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      Trump picks venture capitalist David Sacks as AI and crypto ‘czar’

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      Donald Trump announced on Thursday that he was nominating podcaster and former PayPal chief operating officer David Sacks to be his White House artificial intelligence and crypto czar, continuing a pattern of rewarding big donors with political power.Sacks, a venture capitalist and Silicon Valley insider, hosted big spenders at his San Francisco mansion in June to support the Trump campaign, with tickets ranging up to $300,000 a head. The event reportedly raked in more than $12m.A host of the popular podcast All-In, Sacks shares the mic with Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis and David Friedberg in weekly episodes that focus on “all things economic, tech, political, social and poker”.He has also been closely linked with Elon Musk and helped to back his bid to acquire Twitter, the social media platform renamed X. The two tech titans reportedly joined together to push the president-elect to name JD Vance as his running mate.Trump clearly heeded the advice. And now he has welcomed Sacks into the federal government to offer guidance and leadership to bolster the crypto industry and artificial intelligence, “two areas critical to the future of American competitiveness”, according to Trump’s post.Along with this new position as an advisor, Trump has tapped Sacks to head his council of advisors for science and technology, an independent committee of experts historically charged with helping presidents make important decisions and developing evidence-based recommendations on policy.Their work affects a range of specialized areas, from energy and the environment to public health and national security.The committee is currently co-chaired by three esteemed scientists, including Dr Arati Prabhakar, an engineer and applied physicist and former director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.Sacks will take on a specific set of priorities, according to Trump’s post, which did not delve into if science will play a part.“He will safeguard Free Speech online, and steer us away from Big Tech bias and censorship,” Trump continued. “He will work on a legal framework so the Crypto industry has the clarity it has been asking for, and can thrive in the US.”The Sacks announcement came among a slew of posts shared in the evening on Thursday as Trump named other allies of his to the incoming administration.David Perdue, a former Senator and long-time Maga loyalist who faced federal scrutiny over his stock trading while in office, was named as the ambassador to China – a key diplomatic role as Trump stokes trade tensions.Rodney S Scott, the former chief of the US Border Patrol and a border-wall advocate, was picked for US Customs and Border Protection commissioner. Caleb Vitello, who currently serves as assistant director of the Office of Firearms and Tactical Programs was selected as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice).Former Border Patrol agent Brandon Judd was named ambassador to Chile. Ice special agent Tony Salisbury was chosen for deputy homeland security adviser. More

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      Senior Biden aide commits to giving Ukraine avalanche of military assistance

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      The White House has gamed out a last-minute strategy to bolster Ukraine’s war position that involves an avalanche of military assistance and sweeping new sanctions against Russia, according to a background briefing from a National Security Council spokesperson.National security adviser Jake Sullivan met with the head of the office of the Ukrainian president Andriy Yermak for more than an hour on Thursday, committing to provide Ukraine with hundreds of thousands of additional artillery rounds, thousands of rockets and hundreds of armored vehicles by mid-January, according to the briefing shared with the Guardian.The US is also pledging to support Ukraine’s manpower challenge, offering to train new troops at sites outside Ukrainian territory. This comes alongside a nearly finalized $20bn in loans, which will be backed by profits from immobilized Russian sovereign assets.The United States is tying that to a number of new sanctions to come in the coming weeks, all with the intent of complicating Russia’s ability to sustain its war effort and boosting Ukraine’s bargaining power at the negotiation table that could lay the groundwork for a future settlement.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe White House’s latest move comes a little more than a month in advance of Donald Trump’s inauguration, when the US may unload an all-new strategy for a ceasefire altogether.According to a Reuters report, the president-elect’s team is quietly developing a peace proposal for Ukraine that would effectively sideline Nato membership and potentially cede significant territory to Russia, signaling a dramatic shift from current US policy. Trump, for his part, has often stated that he would end the Ukraine and Russia war within 24 hours.Still, Ukrainian officials, including Yermak and Ambassador Oksana Markarova, have been meeting with key figures in Trump’s transition team this week, including JD Vance, Florida representative and potential National security adviser Mike Waltz and Trump’s pick for Russia and Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg, in a bid to secure continued support.These meetings carry heightened urgency, particularly after House speaker Mike Johnson blocked a vote on $24bn in additional aid to Ukraine. The Pentagon has nonetheless committed to sending $725m in military assistance this week, the largest shipment since April. More

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      Raw milk CEO whose products have been recalled may lead US raw milk policy

