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      Paperboy Prince, the pro-love presidential candidate: ‘Mickey Mouse has more soul than my rivals’

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      At least 15 other people are running for president in 2024, but none of them look like Brooklyn’s Paperboy Love Prince. When the artist, rapper and non-binary activist filed to run in the New Hampshire primary last month, they showed up wearing a voluminous brocade jacket, gold pantaloons and MSCHF’s Big Red Boots, Super Mario-esque shoes made by the designers behind Lil Nas X’s Satan sneakers.They looked like a cartoon character. It’s all part of the act.“The folks who are in office have been in there more than many kings, queens and monarchs,” Paperboy says. “At that point, they become so out-of-touch with what it’s like to be an everyday American. My focus now is to highlight that by not blending in with them.”Blending in has never been an issue for Paperboy. They achieved local recognition during a 2021 New York mayoral run with a platform that included canceling rent, abolishing the police and legalizing psychedelics. Paperboy Prince is also a rapper, releasing topical songs such as Futuristic Schools, a rallying cry to improve public education. (Sample lyrics: “We need to raise the IQ of our nation / See the future of schools like That’s So Raven”).Working out of their Love Gallery, a community space in Brooklyn’s rapidly gentrifying Bushwick neighborhood, Paperboy sells merch, distributes food, clothing and books, and holds a 24/7 Twitch live stream. Outside sits the Love Bus, painted pink, green and rainbow cheetah print; during an impromptu photoshoot Paperboy jumps on top and starts waving to drivers passing by.Love is all around Paperboy, who has made it the center of their campaign. “I’m fighting for centering this country around love, putting it first, being anti-war, and pro-love, and creating love centers around the country,” they say. Think of these as town halls where people can gather, meet friends, learn new skills, or, in Paperboy’s words, “create a love connection”.Running against candidates who espouse racist and transphobic rhetoric only validates Paperboy’s campaign of compassion, they say. “If you’re going to choose love, confidently choose love, because the people who are choosing hate right now are confidently choosing hate.”Paperboy does not give their age – they believe reporters place too much focus on it. Ask where they’re from, and they’ll say “the African side of the moon”. They don’t like to claim heritage in any one place. “That’s what gets us to start separating ourselves from other people,” they explain. “I’m all about bringing us together.”Paperboy was born on Earth, though, growing up between New York and Maryland, with a Pentecostal bishop grandfather and equally devout parents. Paperboy counts their father as one of their biggest inspirations, alongside Kid Cudi and Bob Marley. (During an interview, Paperboy blasted the reggae icon’s music from a nearby speaker.)“When I was a kid, I watched my dad working with people who were homeless, or unhoused, or incarcerated, along with mothers and students,” they say. “He created programs for the youth, using whatever resources he had, to better the lives of people around him. That’s what inspires me to do the same.”Paperboy got into politics through rapping, taking an interest in Andrew Yang’s presidential campaign and promise of universal basic income.They were also fed up with parking tickets: while working as a TaskRabbit, Paperboy got so many parking tickets (“like, $1,000 worth”) that traffic cops booted their car. They needed their car for work and called their local representative for help getting it back. They didn’t hear back.“I realized [politicians] don’t actually care about us,” Paperboy said. “There’s not enough compassion, so I decided to run on love.” Paperboy likes to campaign outside New York City’s department of finance, where people go to pay parking tickets. “It’s still one of my biggest areas for recruitment into my campaign,” they said.As someone who wears a Game Boy around their neck and who advocates for building underwater cities and mandating recess for all, Paperboy’s used to getting treated like a joke by mainstream politicians.They’ve made friends with Vermin Supreme, a longtime satirical candidate in New Hampshire primaries, known for wearing a boot as a hat and promising a free pony for every American. But Paperboy’s dead serious about their platform and feels their antics bring attention to the ridiculous nature of modern politics.“Right now, the folks who are running for president are basically the mouthpieces for major corporations that have bought out political parties,” they said. “These people are way less genuine than any character; Mickey Mouse has more soul than these folks. So, yeah, I’m a character, but I’m the character that’s here to wake people up.” More

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      Blumenthal: Democrats have ‘work cut out’ as Biden trails Trump in five swing states

