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      ‘We’re anti-federal chaos’: Democratic cities prepare for worst after Trump’s tirades against DC and LA

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      As sand-colored Humvees rolled down Washington DC streets against the wishes of local leaders, mayors around the country planned for what they would do if the Trump administration comes for them next.Donald Trump’s disdain for Democratic-run cities featured heavily in his 2024 campaign. The president vowed to take over DC – a promise he attempted to fulfill this week. Earlier this year, he sent national guard troops to Los Angeles amid protests despite California opposing the move, which led to a lawsuit from the state.City leaders say there are appropriate ways for the federal government to partner with them to address issues such as crime, but that Trump is using the pretext of crime and unrest to override their local authority, create chaos and distract from a bruising news cycle about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein.Many cities have worked to bring down violent crime rates – they are on the decline in most large cities, though mayors acknowledge they still have work to do to improve the lives of their residents.“President Trump constantly creates a narrative that cities like Seattle are liberal hellholes and we are lawless, and that is just not the fact,” said Bruce Harrell, the mayor of Seattle. “We are the home of great communities and great businesses. So his view of our city is not aligned with reality. It’s to distract the American people from his failures as a president.”By sending in the military, some noted, Trump was probably escalating crime, contributing to distrust in the government and creating unsafe situations both for residents and service members.Even Republican mayors or mayors in red states have said they don’t agree with Trump usurping local control for tenuous reasons. The US Conference of Mayors, currently led by the Republican mayor of Oklahoma City, David Holt, pushed back against Trump’s takeover of DC, saying “local control is always best”.“These mayors around the country, by the way, from multiple ideological backgrounds, they love their city more than they love their ideology,” said Jacob Frey, the mayor of Minneapolis.Mayors told the Guardian they are ready to stand up for their cities, legally and otherwise, should Trump come knocking. They are working with their chiefs of police to ensure they agree on the chain of command and coordinating with governors in the event the national guard is deployed. Because Trump has so frequently brought up plans to crack down on cities, large Democratic cities have been strategizing with emergency planning departments and city attorneys.But Trump has shown he’s willing to bend and break the law in his pursuits against cities. The Pentagon is reportedly planning to potentially put national guard troops at the ready, stationed in Alabama and Arizona, to deploy to cities experiencing unrest. He has indicated this is just the beginning of an assault on cities. His attorney general sent letters to a host of Democratic cities this week, threatening to arrest local leaders if they don’t cooperate with federal authorities on immigration enforcement.The idea that troops could be on the ground for any number of reasons in cities around the US should alarm people, said Brett Smiley, the Democratic mayor of Providence, Rhode Island.“This is not something that we should be used to, and we shouldn’t let this administration break yet another norm or standard in our society, such that a couple years from now, we don’t think twice about when we see troops in our cities,” Smiley said.Why Trump is going after citiesThe roots of Trump’s battle with cities stretch back to his first administration, and they align with common narratives on the right about how cities today have fallen off because of liberal policies. Project 2025, the conservative blueprint, called for crackdowns on cities, including withholding federal funds to force compliance with deportation plans.His campaign promises included a commitment to “deploying federal assets, including the National Guard, to restore law and order when local law enforcement refuses to act”. In a video from 2023, he explained: “In cities where there has been a complete breakdown of law and order, where the fundamental rights of our citizens are being intolerably violated, I will not hesitate to send in federal assets including the national guard until safety is restored.”In 2020, he reportedly wished he cracked down much harder and faster on protesters and rioters during the demonstrations after George Floyd’s murder. Now, he’s using smaller problems – anti-immigration protests and crime against a government employee – to declare emergencies.Minneapolis, where the protests began after a police officer killed Floyd, has at times made Trump’s list of rundown cities. Frey, a Democrat, said he didn’t know whether 2020 protests played a role in Trump’s current actions.