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      Mark McAfee, a California raw milk producer whose products have been recalled several times recently due to bird flu contamination, said he has been approached by Robert F Kennedy Jr’s team to guide the upcoming administration on raw milk policy.McAfee, whose dairy products were recalled after state officials detected bird flu virus in milk samples, said that the transition team for Kennedy, the nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, asked him to apply for a position advising on raw milk policy and standards development. The idea, he told the Guardian, would be to create a “raw milk ordinance”, mirroring the existing federal “standard milk ordinance”.Kennedy is a notable fan of raw, or unpasteurized, milk, including McAfee’s products. If confirmed, he has said, he would work to remove restrictions on raw milk, which the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have so far advised against consuming.Kennedy’s team did not respond immediately to the Guardian’s request for comment.If McAfee, whose farm is the largest producer of raw milk in the US, were to gain a role in the upcoming administration, it would be in line with the upcoming administration’s broader edict to put industry heads in roles regulating the very products they sell.Trump has also appointed oil executive Chris Wright for secretary of energy, and Wall Street executive Howard Lutnick for commerce secretary.McAfee’s Raw Farm in Fresno supplies raw milk and milk products to grocery stories across California, and has the unique distinction of supplying the kefir used in the smoothies at Los Angeles’s celebrity-approved Erewhon market.Nicole Shanahan, Kennedy’s running mate when he ran against Trump for the Republican presidential nomination, interviewed McAfee for a documentary about raw milk released earlier this year. She told McAfee that Kennedy was a fan, and drinks his milk when he is home in Malibu. In a post on X in October, Kennedy said that with Trump in office, the FDA’s “war on public health” would end, as would its “aggressive suppression” of raw milk.Raw milk, which is not heated to kill harmful pathogens, has been linked to the outbreak of bacterial infections including a strain of E coli that can cause kidney failure. McAfee’s farm has also been involved in several lawsuits stemming from a salmonella outbreak that sickened at least 171 people in California last year.The federal government does not regulate the sale of raw milk – states do – but the FDA prohibits the interstate sale of unpasteurized milk for human consumption. In 2008, McAfee’s company pleaded guilty to putting “pet food” stickers on its raw milk in order to illegally sell it across state lines for human consumption.McAfee and other proponents of raw milk have claimed that it has more beneficial enzymes and diverse probiotics than pasteurized milk. The current FDA and researchers have countered that milk is not, in fact, a significant source of probiotics in the first place, and that the bacteria found in raw milk – which come through infected udder tissues, or the dairy environment including soil and cow manure), and milking equipment – are not the kinds that benefit our digestive systems.But the consumption of raw milk has come under particular scrutiny this year amid a bird flu, or H5N1, outbreak, which included the first documented human cases of the virus. No known cases of bird flu virus have been confirmed in people who drank raw milk, although there are three cases in North America where the source has not been identified. Contact with raw milk and the handling of raw milk, however, has been associated with infections – especially among dairy workers.Research suggests that milk carries huge amounts of viral particles. “The most infectious thing from the cows is the milk,” said Meghan Davis, a molecular epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University studying environmental health. In some cases, cows that tested negative for H5N1 in their respiratory tracts were found to be carrying the virus in their milk.Consuming raw milk amid the bird flu outbreak, Davis said, is inherently risky. While most people who have been infected with bird flu have reported mild illnesses, people with compromised or suppressed immune systems could experience more severe symptoms. And as more people are infected, the virus is more likely to mutate and develop more infectious or severe strains that could affect the broader population.“The impact of another pandemic would be awful,” said Davis. “Especially of a pandemic that really affects our food-producing animals as well as people.”Cats who have drunk infected raw milk have exhibited severe neurological symptoms and died.Still, McAfee vehemently denies that raw milk could be implicated in any such risks.“This is the newest platform for the FDA to attack us,” McAfee said. “There are no reported illnesses in the United States regarding [bird flu] and raw milk. Zero. But yet they say the sky is falling.”Like other proponents of raw milk, he has suggested that milk from infected cows boosts immunity to bird flu by passing on antibodies. Antibodies to H5N1, however, have not been found in raw milk products, and cow antibodies would not confer immunity to humans.This week, Raw Farm voluntarily recalled all milk and cream products made between 9 and 27 November after tests found bird flu virus in retail samples and dairy storage and bottling sites. The California department of food and agriculture also quarantined the farm and suspended the distribution of Raw Farm product produced on or after 27 November. More