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      Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal said on Sunday that the party has “its work cut out for us” in response to new polling that shows President Joe Biden trailing Donald Trump in five of six swing states.The survey by the New York Times and Siena College of voters in six battleground states, was released with 365 days to go until the 2024 presidential election.Biden is ahead in Wisconsin, but Trump topped the survey in Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Michigan. The margins ranged from three to 10 percentage points, and reflected an erosion of support among the fragile, multiracial coalition that elected Biden over Trump in 2020.Speaking to CNN’s State of the Union, Blumenthal of Connecticut, said: “I was concerned before these polls, and I’m concerned now. These presidential races over the last couple of terms have been very tight. No one is going to have a runaway election here. It’s going to take a lot of hard work, concentration, resources. And so we have our work cut out for us.”However, Blumenthal praised Biden’s record, pointing to his diplomacy on the Israel-Hamas war – which has dismayed some on the progressive side of the party – saying the president’s leadership “has been critical … where he’s forged a bipartisan consensus in favor of a peaceful outcome with a Palestinian state as the goal.”Dr Don Levy, director of Siena College Research Institute, said the states in the poll would be crucial in 2024: “While Biden has a narrow three-point lead in Wisconsin, Trump leads by 11 points in Nevada, seven points in Georgia, five points in Arizona and three points in both Michigan and Pennsylvania.“If the 2024 matchup featured a Democrat other than Biden running against Trump, the ‘generic’ Democrat would be ahead by seven to 12 points in five of the states and ahead by three points in Nevada,” Levy said.Across the six battleground states, 59% disapprove of the Job Biden is doing as president and 71% said he was too old, while only 38% said Trump was too old. Biden is aged 80 and Trump is 77.Asked about the survey, the Biden campaign said there was a long way to go before election day. “Predictions more than a year out tend to look a little different a year later. Don’t take our word for it: Gallup predicted an 8 point loss for President Obama only for him to win handedly a year later,” Biden campaign spokesperson Kevin Munoz said in a statement, referring to Democrat Barack Obama’s 2012 victory over Republican Mitt Romney.Munoz added that Biden’s campaign “is hard at work reaching and mobilizing our diverse, winning coalition of voters one year out on the choice between our winning, popular agenda and Maga (Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan) Republicans’ unpopular extremism. We’ll win in 2024 by putting our heads down and doing the work, not by fretting about a poll.”Biden’s multiracial and multigenerational coalition appears to be fraying, the polls showed.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionVoters under age 30 favor Biden by only a single percentage point, his lead among Hispanic voters is down to single digits and his advantage in urban areas is half of Trump’s edge in rural regions, the polls showed.Black voters – a core Biden demographic – are now registering 22% support in these states for Trump, a level the New York Times reported was unseen in presidential politics for a Republican in modern times.
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      Nikki Haley’s unexpected rise from ‘scrappy’ underdog to Trump’s closest rival

