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      ‘Being mean will only rally her fans’: Taylor Swift is winning whether she backs Biden or thumps Trump

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      The 2024 US presidential election campaign, lacking any defining story to tell and with a prevailing lack of enthusiasm in a rematch of candidates in their eighth and ninth decades, last week settled on Taylor Swift – and an endorsement she may or may not make – as its defining obsession.On one side, expectations emanating from the Biden re-election camp were that the 34-year-old superstar would cast her influence over tens of thousands of Swifties their way; on the other, furious Republicans who at first sought to denigrate and wrap her in conspiracy theories, and later thought better of the strategy.Rolling Stone reported that allies of Donald Trump were pledging a “holy war” against Swift if she sides with the Democrats in November. Some theorised that the National Football League is rigging games for Swift’s Kansas City Chiefs boyfriend, Travis Kelce, to sweeten the Democrats endorsement hopes.Fox News host Jesse Watters claimed that the Shake It Off hitmaker had been converted into a psychological operations asset four years ago. The Pentagon hit back, saying: “As for this conspiracy theory, we are going to shake it off.”However, not all Republicans are on board with the attacks on Swift. “I don’t know what the obsession is,” presidential candidate Nikki Haley told CNN. “Taylor Swift is allowed to have a boyfriend. Taylor Swift is a good artist. I have taken my daughter to Taylor Swift concerts. To have a conspiracy theory of all of this is bizarre. Nobody knows who she’s going to endorse, but I can’t believe that’s overtaken our national politics.”While many are preoccupied with whether Swift can cross nine time zones to make it back from an Eras Tour concert in Tokyo to see her boyfriend play in next weekend’s Chiefs-49ers Super Bowl in Las Vegas (she can), the intensity of political questions surrounding Swift mirrors the febrile nature of the election 10 months away.View image in fullscreenDoubtless, Swift could offer politicos lessons in values-based messaging, audience understanding and building genuine connections with fans or voters. Last week, Trump argued that he is more popular than her, even if the values-based narratives he presents are often more aligned with self-victimisation than self-empowerment.A survey last year by Morning Consult found 53% of American adults are Swift fans. There are almost as many men as women, almost as many Republicans as Democrats, including baby boomers, millennials, Gen Xers and young adults from Gen Z. In other words, a constituency that could make or break a national political campaign.The recent Republican primary in New Hampshire indicated Trump’s weaknesses with women, who make up much of Swift’s fanbase. But recent polling, too, has shown that Biden’s ratings and support among young voters has dropped and he’s now closely tied in the 18-34 demographic with Trump.“They’re not crazy about Biden,” says Democratic party consultant Hank Sheinkopf. “If they turn out at all, it may be to oppose Trump and with no intensity at all. But if you’re having trouble with younger people, and you need to do something, what better way to cure the problem, or at least show that you are sensitive to it, than to get Taylor Swift out?”David Allan, professor of marketing at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, who teaches a Swift-focused course, says the Republicans will have to navigate the singer.“Republicans need to be careful with Taylor because she’s extremely popular with all-demographic women and some men. You don’t want to appear to be mean because it will only rally her fans,” he says. Conversely, attacking Swift could bring its own counter-intuitive, culture/class war rewards.“You know she’s having some effect if Fox News is attacking her,” Allan says. “For Trump, having Taylor Swift against him gives him something to talk about.” A salient lesson comes from the Dixie Chicks – now the Chicks – who wrecked their careers before the Iraq war when singer Natalie Maines said from a London stage they were ashamed to be that President George Bush was from Texas.In Swift’s documentary,Miss Americana, her father fretted that an overt political position could put her in the same position as the Chicks. But Swift is now believed to be too big to be commercially vulnerable.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAs the music industry newsletter Hits Daily Double put it: “Her domination of the marketplace from every conceivable angle is next-level. But she just seems to get bigger, and to rule every area she enters – the rerecorded albums, the massive tour, the blockbuster movie of the tour, the NFL games where her mere presence changes the center of gravity.”Whether or not Swift goes two-feet in with Biden, Allan adds: “It’s getting to that point in the 60s that if Bob Dylan or Joni Mitchell didn’t speak out about the Vietnam war it would hurt them with their fans. If she doesn’t do something, even if just to help to get out the vote, it will hurt her authenticity.” In September, Vote.org reported more than 35,000 new political registrations, a 23% jump over last year, after Swift urged her 280 million Instagram followers to sign up.Swift, who was politically cautious until she endorsed Tennessee Democratic senate candidate Phil Bredesen in 2018 (he lost) and then Biden in 2020, has not shown any interest in being adopted by political factions. A 5,000-word New York Times essay that claimed her as more than just queer-friendly was criticised for making overreaching assumptions.View image in fullscreenBut US candidates often seek show business endorsements. “The tradition goes back at least 60 years when [John F] Kennedy brought out Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr, Judy Garland and others to go stump for them, and country music stars, who have come out mostly for Republicans,” Sheinkopf notes.Other musical endorsements include the Allman Brothers Band and Lynyrd Skynyrd for Jimmy Carter. But musicians including Madonna, Bruce Springsteen and Lady Gaga couldn’t push Hillary Clinton over the line in 2016, and it hasn’t hurt Trump to use Village People’s gay paradise anthem YMCA as a walk-off song, which crowds greatly appreciate.Swift might not even need to formally endorse Biden, Sheinkopf adds. “Even to put it out as rumour makes Biden look less like he’s 81 years old and more like he’s listening to younger people, their subcultural desires and what they feel about things.”For Swift, he says: “She gets to become a decision-maker, and an even larger figure in American and international life. Her public persona becomes as important as her music and that means she’ll make a lot more money.” More

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      ‘She’s part of the plan’: Kamala Harris makes critical pitch as South Carolina primary kicks off

