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      US election live: former Republican House speaker urges Trump to ‘stop questioning’ size of Harris’s crowds

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      Kevin McCarthy, the former Republican House speaker, said Donald Trump should stop questioning the size of Kamala Harris’s crowds at her campaign rallies and instead focus on her as a candidate.As we reported earlier, Trump has falsely accused Harris of using artificial intelligence to create a photo showing a large rally of supporters outside of her campaign plane. Trump shared a photo from a conspiracy theorist’s post to his millions of followers on Truth Social, claiming that a real image of a Harris event in Detroit was a “fake image”.“You’ve got to make this race not on personalities,” McCarthy said in an interview on Fox News today.
      Stop questioning the size of her crowds and start questioning her position, when it comes to: What did she do as [California] attorney general on crime? … What did she do when she was supposed to take care of the border as a czar?
      A Trump campaign spokesman told EU regulators to “mind their own business” in response to a letter urging Elon Musk to abide by hate speech and disinformation regulations in his interview with Trump scheduled for this evening.“Only in Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ America can an un-Democratic foreign organization feel emboldened enough to tell this country what to do,” Steven Cheung wrote on X. “They know that a President Trump victory means America will no longer be ripped off because he will smartly utilize tariffs and renegotiated trade deals that puts America First. Let us be very clear: the European Union is an enemy of free speech and has no authority of any kind to dictate how we campaign.”The Trump campaigned shared the same statement with supporters by email this afternoon.The Digital Services Act, which the EU adopted in 2022, requires large social networks, like X, to aggressively police disinformation and hate speech, or face fines of up to 6% of its global turnover.In an open letter, EU commissioner Thierry Breton warned Elon Musk today that Musk must abide by European hate speech laws in his interview with Trump this evening.Because the interview will be available to EU users, Breton said, Musk must comply with regulations under the Digital Services Act to stop the “amplification of harmful content”.“DSA obligations apply without exceptions or discrimination to the moderation of the whole user community and content of X (including yourself as a user with over 190 million followers) which is accessible to EU users and should be fulfilled in line with the risk-based approach of the DSA, which requires greater due diligence in case of a foreseeable increase of the risk profile,” Breton wrote.In response, Musk shared a meme that was as mature as only Musk can be:Musk has recently faced pushback from EU regulators, who ruled last month that X breached the DSA in its use of blue checkmarks. In response, Musk threatened to sue.Read more about it here:A pro-Trump Super Pac will fund $100m in TV ads, starting next week as the Democratic national convention kicks off. The Maga, Inc Super Pac is planning to air commercials calling Harris a “soft-on-crime radical who is too dangerous for the White House”, the organization’s top strategists, David Lee and Chris Grant, write in the memo, which Politico first reported. The ads will air in seven Rust belt and Sun belt states: Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina.The memo also announced that the leader of Maga, Inc, Taylor Budowich, is leaving the Super Pac to join the Trump campaign.The news comes as conservative groups try to ramp up funding for Trump, following Harris’s recent record-setting fundraising. Last month, billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that he had founded the America Pac to raise additional funds for Trump.Read more here:Here are some campaign images from the weekend that you might not have seen. Kamala Harris and Tim Walz were in the swing state of Nevada on Saturday.What was that about crowds?Donald Trump campaigned in Montana on Friday night.The Pentagon said yesterday that defense secretary Lloyd Austin had ordered the deployment of a guided missile submarine to the Middle East and for the Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group to accelerate its deployment to the region.But a US official told Reuters the Lincoln carrier strike group was currently close to the South China Sea and would likely take more than a week to reach the Middle East.Oil prices jumped by more than 3% on Monday, rising for a fifth consecutive session on expectations of a widening Middle Eastern conflict that could tighten global crude supplies.Israeli forces pressed on with operations near the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis today amid an international push for a deal to halt fighting in Gaza and prevent a slide into a wider regional conflict with Iran and its proxies.Meanwhile, Reuters also reports, British prime minister Keir Starmer held a call with Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian today, asking him to refrain from attacking Israel and saying that war was not in anyone’s interest, the prime minister’s office said. Starmer called on Iran to stop its “destabilizing actions”.The US has prepared for what could be significant attacks by Iran or its proxies in the Middle East as soon as this week, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said today.Kirby said the US had increased its regional force posture and shared Israel’s concerns about a possible Iranian-backed attack after Iran and Hamas accused Israel of carrying out the assassination of a Hamas leader in Tehran last month, Reuters reports.
      We have to be prepared for what could be a significant set of attacks,” he said.
      Israel has been braced for a major attack since last month when a missile killed 12 children and teenagers in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Israel responded by killing a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut.A day after that operation, Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, was assassinated in Tehran, drawing Iranian vows of retaliation against Israel.
      We obviously don’t want to see Israel have to defend itself against another onslaught, like they did in April. But, if that’s what comes at them, we will continue to help them defend themselves,” Kirby said.
      You can follow all of the Guardian’s coverage of the region here and here.Joe Biden will speak at the Democratic national convention next week, the White House has confirmed.Biden will use his remarks at the convention to focus on the issues he “cares about”, the White House’s press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told CNN.
      It’s an event that he views as very important. It’s an opportunity to talk about the issues that he cares about. It’s an opportunity to talk about unity.
      Joe Biden is scheduled to deliver remarks on the opening night of the Democratic national convention next Monday alongside the former secretary of state and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, according to a report.Former president Barack Obama is down to speak on Tuesday, and former president Bill Clinton is scheduled for Wednesday, NBC is reporting, citing sources. One of the sources told the outlet that the schedule was still tentative.Kamala Harris is to deliver an acceptance speech on Thursday, and her running mate, Tim Walz, is to speak Wednesday, as is customary.Donald Trump appeared to be paying X to promote his interview with the platform’s owner, Elon Musk, scheduled for tonight 8pm ET, the New York Times reported.The Times said:
      The hashtag #TrumpOnX landed at the top of the platform’s “Trending” section, with a disclaimer that it was promoted by Donald J. Trump — a tag that typically marks paid ad campaigns on the social media site.
      As we reported earlier, the former Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy said Donald Trump should stop questioning the size of Kamala Harris’s crowds at her campaign rallies and instead focus on her as a candidate.Here’s the clip from McCarthy’s interview on Fox News, where he urged Trump to “start questioning [Harris’s] positions”, highlighting several of the Democratic presidential candidate’s policy positions that have shifted over the years.“This is a perfect person to run against,” McCarthy said.
      You thought John Kerry was a flip-flopper? She is the biggest flip-flop, with the most extreme positions, and you got a short time frame to do it. So don’t sit back, get out there and start making the case and use her own words to do it.
      Debbie Dingell, the Democratic congresswoman for Michigan, has dismissed Donald Trump’s false claims that crowds at Kamala Harris’s campaign in her state were generated by artificial intelligence.“Sorry, Donald Trump, you’re wrong again,” Dingell, who attended the Michigan rally and spoke before Harris and her running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, went on, told MSNBC. She added:
      I was really there. And I haven’t seen that large a crowd in a long time, and it was great to feel the energy, the enthusiasm. More

