a Fox Business anchor David Asman was stunned, saying: “Just one word – wow.”“Commie Mamdani as the president has [been] referring to his guest in the Oval Office there for the past several months, uh, looked like best friends with president Trump now,” he added.On Friday morning a host on the slavishly pro-Trump outlet Newsmax, Todd Starnes, posted a fantasy of how rough the meeting would be for Mamdani. “SCENARIO: Mamdani enters the Oval Office today only to be greeted by Tom Homan who then personally escorts the Communist back to Uganda.”By Friday afternoon, Starnes was puzzled by the very different reality: “I thought Mamdani was supposed to be a fascist dictator?” he asked. “What the heck is going on at the White House?”As Aaron Fritschner, an aide for Democratic congressman, Don Beyer of Virginia, pointed out: “Republicans spent the whole day in the House making everyone re-vote on the ‘horrors of socialism’ resolution specifically over Mamdani, it’s literally the only thing we did today, and hours later Trump says ‘He has the same ideas I have.’ It’s just beautiful.”The fact that Mamdani seemed to charm Trump into submission baffled even some of his supporters. Rashida Tlaib, the Michigan congresswoman who is a fellow democratic socialist and DSA member, shared video of Trump telling Mamdani it is fine to call him a fascist with the words: “What the heck just happened?”Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect of New York City, just posted video of Donald Trump nodding in agreement with him as he told reporters in the Oval Office on Friday that, during his campaign, “what we found, time and again, is that working people were left behind in the politics of our city, and what we’re looking to do is put those people right back at the heart of our politics, so that we don’t have a situation where we’re in the wealthiest city in the history of the world, and yet one in five can’t even afford $2.90 for a Metro card”.Mamdani was responding to a question from a correspondent for the far-right outlet Newsmax who had asked him if he accepted that, because “Democrats have run New York City for a long time … do you see Democrat policy specifically as being a problem?”Mamdani, who ran partly as a critic of the Democratic establishment, began his reply by saying: “Look, I think that there are many things in our city where we have to own the responsibility of it, things that existed long before the president was the president, and those are also part of the message of our campaign, was to take on a broken politics of the past. And I ran against a number of candidates who represented different versions of that past.”At one point during the exchange with reporters in the Oval Office, Zohran Mamdani took a moment to mention that he appreciated seeing a painting of another New York president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, among the portraits in Donald Trump’s White House.“One thing I also appreciated is in our meeting to appreciate a portrait of FDR, and the incredible work that was done with the New Deal, and also in thinking about what it can look like when the federal government and New York City government work together to deliver affordability, it can be transformative,” Mamdani said.Trump then took credit for selecting the “great portrait of FDR” hanging in the cabinet room he re-decorated. “When the mayor saw that portrait, he said, ‘Sir, do you mind if I have a picture taken by that? It’s an amazing portrait.’”Donald Trump and Zohran Mamdani, the New York City mayor-elect, walked out of their meeting on Friday afternoon with an unlikely alliance, agreeing to work together on housing, food prices and cost-of-living concerns that have defined both their political appeals to working-class voters.“We agreed a lot more than I would have thought,” Trump said in the Oval Office, sometimes jumping in to shield Mamdani from aggressive questioning from the press.The sit-down – which many had anticipated would be contentious, given months of intense rhetoric in which Trump branded Mamdani a “communist lunatic” – instead produced camaraderie, warm words and concrete pledges of cooperation between the Republican president and the self-described democratic socialist who secured a commanding electoral victory earlier at the beginning of November with over 50% of the vote.“I feel very confident that he can do a very good job,” Trump said after the meeting, offering praise for his ideological opposite. “The better he does, the happier I am. I will say there’s no difference in party. There’s no difference in anything, and we’re going to be helping him to make everybody’s dream come true, having a strong and very safe New York.”During their Oval Office exchange with reporters, which was staged in a familiar fashion for this White House, with Donald Trump seated behind his desk and his guest forced to stand, Zohran Mamdani referred to conversations he had, last November, with Queens residents who voted for Trump in the 2024 election.Mamdani even said that he spoke with a pharmacist who told him that Trump’s father, Fred, had been a customer.Some of those conversations, days after the election, were recorded and featured in a social media video posted on Mamdani’s YouTube channel before he launched his mayoral campaign. In the video, voters told Mamdani that Trump’s promise to lower the cost of living was a major factor in their decision. He told them that he planned to run for mayor on a platform of freezing rents, making buses free and making universal child care a reality.Here is that November 2024 video:Several observers of the meeting between Trump and Mamdani pointed out on social media that, by embracing the popular young mayor-elect instead of confronting him, Donald Trump seemed to upend well-laid Republican plans to make the democratic socialist the face of the Democratic party, as strategy to cast Democrats as extremists.John DeLillo, a writer, posted a satirical version of the disconnect on social media with this imaginary dialogue between the House speaker, Mike Johnson, and the president:
      mike johnson: we are going to make zohran mamdani the face of the democratic party
      donald trump: and what a beautiful face it is! look at that smile! we love zohran mamdani, don’t we folks
      A close ally of New York’s mayor-elect, the city comptroller Brad Lander, responded to Donald Trump telling Zohran Mamdani it is fine to call him a fascist by posting on social media: “Pretty sure Zohran just charmed Donald Trump into agreeing that he’s a fascist.”The surprisingly cordial Oval Office meeting between Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist mayor-elect of New York City, and Donald Trump, the Queens native who tried and failed to keep him from being elected, just concluded.Despite the best efforts of a slate of correspondents from pro-Trump outlets selected by the White House to ask the pair questions, Trump and Mamdani refused repeated attempts to goad the two men into conflict.Here are some of the key moments:

      Mamdani said that his meeting with the president was “productive” and “focused on the place of shared admiration and love – which is New York City and the need to deliver affordability to New Yorkers”.

      Trump repeatedly stepped in to defend Mamdani from hostile questioning from outlets like the New York Post and Fox News, When Fox News correspondent Jacqui Heinrich pressed Mamdani about whether he considers Trump to be a “fascist”, the president offered the mayor-elect an unusual life raft. “That’s OK,” Trump said while tapping Mamdani’s arm. “You can just say it, it’s easier than explaining it.”

      When the same Fox correspondent tried to frame Mamdani as a hypocrite for flying to the meeting from New York instead of taking a train, which is better for the environment, Trump said “I’ll stick up for you” and pointed out that it is much faster to fly and the mayor-elect is busy.

      When asked by a reporter whether he would live in New York under Mamdani’s leadership, Trump said “absolutely”. “We agree on a lot more than I would have thought,” Trump said. “I want him to do a great job, and we’ll help them do a great job.”

      For his part, Mamdani was relentlessly focused on the issue of making New York a more fair and affordable place to live, refusing to be knocked off course even by questions from the Pizzagate conspiracist Jack Posobiec who falsely accused Mamdani of planning to tax white New Yorkers more than New Yorkers of color.

      Trump wished Mamdani success in running the city he called home: “I think he wants to make it greater than ever before, and if he can, we’ll be out there cheering.”

      Trump stressed that he admired Mamdani’s political campaign and distanced himself from how own previously vitriolic denunciations of the democratic socialist as a communist. “I think he’s different, and that can be in a very positive way”, Trump said. “He has a chance to do something really great for New York … we’re going to be helping him”.

      Asked by a reporter if he agrees with his Republican ally Elise Stefanik’s characterization of Mamdani as a “jihadist”, Trump dismisses that as campaign rhetoric and says: “I met with a man who’s a very rational person”.

      Trump tried hard to attach himself to Mamdani’s focus on affordability. “I congratulated him, and we talked about some things in very strong common like housing and getting housing built, and food and prices,” Trump said. While the president has insisted for months that prices have gone down during his administration, a false claim that is contradicted by government data, his sagging poll numbers make it plain that the public is not buying this big lie. Having previously said that he didn’t want to hear the word “affordability” again, casting is as “a Democratic hoax”, Trump spent much of the appearance with Mamdani stressing that this is one of their shared concerns.
      Asked by a reporter if he agrees with his Republican ally Elise Stefanik’s characterization of Mamdani as a “jihadist”, Trump dismisses that as campaign rhetoric and says: “No, I don’t… I met with a man who’s a very rational person”.Throughout this spray with the media, after his meeting with Zohran Mamdani, Trump has been exceptionally cordial.He’s extolled how the mayor-elect “came out of nowhere” and praised his campaign and staff. Trump also defended Mamdani from adversarial lines of questioning, including being pressed by Fox News about why the mayor-elect flew to DC, and whether he believes the president to be a “fascist”. Trump even wished Mamdani success in running the city he called home: “I think he wants to make it greater than ever before, and if he can, we’ll be out there cheering.” More

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      in US Politics

      Trump news at a glance: president meets Mamdani at White House and it was … nice?

