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      De Niro to JLaw: should celebrities be expected to speak out against Trump?

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      If you were hoping Jennifer Lawrence might be able to tell you who to vote for and why, you’re in for some disappointment. “I don’t really know if I should,” the actor told the New York Times recently when asked about speaking up about the second Trump administration – and she’s not the only one. “I’ve always believed that I’m not here to tell people what to think,” Sydney Sweeney recently told GQ, after a year in which she was the subject of controversy over a jeans ad and a possible Republican voter registration. This marks a shift from Donald Trump’s first term, when more celebrities seemed not just comfortable speaking out against the administration, but obligated to do so. Now voters will no longer be able to so easily consult with Notes-app-made posts on Instagram to decide who and what they care about before they head to the polls. The era of movie-star-swung elections has come to an end.Of course, this era didn’t really exist in earnest. Celebrity opinion doesn’t seem to hold much genuine sway over the public, with the possible exception of the segments of each that belong to Taylor Swift. (Call that an extremely vocal plurality, if not necessarily a majority.) If it did, the George Clooney/Jennifer Lawrence/Tom Hanks/Scarlett Johansson party would soundly thump the Dean Cain/Tim Allen/James Woods/Chuck Norris party in every contest. In her recent interview, Lawrence is speaking to precisely that point, albeit without invoking any catty status differences: “As we’ve learned, election after election, celebrities do not make a difference whatsoever on who people vote for,” she continues. “So then what am I doing [when speaking out against Trump]? I’m just sharing my opinion on something that’s going to add fuel to a fire that’s ripping the country apart.”Lawrence still isn’t actually shy about confirming her feelings (“The first Trump administration was so wild and just, ‘how can we let this stand?’” she says earlier in the interview, and she alludes to the dispiriting feeling when some voters actively chose a second term after seeing the results of the first). Sweeney, for her part, is more genuinely evasive. (“I’m just here to kind of open their eyes to different ideas. That’s why I gravitate towards characters and stories that are complicated and are maybe morally questionable, and characters that are – on the page – hard to like, but then you find the humanity underneath them.”) But the effect is similar: putting the work first and doing that shut-up-and-sing thing that has been thrown around, in some form another, for half a century or more but felt particularly amped-up around the George W Bush administration, when applied to the artists formerly known as the Dixie Chicks, among others.View image in fullscreenTo some extent, Lawrence is correct to advocate for her work as more potentially meaningful than issuing a statement that underlines her celebrity status, noting that her political views are pretty easy to read in terms of what her production company puts out into the world (including a documentary about abortion bans), and what she does as a performer: “I don’t want to start turning people off to films and to art that could change consciousness or change the world because they don’t like my political opinions,” she says elsewhere in the interview. “I want to protect my craft so that you can still get lost in what I’m doing, in what I’m showing.” In other words, it’s the artistic principle of “show, don’t tell” bleeding over into politics.More personally, who wouldn’t grow exhausted by the expectation that these opinions should be publicly expressed and available for judgment and nitpicking, and prefer instead to speak through art, if that alternate platform was available to them? Trump doesn’t consume art, but he does perform the old-media equivalent of constant name-searching, which means he is likely to name-check any celebrities with high-profile opposition to him – or even those he senses are somehow aligned with his movement, like Sweeney, whose jeans ad he nonsensically praised. Getting dragged into the Trump sphere is a real lose-lose proposition for anyone who wants a genuinely interesting career in the arts. If that sense of self-preservation spares us some cookie-cutter awards show speeches that don’t move the needle outside of the auditorium applause-o-meter, or Clooney relitigating the specifics of Democrats’ mistakes and pitfalls in the 2024 election, all the better.The other side of that strategy, though, is a form of quivery brand management that doubles as faulty market research, implying a tidy split between Trump supporters and those who oppose the president’s policies. In fact, 77 million voters pulling the metaphorical lever for Trump in 2024 out of approximately 258 million adults in the US equals a less-than-robust 30%, not 50 – a percentage his approval rating has rarely crossed. Currently, that number continues to sit below 40% by most estimates. Maybe that’s splitting hairs; 77 million voters is a hell of a lot of people, and 37% of 258 million is even more than that, even if it’s not a majority. But the gesture toward “lowering the temperature”, as so many including Lawrence allude to, feels less noble and more businesslike capitulation. Personal politics becomes a choice between allowing people to read between the lines (as Lawrence does) or an outright opacity (like Sweeney’s) that is, ironically, very politician-like. It also fits with an executive mindset that treats audiences more like shareholders than human beings.View image in fullscreenAs little as celebrity advocacy tends to move the needle on broad political decisions, and likely more effectively moved toward particular issues rather than tilting at the windmills erected by specific politicians, it’s also cathartic to see which folks aren’t backing down. It is telling, too, that some of the most outspoken figures are those closer to Trump’s advanced age. Harrison Ford, for example, had no compunction about telling the Guardian that he considers Trump one of history’s biggest criminals. Robert De Niro has gone further as an anti-Trump spokesperson, recently noting that he was “very happy” to see so many mobilizing against Trump at recent No Kings protests, and repeatedly bringing up his concern that Trump will not abide by the legal term limits on his presidency: “We cannot let up because he is not going to leave the White House. Anybody who thinks, ‘Oh, he’ll do this, he’ll do that,’ is just deluding themselves.”Does anyone need to hear this alarm sounded by De Niro in particular? Probably not, and surely some former fans will dismiss him as an anti-Trump crank. But at 82, the actor is too late in his career to spend much time calculating what is best for business, which also inures him from charges of empty virtue-signaling. He is clearly saying this stuff because he fully believes it. It’s not that De Niro needs Lawrence, Sweeney or whoever else to stand alongside him, but for all the strangeness of a legendary actor reinventing himself as a cable-news staple, it does seem like De Niro better understands his fellow baby boomer New Yorker. He especially seems to get that Trump is a poisonously ironic figure to inspire this kind of celebrity silence.This president is himself a celebrity first, a corrupt politician second, and an actual political strategist in a distant and possibly accidental third. He may well survey his presidency and secretly conclude that his greatest triumph was asserting that celebrity over others – to get away with literally telling people how to think and how to vote (or maybe in the future, that voting is no longer necessary) while cowing others from expressing their opinions on the matter. If celebrities had no political sway at all, Trump would be doddering and leering his way around a TV studio. Lawrence and Sweeney are right to aspire toward their work saying more than they do – but maybe not for the reasons they think. Celebrity without art is what gets you Donald Trump in the first place. For this administration, it’s not the singing that’s important; it’s the shutting up. More

