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      How Maga cheerleaders have infiltrated the White House press corps

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      “I’ve often said: Trump could cure cancer and people would still criticise him,” observed Brian Glenn, a rightwing reporter standing in the Oval Office.“It’s true,” replied a gratified Donald Trump, sitting behind the Resolute desk.A few minutes later, as the US president discussed crime in Washington DC, he returned the compliment. “Brian, you got mugged here a long time ago, and the mugger must have felt some pain because you’re a tough cookie,” he said.The pair shared some banter and then, just as Trump was poised to call on a reporter from the Guardian, Glenn interjected and suggested they listen to cancer survivors present at Tuesday’s executive order signing. In a stroke the informal press conference – hours after a pair of incendiary speeches to military generals and before a government shutdown – was effectively over.It was not the first time that Glenn, who works for the Real America’s Voice platform and is the boyfriend of Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican congresswoman, has played the role of Trump sidekick, a useful foil guaranteed to lighten the atmosphere. It was also a small but telling example of how the White House press corps has changed between Trump’s first and second terms.Seasoned reporters from mainstream media outlets are still asking tough questions. But in the Oval Office, on Air Force One or in the press briefing room, there is no way to avoid the new contingent of Maga (Make America great again) reporters, influencers and podcasters lobbing toothless queries or fawning comments at their favourite president.“They’re hand-picked to protect him and once again it’s another emulation of authoritarian leaders around the world who suppress the free press in order to avoid accountability,” said Tara Setmayer, a former Republican communications director on Capitol Hill. “[Trump] surrounds himself with sycophants who ask softball questions that allow him to drone on about nonsense and propaganda and disinformation.”The White House press corps has been trying to hold presidents accountable without fear or favour since the late 19th century, sometimes with more success than others. It was accused of being too deferential to the George W Bush administration during the Iraq war. But it has also proved dogged, for example, in grilling Barack Obama’s White House over the disastrous rollout of healthcare.gov and a terrorist attack on a US diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya.Trump’s first term featured combative exchanges with journalists such as Jim Acosta of CNN, who was temporarily banned from the White House only for his access to be restored following a lawsuit. Some rightwing outlets did appear in the briefing room, but the presidential pool of reporters remained under control of the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA).The second Trump administration, however, has used a variety of tactics to change the tone, tenor and pace of media interactions. The president prefers to use the Oval Office rather than bigger venues like the East Room, “in part because the acoustics are better and he is not forced to stand for long periods”, the New York Times reported.View image in fullscreenIn this setting, he takes questions from a pool of reporters no longer selected by the WHCA, but decided by the White House itself. This has led to the exclusion of news wire agencies but the inclusion of fringe rightwing voices, many of whom are openly supportive of the president.Matt Gertz, a senior fellow at the watchdog Media Matters for America, said: “I don’t want to be too glowing about the performance of the White House press corps and the way that they interacted with administrations in years past. But I think there was an understanding of sorts that reporters were on one side and the government was on the other and the purpose of the reporters was to try to get information from the government and bring it back to their audience through tough questioning.“What you have now is effectively an infiltration of the press corps by people who are more interested in helping the administration than they are in trying to get information out of it.”Media Matters has been tracking examples of reporter sycophancy. In February, when the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Trump in the Oval Office, Glenn demanded: “Why don’t you wear a suit? You’re at the highest level in this country’s office, and you refuse to wear a suit. Do you own a suit?” (When Zelenskyy returned to the Oval Office last month in more formal attire, Glenn quipped, “You look fabulous in that suit,” and the pair made peace.)At the same infamous meeting, Daniel Baldwin, chief White House correspondent for the One America News Network, asked Trump about peace negotiations with Russia: “What gave you the moral courage and conviction to step forward and lead that?”Trump replied: “I love this guy … One America News does a great job. I like the question.”In April, Jordan Conradson, a reporter at The Gateway Pundit, said to Trump: “I want to get your response on the leftist media. They’re trying to hide the mugshots that are featured on the front lawn of rapists, murderers, paedophiles. What do you think of that? Aren’t they proving to be the enemy of the people?” For good measure, he said of Trump’s “Gulf of America” cap: “I like your hat, by the way.”There are similarly ostentatious displays in the briefing room. In January Glenn told Karoline Leavitt, the press secretary: “You look great. You’re doing a great job.”In April, Cara Castronuova, a former boxer who works for a media network run by the MyPillow chief executive and election conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell, paid tribute to the president’s physical fitness.She asked Leavitt: “Will you guys also consider releasing the president’s fitness plan? He actually looks healthier than ever before, healthier than he did eight years ago, and I’m sure everyone in this room could agree. Is he working out with Bobby Kennedy and is he eating less McDonald’s?”View image in fullscreenThe second Trump administration has added a seat in the briefing room for “new media”, referring to professional journalists, podcasters and influencers. The person in this seat is always called on first by Leavitt and is often a Maga cheerleader.Among the recent examples was social media personality Benny Johnson, who described his personal experience of crime in Washington and railed against “any reporter that says, and lies, that DC is a safe place to live and work”. He told Leavitt: “Thank you for making the city safe.”Johnson also asked if a so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) staffer known as “Big Balls”, who was recently assaulted in the District, would be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.A Media Matters review of the 16 press briefings held from 20 January to 22 April found that Leavitt called on rightwing outlets 41% of the time (110 out of 267) – still less than half but a significant increase from past administrations. Four of the five reporters called on most were from rightwing outlets: the Daily Caller’s Reagan Reese, Fox News’s Peter Doocy, the Daily Wire’s Mary Margaret Olohan and the New York Post’s Diana Glebova.The research also showed that the White House promoted smaller, far-right media over many established outlets, calling on the One America News Network (five times) and the Gateway Pundit (five) more than the Washington Post (four) and Associated Press (three) over that period.View image in fullscreenGertz added: “There’s no question that Donald Trump and other people who speak from the podium do not have a problem saying things that are not true in response to tough questions from reporters. But now they have an outlet. They can always turn to people they know are going to ask these sycophantic questions when they need a breather or want to change the subject.”This new calculus has enabled Trump and his spokespeople to change the rhythm of media interactions, blunting the momentum of difficult questions by turning to a known administration ally.Bill Galston, a former domestic policy adviser to the former president Bill Clinton, said: “It gives the press secretary a chance to change the entire dynamic of daily briefings because she is always free to interrupt the flow of negativity by calling on known cheerleaders in the room.”Galston suspects that the shift in the centre of gravity has some effect on the entire press corps. “They may feel a little bit more intimidated about asking questions in the toughest way if they think that, if they go too far, they’re going to get a tongue lashing from the press secretary rather than an answer and she’s going to seize the opportunity to do a Trump-like joust. I have to believe, at least at the margin, that has some effect.”Yet the stalwarts of the US media continue to do the work. TV correspondents such as Yamiche Alcindor and Peter Alexander of NBC News have riled the president – and prompted insults – with their sharp, persistent questions. Maggie Haberman of the New York Times skewered Leavitt over Trump’s birthday letter to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.Jon Decker, senior national editor for Gray Television and member of the White House press corps for 30 years, said: “Regardless of whether it’s a Republican administration or a Democratic administration, I’m still going to ask tough but fair questions. I’ve personally worked with 17 White House press secretaries and every one of them calls on me because they recognise that I’m always going to be fair. That is something that any reporter should keep in mind if they want longevity on this beat.” More