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      On Monday, Nikki Haley returned to the building where her political career began to formally submit the paperwork to appear on the Republican presidential primary ballot in her home state of South Carolina. Haley held up her filing for the cameras. In loopy writing she had scrawled: “Let’s do this!”The exclamation punctuated Haley’s emergence as a viable alternative to Donald Trump. It comes nearly 20 years after Haley’s election to the South Carolina statehouse, having bested a 30-year Republican incumbent in a come-from-behind victory that stunned her party and began her unlikely ascent to the governor’s mansion and then to become Donald Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations.“I’ve always been the underdog,” Haley said in remarks at the statehouse on Monday. “I enjoy that. It’s what makes me scrappy.”In a Republican primary still thoroughly dominated by Trump, Haley is enjoying, for now, the next best thing: an unexpected rise to second place.For Republicans desperate to move on from Trump, the 51-year-old’s “adult-in-the-room” candidacy presents a compelling choice: a conservative leader with executive experience and a foreign policy hawk who pushed “America First” on a global stage. Her record, combined with her personal story as the daughter of Indian immigrants, would be hard to beat in a general election, her proponents argue, and would help broaden Republicans’ appeal among women, suburbanites and independents – groups that recoiled from the party during the Trump years.A pair of strong debate performances, a consolidating field and a sharp new focus on foreign policy following Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel have helped elevate Haley’s profile – and prospects – as she woos Republican voters and donors.In the early voting states of New Hampshire and South Carolina, polls show Haley surging past Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor whose campaign has stalled ever since he entered the race as de facto runner-up to Trump. She is also gaining ground in Iowa, which launches the Republican nominating process.In a survey released on Monday by the Des Moines Register, Haley climbed 10 points to 16%, putting her even with DeSantis as he struggles to break through against Trump.But underscoring just how difficult it will be for any candidate not named Trump to win the nomination, the poll found that the twice-impeached former president now facing four criminal indictments maintained a 27-point lead in Iowa, less than three months before the state’s caucuses.“It is slow and steady wins the race,” Haley said, previewing her strategy at the capitol building on Monday. She predicted the once-sprawling Republican field would winnow considerably after Iowa and New Hampshire before the race turns to her “sweet state of South Carolina” where she vowed: “We’ll finish it.”“I’ve got one more felIa I’ve gotta catch up to,” Haley told the crowd, “and I am determined to do it.”Last month, Trump’s former vice-president Mike Pence, ended his bid for the White House. Before that the former Republican congressman Will Hurd, suspended his campaign and endorsed Haley. In an op-ed, he argued that she has “the character and credentials to lead, the willingness to take on Mr. Trump, and the conservative record needed to beat Joe Biden”.That is the essence of Haley’s pitch to voters: that she is the most electable. To argue her case, she points to polling that shows her beating Biden in a hypothetical general election matchup.On the campaign trail, she likes to remind Republican voters that the party has lost the popular vote in the last seven out of eight presidential elections. “That’s nothing to be proud of,” she told the Daily Show guest host Charlamagne Tha God on Wednesday.Electability is the strongest argument Trump’s Republican rivals can make to voters, said Gunner Ramer, political director of the anti-Trump Republican Accountability Pac. But it’s almost certainly not enough to pry the nomination from him.There was a window after Republicans’ poor showing in the 2022 midterms when Trump appeared vulnerable to a primary challenge, he said. But his grip on the party has not only recovered since then, each indictment against him has seemed to harden the loyalty he inspires from his followers.“Her campaign is something out of 2015,” Ramer said. “It’s a reminder of what a competent Republican presidential campaign could look like if it were 2015. But we are in an era of a Donald Trump-led and inspired Republican party.”Strategists say Haley’s path to the nomination would probably require a strong performance in New Hampshire and an even better one – if not an upset – in South Carolina to send her into Super Tuesday as the clear Trump alternative.Despite growing calls for the Republican field to consolidate behind Haley, polls still show her trailing far behind Trump in both states. But longtime supporters say not to underestimate her, especially not in her home state, where she’s never lost an election.