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      Trump’s anti-press tactics are bad enough in the US. Now Reform is importing them to the Midlands | Jon Allsop

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      On the day that he returned to office in January, Donald Trump signed an order renaming the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America”. A few days later, the Associated Press, a leading global news agency that is also a linguistic bible for newsrooms across the US, said that while it would acknowledge Trump’s order, it would mostly continue to use the original name. In response, the White House banned AP journalists from certain media availabilities. Trump accused the agency of failing to follow the law. The AP said the government was trying to dictate what words it can and cannot use.This week, Nottinghamshire’s Reform-led county council said that it would impose a sweeping ban on the Nottingham Post, its affiliated website and BBC-funded reporters who work there. At issue, apparently, was a story that the paper had written about a proposed reorganisation of local government. The leader of the council insisted that he welcomes scrutiny, but has a “duty” to combat “misinformation”. The Post’s editor called the decision “a massive attack on local democracy” – and it’s hard to disagree.The ban has clear echoes of Trump’s tactics, and some critics said as much explicitly. In the US, there is a clear longer-term trend of Republican officials imposing poorly justified restrictions on the press. But one doesn’t need to look as far as that to understand the Nottinghamshire ban. Indeed, Reform has been accused before of shutting out reporters, or otherwise treating them with disrespect: last year, the party reportedly excluded certain adversarial outlets and journalists from its conference; earlier this summer, Reform’s leader Nigel Farage accused local reporters in Scotland of helping to coordinate protests against him. It all seems to add up, on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond, to a moment in which hard-right politicians, in particular, feel that they don’t need to engage with traditional news outlets to get their message out, and that they won’t suffer electoral consequences for shutting them out. They might even benefit from doing so, turning the media into a foil as part of a broader war against the establishment.And yet, there are also reasons to doubt these conclusions, or at least to texture them. It’s true that Trump, for example, has shut out journalists whose stories displease him. (In addition to the AP imbroglio, his White House recently barred a reporter from the Wall Street Journal from a trip to the UK, after that paper reported unflatteringly on Trump’s alleged ties to Jeffrey Epstein.) At the same time, though, Trump will routinely talk to pretty much anyone who will listen, the mainstream media very much included. (Earlier this year, he called the editor of the Atlantic a “sleazebag” – then granted him an interview not long after.) Indeed, Trump has long used media coverage successfully to set the political agenda.In the UK, Farage seems to be using the same playbook. Sure, he has leaned, in particular, on the rightwing press. But such papers aren’t necessarily natural allies for Reform given their deep cultural ties to the Conservatives. And Farage has sucked up oxygen in more hostile quarters, too. This week, just as Nottinghamshire council was banning journalists, Farage was being praised, by Politico, for answering questions about his mass deportation plans with a directness that other parties should seek to emulate.Trump has clearly proven that there aren’t hard electoral consequences for press-bashing. But there are still important differences between UK and US political culture. Trust in the media is at a low ebb here, too. But in the recent past, rightwing political figures who have used Trumpian rhetoric to deflect blame for their own failures on to the media haven’t always been successful. Dominic Cummings goaded the press after his Covid-era drive to Barnard Castle, but could not escape massive public anger. Boris Johnson dodging tough questions – from the Today programme, for example, which his government boycotted – didn’t spare him from the glare of scandal in the long run.This doesn’t guarantee that the leaders of Nottinghamshire council will suffer from banning their local paper. Indeed, it might very well be to Reform’s advantage to let Farage suck up attention nationally while dodging scrutiny for the actions of the party’s councillors across the country; the party surely wants the media talking about immigration, not the reorganisation of local government. And local outlets might seem an easy target, diminished in power and reach in an age of cuts to local news and unchained online discourse.View image in fullscreenAnd yet Reform’s leadership of councils is an important test for the party in a country where voters still, to some extent, value competent governance. “If Reform can’t even face questions from the Nottingham Post,” the Conservative party chair Kevin Hollinrake wondered this week, “what hope is there that they could ever face the serious responsibilities of government?” He’s surely not the only one asking that question. Even in the US, where the culture of political press-bashing is more entrenched, local Republican legislators in some states are cooperating with proposals to steer more resources to their dwindling local news outlets. This isn’t some act of altruism, advocates say, but one born of the realisation that they need voters to know what they’ve been doing when elections roll around.The Reform ban might hold. But at some point, local Reform councillors will want to trumpet an achievement, and when they do, it would not be a massive surprise if they go running to the Nottingham Post. Politicians can, of course, reach voters on social media these days. But established local news brands can still confer prestige. And good publicity is good publicity. For now, Trump hasn’t let up on the AP. But he hasn’t been shy about showcasing its journalism when it suits him. An artwork based on the iconic image of Trump pumping his fist after his attempted assassination last year now adorns a White House wall. It was taken by an AP photographer.