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      It’s not as if they were holding hands and skipping down the halls of the White House, but President Trump and New York mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani appeared to get along well in their first meeting.Trump hosted the 34-year-old Democratic socialist, who defied early expectations to win the city’s Democratic primary, then the mayoral race. And Trump let it be known he was impressed by that, congratulating Mamdani and describing his victory as “an incredible race against smart people”.“I feel very confident that he can do a very good job,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office as Mamdani stood to his right, offering praise for his ideological opposite. “The better he does, the happier I am. I will say there’s no difference in party. There’s no difference in anything, and we’re going to be helping him to make everybody’s dream come true, having a strong and very safe New York.”It was a stark change of tune from Trump’s comments during the mayoral election, when he dismissed the candidate from his own party, Curtis Sliwa, as a lightweight and instead endorsing Andrew Cuomo, the independent and former Democratic governor, while branding Mamdani a “little communist”.It remains to be seen if the good vibes will last between the two political opposites. Mamdani is set to be sworn into office in January.Trump and Mamdani form an unlikely alliance at White House meetingDonald Trump and Zohran Mamdani, the New York City mayor-elect, walked out of their meeting on Friday afternoon with an unlikely alliance, agreeing to work together on housing, food prices and cost-of-living concerns that have defined both their political appeals to working-class voters.“We agreed a lot more than I would have thought,” Trump said in the Oval Office, sometimes jumping in to shield Mamdani from aggressive questioning from the press.The incoming mayor had framed the meeting as an opportunity to advance his central campaign platform: making New York more affordable. His promises include free public buses, government-run grocery stores, rent freezes for more than 1m stabilized units, and the city’s first universal childcare program.Read the full storyMarjorie Taylor Greene to resign from US Congress in JanuaryIn a four-page statement, the Georgia representative said the legislative branch has been “sidelined” and accused Republican leaders of refusing to advance conservative priorities such as border security or “America First” policies.The Republican congresswoman who was denounced by Donald Trump over her support for the release of the Epstein files, explained her decision in a 10-minute social media video posted on X.Last week, Greene said that she had been contacted by private security firms “with warnings for my safety” after Trump announced he was withdrawing his support for and endorsement of the Georgia representative.Read the full storyZelenskyy says Ukraine has impossible choice as Trump pushes plan to end warVolodymyr Zelenskyy has said Ukraine faces one of the most difficult moments in its history, after Donald Trump demanded Kyiv accepts within days a US-backed “peace plan” that would force it to give up territory to Russia and make other painful concessions.Trump confirmed on Friday morning that Thursday – Thanksgiving in the US – would be an “acceptable” deadline for Zelenskyy to sign the deal, which European and Ukrainian officials have said amounts to a “capitulation”.Read the full storyTens of thousands detained and deported during government shutdownUS immigration officials arrested, detained and deported tens of thousands of people in operations nationwide during the federal government shutdown, new data reveals. The arrests have led to a marked increase in the number of people held in immigration jails, with more than 65,000 currently detained nationwide – the highest number of people in immigration detention ever.Read the full storyUS data agency cancels October inflation reportThe US federal government will not publish official data on inflation for October, depriving policymakers at the Federal Reserve of key information as they consider whether to cut interest rates. The Bureau of Labor Statistics canceled the release of the closely watched consumer price index (CPI) for October, citing the government shutdown – the longest in history, before it ended earlier this month – and stating it could not “retroactively collect” the data required for the report.Read the full storyRFK Jr instructed CDC to change stance on vaccine and autismRobert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary, said in an interview with the New York Times that he personally instructed the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to change its longstanding position that vaccines do not cause autism.Read the full storyDemocrats investigating Epstein decry Andrew’s ‘silence’ Two Democratic lawmakers involved in the US congressional investigation into the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein on Friday condemned Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s “silence” in response to their request that he sit for a deposition.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      A gold Rolex desk clock and a $130,000 engraved gold bar given to Donald Trump by a group of Swiss billionaires have raised questions in Europe and the US about the personalisation of US presidential power.