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      Former US officials alarmed over Tulsi Gabbard’s alleged ‘sympathy for dictators’

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      Nearly 100 former US diplomats and intelligence and national security officials have called for the Senate to hold closed-door briefings on Donald Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence for her alleged “sympathy for dictators like Vladimir Putin and [Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad]” and other concerns.In an open letter, the officials blasted Tulsi Gabbard, a former presidential candidate and representative from Hawaii, for her lack of experience in the field of intelligence, embracing conspiracy theories regarding the 2022 full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, and “aligning herself with Russian and Syrian officials” after an “uncoordinated” meeting with Assad in Damascus in 2017.The letter was signed by the former deputy secretary of state Wendy Sherman, the former Nato deputy secretary general Rose Gottemoeller, the former national security adviser Anthony Lake, as well as a number of other former ambassadors, intelligence and military officers, and other high-ranking members of the national security apparatus.It was addressed to the current Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, and to the incoming majority leader John Thune, a Republican.In the letter, the officials called on the Senate to “fully exercise its constitutional advice and consent role … including through appropriate vetting, hearings, and regular order”. It called for Senate committees to consider “all information available” in closed sessions to review Gabbard’s qualifications to manage “the protection of our intelligence sources and methods”.Gabbard and her supporters have denounced similar attacks as a smear campaign, saying that her record of anti-interventionism in Syria and Ukraine has been misrepresented by her political enemies.In Washington, she has staked out a unique foreign policy position as a strong supporter of Israel and the “war on terror” – but also as a critic of US rivalries with countries like Russia and Iran (she strongly criticised Trump’s decision to assassinate the Iranian general Qassem Suleimani as an “illegal and unconstitutional act of war”).“When it comes to the war against terrorists, I’m a hawk,” she told a Hawaiian newspaper in 2016. “When it comes to counterproductive wars of regime change, I’m a dove.”But many in Washington’s tightly knit foreign policy and intelligence community see Gabbard as dangerous. The concerns listed in the open letter included Gabbard’s public doubts of Assad’s use of chemical weapons against civilians in spite of “US intelligence reports and overwhelming public reporting” corroborating the attacks.They also noted her online posts after the Russian invasion “insinuating that US-funded labs in Ukraine were developing biological weapons and that Ukraine’s engagement with Nato posed a threat to Russian sovereignty”.Her public sympathy for Putin and Assad, the letter said, “raises questions about her judgement and fitness”.“These unfounded attacks are from the same geniuses who have blood on their hands from decades of faulty ‘intelligence’,” and who use classified government information as a “partisan weapon to smear and imply things about their political enemy”, Alexa Henning, a spokesperson for Gabbard with the Trump team, told ABC News in response to the letter.Activists have told the Guardian that staffers from both parties had expressed concern during a 2018 hearing with a Syrian ex-military whistleblower that Gabbard could leak details of the person’s identity. A person with knowledge of high-level intelligence discussions said that there were concerns over Gabbard’s other contacts in the region as well. More

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      Trump rally shooting hearing descends into screaming match between Secret Service chief and Republican congressman – live