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      Kevin McCarthy says Trump needs to stop questioning Harris’s crowd sizes

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      Kevin McCarthy, the former Republican speaker of the House, urged Donald Trump on Monday to stop questioning the size of Kamala Harris’s crowds at her campaign rallies, and to instead focus on her policies and record.“You’ve gotta make this race not about personalities,” McCarthy said in an interview with Fox News on Monday. “Stop questioning the size of her crowds, and start questioning her position, when it comes to: what did she do as [California] attorney general on crime? … What did she do when she was supposed to take care of the border as a czar?”This comes just one day after the former US president and current Republican presidential nominee falsely accused Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, of using artificial intelligence to create a photograph displaying large crowds of supporters at her rally last week in Detroit, Michigan.On Sunday, Trump shared a photograph of the large crowd at Harris’s rally to his millions of followers on his Truth Social and claimed that the image of the crowd from Harris’s event was fake.“Look, we caught her with a fake ‘crowd’. There was nobody there!” Trump wrote.In another post on Sunday, he called Harris a “CHEATER” and said that “there was nobody at the plane, and she ‘AI’d’ it, and showed a massive ‘crowd’ of so-called followers, BUT THEY DIDN’T EXIST!”Many videos and photographs from the event in Detroit last week show a large crowd in attendance, and shortly after Trump accused Harris of fabricating the crowd, her campaign responded to the allegations on X, and denied that the photo was manipulated.The photograph in question “is an actual photo of a 15,000-person crowd for Harris-Walz in Michigan” the Harris campaign said, adding: “Trump has still not campaigned in a swing state in over a week … Low energy?”David Plouffe, a senior adviser for the Harris campaign, also responded to Trump’s allegations, and said: “These are not conspiratorial rantings from the deepest recesses of the internet. The author could have the nuclear codes and be responsible for decisions that will affect us all for decades.” More

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      Project 2025 mainly led by ex-Trump officials, leaked videos reveal