      Jon Allsop is a freelance journalist. He writes Columbia Journalism Review’s newsletter The Media Today

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      Trump news at a glance: Backlash in Chicago as mayor defies president’s immigration crackdown

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      Resistance is growing to Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, with the mayor of Chicago, Brandon Johnson, signing an executive order to counter the president’s move.The order prevents the Chicago police department from collaborating with federal authorities on patrols, immigration enforcement, or conducting traffic stops and checkpoints. It also restricts officers from wearing face coverings to hide their identities.Johnson has accused the president of “behaving outside the bounds of the constitution” and of being “reckless and out of control”, while the White House insists the potential flood of federal agents is about “cracking down on crime”.“If these Democrats focused on fixing crime in their own cities instead of doing publicity stunts to criticize the president, their communities would be much safer,” said White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson.Here are the key stories.Chicago mayor signs executive order directing city to resist Trump’s immigration raidsThe mayor of Chicago has signed an executive order outlining how the city will attempt to resist Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.Brandon Johnson pushed back on Saturday against what he called the “out-of-control” Trump administration’s plan to deploy large numbers of federal officers into the country’s third-largest city, which could take place within days.The Chicago police department will be barred from helping federal authorities with civil immigration enforcement or any related patrols, traffic stops and checkpoints during the surge, according to the executive order Johnson signed.Read the full storyMore than 500 workers at Voice of America and other broadcasters to be laid offThe agency that oversees Voice of America and other government-funded international broadcasters is eliminating jobs for more than 500 employees, a Trump administration official said. The move could ratchet up a months-long legal challenge over the news outlets’ fate.Kari Lake, the acting CEO of the US Agency for Global Media, announced the latest round of job cuts late on Friday, one day after a federal judge blocked her from removing Michael Abramowitz as VOA director.Read the full storyBernie Sanders demands RFK Jr step down as health secretaryBernie Sanders has joined in on growing public calls for Donald Trump’s health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, to resign after recent chaos across US health agencies.In an op-ed published in the New York Times on Saturday, the Vermont senator accused Kennedy of “endangering the health of the American people now and into the future”, adding: “He must resign.”Read the full storySenior Pentagon official had affair with ‘notorious’ astrologer who stalked him, lawsuit saysA senior Pentagon official in the Trump administration had a months-long extramarital affair with a woman claiming to be “the internet’s most notorious astrologer” – and claims in a defamation lawsuit filed in Florida that she cyberstalked him and his wife after they split up.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Still getting up to speed on the latest with Trump’s tariffs? This handy explainer has everything you need to know.

      The Guardian’s Washington correspondent David Smith examines diversity in the Trump administration in this feature entitled: ‘Racist as hell’: Trump’s cabinet is almost all white, and he keeps firing Black officials

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      More than 500 workers at Voice of America and other broadcasters to be laid off