“In South Carolina, the same people who voted for Donald Trump for president twice have voted for Nikki Haley for governor twice,” said Katon Dawson, a former chair of the South Carolina Republican party who supports Haley. “It’s early yet.”While Trump has been holding his signature rallies between courtroom appearances and avoiding the debate stage, Haley has kept a frenetic campaign schedule, embracing the retail politics that she became known for in South Carolina. This week, she spoke to an overflow crowd at a diner in New Hampshire, where she was joined by the state’s Republican governor, Chris Sununu, a prominent Trump critic whose endorsement is highly coveted.“Are you ready to endorse me?” she teased.“Getting closer every day,” he replied.The clearest sign of Haley’s momentum may be the attention she’s drawing from her former boss.“Donald Trump isn’t stupid. He knows a threat when he sees one,” said Preya Samsundar, a spokesperson for a pro-Haley Super Pac. “And the fact that he’s zeroing in on Nikki instead of DeSantis is very telling.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAt a recent campaign rally in Iowa, Trump, who used to focus his ire almost exclusively on DeSantis, assailed Haley as a “highly overrated person”. Repeatedly referring to her by the derogatory nickname “Birdbrain”, Trump complained to the crowd that Haley had broken her promise to him that she would not run against him for the Republican nomination if he ran in 2024.Haley’s turn in the spotlight will inevitably invite more scrutiny. Ahead of next week’s Republican debate in Florida, Haley and DeSantis have ramped up their attacks on each other, tussling over who has a more hardline track record on immigration and foreign policy among other policy issues.In a spiky back-and-forth, DeSantis accused Haley of wanting to resettle refugees from Gaza in the United States, to which Haley is firmly opposed. She has assailed DeSantis for distorting her words.DeSantis’s team has waved off any suggestion that he and Haley’s campaigns are on opposite trajectories, arguing that the Florida governor remains Trump’s strongest challenger.“This is a two-man race, and Team Trump knows it,” Bryan Griffin, a press secretary for the DeSantis campaign, said in a statement. “That’s why they’re spending $1m to attack DeSantis in Iowa after proclaiming the primary was ‘over’.”Democrats are also weighing in against her. In recent weeks, they have sought to elevate Haley’s conservative record, particularly on abortion, which has been a damaging issue for Republicans since the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade last year.Jaime Harrison, chair of the Democratic National Committee who is also from South Carolina, accused Haley of “trying to rewrite history” by softening her approach on abortion. As governor, he noted, Haley signed into law a 20-week abortion ban that did not include exceptions for rape or incest.“Nikki may be singing a different song now, but don’t be fooled,” Harrison wrote on X, formerly Twitter, “when it comes to the issues, she is just as extreme as the rest of the MAGA field.”Perhaps Haley’s biggest asset at the moment is the sudden salience of foreign policy, amid the deepening conflict in Gaza.In recent weeks, Haley has emphasized her staunch support of Israel. As Trump’s UN ambassador, she championed his administration’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and then relocate the US embassy from Tel Aviv. She also pulled the US out of the UN human rights council after accusing it of displaying “unending hostility towards Israel”.Haley used a recent appearance at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual meeting in Las Vegas to issue some of her most scathing attacks on Trump to date, questioning his capacity to lead the country at such a precarious moment. With wars raging in the Middle East and Europe, and China posing new challenges, Haley said the stakes were too high for another “four years of chaos, vendettas and drama”.“America needs a captain who will steady the ship,” she said, “not capsize it.”As she plows ahead, Haley is also testing her party’s willingness to elect a woman of color to the nation’s highest office.In her campaign launch, she nodded to the possibility that her candidacy could make history. “I will simply say this: may the best woman win.” (In the same speech she also denounced “identity politics” and “glass ceilings”.)No woman has ever won a Republican presidential primary contest, let alone the party’s nomination. And to do so, she must wrest control of the party from the frontrunner, a former president with a long record of attacking women and people of color in demeaning and vulgar terms.“Top predictors of votes for Donald Trump are hostile sexism and racial resentment,” said Kelly Dittmar, director of research and a scholar at the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.“So how do you as a south Asian woman run against the person who has won on sentiments that also work against you as an individual?”Dawson, the former South Carolina party chair, said if any Republican can defy the odds and beat Trump, it will be Haley. He says he’s counting on the voters in South Carolina to their first female governor make history again by putting her on the path to becoming America’s first female president.“Indira Gandhi of India. Margaret Thatcher of Great Britain. Angela Merkel of Germany,” he said. “Next it’s Nikki Haley.” More

