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      There is no ‘Trump Doctrine’ in foreign policy. Just chaos | Sidney Blumenthal

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      All the elaborate efforts of the European allies to prevent Donald Trump from prostrating himself before Vladimir Putin came to naught at their summit meeting in Alaska. Flattering, coddling and petting the big baby appeared to have been in vain. Before the 15 August summit, the Europeans persuaded Trump to impose new sanctions if Putin would not agree to a ceasefire, which would serve as a prerequisite for any negotiations. But Trump willfully tossed policy like a stuffed animal out of the window of “the Beast,” the presidential car as he eagerly invited Putin to join him for a triumphant chariot ride.The Europeans scrambled once again, trying to get the addled Trump back on the page he was on before the summit. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, sped to Washington to confer with Trump to try to pick up the pieces. At their last encounter, Trump jibed: “You don’t have any cards.” But Trump had just handed over his cards to Putin. Zelenskyy was not about to play the appeasement card. The European leaders gathered in an extraordinary posse to accompany Zelenskyy in an attempt to restore a unified western position. Unlike the last Zelenskyy meeting with Trump, he was not hectored. With the Ukrainian leader urrounded by a protective phalanx, Trump made agreeable sounding but vague gestures about a future summit with both Zelenskyy and Putin. Trump seemed favorable, if indefinite and imprecise, about western forces stationed in Ukraine to maintain its sovereignty. But the notion of a ceasefire, pressed again by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, had evaporated. While the European recovery effort took place at the White House, Russian bombs rained down. Trump dreams of receiving the Nobel peace prize. Before the summit, he called the Norwegian finance minister to lobby him.In Alaska, Trump melted again in the presence of Putin while the whole world was watching. The self-abasing embarrassment of his previous meeting in Helsinki in 2018 did not serve as a cautionary precedent. Now, he invited the sanctioned war criminal to US soil. He ordered uniformed US soldiers to roll out the red carpet, “the beautiful red carpet” as the Russian foreign ministry called it. He applauded when Putin stood next to him. He patted Putin’s hand when he clasped it with an affectionate gesture. Then the door of “the Beast” opened for Putin.Trump’s personal negotiator for the summit, Steve Witkoff, a New York real estate operator whose knowledge of Russian culture to prepare him for his delicate role may had been a bowl of borscht at the Russian Tea Room on 57th Street, was easy prey for Putin. Bild, the German newspaper, reported on 9 August that Witkoff had committed an “explosive blunder”. According to Bild, Putin “did not deviate from his maximum demand to completely control the five Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Crimea before the weapons remain silent … And even worse: Trump’s special envoy Witkoff is said to have completely misunderstood some of the Russians’ positions and misinterpreted them as an accommodation by Putin. He had misunderstood a “peaceful withdrawal” of the Ukrainians from Kherson and Zaporizhzhia demanded by Russia as an offer of “peaceful withdrawal” of the Russians from these regions”.“Witkoff doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” a Ukrainian government official told Bild. An assessment that, according to Bild information, is also shared by German government representatives.Bild further reported: “There was a telephone conference on Thursday evening between representatives of the US government – including the special envoy Witkoff and Foreign Minister Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance – and the European partners. As BILD learned, the American side was perceived as chaotic and ununited. This was primarily due to Witkoff, whose remarks about his conversation with Putin on Wednesday in the Kremlin were perceived as confusing. He himself seemed overwhelmed and incompetent to the Europeans when he spoke about the territorial issues in Ukraine.”The German newspaper also reported friction between Rubio and Vance, with the vice-president seeking to shut the European allies out of the process and Witkoff taking his side against the secretary of state. “Apparently, there was also disagreement about the further course of action between Witkoff and Rubio, as the foreign minister emphasized that the Europeans should be involved in the further process, while Vance and Witkoff only wanted to inform Europe of the results of the further Trump steps.”Bild’s report on Putin’s position turned out to be completely accurate and its description of the Trump administration’s unsettled position prophetic of the fiasco that would unfold.Little noticed in the US media accounts, Trump had presented Putin with enormous economic advantages, according to the Telegraph. He offered access to valuable Alaskan natural resources, opportunities to tap into the US portion of the Bering Strait, which would boost Russia’s interests in the Arctic region. Trump promised to lift sanctions on Russia’s aircraft industry, which would permit Russian airlines (and by extension the Russian air force) to return to US suppliers for parts and maintenance. Trump would give Putin approval for access to rare earth minerals in Ukrainian territories currently under Russian occupation.In Trump’s new world order, Putin would be his partner, especially on the frontier of the Arctic, while Trump waged a trade war imposing harsh tariffs on every other nation. Ukraine stood as an obstacle to the gold rush.According to the Telegraph, Witkoff suggested to the Russians: “Israel’s occupation of the West Bank could be used as a model for ending the war. Russia would have military and economic control of occupied [parts of] Ukraine under its own governing body, similar to Israel’s de facto rule of Palestinian territory.”Then, after Trump laid on lavish treatment for the Russian dictator at the US military base, marking his indifference to international condemnation, came the joint appearance, which exceeded the Helsinki disaster. An elated Putin and dejected Trump appeared on stage together.The announced joint press conference was a theater of the absurd. Its brevity contributed to the farce. There was no agreement, no plan for an agreement, and no press conference. Trump deferred to Putin to speak first, to set the tone and terms after which he would come on as the