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      Trump news at a glance: Hamas says it has approved parts of Donald Trump’s ultimatum to end war in Gaza

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      Hamas said on Friday it approved parts of Donald Trump’s ultimatum to end the war in Gaza, agreeing to a hostage exchange and to surrender governing power in the Gaza Strip, but insisted on further negotiations over aspects of the plan.The group did not say whether it would lay down its arms – a key part of Trump’s proposal – and kept its response vague to other parts of the 20-part proposal unveiled on Monday.Nevertheless Trump welcomed its statement and ordered Israel to “immediately” stop bombing Gaza. “Based on the Statement just issued by Hamas, I believe they are ready for a lasting PEACE,” he wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform.The unprecedented order from Trump underlined that Israel and Hamas are the closest they have been in two years to achieving an end to the war in Gaza.Hamas agrees to release all Israeli hostages as it accepts part of Trump’s planIn a statement, Hamas said it was giving its “approval of releasing all occupation prisoners – both living and remains – according to the exchange formula contained in President Trump’s proposal, with the necessary field conditions for implementing the exchange”.Hamas also said it was prepared to turn over “the administration of the Gaza Strip to a Palestinian body of independent technocrats based on Palestinian national consensus and supported by Arab and Islamic backing”.Read the full storyUS government shutdown continues as Senate funding bills again fail to passThe US government remained shut down for a third straight day on Friday, with no signs that congressional leaders had made progress on reaching an agreement to restart operations.Senators convened in the afternoon to vote for a fourth time on competing Democratic and Republican proposals to restart funding. Neither bill won enough support to cross the 60-vote threshold for advancement, and no lawmakers changed their votes from recent days.Read the full storyHegseth says four killed in US strike on alleged drug boat off Venezuelan coastThe United States carried out a strike against an alleged drug-trafficking boat on Friday that killed four people, the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, said, a day after the Trump administration told Congress it was entering a new “non-international armed conflict” with cartels.Read the full storyApple removes Ice tracking apps after pressure from Trump administrationApple has removed an app from its App Store that uses crowdsourcing to flag sightings of US immigration agents after facing pressure from Donald Trump’s administration.IceBlock, a free iPhone-only app that lets users anonymously report and monitor activity by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers, was no longer available on Friday. The app’s developer said last month that it had more than 1 million users.Read the full storyUS supreme court allows Trump to strip temporary status from VenezuelansThe US supreme court on Friday allowed Donald Trump’s administration to strip legal protections from more than 300,000 Venezuelan migrants.Read the full storyFBI cuts ties with two advocacy groups that track US extremism after rightwing backlashKash Patel, the FBI director, says the agency is cutting ties with two organizations that for decades have tracked domestic extremism and racial and religious bias, a move that follows complaints about the groups from some conservatives and prominent allies of Donald Trump.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      The US government has put $2.1bn in funding for infrastructure projects in Chicago on hold, Russ Vought, the office of management and budget director, said on Friday, in another jab at a Democratic-led city.