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      How Trump is weaponizing the DoJ to ‘bully, prosecute, punish and silence’ his foes

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      Donald Trump’s intense pressure on the US Department of Justice (DoJ) to charge key foes with crimes based on dubious evidence and his ongoing investigations of other political enemies is hurting the rule of law in the US and violating departmental policies, which scholars and ex-prosecutors say may help scuttle some charges.They also voice dismay about charges filed against ex-FBI director James Comey and Letitia James, the New York attorney general, by Lindsey Halligan, the ex-White House lawyer and novice prosecutor, who Trump installed in a key US attorney post after forcing out a veteran prosecutor who deemed the cases weak.Comey, charged with lying to Congress about an FBI leak and obstruction of Congress, and James, charged with bank fraud and false statements to a financial unit, have pleaded not guilty and are garnering hefty support from ex-DoJ officials and legal experts challenging the paltry evidence against them.Over 100 ex-DoJ officials filed an amicus brief on 27 October mirroring part of Comey’s legal defense that his prosecution was a “vindictive” one, and should be dropped given longstanding departmental policies barring such legal tactics. Trump’s animus against Comey stems from the FBI’s inquiry of Russia’s role in helping Trump’s campaign in 2016 when Comey led the FBI.James Pearce, an ex-DoJ lawyer and a senior counsel at the Washington Litigation Group who helped organize the amicus, said: “It explains that the justice department’s policies seek to ensure fair and impartial prosecutions – which the constitution’s due process clause requires. Unfortunately, the public record suggests that the Comey prosecution neither adheres to those policies nor comports with the constitutional obligations underpinning them.”Other amicus briefs supporting Comey were filed in late October by groups including the Protect Democracy Project and Democracy Defenders Fund.View image in fullscreenFurther contesting the Comey and James charges, Democracy Defenders Fund sent a letter to the DoJ inspector general signed by ethics advisors to presidents Bill Clinton, George W Bush and Barack Obama blasting Trump’s move to make Halligan an interim US attorney and file charges against them, and seeking an investigation of the prosecutions.“After Watergate, no precept was more central to the re-professionalization of the justice department than distancing the White House from decision making about individual prosecutions,” said Peter Shane, who teaches constitutional law at New York University“Trump’s conspicuous public involvement in triggering prosecutions against his enemies along with the seemingly paltry ‘evidence’ against Comey and James, in particular, is likely to mean that at least some of these cases will be dismissed before trial. There is also a serious legal question whether Halligan has been legitimately appointed to the USA position in Virginia.”Other legal experts say the justice department has been “weaponized” to further Trump’s revenge drive against Comey, James and other current and former officials who Trump blames for his legal problems including two impeachments and federal charges that he tried to subvert his 2020 election loss.“The overt and explicit ‘weaponization’ of the justice department, in defiance of the professional judgment of career prosecutors that the criminal prosecutions are unwarranted, is the worst type of corruption of the rule of law,” said Philip Lacovara, who was counsel to the Watergate special prosecutor.View image in fullscreen“The department’s principles of federal prosecution explicitly prohibit federal prosecutors from considering partisan and political factors in deciding whether to pursue criminal charges. But Trump has made these considerations a primary motive for bringing down the weight of the federal law enforcement apparatus on the heads of his political enemies.”Lacovara’s points were underscored by how the DoJ has seemed to move in lockstep with Trump’s suggestions that foes he’s publicly attacked on Truth Social and in other public and private ways should be prosecuted or investigated.Notably, Trump implored Pam Bondi, the attorney general, in late September on Truth Social to bring charges against Comey, James and Adam Schiff, a Democratic senator, not long before the DoJ indicted the first two.Just a day after Trump had forced out the Virginia prosecutor who declined to indict key Trump foes, Trump upped the pressure on Bondi“What about Comey, Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, Leticia???” Trump wrote. “They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done,” stressing that “we can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility.”In his missive addressed to “Pam”, Trump hyped the stakes for him: “They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!A person familiar with the inquiry of Schiff, and reports suggest that pressures from some DoJ leaders have increased on the US attorney in Maryland who has been exploring charging Schiff with mortgage fraud, but has lacked sufficient evidence to do so. Schiff and his attorney have attacked the investigation as vindictive and politically driven.The weekend before Comey’s indictment, Schiff hit back at Trump’s Truth Social posts targeting him. “There’s no hiding the political retaliation and weaponization. It’s all out in the open.”Trump’s ire at Schiff stems from when Schiff was a member of the House and served as manager during Trump’s first impeachment.Similarly, Trump’s hatred of James, who the DoJ charged soon after Comey, was fueled by a successful civil fraud case that her office brought against Trump’s real estate empire in 2024 that initially had a hefty $500m penalty.The penalty was overturned last month, but Trump and his two eldest sons remain barred for a few years from holding leadership posts with the family real-estate behemoth.Another Trump foe, John Bolton, ex-national security adviser, who has been a vocal Trump critic, was charged last month by Maryland’s US attorney with mishandling classified information. Legal experts note the investigation of Bolton began during the Biden administration and may be stronger than the cases against other Trump enemies.Bolton has pleaded not guilty.View image in fullscreenWithin the DoJ, a key figure in pushing hard for charges against some of Trump’s avowed enemies has been Ed Martin, a combative lawyer with strong Maga credentials including promoting bogus claims of election fraud in 2020 and legal work he did for some of the January 6 rioters.Martin displayed his Maga bona fides the day before the Capitol attack, when he told a rally of fervent Trump backers: “Thank you for standing for our president. But remember, what they’re stealing is not just an election. It’s our future.”Martin was originally tapped by Trump to be US attorney for DC, but after serving in that role on an interim basis, Trump withdrew his nomination for Senate approval after a key Republican senator indicated he wouldn’t support him.Soon after moving to the DoJ in May, Martin was put in charge of a “weaponization working group”, to go after alleged weaponization by DoJ under Democratic presidents.Martin’s radical views about prosecuting or publicly shaming Trump foes were palpable when he told reporters while exiting the US attorney’s post that if people “can’t be charged, we will name them … and in a culture that respects shame, they should be people that are ashamed”.Bondi tapped Martin over the summer to investigate the Schiff allegations, and to that end he met with Bill Pulte, the federal housing finance agency director, who had sent a criminal referral in May for Schiff to the DoJ, according to NBC.Boosting his stature at the DoJ, Martin has also been given the titles special attorney for mortgage fraud, associate deputy attorney general and pardon attorney.Former prosecutors raise strong concerns about Martin’s various DoJ roles including spurring some indictments of Trump’s foes.“His chief value to the administration is to go after people Trump has identified as enemies by any means or tactics he can find, whether legally sound or not,” said Mike Gordon, a senior DoJ prosecutor on January 6 cases and one of about 20 prosecutors ousted by Trump’s DoJ.Other ex-prosecutors see Martin’s modus operandi as dangerous.“Ed Martin’s role as both the pardon attorney and head of the weaponization working group is concerning in light of a long list of public comments he has made,” said Barbara McQuade, a former US attorney for eastern Michigan who now teaches law at the University of Michigan.“His letter writing campaign while he was serving as interim US attorney, demanding answers to questions from Democratic politicians, members of the media, and university leaders also suggests a political agenda that is antithetical to the independence of the justice department.”More broadly, Lacovara calls DoJ’s compliance with Trump’s demands to charge his enemies “a truly Orwellian shift in generations-long justice department tradition: Trump has managed to condemn investigations into his personal conduct by non-political professional prosecutors, while simultaneously and expressly commanding his political appointees in the justice department to prosecute his perceived political enemies.”Democrats in Congress too are irate over Trump’s use of DoJ for revenge against foes.“When Richard Nixon conducted retaliation against his political enemies, he did it in secret and tried to cover his tracks,” said Jamie Raskin, a Democratic representative of Maryland.“But Trump’s campaign of political persecution to bully, prosecute, punish and silence his political foes is taking place in broad daylight and on TV … I have faith, however, that judges and juries at the district level, unlike Bondi and Halligan, will uphold the rule of law.”Looking ahead, Michael Bromwich, ex-DoJ inspector general, said: “The flimsy cases being brought against people who Trump considers his enemies will fail, but the damage to the system of criminal justice and the Department of Justice will endure. That will be the legacy of the people who currently run the DoJ as a subagency of the White House.” More