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      During the House hearing on the assassination attempt against Donald Trump, a screaming match broke out between the acting director of the US Secret Service, Ronald Rowe, and the Republican congressman Pat Fallon.Fallon displayed an enlarged photo from a commemoration of the September 11 attacks in New York, which both Joe Biden and Trump attended this fall. Fallon accused Rowe, who was standing directly behind Biden and Kamala Harris in the photo, of taking the place of the special agent in charge and endangering the president’s security for the sake of a photo op.Rowe replied that the special agent in charge was just out of the picture’s view, and he accused Fallon of politicizing the September 11 attacks.“I actually responded to Ground Zero. I was there going through the ashes of the World Trade Center,” Rowe said.Fallon interrupted, telling Rowe, “I’m not asking you that.” He then suggested that Rowe, who is not expected to stay on as director once Trump takes office, stood where he did to “audition” for keeping his job, if Harris won the presidency.The exchange devolved into shouting, with Rowe yelling at Fallon, “Do not invoke 9/11 for political purposes!”“I’m not,” Fallon replied. He accused Rowe, “You endangered president Biden’s life, vice-president Harris’ life, because you put those agents out of position.”Rowe denied that charge, telling Fallon, “You are out of line.”Democrat Adam Gray won a seat in California’s 13th congressional district on Tuesday, unseating Republican congressman John Duarte. The result concludes what was the last remaining undecided US House contest in the 2024 cycle.Gray won by a margin of fewer than 200 votes according to a tally completed this week.Duarte defeated Grayin 2022 by just 564 votes, one of the closest margins in the country.Democrats now hold 215 seats in congress, and Republicans have a narrow majority with 220 seats.Ro Khanna, a Democratic congressman from California, said he was ready to collaborate with the Department of Government Efficiency.He did not exactly say if he would join the congressional caucus formed to assist DOGE, which is not a formal department. Here’s what Khanna wrote, on X:
      I’m ready to work with @doge , @elonmusk + @VivekGRamaswamy to slash waste. I have a track record of doing so. I led the charge to get TransDigm to refund $16 million after investigative reporting exposed price-gouging. Let’s look to the Truman Committee and ensure Americans get their money’s worth with DOD spending.
      NBC News reports that a Secret Service spokesman defended acting director Ronald Rowe from Republican congressman Pat Fallon’s claim that he compromised security by attending a ceremony to commemorate 9/11.Rowe was at the event in New York attended by Joe Biden and Donald Trump “to honor the victims of that tragic day, including the members of the Secret Service who were killed. All detail personnel were present and had complete access to their protectees during the memorial,” Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said.NBC also reports that Fallon accused Rowe of starting their shouting match in a congressional hearing meant to explore Trump’s attempted assassination in July, saying “he started screaming, he wouldn’t answer questions.”Independent Maine senator Angus King is raising pointed questions about the suitability of Pete Hegseth as a potential Pentagon leader as he makes the rounds on Capitol Hill this week, telling the Guardian that some of Trump’s candidates “thus far do not appear to have the requisite background or experience for the important posts in question.”King, who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee which would confirm a new Defense Secretary, has not committed to supporting Hegseth’s nomination and noted that he is not meeting Hegseth today, though stopped short of an outright rejection.As an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, King’s vote is not expected to be decisive.“Senator King will hear all nominees make their case when they come before the committees of jurisdiction and make his decisions on each as they come to the Senate floor,” his office tells The Guardian.Here’s the moment acting Secret Service director Ronald Rowe and Republican congressman Pat Fallon got into it at a hearing looking into the assassination attempt targeting Donald Trump:While details remain closely guarded, House speaker Mike Johnson revealed the incoming non-department Department of Government Efficiency initiative spearheaded by tech billionaire Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy would be “bipartisan.”During an afternoon press conference, Johnson claimed several Democratic colleagues have already expressed interest in the government efficiency project, though he did not specify who.“Government is too big. It does too many things, and it does almost nothing well,” Johnson said.Earlier in the week, Democratic congressman Jared Moskowitz announced he would join the DOGE caucus, making him the first lawmaker from the party to support the effort.“I will join the Congressional DOGE Caucus, because I believe that streamlining government processes and reducing ineffective government spending should not be a partisan issue. I’ve been clear that there are ways we can reorganize our government to make it work better for the American people,” Moskowitz said.According to Johnson, the day unfolded with a series of closed-door meetings, beginning with Iowa Senator Joni Ernst, who chairs the newly formed caucus. They discussed a newly released 60-page report mostly focused on targeting federal staffers who telework.During the House hearing on the assassination attempt against Donald Trump, a screaming match broke out between the acting director of the US Secret Service, Ronald Rowe, and the Republican congressman Pat Fallon.Fallon displayed an enlarged photo from a commemoration of the September 11 attacks in New York, which both Joe Biden and Trump attended this fall. Fallon accused Rowe, who was standing directly behind Biden and Kamala Harris in the photo, of taking the place of the special agent in charge and endangering the president’s security for the sake of a photo op.Rowe replied that the special agent in charge was just out of the picture’s view, and he accused Fallon of politicizing the September 11 attacks.“I actually responded to Ground Zero. I was there going through the ashes of the World Trade Center,” Rowe said.Fallon interrupted, telling Rowe, “I’m not asking you that.” He then suggested that Rowe, who is not expected to stay on as director once Trump takes office, stood where he did to “audition” for keeping his job, if Harris won the presidency.The exchange devolved into shouting, with Rowe yelling at Fallon, “Do not invoke 9/11 for political purposes!”“I’m not,” Fallon replied. He accused Rowe, “You endangered president Biden’s life, vice-president Harris’ life, because you put those agents out of position.”Rowe denied that charge, telling Fallon, “You are out of line.”The EV credit is a product of Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act – a boost of investment into clean energy and climate action – and was created to make EV’s more affordable.Rolling the credit back will further stall US EV transition, critics say.The Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in July killing the subsidy may hurt Tesla sales a little but would be “devastating” to its US EV competitors, like General Motors.After meeting with incoming senate majority leader John Thune, Elon Musk told reporters he thinks we should get rid of all tax credits for electrical vehicle purchasers.“We just need to make sure we spend the public’s money well,” Musk said.Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who will soon head the non-government agency Department of Government Efficiciency, are in meetings all day with Republicans on Capitol Hill.Senator Rick Scott of Florida has doubled down on his support for Pete Hegseth.“I admire people who are willing to put on the uniform and lead troops into battle,” Scott told reporters after a meeting with Trump’s pick for secretary of defense. “When he goes in the Department of Defense, he will walk in with the mentality that he’s going to take care of our warfighters.”CNN’s Jake Tapper questioned Scott earlier this week over support for Hegseth in light of sexual assault accusations against him. Scott denounced the anonymous accusers, but when Tapper asked if Hegseth should release his accuser from their non-disclosure agreement so she could be interviewed, Scott said “absolutely not.”Pete Hegseth is continuing his quest to convince Republican senators that he is qualified to lead the defense department. His nomination has been rocked by a sexual assault allegation, and reports of his excessive drinking, financial mismanagement and marital infidelities. Today, a Republican senator whose views on Hegseth are seen as key to his chances of getting the job – Iowa’s Joni Ernst – said she was not yet ready to vote for his confirmation, and called for “a very thorough vetting process”. Hegseth has insisted he is not dropping out of contention for the job, telling reporters in the Capitol that he has Donald Trump’s support, and won’t go anywhere until that changes.Here’s what else is going on today:

      Ronald Rowe, the acting Secret Service director, acknowledged an “abject failure” by the agency in preventing the first assassination attempt against Trump.

      Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are expected to meet with Republicans in the Capitol to discuss their Department of Government Efficiency – which is not actually a department, nor a part of the government.

      Republican House majority leader Steve Scalise hinted that the party wants to pass legislation to enact Trump’s priorities within days of his inauguration.
      Should Republican senator Joni Ernst decline to support Pete Hegseth for defense secretary – a decision that could strike a fatal blow to his chances of winning Senate confirmation – it won’t be without risks.Politico heard from an unnamed Republican senator who hinted that Ernst could face a primary challenge orchestrated by Donald Trump if she rejects his appointee to lead the Pentagon:
      “If Joni votes no, she’s going to have a hard time with her reelection campaign,” said one GOP senator, noting that during any floor vote Hegseth, Trump “will be taking names.”
      The Republican House majority leader Steve Scalise told CNBC that lawmakers will be sharing ideas with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy about how to downsize government during their meeting today.“One of the things we’re going to be talking about with Elon [Musk] and Vivek [Ramaswamy] today, a lot of our members have ideas, have been working on various committees on things to do just that, to cut government waste, to identify and root out a lot of inefficiencies in government. And we’re going to be working hand in hand,” Scalise said.He singled out federal employees who work from home, saying they were undercutting the governments ability to function:
      It’s a refreshing idea that we’re going to actually make government work better and make your taxpayers go further. There are probably 75% of federal employees here in Washington that still are not showing up to work under the excuse of Covid. Covid’s been over for years, and yet you might wait right now, months and months, to get a passport renewed. Some people are waiting years to get a tax return process from three years ago because those employees aren’t showing up for work, so it’s hurting families all across this country. You know, those are the kind of inefficiencies we’re going to be looking at all across the board.
      In a sign of how quickly House Republicans would like to move on accomplishing Trump’s priorities, Scalise said they are working with the president-elect’s transition teams on a bill that will be ready “for January”. Trump will be inaugurated on the 20th of that month.Speaking to NBC News as he traversed the Capitol between meetings with Republican senators weighing his nomination for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth said that he would continue standing for the job as long as he had Donald Trump’s support.“As long as [President-elect Trump] supports me, which he told me this morning. I’ll be here,” Hegseth told the network. More

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      Bahamas rejects Trump proposal to take in deported migrants