      Eric Swalwell, a seven-term Democratic US representative known for his pugnacious and persistent opposition to Trump, announced he will run for governor of California.

      The justice department sued California this week for allowing undocumented college students to pay in-state tuition for public universities, alleging the policy harms US citizens.

      Donald Trump has assembled the least diverse US government of the 21st century, filling the corridors of power with white men at the expense of women and people of colour, research shows.

      The US justice department is recruiting legal experts to serve as so-called “deportation” judges as part of the Trump administration’s effort to carry out its immigration crackdown.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 20 November 2025. More

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      in US Politics

      Trump and Mamdani form an unlikely alliance at White House meeting

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      Donald Trump and Zohran Mamdani, the New York City mayor-elect, walked out of their meeting on Friday afternoon with an unlikely alliance, agreeing to work together on housing, food prices and cost-of-living concerns that have defined both their political appeals to working-class voters.“We agreed a lot more than I would have thought,” Trump said in the Oval Office, sometimes jumping in to shield Mamdani from aggressive questioning from the press.The sit-down – which many had anticipated would be contentious, given months of intense rhetoric in which Trump branded Mamdani a “communist lunatic” – instead produced camaraderie, warm words and concrete pledges of cooperation between the Republican president and the self-described democratic socialist who secured a commanding electoral victory earlier at the beginning of November with over 50% of the vote.“I feel very confident that he can do a very good job,” Trump said after the meeting, offering praise for his ideological opposite. “The better he does, the happier I am. I will say there’s no difference in party. There’s no difference in anything, and we’re going to be helping him to make everybody’s dream come true, having a strong and very safe New York.”The president congratulated Mamdani on his mayoral victory, describing it as “an incredible race against smart people” – and the two politicians shook hands.Trump added that he had already seen signs the young politician might surprise both conservative and liberal observers alike.For Mamdani, the meeting represented vindication of his strategy to focus the discussion on economic issues rather than ideological divides. He described the meeting as “productive” and “focused on a place of shared admiration and love, which is New York City”.“We spoke about rent, we spoke about groceries, we spoke about utilities, we spoke about the different ways in which people are being pushed out,” Mamdani told reporters after emerging from the Oval Office.Trump added: “We had some interesting conversation, and some of his ideas really are the same ideas that I have.” He pointed to their agreement on lowering crime and building housing.The meeting marked the first face-to-face discussion between the combative Republican president and the defiant democratic socialist.For Mamdani, a leftwing state assemblymember until his shock primary victory, the sit-down presented an early test of his ability to negotiate with a president who controls vast federal resources that the city depends upon. Mamdani’s team made the first move in reaching out for a meeting, all while Trump earlier threatened to withhold federal funding from New York if Mamdani took office, though he has since suggested a more conciliatory posture, telling Fox News: “I’m so torn, because I would like to see the new mayor do well, because I love New York.”The administration has deployed multiple pressure tactics ahead of the meeting. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have signaled plans to escalate operations in New York City, while a number of rightwing congressional Republicans suggested investigating whether Mamdani’s citizenship is valid, despite his naturalization in 2018 after immigrating from Uganda as a child.Mamdani’s team spent Thursday preparing for the encounter through calls with Kathy Hochul, New York’s governor, Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, and the civil rights leader Al Sharpton to strategize the approach. He also spoke with Robert Wolf, the former chief executive of UBS Americas and a known ally of Barack Obama.When asked on Thursday whether he feared receiving hostile treatment similar to the contentious Oval Office meeting between Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president, earlier this year – where Trump accused Zelenskyy of “gambling with world war III” – Mamdani brushed aside concerns. “I’ll stand up for New Yorkers every single day,” he replied.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe incoming mayor had framed the meeting as an opportunity to advance his central campaign platform: making New York more affordable. His promises include free public buses, government-run grocery stores, rent freezes for more than 1m stabilized units, and the city’s first universal childcare program.“I view this meeting as an opportunity for me to make my case,” Mamdani said on Thursday. “It behooves me to ensure that I leave no stone unturned in looking to make this city more affordable.”Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, similarly said Trump’s willingness to meet was evidence of his openness to dialogue across political divides.“President Trump is willing to meet with anyone and talk to anyone and to try to do what’s right on behalf of the American people, whether they live in blue states or red states, or blue cities,” Leavitt said.But the underlying tensions were not subtle. Trump got directly involved in the mayoral election, dismissing the candidate from his own party, Curtis Sliwa, as a lightweight and instead endorsing Andrew Cuomo, the Independent, formerly Democratic governor, while branding Mamdani a “little communist”. The Trump administration also yanked federal aid for critical infrastructure projects – including the Gateway Tunnel between New York and New Jersey and the Second Avenue subway line – during budget negotiations.Among New York voters, Trump garnered only 27% approval compared with 70% disapproval in CNN’s exit polling from the mayoral election. However, 10% of Trump’s 2024 voters also cast ballots for Mamdani, suggesting there is indeed overlap in their populist economic messaging, despite their vast ideological differences. More