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      Newly leaked training videos confirm how the staffing initiative of Project 2025, the controversial rightwing plan for the next Republican presidency, is gearing up for a major effort to replace non-partisan civil servants with conservative loyalists, and is being led by many former Trump administration officials.The videos, created for Project 2025’s Presidential Administration Academy and published over the weekend by ProPublica and Documented, expose part of the Heritage Foundation thinktank’s plan to recruit and train political appointees on behalf of a future conservative administration.A major aim of Project 2025 – running alongside its controversial policy proposals – is to replace thousands of government employees, most of whom work in career positions for administrations on both sides of the political aisle, with partisan Republican loyalists.Of the 36 featured speakers, 29 previously worked for former US president Donald Trump in some capacity.The videos appear to have been recorded before the resignation of the group’s director two weeks ago, reportedly due to “pressure from Trump campaign leadership”. Trump has recently attempted to distance himself from Project 2025 amid intense criticism and backlash regarding the group’s extreme policy proposals. As well as calling for the replacement of civil servants with Trump loyalists, those plans include eliminating the education department, shrinking environmental protections, and reducing LGBTQ+ and reproductive rights.In the 23 training videos, totaling more than 14 hours, former Trump administration officials gave advice to future appointees on governing and how to best advance their conservative policies.In one video, Rick Dearborn, who was a part of Trump’s 2016 transition team and served in the Trump White House as deputy chief of staff, admitted that during the Trump administration it was “tough” to fill all the positions at first.The recruiting and training that Project 2025 is doing right now, Dearborn said, is “going to be so important to the next president, because establishing all of this, providing the expertise, looking at a database of folks that can be part of the administration, talking to you like we are right now” is a “luxury” that the Trump administration did not have in 2016.In another video, Bethany Kozma, the former deputy chief of staff at the US Agency for International Development during the the Trump administration, said that the climate change movement is part of a goal by the government to “control people”.“If the American people elect a conservative president, his administration will have to eradicate climate change references from absolutely everywhere,” Kozma said. The training video was titled “Left-Wing Code Words and Language.”In the same video, Katie Sullivan, who was an acting assistant attorney general at the justice department under Trump, criticized the Joe Biden administration’s creation of gender adviser positions in the federal government.Sullivan called for the position to be “eradicated” as well as “all the task forces”, “the removal of all the equity plans from all the websites” and a “complete rework of the language in internal and external policy documents and grant applications”.In other videos, several speakers suggested that future conservative political appointees should be prepared to expect a hostility from the mainstream media, from within the federal government, and also from people in Washington DC.The capital city is a place that “does not share your conservative values”, Max Primorac, a former deputy administrator at the US Agency for International Development during the Trump administration, told future appointees.Primorac told viewers not to let “career bureaucrats hinder you from advancing the president’s agenda”, adding that “they’re hostile to it because you’re here to to do something that’s not in their interest.”“You’re here to cut government, you’re here to cut spending, you’re here to cut regulations.”Speakers also encouraged the future appointees to focus their attention and time on conservative media outlets, as those are the only ones trusted by conservative voters.Other speakers advised future appointees to avoid creating a paper trail of sensitive communications that could be obtained by the Freedom of Information Act or by Congress.In a statement sent to ProPublica after the videos were released, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign said that Trump’s only official policy agenda is Agenda 47.Last month, after Project 2025 director Paul Dans stepped down, the Heritage Foundation said that while the organization would end Project 2025’s policy-related work, its “collective efforts to build a personnel apparatus for policymakers of all levels – federal, state and local – will continue”.As Trump has tried to distance himself from the controversial plan – claiming last month to “know nothing about Project 2025” and to have “no idea who is behind it” – the Washington Post reported last week that Kevin Roberts, the head of the Heritage Foundation, told the paper that he had personally talked to Trump about it. “My role in the project has been to make sure that all of the candidates who have responded to our offer for a briefing on Project 2025 get one from me,” he said.Photos were also published of Trump with Roberts on a private plane in 2022, and Trump gave a keynote speech to the foundation’s annual conference. More

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      Charlie Kirk badgers Christian pastors to do more to elect Donald Trump