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      The agency that oversees Voice of America and other government-funded international broadcasters is eliminating jobs for more than 500 employees, a Trump administration official said. The move could ratchet up a months-long legal challenge over the news outlets’ fate.Kari Lake, acting CEO of the US Agency for Global Media, announced the latest round of job cuts late Friday, one day after a federal judge blocked her from removing Michael Abramowitz as VOA director.US district judge Royce Lamberth had ruled separately that the Republican administration had failed to show how it was complying with his orders to restore VOA’s operations. His order Monday gave the administration “one final opportunity, short of a contempt trial” to demonstrate its compliance. He ordered Lake to sit for a deposition by lawyers for agency employees by 15 September.On Thursday, Lamberth said Abramowitz could not be removed without the approval of the majority of the International Broadcasting Advisory Board. Firing Abramowitz would be “plainly contrary to law”, according to Lamberth, who was nominated to the bench by Ronald Reagan.Lake posted a statement on social media that said her agency had initiated a reduction in force, or RIF, eliminating 532 jobs for full-time government employees. She said the agency “will continue to fulfill its statutory mission after this RIF– and will likely improve its ability to function”.“I look forward to taking additional steps in the coming months to improve the functioning of a very broken agency and make sure America’s voice is heard abroad where it matters most,” she wrote.A group of agency employees who sued to block VOA’s elimination said Lake’s move would give their colleagues 30 days until their pay and benefits end.“We find Lake’s continued attacks on our agency abhorrent,” they said in a statement. “We are looking forward to her deposition to hear whether her plan to dismantle VOA was done with the rigorous review process that Congress requires. So far we have not seen any evidence of that.”They added: “We will continue to fight for what we believe to be our rights under the law.”In June, layoff notices were sent to more than 600 agency employees. Abramowitz was placed on administrative leave along with almost the entire VOA staff. He was told he would be fired effective 31 August.The administration said in a court filing Thursday that it planned to send RIF notices to 486 employees of VOA and 46 other agency employees but intended to retain 158 agency employees and 108 VOA employees. The filing said the global media agency had 137 “active employees” and 62 other employees on administrative leave while VOA had 86 active employees and 512 others on administrative leave.The agency also houses Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, Middle East Broadcasting Networks and Radio Martí, which beams Spanish-language news into Cuba. The networks, which together reach an estimated 427 million people, date to the cold war and are part of a network of government-funded organizations trying to extend US influence and combat authoritarianism.In March, Abramowitz warned that Trump’s attempts to dismantle the VOA would be a “self-inflicted blow” to American national security, saying: “If America pulls off the playing field and cedes it to our adversaries, then they’re going to be telling the narratives that people around the world are going to be hearing, and that can’t be good for America … They’re going to be hearing an anti-America narrative. We need to fight that with truth.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHe added: “The major challenge for the United States in general is this global information war in which countries like China and Russia are essentially really having our lunch. … So, I really feel that we need an organization that is accurate, unbiased, objective, and that tells the truth about America to the rest of the world in the languages that they understand.”This week, Trump also moved to remove union protections from a handful of federal employees, including those from the VOA.In response, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the nation’s largest trade union of public employees, said: “AFSCME members who fulfill the Congressionally mandated mission to broadcast Voice of America around the globe shine the beacon of freedom on the most oppressive of regimes. Now, because they have been fighting to keep Voice of America’s mission alive, their own voice on the job has been stripped from them. AFSCME will fight this illegal action in court.”Earlier this year, foreign staff at US-backed media outlets voiced concerns over their safety following Trump’s shuttering of the global media agencies.Speaking to the Guardian in March, Jaewoo Park, a journalist for Radio Free Asia, said: “We have many co-workers in different services, several of whom came here and sought asylum visas. If their own government knew they worked for RFA [Radio Free Asia] and they went back to their own country, their lives would be at risk.”“Authoritarian governments have praised what Trump is doing right now … In Burma, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, there were people who fought for freedom and democracy, and they came to work at RFA. It’s very risky for them. Their lives are in danger if Radio Free Asia doesn’t exist,” he added. More

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      Bernie Sanders demands that RFK Jr step down as health secretary