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      Joe Biden’s closing argument on Friday to South Carolina, the state that rescued his White House dreams four years ago, was not made by Joe Biden. Instead it was Kamala Harris who strode out under a brilliant blue sky to the thunderous cadence of South Carolina State University’s drumline.It was because South Carolina’s voters showed up in the middle of a historic pandemic that Biden became president, she told a modest but enthusiastic crowd in Orangeburg, “and I am the first woman and first Black woman to be vice-president of the United States”.Harris was making her final pitch on the eve of the official kick-off of the Democratic presidential primary. At Biden’s behest, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) altered the electoral calendar so that racially diverse South Carolina holds the first nominating contest instead of Iowa and New Hampshire, which are about 90% white.It could not be described as a cliffhanger. Biden is assured of victory in the state that revived his seemingly doomed campaign in 2020. That formality was underlined by his write-in win in last month’s unsanctioned New Hampshire primary when his name did not even appear on the ballot. But Democrats are still working for a strong turnout to validate both Biden and South Carolina’s elevated status.Biden did visit the Palmetto state last weekend but it was Harris who came to Orangeburg on Friday, meeting faith leaders to discuss issues such as gun violence, prescription drug prices, student debt forgiveness and national unity. She then spoke in a balmy open-air courtyard at South Carolina’s only public historically black college and university (HBCU).The trip signalled that, despite a tenure clouded by negative headlines and approval rating that often lags behind Biden’s, Harris remains critical to the president’s re-election campaign because of her ability to galvanise Black voters and her sharp messaging on abortion rights, a potentially decisive issue. Many Democrats regard her as an asset rather than a liability.View image in fullscreenThe 59-year-old can also expect closer scrutiny than past vice-presidents because her boss is 81, the oldest commander-in-chief in American history. On Friday Nikki Haley, a former South Carolina governor battling Donald Trump for the Republican nomination, set up a mobile billboard at the edge of the university campus that said: “We’re going to have a woman president. It will either be Nikki Haley, or it will be Kamala Harris. Trump can’t beat Biden, and Biden won’t finish his term.”Harris spoke against the backdrop of a giant blue banner that said “First in the nation”, and checked off administration accomplishments such as job creation, increasing access to high-speed internet in rural areas, cancelling billions in student loan debt and capping insulin costs.But she became most animated when discussing reproductive freedom in the aftermath of the supreme court’s decision to end the constitutional right to abortion. And just as Biden has begun using the name “Trump” frequently as he increasingly draws a contrast, Harris did not shy away from attacking the likely Republican nominee as a profound threat to democracy.“He openly says that he is ‘proud’ that he overturned Roe v Wade,” Harris said. “‘Proud’ that he took the freedom of choice from millions of American women. For years the former president has stoked the fires of hate and bigotry and racism and xenophobia for his own power and political gain.”There were cries of “Yes!” from the audience. Harris went on: “He accused immigrants of ‘poisoning the blood of our country’ and, after neo-Nazis marched in Charlottesville, he said there were ‘very fine people on both sides’. The former president openly talks about his admiration for dictators and has vowed that he will be a dictator on day one.”Harris went on to summarise the threat of Trump’s authoritarianism in stark terms: “Understand what dictators do. Dictators put journalists in jail. Dictators suspend elections. Dictators take your rights and, as the great Maya Angelou once said, ‘When someone tells you who they are, believe them the first time.’”The speech, lasting only 14 minutes, struck a chord with Black women young and old. Morgan Mack, 22, a student at the university, said: “She was amazing and she hit on some good points that are going to affect my generation the most, so we just need to go out there and vote.”Mack added: “She’s definitely an asset to Joe Biden and an asset to not just Black women, but women everywhere and HBCU students like myself.”Laura Keith, a teacher who gave her age only as “old”, said Harris has done an “excellent job” as vice-president. “Very intelligent, expresses herself well, stepping out there among the people, speaking to people and giving them a vision of this administration.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOther spectators were similarly positive about Harris’s contribution. Shane McCravy, 23, a screenwriter, said: “She helps keep him in touch with just the minorities. She offers a voice, especially as a Black woman, not just for minority groups but she’s an inspiration for the next generation.“She’s inspiring people, the boys, the girls, whatever colour, that you can choose to do what you want to do and this helps get through that message America is for everyone, no matter who you are.”Pastor William Johnson, 64, added: “She’s part of the plan. We started out three years ago and this is just a continuation of not just making America great but bringing America back. Saving the soul of America.”Harris, herself a graduate of an HBCU – Howard University in Washington – served as the junior senator from California from 2017 to 2021. Her own campaign for president collapsed two months before the first contest but she was chosen by Biden as running mate. Critics mock her speeches as “word salads” and question her management style; defenders say she has been the victims of racism, sexism and the thanklessness of the vice-presidency.Antjuan Seawright, a Democratic strategist based in South Carolina, insisted: “She brings the experience of being a Black woman in America who knows what it’s like to be counted out and knows what it’s like to be at the bottom when you know you have the ability to lead at the top.”Biden and Harris are also boosted by a strong economy including news that the US added 353,000 jobs in January, smashing expectations. A Quinnipiac University national poll this week found Biden with 50% support among registered voters, ahead of Trump on 44%. Yet the president faces discontent over inflation, a border crisis and his handling of the war in Gaza.View image in fullscreenSaturday’s turnout may offer some clues, although it is bound to lower in a year when an incumbent president is running without serious challengers (in 2012, President Barack Obama gained 866,000 votes in the primary here). Biden’s challengers Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson are not expected to make much impact.Seawright, a Democratic strategist based in South Carolina, said: “People feel proud to be a South Carolinian, the fact that we’re first in a nation. People feel grateful and thankful to President Biden for having the steel spine and the political will and courage to recommend South Carolina going first.“People understand the need and the urgency to display their support and unity around President Biden and Vice-President Harris, because we know that this fight ahead will be a lot different than the fight behind.”Elaine Kamarck, who as a member of the DNC voted for South Carolina to go first, thinks this year’s result will have little meaning but that will not be the case next time around. She said: “They are the most loyal base in the party and they ought to have the first say. It’s not going to be a big deal this time but in 2028 it’ll be a very big deal.” More

