US news

Subterms

    More stories

    • 213 Shares21 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump news at a glance: president pushes Republicans to back big bill amid forecast losses to healthcare

      by

      The US Senate has opened debate on what Donald Trump calls his “big beautiful bill” as new analysis says changes made to it in the chamber will add nearly $3.3tn to the nation’s debt load while resulting in even steeper losses in healthcare coverage.The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office’s analysis adds to the challenges for Republicans as they push to get the bill over the line by the US president’s self-imposed deadline of 4 July. After release of the bill’s new costs, Trump cajoled and threatened lawmakers from his own party, posting on his Truth Social platform: “REMEMBER, you still have to get reelected.”Senator Thom Tillis announced he would not run for re-election next year, a day after the North Carolina Republican voted against Trump’s legislation, prompting insults from the president.Trump meanwhile said he was considering forcing journalists who published leaked details from a US intelligence report on the American military strikes on Iran to reveal their sources, also saying his administration may prosecute those reporters and sources if they don’t comply.Here are the key Trump administration stories at a glance:Senate opens debate on Trump’s bill estimated to add $3.3tn to US debtThe US Senate opened debate on Donald Trump’s sprawling domestic policy legislation on Sunday, the package of tax cuts, increased spending on immigration enforcement and drastic reductions in funding for healthcare and nutrition assistance that the president calls his “big beautiful bill”. Formal debate on the measure began after Democrats forced Senate clerks to read the entire 940-page bill aloud, to underscore their argument that the public is largely unaware of what the package contains and to delay a final vote until Monday.Read the full storyThom Tillis won’t seek re-election after clash with Trump over billRepublican Thom Tillis said he would not run for re-election to the US Senate next year, a day after the North Carolina senator’s vote against Trump’s signature piece of domestic legislation prompted the president to launch a barrage of threats and insults – as well as promise to support a primary challenger to defeat him in their party’s 2026 primary. Tillis said: “In Washington over the last few years, it’s become increasingly evident that leaders who are willing to embrace bipartisanship, compromise, and demonstrate independent thinking are becoming an endangered species.”Read the full storyTrump sent ‘explicit’ threat to cut funds from University of Virginia, senator saysThe University of Virginia received “explicit” notification from the Trump administration that the school would endure cuts to university jobs, research funding and student aid as well as visas if the institution’s president, Jim Ryan, did not resign, according to a US senator. In an interview with CBS, Virginia Democrat Mark Warner defended Ryan – who has championed diversity policies that the president opposes – and predicted Trump would similarly target other universities.Read the full storyTrump considers forcing journalists to reveal sources who leaked Iran reportDonald Trump said he was weighing forcing journalists who published leaked details from a US intelligence report assessing the impact of the recent American military strikes on Iran to reveal their sources. The president also claimed his administration may prosecute those reporters and sources if they don’t comply. In a Fox News interview Trump doubled down on his claim that the 21 June airstrikes crippled Iran’s nuclear program and dismissed the leaked intelligence assessment in question – which suggested the strikes only temporarily disrupted Iran’s nuclear development – as incomplete and biased.Read the full storyTrump threatens to cut off New York City funds if Mamdani ‘doesn’t behave’The president threatened to block New York City from receiving federal funds if favoured mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic socialist, “doesn’t behave himself” should he be elected. Mamdani, meanwhile, denied that he was – as the president claimed – a communist. But he reaffirmed his commitment to raise taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers while saying: “I don’t think that we should have billionaires.”Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Blood-sucking ticks that trigger a bizarre allergy to meat in the people they bite are exploding in number and spreading across the US, to the extent that they could cover the entire eastern half of the country and infect millions of people, experts warn.

      Iran’s ambassador to the UN said the Islamic republic’s nuclear enrichment “will never stop” because it is permitted for “peaceful energy” purposes under the treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. “The enrichment is our right,” Iravani told CBS News.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 28 June 2025. More

    • 163 Shares17 Views

      in US Politics

      Senate opens debate on Trump’s bill estimated to add $3.3tn to US debt

      by

      The US Senate opened debate on Donald Trump’s sprawling domestic policy legislation on Sunday, the package of tax cuts, increased spending on immigration enforcement, and drastic reductions in funding for healthcare and nutrition assistance that the president calls his “big beautiful bill”.Formal debate on the measure began after Democrats forced Senate clerks to read the entire 940-page bill aloud, to underscore their argument that the public is largely unaware of what the package Trump branded “beautiful” actually contains, and to delay a final vote until Monday.After the debate, amendments could be brought up for consideration in a marathon session colloquially known as a vote-a-rama.The changes made to the bill in the Senate would pile trillions on to the nation’s debt load while resulting in even steeper losses in healthcare coverage, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said in a new analysis, adding to the challenges for Republicans as they try to muscle the bill to passage.The CBO estimates the Senate bill would increase the deficit by nearly $3.3tn from 2025 to 2034, a nearly $1tn increase over the House-passed bill, which CBO has projected would add $2.4tn to the debt over a decade.The analysis also found that 11.8 million more Americans would become uninsured by 2034 if the bill became law, an increase over the scoring for the House-passed version of the bill, which predicts 10.9 million more people would be without health coverage.The stark numbers are yet another obstacle for Republican leaders as they labor to pass Trump’s bill by his self-imposed 4 July deadline.After the new cost of the bill was released, Trump used his social media platform, Truth Social, to cajole and threaten lawmakers from his own party. In a Sunday evening post, the president urged Republicans concerned about adding to the debt not to “go too crazy”, and reminded them that elected officials who cross him tend not to stay in office long. “REMEMBER, you still have to get reelected”, the president wrote.Wavering Republicans probably understood Trump’s comment loud and clear, coming just hours after one of their number, Thom Tillis, a North Carolina senator, voted against advancing the bill on Saturday and was subjected to a torrent of threats and attacks from the president. Tillis announced on Sunday that he would not stand for re-election in the 2026 midterms.Even before the CBO’s estimate, Republicans were at odds over the contours of the legislation, with some resisting the cost-saving proposals to reduce spending on Medicaid and food aid programs, even as other Republicans say those proposals don’t go far enough. Republicans are slashing the programs as a way to help cover the cost of extending some $3.8tn in Trump tax breaks put in place during his first term.The push-pull was on vivid display on Saturday night as a routine procedural vote to take up the legislation in the Senate was held open for hours as Vice-President JD Vance and Republican leaders met with several holdouts. The bill ultimately advanced in a 51-49 vote, but the path ahead is fraught, with voting on amendments still to come.Still, many Republicans are disputing the CBO estimates and the reliability of the office’s work. To hoist the bill to passage, they are using a different budget baseline that assumes the Trump tax cuts expiring in December have already been extended, essentially making them cost-free in the budget.The CBO on Saturday released a separate analysis of the GOP’s preferred approach that found the Senate bill would reduce deficits by about $500bn.Democrats and economists decry the GOP’s approach as “magic math” that obscures the true costs of the GOP tax breaks.In addition, Democrats note that under the traditional scoring system, the Republican bill would violate the Senate’s Byrd Rule that forbids the legislation from increasing deficits after 10 years.In a Sunday letter to Jeff Merkley, an Oregon senator and the top Democrat on the Senate budget committee, CBO director Phillip Swagel said the office estimates that the finance committee’s portion of the bill, also known as Title VII, “increases the deficits in years after 2034” under traditional scoring. More

    • 163 Shares25 Views

      in US Politics

      Thom Tillis won’t seek re-election after clash with Trump over ‘big beautiful bill’

      by

      Thom Tillis announced on Sunday that he will not run for re-election to the US Senate next year, one day after the North Carolina Republican’s vote against Donald Trump’s signature piece of domestic legislation prompted the president to launch a barrage of threats and insults – as well as promise to support a primary challenger to defeat him in their party’s 2026 primary.“In Washington over the last few years, it’s become increasingly evident that leaders who are willing to embrace bipartisanship, compromise, and demonstrate independent thinking are becoming an endangered species,” Tillis said in a statement sent to reporters.“As many of my colleagues have noticed over the last year, and at times even joked about, I haven’t exactly been excited about running for another term”, he added. “It’s not a hard choice, and I will not be seeking re-election.”Shortly after Tillis refused to support the massive package of tax and spending cuts, called the “one big beautiful bill”, in a procedural vote in the Senate on Saturday, Trump attacked the senator on his social media platform, Truth Social.The president accused Tillis of grandstanding “in order to get some publicity for himself, for a possible, but very difficult re-election”. He also wrote that Tillis is making a “BIG MISTAKE for America, and the Wonderful People of North Carolina!”In a subsequent post on Truth Social, Trump threatened Tillis by saying he would meet with potential candidates to challenge him in a Republican primary in the battleground state.“Numerous people have come forward wanting to run” against Tillis, Trump wrote Saturday night. “I will be meeting with them over the coming weeks, looking for someone who will properly represent the Great People of North Carolina and, so importantly, the United States of America.”Before Tillis announced his decision Sunday to retire from the Senate, Trump continued to attack him on social media, writing: “Tillis is a talker and complainer, NOT A DOER! He’s even worse than Rand ‘Fauci’ Paul!”Tillis was one of two Senate Republicans, along with Rand Paul of Kentucky, to vote against the bill championed by the president. Dr Anthony Fauci was the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases during Trump’s first presidency, and once a key adviser on the Covid-19 pandemic whose support of lockdowns and vaccines made him a hate figure for Trump’s base.Trump’s attacks came hours after Tillis said in a statement that he “cannot support” the current form of the president’s spending bill. He pointed to expected cuts to Medicaid that he said would “result in tens of billions of dollars in lost funding for North Carolina, including our hospitals and rural communities”.With Tillis out of the 2026 Republican Senate primary, a source “close to the Trump family” told an NBC News reporter that the president’s daughter-in-law, North Carolina native Lara Trump, is “strongly considering jumping in the race”.The retirement of Tillis, a swing state moderate, could make it easier for Democrats to flip the seat in 2026, with some in the party hoping to encourage former governor Roy Cooper to enter the race.A similar dynamic could be at play next year in Omaha, Nebraska, where the sitting Republican congressman and frequent Trump critic Don Bacon has reportedly decided that he will not run for re-election to the House.Trump has backed primary challenges against Republicans who clashed with him. Notably, he endorsed Harriet Hageman’s successful push to unseat Wyoming’s former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney, who served on a House congressional committee that investigated Trump supporters’ deadly US Capitol attack after he lost the 2020 presidential election.Trump’s team also recently launched a group to unseat Kentucky congressman Thomas Massie, who opposed the US’s 22 June strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites. Massie also formed an alliance with the California Democratic congressman Ro Khanna to introduce a war powers resolution meant to “prohibit involvement in Iran” as well as Trump’s “big, beautiful bill”.Chris LaCivita, senior Trump political adviser, has confirmed that he and Tony Fabrizio, another Trump adviser, would run an anti-Massie Super political action committee (Pac).Trump’s criticism of Tillis came as the Senate voted 51-49 in favor of passing a motion to advance the budget bill. It must now clear a formal Senate vote and be returned to the lower House for approval – which Trump wants done before the July 4th holiday.The legislation is a stuffed hamper of Republican priorities – making tax breaks from Trump’s first presidency permanent, and removing taxes on tips, to be paid for in part with cutbacks to Medicaid, food stamps and green energy investments. The bill also includes $175bn in additional funding for immigration enforcement, to implement the president’s mass deportation project. More

    • 125 Shares23 Views

      in US Politics

      Iran’s nuclear enrichment ‘will never stop’, nation’s UN ambassador says

      by

      Amir-Saeid Iravani, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, said on Sunday that the Islamic republic’s nuclear enrichment “will never stop” because it is permitted for “peaceful energy” purposes under the treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.“The enrichment is our right, an inalienable right, and we want to implement this right,” Iravani told CBS News, adding that Iran was ready for negotiations but “unconditional surrender is not negotiation. It is dictating the policy toward us.”But Iravani said Tehran is “ready for the negotiation, but after this aggression, it is not proper condition for a new round of the negotiation, and there is no request for negotiation and meeting with the president”.The Iranian UN envoy also denied that there are any threats from his government to the safety of Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, or against the agency’s inspectors, who are accused by some Iranian officials of helping Israel justify its attacks. IAEA inspectors are currently in Iran but do not have access to Iran’s nuclear facilities.Pressed by the CBS News anchor Margaret Brennan on whether he would condemn calls for the arrest and execution of the IAEA head, which Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state said a newspaper close to Iran’s leader had made, Iravani said that he would.“There is no any threat,” Irvani said, but acknowledged that Iran’s parliament had suspended cooperation with IAEA. The inspectors, he said, “are in Iran, they are in safe conditions, but the activity has been suspended. They cannot have access to our site … our assessment is that they have not done their jobs.”Iravani also responded to questions on why Tehran has not accepted proposals for a diplomatic solution. Referring to Trump’s “unconditional surrender” demand, Irvani said that the US “is dictating the policy towards us. If they are ready for negotiation, they will find us ready for that. But if they want to dictate us, it is impossible for any negotiation with them.”Iravani said on Saturday that Iran could transfer its stocks of enriched uranium to another country in the event of an agreement with the United States on Tehran’s nuclear program, according to news site Al-Monitor.The transfer of 20% and 60% enriched uranium would not be a red line for Tehran, Iravani said, adding that the material could alternatively remain in Iran under IAEA supervision.But as he said again on Sunday, Iravani stressed that Iran would not renounce its right to domestic uranium production, a condition the US rejects.Irvani’s comments comes as western nations, including the US, are pushing for Iran to resume negotiations over its nuclear program a week after the US launched strikes on three facilities, setting off days of heated dispute over whether the facilities has been “totally obliterated”, as Donald Trump initially claimed, or if they had delayed but not destroyed the program.Grossi told CBS that there is “agreement in describing this as a very serious level of damage” but went on to say that Iran will likely will be able to begin to produce enriched uranium within months.“The capacities they have are there,” he said. “They can have, you know, in a matter of months, I would say, a few cascades of centrifuges spinning and producing enriched uranium, or less than that. But as I said, frankly speaking, one cannot claim that everything has disappeared and there is nothing there.”On Sunday, President Trump again dismissed reports that Iran had moved 400kg (880lb) on 60% enriched uranium ahead of the strikes on Fordow, regarded as the center of Iran’s enrichment program.“It’s very hard to do, dangerous to do, it’s very heavy, plus we didn’t give them much notice because they didn’t know they we were coming,” Trump told the Fox News host Maria Bartiromo.Trump speculated that vehicles seen near the entrances to Fordow before the strikes were likely masons brought in to seal up the facility. “There are thousands of tons of rock in that room right now,” Trump said. “They whole place was just destroyed.”However, the Washington Post reported on Sunday that the US obtained intercepted Iranian communications in which senior Iran officials remarked that damage from the attack was not as destructive and extensive as they anticipated.The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, scoffed at the Iranian claims in a comment to the Post in which she did not dispute that such communications had been intercepted.“The notion that unnamed Iranian officials know what happened under hundreds of feet of rubble is nonsense,” Leavitt said.Separately on Sunday, Abdolrahim Mousavi, Iran’s armed forces chief of staff, reportedly told the Saudi defense minister during a call that Tehran is not convinced Israel will honour the ceasefire that ended their 12-day war announced by Trump.“Since we are completely doubtful about the enemy honoring its commitments, including the ceasefire, we are prepared to give it a tough response in case of recurrence of an act of aggression”, Mousavi said, according to Turkey’s state-run news agency Anadolu.Israel and the US, “have shown that they do not adhere to any international rules and norms” the Iranian general added. “We did not initiate war, but we responded with all our power to the aggressor.” More

    • 163 Shares28 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump sent ‘explicit’ threat to cut funds from University of Virginia, senator says

      by

      The University of Virginia (UVA) received “explicit” notification from the Trump administration that the school would endure cuts to university jobs, research funding and student aid as well as visas if the institution’s president, Jim Ryan, did not resign, according to a US senator.During an interview Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation, Mark Warner, a Democratic senator for Virginia, defended Ryan – who had championed diversity policies that the president opposes – and predicted that Donald Trump will similarly target other universities.Warner said he understood that the former UVA president was told that if he “tried to fight back, hundreds of employees would lose jobs, researchers would lose funding, and hundreds of students could lose financial aid or have their visas withheld”.“There was indication that they received the letter that if he didn’t resign on a day last week, by 5 o’clock, all these cuts would take place,” Warner added. He also said he believes this to be the “most outrageous action” that the Trump administration has taken on education since it retook office in January.Ryan resigned from his position as UVA president on Friday. He was facing political pressure from Washington to step aside in order to resolve a justice department investigation into UVA’s diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies, the New York Times reported on the same day.“I cannot make a unilateral decision to fight the federal government in order to save my own job,” Ryan said in his resignation message to the university community. He expressed an unwillingness to risk the employment of other staff, as well as cuts to funding and financial aid for students.Ryan had a reputation for trying to make the UVA campus more diverse and encouraging students to perform community service. He had served as the university’s president since 2018.Warner criticized the administration for what he said was its overreach in education. He said federal education and justice department officials “should get their nose out of [the] University of Virginia”.“They are doing damage to our flagship university,” he remarked. “And if they can do it here, they’ll do it elsewhere.”He referred to Trump’s ongoing battles with Harvard, the US’s oldest university, including the president’s signing a proclamation to restrict foreign student visas and continued threats to cut funding over its DEI policies.“They all want to make them like Harvard,” Warner said. “End of the day, this is going to hurt our universities, chase away that world-class talent.“And, frankly, if we don’t have some level of academic freedom, then what kind of country are we?” More

    • 163 Shares23 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump threatens to cut off New York City funds if Mamdani ‘doesn’t behave’

      by

      Donald Trump on Sunday threatened to cut New York City off from federal funds if favored mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, “doesn’t behave himself” should he be elected.Mamdani, meanwhile, denied that he was – as the president said – a communist. But he reaffirmed his commitment to raise taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers while saying: “I don’t think that we should have billionaires.”In an interview with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, Trump argued that a Mamdani victory was “inconceivable” because he perceived the candidate to be “a pure communist”.He added: “Let’s say this – if he does get in, I’m going to be president, and he’s going to have to do the right thing, or they’re not getting any money. He’s got to do the right thing or they’re not getting any money.”More than $100bn flows to the city from the federal government through different entities and programs, according to the city’s comptroller last year.Speaking Sunday with NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Mamdani said, “no, I am not” a communist.He also said that he had “already had to start to get used to the fact that the president will talk about how I look, how I sound, where I’m from, who I am – ultimately because he wants to distract from what I’m fighting for”.Mamdani said he was inspired by the US civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr, who once remarked: “Call it democracy or call it democratic socialism. There has to be a better distribution of wealth for all of God’s children in this country.”He then reiterated his intent to raise taxes on New York’s wealthiest as part of a campaign pledge “to shift the tax burden from overtaxed homeowners in the outer boroughs to more expensive homes in richer and whiter neighborhoods”.“I don’t think that we should have billionaires because, frankly, it is so much money in a moment of such inequality – and ultimately what we need more of is equality across our city and across our state and across our country,” Mamdani said. “And I look forward to work with everyone, including billionaires, to make a city that is fairer for all of them.”Mamdani said the proposal reflected “a description of what we see right now”.“It’s not driven by race,” he said. “It’s more of an assessment of what neighborhoods are being undertaxed versus overtaxed.“It is not to work backwards from a racial assessment of neighborhoods or our city. Rather, it’s to ensure that we actually have an equal playing field.”Many New Yorkers and moderate Democratic politicians have expressed concern over Mamdani’s win over former governor Andrew Cuomo in the 24 June primary for the Democratic nomination.Among those to endorse him was progressive congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. But he has not been endorsed by many other prominent Democratic party figures, including the New York governor, Kathy Hochul, who said coolly after his win: “Obviously, there’s areas of difference in our positions, but I also think we need to have those conversations.”Mamdani said on Sunday that he was looking forward to discussions with Hochul, saying: “Ultimately, my policies, my vision, it’s driven by an assessment of what’s actually happening.”Asked if he thought moderate Democrats were afraid of him, Mamdani said: “I think that people are catching up to this election.“Ultimately what we’re showing is that by putting working people first, by returning to the roots of the Democratic party, we actually have a path out of this moment where we’re facing authoritarianism in Washington DC” under the Trump administration.In his comments on Mamdani’s having secured the Democrats’ nomination in the heavily Democratic city, Trump said: “It’s shocking.”“I used to say we will never have a socialist in this country,” the president said, in part.Asked about Mamdani’s proposals to oppose his administration’s immigration crackdown and to arrest Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he sets foot in New York, Trump said the mayoral candidate would “be very unsuccessful” on both counts.“He’s a radical left lunatic,” Trump said.Mamdani, for his part, said Democrats “need to be a party that’s not just against Donald Trump – but also for something”.“And our campaign was for working people, bringing dignity back into those lives,” Mamdani said. More

    • 138 Shares24 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump considers forcing journalists to reveal sources who leaked Iran report

      by

      Donald Trump said he is weighing forcing journalists who published leaked details from a US intelligence report assessing the impact of the recent American military strikes on Iran to reveal their sources – and the president also claimed his administration may prosecute those reporters and sources if they don’t comply.In an interview Sunday with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, Trump doubled down on his claim that the 21 June airstrikes aimed at certain Iranian facilities successfully crippled Iran’s nuclear program. He insisted the attacks destroyed key enriched uranium stockpiles, despite Iranian assertions that the material had been relocated before the strikes.Trump dismissed the leaked intelligence assessment in question – which suggested the strikes only temporarily disrupted Iran’s nuclear development – as incomplete and biased. The report, circulated among US lawmakers and intelligence officials, concluded that the damage inflicted was significantly less than what Trump’s administration had publicly claimed.The president has attacked both Democratic lawmakers and members of the media for sharing portions of the classified analysis. He then threatened legal consequences for those responsible.During the interview, Bartiromo referenced a post Trump had shared on social media days earlier, in which he wrote: “The Democrats are the ones who leaked the information on the PERFECT FLIGHT to the Nuclear Sites in Iran. They should be prosecuted!”Trump then reiterated on-air that “they should be prosecuted”.“Who specifically?” Bartiromo asked.Trump replied: “You can find out – if they wanted, they could find out easily.”In recent days, Trump has targeted CNN and The New York Times for their reporting on the strikes. He has condemned the coverage as “unpatriotic” and even floated the possibility of legal action.The two outlets, along with several others, reported that preliminary findings from the US’s Defense Intelligence Agency indicated the strikes had only limited success. The bombings delayed Iran’s nuclear ambitions by several months but stopped short of destroying the program outright, according to the assessment.On Sunday, a social media account belonging to the Iranian leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, accused Trump of needing to “exaggerate to cover up the truth and keep it secret” after the recent US military strikes “could not do anything”.Trump, in contrast, has repeatedly insisted that three nuclear facilities were “obliterated”.He elaborated on how his administration might pursue the sources of the leak.“You go up and tell the reporter, ‘national security – who gave it?’” Trump said. “You have to do that. And I suspect we’ll be doing things like that.”In the US, the constitution generally protects journalists from being compelled to reveal their sources – but there are limits to that reporter’s privilege, as it is colloquially known.The president had threatened to sue CNN and the New York Times for publishing articles about the preliminary intelligence report ahead of his comments to Bartiromo.In a letter to the Times, a lawyer for Trump said the article had damaged the president’s reputation and demanded that the outlet “retract and apologize for” the piece, which the letter described as “false,” “defamatory” and “unpatriotic”. More

    • 238 Shares36 Views

      in US Politics

      How do we resist and rise? We have to believe the impossible is possible | V (Formerly Eve Ensler)

      by

      In this authoritarian and suffocating climate where being an American feels like a curse, where just breathing here feels like complicity with genocide, psychotic imperialism, misogyny and endless racism, it is hard to move, let alone imagine what one can do to transform this horror to good.Every day people are kidnapped by masked men in unmarked cars, taken to hidden sites and left in deplorable conditions; starving people in Gaza are slaughtered as they clamor for a bag of flour; public officials and leaders humiliated and murdered; the T erased from LGBT; brain-dead women forced to give birth; the glib language of hate and cruelty and easy thoughtless threats of world war, assassination, and dehumanization circling like invisible poison. What feels most perilous is the steady evaporation of the boundaries of what seemed impossible only a few weeks ago. Morality, compassion, care – slashed and burned.And yet I think of Beckett, “I can’t go on. I’ll go on”, “The world is essentially over. I will fight for another day”, “I have lost my faith in humans. I commit to love them more.”To live as Jung said – with two existing opposite thoughts at the same time. Survival right now depends on our ability to swim in this duality. To not linger in the pain, but to allow ourselves to be moved by it. To not whitewash reality, but also not to take up lodging in the house of despair. This is the dance of our times.We must become agile and flexible. To feel responsible but not so guilty we are immobilized. To feel rage but to learn how to direct it into action and passion and purpose. To lift ourselves to a more existential absurdist place where the fascists cannot touch us. Not disassociation or numbness, but finding the grace, energy and humor that come when we commit ourselves more deeply to one another.Before “No Kings” Day there was a part of me that frankly was tired of marching, wondering if these demonstrations really add up to anything. But then on 14 June, with an estimated 4 million to 6 million people in the streets of America, I realized something profound. Marches and demonstrations are not merely acts of resistance and refusal, but they are community events in which we meet and strengthen our resolve and bonds with our own tribe of like-minded people.They are public moments to show the rest of the world that we are the majority and we do not want and will not accept a king, or genocide in Gaza or precious immigrants being dragged off and separated from their families. They are places to let off steam and make great art and music and network and ultimately they are what we have, the expression of our collective sorrow and outrage, thereby saving our own souls.So how do we resist and rise? We have to believe the impossible is possible.I think of my sisters at the City of Joy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo who give me inspiration and direction daily. The center is literally in the middle of a war zone. When the M23 militias invaded Bukavu in February, they made a radical decision to keep the center open despite the madness outside – gunfire, bombs and sometimes dead bodies on the road. They refused to stop building the world they dreamed. Instead, they developed strategies – coming to work on scooters, changing cars to avoid being noticed, keeping their hearts tuned to the work of healing survivors. It is now June and the 27th class of City of Joy is about to graduate and a new class is on the way.I think of one of my great inspirations, the former congresswoman Cori Bush who saw that in St Louis, after the recent tornado no local or national Fema had come or were coming. The majority of people had lost their homes or had huge holes in them. So she joined with local groups to provide tarps and food, cleaning products and formula. They formed hubs of care. They went to the senior homes who had lost electricity so there was no refrigeration for food or medicine and gave them both.She told me, “It’s my community. I believe that we take care of us. I learned through the Ferguson uprising that we can’t wait on politicians or leaders. We have to dive in and get to work. We have to talk to one another and know our communities. We need to organize in our living rooms, local businesses backyards – find out who amongst us are doctors, nurses, chefs, teachers. Knowing your community and what skills they can offer.” This is what we need to understand now more than ever.It is so clear something essential is dying. The illusion and seduction of the American dream is over. Neoliberalism is dead. There are huge cracks, openings in the old structures and narratives. These are opportunities to plant the seeds for the new world as we protect those suffering now.What the fascists want more than anything is our fear, exhaustion and despair. Or they want us angry, reactive, cruel and violent like them. In Cherien Dabis’s staggeringly brilliant saga about a family in Palestine, All That’s Left of You, (one of the best films I have ever seen), a married couple comes to a moral crisis and they turn to an iman for advice. This wise and very gentle iman tells them: “Your humanity is also your resistance. Don’t underestimate its power. It’s the only thing they can’t take away from you.” Every action matters now. Every effort small or large counts. And moving – movement is the essential key to dispelling despair. How we care now, how we love, how we come together, how we build and protect each other is in itself the building of the new world.

      V (formerly Eve Ensler) is a playwright and activist and the founder of V-Day, a global movement to end violence against women and girls More