“I don’t think anybody can pretend to know what’s in Donald Trump’s head,” Frey told the Guardian. “It’s an utter mess of idiocy. I don’t know what he’s thinking. I don’t know what he’s thinking or what the rhyme or reason is. I mean, clearly there’s a focus on Democratically run cities.”When Trump called out other cities on his radar, he named blue cities run by Black mayors – Baltimore, Oakland, Los Angeles, Chicago.“The fact that my city and all the others called out by the president on Sunday, led by Black mayors, are all making historic progress on crime, but they’re the ones getting called up – it tells you everything that you need to know,” Baltimore’s mayor, Brandon Scott, said in a press call this week.DC is differentThe federal government can often partner with cities to address crime – several Democratic mayors noted that they worked with the Biden administration on this front successfully. But those partnerships are mutually agreed upon collaborations, not overrides of local policing.“We’re not anti-federal help. We’re anti-federal chaos,” Frey said.Detroit’s mayor, Mike Duggan, said in a statement that his city is seeing its lowest homicides, shootings and carjackings in more than 50 years, crediting a partnership with federal agencies and the US attorney as a major part of that success.“This partnership is simple and effective: DPD does the policing and the feds have strongly increased support for federal prosecution,” Duggan said. “We appreciate the partnership we have today and are aware of no reason either side would want to change it.”Mayors are not saying they have solved the issue of violent crime, Scott said, though they are acknowledging they have reduced it and will continue to work toward further reductions. “We need folks that want to actually help us do that, versus try to take and show force and make us into something other than a representative democracy that we all are proud to call home,” he said.Mayors throughout the US made a clear distinction between Trump’s authority in Washington DC compared to other cities. Washington has a legal provision in the Home Rule Act of 1973 that allows for a president to take over its police department during an emergency on a temporary basis, though Trump is the first to use this power. Other cities have no similar concept in law.Even with the Home Rule Act, Washington officials sued Trump after his attempt to replace the city’s police chief, saying the president was mounting a “hostile takeover” of DC police. Trump and the city agreed to scale back the federal takeover on Friday, keeping DC’s police chief in place.“We know when people want to say they’re going to be a dictator on day one, they never voluntarily give up that aspiration on day two,” Norm Eisen, an attorney who frequently sues the Trump administration, said in a press call this week. “That is what you are seeing in the streets of the District of Columbia.”Cities are preparingIn Minneapolis, Frey said the city has prepared operational plans with police, fire and emergency management and readied itself legally.“Our chief of police and I are lockstep, and he reports up to the commissioner of safety, who reports up to me,” Frey said. “There’s no lack of clarity as to how this reporting structure works, and it certainly does not go to Donald Trump. Doing something like that in Minneapolis, it would be just a blatantly illegal usurpation of local control were this to happen here. Of course, we would take immediate action to get injunctive relief.”Trump’s decision to send in national guard troops to Los Angeles is also legally questionable. Governors typically direct guard troops. The California governor, Gavin Newsom, sued Trump for using the military for domestic law enforcement in defiance of the Posse Comitatus Act. The case was heard by a judge this week.Harrell, of Seattle, said he is confident he will be able to protect his police department and the city’s residents if Trump sends troops.“What I have to do is make sure that the people under my jurisdiction as mayor feel confident in an ability to fight his overreach, and that our law department is well geared to advance our legal arguments,” he said.Scott, of Baltimore, said he was prepared to take every action “legally and otherwise”.Still, there is some uncertaintyand unsteadiness about how cities can respond if Trump calls up the national guard.“It’s very difficult to know what our options are, because we’re in unchartered territory here,” Smiley, of Providence, said. “It’s unprecedented and I don’t know what my options are with respect to preventing troops from coming in, which is one of the reasons that I’m trying to be so proactive about making it clear that it’s not necessary, it’s not wanted.” More