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      Biden poised for boost as Democratic primaries begin in South Carolina

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      Joe Biden aims to build on recent momentum on Saturday, when South Carolina officially launches the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.The US president received a boost last month when he won an unsanctioned primary election in New Hampshire without even appearing on the ballot. A grassroots write-in campaign ensured that he brushed aside his challengers Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson.Biden also enters South Carolina buoyed by positive economic news. The economy added 353,000 jobs in January while average hourly earnings rose 0.6%. The unemployment rate stands at 3.7%.It was Biden’s victory here in the 2020 Democratic primary that rescued his broke and flailing campaign, convincing rivals that he was best positioned to win with Black voters and defeat the incumbent, Donald Trump.“In 2020, it was South Carolina that put President Biden and me on the path to the White House,” Vice-President Kamala Harris told an audience in Orangeburg on Friday.But buzz and turnout is sure to be lower this time, as is typical when an incumbent president is running without serious competition. Republicans do not hold their primary in South Carolina until 24 February, after nominating contests in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.An Emerson College poll last month found that three in 10 South Carolina voters intend to take part in the Democratic primary. Nearly seven in 10 said they plan to vote for Biden compared with 5% for Phillips and 3% for Williamson, while 22% were undecided.Even so, with polls open from 7am to 7pm, it could be a momentous day for Democratic voters in South Carolina, as the state takes on a new role as host of the party’s first official primary election.Last year, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) – encouraged by Biden – rewrote the presidential primary process and put South Carolina first on the calendar, arguing that the state’s racial and economic diversity was more representative of the Democratic party than Iowa or New Hampshire, which are about 90% white.Speaking before a “First in the nation” banner in Orangeburg on Friday, Jaime Harrison, chair of the Democratic National Committee, told supporters: “All eyes – not only in America but all over the world – all eyes are on South Carolina right now and I hope you are fired up!”Harrison, who hails from South Carolina himself, noted the state’s long association with slavery and that, for all 48 years of his life, Iowa and New Hampshire had always gone first in picking presidents. “But this president came to this state and he saw us, he heard us, and he said: ‘You know what, you matter.’”He added: “For too long we’ve been relegated to the back of the bus, but now we’re driving the damn bus!”Come November, however, Biden is unlikely to compete hard in South Carolina. the state last voted for a Democratic presidential candidate in 1976. In 2020, it went to Trump, a Republican, by nearly 12 percentage points. More

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      Biden is betting on South Carolina’s Black voters. But does he still have their support?

