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      Republicans are trying to ensure we’ll never have another fair election | Judith Levine

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      “Christians, get out and vote, just this time,” Donald Trump exhorted the audience at a campaign event organized by the conservative Turning Point Action in July 2024. “In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good you’re not going to have to vote.”Since his defeat by Joe Biden in 2020, Trump has been building toward delivery on that promise, first by fomenting suspicion of widespread election fraud, then by trying to overturn the results via legal challenge and intimidation, and finally, on 6 January 2021, by force. Now the White House and Republicans both in Washington and the states are colluding more brazenly than ever to “fix it” – “it” meaning free and fair elections they might lose.Republicans’ aim is permanent control of the US government. Trump’s is the crown. As their assaults on voting rights – and the institution of elections itself – escalate, their success begins to look, if not inevitable, alarmingly possible.Trump’s tactics are working.The 2020 election was the cleanest and most efficient in memory. Claims of rampant fraud are lies – the big lie, as the 2021 House impeachment committee put it. But not among Republican voters. A Pew survey taken before the 2024 election found that Trump supporters were “deeply skeptical about the way the election will be conducted”, especially compared with Harris supporters. Whereas over 85% of Democratic voters believed in 2024 that absentee ballots would be counted accurately, and ineligible voters prevented from voting, among Trump supporters only 38% and 30%, respectively, felt the same.Buoyed by the big lie – and liberated by the supreme court’s 2013 gutting of the Voting Rights Act – voter suppression attempts reached a peak after the 2020 elections, when legislators introduced more than 400 restrictive bills. Signing Georgia’s 98-page Election Integrity Act in 2021, Brian Kemp, the Republican governor, was unambiguous about its partisan aim. “After the November election last year” –when record turnout in the reliably red state yielded victories for Biden and two Democratic US senators, and the secretary of state resisted Trump’s shakedown to “find 11,780 votes” to reverse the outcome – “I knew, like so many of you, that significant reforms to our state elections were needed,” he said.By September 2024, 31 states had enacted 114 such laws.In May 2024, Trump told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he would accept the results of the election only if “everything’s honest” – that is, if he won. This definition of honesty took hold. According to some polls, before election day, fewer than a quarter of Trump supporters believed the election would be fair. After it, their confidence rates more than doubled. And while Republican concerns about fraud were pervasive in 2020, they were – surprise, surprise – virtually nonexistent when the 2024 results came in.With their man in the White House, congressional Republicans set about preparing for his coronation. Three days into Trump’s term, the Tennessee representative Andy Ogles introduced a bill to amend the constitution to allow presidents to serve three terms. At Trumpstore.com, you can buy a red “Trump 2028” cap for $50.On 25 March Trump issued the executive order “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections,” which melds his xenophobic paranoia-mongering with his desire to “fix” elections. Its mandates range from requiring proof of citizenship to vote (an answer to the spectral threat of undocumented people stuffing the ballot boxes) to a ban on the bar codes that expedite vote counting.The executive order itself is illegal. The constitution gives the states, not the president, the power to regulate elections.On 4 April, the House passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (Save) Act, requiring registrants and voters to document citizenship.The GOP’s election-interference campaign is accelerating. On 7 July, the justice department’s civil rights division wrote a letter to Greg Abbott, the Texas governor, and Ken Paxton, the state attorney general, alleging that four of its majority-minority “coalition districts” are illegal under the Voting Rights Act and directing the state to redraw its electoral map. Voting rights experts dispute this interpretation. In fact, the law prohibits the dilution of the electoral power of voters of color either by packing them into one district or spreading them out by gerrymandering–which is what the new map would do.In mid-July, the justice department issued broad requests to state election officials to turn over their election data and voter rolls. In Colorado, where Biden won by 11 points in 2020, a guy called Jeff Small – chief of staff to the Colorado Republican representative and Save Act cheerleader Lauren Boebert – began contacting officials claiming he was working with the Trump administration on election “integrity” and asking if they would kindly let the feds, or somebody, inspect their voting machines, according to Washington Post reporting. After one such request, the Department of Homeland Security called to follow up.Officials of both parties were outraged, especially when it came to monkeying with the equipment, an illegal act. “Anybody who is asking for access to the voting machines outside of the law” is suspicious, the Republican executive director of the Colorado County Clerks Association told the Washington Post. “That automatically raises red flags in terms of their intent.”Colorado’s Democratic secretary of state made the larger point: “This all is part of a bigger ploy to further undermine our voting in this country,” she said. “They are actively in a power grab.”Meanwhile, the White House was leaning on Texas’s governor and legislative leaders to redraw their electoral map according to Trump’s specifications, dismantling Democratic strongholds to create five more Republican House seats – to which the president averred his party was “entitled”. When Texas got onboard, on 3 August the state’s 51 Democrats left the state, risking fines and arrest, to thwart the effort.To cover all bases, on 7 August, Trump ordered the commerce department to prepare a new US census leaving out undocumented immigrants. Under the constitution, the census counts the number of “persons”, not citizens; it must be conducted “within every … ten years”, and states must redistrict to concur with new data. In a post on Truth Social, the president described a bespoke tally “using the results and information gained from the Presidential Election of 2024”.The same day, the vice-president, JD Vance, descended on bright-red Indiana with a trio of Trump appointees to strong-arm its leaders to redistrict as well. Afterward, on X, Indiana’s lieutenant governor, Micah Beckwith, genuflected to Vance: “Your bold leadership and unwavering support for President Trump’s mission to expand the conservative majority in Congress is exactly what America needs right now.”On Fox News, the vice-president echoed Trump’s contention that counting undocumented immigrants in the census unfairly gives the advantage to Democrats, whom he also charged with “aggressive” gerrymandering. “We’re just trying to rebalance the scales,” Vance said.After two weeks, Democrats returned to the Texas state house. Republican leaders forced them to sign “permission slips” to leave the chamber and assigned police escorts to monitor them. After refusing to sign, one Democrat spent nights in the chamber. While speaking on the phone with Gavin Newsom, the California governor, from the bathroom, she was informed the call constituted a felony, she said.On Saturday, the Texas senate approved legislation creating the new map, which Abbott says he will sign “swiftly”. The move had already set off an avalanche of mid-decade redistricting, led by California. Other states, controlled by both parties, may follow.Last week on Truth Social, Trump announced he would “lead a movement” to eliminate mail-in ballots – an idea he apparently picked up from Vladimir Putin – and also “inaccurate” voting machines. He said he would sign an executive order to this effect soon. “Remember, the States are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes,” Trump fantasized. “They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do.”Maybe the following order will eliminate voting altogether – for the good of our country, of course.