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      Trump’s DoJ sues California over college tuition benefits for undocumented students

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      The justice department sued California on Thursday for allowing undocumented college students to pay in-state tuition for public universities, alleging the policy harms US citizens.The lawsuit, filed in the US district court for the eastern district of California, marks the third time this week that the Trump administration has sued California. In addition to challenging the state’s in-state tuition policy, the lawsuit argues that California unlawfully extends eligibility for scholarships and subsidized loans to undocumented students.Among the defendants are the state, top California officials, and the state’s two public university systems: the University of California and California State University.“Federal law prohibits aliens illegally present in the United States from receiving in-state tuition benefits that are denied to out-of-state US citizens,” reads the complaint. “There are no exceptions.”California law does allow some students to qualify for in-state tuition rates, which are lower than out-of-state tuition, even if they technically qualify as non-residents. This includes students who have had “three full-time years or the equivalent at any combination” of California high school, California adult high school, or California community college.The California Dream Act, two bills passed in 2011, permits undocumented students to apply for, and obtain, state-based financial assistance, according to San Francisco State University. Undocumented students cannot receive federal financial aid for college.The justice department’s civil complaint alleges that California policy on undocumented student tuition is “unconstitutional” and wants a judge to “declare it illegal and permanently enjoin its enforcement”.“California is illegally discriminating against American students and families by offering exclusive tuition benefits for non-citizens,” said Pamela Bondi, the US attorney general. “This marks our third lawsuit against California in one week – we will continue bringing litigation against California until the state ceases its flagrant disregard for federal law.”The Trump administration has filed similar lawsuits against policies in other states, including Illinois, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Kentucky and Texas. Half the country now has similar laws to California’s.In June, after the administration sued, Texas ended its decades-old law. And Florida last year scrapped its law that allowed in-state tuition for high school graduates who weren’t in the country legally.Supporters of the state tuition breaks argue that they don’t violate federal law if they provide the same rates to US citizens in the same circumstances – meaning they are residents of the state and graduates of one of its high schools. The California Dream Act also allows such students to apply for state-funded financial aid.Many of the students were brought to the US by their parents when they were children, and supporters of the laws say they are as much a part of their communities as US citizens.The complaint cites an executive order signed in February that directs federal departments and agencies to block undocumented people from receiving public benefits. Another executive order signed in April directs officials to stop enforcing laws and practices that favor undocumented people over US citizens. The lawsuit argues that the Republican president’s orders enforce federal immigration laws.The University of California defended its decades-old in-state tuition policy.“While we will, of course, comply with the law as determined by the courts, we believe our policies and practices are consistent with current legal standards,” it said in a statement.The lawsuit comes weeks after the California supreme xourt let stand a lower-court ruling that the University of California’s policy barring students without legal status in the US from campus jobs is discriminatory and must be reconsidered.University system officials had warned that the decision would put them in a precarious position as they negotiate with the Trump administration after the withdrawal of federal research funds.The UC is dealing with federal grant suspensions and a White House demand that it pay a $1bn fine over allegations, including antisemitism and the illegal consideration of race in admitting students to its Los Angeles campus.The California State University system is the nation’s largest and among its most diverse, with more than 460,000 students. More than a quarter of undergraduates are first-generation college students, according to the university system.The University of California serves about 300,000 students. More