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      Jonathan Fields and Taj McClary, two college freshmen, were chatting on Monday after class at a South Carolina State University snack shop. Both are young Black men from rough neighborhoods in North Charleston. They’ve made it out. But only so far.Fields is a mechanical engineering major with a 3.2 GPA, which isn’t enough to keep his state scholarship, he said. He’s looking at getting a job, but not just so he can afford a basket of chicken tenders after class.“I have an interview tomorrow at Wendy’s, just so I can send money back home and still get stuff,” Fields said. He’s not sure who he’s voting for in the Democratic primary on Saturday.“You don’t just succeed. You actually work for everything. Nothing is never handed to you. So when you come down here and you look at politics, you actually have to watch it.”On Saturday, South Carolina voters will head to the polls in a Democratic primary contest that is as much a coronation of Joe Biden as the Republican race here two weeks later appears to be of Donald Trump. But the common anxieties of Black voters lie beneath the placid surface of Biden’s re-election campaign, even after he chose to eschew tradition and launch his primary season in the state.There’s a contrast between Biden’s rhetoric and the lived reality of many Black voters in South Carolina who propelled him to the White House four years ago. That leaves some pointing to signs of improvement, but many people keenly aware of how far away equality remains, and how easily these gains can be reversed.Four years ago, Biden recovered from stumbles in Iowa and New Hampshire to win a resounding victory in this state – his first primary victory in his third run for the White House.Two Black senators – Kamala Harris of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey – were on the ballot in 2020, hoping to capture the magic of Barack Obama’s victorious run of 2008. It didn’t matter. An early endorsement by James Clyburn, dean of the Black congressional caucus and the state’s only Democratic congressman, galvanized the Black vote for Biden, who went on to win nearly half of South Carolina’s Democratic voters and a first-place finish in every county in the state.Biden has been plain in acknowledging his political debt to South Carolina, and specifically to South Carolina’s Black electorate. According to 2020 exit polling, about 60% of Democratic voters in South Carolina are Black and about 90% of Black voters here cast ballots for Democrats.“I wouldn’t be here without the Democratic voters of South Carolina, and that’s a fact,” Biden said on Saturday at a celebratory dinner in Columbia. “You’re the reason I am president.”Democrats are celebrating South Carolina’s new status as the first Democratic primary in the nation, both a political gift by Biden and an acknowledgment by the Democratic party that something had to change, said Marlon Kimpson, a former state senator.“There was a large push by the party leadership to hold the first-in-the-nation primary in South Carolina, because the South Carolina Democratic party electorate mirrors the rest of the country,” he said. “The challenge with that is that the president doesn’t have any meaningful opposition. It’s a double-edged sword. While we are very excited about hosting the first primary, we’ve had to start early and work extremely hard to generate enthusiasm.”View image in fullscreenIndeed, neither Congressman Dean Phillips nor author Marianne Williamson have generated much enthusiasm for their primary challenge of a sitting president. A poll conducted by Emerson College on 5 January indicated that 69% of Democratic primary voters in South Carolina intend to vote for the incumbent. About 5% support Phillips and 3% support Williamson in the poll. Twenty-two per cent were undecided.“As I drive down Highway 17, there are no campaign signs,” Kimpson said. “In 2020, not only were there campaign signs, this close to the election there were people holding handheld signs. Radio ads. Bumper stickers. Social media posts 24/7.”This is also the first presidential primary contest in South Carolina which has had early voting. So far, fewer than 30,000 voters have cast Democratic primary ballots.“Turnout is going to be low. We know that,” said Cliff Albright, a co-founder of the Black Voters Matter activist organization based in Atlanta. Albright led a series of town halls and voter education events in South Carolina last week. “If your benchmark is what happened in a previous primary, you’re going to be confused. Certainly, you can’t compare it to four years ago. The primary turnout is not going to tell us a whole lot.”Albright said he sees tension between the local concerns of Black voters and a state government dominated by white Republicans. For example, a recent cross burning in Conway, a gentrifying suburb of Myrtle Beach, has heightened interest in passing a hate crimes law at the state level. Activists have been pressing with increasing vigor for this political goal since the 2015 murders of nine people, including a state senator, at a historic Black church in Charleston.“Without a hate crimes law, who’s the president and who’s the attorney general and who’s running the Department of Justice matters,” Albright said.As the president formally begins his re-election campaign push, his message to Black voters has been to look at the promises he has made and kept to communities of color. Biden has elevated Black women to positions of authority, choosing Harris as his vice-president, appointing Ketanji Brown Jackson to the US supreme court and a record number of Black women to the federal bench.Capping insulin costs for consumers has been one of those signature accomplishments, Kimpson said. According to the American Diabetes Association, about 11.6% of Americans are diabetic, with a disproportionate disease burden affecting Black people. One out of eight South Carolinians is diabetic, according to data from the Medical University of South Carolina. For Black South Carolinians, it’s one in six. For those over 65, it’s one in four.Betty Owens of Orangeburg is 67. She receives insulin free of charge through Medicare, she said. On a Wednesday afternoon, she picked through the crust of some fried gas-station chicken breasts. “I don’t eat the outside,” she said. “It’s not that bad if you control it.”Owens, who had to pay for insulin out of