second banana to slip on the peel.A clearly delighted Putin reiterated his belief that Ukraine was a security threat to Russia, and that “we need to eliminate all the primary roots, the primary causes of that conflict,” which was his language for the elimination of an independent and democratic Ukraine. He blamed Biden for the war he had launched. He affirmed Trump’s presumptuous boast that there would have been no war had he been president. “Today, when President Trump is saying that if he was the president back then, there would be no war, and I’m quite sure that it would indeed be so. I can confirm that.”A clearly glum Trump stepped to his podium. “So there’s no deal until there’s a deal,” he said. He had pledged during the 2024 campaign that he could and would end the war on “day one”. It had taken him 210 days to reach the “No Deal”.Trump wistfully talked about doing business with Russia, his will-o’-the-wisp ambition since he attempted for decades to build a Trump Tower in Moscow even through the 2016 election. He threw Putin a bouquet. “I’ve always had a fantastic relationship with President Putin, with Vladimir.” He blamed their inability to monetize their relationship to the inquiries that extensively documented Putin’s covert efforts in the 2016 election to help Trump. “We were interfered with by the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax,” Trump complained. He would not let it go, drifting incoherently into his grievances. “He knew it was a hoax, and I knew it was a hoax, but what was done was very criminal, but it made it harder for us to deal as a country, in terms of the business, and all of the things that would like to have dealt with, but we’ll have a good chance when this is over.”Then, Trump praised the Russian officials accompanying Putin. Chief among them was the foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, who had arrived wearing a sweatshirt embossed with the Cyrillic letters “CCCP”, standing for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, signaling Putin’s ultimate objective to restore the empire of the Soviet Union. The message was more than nostalgia; it was a mission statement. And Trump called Putin “the Boss”, not a reference to Bruce Springsteen. “Next time in Moscow,” said Putin.The press conference was over. There were no questions. There were no answers. Trump fled from the stage.Before the summit, Trump threatened new sanctions if Putin did not agree to a ceasefire, but now he forgot he had ever said that. He spoke loudly and carried a tiny stick. On Air Force One, on the return to Washington, he gave an exclusive interview to his lapdog, Sean Hannity of Fox News, along on the ride for this purpose. Trump reverted to his tacit support for Putin’s position. He put the burden on Zelenskyy to accede to Putin’s demands, which were unchanged.Then, Trump spiraled down a wormhole, obviously anxious about his growing unpopularity and the prospect of the Democrats winning the congressional midterm elections, which has prompted him to prod the Texas Republicans to gerrymander districts and California Democrats aroused to counter it in their state. “Vladimir Putin, smart guy, said you can’t have an honest election with mail-in voting,” said Trump. “Look at California with that horrible governor they have. One of the worst governors in history. He is incompetent, he doesn’t know what he is doing.”Is this a subject that Putin actually spoke about in their discussion? Has he had experience with mail-in voting or even know what it is? Was it brought up by Trump during their car ride? Or was Trump simply making it up for his gullible Fox News audience? Whatever the reality, Trump’s fear about losing control of domestic politics was at the top of his mind as he flew away from his charade in Anchorage.The shambolic scene left in Alaska represented the wreckage of Trump’s attempt at diplomacy. Setting the stage himself, Trump babbled, whined and weakly sided with Putin. Trump’s foreign policy team was exposed as incompetent, confounded and feckless. This was no best and the brightest, no rise of the Vulcans, but the circus of the Koalemosians, after Koalemos, the Greek god of stupidity.Apologists for Trump, in advance of this exemplary event, had suggested that there was such a conceit as a Trump doctrine. A former Trump official from his first term, A Wess Mitchell, has called it “The Return of Great Power Diplomacy” in the May/June issue of Foreign Affairs. He described “a new kind of diplomacy” that is “diplomacy in its classical form” and “an instrument of strategy”. He cited an ancient Spartan king, Archidamus II, the Roman Emperor Domitian, Cardinal Richelieu, and in his mélange did not neglect to throw in Metternich and Bismarck. (Kissinger, in his grave, must be weeping over the parading of Metternich’s mannequin as a forerunner of Trump. Mitchell, in any case, dismisses Kissinger as a fake realist and an “idealist”, which would have been a revelation to Kissinger.) Left out of Mitchell’s pantheon of great diplomatic influences through the ages is the influencer Laura Loomer, the loony far-right troll who has an open door to Trump, feeding him lists of national security officials he must purge.In Putin’s shadow, Trump was bared as having no larger or smaller concept or strategy of Great Power politics. It would be unfair to accuse Trump of having an idea beyond his self-aggrandizement. If anything, he aspires to be like Putin, whom he called a “genius” after his invasion of Ukraine. Putin has created and controls a vast kleptocracy. In 2017, Bill Browder, an American businessperson who had invested in Russia and has been targeted for assassination by Putin for exposing his corruption, testified before the Senate judiciary committee that Putin was “the biggest oligarch in Russia and the richest man in the world”. Nobody, however, knows Putin’s true personal wealth.Trump, the Putin manqué, is trying to turn the United States into a kleptocratic system. According to the calculations of David D Kirkpatrick in the New Yorker, in just six months of his second term his alleged personal profiteering, “would disappoint the haters who saw Trump as a Putin-level kleptocrat. Yet some three and a half billion dollars in Presidential profits – even though my accounting is necessarily approximate – is a dizzying sum.”Meanwhile, three days before the Trump-Putin summit, the Trump family crypto business, World Liberty Financial, raised $1.5bn to buy the Trump family token. The CEO of World Liberty Financial, Zach Witkoff, son of Steve Witkoff, along with Eric Trump of WLF, will join the board of the investing company. That is the Trump doctrine.

      Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth. He is a Guardian US columnist More

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      Republicans want to rig the midterm elections. Will they succeed? | Moira Donegan

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      If one mark of an autocratic regime is the meaningfulness of elections, you can make an argument that the United States has been backsliding away from a properly democratic form of government for a long time. In 2013’s Shelby county decision, the US supreme court gutted the 1965 Voting Rights Act, clearing the way for states to impose a slew of restrictions on the franchise that were previously banned as part of an effort to prevent the re-establishment of Jim Crow; voting quickly became more burdensome and onerous in many Republican-controlled states.Three years before, in Citizens United, the same court declared that corporate money counted as political speech, thereby opening the floodgates on money in politics in ways that allowed the rich to distort public discourses ahead of elections. Donald Trump memorably tried to interfere with the 2020 census so that it would count as few of those who were disinclined to support him as possible, hoping to create a skewed vision of America in the data that the government uses to apportion public resources and congressional representation alike. The result is a clear picture of the Republican party’s approach to elections: that so long as they create a positive outcome for their candidates, they need not be strictly speaking fair, free or meaningful representations of the people’s will.Ahead of the 2026 midterms, Republicans are pursuing this agenda with renewed zeal. At Trump’s direction, Republicans in Texas are looking to redraw their state’s congressional maps to be more favorable to the Republican party, allowing the party to gain more seats in the House of Representatives not by persuading voters, but by choosing who their voters will be. The US supreme court, meanwhile, has chosen to continue its own efforts to rewrite election law in the Republicans favor, taking up a long-languishing case out of Louisiana challenging the remainder of the Voting Rights Act and accelerating argument so that a decision can be released in time for Republican-leaning states to redraw their maps ahead of the November 2026 contests.In Texas, the effort to ensure that the voters’ actual preferences will have no bearing on the outcome of the House races has unfolded in dramatic fashion. In early August, Trump told Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, to redraw his state’s congressional district maps – an unusual move in the middle of the decade – to ensure that Republicans picked up as many as five additional seats in Congress. “We” – the Republicans – “are entitled to five more seats”, the president said. Trump cited his own victory in Texas in the 2024 election as evidence that the state’s congressional seats belonged to his party – furthering his claim, often amorphous but repeatedly asserted, that his victory in 2024 amounts to a total and permanent grant of authority over all American policy and political jurisdictions.The Texas governor quickly called the state legislature into a special session to vote on a proposed new set of districts for 2016. In a bit of political theater meant to draw attention to the move, the state legislature’s Democrats then left Texas in protest in order to deny the body a quorum to move on the vote, seeking sanctuary in Democratic-controlled Illinois. The standoff came to an end when the Democrats gave in and agreed to return to the state on Friday, following the announcement by the California governor, Gavin Newsom, that he would encourage legislators in his own state to redraw maps in Democrats’ favor. The new Texas maps are likely to be passed by Labor Day, allowing the state to secure the outcomes in their 2026 congressional contests more than a year before a single vote is cast.Such moves are likely to become more common in the near future. The supreme court, not satisfied with having declared large portions of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional in 2013, is now moving to strike down section 2, the law’s last remaining edifice. The law allows states to draw so-called “majority minority” districts, so that Black voters can express political power in areas where they are concentrated instead of having their voting preferences diluted by spreading their votes out across majority-white districts.The justices are now poised to strike down this last remaining vestige of the monumental 20th-century law that was meant to remedially constitute Black voting power amid a long history of political repression, and finally make the 15th amendment meaningful in practice. Without this law, Republican-controlled states are likely to redraw their maps in order to eliminate “majority-minority” districts, thereby making it all but impossible for Black voters to elect their preferred candidates in many states, particularly across the former Confederacy.There was no need for the justices to take this case. The issue in question – a redistricting in Louisiana that created a second majority-minority congressional district in a state with six congressional districts that is more than 30% Black – had already been declared constitutional by an appellate court, in deference to the supreme court’s longstanding precedent. But John Roberts – depressingly, now the court’s moderate – has had a career-long vendetta against the Voting Rights Act, and will not resist an opportunity to finally strike it down in full. That the court expedited argument so as to be able to issue an opinion in June 2026 – just in time for states to redistrict before the midterms. It is yet another signal that the justices in the court’s majority consider themselves to be Republican party operatives – and the Republican party, as a whole, is becoming less and less interested in running in competitive elections.It is yet to be seen whether these efforts will succeed in swinging the midterm elections decisively in Republicans’ favor. Maybe the redistricting in Texas and the retaliation planned by California will not prompt a nationwide tit-for-tat of gerrymandering across the states; maybe the supreme court will show uncharacteristic restraint, and not overturn a decades-old precedent in order to further erode Black Americans’ voting rights.But the odds are slim, and at any rate, the Republican party has already shown that its commitment to democratic elections – that is, the kind that they might lose – is paper thin. The Trump administration, meanwhile, is reviving their first-term effort to rewrite the rules of the census. In 2030, they hope, many Americans in Democratic-leaning districts simply won’t count at all.

      Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist More

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      Raging bulls: why Maga is pushing cow products on to America

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      The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy, claims that beef tallow is a healthier alternative to seed oils (even though the American Heart Association disagrees). Raw milk advocates are currently criticizing Kennedy, who has supported them in the past, to ease restrictions on the sale of their preferred dairy product nationwide. Meanwhile, cows have also infiltrated the ever trendy skincare market, with beef tallow present in moisturizers, lip balm, deodorant and personal lubricant.Though not every beef tallow evangelist or raw milk aficionado might consider themselves Republican, cows’ connection to RFK’s “health” crusade is unavoidable. It appears that cows have won the position of Maga’s favorite animal.It’s not exactly a secret that Trump loves cows. Last year, when a child called into Fox & Friends to ask what his favorite farm animal was. “I’ll tell you what I love, I love cows, but if we go with Kamala, you won’t have any cows any more,” he said, adding: “I don’t want to ruin this kid’s day.” He made the bizarre talking point a part of his campaign stump speeches, telling crowds in North Carolina and Nevada that “they want to do things like no more cows.” Now that he’s in office, cows remain top of mind – or, at least, their byproducts do.“Woo-woo has become moo-moo,” the Atlantic’s Yasmin Tayag wrote this week, in an essay about Americans going “all-in” on “cow-based wellness”.“When it comes to animal products, it seems [that Maga] promotes cows the most,” said Mark Kern, a professor of exercise and nutritional sciences at San Diego State University. “They don’t seem to say the same things for chicken or turkey.”Pigs could be a close runner-up, as lard, another animal fat, was also used regularly in cooking until the early 20th century – a bygone era Maga loves to romanticize.It doesn’t hurt that cow mania follows the trend of tradwives taking up social media space, extolling the virtues of cooking, cleaning, child-rearing and homesteading. If Trump describes cities such as DC, Los Angeles and New York as fiery bastions of anarchy, then cows represent something entirely different: images of ruddy-cheeked children toting milk pails or Sydney Sweeney in a prairie dress.Of course, none of this is the fault of cows. “Beef can be a very healthful food when eaten in moderation,” Kern said. “I see value in it, but that doesn’t mean we should eat it at the expense of seed oils.” The Maha (Make America Healthy Again) crowd’s obsession with beef tallow is based on a “misperception” that it is less refined than seed oils, Kern explained. “You can’t just get beef tallow from a cow,” he said. “You have to render that fat, which is a refining process, too.”Though there are no known benefits of consuming beef tallow, some chain restaurants such as Steak ’n Shake and Sweetgreen have switched to using it in the wake of RFK’s endorsement.Bart Hutchins is the chef of Butterworth’s, a nouveau French restaurant in DC popular with the Maga cohort. Last month, Hutchins told Axios that his kitchen goes through 500 beef bones a week serving a roasted marrow that is Steve Bannon’s “go-to” order. (Marco Rubio and the Breitbart staff apparently love it, too.)skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBone marrow contains collagen, a protein that’s long been a beauty buzzword associated with reported cosmetic benefits such as skin, hair and nail health. It is a common ingredient in pills and powders that promise youthful skin, though dermatologists say this has not been definitively proven by any studies. That does not stop rich people from loving it. “If you describe something ‘with collagen’, it’s poised to move for a certain economic class,” Hutchins said.Candice Ray, a 24-year-old dietician student who splits her time between Canada and Vermont, liked beef tallow before it was taken on as a Maha status symbol. She has slathered it on her face every night for two years, swearing it transformed her rough, bumpy complexion into a clear, clean glow.“It’s done wonders for me,” Ray said. “My skin just looks more healthy.” To be fair, Ray – an influencer who shares “nontoxic living” tips to her following of nearly 350,000 on Instagram – adheres to other medically dubious practices such as not washing her face.You might assume that if you cover your face in beef tallow and go to bed without washing it off, you will end up reeking of barnyard musk. Ray disagrees. “I find it smells just slightly earthy,” she says.Ray is not exactly thrilled that Maga has taken up the cause of advancing beef tallow. “My choice to use it is not political whatsoever,” she said. “But when I tell people that I use beef tallow, they kind of look at me like, ‘Oh, you’re a natural-living girly.’” More