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      Bernie Sanders has joined in on growing public calls for Donald Trump’s health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, to resign, after recent chaos across US health agencies.In an op-ed published in the New York Times on Saturday, the Vermont senator accused Kennedy of “endangering the health of the American people now and into the future”, adding: “He must resign.”“Mr Kennedy and the rest of the Trump administration tell us, over and over, that they want to Make America Healthy Again. That’s a great slogan. I agree with it. The problem is that since coming into office President Trump and Mr Kennedy have done exactly the opposite,” Sanders wrote.Sanders pointed to the White House’s firing of Susan Monarez, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as four other top CDC officials who resigned in protest this week after Monarez “refused to act as a rubber stamp” for Kennedy’s “dangerous policies”.“Despite the overwhelming opposition of the medical community, secretary Kennedy has continued his longstanding crusade against vaccines and his advocacy of conspiracy theories that have been rejected repeatedly by scientific experts,” Sanders wrote.“Against the overwhelming body of evidence within medicine and science, what are secretary Kennedy’s views? … He has absurdly claimed that ‘there’s no vaccine that is safe and effective’… Who supports secretary Kennedy’s views? Not credible scientists and doctors. One of his leading ‘experts’ that he cites to back up his bogus claims on autism and vaccines had his medical license revoked and his study retracted from the medical journal that published it.”Sanders went on to add: “The reality is that secretary Kennedy has profited from and built a career on sowing mistrust in vaccines. Now, as head of [the Department of Health and Human Services] he is using his authority to launch a full-blown war on science, on public health and on truth itself.”Pointing to what he described as “our broken health care system”, Sanders said that Kennedy’s repeated attacks against science and vaccines will make it more difficult for Americans to obtain lifesaving vaccines.“Already, the Trump administration has effectively taken away Covid vaccines from many healthy younger adults and kids, unless they fight their way through our broken health care system. This means more doctor’s visits, more bureaucracy and more people paying higher out-of-pocket costs – if they can manage to get a vaccine at all,” he wrote.The senator warned that Kennedy’s next target may be the childhood immunization schedule, which involves a list of recommended vaccines for children to protect them from diseases including measles, chickenpox and polio.“The danger here is that diseases that have been virtually wiped out because of safe and effective vaccines will resurface and cause enormous harm,” Sanders said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn recent days, the Trump administration has faced rare bipartisan pushback following its firing of Monarez, which came amid steep budget cuts to the CDC’s work as well as growing concerns of political interference.Meanwhile, Kennedy has continued to make questionable medical and health claims – and has been lambasted in response by experts and lawmakers alike.Since he assumed leadership over the health department, Kennedy – a longtime anti-vaccine advocate – has fired health agency workers and entertained conspiracy theories. Last week, more than 750 current and former employees at US health agencies signed a letter in which they criticized Kennedy as an “existential threat to public health”.The health agency workers went on to accuse the health secretary of being “complicit in dismantling America’s public health infrastructure and endangering the nation’s health by repeatedly spreading inaccurate health information”.The letter comes after a deadly shooting at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta earlier this month, when a 30-year-old gunman fired more than 180 rounds into the buildings, killing a police officer before dying from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The shooter had been struggling with mental health issues and was influenced by misinformation that led him to believe the Covid-19 vaccine was making him sick, according to the gunman’s father. More

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      Chicago mayor to sign executive order directing city to resist Trump’s immigration raids