pocket before the law changed, said the new policy was an important reason she’s voting for Biden in the primary and in November. She believes her health depends on it.Owens’ son and daughter got jobs paying more than they had been earning in the Trump years, one at an automotive company, another at a bakery. Biden “put out a lot of jobs out there, and more money with the jobs. When I was working, we weren’t making $19 or $20 an hour,” she said.The problem, she said, was inflation. While the rate of inflation in the United States has been lower than in other industrialized countries, and falling now, prices are still much higher than before the pandemic. “You run through that money like it isn’t even there,” she said. “You go into a store and you buy a few items, and it’s too much money.”The Black unemployment rate in April briefly dipped below 5% for the first time in history and remains lower over the last year than any previous period in American history. With remarkable historical consistency, the Black unemployment has usually moved in lockstep at double the white unemployment rate. Labor data over the past year suggests this is starting to uncouple: Black and white unemployment rates are inching closer together, perhaps a sign that endemic discrimination is receding.In absolute terms, economic outcomes for Black voters are improving. In relative terms, however, they’re falling behind. The wealth gap between Black and white households has increased in Biden’s term. Black households remain about 30% less likely to own a home than white households, driving this gap. The average Black worker earns 76¢ to a dollar earned by the average white worker.In South Carolina, it’s 73¢ to the dollar.View image in fullscreenSolving these problems requires a programmatic response, Kimpson said. “People are looking for immediate results in their mailbox, in their zip code. When you look at the American Rescue Plan, people actually got checks.”Student loan relief – $130bn and counting – has also been a signature chicken-in-the-pot item in Biden’s re-election campaign. Black students have borne a larger burden from those loans. While student loan relief unburdens people who have previously taken out loans, it’s not doing much for people in school today such as Fields, the freshman engineering student.“In order for me to get into the profession that I want to get into, I have to go to college,” Fields said. “But it’s like: I have to struggle just to get to where I want to be. Because nobody wants to help you. They tell everybody without college you won’t be anything, but how can I get there? There’s no help.”The return of Donald Trump to the White House remains a potent, motivating threat for Democrats, regardless of anemic turnout in a primary campaign, and Biden appears to know that.“I want you to imagine the future nightmare if Trump is back in office,” Biden told South Carolina Democrats last week. “Given the nightmare when he was in office, you know what is likely to come.” His stump speech conjures threats of a national abortion ban, the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, cuts to social security and an amplification of divisive politics.Biden’s rhetoric looks beyond the primary, fixated on his expected opponent in November and on repudiating Trump’s election claims. On Saturday, South Carolina voters will signal just how well that message is working.“The second Lost Cause is Trump’s big lie that the 2020 election was stolen,” Biden said. We cannot allow that lie to live either, because it threatens our very democracy. Folks, there are truth, and there are lies – lies told for power, lies told for profit. We must call out these lies with a voice that is clear and unyielding.” More

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      Biden gains union worker support but faces ceasefire protests in Michigan

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      Joe Biden won a strong pledge of support on Thursday from union autoworkers crucial to his re-election bid in Michigan, while yet more protests over his backing of Israel’s actions in Gaza put pressure on the trip.The president’s travel to the battleground state was intended as a celebration after the United Auto Workers (UAW) union recently endorsed his re-election bid. But his visit was also met with protests amid the state’s sizable Arab American community, demanding Biden seek a ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza war, and refusing to meet his campaign.Biden visited a UAW union hall in Warren, Michigan, where UAW members plan to work a phone bank on his behalf ahead of the state’s 27 February nominating contest.He was greeted by UAW president Shawn Fain, who last week gave a full-throated endorsement of the Democratic incumbent and a sharp rebuke of Republican frontrunner Donald Trump.As the crowd chanted, “Joe, Joe”, Fain promised Biden: “We’re going to fight like hell” for him to win the November presidential election.“Wall Street didn’t build the middle class. Labor built the middle class, and the middle class built the country,” Biden said. “When labor does well, everybody does well.”He later joked: “Besides, you built my ’67 Corvette.”The campaign kept specific details of Biden’s visit private in the face of expected opposition until just before his arrival.Ahead of his motorcade, about 100 protesters marched down a street toward the UAW location, chanting “Genocide Joe has got to go” and waving Palestinian flags.Before heading to Michigan, Biden attended the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington. He said he was working to resolve the Gaza conflict, including a two-state solution for Palestinians and bringing home the hostages still held following Hamas’s 7 October attack on southern Israel.“We are actively working for peace,” he said at the breakfast.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump on Wednesday met with the Teamsters, one of the US’s biggest unions representing truck drivers, airline pilots and others, as he competes for their backing.Ahead of Biden’s visit to the Detroit area, protesters amassed in cars and vans with blue and white “Abandon Biden” signs and Palestinian flags, planning to rush to wherever he appeared.Arab Americans account for 5% of the vote in Michigan and Biden’s margin of victory over Trump was less than 3 percentage points in 2020.Reuters contributed reporting More