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      in Elections

      Trump’s DoJ investigating unfounded claims Venezuela helped steal 2020 election

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      Federal investigators have been interviewing multiple people who are pushing unfounded claims that Venezuela helped steal the 2020 election from Donald Trump, the Guardian has learned.Two promoters of the conspiracy theory have repeatedly briefed the US attorney for the district of Puerto Rico, W Stephen Muldrow, and have shared witnesses and documents with officials, according to four sources. Muldrow declined to comment.In addition to the Puerto Rico talks, people pushing the conspiracy have been interviewed by federal investigators for a federal taskforce in Tampa which is looking at Venezuelan drug trafficking and money laundering, four sources told the Guardian. The US attorney’s office in Tampa declined to comment.An investigation of this sort underscores how Trump’s justice department is becoming a major weapon in the president’s efforts to rewrite the history of his 2020 loss – while potentially strengthening the administration’s case for military action against Venezuela.While there were a variety of conspiracy theories that helped fuel Donald Trump’s 2020 “Stop the Steal” movement – dead voters, stolen, fraudulent or forged ballots, and secret computer servers in Germany – the purported influence of Venezuela was always a central claim. It asserted that electronic voting in the US was secretly controlled by the impoverished regime, both by President Nicolás Maduro and his deceased predecessor Hugo Chávez.Not only was it bizarre on its face, but a judge in Delaware ruled it false in 2023, and Fox News, Newsmax and OAN later paid a total of hundreds of millions in total damages in defamation claims. At heart, the theory was that Smartmatic, which had the contract for electronic voting machines in Los Angeles, and Dominion, which ran voting in many other parts of the country, had been created or influenced by Venezuela to fix elections.The revival of the claim appears to bind together two themes: Trump’s consistent “rigged election” complaints, and his antagonism to Venezuela’s socialist regime.With a military buildup in the Caribbean and increased sabre-rattling from the Trump administration towards Maduro, the unfounded election-rigging theories could provide another rationale for military action against Maduro.‘Very receptive’How could a discredited conspiracy theory, be investigated as a plausible case by the US justice department five years after it first bubbled up?The story starts with two unique characters who claim to have been pursuing the election claims for years: Gary Berntsen and Martin Rodil. They have become sources for the Trump camp and ultimately for investigators and have promoted two major allegations about Venezuela, as the reporters Seth Hettena and Jonathan Larsen have written on Substack.The first theme links Tren de Aragua, the street gang Trump has designated as a terrorist organization, closer to Maduro. The other major theme Berntsen and Rodil promoted was the old voting conspiracy and the allegations that Venezuela helped rig elections worldwide.Berntsen is a former CIA case officer who came to the public eye even before writing a book in 2006 about his hunt for Osama bin Laden. “A formidable guy, a warrior, no question,” said one former official who knew him.Berntsen projects the plainspoken demeanor of an expert with field experience battling an intransigent bureaucracy. He is also a fierce champion of Trump and of an invasion of Venezuela.“I don’t dabble in conspiracy theories,” Berntsen wrote in a message to the Guardian. “I spent my life defending our country and constitution. I led many major operations and investigations and saved many lives.”He added: “The Department of Justice and FBI and key White House Staff are investigating and coordinating efforts to defend our system and charge those guilty of Stealing Elections and violating other laws accountable for their actions.”Rodil is a Venezuelan expatriate based in Washington, and says he has been a consultant to US law enforcement investigating Venezuelan crime for 20 years. A close associate of his said he specializes in recruiting Venezuelan informants and witnesses for US cases.The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists reported in 2022 that Rodil was under investigation in Spain for extorting three Venezuelans there, trying to get money in exchange for influencing US authorities on cases. It is unclear what happened to that case.Rodil told the Guardian it was false, and said those who accused him were charged in the US.Even before Trump’s return to office earlier this year, the sources say Berntsen and Rodil have been feeding information, documents and witnesses about the voting claims to Muldrow, the US attorney out of Puerto Rico and to an organized crime taskforce called Panama Express, or Panex, which is based out of Tampa.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSources familiar with the relationship between Muldrow, Berntsen and Rodil say there has been extensive cooperation on the matter. “They work together. Muldrow has been very receptive,” one of the sources said of the voting allegations. That source said there had been multiple briefings in Puerto Rico.Muldrow is one of the few US attorneys to have kept a job after Trump took over the White House. First appointed by Trump in 2019, he stayed in office during Biden’s term. He is a staunch Republican and Trump supporter, say two people who know him. Muldrow spent a good portion of his career in Tampa, and one source who knows him says he has a good working relationship with Pam Bondi, the current Trump US attorney general. She was the Florida state AG while Muldrow was based in the Tampa US attorney’s office.Several sources said Muldrow had turned over information to the Panex taskforce which used to focus primarily on the drug flow from Colombia but was now targeting Venezuela as well.This is now the taskforce working directly with Rodil and Berntsen, they say.In response to detailed questions, Muldrow emailed the Guardian: “In accordance with Department of Justice policies, I am not able to provide you with a comment.”Rodil told the Guardian that allegations involving so-called election integrity issues were incidental to conversations with Muldrow, rather than the central point of the briefings. He protested that while one witness talked about Smartmatic and election integrity, that was not the substance of Muldrow’s interest, and he said Muldrow only heard a portion of the evidence involving faked election results.Berntsen wrote in a message to the Guardian that “indictments are going to be released in the near future,” and said he and his colleagues believe that “your goal is to discredit the claims against Smartmatic and Dominion, the entities linked to a massive criminal cartel that stole US elections and elections worldwide.”‘Trump knows they need to be stopped’Ralph Pezzullo, the co-author of Berntsen’s 2006 book, is a true believer in the conspiracy theories Berntsen and Rodil are promoting now.In September, Pezzullo published an e-book called Stolen Elections: the Takedown of Democracies Worldwide, which described the Venezuela conspiracy theories, and is based on the accounts of Berntsen and Modil and witnesses they introduced to Pezzulo.Pezzullo wrote that the US voting was a “system created in Venezuela – and still electronically linked to Venezuela – that is designed to steal elections by remotely altering results”.Pezzullo said he too had spoken to Muldrow about the allegations. Pezzullo told the Guardian that his phone call with Muldrow was set up by Berntsen and claimed Muldrow assured him that the claims of election fraud were correct.“They’ve been attacking the US with the election machines and with the drugs,” Pezullo said, of Venezuela. “Trump knows they need to be stopped.” More