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      Who is Democratic congressman Dean Phillips – and why is he taking on Biden?

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      For people who know the Democratic Minnesota congressman Dean Phillips, his run for presidency is perplexing. For some of them, it’s also disappointing, maybe even enraging. But they also think he’s genuine in his quest to go up against Joe Biden in the Democratic primary, despite how it might affect his own political career and how it could damage Biden in one of the most consequential elections in recent US history.Phillips announced his run for the presidency in New Hampshire last week, saying it was time for the next generation to lead in a pointed reference to concerns about Biden’s age. He says he is a fan of Biden’s and a supporter of his policies, but he is 54, while Biden is 80. Phillips, the heir to a distilling empire who also co-owned a gelato company, is injecting his own wealth into his presidential campaign – solving any problem of raising funds.In Minnesota, where Phillips represents a purple district filled with wealthier suburbs of Minneapolis, Phillips first ran for Congress in the state’s third congressional district and flipped a longtime Republican seat blue. In his next two elections, he won more and more voters to his side, preaching pragmatic politics and driving a “government repair truck”.Ann Gavin helped him. She knocked on doors, delivered campaign signs. The 70-year-old Democratic voter from Plymouth, Minnesota, admires the congressman and the work he’s done for the district. She thinks he would be a great president someday, too, with his business savvy and political skills.“I’ve got friends who are upset. I’m more confused than upset,” she said. “I just think the timing is wrong. And he probably knows that too. So I’m not sure if he’s going to accomplish much.”Steve Schmidt, the anti-Trump Republican strategist, serves as a campaign adviser to Phillips. Schmidt said all the polling he’s seen shows Biden losing to Trump in 2024. Biden’s vulnerability is a private concern for Democrats, yet none of them will publicly admit it, he claims. The idea that voters having a choice in the primary will ultimately threaten democracy by throwing the election to Trump “demonstrates how far off the rails we’ve gotten”, he said.Phillips was not made available for an interview himself.In his run for the White House, the little-known Phillips now has to introduce himself to key early voting states then possibly the whole country. Schmidt sees that as an asset: he doesn’t have decades of “political stink on him” to overcome, and he can build up a lot of name recognition quickly because “you can get famous very fast in American politics”, he says.Phillips plans to run in New Hampshire, Michigan and South Carolina, then reassess from there. If he drops out, he will concede with dignity and throw all his weight behind defeating Donald Trump, Schmidt said.In Minnesota, at least, voters in his district and active Democrats know him. To some of them, his decision to run felt more personal – and also potentially disastrous.Ken Martin, the chairman of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor party, recruited Phillips to run for Congress after trying for many years. Martin and others worked hard to get Phillips elected and flip the seat in the third district. He saw Phillips as a “rising star” in the party who was charting his path in Washington.Now he thinks that’s all gone.“He just pissed it all away on this vanity project that’s not really going to end up with him being the nominee of the party,” Martin said. “Here he is, 54 years old, and he basically blew his whole political career on something that was never going to be, just to make a point, and I’m not even sure what the point is.”Whenever Phillips would appear in the media over the past year talking about how someone else should run against Biden, Martin said he would reach out to express his disappointment and share how it wouldn’t be a good move politically or personally.He is not alone. Among some of Phillips’s previous donors and supporters, there is a sense of betrayal and abandonment. For Martin, it’s not clear who, if anyone, is encouraging Phillips to run, despite it also seeming like he’s earnestly made the decision.“One thing you can say about Dean Phillips: he is a very genuine and sincere guy. He’s thoughtful,” Martin said. “This is not just some sort of kneejerk deal. I don’t think he came to this conclusion lightly, and as much as I disagree with that conclusion, I think it would be hard-pressed for anyone who actually knows Dean to suggest that he’s not sincere or genuine in his belief on why he’s doing this.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe legislators who represent the areas Phillips’s district covers released a statement this week detailing their support for Biden, who visited Minnesota this week. Phillips won’t get organizational or financial support from the Democratic National Committee or state parties, making campaigning more difficult in an already-difficult run against a sitting president.Not having the support of the party infrastructure isn’t the same as not having support from Democratic voters, Schmidt said. “The most out-of-touch people in the country work at the DNC.”.There are two schools of thought among Democrats on how this could play out: Phillips could undermine Biden by hitting on his weak points during a primary, leaving the president all the more vulnerable in the general election. Or Phillips’s campaign could energize Biden and his supporters, buoying them up as they fend off a challenger.The Phillips v Biden matchup is likely to focus mostly on Biden’s age, given the two don’t differ much on policy. While primary candidates often launch long-shot campaigns as a way to move the leading candidate closer to their positions, in this instance, Phillips’s presence in the race can’t make Biden younger. And a focus during the primary on Biden’s age can play into Republicans’ hands, as it’s already something they use to attack the president.Schmidt said the question of whether Phillips’s run brings attention to Biden’s age is “premised on the absurdity that something Congressman Phillips is doing is bringing attention to something that is clearly evident”.“The congressman isn’t taking the paper off of the package, so to speak, on that question, and he’s not going to talk about the president’s age,” he said. “Why would anyone talk about the president’s age? The president’s age is what the president’s age is.”Back at home, Democrats aren’t just grappling with seeing a friend or someone they respected make a decision they don’t agree with. They’re also worried about what could happen in the third district.Phillips’s district isn’t deep blue – it’ll require more money and effort from Democrats to keep it in their hands without Phillips. Phillips hasn’t said whether he’ll continue to run for re-election in his district, though he will face a primary if he does. In Minnesota, the state party has an endorsement process that assesses all candidates instead of immediately throwing its weight behind incumbents.Phillips’s presidential campaign might not last until Minnesota’s primary, on 5 March. If he’s still in it, Gavin, who knocked doors for Phillips, probably wouldn’t vote for him. She’d consider it, if he got a lot of traction in prior states and was pulling ahead, but she doesn’t want Trump to return to office.“Would I vote for him?” Gavin said. “Boy, certainly not if I thought it was going to hurt Biden’s chances, so I guess maybe I wouldn’t. That says it all, right?” More

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      View on Israel-Gaza emerges as rare divide for California’s Senate hopefuls