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      ‘We’re all going backwards’: dismay as Trump undoes Biden student-debt plan

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      When Faith, a 33-year-old in Burlington, North Carolina, went back to get her master’s degree in higher education administration in 2020-21, she hoped it would accelerate her career growth and maybe even help her get on the housing ladder.Now, Faith has federal student loan debts of $38,113, and a repayment schedule that is much more demanding than she realized so she feels like the program stalled her progress.“I wasn’t aware of the detriment it would have on my future,” she said. “You really don’t know the full scope of what you’re getting into [when taking out student loan debt] … I got my master’s specifically to progress in my career, but what I make now versus what I owe on the degree, it’s almost like it doesn’t make sense.”She added: “I always regret that decision.”Faith’s situation has been made worse by the Trump administration’s move to resume charging loan interest for borrowers under the Saving on a Valuable Education (Save) plan as of 1 August. Under the Biden administration, about 8 million people enrolled in the Save plan – a 2023 income-driven repayment plan for student debt – many of whose loans have been in forbearance since last year.Under Donald Trump, the Department of Education has effectively killed the Save plan, recommending people switch to another repayment plan for their federal student loans. Borrowers can still choose to forgo payments, but will see interest accruing on their loans and won’t make any progress toward student loan forgiveness.“To me that just looks like you’re digging me deeper into debt, so I felt like I had no other choice but to go ahead and change from the Save plan and start making those payments,” Faith said.Faith is one of scores of people who got in touch with the Guardian to share how they will be affected by changes to the Save plan. Her new repayment plan means she must find an extra $300 a month, on top of her rent of $1,200 (before bills and living costs), a financial challenge that feels “very overwhelming” and has put everything else on hold.“Luckily I don’t have any dependents … but all the people in their 30s around me, it feels like we’re all going backwards,” Faith said. “I’m scared for what the future looks like, especially as we get older. Does that mean, unlike our grandparents whose homes were paid off and who were free of debt, that we’re just going to be in debt?”Public school teacher Jennifer, a 34-year-old based in Portland, Oregon, with $63,419 in federal student loan debt, is also leaving the Save plan, but said her monthly payments almost doubled in her new repayment scheme from about $250 to $480.“I don’t understand why it’s so high,” she said – but she has to leave the Save plan in order to make progress towards loan forgiveness for public school teachers.Jennifer wants to have children in the next couple of years, but said she was “scared for my family plans” under such difficult financial pressures. Alongside teaching in public school, she babysits and runs a weekly bar trivia night in order to earn extra cash to make a living.“The [Trump] administration claims to be pro-family, but is screwing a lot of people over – including ones with families, including ones who want to build a family,” she said.After changes to the Save plan were announced, Jennifer was forced to ask her parents for financial support to help pay off her car loan, which felt difficult as a 34-year-old woman, the age her mother already had two children.“I’m really lucky to be in the position” to ask for help, she said, but added that “there’s so many Americans who don’t have access to generational wealth in that way, and so many teachers who don’t – and we wonder why the teaching field is so white, so unrepresentative. It’s so expensive to be a teacher.”Sedona, a 30-year-old lawyer in Seattle, Washington, who has federal student loans worth $170,848, will be staying in the Save plan, despite the loan interest resuming. She is “much more afraid of defaulting on private debt”, which is currently $22,413 in loans co-signed with her mother, she said.Despite Sedona earning a good wage as an associate lawyer, she and her partner still “live paycheck to paycheck” and already keep a hawkish eye on their finances. As a household they have cancelled most of their subscriptions, very rarely go on trips like to the movies or for nights out, and Sedona picks up sporadic gig work such as copy editing to supplement their income.“In my therapy sessions, we talk a lot about how so much of my anxiety and issues are tied to financial concerns,” she said. “It’s kind of like always sitting there, as this heavy weight.”Sedona feels that the Trump administration’s decision to in effect kill the Save plan aggressively punishes those already in often severe levels of debt, while it simultaneously gives lavish tax giveaways to wealthy individuals and corporations.One day Sedona and her partner would like to adopt or foster children but they currently cannot see a future in which it would be financially responsible to do so. “It feels like, when do I get to start living my life?” she said. “We’re a generation of people who feel jilted.”In Aurora, Colorado, 46-year-old Chris is also remaining in the Save plan. He said he had about $50,000 in outstanding student loan debts – down from $65,000 – that he accrued while studying a bachelor’s degree in hospitality management. He’s keeping his federal student loans in forbearance and paying the interest for as long he can, in order to prioritize paying other debts.“It’s not that I don’t intend to pay my students debts, I understood it was a loan like any other to be repaid,” he said, but the “repayment costs need to be able to fit in a budget that allows for personal and professional growth”.It feels to Chris as if the Trump administration wants to “keep those with [student] debt in it for as long as possible”.“My hope is that midterm elections will bring about government leaders that will undo this mess, that is where my vote will go,” he said. More