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      State department identifies Israeli citizens targeted by US sanctions as Netanyahu rejects them as ‘unnecessary’ – as it happened

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      The US state department has released the names of four Israeli nationals subjected to sanctions under Biden’s new executive order.
      David Chai Chasdai
      Einan Tanjil
      Shalom Zicherman
      Yinon Levi
      According to the state department, Chasdai “initiated and led a riot, which involved setting vehicles and buildings on fire, assaulting Palestinian civilians, and causing damage to property in Huwara, which resulted in the death of a Palestinian civilian”.It accuses Tanjil of involvement in the assault of “Palestinian farmers and Israeli activists by attacking them with stones and clubs, resulting in injuries that required medical treatment”.Zicherman was seen on video assaulting “Israeli activists and their vehicles in the West Bank, blocking them on the street, and attempted to break the windows of passing vehicles with activists inside,” it said. He “cornered at least two of the activists and injured both”.Levi “led a group of settlers who engaged in actions creating an atmosphere of fear in the West Bank. He regularly led groups of settlers from the Meitarim Farm outpost that assaulted Palestinian and Bedouin civilians, threatened them with additional violence if they did not leave their homes, burned their fields, and destroyed their property. Levi and other settlers at Meitarim Farm have repeatedly attacked multiple communities within the West Bank.”Good afternoon. It’s been another lively day in Washington. Thanks for reading.Here’s what we covered today:
      Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, announced that the long-awaited text of a border deal to unlock aid to Ukraine and Israel could be released as early as tomorrow and said to expect a vote next week. Despite months of painstaking, bipartisan negotiations between senators and the White House, the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, has already declared it “dead on arrival” amid opposition from Donald Trump, the Republican frontrunner who hopes to use immigration as a cudgel against Joe Biden.
      Meanwhile, Biden announced that the US will place sanctions on Israeli settlers in the West Bank, via presidential executive order, citing “intolerable levels” of violence. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the action as “unnecessary.” The state department on Thursday released the names of four Israeli citizens targeted in a first round of sanctions under the new authority. For latest updates on the Middle East, you can follow our live coverage here.
      Defense secretary Lloyd Austin, was contrite in a Pentagon press briefing this morning, his first since being rushed to the hospital with complications from prostate cancer surgery that he kept secret from the president and the public for several days. “I want to be crystal clear: we did not handle this right and I did not handle this right,” Austin told reporters.
      Biden praised the Ukrainians people’s “incredible resolve and resilience against Putin’s aggression” and demanded afresh of Congress: “We must continue to help them.” The White House’s request to send nearly $110bn in additional security assistance and aid to Ukraine is on hold on Capitol Hill amid House Republican resistance.
      The US House of Representatives last night passed a nearly $79bn tax package that would expand the child tax credit for millions and revive a trio of tax breaks for businesses.
      Criticizing the policies included in the bipartisan border deal as “Republican light,” Democratic congressman Greg Casar lamented Joe Biden‘s recent statement indicating that he would move to “shut down the border” if the deal becomes law.“I’m a supporter of the president, but I think that he made a big mistake with that statement. The president’s statement reflects not just bad policy but bad politics,” Casar said.“‘Shutting down the border’ means that we’re further empowering cartels and criminal organizations to move people across the border. We need to be creating legal pathways for migration.”Republican lawmakers have demanded that Biden sign off on severe border measures in exchange for approving additional aid for Ukraine, and Casar advised the president against accepting those terms.“I do not think we should be playing into that kind of a hostage-taking situation. It’s bad policy,” Casar said. “And I don’t think that it will be good politics for the president either because these Republican policies are not going to create a more orderly situation at the border.”Conservative opposition to the border bill has received much of the attention. But progressives are also alarmed by the emerging proposal, as the Guardian’s Joan Greve reports.Congressman Greg Casar, a progressive Democrat of Texas, expressed grave concerns today about the border deal recently brokered by the Biden administration and a bipartisan group of senators.“It really worries me to hear these negotiations with the US Senate, where it feels that Republican, anti-immigrant policies could make their way into law even under a Democratic president,” Casar said on a press call.“I just don’t think that that is the way to go. We have to respond to this anti-immigrant propaganda with a proactive vision that recognizes that immigration is a good thing.”The Senate negotiators have not yet released bill text of the border deal, and it remains highly unclear whether the proposal can pass through Congress. Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, has already attacked the proposal as insufficient and has indicated that the legislation would be “dead on arrival” in the lower chamber.The group of senators working on the border deal have defended it against what they claim are rumors and misinformation about the bill’s contents. Conservatives are under pressure from Donald Trump to reject the deal, despite arguing that border enforcement is their top priority.Senator Kyrsten Sinema, an Independent of Arizona who has helped lead the talks, outlined some of the provisions for reporters on Capitol Hill yesterday.According to Axios, she said the plan would include strict new measures to tighten and speed up asylum claims as well as changes the way enforcement agents use detention, deportation and parole.Switching back for a moment to matters of domestic policy – albeit it an issue with major global implications for US immigration policy, aid to Ukraine and support for Israel and Taiwan: Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, just announced that the text of a long-awaited border security bill could be released as early as tomorrow (Friday), with a vote expected next week.For months, Senate negotiators have worked behind the scenes to broker a border deal that would unlock military aid to Ukraine and Israel. But it faces long odds in the Republican-controlled House, where the speaker, Mike Johnson, has already rejected the measure outright, despite not knowing what exactly is in the bill.My colleague Peter Beaumont notes in his full report on the sanctions that they follow a US visa ban for any Israeli settlers implicated in attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank announced last month.The new order will give the treasury department the authority to impose financial sanctions on settlers engaged in violence, but is not meant to target US citizens. A substantial number of the settlers in the West Bank hold US citizenship and they would be prohibited under US law from transacting with the sanctioned individuals.The Guardian’s Chris McGreal has a deeper dive into how American citizens have been leading the rise in settler-related violence in the West Bank, which you can read here:Biden has landed in the Detroit area, ahead of an event with auto workers. But expect senior administration officials to return to the state this month to meet with community leaders amid deep anger at the president’s handling of the war in Gaza, Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.Past outreach attempts by the administration have … not gone well. Participants have been open about their frustration with Biden and what they view as his failure to rein in Israel’s devastating military campaign in Gaza.Arab American voters are a relatively small but growing constituency that has historically favored Democrats. In battleground states such as Michigan and Georgia, home to large Arab and Muslim American communities, even the tiniest erosion of support could hurt Biden’s prospects for re-election. Representative Rashida Tlaib, the lone Palestinian American in Congress, who represents a Detroit-area district, has said so explicitly. In a video calling on the Biden administration to back a ceasefire, she appears before text that reads: “We will remember in 2024.”In a statement, the office of Benjamin Netanyahu said the vast majority of West Bank settlers as “law-abiding citizens” and described Biden’s executive order sanctioning settler extremists as “exceptional”.“Israel acts against all Israelis who break the law, everywhere; therefore, exceptional measures are unnecessary,” the statement continued.The US state department has released the names of four Israeli nationals subjected to sanctions under Biden’s new executive order.
      David Chai Chasdai
      Einan Tanjil
      Shalom Zicherman
      Yinon Levi