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      in US Politics

      World awaits fresh Epstein cache – but could Trump officials block full release?

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      They are the files that America – and the world – has long waited to see: a huge cache of documents at the Department of Justice related to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, whom a judge once dubbed the “most infamous pedophile in American history”.After a law passed by Congress and signed by Trump on Wednesday, those documents must now must be released to the American public and a waiting army of journalists. Just like previous Epstein caches they are certain to include damning communications between Epstein and many rich and powerful people in his social circle.Experts interviewed by the Guardian said that the documents are certain to contain fresh revelations about Epstein and his activities and could easily embarrass or damn prominent figures in the worlds of politics, academia, finance and entertainment, including Donald Trump and many others.But at the same time, despite the legal mandate, experts warn that justice department officials could use loopholes to try to stymie a full release, using redactions or withholding crucial documents for a variety of reasons. They warned that even this release of documents could still leave many Epstein questions unanswered and would not provide a full accounting of his crimes or who he socialized and worked with.Under the law signed on Wednesday, Trump’s justice department had 30 days to disclose all files related to Epstein, among them investigative documents into the disgraced financier’s death in jail pending his sex-trafficking trial. The much-awaited disclosure would come in the wake of congressional release of tens of thousands of pages provided by Epstein’s estate.The law allows for redaction of information that could identify victims but bars authorities from redacting information – including names – solely out of concerns that it could embarrass them or harm their reputations, or listen to concerns about political sensitivity. Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, said her department would “follow the law and encourage maximum transparency”.But members of Congress who heralded the law’s passage, plus Epstein victims and transparency advocates, have expressed concerns that these files will not be delivered entirely as required.A provision allowing the justice department to withhold files that could jeopardize current investigations has raised eyebrows as Bondi – at Trump’s direction – has appointed a prosecutor in New York to investigate Bill Clinton, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, and other political opponents’ with past associations with Epstein. Neither Clinton nor Hoffman have been accused of misconduct and both have publicly expressed regret for their association with Epstein.Litigation by the news website Radar Online might be the most telling with regard to the investigation exception. In April 2017, Radar Online made a public records request for Epstein investigative files – about a decade after he pleaded guilty to state-level prostitution counts.The FBI did not respond, and Radar sued in May 2017. While the agency said it would process files at a rate of 500 pages monthly, authorities have withheld about 10,000 of more than 11,000 pertinent pages – invoking the law-enforcement proceeding exemption.“The bill allows material to be withheld if it’s connected to a law enforcement investigation, which is the same issue Radar is challenging in court,” a spokesperson for Radar Online told the Guardian. “Given the newly announced investigation the whole thing could be a dud. Our lawsuit is still the best chance of transparency.”Roy Gutterman, director of the Newhouse School’s Tully Center for Free Speech at Syracuse University in New York, said it was difficult to predict what might be in these files.“No matter what is released, even the thousands upon thousands of pages of records, data and information, there will always be questions of what else is out there or what may have been sanitized for political purposes,” Gutterman said. “Lots of people are talking about transparency, but unless someone finds the smoking gun they are looking for, human nature and pure skepticism will continue to raise questions about ‘what else has not been released’.”And releasing the files is not a silver bullet for finding truth.