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Planned Parenthood sues Trump administration over funding cuts in big bill
by Evelyn Reynolds 7 July 2025, 16:47
Planned Parenthood sued the Trump administration on Monday over a provision in Donald Trump’s sweeping domestic policy bill that would strip funding from health centers operated by the reproductive healthcare and abortion provider.In a complaint filed in Boston federal court, Planned Parenthood said the provision was unconstitutional, and its clear purpose is to prevent its nearly 600 health centers from receiving Medicaid reimbursements.Planned Parenthood said that would have “catastrophic consequences”, given that the health centers serve more than 1 million patients annually through Medicaid, the US government’s insurance program for low-income people. More than 80 million people use Medicaid.“The true design of the Defund Provision is simply to express disapproval of, attack, and punish Planned Parenthood, which plays a particularly prominent role in the public debate over abortion,” Planned Parenthood said in its lawsuit.The lawsuit continued: “Stripping away this patient volume and reimbursements for care provided will result in the elimination of services, laying off staff and health center closures. The public health consequences for Medicaid patients and non-Medicaid patients alike will be dire and compounding.”The organization has estimated that the defunding could force roughly 200 Planned Parenthood clinics to shutter. Blue states, which are home to more people on Medicaid, would probably see a disproportionate number of closures.Since it is illegal to use Medicaid to pay for most abortions, Planned Parenthood clinics rely on the insurance program to reimburse them for providing services like birth control, STI tests and cancer screenings. But if blue-state clinics are forced to close, people will no longer be able to seek abortions at those clinics – a possibility that has led some abortion rights supporters, including Planned Parenthood, to call the Trump bill’s provision a “backdoor abortion ban”. Planned Parenthood provides an estimated 38% of US abortions.“We’re facing a reality of the impact on shutting down almost half of abortion-providing health centers,” Alexis McGill Johnson, Planned Parenthood Federation of Americas’s CEO, told the Guardian last week. “It does feel existential. Not just for Planned Parenthood, but for communities that are relying on access to this care.”Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit asks the courts to declare the Trump bill’s provision unconstitutional on numerous grounds, or to at least preserve Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood clinics that do not provide abortions. The reproductive health giant suggests in the lawsuit that Congress did not understand its structure when it passed the provision. The Planned Parenthood technically consists of a mothership group, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and nearly 50 regional affiliate groups that operate as independent entities.Medicaid is overseen by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, part of the US Department of Health and Human Services. That agency did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Planned Parenthood is being buffeted by intense financial headwinds. This spring, the Trump administration froze tens of millions of dollars earmarked for family planning providers who participate in Title X, the nation’s largest family planning program. Although several of those providers have since had their funding restored, a Planned Parenthood spokesperson said last week their affiliates had not received funding.The US supreme court also ruled in late June in favor of South Carolina in a case involving the state’s attempt to kick Planned Parenthood out of its state Medicaid reimbursement program. Red states may see that ruling as a blessing to their own efforts to defund Planned Parenthood.Even if Planned Parenthood’s Monday lawsuit succeeds, the organization will probably have to grapple with the consequences of that supreme court ruling for years to come. More
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Floods are swallowing their village. Trump’s EPA cut a major lifeline for them and others
by Evelyn Reynolds 7 July 2025, 12:00
This story was originally published by FloodlightAcre by acre, the village of Kipnuk is falling into the river.The small Alaska tribal village sits on permafrost, which is thawing fast as global temperatures rise. That’s left the banks of the Kugkaktlik River unstable – and more likely to collapse when floods hit, as they often do. Buildings, boardwalks, wind turbines and other critical infrastructure are at risk, according to Rayna Paul, the village’s environmental director.So when the village learned late last year that it had been awarded a $20m federal grant to protect the riverbank, tribal members breathed a sigh of relief.But that relief was short-lived. On 2 May, the US Environmental Protection Agency canceled the grant. Without that help, Paul says, residents may be forced to relocate their village.“In the future, so much land will be in the river,” Paul says.Kipnuk’s grant was one of more than 600 that the EPA has canceled since Donald Trump took office, according to data obtained by Floodlight through a Freedom of Information Act (Foia) request. Through 15 May, the cuts totalled more than $2.7bn.View image in fullscreenFloodlight’s analysis of the data shows:
Environmental justice grants took by far the biggest hit, with more than $2.4bn in funding wiped out.
The EPA has also canceled more than $120m in grants aimed at reducing the carbon footprint of cement, concrete and other construction materials. Floodlight reported in April that the cement industry’s carbon emissions rival those of some major countries – and that efforts to decarbonize the industry have lost momentum under the Trump administration.