      To commemorate the 250th anniversary of the US’s independence, the treasury department is mulling production of a $1 coin displaying Donald Trump with a clenched first under an American flag and the words “fight, fight, fight”.

      A California resident who admitted trying to assassinate the US supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2022 was sentenced on Friday to eight years and one month in federal prison.

      An Arkansas man, who was detained for a month by Ice after authorities mistook his bottle of perfume for opium, is seeking to have his visa status restored after the charges were dropped.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened 2 October 2025. More

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      Trump administration to offer unaccompanied minors $2,500 to self-deport, memo reveals

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      The Trump administration wants to offer immigrant children $2,500 to self-deport, according to a memo obtained by the Guardian.The memo, sent by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to legal providers representing unaccompanied children and reviewed by the Guardian, says that immigration officials have identified unaccompanied immigrant children 14 years of age and older in government custody who have expressed interest in voluntarily departing the US.The government “will provide a one-time resettlement support stipend of $2,500” to these children in exchange for their voluntary departure, the memo states. It notes that unaccompanied minors from Mexico will not be eligible.DHS confirmed the details of the memo and its plans to offer children money in a statement to the Guardian on Friday.The effort by the administration is a significant departure from longstanding immigration policy related to minors in US custody, according to experts. Although voluntary departure for unaccompanied immigrant children has always been an option, it typically requires consultation with attorneys and approval by a judge. The administration’s decision to incentivize children to engage in self-removal is new.The administration’s “message is confusing and seems to fly in the face of established laws and protocols that Congress passed to protect children from cyclical trafficking risks”, said Shaina Aber, executive director of the Acacia Center for Justice, in a statement. “We are concerned by messaging from the Department of Homeland Security that suggests children who were trafficked against their will into the US by cartels will be part of an incentive program aimed at getting children to waive their legal rights under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act.”Immigration lawyers and advocates have expressed alarm at the potential ramifications for children and their families. “We are mindful that this $2,500 incentive being offered to children in exchange for giving up their legal claims and accepting voluntary departure has the potential to exploit their unique vulnerabilities as unaccompanied minors in government custody,” said Marion “Mickey” Donovan-Kaloust at the Los Angeles-based legal aid group Immigrant Defenders Law Center, or ImmDef.“This policy pressures children to abandon their legal claims and return to a life of fear and danger without ever receiving a fair hearing,” said Murad Awawdeh, president of the New York Immigration Coalition. “The chaos built into this policy will devastate families and communities – and it is targeted to hurt children.”Children who arrive in the US or at a border without a parent or guardian are classified as unaccompanied minors, and are placed in the custody of the office of refugee resettlement (ORR), which is under HHS. Children are placed in federal government-run shelters until they can be reunited with family members vetted by the ORR, or with foster families, a process outlined in federal law.Since the Trump administration came into office, it has engaged in efforts to remove immigrant children from the US. The administration has attempted to roll back legal representation for minors, cutting back a federally funded program that provided legal aid for unaccompanied children.In late August, the administration prepared to hastily deport dozens of Guatemalan children. Many of the children had pending immigration cases and had not elected to leave the US, according to their lawyers.Dozens of children were roused from their beds at shelters and taken to an airport in the early morning hours and ushered onto flights – and were only released after a judge temporarily blocked the deportations.“We urge the public not to lose sight of the broader context in which this program is unfolding: a sustained assault on children’s access to legal counsel, dramatically prolonged detention periods, the expedited processing of deportation cases, and, most disturbingly, children being dragged from their beds in the middle of the night last month and threatened with deportation,” said Donovan-Kaloust.Members of Congress also have expressed concern about the treatment of immigrant children in US government custody. This week, led by the representative Delia Ramirez, those members wrote a letter to DHS opposing efforts to return immigrant children to their countries of origin.The letter, which has not previously been reported on, was submitted before the newest Trump administration memo incentivizing children to voluntarily return to their countries of origin. The members of Congress requested that DHS provide information on its push to return immigrant children to their home countries.“Given that we know the Trump Administration has no concern for keeping families together, we expect that DHS’s new policy will deprive children of due process and place them in grave danger of trafficking and other harm,” the members wrote.The newest directive was sent to ORR legal service providers on Friday morning, four days after the congressional letter.Dina Francesca Haynes, executive director of the Orville H Schell Jr Center for International Human Rights at Yale, said she questioned how children who are not old enough to enter into contracts on their own could be expected to consent to a legally complicated immigration decision.She said she is also concerned that the program will fuel family separations. Already, the Trump administration has issued stringent new restrictions on who can take custody of unaccompanied minors, requiring US identification, proof of income and in many cases a DNA test of family members seeking to reunite with children in ORR shelters or foster care. The new limits have made it especially difficult for immigrant families, and undocumented immigrants, to take custody of children.Haynes said she worries that children would feel pressured to accept a voluntary departure in order to protect their family members from being targeted or deported.“It’s just so astonishing that this is something that [the US] would be doing as a policy,” she said. “It’s coercing children who are already traumatized.”Earlier on Friday, rumors began spreading regarding the administration’s efforts to target children and incentivize them with money to voluntarily depart.According to a statement from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the “voluntary option gives UACs [unaccompanied children] a choice and allows them to make an informed decision about their future. Any payment to support a return home would be provided after an immigration judge grants the request and the individual arrives in their country of origin.”The offer is being made to 17-year-old unaccompanied children first, DHS said, despite the memo outlining that the deal is being offered to children as young as 14.The stipend program to urge children to depart the US echoes a similar scheme that the government devised to incentivize adults to self-deport. In May, the administration announced it would offer a $1,000 incentive to immigrants who “self-deport” using a government-designed app.Following the launch of that self-deportation program, it was unclear how many people partook in the scheme and whether any of them actually received the promised $1,000, Haynes said. “So I don’t know that the funds would actually be an incentive,” she said.Advocates have also raised alarm that children are increasingly being used as pawns in an effort to locate and deport their family members. Earlier this year, the Guardian reported that DHS was beginning to seek out unaccompanied immigrant children in operations nationwide in an attempt to deport them or pursue criminal cases against them or their adult sponsors.A recent Guardian investigation found that immigrant families are being threatened with separation from their children in order to coerce immigrants and asylum seekers to leave the US. In several cases, officials have forcibly separated immigrant children from their parents, and misclassified the children as “unaccompanied minors”, in an apparent effort to retaliate against families who have challenged deportation orders or insisted on their right to seek asylum. More