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      At a three-day political training session for pastors in a Dallas suburb this month, Charlie Kirk – the powerful rightwing activist and executive director of Turning Point USA (TPUSA) – railed at faith leaders, who he complained had not been doing enough to get Donald Trump elected, and begged them to enlist congregants into “deployments” to swing states.“‘But, but Charlie, I don’t think Trump is a very good role model for our church,’” said Kirk, imitating pastors who have shied away from Trump. “I have no patience for you any more, people. I am sick of this.”The conference featured a lineup of rightwing speakers, including Mike Flynn, the conspiracy theorist and retired lieutenant general, and Kirk himself, whose keynote speech at the Friday gala closed out the conference. Promising to help pastors “mobilize the body of Christ to take meaningful action”, the three-day training conference, for “active pastors and wives only”, cost $199 a pastor and $49 a wife.The event, called Igniting the Remnant Pastors, comes as the Trump campaign – and its allies in the rightwing movement, including TPUSA and America First Policy Institute – have vowed to turn out evangelicals in the 2024 election, viewing them as key to the low-propensity voting bloc they need to win in November. If Kirk’s address offers a window into the strategy, it looks something like this: urging and sometimes shaming church leaders into becoming unofficial Trump surrogates who will in turn mobilize their congregants to door-knock in key swing states.Kirk opened his remarks by denouncing the press for focusing on Kamala Harris’s presidential bid. He called Harris “the most unlikable” person to run for president and “super dumb”. The media, he complained, had failed to sufficiently cover the shooting at the Trump rally, when the former president’s ear was grazed by a bullet. The audience might be feeling like things had gotten rough for their presidential candidate, but that couldn’t stop them, Kirk said.“We fought with the trial, and we fought with the indictments, and we fought through, you know, the debate, and Trump almost got shot. I need a rest – I totally get that, but get over it,” Kirk admonished his audience. “Because we are at war in this country for the future of this civilization.”The speech struck Karen Goll, a researcher who focuses on the Christian right for the group Documented, as dire – even for Kirk, who is known for his fiery rhetoric. In his remarks, Goll wrote in an email, Kirk deployed “provocative language in the hopes that pastors will use their pulpit and the multiplication power of their congregation to deliver the election for Trump”.During his remarks, Kirk lauded the TPUSA-backed primary campaign in Arizona which ousted Maricopa county’s Republican head of elections, Steven Richer, who drew the ire of the far right for refuting Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen there. “[Richer] was close with Biden, talking about how the election was not stolen,” said Kirk. Defeating Richter was, Kirk said, “a red pill or a promising development”.Finally, Kirk called on the room of pastors to mobilize congregants to “chase ballots” in swing states, promising free lodging and stipends.Although electioneering and other forms of partisan political activism by non-profits and churches are technically barred by a 1954 law, the rule is rarely enforced. And in 2023 remarks, Trump vowed to end those restrictions.“Our goal is to have 10,000 out-of-state patriots flood Arizona and flood Wisconsin,” said Kirk, echoing Trump when he added, “in a way that we’ve never seen before.” More

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      Feel the groove: Trump keeps on dancing – does it help his cause?