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      US elections 2025 live: Americans go to the polls, with elections in New York City, New Jersey, Virginia and California

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      We are restarting our live coverage of US politics.Americans are heading to the polls on Tuesday in a number of elections that will show where support for Donald Trump’s Republicans stands and whether Democrats have cause for hope.Much attention in the US and abroad will be on Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic candidate for mayor, who is facing off against former governor Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an independent after losing the Democratic primary against Mamdani earlier this year, and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa.In California, voters could tear up their congressional maps to turn Republican districts into Democratic ones in an effort to counter gains the GOP is expected to make elsewhere after the party gerrymandered maps in states including Texas and Missouri.Virginia and New Jersey will hold high-stakes gubernatorial and legislative elections that may serve as a proxy for voters’ views on the president.We will bring you the latest news and reactions as election day unfolds.New York City has probably the most high-profile mayor in the country, and in June, Mamdani, a 34-year-old state assemblyman and democratic socialist, won the Democratic primary in an upset over former governor Andrew Cuomo.Though Cuomo remains in the race as an independent, polls show Mamdani with a formidable lead, and if he wins, his brand of left-wing politics will be given a prominent platform.On Monday, the candidates for New York City mayor spent a frantic final day campaigning across the city. Zohran Mamdani, the frontrunner, whose campaign has been centered on affordability, has maintained a commanding lead, with most polls showing him leading by double digits.The 34-year-old Democratic nominee, a state assembly member from Queens, began his Monday walking across the Brooklyn Bridge at sunrise. He was joined by the New York attorney general, Letitia James; the city comptroller, Brad Lander; as well as several city and state lawmakers and throngs of supporters.He finished the walk at city hall, where he told a news conference that “we stand on the verge of ushering in a new day for our city”, and was scheduled to join volunteers before they began a final day of canvassing in Astoria, Queens, later in the day.Andrew Cuomo, the former Democratic governor running as an independent after losing to Mamdani in June’s primary, kicked off the last day of the campaign with an interview on the Spanish-language radio station La Mega before heading to a campaign stop in the Bronx. He reportedly planned to visit all five boroughs on Monday.Running a distant third has been Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate and founder of the Guardian Angels, a non-profit organization dedicated to “unarmed crime prevention”. According to social media, Sliwa spent part of Monday morning at Coney Island and was set to host a tele-rally in the evening.We are restarting our live coverage of US politics.Americans are heading to the polls on Tuesday in a number of elections that will show where support for Donald Trump’s Republicans stands and whether Democrats have cause for hope.Much attention in the US and abroad will be on Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic candidate for mayor, who is facing off against former governor Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an independent after losing the Democratic primary against Mamdani earlier this year, and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa.In California, voters could tear up their congressional maps to turn Republican districts into Democratic ones in an effort to counter gains the GOP is expected to make elsewhere after the party gerrymandered maps in states including Texas and Missouri.Virginia and New Jersey will hold high-stakes gubernatorial and legislative elections that may serve as a proxy for voters’ views on the president.We will bring you the latest news and reactions as election day unfolds. More

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      Senate Republicans strike down Democratic proposal to fully fund Snap

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      Senate Republicans shot down a Democratic-led attempt to fully fund Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) benefits on Monday during the government shutdown – a move that heightens uncertainty for the 42 million Americans participating in the country’s biggest anti-hunger program.Jeff Merkley, a Democratic senator, and Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, attempted to pass a resolution via unanimous consent that would have forced the Department of Agriculture to fund Snap benefits for the month of November.But Republican senators objected, with John Barrasso, Senate majority whip, arguing that a solution toward ensuring those benefits lies in reopening the government.“This isn’t lawmaking. It’s a political stunt by the Democrats. The resolution they’re offering is empty,” Barrasso said. “Democrats knew their actions threatened food assistance. They were fully aware of it.”The move comes after the administration announced it will use money from an agriculture department contingency fund to restart Snap food benefits, but the money would only grant partial assistance. The administration said there’s only $4.65bn available in that fund to pay for Snap benefits, which would only cover about half of the $8bn in food assistance payments people receive every month.“Trump is using food as a weapon against children, families, and seniors to enact his ‘make Americans hungry agenda,’” said Merkley in a statement.“It’s unbelievably cruel, but Trump cares more about playing politics than making sure kids don’t starve. Kids and families are not poker chips or hostages. Trump must release the entirety of the Snap funds immediately.”The diminishing funds come as Senate Republican leaders continue their attempts to pass a bill to reopen the government, with 13 tries so far and a clear resolution nowhere in sight.Food banks and pantries across the country are already struggling amid the cuts to federal programs, scrambling to meet the increased demand driven by federal workers who have gone unpaid during the shutdown.Should the shutdown continue past Tuesday, it will be the longest one in history. The previous record was set in 2019, during Trump’s first term, when he demanded that Congress give him the funds to erect a border wall between the US and Mexico. More

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      Trump news at a glance: president endorses and threatens on eve of New York City mayoral election

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      Donald Trump has no qualms weighing in on local elections – especially in his native New York City.And on the eve of the mayoral election between Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, longtime Democrat-turned-independent Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa, the US president had a message for Republican New Yorkers.“I would much rather see a Democrat, who has had a Record of Success, WIN, than a Communist with no experience and a Record of COMPLETE AND TOTAL FAILURE,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday.Before the uncanny endorsement, Trump also renewed threats to punish New Yorkers based on the election outcome, writing on his platform that it was “highly unlikely that I will be contributing Federal Funds, other than the very minimum as required” if Mamdani wins.Later on Monday, Mamdani responded publicly to Trump’s remarks at a campaign event in Astoria, Queens.“The Maga movement’s embrace of Andrew Cuomo is reflective of Donald Trump’s understanding that this would be the best mayor for him – not the best mayor for New York City, not the best mayor for New Yorkers, but the best mayor for Donald Trump and his administration,” he said, according to the New York Times.Trump threatens to cut funds if Mamdani wins mayoral electionOn the eve of New York’s well-watched mayoral election, Trump issued a threat to its voters: stop Zohran Mamdani or pay.“If Communist Candidate Zohran Mamdani wins the Election for Mayor of New York City, it is highly unlikely that I will be contributing Federal Funds, other than the very minimum as required, to my beloved first home,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. “I don’t want to send, as President, good money after bad.”Trump urged NYC Republicans to vote for Cuomo, who has been a lifelong Democrat but ran in this year’s mayoral race as an independent to bypass the Democratic primary.The Trump administration is well on its way toward making good on this threat even before the votes have been counted. The White House began sparring with the state over New York’s plan to enforce congestion pricing for car traffic earlier this year, which Trump revisited in a separate Truth Social post on Monday evening. The White House withheld $18bn for a tunnel project as the government shutdown started. A federal judge ordered the federal government to reverse the rescission about $34m in counterterrorism funding for the New York City, ruling the move as “arbitrary, capricious and a blatant violation of the law”.Read the full storyTrump administration to halve usual funds to Snap recipients this monthAmid mounting uncertainty among the nearly 42 million people on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap), the Department of Agriculture said it would use contingency funds to keep benefits going, albeit just 50% of the usual funds recipients receive on their cards.The announcement, in a court filing by the government at the US district court in Rhode Island, came after Donald Trump said the administration would comply with a court order to provide emergency funding after previous refusals to do so on purported legal grounds.Read the full storyFederal judge bars national guard troops in Portland, OregonA federal judge in Oregon on Sunday said she “found no credible evidence” that protests in the city grew out of control before the president federalized the troops earlier this fall.US district court judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee, barred the administration from deploying the national guard to Portland, Oregon, until at least Friday.It is the latest development in weeks of legal back-and-forth in Portland, Chicago and other US cities as the Trump administration has moved to federalize and deploy the national guard in city streets to quell protests.Read the full storyAmericans ‘dumbfounded by cruelty’ of Trump officials slashing Snap benefitsThe Guardian wanted to know how important Snap was to the approximately 42 million people enrolled in the program. Many of those who responded to our callout were elderly, or out of the workforce because of significant mental of physical health issues, and worried that a cutoff of the benefit would send their lives into a tailspin.Steven of Wisconsin, 59, said he is recovering from surgeries, and has been unable to work for the past year because of his health. “I’ve already reduced my intake since before Snap was cut. Now it means no milk, no eggs, no vegetables, and definitely no meat,” he said, adding:“It’s like the siege of Stalingrad, but from your own government.”Read the full storyCBS News heavily edits Trump 60 Minutes interview, but the transcript reveals allTrump sat down with correspondent Norah O’Donnell for 90 minutes, but only about 28 minutes were broadcast. A full transcript of the interview was later published, along with a 73-minute-long extended version online.During the interview, in a clip that did not air on the broadcast, Trump needled CBS over the settlement and repeated his claims against the network.“Actually, 60 Minutes paid me a lotta money. And you don’t have to put this on, because I don’t wanna embarrass you, and I’m sure you’re not,” Trump said.Read the full storyTrump says he doesn’t know who crypto tycoon is, despite pardoning himThe president was asked in that 60 Minutes interview why he pardoned Changpeng Zhao, the billionaire founder of cryptocurrency exchange Binance, for enabling money laundering despite him causing “significant harm to … national security” according to federal prosecutors.“OK, are you ready? I don’t know who he is,” Trump told CBS News’s Norah O’Donnell.In 2023, Zhao pleaded guilty to charges that he broke rules designed to stop money laundering – after Binance allegedly failed to report suspicious transactions with organizations including Hamas and al-Qaida.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Why is Donald Trump threatening military intervention in Nigeria? The president’s remarks about alleged persecution of Christians is seemingly in response to pressure from his evangelical base.

      Trump said he feels “very badly” for the British royal family after King Charles stripped his brother, Andrew, of his titles over the former prince’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the late, convicted sex offender.

      Throwing a sandwich at a federal agent turned Sean Charles Dunn into a symbol of resistance against Trump’s law-enforcement surge in the country’s capital. This week, federal prosecutors are trying to persuade a jury of fellow Washington DC residents that Dunn simply broke the law.

      The head of the US Food and Drug Administration’s drug center abruptly resigned on Sunday after federal officials began reviewing “serious concerns about his personal conduct”, according to a government spokesperson.

      The collective wealth of the top 10 US billionaires has soared by $698bn in the past year, according to a new report from Oxfam America published on Monday on the growing wealth divide.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 2 November. More

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      Americans ‘dumbfounded by cruelty’ of Trump officials slashing Snap benefits

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      Across the country, Americans who depend on government help to buy groceries are preparing for the worst.As a result of the ongoing federal government shutdown, Donald Trump has threatened to, for the first time in the program’s more than 60-year history, cut off benefits provided by the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance program (Snap). A federal judge last week prevented the US Department of Agriculture from suspending Snap altogether, but the Trump administration now says enrollees will receive only half of their usual benefits.The Guardian wanted to know how important Snap was to the approximately 42 million people enrolled in the program. Many of those who responded to our callout were elderly, or out of the workforce because of significant mental of physical health issues, and worried that a cutoff of the benefit would send their lives into a tailspin.“I am housebound because I need a couple of spinal cord surgeries so this is really gonna hurt me because I cannot work, and thereby earn money to put food on the table,” said Taras Stratelak, a retiree in southern California.Referencing a refrain of Trump and the GOP as they have downsized federal aid programs, Stratelak wrote: “I guess I’m lazy, or maybe I’m waste, fraud and abuse.”Wisconsin resident Betty Standridge, 56, said she had been hospitalized for a month, and was relying on Snap to afford pricier groceries that she now would have to go without.“Losing my Snap benefits means I will not be able to replenish my food for the month, therefore I will do without things like fresh produce, milk, eggs,” she said.Donna Lynn, a disabled veteran in Missouri, said a cutoff of benefits would force her into making tough choices.“It comes down to paying for my medications and my bills or buying food for myself and for my animals. So I pay for my medications and bills and get what food I can for my animals, Aad if I have money left over, then I will eat,” Lynn said.“This is how the government treats their veterans – it’s very sad.”Zachariah Kushner, a disabled 36-year-old living in Charleston, West Virginia, put the consequences of a benefit cut succinctly: “I won’t be able to buy food! What do you expect?”The government shutdown began on the first day of October, after Democrats and Republicans in Congress failed to agree on spending legislation to continue funding. While the GOP has demanded passage of a bill to fund the government through 21 November, Senate Democrats have refused to provide the votes needed for the legislation to make it through that chamber, insisting that Trump extend tax cuts that have lowered the monthly premiums of Affordable Care Act plans.While the USDA claims that it must cut off Snap because it no longer has money to fund it, experts disagreed, and a federal judge last week sided with two dozen states who sued to keep it paying out funds.A NBC News polls released on Sunday found 52% blamed Trump and his allies for the shutdown, as opposed to 42% who fault the Democrats.Many of those who wrote in to the Guardian aligned with those findings.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSandra, a retiree in Milwaukee who declined to give her last name, feared the benefit cut was the start of an attempt to dismantle Snap, which was set up by Congress in 1964. “My sense is Trump will try to make Snap benefits permanently end during the shutdown,” she said. “I’m dumbfounded by the cruelty.”Steven of Wisconsin, 59, said he is recovering from surgeries, and has been unable to work for the past year because of his health. “I’ve already reduced my intake since before Snap was cut. Now it means no milk, no eggs, no vegetables, and definitely no meat,” he said.Referring to the climactic second world war battle, he said: “It’s like the siege of Stalingrad, but from your own government.”Twenty-eight-year-old Thomas, an unemployed Philadelphia resident, felt similarly let down.“I’ve paid an awful lot of taxes over the years, I don’t feel bad about getting something back for it in my time of need,” he said.Grand Rapids, Michigan resident Bill predicted he “will have to go without many things that I ordinarily purchase” and borrow money from his family.“How do I feel about it? I curse Donald Trump and his entire party of sycophants and lickspittles to the seven[th] circle of hell, now and for all time,” the 71-year-old said. More

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      Trump administration says it will partially fund Snap food aid benefits– live

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      The Trump administration has said in a court filing that it plans to partially fund food aid for millions of Americans after two judges ruled last week that it must use contingency funds to pay for the benefits in November during the government shutdown.This is per a snap updated from the Reuters news agency and I’ll bring you more on this as we get it.Nearly two dozen states have sued the Trump administration over its new rule that limits student loan forgiveness for people who work for non-profits or the government. The lawsuit is being led by New York Attorney General Letitia James and has been joined by 20 attorneys general in states including Arizona, Illinois and Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia’s attorney general.The US Department of Education issued the final rule last week, which changes the definition of “qualifying employer” and excludes organizations “that engage in unlawful activities” such as “supporting terrorism and aiding and abetting illegal immigration”. The Public Service Loan Forgiveness law was signed into force by George W Bush in 2007.“Public Service Loan Forgiveness was created as a promise to teachers, nurses, firefighters, and social workers that their service to our communities would be honored,” James said in a statement. “Instead, this administration has created a political loyalty test disguised as a regulation.”Donald Trump has long criticized student loan forgiveness programs and has aimed to roll back debt relief bolstered during the Biden administration, which included making it easier for people to qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness.

      The Trump administration has said in a court filing that it plans to partially fund food aid for millions of Americans after two judges ruled last week that it must use contingency funds to pay for the benefits in November during the government shutdown. The administration laid out the US Department of Agriculture’s plan in a filing in federal court in Rhode Island at the direction of a judge who had last week ordered it to use emergency funds to at least partially cover November’s Snap benefits. While the administration said it would fully deplete the $5.25bn in contingency funds, it would not use other funding that would allow it to fully fund Snap benefits for 42 million Americans, which cost $8bn to $9bn per month.

      As the ongoing government shutdown enters its 34th day, Republican leaders maintain they have no plans to abolish the filibuster. Speaking to reporters today, House speaker Mike Johnson said his colleagues in the Senate saw the 60-vote threshold needed in the Senate to end debate on a bill, as an “important safeguard” from the “Democrats’ worst impulses”. This, despite Donald Trump decrying the measure on social media, and in a recent interview with 60 Minutes. Johnson said today that the president is simply very “passionate” about this issue. “I think what you see in this debate – we’re having on our own side is a reflection of the anger that we feel, the real desperation that we feel, because we want the government to be reopened,” he added.