“There are ways you can release a lot of material and still not be transparent,” Gutterman said.Spencer Kuvin, chief legal officer of GoldLaw and a lawyer for several Epstein victims, said the justice department’s documents had more potential to reveal truth than Congress’s cache. He explained: “These documents will likely be photographs, surveillance videos, investigative memoranda and any other documents and interviews conducted in the underlying litigation.”He expressed frustration and pointed to the investigation provision.“The fact that the president made Congress go through this lengthy process is offensive, because he had the power to release these materials with the stroke of a pen,” Kuvin said. “Hopefully he does not further complicate matters by having his DoJ prevent access to all the records because of his threats of continuing investigations.”Victims of Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite who was convicted of sex trafficking for luring teenage girls into his orbit, worry as well.“That is a real fear that the victims have. These victims have repeatedly been frustrated by the failures of the state and federal government in this case over the last 20 years and it is all because the people involved were either rich or politically connected,” Kuvin said. “Unfortunately, rich and powerful people protect their own even if it means they may be guilty of sex trafficking and pedophilia.”Jennifer Plotkin of Merson Law, which has represented 33 Epstein victims, also expressed wariness.“While the release of documents may potentially increase transparency, it does little to address the government’s accountability to the many victims that have come forward in the lawsuit against the FBI. The government continues to fight against the sexual abuse survivors of Jeffrey Epstein,” Plotkin said. “The FBI failed to prosecute Epstein for decades and the victims still don’t understand why.”Those who have expressed skepticism that Bondi will follow through have pointed to Trump and his administration’s waffling on Epstein matters, despite his campaign trail promise to release the files.The justice department said in July that their investigation of Epstein files “did not expose any additional third-parties to allegations of illegal wrongdoing” and that “this systematic review revealed no incriminating ‘client list’”.“We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties,” their statement also said.The departmental memo conflicted with Epstein accusers’ accounts that others took part in his abuse. Trump’s supporters, many of whom are convinced that Epstein plotted with high-profile individuals to traffic minors, were outraged, as the president vowed to disclose documents.Furor over the Epstein document stalemate proved an extensive political liability for Trump, as news reports and released documents showed that the president had a relationship with Epstein. Trump has denied wrongdoing and said their relationship soured.“It’s not news that Epstein was a member of the Mar-a-Lago club, because it’s the same club Donald Trump kicked Epstein out of for being a creep,” the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said at one point. “These stories are tired and pathetic attempts to distract from all the success of President Trump’s administration.”In reversing course to support the bill, Trump said “we have nothing to hide” and that “it’s time to move on from this Democrat Hoax perpetrated by Radical Left Lunatics in order to deflect from the Great Success of the Republican Party, including our recent Victory on the Democrat ‘Shutdown’”.Asked for comment about transparency concerns related to the ongoing investigation exception, a White House spokesperson, Abigail Jackson, said: “Democrats and the media knew about Epstein’s victims for years, did nothing to help them, and Democrats even solicited donations from him AFTER he was a convicted sex offender. President Trump was calling for transparency and accountability, and is now delivering on it with thousands of pages of documents.”Democrats have pointed out that Bondi and Trump are close in expressing concern about the documents release.“This is Pam Bondi. She works for Trump. This is all a set-up. Trump fought to the end to resist release. He lost. Do I believe he’s had a real conversion? No,” Senator Peter Welch, a Vermont Democrat on the Senate judiciary committee, said, per the Hill.“He anticipated the outcome and then ordered Bondi to begin other investigations, so we’ll be seeing the justice department withholding information because it might interfere with ongoing investigations.“The concealment will continue.” More