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      Tuesday briefing: What last night’s meeting between Trump, Zelenskyy and Europe means for the war in Ukraine

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      Good morning. Last night, Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the White House flanked by a dream team of hastily assembled European heavyweights. Their aim: to coax Donald Trump out of pro-Russian positions he adopted after his Alaska meeting with Vladimir Putin last Friday.The meeting was a sign of both panic and resolve from Europe. The fact Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and more cleared their diaries at such short notice to fly to Washington is an indication of how alarmed they are by Trump’s desire to move straight to a peace deal without a ceasefire – and his insistence that Zelenskyy give up Ukrainian territory.Progress was made on US security guarantees, and Trump and Zelenskyy have said they will both be holding face-to-face talks with Putin – although the Russian and Ukrainian leaders still appear worlds apart in their demands. Macron said he had “serious doubts” about Putin’s desire for peace.For this morning’s newsletters, I had a chat with our senior international correspondent Luke Harding about the key points agreed in Washington last night, what it means for international diplomacy, and what is next for Ukraine. That’s after the headlines.Five big stories

      Tax | Rachel Reeves is considering replacing stamp duty with a new property tax that would apply to the sale of homes worth more than £500,000, the Guardian has been told.

      UK news | Exposure to pornography has increased since the introduction of UK rules to protect the public online, with children as young as six seeing it by accident, research by the children’s commissioner for England has found.

      Conservatives | Leaked WhatsApp messages show Conservative MPs are worried that their party’s “piss-poor” messaging over asylum-seeker hotels is making the party look silly. It follows the release of an advert by Conservative campaign headquarters last week, making claims that have since been challenged as exaggerations, such as that asylum seekers receive free driving lessons and free PlayStation consoles.

      Bolivia | Bolivia’s presidential election will go to a runoff, with two rightwing candidates seemingly the top runners. It’s an unprecedented scenario after nearly two decades of leftist rule by the Movimiento al Socialismo (Mas).

      Environment | Relentless heat and disastrous wildfires continue to ravage southern Europe, with one-quarter of weather stations in Spain recording 40C temperatures and above, the latest in a series of disasters exacerbated by climate breakdown amid a continental rollback of green policies.
      In depth: ‘The meeting was significantly better than their pretty awful encounter in February’View image in fullscreenThe aim of this rare and sweeping show of diplomatic force was to safeguard Ukraine, and Europe more broadly, from any widening aggression from Moscow. It was probably also a reminder to Trump of Europe’s combined importance as an economic giant compared with Russia’s much smaller economy.The European delegation included leaders of Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Finland, the European Union and Nato. By arriving as a group they avoided another debacle like Zelenskyy’s February visit to the Oval Office, where Trump and JD Vance chastised him as not showing enough gratitude for American military aid. Here is video of that meeting in case you’d like to remind yourself of the horrific blow-up that Trump thought was “great television”.“The meeting with Zelenskyy and Trump was significantly better than their pretty awful encounter in February of this year,” says Luke Harding. “I think Zelenskyy was well prepared this time: he expressed gratitude to Trump on many occasions, handed a letter from his wife to Melania the first lady.” There was a fair amount of “sucking up to Donald Trump”, says Luke, and of European leaders not trying to offend him.Key European demands are that all decisions must be made with Ukraine present, and that a ceasefire is a pre-condition before further peace talks. They were looking to understand what security guarantees the US is willing to offer in the event of a settlement.Overall, the atmosphere was good, says Luke. “Zelenskyy was even funny on occasions. When Brian Glenn – the reporter who mocked him for not wearing a suit in February – asked a question, Zelenskyy pointed out that Glenn was still wearing the same suit and Zelenskyy had changed his. So overall, the atmosphere was OK.”Did they get through to Trump?Rather than concessions from Ukraine, the summit focused on arranging security guarantees in the event of a peace deal. Trump said the guarantees “would be provided by the various European countries [in] coordination with the United States of America”.The Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, described the development as “a breakthrough”. Membership of Nato is not on the table, but the US and European leaders are discussing “Article 5 kind of security guarantees for Ukraine”, Rutte said.“What is important is that Trump said the US would play a role in providing security to Ukraine in the event of a settlement. You might consider that to be progress, but we don’t know what it means,” says Luke. “As ever with Trump there is a huge gap between what he says and what he does.“I suspect at the end of the day the White House will not want to do very much, but at least this was something tangible. The Kremlin appears to be quite annoyed – that is modest progress for Ukraine, depending on what the US is prepared to commit.”Trump is still saying there is no need for a ceasefire – because he says he has stopped a number of wars without one. There appears to have been less movement on this issue. “The European position was that a ceasefire must come before any trilateral talks – that is common sense when Ukrainians are being killed every day,” says Luke.How did the meetings go for Zelenskyy?Like Europe, Zelenskyy wants a ceasefire before any peace deal and is unwilling to make any territorial concessions. Kyiv wants Nato-like security guarantees sufficient to deter Russia from attacking again. As a reminder, Russia took Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014 and launched a full invasion in 2022, attacking four Ukrainian regions: Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia.Ahead of the meeting, Trump had pushed Ukraine to give up Crimea and abandon its goal of joining Nato – both key demands made by Putin. But Zelenskyy stressed he had been able to present a clearer picture of the battle lines to Trump, whom he met in a one-on-one in the Oval Office.“This was the best of our meetings,” Zelenskyy said, according to a statement put out by his office. “I was able to show many things, even on the map, to all American colleagues regarding the situation on the battlefield.”Luke says: “On the substantive issue – which is how to get a peace deal – he correctly and deftly dodged a question on whether Ukraine was ready to swap land in return for peace.” This is Trump’s preferred peace plan after his meeting with Putin in Alaska over the weekend.Speaking to reporters after the Washington talks, Zelenskyy said “we had a truly warm, good and substantial conversation”. The next steps in the negotiations turn back to Putin, and the Ukrainian president said he was ready for what would be their first face-to-face since Moscow’s invasion nearly three and a half years ago. “I confirmed – and all European leaders supported me – that we are ready for a bilateral meeting with Putin.”What did Trump get out of the meeting?View image in fullscreenTrump previously bragged on numerous occasions that he could settle Russia’s war in Ukraine in a day, but on Monday he said repeatedly that it was far more complicated than he ever thought it would be.Trump previously favoured Kyiv’s proposal for an immediate ceasefire to conduct deeper peace talks. However, he reversed course after the summit and indicated support for Russia’s approach of negotiating a comprehensive deal while fighting continues (for a reminder of how bad things are on the ground in Ukraine, take a look at yesterday’s newsletter).After the Washington talks, Trump said on social media that he called Putin and began the arrangements for a meeting between the leaders of Russia and Ukraine, at a location to be determined. “This was a very good, early step for a war that has been going on for almost four years,” Trump said.Ukraine’s president said he was ready to meet with Russia in “any format” and that territorial issues were “something we will leave between me and Putin”.What next for the war in Ukraine and peace negotiations?Much remains unresolved, including red lines that are incompatible – like whether Ukraine will cede any land to Russia, the future of Ukraine’s army, and whether the country will ultimately have lasting and meaningful security guarantees.“I think where it will go from here,” says Luke, “is that when a deal fails to come together and Zelenskyy fails to give away his land, Trump will start blaming Zelenskyy again, saying he’s the problem.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Ultimately as things stand, there isn’t really a meaningful way forward to a peace agreement. I mean Putin’s demands are as maximalist as ever – he wants Ukraine to give up a large chunk in the east of the country, in the Donbas region.”Although this seems to be Trump’s preferred route to ending the conflict, it is unlikely to work for Zelenskyy – were he to make this huge concession, Luke says, he would be swept away by popular protest.“I think it’s entirely possible that in the next month or so, the Americans will comprehensively exit from supporting Ukraine. Already they’ve stopped delivering weapons. I can see a pull-out from Trump,” says Luke.“What I find so strange is the way Trump defends Putin, wants to include him, talks about calling him imminently, says he had a great meeting in Alaska. It seems ultimately that is where his sympathies lie – with Russia.”What else we’ve been readingView image in fullscreen