      According to the state department, Chasdai “initiated and led a riot, which involved setting vehicles and buildings on fire, assaulting Palestinian civilians, and causing damage to property in Huwara, which resulted in the death of a Palestinian civilian”.It accuses Tanjil of involvement in the assault of “Palestinian farmers and Israeli activists by attacking them with stones and clubs, resulting in injuries that required medical treatment”.Zicherman was seen on video assaulting “Israeli activists and their vehicles in the West Bank, blocking them on the street, and attempted to break the windows of passing vehicles with activists inside,” it said. He “cornered at least two of the activists and injured both”.Levi “led a group of settlers who engaged in actions creating an atmosphere of fear in the West Bank. He regularly led groups of settlers from the Meitarim Farm outpost that assaulted Palestinian and Bedouin civilians, threatened them with additional violence if they did not leave their homes, burned their fields, and destroyed their property. Levi and other settlers at Meitarim Farm have repeatedly attacked multiple communities within the West Bank.”White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre just wrapped up the media briefing on Air Force One, as the flight was about to descend towards the Detroit area, where Joe Biden is heading to a campaign event to meet auto workers.Jean-Pierre was asked whether the executive order setting up sanctions against certain Israeli settlers in the West Bank was announced today to, essentially, appease Muslim Americans incensed by America’s tenacious support and funding for Israel even as its military decimates Gaza in response to the attack by Hamas on southern Israel on October 7.The Detroit area has a huge Arab American population and protests are expected during Biden’s visit today.Jean-Pierre denied that the timing was intentional, adding that “these types of sanctions take a long time” to plan and impose.The US government informed the Israeli government before it publicly announced earlier today that Joe Biden was issuing an executive order in relation to the occupied West Bank, the White House just confirmed.The US will place sanctions on Israeli settlers in the West Bank, with the US president citing “intolerable levels” of violence against Palestinians there.John Kirby, the national security spokesman, based in the White House, was asked in the press briefing now underway whether Biden had informed Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu before he issued the executive order.“We informed the Israeli government before it was announced,” Kirby said.Asked again if that communication had been at the level of president to prime minister, Kirby repeated his answer.The Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, has called on the Biden administration to “immediately sanction” what Cair termed far-right Israeli officials who enable violence by illegal Israeli settlers against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank.Biden issued an executive order today imposing sanctions on Israeli settlers who have been attacking Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
      The Biden administration should use this executive order to immediately sanction Israeli government officials who are enabling settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. Just as importantly, President Biden must end American support for the Israeli government’s genocidal war on the people of Gaza. It makes no sense for the Biden administration to oppose killing Palestinian civilians in the West Bank while enabling the killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza,” Cair national deputy director Edward Ahmed Mitchell said.
      Hello, it’s been a lively few hours in Washington, on Capitol Hill and at the White House. We await a briefing from press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and national security spokesman John Kirby, so stand by for that. Looks like that will go ahead at 1.30pm ET as the two spox and reporters accompany Joe Biden to Michigan, aboard Air Force One.Here’s how the day is going:
      Joe Biden announced that the US will place sanctions on Israeli settlers in the West Bank, via presidential executive order, citing “intolerable levels” of violence.
      Americans’ views of the economy are improving, but their views of Biden are not. That’s according to a new AP-Norc poll that found a notable increase in the percentage of US adults who called the US economy “good”, but that’s not translating into support for the president.
      Defense secretary Lloyd Austin, was contrite in a Pentagon press briefing this morning, his first since being rushed to the hospital with complications from prostate cancer surgery that he kept secret from the president and the public for several days. “I want to be crystal clear: we did not handle this right and I did not handle this right,” Austin told reporters.
      Joe Biden praised the Ukrainians people’s “incredible resolve and resilience against Putin’s aggression” and demanded afresh of Congress: “We must continue to help them.” The White House’s request to send nearly $110bn in additional security assistance and aid to Ukraine is on hold on Capitol Hill amid House Republican resistance.
      The US House of Representatives last night passed a nearly $79bn tax package that would expand the child tax credit for millions and revive a trio of tax breaks for businesses. Yes, that House – the Republican-controlled one that booted its Speaker and has repeatedly brought the US government to the brink of a shutdown!
      The Israeli newspaper Haaretz suggested the move to sanction Israeli settlers was without precedent, calling it “arguably the most punitive measure ever taken from the US government against Israeli citizens”.Four Israelis are expected to be sanctioned under the new authority, according to several news reports, with more expected to be punished in the future. Doing so blocks these individuals from engaging with the American financial system and from accessing their assets and property in the US as well as bars them from traveling to the US.In a statement following the announcement of sanctions against Israeli settlers, Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, said the “record” spike in violence by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank “poses a grave threat to peace, security, and stability in the West Bank, Israel, and the Middle East region, and threatens the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States”.He said the executive order allows the US to impose financial sanctions against those it deems to have directed or particpated in acts of violence against civilians as well as those who have sought to displace them from their homes, destroyed property or engaged in “terrorist activity” in the West Bank.“Today’s actions seek to promote peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians alike,” Sullivan said.In December, the state department imposed a travel ban on some settlers.In an executive order released moments ago, Biden announced that the US will place sanctions on Israeli settlers in the West Bank, citing “intolerable levels” of violence.Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed by security forces and settlers across the occupied West Bank since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, according to the United Nations. The violence is separate from Israel’s military assault on Gaza, where the death toll is approaching 27,000 Palestinians.In the notice to Congress, Biden said actions by Israeli settler extremists “constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States” and declared a national emergency to address it.
      I, Joseph R Biden Jr, President of the United States of America, find that the situation in the West Bank – in particular high levels of extremist settler violence, forced displacement of people and villages, and property destruction – has reached intolerable levels and constitutes a serious threat to the peace, security, and stability of the West Bank and Gaza, Israel, and the broader Middle East region,” reads the order.
      “These actions undermine the foreign policy objectives of the United States, including the viability of a two-state solution and ensuring Israelis and Palestinians can attain equal measures of security, prosperity, and freedom. They also undermine the security of Israel and have the potential to lead to broader regional destabilization across the Middle East, threatening United States personnel and interests.”
      Americans’ views of the economy are improving, but their views of Biden are not. That’s according to a new AP-Norc poll that found a notable increase in the percentage of US adults who called the US economy “good”.Last year, just 24% of Americans rated the national economy as good, compared with 35% who do so now. It’s also an improvement from late last year when just 30% said so. The rosier outlook tracks with positive economic indicators: inflation has begun to recede and growth is strong.While nearly two-thirds of Americans still call the economy poor, it’s an improvement from a year ago, when 76% described it that way, the survey found.Still, that is not translating into support for the president, whose approval ratings are languishing at 38%, where it has stood mostly unchanged for the past two years. Just 35% of Americans approve of Biden’s handling of the economy. The evidence of a stronger economy has yet to spill over into greater support for Biden: the new poll puts his approval rating at 38%, which is roughly where that number has stood for most of the past two years. Biden’s approval rating on handling the economy is similar, at 35%.Voters’ perceptions of the economy often shape elections, which is why Biden and his team are working to emphasize any sign of economic strength. But if Americans aren’t feeling it personally, the message is unlikely to resonant.New reporting from the Associated Press reveals that Biden is expected to issue an executive order targeting Israeli settlers in the West Bank, where violence against Palestinians has surged in the occupied territory.The report, based on four officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the White House was expected to announce the order later today. It comes as Biden departs for Michigan, a battleground state and home to a sizable Arab American population that is furious with the president over his handling of Israel’s war in Gaza.Biden has faced growing criticism from Democrats amid rising Palestinian death toll and the destruction in Gaza. The move reflects the administration’s growing frustration with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, as the US ramps up pressure on its ally to show more restraint in its military operations in Gaza.
      The AP reports: Israel Defense Forces stepped up raids across the West Bank after the war began. Hamas militants are present in the West Bank, but largely operate underground because of Israel’s tight grip on the territory. Palestinians complain that the Israeli crackdown in the West Bank have further blurred the line between security forces and radical, violent settlers.
      The executive order is expected to set the ground for imposing sanctions on individuals who have engaged in violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan met on Wednesday at the White House with Ron Dermer, the Israeli minister of strategic affair. It was not clear whether the executive order was discussed.
      Read the full report here. More