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      The mayor of Chicago is planning to sign an executive order on Saturday outlining how the city will attempt to resist Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, according to reports.Brandon Johnson will set out guidance for the city’s agencies and law enforcement, CNN reported, “in the midst of escalating threats from the federal government”.Last week, the White House requested that a US military base on the outskirts of Chicago be made available to assist with immigration operations, as the Trump administration plans a broader takeover of Democratic-run “sanctuary cities”.Johnson’s order “affirms” that Chicago police will not “collaborate with federal agents on joint law enforcement patrols, arrest operations, or other law enforcement duties including civil immigration enforcement”, CNN reported.It also directs city police to wear their official police uniforms, continue to identify themselves, follow body-camera procedures and not wear masks to clearly distinguish themselves from any federal operations, according to a copy of the order.“The deployment of federal military forces in Chicago without the consent of local authorities undermines democratic norms, violates the City’s sovereignty, threatens civil liberties, and risks escalating violence rather than securing the peace,” the order says.It also says city departments should “pursue all available legal and legislative avenues to resist coordinated efforts from the federal government”.On Thursday, Tom Homan, the administration’s “border czar”, said Chicago, along with a number of other cities, would soon be targeted in a planned immigration crackdown.“Operations are ramping up across the country. But you can see a ramp-up across the operations in Chicago, absolutely,” Homan said.In an interview with Fox News, Homan was asked whether he wanted to give a message to Johnson. Homan responded: “Get out of the way, because we’re going to do it.”NBC News reported that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), the border patrol and other agencies will send numerous agents and equipment to Chicago as soon as next week, in an attempt to increase arrests of undocumented immigrants.The planned move comes weeks after the president deployed armed soldiers and military vehicles to patrol the streets of Washington DC, claiming, despite all available evidence, that the use of the national guard was necessary to control crime.The Trump administration has been working on plans to send the national guard to Chicago, something Johnson and JB Pritzker, the governor of Illinois, have said would be an abuse of power.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOn Friday, Pritzker said such a move would amount to an “invasion”. He told CBS News that, should Trump send in the national guard, voters “should understand that he has other aims, other than fighting crime”.Pritzker said those aims may be to “stop the elections in 2026 or, frankly, take control of those elections”.Johnson’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.“If these Democrats focused on fixing crime in their own cities instead of doing publicity stunts to criticize the president, their communities would be much safer,” said White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson. “Cracking down on crime should not be a partisan issue, but Democrats suffering from TDS are trying to make it one. They should listen to fellow Democrat Mayor Muriel Bowser who recently celebrated the Trump Administration’s success in driving down violent crime in Washington DC.”Reuters contributed reporting More

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      Here’s what to know about the court ruling striking down Trump’s tariffs

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      Donald Trump suffered the biggest defeat yet to his tariff policies on Friday, as a federal appeals court ruled he had overstepped his presidential powers when he enacted punitive financial measures against almost every country in the world.In a 7-4 ruling, the Washington DC court said that while US law “bestows significant authority on the president to undertake a number of actions in response to a declared national emergency”, none of those actions allow for the imposition of tariffs or taxes.It means the ultimate ruling on the legality of Trump’s tariffs, which were famously based on spurious economic science and rocked the global economy when he announced them in April, will probably be made by the US supreme court.Here’s what to know.Which tariffs did the court knock down?The decision centers on the tariffs Trump introduced on 2 April, on what he called “liberation day”. The tariffs set a 10% baseline on virtually all of the US’s trading partners and so-called “reciprocal” tariffs on countries he argued have unfairly treated the US. Lesotho, a country of 2.3 million people in southern Africa, was hit with a 50% tariff, while Trump also announced a tariff of 10% on a group of uninhabited islands populated by penguins.The ruling voided all those tariffs, with the judges finding the president’s measures “unbounded in scope, amount and duration”. They said the tariffs “assert an expansive authority that is beyond the express limitations” of the law his administration used to pass them.Tariffs typically need to be approved by Congress, but Trump claimed he has the right to impose tariffs on trading partners under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which in some circumstances grants the president authority to regulate or prohibit international transactions during a national emergency.The court ruled: “It seems unlikely that Congress intended, in enacting IEEPA, to depart from its past practice and grant the president unlimited authority to impose tariffs.”Trump invoked the same law in February to impose tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, claiming that the flow of undocumented immigrants and drugs across the US border amounted to a national emergency, and that the three countries needed to do more to stop it.Are the tariffs gone now?No. The court largely upheld a May decision by a federal trade court in New York that ruled Trump’s tariffs were illegal. But Friday’s ruling tossed out a part of that ruling that would have struck down the tariffs immediately.The court said the ruling would not take effect until 14 October. That allows the Trump administration time to appeal to the majority-conservative US supreme court, which will have the ultimate say on whether Trump has the legal right, as president, to upend US trade policy.What does this mean for Trump’s trade agenda?The government has argued that if Trump’s tariffs are struck down, it might have to refund some of the import taxes that it has collected, which would deliver a financial blow to the US treasury.Revenue from tariffs totaled $159bn by July, more than double what it was at the same point last year. The justice department warned in a legal filing this month that revoking the tariffs could mean “financial ruin” for the United States.The ruling could also put Trump on shaky ground in trying to impose tariffs going forward. The president does have alternative laws for imposing import tariffs, but they would limit the speed and severity with which he could act.In its decision in May, the trade court said that Trump has more limited power to impose tariffs to address trade deficits under another statute, the Trade Act of 1974. But that law restricts tariffs to 15% and to just 150 days on countries with which the United States runs big trade deficits.How has Trump respondedHe’s not happy. Trump spent Friday evening reposting dozens of social media posts that were critical of the court’s decision. In a post on his own social media site, Trump claimed, as he tends to do when judges rule against him, that the decision was made by a “highly partisan appeals court”.“If these Tariffs ever went away, it would be a total disaster for the Country,” Trump wrote. He added: “If allowed to stand, this Decision would literally destroy the United States of America.”Trump claimed “tariffs are the best tool to help our workers”, despite their costs being typically borne by everyday Americans. The tariffs have triggered economic and political uncertainty across the world and stoked fears of rising inflation. More