      The New York Times describes 64-year-old Betsy Lerner as a TikTok star, for the following she’s amassed since she started reading out diary entries that she wrote in her twenties. In a new start after 60, Lerner explains she doesn’t see herself that way. But a generation of 20-year-olds who find solace in her entries today may disagree. Poppy Noor, deputy editor, newsletters

      This is the remarkable (and shocking) story of Windrush victim George Lee who has come back to the UK after 28 years of exile in Poland. “I’m past the stage where I can feel angry,” he says. His observations of how life has changed in London during that period are depressing – notably people looking more stressed with “tiredness etched on their faces”. Phoebe

      Nesrine Malik’s tender piece about the dogged reporting of journalists in Gaza sheds a light on a potential reason so many have been killed: their commitment, professionalism and talent causes a real legitimacy problem for the Israeli government. “What the Israeli government is trying to do with these killings is not just stop the stream of damning reports and footage, but annihilate the very image of Palestinians that these media professionals convey,” she says. Poppy

      A fascinating piece by John Harris on the future of outdoor work in the age of extreme heat, with alarming stories of people being forced to work in inhumane conditions. Particularly timely given the relentless heat currently barrelling its ways across Europe. Phoebe

      Perhaps we’d all like to be green-fingered influencers, working leisurely through our homegrown vegetables at the dinner table. But Nicola Slawson’s piece on giving up her allotment after realising that’s just not who she is will speak to the many of us who aren’t. Poppy
      SportView image in fullscreenFootball | Lukas Nmecha’s 84th-minute penalty gave Leeds a 1-0 win over Everton on their return to the Premier League.Tennis | Carlos Alcaraz has won the Cincinnati Open for the first time in his career after his great rival, world No 1, Jannik Sinner was forced to retire from their highly anticipated final with illness while trailing 0-5 in the opening set.Tennis | Jack Draper and Emma Raducanu will face each other in the first round of the revamped US Open mixed doubles.The front pagesView image in fullscreen“Trump: no need for ceasefire to secure Ukraine peace deal” is the Guardian’s takeaway from events in Washington. The Telegraph announces “US military to protect Ukraine” while the Express has “Trump: US will ensure any deal works” and the Times reports “Trump offers ‘very good’ Kyiv security guarantee”. The Daily Mail assesses the meeting: “It was electric with jeopardy, a chess match with live grenades” while the Mirror pessimises that it was a “Stalemate” with Trump’s peacemaking efforts unlikely to work. “Trump’s White House welcome: we can still do a deal with Putin” says the i paper. Give us your topline, Financial Times: “Trump floats prospect of US security guarantee in bid to end Ukraine war”. Main story in the Metro is “UK’s 5,000 fake online pharmacies”.Today in FocusView image in fullscreenHow far-right rhetoric on migration went mainstreamAcademic and author Dr Maya Goodfellow discusses how UK politicians have adopted far-right language on asylum and immigration.Cartoon of the day | Ben JenningsView image in fullscreenThe UpsideA bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all badView image in fullscreenA new report shows just how impactful a raft of groundbreaking welfare policies by former Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador have been. Obrador’s policies, which included a tripling of the minimum wage, and a system of cash transfers for vulnerable groups, made a measurable impact on the lives of millions of everyday Mexicans, according to a dispatch by reporter Oscar Lopez.When Obrador took office in 2018, there were nearly 52 million people living below the poverty line. Six years later, that number had dropped by 13.4 million, an unparalleled reduction of nearly 26%.There has never been a single six-year term in which poverty has been reduced or decreased so significantly,” said Viri Ríos, a public policy expert and director of Mexico Decoded. “This is a watershed moment for the Mexican economy.”Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every SundayBored at work?And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow.