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      Trump says Hamas is ready for peace and Israel ‘must immediately stop bombing of Gaza’ – live

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      Donald Trump just welcomed the response from Hamas to his peace plan, without worrying about the parts of it that the Palestinian movement said need to be negotiated further, and urged Israel to stop bombing Gaza “immediately” in a social media post that was shared by the White House.Trump, who is eager for a Nobel peace prize and appears ready to declare victory, wrote:
      Based on the Statement just issued by Hamas, I believe they are ready for a lasting PEACE. Israel must immediately stop the bombing of Gaza, so that we can get the Hostages out safely and quickly! Right now, it’s far too dangerous to do that. We are already in discussions on details to be worked out. This is not about Gaza alone, this is about long sought PEACE in the Middle East.
      Yair Lapid, the former television anchor who leads Israel’s main opposition party, says that he has informed the White House that his party will support the government of Benjamin Netanyahu to close a peace deal in Gaza. The opposition’s support would be necessary to keep Netanyahu in power should far-right ministers in the governing coalition who want to continue the war withdraw from the government.“President Trump,” Lapid posted, “is right that there is a genuine opportunity to release the hostages and end the war. Israel should announce it is joining the discussions led by the president to finalize the details of the deal. I have told the US administration that Netanyahu has political backing at home to continue the process.”In a statement posted on social media, the Egyptian government, which has played a central role in negotiations with Hamas, has welcomed the Palestinian movement’s response to the plan announced this week by Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister.The statement thanks Trump for his vision to achieve peace and stability in the region, his “complete rejection” of the annexation of the Israeli-occupied West Bank by Israel or the displacement of the Palestinian people from their lands.Donald Trump just welcomed the response from Hamas to his peace plan, without worrying about the parts of it that the Palestinian movement said need to be negotiated further, and urged Israel to stop bombing Gaza “immediately” in a social media post that was shared by the White House.Trump, who is eager for a Nobel peace prize and appears ready to declare victory, wrote:
      Based on the Statement just issued by Hamas, I believe they are ready for a lasting PEACE. Israel must immediately stop the bombing of Gaza, so that we can get the Hostages out safely and quickly! Right now, it’s far too dangerous to do that. We are already in discussions on details to be worked out. This is not about Gaza alone, this is about long sought PEACE in the Middle East.
      Donald Trump has posted the full text of the Hamas statement in response to his proposed plan to end the war in Gaza on his social media platform.The White House initially posted the text on X as well, but that post was removed without explanation, forcing anyone who wantws to read it to visit the president’s own platform.Donald Trump has just recorded an Oval Office video in response to what his White House press secretary calls “Hamas’ acceptance of his Peace Plan.”While the Hamas response to the Trump plan for an end to the war in Gaza signals a willingness to had over governance of the territory, it specifically says that the new government should be made up of Palestinian technocrats, not a foreign-run “board of peace” overseen by the US president.A few hours ago, the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, who rules over isolated sections of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, announced that Palestinian officials were drafting a temporary constitution for the state of Palestine, which includes Gaza, to be ready within three months.“We reaffirm our commitment to holding general presidential and parliamentary elections within one year after the end of the war,” Abbas said, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.Abbas has not stood for election since 2005, and there have been no elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council since 2006, when Hamas won a majority of seats in the West Bank and Gaza. In 2007, power-sharing between Hamas and Abbas collapsed and Hamas seized control of Gaza after armed conflict with forces loyal to the president.In a copy of the statement seen by Reuters, Hamas issued its response to Trump’s 20-point plan after the US president today gave the group until Sunday to accept or reject the proposal. Trump has not said whether the terms would be subject to negotiation, as Hamas is seeking.Notably, Hamas did not say whether it would agree to a stipulation that it disarm, a demand by Israel and the US that it has previously rejected.In its statement, Hamas said it “appreciates the Arab, Islamic, and international efforts, as well as the efforts of U.S. President Donald Trump, calling for an end to the war on the Gaza Strip, the exchange of prisoners, (and) the immediate entry of aid,” among other terms.It said it was announcing its “approval of releasing all occupation prisoners — both living and remains — according to the exchange formula contained in President Trump’s proposal, with the necessary field conditions for implementing the exchange.”But Hamas added: “In this context, the movement affirms its readiness to immediately enter, through the mediators, into negotiations to discuss the details.”The group said it was ready “to hand over the administration of the Gaza Strip to a Palestinian body of independents (technocrats) based on Palestinian national consensus and supported by Arab and Islamic backing”.The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Hamas’ response to the proposal, which is backed by Israel as well as Arab and European powers.Among the 20 points in Trump’s plan are an immediate ceasefire, an exchange of all hostages held by Hamas for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, a staged Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the disarmament of Hamas and the introduction of a transitional government led by an international body.As we get more from Hamas’s statement trickling in, the group has said it has accepted some elements of Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan, including handing over administration of Gaza and releasing all the remaining hostages, but that it would seek further negotiations over many of its other terms.In its statement, Hamas says it appreciates the efforts of Arab, Islamic and international efforts, as well as the efforts of US president Donald Trump.I’ll bring you more from the statement as soon as we get it.Hamas has also agreed to hand over the administration of the Gaza Strip “to a Palestinian body of independent technocrats”, according to the statement. More