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      The Bahamas has rejected a proposal from the incoming Trump administration to take in deported people, as the president-elect seeks to follow up on pledges to slash immigration.Donald Trump’s team has drawn up a list of countries to which it wants to deport migrants when their home countries refuse to accept them, according to NBC News.But the Bahamas said it had “reviewed and firmly rejected” the plan.Prime Minister Philip Davis’s office said his government had received a proposal from the Trump transition team “to accept deportation flights of migrants from other countries”.“Since the prime minister’s rejection of this proposal, there has been no further engagement or discussions with the Trump transition team,” the statement added.Other countries that Trump is considering include Turks and Caicos, Panama, and Grenada, sources told NBC.The president-elect based his successful White House run on vicious anti-immigrant rhetoric, blaming them for a supposed national crime wave and promising to carry out mass deportations.Trump’s team made no immediate comment on Thursday about the Bahamas’ rejection of the proposal, which appeared to reveal one part of how he plans to enact radical immigration reform when in office.The deportation plan could mean that people are permanently displaced in countries to which they have no links.It is not clear if the deported people would be allowed to work – or what pressure Trump may apply to get countries to agree, NBC reported.The US government has struggled for years to manage its southern border with Mexico, and Trump on the campaign trail targeted voters by claiming an “invasion” is under way by migrants he says will rape and murder Americans.At rallies, Trump repeatedly railed against undocumented immigrants, attacking those who “poison the blood” of the United States.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHe has vowed to tackle migrant gangs using the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 – which allows the federal government to round up and deport foreigners belonging to enemy countries.Trump also promoted the fictitious story that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating residents’ pets.The incoming president last month said he was bringing back the hardline immigration official Tom Homan to oversee the country’s borders.Homan led immigration enforcement during part of Trump’s first administration.A British plan to deport its asylum seekers to Rwanda was dropped earlier this year when the Labour party took power under Keir Starmer after ousting the Conservatives. More

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      Trump promises a crackdown on diversity initiatives. Fearful institutions are dialing them back already

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      In 2020, Donald Trump signed an executive order against “race and sex stereotyping and scapegoating” which would have set the stage for sweeping attacks on diversity initiatives in the public sphere. In January 2021, on his first day in office, Joe Biden rescinded Trump’s anti-DEI order and signed one promoting “racial equity and support for underserved communities”.Now Trump is returning to office, he expected to restore his directive and double down on it. The people that run diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives at public and private institutions are expecting mass crackdown. Project 2025 has labeled them “woke culture warriors” and pledged to wield the full force of the federal government against their efforts to create a more equitable society.Trump and his advisers have already threatened the funds and accreditation of universities they have labeled the “enemy”, and pledged to dismantle diversity offices across federal agencies, scrap diversity reporting requirements and use civil rights enforcement mechanisms to combat diversity initiatives they see as “discrimination”.The multi-pronged attack is certain to be met with major legal challenges, but while they prepare for those, advocates warn about the ripple effects of an administration declaring war on inclusivity efforts.“The concern is the bigger footprint and symbol,” said Nina Ozlu Tunceli, chief counsel of government and public affairs at Americans for the Arts. “Federal policies do have a domino effect on other states, on foundations, on individual donors.”Last week, Walmart became the latest in a series of high-profile companies to announce a rollback of its diversity initiatives following a campaign of legal challenges by conservative groups. Other businesses and institutions small and large are trying to keep a low profile to avoid becoming the target of anti-DEI campaigns, those who work with them say.There are already concerns that institutions fearful of losing funding or facing lawsuits may overcorrect and dial back their programmes before they are required to do so, advocates warn.A climate of fearEven before Trump was re-elected, “educational gag orders” seeking to limit discussion of race and LGBTQ+ issues in school classrooms had been introduced in at least 46 states. Last spring, conservative legislators linked campus protests against the war in Gaza to DEI initiatives. Virginia Foxx, the chair of the House committee on education and the workforce, told the presidents of several colleges that her committee would be “steadfast in its dedication to attacking the roots of antisemitic hatred, including anti-Israel DEI bureaucracies”.Questioning by Foxx’s committee ultimately led to several resignations by college presidents.“That got everyone terrified, including private university presidents who previously had been pretty brave about these things,” said Jeremy Young, director of the Freedom to Learn programme at the free speech group PEN America. “It was just this sense that, they’re coming, they’re headhunting for leaders, and you just have to do everything they say or they’re going to fire you or they’re going to cut your budget.”View image in fullscreenEven where no laws have been passed, a broad fear of repercussions has prompted some campus leaders to cut back on DEI initiatives, noted Young.“A number of states have engaged basically in jaw-boning, where the lawmakers will go up to a university president and encourage them or threaten them to close their diversity office while dangling a threat of funding cuts or passing a law the following year,” he said. “So we’re seeing universities trying to comply with these restrictions, or with these threats, even though there’s no law compelling them to do so.”Young cited the University of Missouri, for instance, where campus leaders in July dissolved its division of inclusion, diversity and equity citing nationwide measures against DEI even though no such law was passed in the state.In Texas, where state law does ban DEI offices but exempts academic course instruction and scholarly research, the University of North Texas system began scrutinising course materials in search for references to DEI, in what Young called an example of overcompliance and a “complete overreaction”.It’s a domino effect that anti-DEI activists are exploiting, for instance by sowing confusion about the 2023 supreme court ruling, which was fairly narrow but is sometimes cited as evidence that all DEI initiatives in higher education are illegal, said Leah Watson, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Racial Justice Program, where she focuses on classroom censorship.“We are very concerned about the broad chilling effect, and we see conservatives misrepresenting the status of the law in order to further the chilling effect,” Watson said. “Overcorrections are happening, and things are being cut that don’t have to be cut.”Some institutions have attempted to protect their work by downplaying their language around diversity to ensure that members from states with restrictions in place can continue to access them. Others have changed language about eligibility requirements for fellowships initially intended to promote access to people of color so as to avoid legal challenges.“There are institutions that want to continue their DEI programmes and they don’t want to be sued and they are really in a hard place with how to do that,” said Watson. “People are trying to fly under the radar at this point.”The new administrationGoing forward, the Trump administration is “likely to be the most virulent anti-DEI administration that we’ve seen”, said David Glasgow, the executive director of the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging, which helps institutions navigate an array of recent legislative restrictions on diversity work.“People who do this work are nervous and anxious about what might be restricted but their commitment is still there, so it’s really about trying to figure out what they’re going to be able to do,” he added.So far, four states – Florida, Texas, Iowa and Utah – have banned diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives or offices in universities, a primary target in the battle against DEI. A fifth, Alabama, has severely restricted them.In Florida, the Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, also erased nearly all already approved state funding for the arts, ostensibly over a festival promoting inclusivity, which he dubbed a “sexual event”.View image in fullscreenThat may offer a blueprint for attacks on what conservatives see as “woke” culture under the incoming administration, said Tunceli, of Americans for the Arts.Institutions anticipating a similar backlash at the national level are already planning to emphasise projects the incoming administration may be more supportive to – like those celebrating the 250th anniversary of American independence, in 2026 – and to turn to alternative funding for those they expect will lose out on federal support.Many now believe that institutions will have to show bravery to uphold their values, even if it means risking funding. “What they need to do is find a backbone, and I say that with a lot of understanding and empathy for the situation they’re in,” said Young, of PEN America.“I worry when I see a university roll over for funding,” he added, calling on administrators to leverage their influence with alumni and their communities to stand up to legislators’ attacks. “A university that doesn’t have a new building is still a university, it’s just a poor university. A university that has lawmakers banning ideas and restricting the actions of the administration is really not a university at all.” More

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      Conspiracy theories and cosying up to dictators: why intelligence experts are spooked by Tulsi Gabbard

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      In 2018, a Syrian dissident codenamed Caesar was set to testify before the House foreign affairs committee about the torture and summary executions that had become a signature of Bashar al-Assad’s brutal crackdown on opposition during Syria’s civil war.It was not Caesar’s first time in Washington: the ex-military photographer had smuggled out 55,000 photographs and other evidence of life in Assad’s brutal detention facilities years earlier, and had campaigned anonymously to convince US lawmakers to pass tough sanctions on Assad’s network as punishment for his reign of terror.But ahead of that hearing, staffers on the committee, activists and Caesar himself, suddenly became nervous: was it safe to hold the testimony in front of Tulsi Gabbard, the Hawaii congresswoman on the committee who just a year earlier had traveled to Damascus of her own volition to meet with Assad?Could she record Caesar’s voice, they asked, or potentially send a photograph of the secret witness back to the same contacts who had brokered her meeting with the Syrian president?View image in fullscreen“There was genuine concern by Democrats in her own party, and Republicans and us and Caesar, about how were we going to do this?” said Mouaz Moustafa, the executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, an activist group, who had previously traveled with Gabbard in Syria in 2015. “With the member sitting on this committee that we believe would give any intelligence she has to Assad, Russia and Iran, all of which would have wanted to kill Caesar.”During a congressional trip in 2015, Moustafa recalled, Gabbard had asked three young Syrian girls whether the airstrike they had narrowly survived may not have been launched by Assad, but rather by the terrorist group Isis. The one problem? Isis did not have an air force.Photographs from the 2018 briefing showed a heavily disguised Caesar sitting in a hoodie and mask giving testimony before the House committee.“I often disguise [witnesses],” said Moustafa, who had worked closely with Caesar and served as his translator. “But that day I was especially wary of Tulsi.”There is no evidence that Gabbard sought to pass any information about the Syrian whistleblower to Damascus or any other country, nor that she has any documented connection to other intelligence agencies.But within Washington foreign policy circles and the tightly knit intelligence community, Gabbard has long been seen as dangerous; some have worried that she seems inclined toward conspiracy theories and cosying up to dictators. Others, including the former secretary of state and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, have gone further, calling her a “Russian asset”.Those concerns have been heightened by Gabbard’s nomination under Donald Trump to the post of director of national intelligence, a senior cabinet-level position with access to classified materials from across the 18 US intelligence agencies, and shaping that information for the president’s daily briefing. The role would allow her to access and declassify information at her discretion, and also direct some intelligence-sharing with US allies around the world.“There is real concern about her contacts [in Syria] and that she does not share the same sympathies and values as the intelligence community,” said a person familiar with discussions among senior intelligence officials. “She is historically unfit.”View image in fullscreenGabbard and her supporters have denounced those attacks as a smear, saying that her history of anti-interventionism in Syria and Ukraine has been misrepresented as a kind of “cold war 2.0”.In Washington, she has staked out a unique foreign policy position as a strong supporter of Israel and the “war on terror” – but also as a critic of US rivalries with countries like Russia and Iran (she strongly criticised Trump’s decision to assassinate the Iranian general Qassem Soleimani as an “illegal and unconstitutional act of war”).“When it comes to the war against terrorists, I’m a hawk,” she told a Hawaiian newspaper in 2016. “When it comes to counterproductive wars of regime change, I’m a dove.”Jeremy Scahill, the leftwing US journalist and activist, wrote that to “pretend that Gabbard somehow poses a more grave danger to US security than those in power after 9/11 or throughout the long bloody history of US interventions and the resulting blowback is a lot of hype and hysteria”.But Gabbard has repeatedly shared conspiracy theories, including claiming shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine that there are “25+ US-funded biolabs in Ukraine which if breached would release & spread deadly pathogens to US/world”. In fact, the US program stemming back to the 1990s is directed at better securing labs which focus on infectious disease outbreaks.Days after Russia invaded Ukraine, with Kyiv engaged in a desperate defense of the country’s sovereignty, Gabbard said: “It’s time to put geopolitics aside and embrace the spirit of aloha, respect and love, for the Ukrainian people by coming to an agreement that Ukraine will be a neutral country.”View image in fullscreenAnd she has repeatedly supported dictators, including Assad, suggesting that reports of the 2013 and 2017 chemical weapons attacks were false, and calling for the US to “join hands” with Moscow following its 2015 intervention in Syria.Establishment Democrats and Republicans have openly questioned whether or not she poses a threat to national security.“I worry what might happen to untold numbers of American assets if someone as reckless, inexperienced, and outright disloyal as Gabbard were DNI,” wrote Adam Kinzinger, a former congressman who served on the foreign affairs committee with Gabbard in 2018 when Caesar testified.The person close to the intelligence community said that there were continuing concerns about Gabbard’s contacts in the Middle East, stemming back to the controversial 2017 meeting with Assad – an encounter that Gabbard has insisted she does not regret.Those contacts may be explored during a Senate confirmation hearing early next year, the person said.Gabbard was briefly placed on a Transportation Security Administration watchlist because of her overseas travel patterns and foreign connections, CNN reported last month, but was later removed.She does not have a background in intelligence, although the Hawaii native served in the army national guard for more than two decades, and has deployed to Iraq and Kuwait.Moreover, there are concerns that her choice could affect intelligence sharing among US foreign allies, including the tightly knit Five Eyes intelligence group that includes the US, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand, as well as Nato and allies in Japan and South Korea.“Much of the intelligence we get, at least from the human collector side, is from our partners,” said John Sipher, formerly deputy director of the CIA’s Russia operations, noting that the cooperation was usually informal, “personality- and trust-based”.“They’re going to be really hesitant to pass [information] to a place that that is becoming more partisan and less professional … they would be making their own checklist: ‘Hey, this sensitive thing that we would in the past have passed to the CIA that could do us damage if it becomes public … Let’s just not do that this time.’” More