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      Trump news at a glance: President hosts Ukraine talks, announces plan to end mail-in voting

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      Donald Trump said arrangements were under way for a face to face meeting between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to be followed by a trilateral meeting between the two and the US president.Writing on his Truth Social site after meetings with Ukraine’s president and European leaders ended at the White House on Monday, Trump said: “I called President Putin, and began the arrangements for a meeting, at a location to be determined, between President Putin and President Zelenskyy.”He added: “After that meeting takes place, we will have a Trilat, which would be the two Presidents, plus myself. Again, this was a very good, early step for a War that has been going on for almost four years.”The US president also said after talks with leaders from the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Finland, the EU and Nato that Europe could provide security guarantees for Ukraine as part of a Russia peace deal, with Washington taking an oversight role.“During the meeting we discussed Security Guarantees for Ukraine, which Guarantees would be provided by the various European Countries, with a coordination with the United States of America,” Trump said on Truth Social.Here are the key Trump news of the day:Trump tells Zelenskyy ceasefire not needed for peace dealDonald Trump has ruled out a ceasefire in Ukraine as Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his European allies visited the White House to push for US-backed security guarantees as part of any long-term peace deal.The US president, who only last week warned Russia of “very severe consequences” if Vladimir Putin failed to agree to a halt the fighting, made clear on Monday he had reversed his position.Welcoming Zelenskyy to the hastily assembled meeting at the Oval Office, Trump referred to other conflicts which he claimed to have ended, telling reporters: “I don’t think you’d need a ceasefire. If you look at the six deals that I settled this year, they were all at war – I didn’t do any ceasefires.”Read the full storyTrump says lawyers are drafting executive order to end mail-in votingDonald Trump on Monday announced that lawyers are drafting an executive order to eliminate mail-in voting, days after Vladimir Putin told him US elections were rigged because of postal ballots.In a White House meeting alongside Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump said: “We’re going to start with an executive order that’s being written right now by the best lawyers in the country to end mail in ballots because they’re corrupt.”Read the full storyDemocrats return to Texas as California kicks off push to pass new electoral mapTexas Democrats returned to their state on Monday as California lawmakers are set to convene in the state capitol to kick off a rapid push to get voters to approve a new congressional map that could add as many as five Democratic seats in the US House.The California effort is in response to Texas’s push to redraw the congressional map there to add five Republican seats. On Friday, Texas’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott, called a second special session after Democrats remained out of the state for two weeks, denying Republicans a quorum to conduct legislative business.Read the full storyNewsmax to pay $67m to Dominion to settle US election defamation lawsuitThe conservative outlet Newsmax has agreed to pay $67m to Dominion Voting Systems to settle a defamation lawsuit over lies about voting in the 2020 election.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      The number of people eating at restaurants in Washington DC has plummeted since Donald Trump deployed federal troops to the city, according to data, as the president’s purported crackdown on crime continues.

      A federal judge in Miami was hearing arguments on Monday that detainees at the remote immigration jail in the Florida Everglades known as “Alligator Alcatraz” are routinely subjected to human rights abuses and denied due process before being deported.

      As part of his administration’s war on “woke”, Donald Trump has asked the American public to report anything “negative” about Americans in US national parks. But the public has largely refused to support a worldview without inconvenient historical facts, comments submitted from national parks and seen by the Guardian show.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 17 August 2025. More

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      Democrats return to Texas as California kicks off push to pass new electoral map

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      Texas Democrats returned to their state on Monday as California lawmakers kicked off a rapid push for voters to approve a new congressional map that could add as many as five Democratic seats in the US House.The Texas Democrats’ return ends a two-week walkout that stalled the Republican effort to redraw the state’s congressional districts to satisfy Donald Trump’s demands to reshape the US House map in his favor ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.The California plan was drafted in response to Texas’s push to redraw the congressional map there. On Friday, Texas’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott, called a second special session after Democrats remained out of the state for two weeks, denying Republicans a quorum to conduct legislative business.The Democrats said last week they would return once California moved ahead with its counter-proposal, all but ensuring that Texas’s new maps will pass.The protest began on 3 August, when dozens of Texas Democrats left the state for Illinois and other blue states in a high-stakes bid to deny their Republican colleagues the quorum needed to approve the redrawn maps. Although the Democrats’ return allows Republicans to advance their redistricting plan, the quorum-breakers have declared their two-week walkout a strategic success that set off a “redistricting arms race”.“We killed the corrupt special session, withstood unprecedented surveillance and intimidation and rallied Democrats nationwide to join this existential fight for fair representation – reshaping the entire 2026 landscape,” Gene Wu, the chair of the Texas house democratic caucus, said.“We’re returning to Texas more dangerous to Republicans’ plans than when we left.”Dustin Burrows, the Republican house speaker, did not mention the Republican redistricting proposal, but said the chamber would move swiftly to enact its legislative agenda during the second special session. Later on Monday evening, a house committee approved the new map, which will soon be sent to the floor for a full vote.“Representatives come and go. Issues rise and fall. But this body has endured wars, economic depressions and quorum breaks dating back to the very first session,” Burrows said during Monday’s session. “Now is the time for action.”He also outlined new surveillance protocols that would apply to the Democrats who had civil arrest warrants issued in their absence, stating they would “be granted written permission to leave only after agreeing to be released into the custody of a designated [Texas department of public safety] officer” who would ensure their return to the chamber.One Democrat is refusing to accept the conditions. Nicole Collier, a state representative for Fort Worth, vowed to remain confined inside the Texas house chamber until lawmakers reconvene on Wednesday, declining to comply with what she condemned as a Republican “permission slip” – a document authorizing a round-the-clock law enforcement escort.“I refuse to sign away my dignity as a duly elected representative just so Republicans can control my movements and monitor me with police escorts,” Collier, a seven-term lawmaker and a former chair of the Texas Legislative Black caucus, said on Monday.Collier’s demonstration is the latest act of Democratic resistance to the Republican redistricting plan. “When I press that button to vote, I know these maps will harm my constituents – I won’t just go along quietly with their intimidation or their discrimination,” she said.The new California map, released on Friday, would create three new safely Democratic districts and two new districts that are Democratic leaning but still competitive.The plan, led by the California governor Gavin Newsom, must be approved by the state legislature before it is put to vote in a special election this fall. If voters agree to override the house map created by the independent redistricting commission after the 2020 census, the proposed boundaries would replace current ones through 2030. Democrats said they will return the mapmaking power to the commission after that.Newsom praised the effort on Monday, calling it a necessary response to Trump’s influence over redistricting in Texas and other Republican-led states.“We are not going to sit idle while they command Texas and other states to rig the next election to keep power,” Newsom said, adding that the proposal gives Californians “a choice to fight back”.Internal polling presented to lawmakers showed voters favored the measure 52% to 41%, with 7% undecided, according to the local television station KCRA.Republicans in California condemned the proposal as an assault on the state’s voter-approved independent redistricting commission and said they plan to introduce legislation that advocates for creating similar map-drawing bodies in all 50 states.“Governor Newsom, this is nothing more than a power grab,” Tony Strickland, a Republican state senator, said during a Monday news conference in Sacramento.He warned the redistricting tit-for-tat sets a dangerous precedent that will not be easily undone. “The Golden Gate Bridge toll was supposed to be temporary,” he added. “You’re still paying the toll.”The legislature could hold floor votes to send the measure to voters for approval as soon as Thursday, KCRA reported.House Republicans currently hold a razor-thin three-seat majority in the US House and Trump has pushed to redraw district boundaries ahead of next year’s midterm elections, in which the president’s party typically loses seats. Republicans are also poised to redraw congressional districts in Ohio, Missouri and Florida, as well as potentially Indiana.Democrats have signaled they will try to redraw districts in other states where they hold power at the state level, such as New York and Maryland, though they do not have as many opportunities to draw districts as Republicans do. More