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      ‘Racist as hell’: Trump’s cabinet is almost all white, and he keeps firing Black officials

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      A day after Donald Trump announced that he was firing Lisa Cook, the first Black woman to serve on the board of governors of the Federal Reserve, the White House proudly released a photo. It showed Trump, his cabinet and other officials giving a thumbs-up. Of the 24 people in the Oval Office, only one was Black.For those who have studied the US president’s long and troubling history of racism, the two events were more than mere coincidence. They were indicative of a man who has recently brought white nationalist perspectives from the margins back to the mainstream.Trump has vehemently denied that he is a racist, pointing to a modest increase in support among African American voters in last year’s election, when his opponent was a Black woman. But critics suggest that his effort to oust Cook fits a pattern of purging diverse voices from the higher ranks of leadership.“He chose to fire her out of all the governors because she’s a Black woman,” said LaTosha Brown, co-founder of the organisation Black Voters Matter. “His goal is to get control of the Federal Reserve and for that to no longer be an autonomous, independent body. But what he does recognise is that in America everything is about race. It is as lethal as a nuclear bomb.”Cook taught economics and international relations at Michigan State University, and was previously on the faculty of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. She was a Marshall scholar who received degrees from Oxford University and Spelman College, a historically Black women’s college in Atlanta.Cook dedicated much of her scholarship to examining how racial discrimination and targeted violence created barriers to economic advancement for African Americans. She also advised the Nigerian and Rwandan governments on banking reforms and economic development.In 2022 she was confirmed to the Fed’s board of governors by the Senate in a party-line vote. Republicans argued that she was unqualified and found her research overly focused on race; Democrats brushed off such critiques as unfounded.On Monday, Trump said he fired Cook after the director of a housing regulatory agency, whom the president appointed, alleged that she committed mortgage fraud. She refused to resign and filed a lawsuit claiming that Trump has no power to remove her from office.Trump’s order aligned with his effort to expand his power across once independent parts of the federal government and broader economy and culture. It also marked another potential high-profile removal of a Black leader from the federal government amid Trump’s broader crusade against diversity and inclusion policies.Brown observed: “He knows that racism and sexism is a very effective tool to cast doubt and that’s the pathway. Lisa Cook isn’t even the chair of the board. So why would you pick her?“He picked her because he is betting that, in an industry that is probably 90% or more white male, his odds of removing her are greater than the odds for removing others from the board. That in itself is rooted in the history and how insidious racism is built into the fabric of how we see people of colour in this country.”Over the past seven months Trump has targeted other prominent Black leaders. He fired Gen Charles Q Brown Jr, chair of the joint chiefs of staff, the second Black man to serve in the position. Brown had delivered speeches about racial discrimination and issued policies that promoted diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes in the military.The president dismissed Carla Hayden, the first Black person to serve as librarian of Congress, after a conservative advocacy organisation accused her of being a “radical”. He ousted Gwynne Wilcox, the first Black woman to sit on the National Labor Relations Board, which hears private-sector labour disputes.View image in fullscreenTrump’s critics argue that his life and career have given succour to white supremacists. In 1973 he and his father were sued for housing discrimination in New York; in 1989 he took out full-page ads in several newspapers calling for the death penalty for the Central Park Five, Black and Latino youths who were later exonerated.Trump broke through in national politics with the “birther” conspiracy theory, falsely claiming that Barack Obama was not born in the US and therefore ineligible to be president. After a 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, Trump said there were “very fine people on both sides”.He has reportedly described Haiti and African nations as “shithole countries”, has called Covid-19 the “Chinese virus” and “kung flu”, and, on the campaign trail last year, said immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country”, echoing the rhetoric of Adolf Hitler.Since returning to the White House, Trump has imposed a travel ban on many of the world’s poorest countries even as the US granted refugee status to about 50 white South Africans, claiming they were victims of racial persecution and “white genocide”.He issued executive orders to curb DEI initiatives in the federal government and even sought to blame DEI for an air crash. He is seeking to purge “divisive, race-centered ideology” from Smithsonian Institution museums, suggesting that there is too much focus on “how bad Slavery was”.The attempt to fire Cook is the most dubious move yet, prompting an outcry from Democrats and civil rights groups, who pointed to her gender and race as vital factors.