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      Trump political action committees spent over $50m last year on legal bills

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      Donald Trump’s political action committees spent more than $50m on legal fees over the course of 2023, as the former president’s legal troubles intensified in the face of 91 felony counts across four criminal cases.According to documents filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) on Wednesday night, Save America, Trump’s leadership Pac that has shouldered most of the financial burden of his legal battles, entered 2024 with just $5m in cash on hand after spending more than $25m on legal expenses over the last six months of 2023.Another Trump-affiliated group, Make America Great Again, spent another $4m on legal bills over the second half of the year. Earlier filings showed that Save America also spent more than $21m on legal fees during the first six months of last year, bringing Trump’s total 2023 legal bill to more than $50m.As Trump’s legal woes have escalated, his political action committees have been forced to redistribute their financial resources. Filings show that Maga Inc refunded $30m to Save America in the second half of 2023, after already transferring more than $12m to the group earlier in the year. Save America had distributed $60m to Maga Inc back in 2022 to bolster Trump’s campaign efforts, but the group has now reclaimed most of those funds in the face of the former president’s mounting legal fees. After those transactions, Maga Inc reported roughly $23m in cash on hand heading into 2024.The FEC filings show that Trump-affiliated groups distributed payments to lawyers such as John Lauro, Steven Sadow and Chris Kise, all of whom have assisted in the former president’s legal defense. The new reports underscore how much of Trump’s impressive fundraising haul has been diverted away from his presidential campaign and redirected toward his legal battles – a fact that has caught the attention of his opponent in the Republican presidential primary, Nikki Haley.Haley said on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday: “Another reason Donald Trump won’t debate me … His PAC spent 50 MILLION in campaign dollars on his legal fees. He can’t beat Joe Biden if he’s spending all his time and money on court cases and chaos.”Despite the former president’s mounting legal troubles, the Trump campaign still began 2024 with $33m in cash on hand, but that total fell short of Joe Biden’s re-election campaign. The Biden campaign began 2024 with roughly $46m in the bank, while the Biden victory fund, a joint fundraising committee, reported $37.5m in cash on hand. The Democratic National Committee also reported more than twice as much cash on hand compared with its Republican counterpart, which started 2024 with just $8m in the bank.The figures prompted celebration among Biden campaign officials, who boasted about the president’s superior fundraising on social media.TJ Ducklo, a Biden campaign spokesperson, said in a statement: “While Donald Trump lights money on fire paying the tab on his various expenses, Team Biden-Harris, powered by grassroots donors, is hard at work talking to the voters who will decide this election and building the campaign infrastructure to win in November.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBeyond his legal fees, Trump is dealing with other financial strain, after a New York jury recently awarded $83.3m to E Jean Carroll in her defamation lawsuit. Last year, another jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll, awarding her $5m.And Trump’s civil lawsuits will soon be the least of his concerns. Two of his criminal cases are scheduled to go to trial in March, although at least one of those trials is expected to be delayed. Trump’s legal troubles – and their associated fees – will probably only worsen in the months ahead. More

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      Don’t underestimate Nikki Haley – for starters, just look at how she gets under Trump’s skin | Emma Brockes

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      It is a mark of just how low are the expectations one brings to the Republican primary race that Nikki Haley, the last woman standing against Donald Trump, appears impressive as a candidate solely by virtue of not being a lunatic.It reminds me of the lyrics to I’m Still Here, that Stephen Sondheim standard from Follies listing all the terrible things – the Depression, J Edgar and Herbert Hoover, religion and pills – the singer has come through unscathed, only in this case it’s Chris Christie and Ron DeSantis. That leaves Haley, the 52-year-old former governor of South Carolina and one-time US ambassador to the UN, as the only thing standing between us and a Biden/Trump runoff.The odds of a Haley victory over Trump appear vanishingly small after the former president’s early primary wins in Iowa and New Hampshire. Polling numbers support this, as does the unseemly pivot of Trump’s former rivals, most recently DeSantis, to lining up behind him two seconds after he has mocked and belittled them (“Ron DeSanctimonious”).The striking thing about Haley over the last few weeks is how effective she has been in getting under Trump’s skin. This, as we know, is a notoriously hard thing to do if one is invested in maintaining one’s dignity. Michelle Obama’s old adage – “when they go low, we go high” – doesn’t work with Trump, who keeps going lower and lower until the moral high ground is a point of light in the sky so distant it might as well be an alien life form.Haley, unlike her male rivals, has adopted a very particular tone towards the former president that feels connected to her relative youth and also her gender. Historically, women have had a harder time than men of bearing up under Trump’s mockery, given its leering subtext of “I wouldn’t touch her with yours”. Haley, it strikes me, has studied Margaret Thatcher very closely and in fact, along with Hillary Clinton (and former congresswoman Gabby Giffords, and, funnily enough, Joan Jett) cites her as a personal hero. In her public interactions with Trump, she adopts a mode of condescension reminiscent of Thatcher addressing her enemies in the Commons, an arch response, steeped in sarcasm, to the argument that women in politics lack a tone of command. When Trump, recently tweeted: “The people of South Carolina are embarrassed by Nikki Haley!” she replied, simply, “Bless your heart”.Yes, we’re here, at the “oh, bless” level of political discourse. You can disapprove of it, but weirdly, in this instance, it landed, leaving Trump looking vaguely pathetic. The tone Haley has adopted is one of the very few that breaks through and hits him where he hurts, at the level of personal and physical vanity. Since then, she has maintained towards the Republican frontrunner the vibe of a nurse – “Now, then, Mr Trump; have we taken our pills today?” – pandering to an elderly man. “Are we really going to have two 80-year-olds running for the presidency,” she said, then popped up on TV to talk about Trump’s “decline” since 2016, accused him of being part of the “political elite” and had T-shirts printed bearing the legend “Barred. Permanently.” This is a reference to Trump’s post on Truth Social that, “Anybody that makes a ‘Contribution’ to Birdbrain, from this moment forth, will be permanently barred from the Maga camp.” Where Hillary Clinton couldn’t bring herself to do this kind of dumb shit, Haley understands intuitively that, in the case of Trump, you have to fight dumb with dumb. The T-shirts went viral.I’m getting overexcited, I know. It can be easy to forget how low the bar is. Although Haley was sharply critical of Trump after the 6 January insurrection, prior to that her venality was fully on display when she praised Trump (“he was great to work with”) while promoting her 2019 book, With All Due Respect. As Politico recently noted, Trump rewarded her loyalty with the post, “Make sure you order your copy today!” Not great. And, of course, she agreed to serve in Trump’s cabinet in the first place.Nonetheless, the ferociously ambitious daughter of Indian immigrants, whose tenure at the UN was described in a New York Times editorial as “constructive”, and one of the few Trump appointments that didn’t end in disaster, makes Haley highly unusual. As a creature of the modern Republican party, she is still, of course, packing various eccentricities, including my favourite, the charming anecdote she tells about “renaming” her husband when they first met because, as she told him at the time, “You just don’t look like a Bill.” (She started calling him “Michael”, his middle name, which is how he is now universally known.) Weird, yes. But considering the alternatives, I’ll take it.
      Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist More