US elections 2024

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      Any line of separation between Fox News and the US government is about to vanish | Margaret Sullivan

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      When Donald Trump tapped a Fox News host this week to run the mighty US defense department, even Pete Hegseth’s colleagues at the rightwing media outlet were taken aback.“What the heck – can you believe it?” wondered Jesse Watters on his primetime show on Tuesday.“Taken right from this very couch!” exclaimed Hegseth’s fellow Fox & Friends talker Brian Kilmeade on Wednesday.This bemused enthusiasm was for public, on-air consumption.But in private, some had a dimmer view, according to Brian Stelter, author of two books about the Murdoch-controlled network.“You’re telling me Pete is going to oversee 2 million employees?” clucked one Fox host to Stelter; as the CNN media analyst noted, it’s actually almost three.In Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth, Stelter reported that Hegseth – a decorated veteran who served with the Minnesota national guard in Iraq and Afghanistan – consistently played to a singularly important viewer, checking his phone during commercial breaks in case Trump had commented on the show.And while Hegseth has directed a non-profit veterans’ advocacy group, nothing suggests he’s ready to run the world’s largest military. More alarmingly, he has encouraged Trump to pardon military personnel accused of war crimes, argued against women serving in the armed forces, and expressed the merit in a “preemptive strike” against North Korea.Although extreme, this development isn’t exactly breaking new ground.The Fox-to-Trump revolving door has been spinning for years. During his first term, Trump hired at least 20 officials who had previously worked at or contributed to Fox, making some of them cabinet secretaries and high-ranking White House aides.Remember, for instance, Richard Grenell, who joined Fox in 2009 and was still working there when he was nominated to be Trump’s ambassador to Germany in 2017? A few years later, Grenell was named Trump’s acting director of national intelligence. Or Ben Carson, a Fox contributor for years before becoming Trump’s secretary of housing and urban development?One particularly memorable case was Bill Shine, a high-ranking Fox executive, who left the network after allegedly helping to cover up the company’s culture of sexual harassment that brought down his buddy, co-founder Roger Ailes.No problem, though. Shine got a soft landing at the Trump White House as deputy chief of staff for communications, and later moved to Trump’s re-election campaign.It’s hard to jump from Fox to a job at a serious news organization. But, if you want to work at the Trump White House, there are few better résumé-builders.“The president’s worldview is shaped by the hours of Fox programming he watches each day, leading him to treat Fox employment as an important credential in hiring,” Matt Gertz, senior fellow at Media Matters for America, wrote in 2019.In the past few days, he also tapped the Fox News contributor Tom Honan as his “border czar”. Honan joined Fox shortly after his retirement as acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement director in 2018, during Trump’s first term.The door spins and spins again.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionGoing for the trifecta, Trump named Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas and former host of a weekly Fox show, as his preferred ambassador to Israel.Can a glorified perch for Sean Hannity – long the Trump whisperer – be far behind? And what about Tucker Carlson, despite being fired by the network last year?The Trump/Fox fit is a natural; one thing they share is a truth problem. Trump, of course, lies with fluid impunity.And Fox – though it insists on calling itself a news organization – has helped to spread lies and disinformation, including about the supposedly “rigged” 2020 election that Trump still insists he won. No matter that Fox had to pay Dominion Voting Systems nearly $800m in a court settlement after they sued for defamation.“Instead of promoting lies and conspiracy theories from outlets like Fox News and the online fever swamps,” wrote Oliver Darcy in his Status newsletter, “these media personalities will now be doing so with the US government’s resources and backing.”There could be no Trump as president without Fox. And Fox’s market capitalization is now approaching $20bn.Whatever they’re doing is working for mutual benefit, if not for US democracy.With this week’s developments, any line of separation – if it ever existed – is being erased. The two are nearly a single organism.

      Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture More

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      The Democrats must become an anti-establishment party | Robert Reich

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      A political disaster such as what occurred last Tuesday gains significance not simply by virtue of who won or lost, but through how the election is interpreted.This is known as the Lesson of the election.The Lesson explains what happened and why. It deciphers the public’s mood, values, and thoughts. It attributes credit and blame.And therein lies its power. When the Lesson of the election becomes accepted wisdom – when most of the politicians, pundits and journalists come to believe it – it shapes the future. It determines how parties, candidates, political operatives and journalists approach coming elections.What’s the Lesson of the 2024 election?According to exit polls, Americans voted mainly on the economy – and their votes reflected their class and level of education.While the US economy has improved over the last two years according to standard economic measures, most Americans without college degrees – that’s the majority – have not felt it.In fact, most Americans without college degrees have not felt much economic improvement for four decades, and their jobs have grown less secure.The real median wage of the bottom 90% is stuck nearly where it was in the early 1990s, even though the economy is more than twice as large now as it was then.Most of the economy’s gains have gone to the top.This has caused many Americans to feel frustrated and angry. Trump gave voice to that anger. Harris did not.The real lesson of the 2024 election is that Democrats must not just give voice to the anger, but also explain how record inequality has corrupted our system, and pledge to limit the political power of big corporations and the super-rich.The basic bargain in America used to be that if you worked hard and played by the rules, you’d do better, and your children would do even better than you.But since 1980, that bargain has become a sham. The middle class has shrunk.Why? While Republicans steadily cut taxes on the wealthy, Democrats abandoned the working class.Democrats embraced Nafta and lowered tariffs on Chinese goods. They deregulated finance and allowed Wall Street to become a high-stakes gambling casino. They let big corporations gain enough market power to keep prices (and profit margins) high.They let corporations bust unions (with negligible penalties) and slash payrolls. They bailed out Wall Street when its gambling addiction threatened to blow up the entire economy but never bailed out homeowners who lost everything.They welcomed big money into their campaigns, and delivered quid pro quos that rigged the market in favor of big corporations and the wealthy.Joe Biden redirected the Democratic party back toward its working-class roots, but many of the changes he catalyzed – more vigorous actions against monopolies, stronger enforcement of labor laws and major investments in manufacturing, infrastructure, semiconductors and non-fossil fuels – wouldn’t be evident for years. In any event, he could not communicate effectively about them.The Republican party says it’s on the side of working people, but its policies will hurt ordinary workers even more. Trump’s tariffs will drive up prices. His expected retreat from vigorous anti-monopoly enforcement will allow giant corporations to drive up prices further.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIf Republicans gain control over the House as well as the Senate, as looks likely, they will extend Trump’s 2017 tax law and add additional tax cuts.As in 2017, these lower taxes will benefit mainly the wealthy and enlarge the national debt, which will give Republicans an excuse to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid – their objective for decades.Democrats must no longer do the bidding of big corporations and the wealthy. They must instead focus on winning back the working class.They should demand paid family leave, Medicare for all, free public higher education, stronger unions, higher taxes on great wealth, and housing credits that will generate the biggest boom in residential home construction since the second world war.They should also demand that corporations share their profits with their workers. They should call for limits on CEO pay, eliminate all stock buybacks (as was the SEC rule before 1982) and reject corporate welfare (subsidies and tax credit to companies and industries unrelated to the common good).Democrats need to tell Americans why their pay has been lousy for decades and their jobs less secure: not because of immigrants, liberals, people of color, the “deep state”, or any other Trump Republican bogeyman, but because of the power of large corporations and the rich to rig the market and siphon off most of the economy’s gains.In doing this, Democrats should not retreat from their concerns about democracy. Democracy goes together with a fair economy.Only by reducing the power of big money in our politics can America grow the middle class, reward hard work and reaffirm the basic bargain at the heart of our system.If the Trump Republicans gain control of the House, they will have complete control of the federal government. That means they will own whatever happens to the economy and will be responsible for whatever happens to America.Notwithstanding all their anti-establishment populist rhetoric, they will become the establishment.The Democratic party should use this inflection point to shift ground – from being the party of well-off college graduates, big corporations, “never-Tumpers” like Dick Cheney and vacuous “centrism” – to an anti-establishment party ready to shake up the system on behalf of the vast majority of Americans.This is and should be the Lesson of the 2024 election.

      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His newest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com More

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      We’ll need to fight to protect US reproductive rights. Here’s what to expect | Sophie Brickman

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      At around 10pm ET on election night, with prediction needles listing rightwards, and various friends’ group chats starting to become inundated by the river-of-tears-down-my-face emoji – even that early, we were collectively way beyond a single tear – I left Steve Kornacki frantically bobbing and weaving around a map of Georgia, and went to bed. Somehow, I slept through until the morning, when I awoke in “Trump’s America”, as news organizations were calling it, and to a torrent of emails and notes from friends bemoaning, among other things, the very real possibility of a federal abortion ban.“Are we still gonna have birth control?” one friend texted, in disbelief.“Sorry for the US you’re waking up to,” another wrote from Oxford. “Confounding,” his wife echoed, from across the pond.And so, to get a clear-eyed, postmortem picture of what might be facing women and their loved ones in America, two days after the election I called up Nancy Northup, the president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, an advocacy group with a stated mission of “using the power of law to advance reproductive rights as fundamental human rights around the world”.In practice, that means unleashing an army of seasoned litigators to fight for abortion access, among other things, in courtrooms across the country and around the world – they currently work in five continents. She began as CEO in 2003, 30 years after Roe v Wade constitutionally protected abortion rights. Twenty years later, after fighting the good fight for decades, she and her litigators are revving up for what might be the fight of their careers.“We were always accused before Roe v Wade was overturned [of] crying wolf,” Northup told me on the phone from her office in Manhattan. “People don’t need to worry about whether or not we’re crying wolf now.”There are the women who have died when denied abortions by healthcare providers who are unsure of the legal ramifications of performing abortions unless the mother’s life is at risk. There are those who have spent days in the ICU after being denied care, and emerge with their future fertility forever compromised. There are the obstetricians fleeing states with strict abortion bans (over 20% of practitioners in Idaho, and over half of high-risk obstetricians), feeling that they are unable to safely, and properly, do the job they trained years to do. There are the downstream consequences of bans in restrictive states affecting states with robust abortion protections, simply because those who can travel to receive care end up taking appointments away from local residents.The question that kept circulating among my friends in the hours after the election results became clear was: How come seven out of 10 measures to protect reproductive rights passed at the state level, and Trump still won?Northup chalks the dissonance up to two things.“There’s a difference between what policy do I want, and what candidate do I like,” she said. “Of course they should be linked, but we can see that they aren’t.”On top of that, Northup fears there are too many mental leaps to make.“Most people think, You know what, if the right to abortion is protected in my state, I’m good. They don’t realize a federal abortion ban could override their state’s rights.”While she wrote in a statement after the results came in that Trump’s first term “lead to the deaths of numerous women who are likely the tip of the iceberg”, she said it was too early to paint a picture of just how large that iceberg might loom in his second. Still, she underscored that even if a bill isn’t signed into law – something she pointed out Trump has said he wouldn’t do, though “consistency isn’t the hallmark of the president-elect” – there are ways to threaten abortion access at a national level.Northup and other colleagues at the Center held an open video meeting a few hours before we spoke, the tone of which was sober, with lots of “no way to sugarcoat what we’re facing right nows”s, and “serious situation”s and “tough road ahead”s.Among her top concerns are, first, the fear that new laws will threaten patients’ access to medication abortion – something she calls “a lifeline”, as two-thirds of patients in the US use it – either by the FDA restricting mifepristone, or states using a 1873 chastity law known as the Comstock Act, which bans “any drug, medicine, article, or thing designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion” from being transported by a mail carrier; and, second, the targeting of populations in states with bans. She recently found herself on the phone with a woman whose family was leaving Texas to get an abortion in New York, and wasn’t sure if her husband should come with her or not.“That’s a culture, or a climate, of fear of prosecution, and intimidation, and silencing,” she said. “It has a chilling effect.”And it’s a chilling effect that the minority of American voters want to cast over the country. One exit poll noted that while voters in 10 “key states” believe by a wide margin that abortion should be legal, only 14% considered it their most important voting issue.I reached out to a friend who works in the reproductive rights space for help parsing through this disconnect.“The lack of urgency that voters placed on this issue may reflect an erroneous belief that state protections can save them; misplaced faith in Trump’s softened messaging on abortion; or simply a reality that many are struggling to make ends meet and feel abortion is an issue they can’t afford to think about today,” she wrote. “Who knows.”Whatever the reason, it means the litigators at CRR have their work cut out for them, as they fight for what the majority of Americans want.Right now, Northup is revving up for a case that will start on Tuesday in Idaho, arguing that the state, by refusing to give stabilizing care to pregnant women in emergencies, is violating the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (Emtala), a federal law that ensures access to emergency care. And she is gaining strength from success stories, like Missouri, which overturned its near-total abortion ban on Tuesday, despite electing Trump, something she called “stunning”. (She remembers having a conversation with a senator in Missouri years ago, and bringing up the question of just how to talk about abortion rights in the state. The senator’s advice: “Don’t.”)How does she feel?“Armored up and ready to go.”For those of us who might not feel that way, there are other ways to help. On the video call, one colleague offered three action items: First, take care of yourselves and your communities. Second: sign up for alerts from the Center. Finally, find and donate to a local abortion access fund.Godspeed.

      Sophie Brickman is a contributor to the New Yorker, the New York Times and other publications, and the author of Baby, Unplugged: One Mother’s Search for Balance, Reason, and Sanity in the Digital Age and the novel Plays Well With Others More

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      US election updates: Cabinet picks, Biden meeting and winning the House cap busy day for Trump

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      Donald Trump’s cabinet picks have sparked alarm among national security officials and divided Republicans just as they secured a majority in the House of Representatives, giving the party full control of Congress.The president-elect nominated congressman Matt Gaetz to serve as attorney general, the country’s chief law officer. Gaetz has protested against election results alongside far-right groups and faced an inquiry by the House ethics committee over allegations including sexual misconduct. The inquiry ended when he resigned from Congress on Wednesday. He has denied any wrongdoing.Some of Gaetz’s Republican colleagues slammed his nomination, which representative Max Miller labelled “reckless” and “silly”, and senator Lisa Murkowski said was not serious. John Bolton, a former national security adviser, said Gaetz “must be the worst nomination for a cabinet position in American history”.Trump also announced his nominee for director of national intelligence would be Tulsi Gabbard, who is a critic of Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and has questioned atrocities attributed to the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. Gabbard has previously clashed with Marco Rubio, who Trump on Wednesday confirmed would be nominated as secretary of state.The new appointments followed Trump’s announcement of Peter Hegseth for defence in a move that stunned military officials, some of whom questioned whether Hegseth had the experience to manage a government department with a budget of more than $800bn.Here’s what else happened on Wednesday:Trump cabinet news and updates

      Republicans in the House of Representatives have retained their majority, securing the 218 seats required. Mike Johnson won the party’s nomination to stay on as House speaker, gaining Trump’s endorsement before the vote on Wednesday despite internal dissent from hard-right conservatives and the Freedom Caucus.

      Republican senators chose South Dakota’s John Thune as their new leader, rejecting a challenge from Florida senator Rick Scott, who had the backing of key Maga figures Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson. Thune’s elevation comes after long-serving Mitch McConnell stood aside.

      Joe Biden met Trump at the White House, extending a courtesy to the president-elect that Biden was not offered in 2020 when Trump refused to acknowledge Biden’s election victory. Trump thanked Biden for welcoming him back to the Oval Office and said: “Politics is tough, and it’s [in] many cases not a very nice world, but it is a nice world today.”

      The president-elect met with House Republicans before going to the White House, and joked about seeking a third term, which would be constitutionally prohibited after his second term.

      Wednesday’s appointments leave a handful of roles to fill in Trump’s cabinet. Reuters reported billionaire banker and co-chair of Trump’s transition team Howard Lutnick had emerged as a serious contender against investor Scott Bessent for the role of Treasury secretary, the highest profile job without a name yet attached.

      The Democratic minority leader in the House, Hakeem Jeffries, said his colleagues had “over-performed the national political environment”, pre-empting the news that Republicans had retained the chamber. Elizabeth Warren argued Democrats should show they stand ready to “unrig this economy” as billionaires join the Trump administration. Warren was appearing at an event alongside fellow senator Bernie Sanders.

      Two Democratic state governors have launched an initiative aimed at “pushing back against increasing threats of autocracy and fortifying the institutions of democracy”. The Illinois governor, JB Pritzker, and the Colorado governor, Jared Polis, hope to form a non-partisan coalition with their new organisation, Governors Safeguarding Democracy.

      Dan Scavino, who on Tuesday suggested Australia’s ambassador to the US, Kevin Rudd, was running out of time, has been named as assistant to the president and deputy chief of staff. Scavino’s provocative post on X has continued to fuel Australian anxieties over its relationship with the incoming president, whom Rudd in 2021 described as “a village idiot” and “not a leading intellectual force”. More

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      How a Republican trifecta makes way for Trump’s rightwing agenda

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      With the confirmation that Republicans have won a majority in the House of Representatives, Donald Trump and his party will now have a governing trifecta in Washington come January, giving the new president a powerful perch to enact his rightwing agenda.Even without majorities in both chambers of Congress, Trump’s victory in the presidential race already gave him significant control over US foreign policy and the makeup of the federal government, both of which he is seeking to overhaul.But a Republican trifecta in Washington will give Trump much more sweeping authority to implement his legislative priorities. As the Guardian has outlined through the Stakes project, Trump’s plans include extending tax cuts, rolling back landmark laws signed by Joe Biden and advancing a conservative cultural agenda.One of Republicans’ most oft-repeated campaign promises is that they will extend the tax cuts Trump signed into law in 2017, many of which are set to expire at the end of 2025. An analysis from the non-partisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that making the tax cuts permanent would cost $288.5bn in 2026 alone and disproportionately benefit the highest-income households. The highest-income 20% of Americans would receive nearly two-thirds of that tax benefit, compared with just 1% for the lowest-income 20% of Americans.Perhaps the most haunting possibility for Democrats is that Republicans would use their governing trifecta in Washington to enact a nationwide abortion ban. Trump has said he would veto such a policy, but his repeated flip-flopping on the issue has raised questions about that claim. Research has shown that existing abortion bans have forced doctors to provide substandard medical care, and they have been blamed for the deaths of at least four women: Josseli Barnica, Nevaeh Crain, Candi Miller and Amber Thurman.With majorities in both chambers, Republicans could also allocate vast resources to assist Trump’s plan to deport millions of undocumented migrants, which became a central plank of his re-election platform. While US courts have affirmed that presidents have much leeway when it comes to setting immigration policies, Trump will need Congress to appropriate extensive funds to carry out such a massive deportation operation.In a worrying sign for immigrant rights advocates, Trump said after his victory on Tuesday that his deportation program would have “no price tag”, doubling down on his commitment to the project.“It’s not a question of a price tag. It’s not – really, we have no choice,” Trump told NBC News. “When people have killed and murdered, when drug lords have destroyed countries, and now they’re going to go back to those countries because they’re not staying here.”In addition to advancing Trump’s platform, Republicans would almost certainly be looking to unravel key portions of Biden’s legacy, including the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The IRA marked the country’s most significant response yet to the climate crisis and has spurred significant energy-related investments in many districts, prompting some Republicans to suggest that Congress should preserve some of the law’s provisions while repealing others.That quandary reflects a potential problem for Republicans in full control of Congress: what will they do with the Affordable Care Act (ACA)? When Republicans last held a governing trifecta, during Trump’s first two years in office, they tried and failed to repeal and replace the ACA. The Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, recently suggested that there would be “no Obamacare” if his party won full control of Congress, according to a video published by NBC News.But he seemed to caveat that statement by telling supporters: “The ACA is so deeply ingrained, we need massive reform to make this work, and we got a lot of ideas on how to do that.”In recent years, both parties have experienced the pains of governing with narrow majorities, and those problems could reappear in the new Congress. During Biden’s first two years in office, his legislative proposals were repeatedly blocked in the Senate despite Democrats holding a majority because of the concerns of two centrist members of their caucus, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWhen Republicans held a 52-48 majority in the Senate in 2017, they still failed to repeal and replace the ACA because three members of their conference opposed the proposal. Two of those members – Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska – are still in the Senate today and may be resistant to various components of Trump’s agenda, particularly a potential abortion ban.And although Republicans have won the House, their narrow majority could exacerbate issues that played out in the last session of Congress, when the conference’s inner turmoil repeatedly brought the chamber to a standstill. Johnson will have to corral a fractious conference that has repeatedly clashed over government funding, foreign aid and the debt ceiling.Despite the potential challenges of narrow majorities, Trump and his Republican allies have made clear at every turn that they will use their newly expanded power to its maximum effect.“The mandate that has been delivered shows that a majority of Americans are eager for secure borders, lower costs, peace through strength, and a return to common sense,” Johnson wrote in a “Dear Colleague” letter sent last week. “With unified Republican government, if we meet this historic moment together, the next two years can result in the most consequential Congress of the modern era.”With the country torn between joy and revulsion over the prospect of seeing Trump’s agenda implemented, much will be riding on Republicans’ ability to remain unified. More

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      Republicans secure House majority in yet another blow to Democrats

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      Republicans have secured a majority in the US House of Representatives, extending their hold on the lower chamber and delivering a governing trifecta in Washington that could give Donald Trump sweeping power to enact his legislative agenda.The Associated Press determined on Wednesday evening that Republicans had won at least 218 seats in the 435-member House after a victory in Arizona, a call that came more than a week after polls closed across the US and as Trump made cabinet announcements that sent shockwaves through Washington.The call ensures Republicans will continue to have a large say in key matters such as government funding, debt ceiling negotiations and foreign aid, and it spells an end to Democrats’ hopes that the lower chamber could serve as a blockade against Trump’s agenda.Republicans had already won the White House and regained a majority in the Senate, so their victory in the House provides them with the last component of their governing trifecta. Although they will have a slim majority, Republicans have indicated they will use their trifecta to maximum effect when the new Congress is seated in January.“We have to deliver for the people, and we will,” the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, told Fox News last week. “President Trump wants to be aggressive. He wants to go big and we’re excited about that. We’re going to get to play offense.”Trump’s selection of at least three House Republicans to join his administration further complicates the math for Johnson. Trump had already tapped the New York representative Elise Stefanik to serve as ambassador to the United Nations and Mike Waltz, the Florida representative, to fill the role of national security adviser. On Wednesday, Trump announced he would also nominate Matt Gaetz, the Republican congressman of Florida, as his attorney general.A rightwing firebrand, Gaetz was a thorn in the side of former House speaker Kevin McCarthy, eventually leading the successful charge to oust McCarthy from his role. Reaction to Gaetz’s nomination ranged from puzzled to outraged, even from members of the president-elect’s own party.Despite the increasingly narrow majority, Johnson brushed off concerns about how Trump’s picks might affect House Republicans’ ability to legislate.“We have an embarrassment of riches,” Johnson said on Tuesday. “We have a really talented Republican conference. We’ve got really competent, capable people here. Many of them could serve in really important positions in the new administration, but President Trump fully understands and appreciates the math here, and it’s just a numbers game.”View image in fullscreenDemocrats unsuccessfully campaigned on a need to curtail the current “dysfunction” in Congress, after Republicans’ narrow majority repeatedly brought the House to a standstill.When Republicans took control of the House in January 2023, it took 15 rounds of voting to elect Kevin McCarthy as speaker, as roughly 20 hard-right members withheld support from their conference’s nominee. Nine months later, McCarthy was ousted after eight of his Republican colleagues voted with House Democrats to remove him as speaker.After McCarthy’s departure, Johnson, then a relatively unknown Republican member from Louisiana, ascended to the speakership following a tumultuous election.Over the past year, Johnson stretched himself thin to appease members of his ideologically diverse conference. His efforts fell short for some, including Marjorie Taylor Greene, a hard-right member from Georgia. Greene attempted to oust Johnson as speaker in May, but that resolution was easily quashed by a chamber seemingly exhausted by the turmoil that defined this session of Congress.Despite those hurdles, Republicans were able to keep their hold on the House and on Wednesday, Johnson won the Republican nomination to stay in the job as speaker and is on track to keep the gavel after a full House vote in the new year.Trump gave Johnson a welcome boost during a meeting with House Republicans in Washington, when he endorsed the speaker’s bid to extend his tenure and indicated that Johnson has his full support. Johnson returned the praise by celebrating Trump as a “singular figure in American history”.“They used to call Bill Clinton the comeback kid,” Johnson said. “[Trump] is the comeback king.”Although Democrats fell short in their campaign to flip the House, they touted the party’s ability to mitigate its losses in a difficult national environment. Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, pointed to the party’s gains in his home state of New York as evidence of their effort.“Donald Trump did better than almost any other Republican presidential candidate in modern political history here in New York state and even won several of the districts that we either held or flipped. And notwithstanding that, we were able to defeat three Republican incumbents,” Jeffries told Spectrum News’ NY1 last week. “And so, I think that there are lessons to be learned from this election in all directions, and we will certainly do an after-action analysis at the appropriate time.”That postmortem may help Democrats win back a majority in the 2026 midterm elections, but for now, they must face the reality of a fully Republican Congress ready and willing to do Trump’s bidding. More

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      What’s behind the global political divide between young men and women?

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      As the Democratic party licks its wounds and prepares for Donald Trump’s return to the White House, a growing chorus of commentators is urging the party to confront a historic shift in voting patterns, which has seen Latinos, the working class and Black men all shift rightwards in 2024.But perhaps the cohort that offers the gravest warnings for the party’s future prospects is young men. In 2024, men aged between 18 and 29 turned out in force for Trump, with the Republican winning the demographic by 14 points, overturning a generational trend that has for decades seen young people favour left-leaning candidates.Experts variously put it down to a backlash against the #MeToo movement, efforts to achieve gender equality and the siloing of entertainment and news sources, but Trump’s victory in the “manosphere” is just one part of an unprecedented phenomenon across the world, in which the politics of a single generation has split across the gender divide.While votes are still being tabulated, last week’s election saw a chasm open up between the political preferences of 18- to 29-year-olds in America. Trump’s seismic win among young men was mirrored almost inversely by Kamala Harris’s huge, 18-point win among young women. Notably, that margin is more than double the gender gap in the overall electorate; Harris won female voters of all ages by just seven points.In this regard the US is not unique; political polarisation between the genders has been growing among young people across the globe. In South Korea’s 2022 presidential election there was a difference of just a few points in voting preference between men and women in every age range, except those aged 18-29.In Gen Z there was an almost 25-point difference when it came to voting for the conservative-leaning People’s Power party.The same patterns play out elsewhere: in the 2024 UK general election, almost twice as many young women voted Green than young men (23% to 12%). Conversely, young men were more likely to vote for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK (12% to 6%). Meanwhile in Germany, a sample of recent surveys showed men aged 18-29 were twice as likely to vote for the hard-right AfD than women in the same age range.Despite performing below expectations in the 2023 Polish elections, the far-right Confederation – which opposed vaccine mandates and mass migration, and was sceptical on the climate crisis – saw its strongest support among 18-29-year-olds, the vast majority of whom were men.The party’s leadership took an overtly misogynistic line, with one of its more prominent members, Janusz Korwin-Mikke, saying after the election that “women should not have the right to vote.”Echo chambers and the erosion of shared experienceA backlash against gender equality is one of the universal drivers of the polarisation between young men and women around the world, says Dr Alice Evans, senior lecturer in the social science of development at King’s College.“There is a growing concern among young men that maybe DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] is going too far,” she says, adding “some question if women’s gains are coming at the expense of them.”A 2024 Ipsos study bears this out. Taking samples from across the world – including Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea and Turkey – researchers found that, when it comes to gender equality, those aged 18-29 displayed the largest differences of opinion between the sexes.On the statement “a man who stays home to look after his children is less of a man”, 10% of baby boomer women and 11% of baby boomer men agreed. Among Gen Zs, however, there was an 11-point gap in opinion, 31% for men and 20% for women.According to some polling, the phenomenon is as much about a rightward shift from men, as it is about a leftward move by women. In September, Gallup polled adults under 30 in the US, and found that women were moving left on a number of issues.On issues such as the environment, gun control and access to abortion, Gen Z men and women had by far the largest gap in viewpoints.The pattern repeats in surveys around the world, showing young men and women with historically huge divisions in attitudes – the question is why?“It’s social media filter bubbles and cultural entrepreneurs,” says Evans, who has written about the issue at length.Gen Z has grown up in a fractured media environment that has seen the erosion of shared cultural experiences. Evans gives an example from her own childhood in England: “We only had four TV channels, all my friends were just watching BBC news, The Simpsons or Friends. There was very little choice so everyone watched the same thing.”Today though, media is consumed through smartphones and the choices across traditional platforms – as well as newer services such as Netflix, YouTube and TikTok – are nearly endless.“People can self-select into their preferences,” says Evans, “then the corporate algorithm kicks in to keep you hooked … feeding you information that other users like you have liked.”View image in fullscreenIts in these echo chambers that charismatic entrepreneurs thrive, says Evans.Joe Rogan is one of the most popular podcasters on the planet – his programme tops the charts in the US, as well as Australia, the UK and Canada – but his audience is over 80% male, according to YouGov.“You’re consuming this media, you’re listening to these perspectives, and whether it’s Joe Rogan or others, you come to trust them,” says Evans.Donald Trump faced criticism for the apparent narrow focus of his election appearances, eschewing a number of traditional media outlets for interviews on podcasts hosted by Rogan, Logan Paul and Theo Von. But experts say it was a strategy that may have helped him lock in a voting demographic that traditionally eludes rightwing politicians.“Young men are trying to understand their place in society that is rapidly evolving,” Daniel Cox, from the American Enterprise Institute told the BBC. “These are very real concerns and there’s a sense in the political realm that nobody’s advocating for them.”Prior to the 2024 US election, Hasan Doğan Piker, a YouTuber and video game streamer, warned that the Democratic party was falling behind the Republicans when it came to dominance of these online spaces.View image in fullscreen“If you’re a dude under the age of 30, and you have any hobbies, whether it be playing video games, working out or listening to a history podcast, every single facet of that is dominated by centre right … to Trumpian right,” he told the Pod Save America podcast.The siloing of spaces, the erosion of shared experiences and resentment of gender equality efforts are all leading to huge, intractable problems that go beyond the latest election cycle.Around the world, fertility rates are nose-diving, creating huge issues for economies as diverse as South Korea, Sweden and Australia. Governments across the globe have launched multi-pronged efforts to encourage couples to have children, with policies targeting childcare costs and housing shortages.Experts say the erosion of socialisation between the genders is starting in school. According to the Japanese Association for Sex Education, just one in five boys at senior high school have had their first kiss – the lowest figure since the organisation conducted its first survey of sexual behaviour among young people in 1974.But it’s in schools that the fightback against this growing isolation needs to begin, says Evans. It might feel like a drop in the ocean, but banning phones in schools and investing in local youth centres could help to turn the tide of polarisation.“Phones are out competing personal contacts,” says Evans, but if young people spend more time with the opposite sex, become friends and form relationships, they will start to see just how much they could have in common.” More

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      Trump announces Matt Gaetz as attorney general and Tulsi Gabbard for top intelligence post – US politics live

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      Donald Trump has chosen Matt Gaetz, of his most prominent defenders in Congress, to serve as attorney general.The appointment could put Gaetz in charge of Trump’s promised effort to retaliate against his political opponents, including officials who served in his previous administration but have since repudiated him. Trump announced the nomination, which must be confirmed by the Senate, on Truth Social:
      It is my Great Honor to announce that Congressman Matt Gaetz, of Florida, is hereby nominated to be The Attorney General of the United States. Matt is a deeply gifted and tenacious attorney, trained at the William & Mary College of Law, who has distinguished himself in Congress through his focus on achieving desperately needed reform at the Department of Justice. Few issues in America are more important than ending the partisan Weaponization of our Justice System. Matt will end Weaponized Government, protect our Borders, dismantle Criminal Organizations and restore Americans’ badly-shattered Faith and Confidence in the Justice Department. On the House Judiciary Committee, which performs oversight of DOJ, Matt played a key role in defeating the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, and exposing alarming and systemic Government Corruption and Weaponization. He is a Champion for the Constitution and the Rule of Law…
      Gaetz, a congressman representing a very conservative district in the Florida panhandle, became known nationally last year when he was a key player in the putsch that ousted Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the House.Susan Collins, the moderate Republican senator of Maine told reporters she was “shocked” but the Matt Gaetz nomination.“I was shocked by the announcement — that shows why the advise-and-consent process is so important,” Collins said. “I’m sure that there will be a lot of questions raised at his hearing.”Matt Gaetz has been one of the most loyal backers of Donald Trump in the capitol, supporting Trump’s attempts to deny the results of the 2020 election. He voted with about 150 Republicans to overturn the results of the 2020 election.Along with members of the far-right group the Proud Boys, he took part in protests against the result of a Senate race in Florida.He also evoked language adopted by the Proud Boys at Trump’s hush money trial earlier this year, posting on social media: “Standing back, and standing by, Mr. President” along with a photo of him with Trump and other congressional Republicans.Hill reporters are gathering shocked and evasive responses from Republicans reacting to the Gaetz nomination.Senator Chuck Grassley stopped talking to reporters when asked for his reaction.House Appropriations chair Tom Cole avoided responding as well: “I know nothing about it.”Senator Ron Johnson: “The president gets to pick his nominees.”Matt Gaetz, the Florida congressman who Donald Trump just nominated to be his attorney general, has for years faced allegations of sexual misconduct.Last year, Gaetz said the justice department had closed an investigation that began after allegations emerged of the congressman having sex with a 17-year-old girl and paying for her travel. The House ethics committee earlier this year announced that it was beginning its own inquiry into whether Gaetz “engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts, dispensed special privileges and favours to individuals with whom he had a personal relationship, and sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct”.That investigation has not yet been publicly concluded. Here’s more about it:Since he first arrived in Congress in 2017, just days before Donald Trump took office, Matt Gaetz has been one of his most vocal advocates on Capitol Hill.Now, Gaetz may lead the justice department, and ensure that prosecutorial decisions, which are normally made independently by the attorney general, are to Trump’s benefit.From a profile of Gaetz the Guardian’s Lauren Gambino published last year, shortly after he led the successful effort to oust fellow Republican Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the House:
      “Florida Man. Built for Battle,” reads Gaetz’s bio on X, formerly Twitter.
      Gaetz followed his father into politics more than two decades ago. After serving in the Florida statehouse, Gaetz was elected in 2016 to represent a ruby-red chunk of the Florida panhandle.
      Since his arrival in Washington, the pompadoured lawmaker has built a political brand as a far-right provocateur, courting controversy seemingly as a matter of course.
      Like Donald Trump, to whom he is fiercely loyal, Gaetz is more interested in sparring with political foes than in the dry business of governance, according to his critics. On Capitol Hill, he has repeatedly disrupted House proceedings, including once barging into a secure facility where Democrats were holding a deposition hearing.
      In 2018, he was condemned for inviting a Holocaust denier to Trump’s State of the Union address. A year later, he hired a speechwriter who had been fired by the Trump White House after speaking at a conference that attracts white nationalists.
      Months after the January 6 attack on the Capitol, Gaetz embarked on an “America First” tour with Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right Georgia congresswoman, in which they amplified the former president’s false claims of fraud in the 2020 election. He also continued to attack Republicans critical of Trump, using language that reportedly alarmed McCarthy, who feared the lawmakers’ words could incite violence.
      Donald Trump has chosen Matt Gaetz, of his most prominent defenders in Congress, to serve as attorney general.The appointment could put Gaetz in charge of Trump’s promised effort to retaliate against his political opponents, including officials who served in his previous administration but have since repudiated him. Trump announced the nomination, which must be confirmed by the Senate, on Truth Social:
      It is my Great Honor to announce that Congressman Matt Gaetz, of Florida, is hereby nominated to be The Attorney General of the United States. Matt is a deeply gifted and tenacious attorney, trained at the William & Mary College of Law, who has distinguished himself in Congress through his focus on achieving desperately needed reform at the Department of Justice. Few issues in America are more important than ending the partisan Weaponization of our Justice System. Matt will end Weaponized Government, protect our Borders, dismantle Criminal Organizations and restore Americans’ badly-shattered Faith and Confidence in the Justice Department. On the House Judiciary Committee, which performs oversight of DOJ, Matt played a key role in defeating the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, and exposing alarming and systemic Government Corruption and Weaponization. He is a Champion for the Constitution and the Rule of Law…
      Gaetz, a congressman representing a very conservative district in the Florida panhandle, became known nationally last year when he was a key player in the putsch that ousted Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the House.The Senate confirms nominees for director of national intelligence, a cabinet-level position created after 9/11 to oversee the intelligence community and liaise directly with the president.There is reason to think that Tulsi Gabbard might raise a few eyebrows in the Senate, even when it is controlled by Trump-aligned Republicans, as it will be from January.As a congresswoman from Hawaii, Gabbard visited Syria, met with its president Bashar al-Assad, and expressed skepticism about well-documented atrocities attributed to his forces during the country’s civil war. More recently, she has spent time attacking Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. It’s all a turnabout from her days in Democratic politics, when she vyed unsuccessfully for the party’s presidential nomination in 2020 and backed Bernie Sanders’ candidacy four years prior. Here’s more about how her views have shifted dramatically:Donald Trump has named former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard as his nominee for director of national intelligence. Gabbard is another loyalist who frequently joined Trump at campaign events.Here’s what he had to say in announcing in picking Gabbard, who represented Hawaii from 2013 to 2021, and endorsed Trump after leaving the Democratic party:
      I am pleased to announce that former Congresswoman, Lieutenant Colonel Tulsi Gabbard, will serve as Director of National Intelligence (DNI). For over two decades, Tulsi has fought for our Country and the Freedoms of all Americans. As a former Candidate for the Democrat Presidential Nomination, she has broad support in both Parties – She is now a proud Republican! I know Tulsi will bring the fearless spirit that has defined her illustrious career to our Intelligence Community, championing our Constitutional Rights, and securing Peace through Strength. Tulsi will make us all proud!
      Donald Trump has just officially named Florida senator Marco Rubio as his nominee for secretary of state.News of the choice filtered out over the past day or so, but Trump had not made it official, until now. Here’s what he said:
      It is my Great Honor to announce that Senator Marco Rubio, of Florida, is hereby nominated to be The United States Secretary of State. Marco is a Highly Respected Leader, and a very powerful Voice for Freedom. He will be a strong Advocate for our Nation, a true friend to our Allies, and a fearless Warrior who will never back down to our adversaries. I look forward to working with Marco to Make America, and the World, Safe and Great Again!
      Joe Biden’s meeting with Donald Trump was attended by Susie Wiles, who the president-elect recently announced would serve as his White House chief of staff.Wiles, who co-managed Trump’s campaign, will be the first woman to hold role. Biden’s chief of staff, Jeff Zients, also attended.While Donald Trump appears to have mostly stayed out of the race for Senate Republican leader, the Maga hardcore were rooting for Florida senator Rick Scott.He unsuccessfully challenged Mitch McConnell for the leadership post two years ago, and his bid this year was similarly unsuccessful. In a statement released after John Thune won the race, Scott said:
      I may have lost the vote, but I am optimistic. I ran for leader with one mission: to fundamentally change how the Senate operates and upend the status quo so we can actually start representing the voters who put us here. When I announced, I said that we are in a moment where we need dramatic change. The voters confirmed that last week when they elected President Trump and Republicans took the majority in both chambers of Congress with a clear mandate.
      …
      While it isn’t the result we hoped for, I will do everything possible to make sure John Thune is successful in accomplishing President Trump’s agenda.
      When asked about comments made by Trump’s new pick for secretary of defense, Fox and Friends co-host Pete Hegseth, that “we should not have women in combat roles”, Jean-Pierre spoke to the “importance of gender equality, of women in the workforce”.She said the Biden administration does not agree with those views.Biden “looked forward to the conversation and appreciated the conversation,” Jean-Pierre said, adding that the two met for nearly two hours.“I think the length of the meeting tells you they had an in-depth conversation on an array of issues.”A reporter asked Jean-Pierre if there were any conversations between Biden and Trump about not accepting the results of the 2020 election, but she said it was now about “moving forward”.“There was an election last week and the American people spoke.” More