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      Zelenskyy’s European ‘bodyguards’: which leaders joined Trump talks in Washington?

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      European leaders gathered in Washington on Monday for Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s meeting with Donald Trump in the Oval Office, in a show of support for the Ukrainian president. Their presence came amid expectations that Trump would try to bully Zelenskyy into accepting a pro-Russia “peace plan” that would include Kyiv handing territory to Moscow. The Europeans have been described as Zelenskyy’s “bodyguards”, with memories fresh of the mauling he received in February during his last Oval Office visit. So, who are they?Mark RutteSecretary general of NatoRutte has a proven record of flattering Trump for strategic purposes, using language that some allies find cringe-making. In June he referred to the capricious US president as “Daddy” in an attempt to avoid disastrous outbursts at the Nato summit. Rutte has repeatedly praised Trump in public, including in a recent interview on Fox News, and credits him for pushing Nato members to spend 3.5% of their GDP on defence. The US had carried the burden of European security for too long, Rutte has said – music to Trump’s ears.Ursula von der LeyenPresident of the European CommissionVon der Leyen is a staunch supporter of Ukraine who backs Kyiv’s EU membership. For Trump, she is a reminder of Europe’s combined importance as an economic bloc. The US struck a trade deal with the EU three weeks ago, and Trump hailed the relationship as “the biggest trading partnership in the world”. On Sunday she hosted Zelenskyy in Brussels. She said a post-peace-deal Ukraine had to become “a steel porcupine, indigestible for potential invaders”, with no limits on its armed forces.Keir StarmerUK prime minister Starmer has performed a balancing act when it comes to Trump, keeping him on side while advocating for Ukraine. So far, this tactic has worked. The US president has gone out of his way to emphasise their good relations, despite Starmer’s “liberal” outlook. Both men have an incentive to preserve this rapport ahead of Trump’s state visit next month to the UK. Meanwhile, Starmer and Zelenskyy have developed a warm personal relationship, hugging in February outside Downing Street after Zelenskyy’s previous, disastrous Oval Office meeting, and again last week. The prime minister stresses territorial integrity, which contradicts Trump’s “peace deal” that involves Russia taking more Ukrainian land.Alexander StubbPresident of Finland Stubb represents a small European state but he will be in Washington because he has managed to establish an unexpectedly warm relationship with Trump. The Finnish leader cultivated his access to the US president by hastily polishing his rusty golfing skills before an impromptu trip to Florida in March for a round with Trump, on the recommendation of the Republican senator Lindsey Graham. Stubb’s message on the putting green: you can’t trust Vladimir Putin. Finland sees parallels between Ukraine’s plight and its own history, the Soviet Union having invaded in 1939, saying it needed Finnish territory.Emmanuel MacronFrench presidentMacron combines French economic and military clout with a proven ability to get on with Trump, symbolised by their intense handshakes. In the lead-up to Russia’s 2022 invasion, Macron flew to Moscow to reason with Putin. He has since become a key diplomatic ally for Ukraine. Asked on Sunday whether Putin wanted a genuine peace deal, Macron replied: “No.” He said Ukraine needed a strong army and security guarantees if a lasting settlement was to be achieved. The French president will want to persuade Trump that his post-Alaska-summit plan to stop the fighting is a non-starter, and against Ukraine and Europe’s long-term security interests.Friedrich MerzGerman presidentMerz has cut a sure-footed figure on the world stage since taking office in May, including largely holding his own in an Oval Office face-off with Trump over the summer. He has emerged as a crucial partner for Zelenskyy, who was often frustrated with Merz’s slow-moving predecessor, Olaf Scholz. Berlin has clout as one pillar of the French-German axis at the heart of the EU. It is also a major financial donor to Kyiv. Merz’s task in the Oval Office is to persuade Trump not to act hastily and “over the heads of Ukrainians and Europeans”, as he put it last week.Giorgia MeloniPrime minister of ItalyMeloni has broken off from her holiday to fly to Washington, a sign that Trump’s Russia-friendly “peace plan” marks a moment of danger for Europe. She will be a useful bridge in the Oval Office meeting, as a European far-right leader whom Trump counts as a friend. Meloni has spent time at Mar-a-Lago, the US president’s Florida home, and was the only European leader invited to his inauguration in January. At the same time, she strongly supports Kyiv’s sovereignty. In July she hosted a Ukraine recovery conference in Rome, designed to help the country rebuild when Russia’s war finally ends. More