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      Ghislaine Maxwell’s grand jury transcripts are likely a dud, but other documents could reveal much

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      When Donald Trump’s Department of Justice requested the release of grand jury transcripts in criminal proceedings against sex-traffickers Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, the move did little to quiet an ever-growing chorus of critics frustrated by the US president’s backtracking over disclosing investigative files.Indeed, the justice department’s filings in this request revealed that only two law enforcement officers testified during grand jury proceedings in New York, undermining notions that unsealing them would reveal numerous truths.Manhattan federal court judge Paul Engelmayer recently rejected the justice department’s unsealing gambit and, in his decision, dealt yet another blow to the suggestion that grand jury documents would foster transparency about Epstein and Maxwell’s crimes and their social links to powerful figures such as Bill Clinton, Donald Trump himself and many others.“Insofar as the motion to unseal implies that the grand jury materials are an untapped mine lode of undisclosed information about Epstein or Maxwell or confederates, they definitively are not that,” Engelmayer said, adding that anyone who expected new information to emerge from the documents “would come away feeling disappointed and misled”.“There is no ‘there’ there,” Engelmayer said in his written decision.In disabusing the possibility of bombshells in Maxwell’s grand jury transcripts, questions once again abound as to whether other investigative documents on Epstein will ever see the light of day – and whether there will be any political consequences for Trump if his justice department does not deliver them to a public increasingly convinced of a cover-up.Neama Rahmani, founder of West Coast Trial Lawyers and a former federal prosecutor, said the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, and the FBI director, Kash Patel, have the legal power to release these other documents – but it might be politics that is keeping them from doing so.“They hold the key,” he said. “With a stroke of their pen, they can release the Epstein files.”Most of the Epstein files are not grand jury transcripts protected by sealing, Rahmani said. “There has to be a treasure trove of information that the Department of Justice has.“Members of the public [and] the media, they can’t compel the DoJ to release the information under a [Freedom of Information Act] request or anything similar, because there’s the law enforcement privilege, the deliberative process privilege,” Rahmani added. “The DoJ doesn’t have to make public its confidential files just because the public wants to, but they can certainly choose to do so.“Trump was inaugurated in January. Bondi has been AG for seven months now. How long does it take to go through these documents?“I think we’re waiting for something that’s never going to come to fruition.”Victims’ advocates have also noted that the Trump administration is capable of releasing these documents so that those whom Epstein and Maxwell preyed on can get justice.“For the last 20 years the victims have always wanted the full disclosure of information regarding Epstein and Maxwell’s sexual-trafficking scheme. They have always wanted all individuals to be held accountable for their part in the sexual exploitation,” said Spencer Kuvin, chief legal officer of Goldlaw, who has represented multiple Epstein victims.“The current administration has the power to release everything by merely signing an executive order. Instead of trying to help victims and expose sexual predators, they are more worried about protecting their friends who socialized with these criminals.”Analysts have voiced differing views on whether there is longterm political liability for Trump if the documents are not released.Susan MacManus, professor emerita of political science at the University of South Florida, said there are several possibilities. Republicans might hope that people grow bored with the issue and start focusing on other subjects.A smaller cohort of ultra-conservative Republicans, however, is dissatisfied that the documents have not been released.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“They’re disappointed in Trump because they think that there’s something hidden there, and they believe in transparency,” MacManus explained. Some Republicans might think that “ultimately, at least some of this stuff will come out”, implicating Democrat and Republican politicians alike.MacManus does not think that this issue will sway an election, however.“I see this as something that goes out of the picture and comes back in and goes out and comes back in,” MacManus said. “But I don’t think it’s enough to move somebody’s vote if they’re a Republican or if they’re a Democrat, they’re going to stick with their party.”Rick Wilson, the Lincoln Project co-founder and former Republican strategist, felt the document issue presented a dramatic problem for Trump.“I just feel like they’re in a really bad rut right now. I don’t think they’ve got an easy way out of this,” Wilson said.Wilson said that recent polling he’s conducted indicates that the controversy is not going away.“Americans, and Republicans in particular, are paying attention to this story because there is a ‘there’ there for them,” he said.Matt Terrill, a Republican strategist and managing partner of public affairs firm Firehouse Strategies, said that at the moment, interest in the issue has died down for the time being. Americans are focused on issues such as the economy, and many are on vacation.When Congress returns, however, Terrill expects the controversy will also return to the forefront, but that doesn’t mean the attention will be entirely on Trump. The House oversight committee subpoenaed Bill and Hillary Clinton, as well as several former attorneys general and law enforcement officials, to testify about Epstein.“That could take the spotlight off President Trump,” he said. Even if this diverts attention from the president, Terrill said it would behoove the administration to be more open about whatever is going on.“There are many people in the Maga base who joined the Maga base because they want government transparency and they want accountability. They want justice and, for right or wrong, many people in the Maga base, and even those outside of the Maga base, feel as though they’re not getting that right now with this situation.”“So I do think it’s important, if you’re the administration, the Trump administration, to continue to put out everything you have in terms of this case,” he said. “If you can’t put things out, explain to the American people why you can’t put those things out.” More

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      Trump’s DC crackdown will do little to prevent crime, advocates say: ‘That’s not what creates safety’

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      Donald Trump’s hyperbolic portrayal of crime in major American cities, and his deployment of the national guard in Washington DC ostensibly in an effort to combat it, have reignited a decades-old debate about crime, violence and which policies and approaches can address it.The US president has cited cities such as Oakland, Philadelphia and Chicago as examples of places overwhelmed by crime and violence. He has put forward an increased militarization of law enforcement, and more money and legal protections for police, as the most effective ways to address homicides and other violent crime.But to violence prevention workers, the recent statements appeared made not out of care and concern for the lower-income Black and Latino victims who bear an outsized share of the nation’s crimes, but to undermine and dismiss the progress community groups have made.And, the advocates argue, the administration’s emphasis on law enforcement and prosecution as the sole ways to stop crime will do little to stop the cycles of violence and property crime that these groups have faced through Republican and Democratic administrations alike.“The police are about response. But that’s not what creates safety,” said Aqeela Sherrills, a longtime community violence intervention leader in Los Angeles. “A lot of our urban communities have been war zones because they lack investment in infrastructure and programming. It’s really disheartening to hear the president of the United States put out misinformation.”Sherrills began his career in violence prevention in Watts in the early 90s. Since then he’s been a leading force in several organisations that work intensely with the small portion of a city’s population responsible for the most violence in an effort to prevent crime and support victims of crime. Throughout his tenure, he said, he had seen the biggest successes in violence reduction come through training local non-profits, community leaders and officials on different violence community prevention models and then allowing them to build bespoke strategies from there.Over the decades, various models have seen major successes. Some deploy violence prevention workers to middle and high schools. In other programs, they use probation officers as a conduit to connect with young adults who are carrying and using firearms illegally. Some programs send workers to hospitals after a shooting, in an effort to prevent retaliatory violence. Some models rely on a police-community partnership, others don’t involve police at all.But most programs center on connecting with mostly young men and teenage boys whose conflicts spill out on to city streets, traumatizing entire neighborhoods.This method has shown promise, research shows, In 2024 the Brooklyn community of Baltimore went a year without homicides after deploying a program called Safe Streets. And cities such as Oakland, Seattle and Philadelphia, where city leaders have invested in similar gun violence reduction programs, have seen drops in homicides when the programs were thriving, according to the Major Cities Chiefs Association’s violent crime survey.And while the reasons for the ebb and flow of homicides can’t be reduced to one program or strategy, those working to build these programs up have been fighting for credit and acknowledgment.During the Biden administration, they got it. Their approaches finally found federal support with the creation of an office of gun violence prevention and federal dollars for community prevention groups working on the ground. In past years, programs have expanded across the US as more municipalities build their own offices of violence prevention.But these insights don’t appear to inform the Trump administration’s approach, Sherrills adds.“He’s not reading the data, he’s not looking at the trends and reports, it’s just more kneejerk reactions,” he said. “It’s shortsighted because they’re only speaking about one aspect of our criminal legal system.”This most recent crime debate comes nearly four months after the Trump administration cut nearly $170m in grants from gun violence prevention organizations, including several groups founded and co-founded by Sherrills who have had to lay off several staff members, dealing a serious blow to critical summertime programming.For small, upstart organizations this loss of funds puts their work in jeopardy, said Fredrick Womack, whose organization, Operation Good, lost 20% of its budget due to the April cuts.Womack says he was dismayed to hear the list of cities that Trump singled out, because they are all cities with Black leaders who have invested in community violence intervention. The calls for increased police and potential military presences, he says, shows a disconnect between the halls of power and the needs of the people most affected by violent crime.“How is the military going to provide support for victims when they need someone who’s going to be compassionate to what they’re going through?” He asked. “I know people want justice, but they also need support. They need healing and counseling.“They won’t go into the projects and ask the people how life is going for you. But they’ll look at someone who lives in the hills who heard a gunshot two miles away last week and say: ‘We have a crime problem,’” he continued.Womack founded Operation Good in 2013, and since then he and his small staff and gaggle of volunteers have worked with the teenagers and young men responsible for most of the city’s violence and given them odd jobs and taken them to civil rights museums so they can understand where they come from and gain a sense of community. Womack’s work has made a difference: in the years since the pandemic – which saw nationwide surges of gun violence – the homicide rate started to tick down, a change city officials have attributed in part to the work of community-based groups including Operation Good, and their collaboration with the police.Community leaders also argue that not only will Trump’s approach be less effective, it’s not aimed at helping the people most affected by violence. During a 12 August press conference, Jeanine Pirro, the former Fox News host who was recently appointed the US attorney for DC, argued that Trump’s rhetoric about crime and his administration’s approach to violence in DC were done in the name of victims. Flanked by posters of mostly Black teenagers and children killed by gun violence, Pirro argued that policies including DC’s Youth Rehabilitation Act have only emboldened perpetrators.“I guarantee you that every one of these individuals was shot and killed by someone who felt they were never gonna be caught,” Pirro told reporters.And when reporters asked about addressing the root causes of crime and violence and the recent cuts to community-based programs, Pirro argued that her focus is on being punitive, not preventive.For Leia Schenk, a Sacramento-based victim and violence prevention advocate, these sorts of sentiments, while common among conservatives, miss the point.“It’s tone-deaf and an oxymoron. The root causes are why we have victims,” Schenk said. “In my experience [crime and violence] come from systemic oppression. Meaning if a family can’t feed their kids, they’re gonna steal, rob or commit some sort of fraud to just live and survive.”Schenk has been working in the community advocacy space for more than three decades and in that time has seen the most successful approaches to youth crime, shootings and other forms of violence happen when schools districts, local mental and physical healthcare systems get a level of investment that matches the scale of the problem.“We’re seeing the most success when we are supported – from schools to law enforcement to churches – their support allows us to do what we’re doing on a bigger scale.”Despite the comments and moves from the Trump administration, Sherrills says the field of violence prevention will continue to thrive thanks to a strong foundation that was fortified in recent years due to federal support and increased support from philanthropic groups.“We know that we’re in challenging times but it’s about doubling down on success and making sure we preserve the wins,” he said. “We’re going to continue to see violence trend down because of the work practitioners are doing in the field. Folks are tired of the killing and the dying and are looking for alternative ways to create better ways of navigating a conflict so that it doesn’t lead to violence.” More

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      Three states to deploy hundreds of national guard troops to Washington DC

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      Three states have moved to deploy hundreds of members of their national guard to the nation’s capital as part of the Trump administration’s effort to overhaul policing in Washington through a federal crackdown.West Virginia said it was deploying 300 to 400 guard troops, while South Carolina pledged 200 and Ohio said it would send 150 in the coming days.The moves announced on Saturday came as protesters pushed back on federal law enforcement and national guard troops fanning out in the heavily Democratic city following Donald Trump’s executive order federalizing local police forces and activating about 800 District of Columbia national guard members.West Virginia governor Patrick Morrisey’s office said in a statement that the deployment was “a show of commitment to public safety and regional cooperation” and the state would provide equipment and “approximately 300-400 skilled personnel as directed”.The statement came after Donald Trump ordered hundreds of Washington DC national guard troops to mount a show of force and temporarily took over the city’s police department to curb what the president depicts as a crime and homelessness emergency in the nation’s capital.Data compiled by the DC police department shows that violent crime was actually at a 30-year-low when Trump returned to office in January, and has declined a further 26% since then.Last weekend, Trump ordered the district’s homeless residents to leave, or face forcible relocation, after his motorcade passed a handful of unhoused people en route to his golf course outside the city. On Thursday, local officials cleared away one of the roadside encampments Trump had complained about, arguing that they could do so in a more humane fashion than untrained federal forces.A justice department order to replace the Washington police chief, Pamela Smith, with DEA head Terry Cole as the city’s “emergency police commissioner” ran into problems after a challenge in federal court by the DC attorney general, Brian Schwalb.Without issuing a direct ruling on the challenge, US district judge Ana Reyes indicated that Smith has to remain in charge.But efforts to increase federal control of the district resumed on Saturday with the order to deploy West Virginia’s national guard.Drew Galang, a spokesperson for Morrisey, said the state’s national guard received the order to send equipment and personnel to DC late on Friday and was working to organize the deployment.A White House official told Reuters on Saturday that more national guard troops were being called in to Washington to “protect federal assets, create a safe environment for law enforcement officials to carry out their duties when required, and provide a visible presence to deter crime”.View image in fullscreenA protest against Trump’s intervention drew scores to Dupont Circle on Saturday before a march to the White House, about 1.5 miles away. Demonstrators assembled behind a banner that said, “No fascist takeover of DC”, and some in the crowd held signs saying, “No military occupation”.Fueling the protests were concerns about Trump overreach and that he had used crime as a pretext to impose his will on Washington.The Chamberlain Network, a veteran’s group that describes itself as “dedicated to protecting democracy”, commented on X that the order for West Virginia’s national guard to police DC was “pulling them away from their core mission of protecting our communities”.“From floods to winter storms, we count on our Guard on in a crisis,” the group said. “They should be home, ready to respond—not on a political policing mission.”Since arriving in Washington last week, about 800 national guard troops under Trump’s direct control have served as a visible presence in public areas, assigned to administrative and logistical duties as well as “area beautification” work, according to the Wall Street Journal.Defense officials had said they would not be carrying weapons but “weapons are available if needed but will remain in the armory,” the US army said in a press release.A US official told Reuters that a formal order authorizing the national guard troops to carry firearms would be issued but it would largely affect military police officers with sidearms.The White House also said on Saturday that national guard in DC are conducting patrols on foot and in vehicles around the national mall and Union Station, adding that the troops are not making arrests at this time.Trump has indicated that he may take similar actions in other Democratic-controlled cities. A federal judge in San Francisco is expected in the coming weeks to issue a ruling on whether Trump violated the law by deploying national guard troops to Los Angeles in June without the approval of California’s governor, Gavin Newsom.Typically the national guard is deployed only instances where a state governor requests it. However the DC national guard reports directly to the president. More

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      Trump news at a glance: Trump supports Putin plan for Ukraine peace, report says; West Virginia to send national guard to DC

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      Donald Trump has told European leaders he believes a peace deal could be negotiated if the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, agrees to give up the Donbas region, which Russian invaders have not been able to seize in over three years of fighting, the New York Times reported on Saturday after his summit with Vladimir Putin.Two sources with direct knowledge of the talks in Alaska told the Guardian that Putin demanded Ukraine withdraw from Donbas, which is made up of the Donestk and Luhansk regions, as a condition for ending the war, but offered Trump a freeze along the remaining frontline.Although Luhansk is almost entirely under Russian control, Ukraine still holds key parts of Donetsk, including the cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk and heavily fortified positions whose defence has cost tens of thousands of lives.Here are the key US politics stories at a glance:Trump to back ceding of Ukrainian territory to Russia as part of peace dealDonald Trump will back a plan to cede unoccupied Ukrainian territory to Russia to secure an end to the war between the two countries, it was reported on Saturday, after details of his post-summit call with European leaders leaked out.Read the full storyWest Virginia to deploy hundreds of national guard troops to Washington DCWest Virginia is to deploy 300 to 400 national guard troops to Washington DC at the request of the Trump administration, the state’s governor said on Saturday.Read the full storyUS state department stops issuing visas for Gaza’s children to get medical careThe US state department announced on Saturday that it would stop issuing visas to children from Gaza in desperate need of medical care after an online pressure campaign from Laura Loomer, a far-right influencer close to Donald Trump who has described herself as “a proud Islamophobe”.Read the full storyThousands join ‘Fight the Trump Takeover’ protests against Republican redistricting plansThousands gathered in cities and towns across 34 states on Saturday for a national day of protest against Republican redistricting plans in Texas and elsewhere. “Fight the Trump Takeover” was anchored in Austin, Texas, with other sites spread nationwide.Read the full storyRFK Jr denies 2028 presidential ambitions after attacks from Trump influencer Laura LoomerThe US health and human services (HHS) secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, has fended off an attack by conservative firebrand and Donald Trump influencer Laura Loomer by issuing a statement of fealty to the president which calls it “a flat-out lie” that he is running for the White House in 2028.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      A new wave of book bans has hit Florida school districts, with hundreds of titles being pulled from library and classroom shelves as the school year kicks off.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on Friday 15 August More

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      US state department stops issuing visas for Gaza’s children to get medical care after far-right campaign

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      The US state department announced on Saturday that it would stop issuing visas to children from Gaza in desperate need of medical care after an online pressure campaign from Laura Loomer, a far-right influencer close to Donald Trump who has described herself as “a proud Islamophobe”.“All visitor visas for individuals from Gaza are being stopped while we conduct a full and thorough review of the process and procedures used to issue a small number of temporary medical-humanitarian visas in recent days,” the state department said in a message posted on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, from which Loomer was banned before it was purchased by Elon Musk.In a pair of posts on the social network on Friday, Loomer had shared video of badly injured Palestinian children and their family members arriving in Houston and San Francisco this month, along with false claims that their shouts of joy were “jihadi chants” and that they were “doing the HAMAS terror whistle”.View image in fullscreenLoomer also falsely claimed that she had “exclusively obtained” the two video clips she shared. One was copied from a medical aid charity’s public Instagram account and the other was from the Houston Chronicle’s YouTube channel.After misrepresenting the children, including amputees arriving to get prosthetic legs, as “Islamic invaders from an Islamic terror hot zone”, Loomer demanded to know “who at the US State Department under @marcorubio signed off on the visas for Palestinians from a HAMAS hot zone”.“Is Rubio even aware of this?” Loomer wrote, in reference to the secretary of state who was at the time in Alaska meeting Vladimir Putin. “Why would anyone at the State Department give visas to individuals who live in Gaza, which is run by HAMAS?” Loomer wrote, before falsely stating that “95% of GAZANS voted for HAMAS.”In fact, Hamas got 44% of party list votes in the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections across Gaza and the West Bank, and lost three of the five districts in Gaza to the secular Fatah party. There has been no election since then.After the visa program was halted, Loomer declared victory. “This is fantastic news,” she wrote in response to the state department announcement. “Hopefully all GAZANS will be added to President Trump’s travel ban. There are doctors in other countries. The US is not the world’s hospital!”Republican Congressman Randy Fine explicitly commended Loomer after the visa change was announced, in a sign of her sway over some US policy. “Massive credit needs to be given to @LauraLoomer for uncovering this and making me and other officials aware. Well done, Laura,” Fine wrote on X.The Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, a US-based charity, called on the Trump administration to “reverse this dangerous and inhumane decision.” Over the last 30 years the charity has evacuated thousands of Palestinian children to the US for medical care, it said in a statement.“Medical evacuations are a lifeline for the children of Gaza who would otherwise face unimaginable suffering or death due to the collapse of medical infrastructure in Gaza.”The Council on Islamic-American Relations said the block on visas was “the latest sign that the intentional cruelty of President Trump’s ‘Israel First’ administration knows no bounds” and added that it was “deeply ironic” that the Trump administration was meanwhile “rolling out the red carpet for racists and indicted war criminals from the Israeli government.”“This ban is just the latest example of our government’s complicity with Israel’s genocide, which is increasingly rejected by the American people,” it continued.Paul Graham, co-founder of the Silicon Valley startup incubator Y Combinator, wrote on X after the visa halt was announced: “If Laura Loomer had been around in 1940, she’d have been trying to prevent Jewish refugees from entering the US. You know she would. And if Trump had been president then, she’d have succeeded.” More

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      Trump to back ceding of Ukrainian territory to Russia as part of peace deal

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      Donald Trump will back a plan to cede unoccupied Ukrainian territory to Russia to secure an end to the war between the two countries, it was reported on Saturday, after details of his post-summit call with European leaders leaked out.Trump told European leaders that he believed a peace deal could be negotiated if the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, agreed to give up the Donbas region, which Russian invaders have not been able to seize in over three years of fighting, the New York Times reported, citing to two senior European officials.Two sources with direct knowledge of the talks in Alaska told the Guardian that Putin demanded Ukraine withdraw from Donbas, which is made up of the Donestk and Luhansk regions, as a condition for ending the war, but offered Trump a freeze along the remaining frontline.Although Luhansk is almost entirely under Russian control, Ukraine still holds key parts of Donetsk, including the cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk and heavily fortified positions whose defence has cost tens of thousands of lives.Putin told Trump that in exchange for Donetsk and Luhansk, he would halt further advances and freeze the frontline in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, where Russian forces occupy significant areas.Trump’s support for ceding Ukraine’s Donbas region, which is rich in mineral resources, including coal and iron ore, to Russia comes as he voiced support for moving straight to a peace deal and not via a ceasefire, which, Trump said in a social media post on Saturday, “often times do not hold up.”US support for ceding the Donbas to Russia represents a breach with Ukraine and European allies that oppose such a deal.As part of a deal, the US is ready to be part of security guarantees for Ukraine, the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said on Saturday. Trump has threatened economic penalties on countries that buy Russian oil if Moscow refuses a deal and flew US bombers over the Russian leader as he arrived in Alaska.But Ukrainian and European leaders fear that a straight-to-peace deal, skipping over a preliminary ceasefire, gives Moscow an upper hand in talks. Zelensky is expected in Washington on Monday to meet with Trump. Europeans were invited to join the Ukrainian leader at the White House, officials told the New York Times.Trump claimed on Saturday in his post that “it was determined by all” that it was better to go directly to negotiated a peace agreement, though European leaders indicated this was not their view.A joint statement issued by European leaders said they were “ready to work with US President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelenskyy towards a trilateral summit with European support” but “it will be up to Ukraine to make decisions on its territory. International borders must not be changed by force.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe statement was signed by the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen; the French president, Emmanuel Macron; the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni; the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz; the British prime minister, Keir Starmer; the Finnish president, Alexander Stubb; the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk; and the European Council president, António Costa.They said they “welcomed President Trump’s efforts to stop the killing in Ukraine, end Russia’s war of aggression, and achieve just and lasting peace”.Zelensky said in a statement after his conversations with Trump and the European leaders: “The positions are clear. A real peace must be achieved, one that will be lasting, not just another pause between Russian invasions. Killings must stop as soon as possible, the fire must cease both on the battlefield and in the sky, as well as against our port infrastructure. All Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilians must be released, and the children abducted by Russia must be returned.”European leaders, including Macron, Merz and Starmer, are set to discuss the issues with Zelenskyy on Sunday via video call ahead of his meeting with Trump, the French president’s office said in a statement. More