      Judith Levine is Brooklyn-based journalist, essayist and author of five books. Her Substack is Today in Fascism More

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      What Trump’s move to fire Fed governor means for central bank’s independence

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      Donald Trump has said he is firing Lisa Cook, a Federal Reserve governor, in a move viewed as a sharp escalation in his battle to exert greater control over the independent institution.Trump said in a letter posted on his Truth Social platform that he is firing Cook because of allegations she committed mortgage fraud. The allegation was made last week by Bill Pulte, a Trump appointee to the Federal Housing Administration, an agency that regulates mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.Cook previously said she would not leave her post.Trump has repeatedly attacked the Fed’s chair, Jerome Powell, for not cutting its short-term interest rate, and even threatened to fire him. Powell, who has previously warned that tariffs will push up inflation, told the Jackson Hole economic symposium in Wyoming last week that the Fed could soon change its policy stance.Powell’s caution has infuriated Trump, who has demanded the Fed cut borrowing costs to spur the economy and reduce the interest rates the federal government pays on its debt. Trump has also accused Powell of mismanaging the US central bank’s $2.5bn building renovation project.Firing the Fed chair or forcing out a governor threatens the Fed’s venerated independence, which has long been supported by most economists and Wall Street investors. Here’s what to know about the Fed:The Fed wields extensive power over the US economy. By cutting the short-term interest rate it controls – which it typically does when the economy falters – the Fed can make borrowing cheaper and encourage more spending, accelerating growth and hiring. When it raises the rate – which it does to cool the economy and combat inflation – it can weaken the economy and cause job losses.Economists have long preferred independent central banks because they can more easily take unpopular steps to fight inflation, such as raise interest rates, which makes borrowing to buy a home, car, or appliance more expensive.The importance of an independent Fed was cemented for most economists after the extended inflation spike of the 1970s and early 1980s. Arthur Burns, former Fed chair, has been widely blamed for allowing the painful inflation of that era to accelerate by succumbing to pressure from Richard Nixon to keep rates low heading into the 1972 election. Nixon feared higher rates would cost him the election, which he won in a landslide.Paul Volcker was eventually appointed chair of the Fed in 1979 by Jimmy Carter, and he pushed the Fed’s short-term rate to the stunningly high level of nearly 20%. (It is currently 4.3%). The eye-popping rates triggered a sharp recession, pushed unemployment to nearly 11% and spurred widespread protests.Yet Volcker didn’t flinch. By the mid-1980s, inflation had fallen back into the low single digits. Volcker’s willingness to inflict pain on the economy to throttle inflation is seen by most economists as a key example of the value of an independent Fed.An effort to fire Powell would almost certainly cause stock prices to fall and bond yields to spike higher, pushing up interest rates on government debt and raising borrowing costs for mortgages, auto loans and credit card debt. The interest rate on the 10-year treasury is a benchmark for mortgage rates.Most investors prefer an independent Fed, partly because it typically manages inflation better without being influenced by politics but also because its decisions are more predictable. Fed officials often publicly discuss how they would alter interest rate policies if economic conditions changed.If the Fed was more swayed by politics, it would be harder for financial markets to anticipate – or understand – its decisions.The supreme court in a ruling earlier this year suggested that a president can’t fire the chair of the Fed just because he doesn’t like the chair’s policy choices. But he may be able to remove him “for cause”, typically interpreted to mean some kind of wrongdoing or negligence.It’s a likely reason the Trump administration has zeroed in on the building renovation, in hopes it could provide a “for cause” pretext. Still, Powell would likely fight any attempt to remove him, and the case could wind up at the supreme court. More