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      FBI cuts ties with two advocacy groups that track US extremism after rightwing backlash

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      Kash Patel, the FBI director, says the agency is cutting ties with two organizations that for decades have tracked domestic extremism and racial and religious bias, a move that follows complaints about the groups from some conservatives and prominent allies of president Donald Trump.Patel said on Friday that the FBI would sever its relationship with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), asserting that the organization had been turned into a “partisan smear machine” and criticizing it for its use of a “hate map” that documents alleged anti-government and hate groups inside the US. A statement earlier in the week from Patel said the FBI would end ties with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a prominent Jewish advocacy organization that fights antisemitism.The announcements amount to a dramatic rethinking of longstanding FBI partnerships with prominent civil rights groups at a time when Patel is moving rapidly to reshape the nation’s premier federal law enforcement agency. The organizations over the years have provided research on hate crime and domestic extremism, law enforcement training and other services – but have also been criticized by some conservatives for what they say is an unfair maligning of their viewpoints.That criticism escalated after the 10 September assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk amid renewed attention to the SPLC’s characterization of the group, Turning Point USA, that Kirk founded. For instance, the SPLC included a section on Turning Point in a report titled “The Year in Hate and Extremism 2024” that described the group as a “case study in the hard right”. Prominent figures including Elon Musk lambasted the SPLC in recent days about its descriptions of Kirk and the organization.A spokesperson for the SPLC, a legal and advocacy group founded in 1971 as a watchdog for minorities and the underprivileged, did not directly address Patel’s comments in a statement Friday but said the organization has for decades shared data with the public and remains “committed to exposing hate and extremism as we work to equip communities with knowledge and defend the rights and safety of marginalized people”.The ADL has also faced criticism on the right for maintaining a “Glossary of Extremism”. The organization announced recently that it was discontinuing that glossary because a number of entries were outdated and some were being “intentionally misrepresented and misused”.Founded in 1913 to confront antisemitism, the ADL has long worked closely with the FBI – not only through research and training but also through awards ceremonies that recognize law enforcement officials involved in investigations into racially or religiously motivated extremism.James Comey, the former FBI director, paid tribute to that relationship in May 2017 when he said at an ADL event: “For more than 100 years, you have advocated and fought for fairness and equality, for inclusion and acceptance. You never were indifferent or complacent.”A Patel antagonist, Comey was indicted on 25 September on false statement and obstruction charges and has said he is innocent. Patel appeared to mock Comey’s comments in a post Wednesday on X in which he shared a Fox News story that quoted him as having cut ties with the ADL.“James Comey wrote ‘love letters’ to the ADL and embedded FBI agents with them – a group that ran disgraceful ops spying on Americans,” he said in a post made as Jews were preparing to begin observing Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. “That era is OVER. This FBI won’t partner with political fronts masquerading as watchdogs.”An ADL spokesperson did not immediately comment Friday on Patel’s announcement. But CEO and executive director Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement Friday that the ADL “has deep respect” for the FBI.“In light of an unprecedented surge of antisemitism, we remain more committed than ever to our core purpose to protect the Jewish people,” Greenblatt said. More

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      US treasury considers special $1 Trump coin reading ‘fight, fight, fight’