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionCongresswoman Nanette Barragán of California posted on the X social media platform: “If you haven’t noticed yet – this is a disturbing pattern for Trump. Fire or drive out smart, competent women, in particular women of color, from high ranking positions and fill many of these positions with white men.”Derrick Johnson, president and chief executive of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), said: “Dr Cook’s credentials outshine Trump’s entire cabinet. This president simply cannot stomach Black excellence when it reveals his failures, particularly those in positions of power. In reality, this is about bending the Federal Reserve to Trump’s will, and he’s using racism as a tool to do it.”But Trump’s actions are being cheered on by white nationalists. Far-right groups such as the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys have been quoted as saying that they no longer need to take to the streets to demonstrate because the president has so comprehensively adopted their talking points and embraced their agenda.Antjuan Seawright, a Democratic strategist, observed: “When you have white supremacists who are holding key roles in government and you have leaders in this country who come and play footsie to their drumbeat they don’t have to resist because what they want is laid out for them in the form of a buffet.”Trump has been quick to point to Black allies when politically expedient, such as Tim Scott, the South Carolina senator, the representative Byron Donalds of Florida and Alveda King, a niece of the civil rights leader Martin Luther King. But critics note there is no guarantee this will translate to policies that address racial injustice.Nor has it manifested in significant representation at the heart of government. Towards the end of the first Trump presidency, the Washington Post identified 59 people who had held cabinet positions or served in top White House jobs. Only seven were people of colour and only one – the housing secretary, Ben Carson – was Black.In his second term, Trump has picked only one Black person to serve in his cabinet: Scott Turner, the secretary of housing and urban development. Joe Biden, by contrast, appointed the most diverse cabinet in history with more women and people of colour than any that had come before.Seawright said: “We went from generational progress to generational rollback, and what this president and this administration has done in seven months could take 70 years at least to replenish. It should be a friendly reminder for all people, but particularly African Americans, that all progress is not permanent.”Trump’s cabinet includes Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News host with no experience of running a major organisation, at the Pentagon; Robert F Kennedy Jr, a vaccine sceptic, at the health department; and Linda McMahon, a former professional wrestling executive, at the education department. The White House deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, has associated with white nationalist thinkers and groups and is the architect of his hardline immigration policy.Rashad Robinson, a civil rights leader and former president of the group Color of Change, added: “We live in a very diverse country, a country with many different types of people that come from many different backgrounds, and the president exhibits his values by who he puts in office.“This is not simply that Donald Trump has put only one Black person in his cabinet. It’s that Donald Trump has gone out of his way to find some of the most unqualified and ill-equipped people to put in those jobs as a way to actually avoid having to put Black people in his cabinet.”For Brown, the voting rights activist, Trump’s cabinet picks demonstrate that he is “as racist as hell”. She added: “Quite frankly, I’m glad he doesn’t have a whole lot of Black people in his cabinet because that would be deeply embarrassing to me. Who would work in that mess?” More

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      Trump news at a glance: court ruling threatens to upend Trump’s tariffs; Kamala’s security detail revoked