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      Judge rules Utah’s congressional map must be redrawn for the 2026 elections

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      The Utah legislature will need to rapidly redraw the state’s congressional boundaries after a judge ruled on Monday that the Republican-controlled body drew them in violation of voters’ rights.The current map, drawn in 2021, divides Salt Lake county – the state’s population center and a Democratic stronghold – among the state’s four congressional districts, all of which have since elected Republicans by wide margins. District court judge Dianna Gibson declared the map unlawful because the legislature circumvented a commission established by voters to ensure districts aren’t drawn to favor any party.New maps will need to be drawn quickly for the 2026 midterm elections. Lt Gov Deidre Henderson, the state’s top elections official, asked the courts for the case to be finalized by November to leave time for the process before candidates start filing in early January. But appeals promised by Republican lawmakers could help them run out the clock to possibly delay adopting new maps until 2028.The ruling creates uncertainty in a state that was thought to be a clean sweep for the GOP as the party is preparing to defend its slim majority in the US House. Nationally, Democrats need to net three seats next year to take control of the chamber. The sitting president’s party tends to lose seats in the midterms, as was the case for Donald Trump in 2018.The US president has urged several Republican-led states to add winnable seats for the GOP. In Texas, a plan awaiting governor Greg Abbott’s approval includes five new districts that would favor Republicans. Ohio Republicans already were scheduled to revise their maps to make them more partisan, and Indiana, Florida and Missouri may choose to make changes. Some Democrat-led states say they may enter the redistricting battle, but so far only California has taken action to offset Republican gains in Texas. More

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      Trump administration to restore $6.8bn in education funds after multi-state suit

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      After a multi-state lawsuit over Donald Trump’s abrupt decision to freeze more than $6.8bn in education funding to US schools, the Trump administration has agreed to restore the funds for a range of educational services, including after school and summer learning, teacher training, and support for English-learners.The administration did not give a clear explanation as to why it had withheld the congressionally-allocated funds, though a spokesperson for the White House Office of Management and Budget had indicated that review found instances of federal education money being “grossly misused to subsidize a radical left-wing agenda”.Following a lawsuit brought by the attorneys general of California and 22 other states, as well as the governors of two states, the administration released some funding. On Monday, California attorney general Rob Bonta announced that the states secured an agreement to have the funding fully restored.“The Trump administration upended school programs across the country when it recklessly withheld vital education funding just weeks before the school year was set to begin,” Bonta said. “Fortunately, after we filed our lawsuit, the Trump Administration backed down and released the funding it had previously withheld … Our kids deserve so much better than what this anti-education administration has to offer, and we will continue to fight to protect them from this president’s relentless attacks.”In their lawsuit, states accused the administration of holding back money illegally, as the US constitution gives congress the rights to appropriate funding, and the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 bars the president from unilaterally withholding funds designated by congress.The delayed funds, which were frozen just weeks before the start of the school year this year, had left many communities and school districts uncertain if they would be able to sustain programs. The withheld funds affected after-school and other programs attended by about 1.4 million children nationwide, according to the nonprofit group Afterschool Alliance. Most of the programs benefit low-income families.The funds also covered programs to retain teachers, especially in low-income school districts.Since taking office, Donald Trump has pushed to reshape public education in the US to fit more closely with his rightwing political and social beliefs.He had repeatedly threatened to withhold federal funds from states over policies allowing transgender athletes to compete in sports. It has also separately threatened or cancelled for sex ed over mentions of transgender people from educational materials.The administration has also pushed states to disqualify immigrant students from discounted in-state tuition reserved for state residents. More