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      As three leading California Democrats vie for a rare opening in the Senate, the Israeli offensive in Gaza has exposed rare fault lines in the candidates’ otherwise aligned platforms.Following Hamas’s attack on Israel last month, all three leading candidates in the race to fill Dianne Feinstein’s seat – representatives Barbara Lee, Adam Schiff and Katie Porter – condemned the group’s actions. But as Israel ramped up its attacks on Gaza in retaliation, their divergent approaches to foreign policy became clear.The fissures between the candidates are a reflection of debates within the broader Democratic party. But in California’s open primary, where voters will choose between leading Democratic candidates with nearly identical platforms, the issue could be a deciding factor for some voters.“These candidates have regularly identified themselves as progressive candidates on a host of domestic policy issues – you can hardly tell the difference between them,” said Sara Sadhwani, a professor of American politics at Pomona College. But when it comes to Israel and Gaza, “from the get-go, we began to see some of these real distinctions”.Lee, who was the sole member of Congress to vote against the authorization for the use of military force after 9/11 that gave the president broad power to wage war, has maintained her position as an unwavering anti-war progressive. She is the only leading candidate to have called for a ceasefire.“I absolutely condemn all violence against civilians – including the horrific terrorist attacks by Hamas. Nothing is more valuable than human life,” she told the Guardian in an emailed statement. “And the surest way to mitigate the suffering in both Israel and Palestine is through a ceasefire.”Lee said the US “must lead the way forward” by supporting humanitarian and reconstruction aid, including food, medicine and water, to the region.On X, she posted: “There is one peace and diplomacy candidate in this race. I am proud to carry that mantle – even if I carry it alone.”Schiff has emphasized that “there are no both sides to the attack” by Hamas. “Israel has a right to defend itself, and the US must do all it can to assist Israel as it protects its citizens and takes all necessary steps to recover the hostages taken,” he said after the group staged its offensive last month. “Hamas is a terrorist group mass-murdering hundreds of innocent Israelis and taking women and children hostage.”Schiff has rejected calling for a ceasefire, a position in line with that of the Biden White House.In a statement on Thursday addressing his vote on a Republican-led House bill providing aid to Israel, he advocated for humanitarian pauses in the fighting, while noting the US should ensure that “Israel has the material support it needs to replenish its defenses, not only against Hamas, but against Islamic jihad, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and their Iranian sponsors, all of whom are endangering the lives of Israelis and threatening to widen the war”.Among several reasons for opposing the bill was its exclusion of humanitarian aid for Palestinian civilians who need food and medical aid, said his communications director Marisol Samayoa.Schiff, who is Jewish, said at a candidate debate in Los Angeles last month that he was proud to have the support of both the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), an influential pro-Israel lobbying group that has backed election deniers and far-right Republicans, and J Street, a “pro-Israel, pro-peace” group.“I stand shoulder to shoulder with the Israeli people,” he said.At the candidate forum, Katie Porter offered a hawkish take that at times appeared to clash with her progressive domestic policy: “There are lost lives in Gaza and Israel and it is because the United States has allowed terrorism to flourish and has refused to take a strong enough stance against Iran who is backing Hamas and Hezbollah,” she said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Orange county Democrat has pushed for stronger action against Iran in the past. Her district has one of the largest concentrations of Iranian Americans and one of her key policy tenets is “fighting for the accountability and change that the Iranian people deserve”.At the same forum – in line with mainstream Democrats – she also said that Israel, in taking action against Hamas, should be mindful not to violate human rights laws. “There is no exception for human rights,” she said.Porter did not respond to a request for further comment.Sadhwani, the Pomona College professor, said younger voters especially, who tend to more strongly empathise with Palestinians under occupation and oppose US military aid to Israel, could be swayed to Lee, for instance, and away from Schiff or Porter. Lee’s vocal support for a ceasefire and aid to Palestine could also sway Arab American voters, who might feel let down by Joe Biden and the broader Democratic party’s support for Israel amid its strikes on Gaza.Schiff’s stance cost him the endorsement of the Burbank mayor, Konstantine Anthony. “Until my congressman joins this peace movement, I can no longer, in good conscience, maintain my endorsement of his candidacy for the United States Senate,” said the progressive mayor, whose city is encompassed in Schiff’s southern California district.But Schiff’s relatively moderate views and hawkish foreign policy – including advocating for Congress to authorise the use of force against the Islamic State, has long drawn criticism from California progressives.In a statewide race where a Senate candidate will also need to pick up moderate and conservative voters, Schiff’s record could be a strength, said Sadhwani.“Who knows where we’ll be, by the time the primary rolls around next year,” she said. “But to the extent that this issue remains at the top of voters’ minds, it could certainly play an important role in their choice of senator.” More

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      Bannon used Confederate code words to describe Trump speech, book says

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      The far-right Donald Trump ally and adviser Steve Bannon used Confederate code words linked to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln to describe a speech by the former US president before his historic first criminal indictment, a new book says.On 6 March this year, addressing the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland, Trump took aim at Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney then widely expected to bring charges over hush-money payments to the porn star Stormy Daniels, thereby making Trump the first former president ever criminally indicted.Trump told his audience: “I am your warrior; I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution. I am your retribution.”In a forthcoming book, Tired of Winning: Donald Trump and the End of the Grand Old Party, Jonathan Karl, chief Washington correspondent for ABC News, writes: “When I spoke with Bannon a few days later, he wouldn’t stop touting Trump’s performance, referring to it as his ‘Come Retribution’ speech.“What I didn’t realise was that ‘Come Retribution’, according to some civil war historians, served as the code words for the Confederate Secret Service’s plot to take hostage – and eventually assassinate – President Abraham Lincoln.”Lincoln was shot at Ford’s Theatre in Washington on 14 April 1865, by John Wilkes Booth, an actor. The president died the following day.Karl is the author of two bestsellers – Front Row at the Trump Show and Betrayal – about Trump’s rise to the presidency, time in the White House and defeat by Joe Biden.In his third Trump book, excerpted in the Atlantic on Thursday, Karl quotes from a 1988 book, Come Retribution: The Confederate Secret Service and Assassination of Lincoln.“The use of the key phrase ‘Come Retribution’ suggests that the Confederate government had made a bitter decision to repay some of the misery that had been inflicted on the south,” the authors write. “Bitterness may well have been directed toward persons held to be particularly responsible for that misery, and Abraham Lincoln certainly headed the list.”Bannon, Karl writes, “actually recommended that I read that book, erasing any doubt that he was intentionally using the Confederate code words to describe Trump’s speech.“Trump’s speech was not an overt call for the assassination of his political opponents, but it did advocate their destruction by other means. Success ‘is within our reach, but only if we have the courage to complete the job, gut the deep state, reclaim our democracy, and banish the tyrants and Marxists into political exile forever,’ Trump said. ‘This is the turning point.’”In Karl’s estimation, the “Come Retribution” speech “was a turning point for Trump’s campaign” for re-election.Trump began his 2024 campaign sluggishly but then surged to huge leads over his Republican party rivals in national and key-state polling, despite a charge sheet now totaling 91 criminal counts and two civil trials, one over his business practices and one concerning a defamation claim arising from a rape allegation a judge called “substantially true”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionKarl writes: “The [federal] trial date for the charge of interfering in the 2020 election has been set for 4 March [2024]; for the hush-money case, it’s 25 March; for the classified-documents case, it’s 20 May.“As election day approaches and [Trump] faces down these many days in court, he will be waging a campaign of vengeance and martyrdom. He will continue to talk about what is at stake in the election in apocalyptic terms – ‘the final battle’ – knowing how high the stakes are for him personally. He can win and retake the White House. Or he can lose and go to prison.”Bannon is quoted as saying: “Trump’s on offense and talking about real things. The ‘Come Retribution’ speech had 10 or 12 major policies.”But, Karl writes, “Bannon knew that the speech wasn’t about policies in a traditional sense. Trump spoke about whom he would target once he returned to power.“‘We will demolish the deep state. We will expel the warmongers,’ Trump said. ‘We will drive out the globalists; we will cast out the communists. We will throw off the political class that hates our country … We will beat the Democrats. We will rout the fake news media. We will expose and appropriately deal with the RINOs. We will evict Joe Biden from the White House.“‘And we will liberate America from these villains and scoundrels once and for all.’” More