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      RFK Jr denies 2028 presidential ambitions after attacks from Trump influencer Laura Loomer

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      The US health and human services (HHS) secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, has fended off an attack by conservative firebrand and Donald Trump influencer Laura Loomer by issuing a statement of fealty to the president which calls it “a flat-out lie” that he is running for the White House in 2028.Kennedy, 71, had been under pressure since Loomer, 32, expressed concern in a recent Politico interview that Stefanie Spear, a top aide of the HHS secretary, was trying to “utilize her position to try to lay the groundwork for a 2028 RFK presidential run”.Loomer’s vigilante pressure campaigns within the White House have cost a number of Trump administration figures their jobs, including customs and border protection official Monte Hawkins as well as Food and Drug Administration vaccine regulator Vinay Prasad.Hawkins had been accused by Loomer of having an “anti-Trump, pro-open borders and pro-[diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI] bias”. And she had labelled Prasad a “progressive leftist saboteur” before he was later reinstated by the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles.Loomer told Politico that while she is realistic about neutralizing Kennedy, his deputies were vulnerable. “I’m not naive enough to think that the president is going to get rid of RFK, but I will say that … there are concerns about some of the staffing decisions over at HHS,” she remarked.A White House official told the outlet that they “would not be surprised if [Kennedy is] thinking about” running again after his 2024 candidacy prior to aligning himself with Trump. But the official claimed they “don’t think anyone thinks it’s a real threat”.Kennedy responded on Friday, saying he would not strive for the presidency in 2028. The Kennedy family scion ran in 2024 for the Democratic party nomination before switching to become an independent candidate – and then cast his lot with Trump.Trump – who in the run-up to his second presidential election victory dismissed Kennedy as a “radical left liberal” – rewarded him with a cabinet level post as well as his “Make America healthy again” (Maha) mandate.“The swamp is in full panic mode,” Kennedy Jr said in an X post. “DC lobby shops are laboring fiercely to drive a wedge between President Trump and me, hoping to thwart our team from dismantling the status quo and advancing [the Maha] agenda.”Kennedy added that the so-called swamp, a Republican term for an entrenched Washington bureaucracy, was “pushing the flat-out lie that I’m running for president in 2028”.“Let me be clear: I am not running for president in 2028,” he added. “My loyalty is to President Trump and the mission we’ve started.”And he defended Spear. He said “attacks on my staff, especially Stefanie Spear – a fierce, loyal warrior for Maha who proudly serves in the Trump administration and works every day to advance President Trump’s vision for a healthier, stronger America – are proof we’re over the target.”Kennedy also offered an overt expression of obeisance to his White House boss and political patron.“We’ll keep moving forward, we’ll keep delivering wins, and no smear campaign will stop us,” he wrote.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn July, the Wall Street Journal reported that Kennedy was planning to remove all the members of an advisory panel that determines what preventive health measures insurers are obliged to cover, reportedly viewing them as too “woke”, a pejorative Republican term for progressive.The crossover of the administration’s anti-DEI campaign into healthcare came after an essay in the American Conservative magazine recommended the removal of taskforce members, saying it was embedded “left-wing ideological orthodoxy”.Among the points it raised was the taskforce’s use of term “pregnant persons” and mention of a “lasting psychological impact and stigma of enslaved Black women being forced to act as wet nurses”.HHS announced earlier in August it was halting $500m in mRNA vaccine research. And it has also moved to revive a taskforce on childhood vaccine safety, though vaccine injuries are known to be extremely rare.Known as “Trump’s Rasputin” in some circles, Loomer views Kennedy’s vaccine skepticism as surging from the left – and not in pure ideological terms. She disputes that he views the issue correctly as a rightwing one, though the two may act in confluence.She has previously labelled Kennedy, in the New York Times, as “a very problematic person” who “is running a shadow presidential campaign” from his office.“There’s been some things that have happened,” Loomer told Politico. “There’s been several things that have happened at HHS that are contradictory to the initial promises made.” More