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      Fema staff warn Trump’s cuts risk exposing US to another Hurricane Katrina

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      Donald Trump’s attacks on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) risk exposing the US to another Hurricane Katrina, staff at the agency have warned Congress in a withering critique that also takes aim at its current leadership.Writing in the run up to this week’s 20th anniversary of the devastating 2005 storm that killed 1,833 people and caused widespread destruction in New Orleans and the Gulf coast, more than 180 current and former Fema employees say the Trump administration’s policies are ignoring the mistakes that led to it.The letter, sent to members of Congress and a council formed to examine the agency’s future, follows months of criticism of Fema from Trump and senior administration officials, who have threatened to close it, prompting more than 2,000 staff – about one-third of its permanent workforce – to depart, leaving it short of institutional expertise in key positions.It comes after last month’s deadly flooding in Texas that left at least 135 – including 37 school children – dead. Experts said the death toll may have been inflated by the upheaval at Fema, claiming it diminished its capacity to respond quickly.The letter, entitled The Katrina Declaration, accused the Trump administration of disregarding the Post-Katrina Emergency Reform Act (PKERMA), passed in 2006 with the intention of absorbing the lessons of the disaster.“Hurricane Katrina was not just a natural disaster, but a man-made one,” the signatories wrote.“The inexperience of senior leaders and the profound failure by the federal government to deliver timely, unified, and effective aid to those in need left survivors to fend for themselves.“Two decades later, Fema is enacting processes and leadership structures that echo the conditions PKERMA was designed to prevent.”It is also scathing about Kristi Noem, who as homeland security secretary, has overall responsibility for Fema, and about two administrators who have been placed in charge of the agency since Trump’s inauguration.“Since January 2025, Fema has been under the leadership of individuals lacking legal qualifications, Senate approval, and the demonstrated background required of a Fema administrator,” the signatories said.The letter identifies the current Fema acting administrator, David Richardson, who has no previous experience in disaster management, and his predecessor, Cameron Hamilton, who was appointed by Trump only to be fired after publicly saying he opposed plans to abolish the agency.“Decisions made [by Noem, Richardson and Hamiltion] … hinder the swift execution of our mission, and dismiss experienced staff whose institutional knowledge and relationships are vital to ensure effective emergency management,” it said.Noem has angered seasoned officials by demanding that contracts worth more more than $100,000 be personally approved by her – a stipulation specialists say significantly slowed the response to the Texas floods.Richardson’s suitability was questioned after he told staff that he did not know the US had a hurricane season – which lasts from the start of May till 30 November. His office later insisted he was joking.The letter states: “Our shared commitment to our country, our oaths of office, and our mission of helping people before, during, and after disasters compel us to warn Congress and the American people of the cascading effects of decisions made by the current administration.”Six statements of opposition in the letter include condemnation of “the ongoing failure to appoint a qualified FEMA administrator, as required by law”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIt also includes criticism of the administration’s “censorship of climate science”.“This administration’s decision to ignore and disregard the facts pertaining to climate science in disasters shows a blatant disregard for the safety and security of our nation’s people and all American communities regardless of their geographic, economic or ethnic diversity,” the signatories write.A petition at the end of the letter demands that Fema be given full cabinet level agency status and defended from interference from the Department of Homeland Security. The department recently ordered Fema agents to assist Immigration, Customs and Enforcement (Ice) agents in immigration raids, threatening to fire those who refused.Trump, who has set up a review council headed by Noem to consider Fema’s future, has repeatedly said he favors its abolition, though he softened his rhetoric following the Texas floods, amid suggestions that it could be “rebranded” with more of its functions being devolved to the states.Thirty-six of the signatories – including some currently working at the agency – attached their names, leaving them open to possible retribution. Another 144 withheld their identities.One signatory, Michael Coen, a former Fema chief of staff under Joe Biden and Barack Obama, told the Guardian in a statement: “I am proud of the current and former FEMA employees for having the courage to speak up. Lessons were learned from Katrina and Congress took action. Those lessons and actions are being disregarded by the Trump administration.”Daniel Llargués, Fema’s acting press secretary, dismissed the criticisms voiced in the letter.“It is not surprising that some of the same bureaucrats who presided over decades of inefficiency are now objecting to reform,” he told the New York Times. He said the Trump administration “is committed to ensuring Fema delivers for the American people” and to cutting “red tape, inefficiency and outdated processes” in the agency. More

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      Judge halts Trump administration from deporting Kilmar Ábrego García for now

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      Kilmar Ábrego García – who has been thrust into the middle of an acrimonious deportation saga by the second Trump administration – has been detained after reporting to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents in Baltimore on Monday, but a judge later ruled that he cannot be deported for now.His detainment comes just three days after his release from criminal custody in Tennessee.“The only reason he was taken into detention was to punish him,” Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, an attorney representing Ábrego, told a crowd of supporters outside a Baltimore Ice field office on Monday. “To punish him for exercising his constitutional rights.”The attorney also said his client filed a new lawsuit on Monday morning challenging his potential deportation to Uganda and his current confinement. Hours later, US district judge Paula Xinis issued a temporary halt to Ábrego’s possible deportation.Xinis, who was appointed by former president Obama, told justice department lawyers that the government is “absolutely forbidden” from deporting Ábrego until she holds an evidentiary hearing scheduled for Friday.Xinis further instructed that Ábrego must remain at his detention center in Virginia. She then asked deputy assistant attorney general Drew Ensign whether her order was sufficient for the justice department to follow, which he agreed it was.“Your clients are absolutely forbidden at this juncture to remove Mr. Abrego Garcia from the continental United States,” Xinis told Ensign.The judge also raised concerns about accusations that the justice department attempted to pressure Ábrego by threatening deportation to Uganda if he did not plead guilty to human trafficking.Ábrego faced threats of being deported to Uganda after recently declining an offer to be deported to Costa Rica in exchange for remaining in jail and pleading guilty to human smuggling charges, according to a Saturday court filing.“The fact that they are holding Costa Rica as a carrot and using Uganda as a stick to try to coerce him to plead guilty for a crime is such clear evidence that they are weaponizing the immigration system in a matter that is completely unconstitutional,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said.The lawsuit Ábrego filed early on Monday asks for an order “that he is not allowed to be removed from the United States unless and until he has had full due process”, said Sandoval-Moshenberg.“The main issue, aside from the actual conditions in that country is – is that country actually going to let him stay there?” the attorney said. “They can offer to send him to Madrid, Spain, and unless Madrid, Spain, is going to let him remain in that country, essentially what it is – is a very inconvenient layover on the way to El Salvador, which is the one country that it has already determined that he cannot be sent to.”The Costa Rican government has agreed to offer Ábrego refugee status if he is sent there, court filings from Saturday show. A judge in 2019 ruled that Ábrego cannot be deported to El Salvador.Before walking into his appointment at the Baltimore Ice field office, Ábrego addressed a crowd of faith leaders, activists, and his family and legal team organized by the immigrant rights non-profit Casa de Maryland.“My name is Kilmar Ábrego García, and I want you to remember this – remember that I am free and I was able to be reunited with my family,” he said through a translator, NBC News reported. “This was a miracle … I want to thank each and every one of you who marched, lift your voices, never stop praying and continue to fight in my name.”After Ábrego entered the building, faith leaders and activists rallied to demand Ábrego’s freedom, chanting “Sí, se puede” (roughly “yes, we can”) and “we are Kilmar” as well as singing the hymn We Shall Not Be Moved with an activist choir.“Laws have to be rooted in love, because love does not harm us,” a senior priest at Maryland’s St Matthew Episcopal church identified as Padre Vidal said through a translator.Ábrego entered the US without permission in about 2011 as a teenager after fleeing gang violence. He was subsequently afforded a federal protection order against deportation to El Salvador.The 30-year-old sheet metal apprentice was initially deported by federal immigration officials in March. Though Donald Trump’s administration admitted that Ábrego’s deportation was an “administrative error”, officials have repeatedly accused him of being affiliated with the MS-13 gang, a claim Ábrego and his family vehemently deny.During his detention at El Salvador’s so-called Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), Ábrego was physically and psychologically tortured, according to court documents filed by his lawyers in July.Following Ábrego’s wrongful deportation, the Trump administration faced widespread pressure to return him to the US, including from a supreme court order that directed federal officials to “facilitate” his return.In June, the Trump administration returned Ábrego from El Salvador, only to charge him with crimes related to human smuggling, which his lawyers have rejected as “preposterous”. His criminal trial is expected to begin in January.Ábrego’s detention comes amid growing concern about the Trump administration’s accelerating mass deportations campaign. Protesters across the US are rallying against the federal government’s crackdown on immigrants in Washington DC, the nation’s capital, while activists in Maryland and nationwide are pushing Democratic officials to end contracts with Avelo Airlines, which is the only passenger airline that conducts deportation flights for Ice.Shortly after Ábrego’s detention on Monday, the US homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, said on social media that Ice had arrested him and was “processing him for deportation”.“President Trump is not going to allow this illegal alien, who is an MS-13 gang member, human trafficker, serial domestic abuser, and child predator to terrorize American citizens any longer,” she wrote.Glenn Ivey, the Democratic congressman representing the Maryland district where Ábrego and his family live, said his constituent’s detention was a “total abuse of power” by the federal government and a tactic to save them from “being embarrassed” due to a lack of evidence to find him guilty in court.Ábrego’s mistreatment has become a flashpoint political issue within the district and beyond, Ivey said.“I think if they [the administration] are waiting for people to forget about it or get tired of it, they’ve gotten a big surprise on that front,” Ivey said.

      Shrai Popat contributed reporting More

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      Trump says he wants to meet with Kim Jong-un as South Korea’s Lee Jae Myung visits US

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      Donald Trump said on Monday he wanted to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and that he was open to further trade talks with South Korea even as he lobbed new criticisms at the visiting Asian ally.South Korea’s new president, Lee Jae Myung, arrived for talks just after the US president criticized the South Korean government, apparently over its handling of investigations related to his conservative predecessor’s December attempt to impose martial law.The remarks cast a dark mood over high-stakes talks for Lee, who took office in June after a snap election that followed Yoon Suk Yeol’s impeachment and removal.Welcoming Lee to the White House’s Oval Office, Trump said he was open to negotiating aspects of the US-South Korean trade deal and to meeting Kim.“I’d like to have a meeting,” Trump told reporters. “I look forward to meeting with Kim Jong-un in the appropriate future.“Trump and Lee held their first meeting in tense circumstances. The US president lodged vague complaints about a “purge or revolution” in South Korea on social media before later walking the comments back as a likely “misunderstanding” between the allies.Despite clinching a trade deal in July that spared South Korean exports harsher US tariffs, the two sides continue to wrangle over nuclear energy, military spending and details of a trade deal that included $350bn in promised South Korean investments in the United States.North Korea’s rhetoric has ramped up, with Kim pledging to speed his nuclear program and condemning joint US-South Korea military drills. Over the weekend, Kim supervised the test firing of new air defense systems.Since Trump’s January inauguration, Kim has ignored Trump’s repeated calls to revive the direct diplomacy he pursued during his 2017-2021 term in office, which produced no deal to halt North Korea’s nuclear program. In the Oval Office, Lee avoided the theatrical confrontations that dominated a February visit by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, and a May visit from Cyril Ramaphosa, the South African president.Lee, deploying a well-worn strategy by foreign visitors to the Trump White House, talked golf and lavished praise on the Republican president’s interior decorating and peacemaking. He told reporters earlier that he had read the president’s 1987 memoir, Trump: The Art of the Deal, to prepare.As the leaders met, the liberal South Korean encouraged Trump to engage with North Korea.“I hope you can bring peace to the Korean Peninsula, the only divided nation in the world, so that you can meet with Kim Jong-un, build a Trump World [real-estate complex] in North Korea so that I can play golf there, and so that you can truly play a role as a world-historical peacemaker,” Lee said, speaking in Korean.South Korea’s economy relies heavily on the US, with Washington underwriting its security with troops and nuclear deterrence. Trump has called Seoul a “money machine” that takes advantage of American military protection. More