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      Amid the lies, the vindictiveness, the dystopian portrayal of an America in decline, one aspect of Donald Trump’s political rallies tends to get overlooked: the dancing.At many campaign stops, the former president engages in what has become a signature dance: to the tune of Village People’s YMCA, Trump pumps his arms alternately, while staring blankly into the crowd.Unusually for a dance performance, there is a sort of malevolence to Trump’s movements. It’s rare to see someone dancing with a scowl on their face. But his supporters love it. A compilation video of Trump dancing proved a big hit at the Republican national convention, where it was played on big screens to fawning supporters every night. But why does Trump do this? And is his dancing any good?No it is not, said Brandon Chow, the founder of Hip Hop Dance Junkies, a company with dance schools in several states across the US.“On a scale of one to 10, I would say three. Three or four max,” Chow said.“The arms are there, the arms are very stiff, though – they’re not really moving. It’s literally him with his fists tight and his arms to his side. I mean, there is no movement where he’s leaving his comfort zone or his space. He’s literally just stepping in place, side to side, hips swaying.”View image in fullscreenChow, who predominantly deals in one-on-one coaching, suggested Trump could incorporate his feet more, and experiment with other arm movements.“He should get more steps involved, as opposed to stepping in place. Or if you aren’t going to travel outside of your zone, at least get some arms going instead of locking them to your sides, maybe even just, like a hand in the air every now and then, or doing an arm wave, or a turn or something. It just seems very repetitive, like it’s a robot staying in place,” Chow said.Marjorie Hershey, professor emeritus of political science at Indiana University Bloomington, said Trump’s characteristic performance is less an irrepressible expression of glee and more a way for him to show his supporters, and his party, who is boss.“It’s a sign of his need for power and control: that if he can lie with impunity, if he can dance oddly whenever he wants to, that’s a sign that, basically, he has enough power to be able to do whatever he pleases without anybody being able to stop him,” Hershey said.“Goodness knows he’s not in control of his dancing, but the fact that he feels this is a sign he’s cool, and it’s something he feels perfectly at ease to demonstrate, shows how he thinks he’s in total control of the Republican party: and he’s right.”View image in fullscreenIt is uncommon to see national leaders dance in public. And when they do, it hasn’t always proved to be a political benefit.Theresa May, while prime minister of the UK, became a figure of fun in August 2018 after performing an odd, stilted dance in front of a group of scouts in Nairobi. A couple of months later, at the Conservative party conference, May attempted to reclaim the narrative by dancing on to the stage to the tune of Abba’s Dancing Queen. The routine was widely panned.Boris Yeltsin, the former president of Russia, was known as someone who enjoyed a good time. During a campaign stop in 1996, he appeared on stage with a rock band and performed a spirited dance composition, which incorporated sashaying hips, under-knee claps, and a fists-clenched, arm pumping motion. Yeltsin won re-election, although questions were raised about the legitimacy of the vote.Barack Obama rarely danced while in office, but in a 2007 appearance on the Ellen show, while running for the Democratic presidential nomination, the former president briefly sashayed along to Beyoncé’s Crazy in Love. To the untrained eye, Obama appeared to display significantly more rhythm than Trump, May or Yeltsin.Joe Biden has had his own issues with musical performance. At a concert to celebrate Juneteenth earlier this year, the president stood frozen in place, arms rigid at his sides, as other people danced beside him.View image in fullscreenUnlike Yeltsin or Obama, Trump never looks to be enjoying himself while dancing. A review of at least 20 videos of Trump performing his signature dance at campaign rallies and, this week, during an interview with the questionable internet personality Adin Ross, failed to find a single instance of Trump smiling.“I would love to see him smile while he dances,” said Rhonda Malkin, a former member of the Rockettes dance troupe and the owner of Fusion Exercise and Professional Dance Coaching, who has tutored scores of professional dancers.Malkin said she suspected Trump was uninterested in a career in dance, but if he were, “he probably should work on his footwork”.“If he’s into moving his hands, then he should move his feet accordingly, with either a side-to-side motion or a step touch,” Malkin said. A step touch involves the dancer stepping one foot to the left or the right, and bringing the other foot next to it. The move is then repeated in the opposite direction.Trump may not have time to work on his footwork, or even arm movements, given he is facing, for the first time in months, serious challenges in his bid to win a second presidential term. Trump has fallen behind Kamala Harris in an average of national polls, as Harris has galvanized previously weary Democratic supporters.View image in fullscreenHe continues to face legal issues, too. He is due to be sentenced on 16 September after being found guilty on 34 felony fraud charges, while a judge presiding over Trump’s election interference case in Washington recently rejected his efforts to throw out the case. In context Trump’s continued jigs seem almost defiant – and now Tim Walz, Harris’s running mate, has proved a huge hit, whereas JD Vance, Trump’s VP choice, has faced questions over past remarks and actions.In that context, at least Trump can rely on his ever-adoring base – the type of supporter who is thrilled when the former president does his idiosyncratic dance on stage, and believes Trump can do no wrong.“This does not look like a typical political attachment of even strong partisans to a candidate. I just haven’t seen before mentions of a candidate as the second coming of Christ, or that somehow he was divinely protected from a stray bullet by God,” Hershey said.Trump, Hershey said, has spent years “fundamentally fearmongering” about immigration, crime and “the other” to secure his relationship with his fans. The dancing, however lackluster it may be, is just some rather odd icing on a largely disgruntled cake. More

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      New York Times says it received hacked Trump campaign documents