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      To commemorate the 250th anniversary of the US’s independence, the treasury department is mulling production of a $1 coin displaying Donald Trump with a clenched first under an American flag and the words “fight, fight, fight”.The words overtly reference what Trump said immediately after narrowly surviving an assassination attempt four months before he won a second presidency.US treasurer Brandon Beach effectively announced a draft design of the coin Friday on X, saying: “No fake news here. These drafts honoring America’s 250th birthday and [Trump] are real.”The X post – which boosted another account commenting on the draft design – said Beach looked “forward to sharing more” after the end of the partial government shutdown that began after midnight Wednesday when Senate Democrats demanding concessions on healthcare and other spending priorities refused to provide the votes necessary to pass a Republican-backed funding bill.As Politico pointed out, in 2020, at the end of his first presidency, Trump signed bipartisan legislation authorizing the treasury secretary to issue $1 coins during the calendar year 2026 that are “emblematic of the United States semiquincentennial”.One side of the coin on whose draft design Beach commented Friday showed Trump’s profile alongside “Liberty”, “In God we Trust”, and “1776-2026”.The other side referenced the attempt on Trump’s life at a political rally in Pennsylvania last year, when authorities said a sniper injured Trump’s right ear and wounded two others before being shot to death by the US Secret Service.Trump raised his fist after the attack – one of two attempted assassinations for him as he successfully ran for a second Oval Office term in 2024 – and shouted, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” with an American flag looming nearby.A statement from a treasury department spokesperson to Politico said the draft which Beach’s X post discussed was not the “final $1 coin design”. But the statement maintained that “this draft reflects well the enduring spirit of our country and democracy, even in the face of immense obstacles”.Trump’s approval rating on average has plummeted to -9.5%, as his second administration has cut healthcare protections and nutrition assistance that benefits the poor – while also implementing tariffs that preceded a reported rise in consumer prices.A poll of 3,445 US adults taken by Pew Research between 22 and 28 September showed 53% believed Trump had made the national economy worse. Only 24% believed that he’s improved the economy, according to the poll’s finding.Among other things, the Trump administration has also deployed US military troops into the streets of multiple cities, axed roughly half a billion dollars in funding for vaccines such as the ones that helped end the Covid pandemic, and struggled to contain a scandal over his past friendship with late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. More

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      All the US campus protesters have been released – except for her: ‘Most days I feel helpless’