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      in Elections

      Minnesota supreme court to hear case challenging Trump’s 2024 eligibility

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      Attorneys at the Minnesota supreme court will argue on Thursday that former President Donald Trump should not be allowed to appear on the state’s ballots for president because of his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and role in the insurrection.A group of voters wants the courts to weigh a clause in the 14th amendment, which disqualifies an “officer of the United States” who has taken an oath to defend the constitution from holding office if they have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the country. In dozens of pages in their initial court filing, they cite examples of Trump’s election interference, from the fake electors scheme to his comments to rioters on 6 January 2021.“Despite having sworn an oath to support the Constitution of the United States, Trump ‘engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or [gave] aid or comfort to the enemies thereof,’” the voters argue.The lawsuit is one of several the former president faces in his bid to return to the White House, not to mention the various criminal and civil actions he is currently defending against. A similar petition is the subject of a trial in Colorado this week. Legal experts say the Reconstruction-era clause is ripe for the courts, though it has never been used to forestall a presidential candidate in this way.Free Speech for People, a left-leaning group, represents the voters in the case, who include the former Minnesota secretary of state Joan Growe and the former Minnesota supreme court justice Paul H Anderson.Trump’s attorneys and the Republican party have fought back against the suit, claiming the matter is a political question instead of a legal one. Trump’s campaign also claims there’s “no evidence that President Trump intended or supported any violent or unlawful activity seeking to overthrow the government of the United States, either on January 6 or at any other time.“This request is manifestly inappropriate,” Trump’s team wrote in a brief. “Both the federal Constitution and Minnesota law place the resolution of this political issue where it belongs: the democratic process, in the hands of either Congress or the people of the United States.”The Trump campaign fundraised off the 14th amendment cases this week, pointing to the Colorado trial and calling it the “next desperate attempt by Crooked Joe and the Radical Democrats to slow down our campaign”.The Minnesota secretary of state, Steve Simon, a Democrat, has supported the idea of the courts deciding the question, though has not weighed in on whether Trump should be on the ballot in the state’s March 2024 primary.Groups have sought to bar politicians from the ballot for their roles in the insurrection before, though the arguments haven’t been successful. It’s expected that one of the cases involving Trump could be taken to the conservative US supreme court.The cases challenging Trump’s eligibility popped off after an article from two law professors argued the former president would be excluded from seeking the high office again because of a clause in the 14th Amendment. One of the professors, Michael Stokes Paulsen, teaches at Minnesota’s University of St Thomas School of Law. More

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      in US Politics

      Liz Cheney calls new House speaker ‘dangerous’ for January 6 role

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      The new Republican speaker of the US House, Mike Johnson, is “dangerous” due to his role in Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, the former Wyoming Republican congresswoman and January 6 committee vice-chair Liz Cheney said.“He was acting in ways that he knew to be wrong,” Cheney told Politics Is Everything, a podcast from the University of Virginia Center for Politics. “And I think that the country unfortunately will come to see the measure of his character.”She added: “One of the reasons why somebody like Mike Johnson is dangerous is because … you have elected Republicans who know better, elected Republicans who know the truth but yet will go along with the efforts to undermine our republic: the efforts, frankly, that Donald Trump undertook to overturn the election.”Johnson voiced conspiracy theories about Joe Biden’s victory in 2020; authored a supreme court amicus brief as Texas sought to have results in key states thrown out, attracting 125 Republican signatures; and was one of 147 Republicans who voted to object to results in key states even after Trump supporters attacked the Capitol.The events of 6 January 2021 are now linked to nine deaths, thousands of arrests and hundreds of convictions, some for seditious conspiracy. Trump faces state and federal charges related to his attempted election subversion (contributing to a total 91 criminal counts) yet still dominates Republican presidential primary polling.Cheney was one of two anti-Trump Republicans on the House January 6 committee, which staged prime-time hearings and produced a report last year. In Wyoming, she lost her seat to a pro-Trump challenger. The other January 6 Republican, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, chose to quit his seat.Like Kinzinger, Cheney has now written a memoir, in her case titled Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning. She has also declined to close down speculation that she might run for president as a representative of the Republican establishment – her father is Dick Cheney, the former defense secretary and vice-president – attempting to stop Trump seizing the White House again.Johnson ascended to the speakership last month, elected unanimously after three candidates failed to gain sufficient support to succeed Kevin McCarthy, who was ejected by the far-right, pro-Trump wing of his party.The new speaker’s hard-right, Christianity-inflected statements and positions have been subjected to widespread scrutiny.Cheney told Larry Sabato, her podcast host and fellow UVA professor: “Mike is somebody that I knew well.”“We were elected together [in 2016]. Our offices were next to each other, and Mike is somebody who says that he’s committed to defending the constitution. But that’s not what he did when we were all tested in the aftermath of the 2020 election.“In my experience, and I was very, deeply involved and engaged as the conference chair, when Mike was doing things like convincing members of the conference to sign on to the amicus brief … in my view, he was willing to set aside what he knew to be the rulings of the courts, the requirements of the constitution, in order to placate Donald Trump, in order to gain praise from Donald Trump, for political expedience.“So it’s a concerning moment to have him be elected speaker of the House.” More