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      The New York Times has confirmed it received the same or similar trove of Donald Trump presidential campaign documents as other media outlets did, after Microsoft confirmed that a “high-ranking official” at a presidential campaign was a hacking target.For the third US election in a row, hacked campaign information by a foreign power is now likely to feature as potential disruption. The Trump campaign has said its email systems were breached by hackers working for Iran.Politico reported getting emails from someone who identified themselves only as “Robert” and sent internal campaign communications and a 271-page-long research dossier on Trump’s running mate, the Ohio senator JD Vance, that was part of his vetting process. The news organisation said the Vance profile was “based on publicly available information”.On Monday, two Democratic lawmakers with experience on intelligence and security committees called for information about the latest breach to be released publicly.The California Democratic congressman Eric Swalwell posted on social media that he was seeking a briefing on the breach, and that while he considered Trump “the most despicable person ever to seek office” – someone who had also called for hacking in the past – “that doesn’t mean America ever tolerates foreign interference.”Adam Schiff, the Democrat of California, urged Department of Homeland Security officials to declassify information on the foreign nature of the hack.Schiff said the US intelligence community “moved much too slow to properly identity the hacking and dumping scheme carried out by Russia” in 2016 and “should act quickly here”.He also said that in that year: “The Trump campaign welcomed Russian interference, took advantage of it and then sought to deny it, much to the detriment of the country.”The Trump campaign’s announcement that its systems had been breached came after news organizations asked questions about Vance when he was a candidate for vice-president that appeared to come from internal vetting documents.The Washington Post said it had received a 271-page document marked “privileged & confidential” from an anonymous AOL customer known as Robert. Politico later said it had been receiving documents from someone who called themselves Robert since 22 July.Trump has said that only publicly available information was taken from its systems. “They were only able to get publicly available information but, nevertheless, they shouldn’t be doing anything of this nature,” he posted on Saturday evening. “Iran and others will stop at nothing.”A Trump campaign spokesman, Steven Cheung, said: “Any media or news outlet reprinting documents or internal communications are doing the bidding of America’s enemies and doing exactly what they want.”While Microsoft has not confirmed that the Trump campaign was the target, it has said that an Iranian group run by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards was behind a June attack on a presidential campaign.But the hack of the Trump campaign will serve as a warning that the last three months of the 2024 election could be as bumpy as the previous two elections. In 2016 the Hillary Clinton campaign was hacked, allegedly by Russian agents, and hundreds of emails were published by WikiLeaks. Twelve Russian military intelligence officers were later indicted for their alleged roles in interfering in the US election.In 2020, the contents of a laptop later confirmed as belonging to Hunter Biden were released and became subject of a controversy, not only for its salacious leaked content but for a letter signed by former intelligence officials claiming that the leak had all the hallmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign.On Saturday, a spokesman for the national security council said Joe Biden’s administration “strongly condemns any foreign government or entity who attempts to interfere in our electoral process or seeks to undermine confidence in our democratic institutions”. The FBI has yet to comment. More

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      Getting back together: Swifties mobilize to support Kamala Harris

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      When Emerald Medrano learned Joe Biden was dropping out of the 2024 presidential election and endorsing Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee, Medrano knew he had to speak now – as his favorite artist, Taylor Swift, would say.“I feel like us US Swifties should mass organize and help campaign for Kamala Harris and spread how horrendous Project 2025 would be to help get people’s butts down to the polls in November,” the 22-year-old posted to his 70,000 followers. He added a sobbing emoji. “Like if we don’t want democracy to end we really need to move and push blue votes.”Fourteen thousand likes later, the coalition Swifties4Kamala was born. Dozens of people signed up to help and run accounts on X, Instagram and TikTok, as well as strategize activities and communications. Within three weeks, Swifties4Kamala amassed more than 180,000 followers across its social media platforms.Twenty-four hours after Swifties4Kamala announced its kick-off Zoom call, scheduled for 27 August, more than 5,000 people had signed up to join, according to April Glick Pulito, the coalition’s political director.With organizing collectives built around identities like Win With Black Women and White Dudes for Harris drawing record-breaking numbers to Zoom calls, Swifties4Kamala is built around a different kind of identity: fandom. Long dismissed as unserious, in part because it has long been thought of as the domain of women and young people, fandom is now a potent political force in the 2024 elections – an election in which young women and LGBTQ+ people are expected to vote, rally and otherwise participate in politics at historic levels.On its social media accounts, Swifties4Kamala posts Swift-themed video edits and memes involving Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, as well as suggested action items, such as specific organizing calls or rallies that Swifties can join. The coalition’s most recent Substack includes volunteer opportunities for phone banking and working at the polls, explanations of the proposals found in the conservative policy wishlist Project 2025, and information about down-ballot races. Naturally, each section is a reference to a different Swift lyric.The goal is in effect twofold. First, Swifties4Kamala wants to use the decades-old Swiftie community to energize people in support of Harris. Second, they want to infuse politics with fun.View image in fullscreen“We’re talking about throwing bracelet-making parties and talking to people there about making sure they’re registered to vote, making sure they know how to vote,” said Glick Pulito, a 36-year-old who works in political communications and worked on Biden’s 2020 campaign. “These individual identity groups that are popping up –everyone feels so excited to connect with their own communities, and the Swiftie community is so big and so powerful.”Swifties4Kamala’s explosive growth is not only a reflection of the sheer scope of Swift’s fanbase – even before her planet-conquering Eras tour, 16% of Americans identified as “avid fans” of the singer – but also of the burgeoning political power of fandom itself. K-pop fans first proved back in 2020 that the social media skills that fuel modern fandoms, such as coordinating fundraising and ticket-scoring campaigns, could be turned towards political aims, when they claimed credit for sinking a Donald Trump rally.Four years later, fandom has already shaped the course of the 2024 election.Memorably, the first fandom to seize on Harris’s candidacy was not the Swifties, but the Angels, fans of the singer Charli xcx. Hours after Biden dropped out and endorsed Harris, Charli xcx tweeted: “kamala IS brat,” a reference to her album Brat and its brash party-girl aesthetic. The internet was immediately awash with green-tinted supercuts of Harris – the Brat album’s signature color – while CNN reporters tried to decode the meaning of “brat” for less online audiences at home. (“So is the idea that we’re all kind of brat and Vice-President Harris is brat?” Jake Tapper asked.) Harris’s official campaign account even changed its banner on X to brat green.Swift’s political cachet, though, far outstrips that of Charli xcx and the Angels. In 2022, after Swift urged her millions of Instagram followers to vote, Vote.org recorded more than 35,000 voter registrations. Ticketmaster’s botched rollout of the Eras tour led to a 2023 Senate hearing. Swift’s endorsement is one of the coveted prizes in the 2024 election; although she has not said anything about this year, the odds are not looking good for Donald Trump and JD Vance. Not only did Swift endorse Democrats in 2018 and 2020, but she is also probably the world’s most famous “childless cat lady”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionExperts told the Guardian earlier this year that Swift’s endorsement could compel people who might otherwise sit out the election to vote. Most Swifties identify as Democrats, a Morning Consult poll found last year.Irene Kim, co-founder and senior communications director of Swifties4Kamala, expects that Swift will ultimately endorse Harris. But Kim isn’t waiting on the singer.“I also personally resent this idea that floats around a lot, that Taylor needs to issue an order to activate the Swifties. We are a diverse group of very intelligent, very different people. We’re not mindless drones,” said Kim, 29. “These are our friends, so of course, I’m going to care if their rights are being taken away. They’re going to care if my rights are being taken away.”“I knew I was gay from a younger age, so my life is turned into politics. I’m forced to keep up with it,” said Rohan Reagan, a 21-year-old first-time voter. “I’ve attended rallies, protests, donated – but it’s never been something where I’m helping coordinate anything. It’s always like showing up in support instead of me trying to help be part of leading people.”Now, Reagan, who has 60,000 followers on his Swift-focused Instagram account, leads Swifties4Kamala’s Instagram presence. (He’s particularly proud of his “You Need to Kamala Down” video edit.) He’s more engaged in politics than he’s ever been.“I don’t want to go back to what it was like when Trump was president,” he said. “To me, that is just not really an option.” More

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      in US Politics

      Tim Walz pick excites hopes of taking US healthcare beyond Obamacare era

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      When Kamala Harris picked the Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, as veep for the Democratic presidential ticket, advocates for healthcare reform felt a jolt of electricity.Here, they saw a man who proclaimed healthcare a “basic human right”, reformed medical debt collections, and who laid the groundwork for expanded government insurance and denied corporate health insurers contracts with Medicaid, a state-run health insurance program for the poor. Walz even once joined Harris at an abortion clinic in support of abortion rights.It was a sense of possibility some had not felt since the Obama era, and hard for some to contain their excitement.“We’re celebrating here at the cabin,” said the Democratic Minnesota state representative Liz Reyer, who helped Walz pass a medical debt collection reform bill in 2023. She was on vacation in northern Wisconsin, sipping coffee next to her sleeping dog – a quiet, midwestern kind of celebration. Reyer felt compelled to stress “how absolutely strongly I was pulling for Governor Walz to be the VP pick”.“It feels really important and like a huge opportunity,” said Reyer, about the possibility of making such reforms nationally. “I share with Governor Walz the bedrock belief that healthcare is a human right. So, to me – yeah, let’s go.”Since the Obama era, health reformers have had a tough run. After the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) better known as “Obamacare”, in 2010, the Democratic party suffered heavy midterm losses to what would become known as the conservative Tea Party movement.Perhaps worse, the ACA became a focal point of Republican rage well into the Trump administration. Republicans only abandoned calls to “repeal and replace” the ACA in 2017, after the now-deceased Republican senator John McCain stunned party leaders by casting the decisive vote against Trump’s plan, returning to Washington amid a brain cancer diagnosis.Although Republicans were not able to repeal Obamacare, they were successful in another way: years of attacks left little room to expand coverage or rein in healthcare prices, essentially the unfinished work of Obamacare.Republicans policy wonks have since retreated to time-worn proposals for a second Trump term, primarily fleshed out in the Project 2025 document. Among the early 2000s hits now on a nostalgia tour: Make healthcare shoppable! More privatization! Less regulation! Tax-free savings accounts!The former president has disavowed Project 2025, though the official Republican platform does not look dissimilar. Notably, Trump’s current campaign and former administration has close ties to authors of the project.The 2024 Republican platform focuses on “transparency”, “choice” and “competition” (read: shoppable prices and fewer regulations). It also promises “no cuts” to Medicare, a government program for the elderly, though Project 2025 promotes further privatizing the program.Today, about 92% of Americans have health insurance. That still leaves about 26 million people out of the system – potentially vulnerable to the full force of market prices in the world’s most expensive health system. A catastrophic illness or ailment can easily lead to financial ruin.What’s more, even for people who have health insurance, medical debt remains a persistent problem. Forty-one per cent of Americans owe money to a medical provider, credit card or family member for healthcare. Often, when people have or fear medical debt, they cut back on food, clothing and other household items, according to a widely cited Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker poll. People with medical debt tend to be sicker and die sooner.At the same time, the cost of healthcare now eats up 17% of America’s gross domestic product, nearly double that of peer nations. That is in spite of the fact that Americans see the doctor less than peers in other wealthy nations and have worse health outcomes.View image in fullscreenWhile not all of America’s health problems can be pegged to problems with the insurance industry, anecdotal reports show at least some can be – such as adults waiting until they reach Medicare eligibility age to get cataract surgery or Americans feeling reticent to smile for fear of revealing a mouth full of decay.Exactly what Harris and Walz’s healthcare platform will be remains to be seen. The 2020 Democratic platform included a call for a public option, reining in pharmaceutical spending and strengthening Obamacare. The administration accomplished some of this.Notably, the Biden administration just finished its first Medicare prescription drug price negotiation – a process common in peer nations but which was prohibited when Biden took office. The most recently released Democratic party platform came in July, before Biden dropped out of the race.What is clear is the similarities in Harris’s and Walz’s records. The Biden administration capped insulin prices at $35 a month for Medicare beneficiaries. So did Walz for Minnesotans not on Medicare – an act he named after resident Alec Smith, a 26-year-old who died from rationing his $1,300-a-month insulin supply.Walz worked closely with Reyer to pass a comprehensive package of reforms for medical debt collection, which included a prohibition on hospitals from denying care to patients with outstanding balances, and which stopped the automatic transfer of debt liability to spouses. Similarly, the Biden administration has sought medical debt restrictions through rule-making with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.Walz said in his inaugural address as governor that he believed healthcare was a “human right”. That’s widely accepted wisdom outside the US, and all but the unofficial tagline for single-payer healthcare advocates – the kind of government-run universal healthcare that is a source of pride for the UK’s National Health Service.Similarly, Harris co-sponsored 2019 legislation introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders that would have established single-payer healthcare nationally. The revolutionary proposal stood no chance of passing, and she has since sought to moderate from that moment. Her campaign has said she would “not push” single-payer as president. Still, it has got advocates excited.“From our standpoint, this is fantastic,” said Dr Philip A Verhoef, a critical care doctor in Hawaii and president of Physicians for a National Health Program, the nation’s largest single-payer advocacy organization.“Ten years ago, single-payer burst on to the scene,” with Sanders’s presidential run, said Verhoef. “Prior to that, nobody ever talked about this.” Similarly, single-payer advocates were “shut out” of Obamacare discussions, Verhoef added.Walz also laid the groundwork for a “public option” health insurance plan in Minnesota, where the government would allow people to buy into Medicaid, and banned private health insurance companies, such as behemoth UnitedHealth, from contracting with Minnesota’s Medicaid plan.How the Harris-Walz ticket will translate the excitement of reformers into action – and what exactly their proposals will be – remains to be seen. For the time being, activists are enjoying a sense of possibility, knowing difficult discussions lie ahead.“So often, we see people in positions of political power are thinking, ‘Well, what can we get done without blowing up the system,’” said Verhoef. “I appreciate that attitude – in a way that’s what the ACA was. It helped a lot of people. But it still left 30 million people uninsured in this country and it hasn’t stopped people from going bankrupt from healthcare bills.” More