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      Growing up in the West Bank, Leqaa Kordia was separated from family in Gaza by Israeli restrictions on movement between the territories. So aunts and uncles in Gaza would call from the beach there, allowing Kordia to share her cousins’ laughter and glimpse the waves.Now many of those relatives are dead, killed in the war that has destroyed much of the Gaza Strip. And more than 200 days after Kordia was swept up in the Trump administration’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian protesters, she despairs over being unable to give her family a voice.“Most days I feel helpless,” said Kordia, 32, speaking from a Texas immigration detention center where she has been jailed since March. “I want to do something, but I can’t from here. I can’t do anything.”Kordia, a Palestinian who has lived in New Jersey since 2016, was one of the first people arrested in the government’s campaign against protesters, many of them prominent activists. All the others have gained release.Only Kordia – mischaracterized by the government, largely overlooked by the public and caught in a legal maze – languishes in detention. That is, in part, because her story differs from those of most others who thronged campuses.When she joined demonstrations against Israel outside Columbia University, she wasn’t a student or part of a group that might have provided support. As the arrests of activists like Mahmoud Khalil drew condemnation from elected officials and advocates, Kordia’s case largely remained out of the public eye.And Kordia has been reluctant to draw attention to herself.In her first interview since her arrest, Kordia said recently that she was motivated to protest because of deep personal ties to Gaza, where more than 170 relatives have been killed. The government has cast those ties as suspect, pointing to Kordia’s money transfers to relatives in the Middle East as evidence of possible ties to terrorists.Lawyers for the Department of Homeland Security didn’t reply to calls for comment. An agency spokesperson declined to answer questions about the case.In a blistering decision this week, a federal judge found the Trump administration unlawfully targeted protesters for speaking out. That ruling isn’t binding, though, in the highly conservative district where Kordia’s case is being heard.“The government has tried again and again to muster some kind of justification to hold this young woman in custody indefinitely,” said her immigration attorney, Sarah Sherman-Stokes. “It doesn’t seem to matter to them that they have no evidence.”Kordia grew up in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Her parents divorced when she was a child and her mother remarried, eventually becoming a US citizen. In 2016, Kordia came to the US on a visitor’s visa, staying with her mother in Paterson, New Jersey, which is home to one of the nation’s largest Arab communities.Soon after, Kordia enrolled in an English-language program and obtained a student visa. Her mother applied to let Kordia remain in the US as the relative of a citizen.The application was approved, but no visas were available. Government lawyers say Kordia has been in the US illegally since she left school in 2022, surrendering her student status and invalidating her visa. Kordia said she believed then that her mother’s application assured her own legal status and that she mistakenly followed a teacher’s advice.Kordia worked as a server at a Middle Eastern restaurant on Paterson’s Palestine Way while helping to care for her half-brother, who has autism.Those routines were upended in October 2023, after Hamas attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage. Israel responded with a massive military campaign, killing more than 66,000 Palestinians.In calls with relatives in Gaza, “they were telling me that: ‘We’re hungry. … We are scared. We’re cold. We don’t have anywhere to go’,” Kordia said. “So my way of helping my family and my people was to go to the streets.”Kordia said she joined more than a dozen protests in New York, New Jersey and Washington DC. In April 2024, she was arrested with 100 other protesters outside Columbia University’s gates in upper Manhattan – charges quickly dismissed by prosecutors and sealed.Soon after winning office for a second time and returning to the White House, this January, Donald Trump issued executive orders equating the protests with antisemitism. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) intelligence analysts began assembling dossiers on noncitizens who criticized Israel or protested the war, based on doxing sites and information from police.In March, immigration agents showed up at Kordia’s home and workplace, as well as her uncle’s house in Florida. “The experience was very confusing,” she said. “It was like: why are you doing all this?”Kordia hired a lawyer before agreeing to a 13 March meeting with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officials in Newark. She was detained immediately and flown to Prairieland Detention Facility, south of Dallas.Once there, she was assigned a bare mattress on the floor and denied religious accommodations, including halal meals, her lawyers said.When her cousin, Hamzah Abushaban, visited Kordia about a week after her arrest, he was taken aback by the dark circles under her eyes and her state of confusion.“One of the first things she asked me was why was she there,” Abushaban said. “She cried a lot. She looked like death.”“I must’ve asked her a thousand times, like, you’re sure you didn’t commit a crime?” he said. “What she thought and I thought was probably going to be a few more days of being detained has turned into almost, what, seven months now.”Kordia said that she didn’t understand the reasons for her detention until a week or two later, when a television at the facility was tuned to news of protester arrests.“I see my name, literally in big letters, on CNN and I was like, what’s going on?” she said.Administration officials touted Kordia’s arrest as part of the deportation effort against those who “actively participated in anti-American, pro-terrorist activities”. A DHS press release noted her arrest the previous year at a “pro-Hamas” demonstration, mistakenly labeling her as a Columbia student.Court papers show New York police gave records of her dismissed arrest to DHS – an apparent violation of a city law barring cooperation with immigration enforcement. Federal officials told police the information was needed in a criminal money-laundering investigation, a police spokesperson later said.At a bond hearing weeks later, government attorneys argued for Kordia’s continued detention, pointing to subpoenaed records showing she had sent “large amounts of money to Palestine and Jordan”.Kordia said she and her mother had sent the money, totaling $16,900 over eight years, to relatives. A $1,000 payment in 2022 went to an aunt in Gaza whose home and hair salon had been destroyed in an Israeli strike. Two more payments last year went to a cousin struggling to feed his family.“To hear the government accusing them of being terrorists and accusing you of sending money to terrorists, this is heartbreaking,” Kordia said.An immigration judge, examining transaction records and statements from relatives, found “overwhelming evidence” that Kordia was telling the truth about the payments.That judge has twice ordered her released on bond. The government has challenged the ruling, triggering a lengthy appeals process – highly unusual in immigration cases that don’t involve serious crimes.Typically, when the government goes after someone for overstaying a visa, they are rarely arrested, let alone held in prolonged detention, said Adam Cox, a professor of immigration law at New York University.“The kind of scale and scope and publicness of the campaign against student protesters by the Trump administration is really nothing like we’ve seen in recent memory,” said Cox, who studies the rise of presidential power in immigration policy.Kordia has sought release in federal court, the same path taken by Khalil and others. Whether she succeeds may depend on an appeals court in New York, which heard arguments this week from government attorneys who contend that such relief should be largely off-limits to noncitizens.Khalil, who was freed in June, said he had followed Kordia’s case closely, asking lawyers to relay messages and reminding his supporters “that there is one person left behind”.As detention stretches on, Kordia said it’s been difficult to follow developments in the war, let alone maintain contact with relatives caught in the conflict.But it’s provided many hours to think about a time when the war is finally over and she can find peace.That would start by being reunited with her mother and other relatives, she said, and maybe one day having a family of her own. She dreams of opening a cafe and introducing people to Palestinian culture through food. She wants to pursue an American life.“That’s all I wanted, to live with my family in peace in a land that appreciates freedom,” she says. “That’s literally all that I want.” More

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      Nature, books and naked bike rides: Portlanders push back on Trump claims that city is ‘like living in hell’