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      A US federal appeals court has ruled that most of president Donald Trump’s tariffs are illegal, describing the levies as “unbounded in scope, amount and duration”.The ruling, which will take effect on 14 October, is the biggest blow yet to Trump’s tariff policy and will likely mean the supreme court will have to rule on whether Trump has the legal right as president to upend US trade policy.Reacting to the decision on social media, the president said: “ALL TARIFFS ARE STILL IN EFFECT!” If allowed to stand, the ruling would “literally destroy the United States of America”, he added.The president on Friday also revoked Secret Service protection for the former vice-president and 2024 election rival Kamala Harris after it was extended by Joe Biden before he left office. The move has been slammed by some as “another act of revenge”.Here are the key stories:Most of Trump’s tariffs are illegal, federal court rulesDonald Trump overstepped his presidential powers with most of his globe-rattling tariff policies, a federal appeals court in Washington DC ruled on Friday.US law “bestows significant authority on the president to undertake a number of actions in response to a declared national emergency, but none of these actions explicitly include the power to impose tariffs, duties, or the like, or the power to tax”, the court said.Many of Trump’s steep tariffs “are unbounded in scope, amount and duration”, the ruling added, and “assert an expansive authority that is beyond the express limitations” of the law his administration has leaned on.Read the full storyTrump revokes Kamala Harris’s Secret Service detail extended by BidenDonald Trump has revoked Secret Service protection for the former vice-president and 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, Kamala Harris.The letter, dated on Thursday and titled “Memorandum for the Secretary of Homeland Security”, instructs the Secret Service to “discontinue any security-related procedures beyond those required by law” effective 1 September 2025.Read the full storyUS denies visas to Palestinian Authority leaders for UN general assemblyThe US has begun denying and revoking visas from members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority (PA) ahead of the United Nations general assembly meeting in September, the state department said on Friday.“The Trump administration has been clear: it is in our national security interests to hold the PLO and PA accountable for not complying with their commitments, and for undermining the prospects for peace,” it said in a statement.Read the full storyTrump bypasses Congress to cancel $4.9bn in foreign aidDonald Trump has told the House speaker, Mike Johnson, that he won’t be spending $4.9bn in congressionally approved foreign aid, in effect cutting the budget without going through the legislative branch.Read the full storyRFK Jr peddles dubious health claims amid CDC crisisIn a week of chaos at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Donald Trump’s health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, has continued to make questionable medical and health claims – and has been slammed for them by experts and lawmakers alike.After the deadly mass school shooting in Minneapolis this week where two children were killed and 17 others injured, Kennedy suggested that psychiatric drugs may be contributing to the rise in gun violence across the country.This week, Kennedy also suggested that he could identify “mitochondrial challenges” in children at airports just by looking at them.Read the full storyTrump looks to tighten visa durations for foreign students and journalistsThe Trump administration aims to tighten the duration of visas for students, cultural exchange visitors and members of the media, according to a proposed government regulation issued on Wednesday, part of a broader crackdown on legal immigration.Read the full storyMother of boy, 15, held at gunpoint by US immigration agents files $1m claimThe mother of a 15-year-old boy who was detained at gunpoint by federal immigration agents is seeking $1m in damages and accusing the Trump administration of false imprisonment and “unconstitutional racial profiling”.The teenager, a US citizen with disabilities, was in a vehicle with his mother outside Arleta high school in Los Angeles on 11 August when masked immigration agents surrounded them and pulled them from the vehicle. They said the boy was a suspect in a crime and handcuffed him for several minutes until they realized they had the wrong person, the Los Angeles Times reported.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Doctors at the US Department of Veterans Affairs would be barred from performing abortions, even in cases of rape and incest, under new rules proposed by the Trump administration.

      Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, has signed a new redistricting bill that will redraw the state’s congressional map to heavily favor Republicans. On Friday, Abbott signed the highly controversial bill, which prompted state Democrats to stage a weeks-long walkout earlier this month.

      Neil Young has released a new song lambasting Donald Trump, entitled Big Crime. The Canadian-American rocker has long been a critic of the US president, suing him (but later dropping the lawsuit) over the use of his songs at campaign rallies and calling him “the worst president in the history of our great country”.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened 28 August 2025. More