      As election day inches closer, candidates to be New York City’s next mayor spent the day traversing the city with eleventh-hour pitches to voters. Early voting in the closely watched mayoral race ended on Sunday. More than 735,000 New Yorkers cast their ballots ahead of Tuesday’s election. The Democratic nominee, Zohran Mamdani, is still the frontrunner in the race, much to the ire of the president. In his 60 Minutes interview, Trump said that he’s “not a fan of Cuomo one way or the other”, but he would rather see the former governor – who is running as an Independent – win against the progressive assemblyman leading the polls. “If it’s gonna be between a bad Democrat and a communist, I’m gonna pick the bad Democrat all the time, to be honest with you,” Trump said.
      The inspector general for the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) is being removed from his role, according to Reuters. Citing three unnamed people familiar with the matter, the outlet reports that Joe Allen is being removed from his role overseeing the office responsible for rooting out waste, fraud and abuse at the FHFA.Reuters also noted that the website for the FHFA’s Office of Inspector General listed the position as “currently vacant”. It was unclear when the website was updated.In recent weeks, the agency’s leader, Bill Pulte, has made himself known as a loyal supporter of Donald Trump’s efforts to target those he sees as political adversaries. He’s accused Federal Reserve governor, Lisa Cook, of mortgage fraud, and pushed the justice department to investigate New York attorney general Letitia James – who recently plead not guilty after being indicted on two charges of bank fraud, and making false statements to a financial institution.In response, Elizabeth Warren – the top Democratic senator on the banking committee – issued a statement today.“What happened to the watchdog overseeing his agency? What does Pulte have to hide as he continues to use his role to investigate President Trump’s perceived political enemies while failing to lower housing costs for the American people?,” the lawmaker representing Massachusetts said.As election day inches closer, candidates to be New York City’s next mayor spent the day traversing the city with eleventh-hour pitches to voters.Democratic nominee, and frontrunner, Zohran Mamdani, former governor Andrew Cuomo who is running as an Independent, and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, all spent a jam-packed weekend attending campaign events and getting as much face time with New Yorkers as possible. A reminder that early voting, which ended on Sunday, saw a record high turn out throughout the city.My colleague, Anna Betts, has been covering the latest on the ground. You can read more of her reporting below.The city of Miami’s mayor Francis Suarez is weighing in on Tuesday’s mayoral race in New York, with none-too-complimentary comments about Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic candidate and frontrunner.Suarez, a Republican, was speaking to reporters this lunchtime ahead of the two-day America Business Forum in Miami on Wednesday and Thursday, which Donald Trump will attend.“New York seems to be on the precipice of electing a Democratic socialist, a young charismatic leader. But we’ve been to that movie before, here in Miami,” said Suarez, the termed-out, eight-year mayor whose successor will also be elected on Tuesday.“In this city we’ve had young charismatic leaders that promised us, you know, ‘Give us all your businesses, give us all your property, we’ll make everybody equal’. And they did. They made everybody equally poor, equally miserable and equally repressed,” he said.Suarez says the impact on Miami if Mamdani is elected will be significant, and he predicts an exodus from New York. “There’s going to be a 20, 30, maybe even 40% spike in demand and in real estate prices here in Miami, it’s an inevitable consequence,” he added. “I don’t have a border, you know, I can’t prevent people from coming.”Trump is the headline speaker at the conference, which features luminaries from the worlds of politics, business and sport. They include sports stars Lionel Messi, Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams; Javier Milei, the far-right president of Argentina; Steve Witkoff, Trump adviser and Middle East envoy; and María Corina Machado, winner of the 2025 Nobel peace prize that Trump was angling for.As is customary during these dueling press conferences throughout the shutdown, each party continues to blame the other for failing to reopen the government.Jeffries just called Donald Trump the “puppet master” of the Republican party, and said that GOP lawmakers refuse to negotiate due to their ongoing deference to the president.Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, is now speaking to reporters at the US Capitol. A reminder that the lower chamber is still out of session as the government shutdown enters its 34th day.Further to that, the Trump administration said $600m would be used to fund states’ administrative costs in administering Snap benefits, leaving $4.65bn that will be obligated to cover 50% of eligible households’ current allotments.The partial payments are unprecedented in the program’s history. A USDA official warned in a court filing that at least some states, which administer Snap benefits on a day-to-day basis, would need weeks to months to make system changes that would allow them to provide the reduced benefits.US district judge in Rhode Island John McConnell and another judge in Boston, US district judge Indira Talwani, said on Friday the administration had the discretion to also tap a separate fund holding about $23bn.Patrick Penn, deputy under secretary for food, nutrition, and consumer services at the USDA, said in a court filing the agency was carefully considering using those funds but determined they must remain available for child nutrition programs instead of Snap.Per my last post, the administration laid out the US Department of Agriculture’s plan in a filing in federal court in Rhode Island at the direction of a judge who had last week ordered it to use emergency funds to at least partially cover November’s Snap benefits.The justice department said the USDA is complying with US district judge John McConnell’s order and “will fulfill its obligation to expend the full amount of Snap contingency funds today”.But while the administration said it would fully deplete the $5.25bn in contingency funds, it would not use other funding that would allow it to fully fund Snap benefits for 42 million Americans, which cost $8bn to $9bn per month.The Trump administration has said in a court filing that it plans to partially fund food aid for millions of Americans after two judges ruled last week that it must use contingency funds to pay for the benefits in November during the government shutdown.This is per a snap updated from the Reuters news agency and I’ll bring you more on this as we get it.Per that last post, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer quipped on social media today.“Maybe I should file a complaint with the FCC against the Trump White House for editing his unhinged 60 Minutes interview,” the top Democrat wrote on X. “It will use the exact same language Trump lodged against Vice President Harris.”The CBS News program 60 Minutes heavily edited down an interview with Donald Trump that aired on Sunday night, his first sit-down with the show in five years.Trump sat down with correspondent Norah O’Donnell for 90 minutes, but only about 28 minutes were broadcast. A full transcript of the interview was later published, along with a 73-minute-long extended version online.The edits are notable because, exactly one year before Trump was interviewed by O’Donnell at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Friday he had sued CBS over the editing of a 60 Minutes interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris, which he alleged had been deceptively edited to help her chances in the presidential election.While many legal experts widely dismissed the lawsuit as “meritless” and unlikely to hold up under the first amendment, CBS settled with Trump for $16m in July. As part of the settlement, the network had agreed that it would release transcripts of future interviews of presidential candidates.At the beginning of Sunday’s show, O’Donnell reminded viewers that Paramount settled Trump’s lawsuit, but noted that “the settlement did not include an apology or admission of wrongdoing”.Ahead of election day across the country, my colleague Carter Sherman, has been covering how reproductive rights will be back on the ballot in this off-cycle year. Carter notes the gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia could have sweeping consequences for abortion access in two states that have become havens for women fleeing abortion bans. In Pennsylvania, what should have been a relatively sleepy judicial-retention election has evolved into the most expensive race of its kind in nearly 50 years, largely due to heated fighting over abortion. With voters weighing whether to keep three Democratic justices on the state supreme court, advocates fear that liberals may lose control of the bench and, ultimately, lose abortion access in the purple state.Read more of her reporting here. When asked by reporters about the president’s insistence for lawmakers to abolish the filibuster, Mike Johnson said that he had spoken to Donald Trump over the weekend and shared his thoughts with him.“I hear my Senate Republican colleagues, some of the most conservative people in Congress, who say it’s an important safeguard. It prevents us, it holds us back from the Democrats’ worst impulses,” Johnson said. “What would the Democrats do if they had no filibuster impediment, no speed bump at all?”The House speaker added that he speaks “frankly and honestly” with the president and noted that he was very “passionate” about this issue. “I think what you see in this, this, this debate we’re having on our own side is a reflection of the anger that we feel, the real desperation that we feel, because we want the government to be reopened,” Johnson said.Mike Johnson has said that issuing payments to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) beneficiaries in the midst of the shutdown is “not as easy as hitting go send on a computer”.In recent days, two federal judges ordered the administration to use the program’s contingency funds to pay to Snap recipients. Today, Johnson said this was more complicated than it looked.“It costs over $9bn to fund Snap for a month, and we only have, I think it’s $5.2bn in the contingency fund. So you have a big shortfall,” he said. “You got to go through and recalculate partial payments to the 42 million recipients of the program.”Johnson noted that the president was not appealing against the rulings from the respective judges. “He wants that to be done,” Johnson said. “But he doesn’t see the mechanism to do it. So you have treasury, you have USDA, you have the other agencies involved that are working overtime, literally around the clock over the weekend, trying to figure out how to do this. But everybody needs to know, it’s not the full amount, assuming they could get this done and processed.”Throughout today’s press conference, Mike Johnson has continued to blame Senate Democrats for shuttering the government for 34 days. He, and many congressional Republicans, have claimed that the reason that lawmakers on the left have consistently rejected the House-passed funding bill is due to pressure from the progressive wing of the Democratic party.“They fear that personally for their own political future,” Johnson said today. “And they care more about that than they care about Snap benefits flow into hungry families, about air traffic controllers being paid so they can keep the skies safe, border patrol, troops and all the rest … It is extremism on the left that is the direct cause of American suffering right now.”In a short while, Republican House speaker Mike Johnson will hold a press conference, on the 34th day of the government shutdown.We’ll bring you the latest lines, particularly when it comes to reopening the lower chamber, as the shutdown is poised to be the longest on record (likely to beat the 35 days during Donald Trump’s first administration).In an interview with CBS News’ 60 Minutes, Trump said that he’s “not a fan of Cuomo one way or the other”, but he would rather see the former governor win against the progressive frontrunner and state assemblyman Zohran Mamdani to be the next mayor of New York City.“If it’s gonna be between a bad Democrat and a communist, I’m gonna pick the bad Democrat all the time, to be honest with you,” Trump said.Early voting in the closely watched mayoral race ended on Sunday. More than 735,000 New Yorkers cast their ballots ahead of Tuesday’s election. More

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      Trump approval rating falls to second-term low of 37%

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      Donald Trump’s approval rating has fallen to one of its lowest points, with only 37% of Americans expressing approval of his performance as president.The new CNN/SSRS survey released on Monday shows a sharp decline in Trump’s approval ratings compared with the early days after he began his second term in January, when his approval stood at 47% by mid-February.The latest survey, conducted among 1,245 adults from 27 to 30 October, shows a 63% disapproval rating, just a percentage point higher than his lowest mark ever recorded by CNN, which came in the week following the January 6 Capitol Hill riot in 2021.When asked how things are going in the US, today, a majority of Americans, 68%, said “pretty/very badly”, while 32% said “very/fairly well”.The survey, conducted as the federal government appears to enter what will be the longest shutdown in American history, also found that 47% of Americans view the economy and cost of living as the most important issue facing the country.Coming in second is the state of American democracy, indicated by 26% of Americans. By comparison, only 10% cited immigration as a top concern, even though the issue continues to be a major focus of Trump’s administration, marked by intensified ICE raids, steep cuts to refugee admissions and ongoing immigration battles in federal courts.Other issues lower on the list include crime and safety, cited as a concern by only 7% of Americans, despite Trump’s vow to rid major American cities – which he has called “hellhole” and “war-ravaged” – of “crime, bloodshed, bedlam”.Among those surveyed, only 27% said they believe Trump’s policies improved the nation’s economic conditions. In contrast, 61% think his policies made the economy worse while 12% believe they had no effect. The survey comes amid growing concern in rural Republican towns where Trump’s tariffs have driven factory layoffs and production slowdowns across various industries.In regards to foreign policy, 32% said they believe Trump’s decisions helped the US’s global standing. By contrast, 56% believe that he hurt the US’s standing in the world while 12% said he made no difference at all. These results follow repeated White House claims that Trump has ended eight wars in eight months of his presidency.Moreover, the survey found that a majority of Americans, 61%, believe Trump has gone too far in using his presidential powers. Meanwhile, 31% say his use of power has been about right, and 9% believe he has not gone far enough.Since taking office in January, Trump’s expansion of his presidential authority – through actions including authorizing international strikes without congressional approval, deploying national guard troops despite opposition from state officials, and issuing executive orders that make independent regulators answerable to the White House – has raised widespread concern.The survey’s findings on public attitudes toward Trump’s presidential power also come as experts warn that his investigations into political opponents risk turning the justice department into his “personal weapon”.With the midterm elections coming up next November, 41% of Americans said that if they were voting for Congress today, their vote would be a way to show opposition to Trump. Meanwhile, 21% said their vote would signal support for Trump and 38% said their vote would not be about sending any message to him.The Guardian has contacted the White House for comment. More