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      In Portland, Oregon, a city Donald Trump claims to have seen “burning down to the ground” on his television, residents are pushing back on the US president’s false depiction of their tranquil city as a war zone.Trump, who refuses to accept firsthand accounts from Oregon’s governor and the Portland mayor that the widespread unrest he thinks he’s seen on television is not actually happening, has ordered the military in to the Pacific north-west city.Portland police made three arrests on Thursday night after fistfights broke out between demonstrators and a pro-Trump influencer from Washington DC at an Ice field office, and 200 national guard troops are expected to arrive in the coming days. But a visit to the Ice field on Thursday afternoon showed that, far from being “under siege” by militants, there were fewer than 10 protesters on the sidewalk, nearly outnumbered by journalists.Now residents, frustrated with the president’s false claims that Portland is “war ravaged”, are showing a different side of their city from the one depicted by Trump and Fox News.A raft of Instagram and TikTok videos from Portlanders are poking holes in Trump’s claim that life in their city is “like living in hell”, showcasing verdant hiking trails, trees in rich fall colors and a thriving food scene. Plans are also being drawn up for the most Portland of all possible responses: an Emergency Naked Bike Ride against “the militarization of our city”.View image in fullscreenOn a rainy Thursday in the city, the kitchen at Kann, Portland’s award-winning Haitian restaurant, was busy preparing for dinner. Jokes about Trump’s war were shared at Coava, a cafe with a single-origin coffee menu that changes seasonally which is popular with Japanese tourists. Business was brisk at Powell’s Books, the downtown icon which inspired the new protest slogan: “Portland isn’t a war zone; it’s a bookstore with a city around it.”The parking lot was full at Providore Fine Foods, a culinary marketplace whose owner, Kaie Wellman, said she was concerned about how Trump’s “threats against our city” could be “devastating for local businesses” like hers, which worked so hard to survive the pandemic only to be hit first by Trump’s tariffs and now his “100% false” portrayal of a minor protest at the Ice field office in the city’s south waterfront district. “It’s really profoundly upsetting,” she said.Wellman, a fifth-generation Oregonian, is opening a bistro this month in the Portland Art Museum’s new Mark Rothko Pavilion, a $110m expansion that has taken a decade to complete. “It really is such a cornerstone for our community, for downtown Portland, to have such a significant new building,” she said. She describes her leap of faith in opening a new restaurant just blocks from where the 2020 protests for racial justice took place as “a love letter to Portland and what a vibrant community we are.“One of the main reasons that we’re opening up this cafe downtown, and do what we do here in town, is because of our deep love for the state and for the city. And to see it portrayed anything less than what it is, you know, is just so frustrating. It’s a place that people want to come and live and raise their families. And it’s kind of unmatched in beauty,” Wellman said.View image in fullscreen“Yes, we’ve had issues here, but we’ve had the same issues that basically every other city around this world has had. And we’re coming at these issues from a thoughtful place and not trying to sweep them away. But the issue that’s being portrayed right now does not exist in this town.”Asked about Trump’s claims of lawlessness, Wellman said it was “not the case at all”. “And I am in the south waterfront at least two to three times a week because my 92-year-old mother lives in the south waterfront,” she added. “So I can tell you firsthand what’s been happening down there. And what I have seen, at the quote-unquote very worst, it’s still been peaceful protests. Maybe there’s been some strong words thrown around.”“I would say right now, if there is any disturbance that’s been going on, it’s Black Hawk helicopters that are circling around a neighborhood that is filled with many retirees and older people … causing all of them fear and a lack of sleep,” she added.View image in fullscreenBack at the Ice field office protest, Amanda Cochran, a US army veteran, was holding a homemade sign that read “Vets Against Militarization” on one side, and “Immigrants Are Not the Enemy’ on the other. She wore a tour shirt for the Canadian rock band Three Days Grace with the lyrics “Let’s start a riot.”“I’m here because I’m really fed up with the fact that Trump is talking about using the military to go into cities and to train the forces,” she said.“I served in the US army for six years and this is my first time ever protesting,” she said. “I just felt really strongly that if we don’t stand up and say something then this could easily become a militarized country and the citizens will be under the control of the military, and I don’t think that that is OK, and that’s not what I fought for.“Us veterans, we have the privilege of being able to express our opinions because we’re out, and hopefully we can kind of give those soldiers that don’t want to be there a voice. If enough of us show up, maybe Trump will back off,” she added.Across the street, the Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin, who has been reporting from inside the facility, prepared for a live hit out front, accompanied by three men with covered faces who appeared to be private security guards.Just to their left, a young protest organizer, Jack Dickinson, who achieved a measure of viral fame this week for the chicken costume he wears to mock Trump, was being interviewed for the local news.Why a chicken? One of the advantages of the costume, Dickinson explained, is that “it disarms people.“We’re dealing with a real influx of rightwing agitators right now,” he continued. “It becomes difficult for them to interact in certain ways, I think, when there’s the chicken suit, but not just the chicken suit, it’s then somebody who tries to have a conversation with them about the soybean situation that we’re facing right now,” referring to the collapse in crop prices for US farmers due to Trump’s trade war with China.View image in fullscreen“We do not want this to escalate,” he said, agreeing with local officials who suggest that Trump wants to provoke a response from the protesters.“There is definitely a desire for a response. We saw this most clearly on Sunday night because for that protest, we had 30 people that were down here associated with rightwing Twitter accounts or rightwing YouTube channels,” Dickinson said. “There is a clear desire to get somebody reacting in a way that they can frame as a justification for what they are doing. And Portland just isn’t giving them what they want.” More