Blue states bore the brunt. Those states lost nearly $1.6bn in grant money – or about 57% of the funding cuts.
The single largest grant canceled: A $95m award to the Research Triangle Institute, a North Carolina-based scientific research organization that had planned to distribute the money to underserved communities. RTI also lost five other EPA grants, totaling more than $36m.
The EPA plans to cut even more grants, with the Washington Post reporting in late April on a court filing that showed it had targeted 781 grants issued under Biden.The Foia shows that the majority of these have now been canceled; more cuts could follow.Lawsuit challenges grant cancellationsLast month, a coalition of non-profits, tribes and local governments sued the EPA, alleging the Trump administration broke the law by canceling environmental and climate justice grants that Congress had already funded.“Terminating these grant programs caused widespread harm and disruption to on-the-ground projects that reduce pollution, increase community climate resilience and build community capacity to tackle environmental harms,” said Hana Vizcarra, a senior attorney at Earthjustice, one of the non-profits that filed the lawsuit. “We won’t let this stand.”The EPA declined to comment on the lawsuit. But in a written response to Floodlight, the agency said this about the grant cancellations: “The Biden-Harris Administration shouldn’t have forced their radical agenda of wasteful DEI programs and ‘environmental justice’ preferencing on the EPA’s core mission. The Trump EPA will continue to work with states, tribes, and communities to support projects that advance the agency’s core mission of protecting human health and the environment.”Congress created the Environmental and Climate Justice Block Grant program in 2022 when it enacted the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Joe Biden’s landmark climate bill. The program was designed to help the disadvantaged communities that are often hit hardest by pollution and climate change.But on 20 January, Trump’s first day back in office, he signed an executive order halting funding under the IRA, including money for environmental justice. Trump also cancelled Biden-era executive orders that federal agencies prioritize tackling environmental racism, and separately in his orders on diversity, equity and inclusion called for the closures of all environmental justice offices and positions in the federal government.Underserved communities are often the most vulnerable to climate impacts such as heatwaves and flooding because they have fewer resources to prepare or recover, according to a 2021 analysis by the EPA.Inside the agency, not everyone agrees with the new direction. In a “declaration of dissent”, more than 200 current and former EPA employees spoke out against Trump administration policies, including the decision to dismantle the agency’s environmental justice program.“Canceling environmental justice programs is not cutting waste; it is failing to serve the American people,” they wrote.On Thursday, the EPA put 139 of the employees who signed the petition on administrative leave, Inside Climate News reported.From hope to heartbreak in TexasThe people at Downwinders at Risk, a small Texas non-profit that helps communities harmed by air pollution, thought they were finally getting a break.Last year, they learned that the EPA had awarded them a $500,000 grant – enough to install nine new air quality monitors in working-class neighborhoods near asphalt shingle plants, a gas well and a fracking operation in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The data would have helped residents avoid the worst air and plan their days around pollution spikes.View image in fullscreenBut on 1 May, the group’s three employees received the news they had been dreading: Their grant had been canceled.“It was a very bitter pill to swallow,” said Caleb Roberts, the group’s executive director.He and his team had devoted more than 100 hours to the application and compliance process.The non-profit’s annual budget is just over $250,000, and the federal funding would have allowed the group to expand its reach after years of scraping by. They had even paused fundraising for six months, confident the federal money was on the way.“We feel like we’re at ground zero again,” Roberts said. “And that’s just very unfortunate.”Floodlight is a non-profit newsroom that investigates the powers stalling climate action More
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‘Chipping away at democracy’: authors fear outcome of US supreme court’s LGBTQ+ book ruling
by Evelyn Reynolds 7 July 2025, 11:00
Sarah Brannen, an illustrator and children’s book author, was riding in the car with her sister when she received an alert on her phone in late June. She was in a group chat with other authors whose books were being debated in a US supreme court case, and the messages soon poured in. Her book, Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, which highlights a same-sex marriage, was at the center of a contentious case that had widespread implications for public school education throughout the nation.As per the 27 June ruling, a group of Maryland parents now have the option to remove their public elementary school students from classes where Uncle Bobby’s Wedding and other storybooks with LGBTQ+ themes are read. The justices decided through a 6-3 vote that the Montgomery county school board violated parents’ right to freely exercise their religion by forbidding kids from opting out of instruction. The parents argued that the board impeded them from teaching their kids about gender and sexuality in a way that aligned with their belief system.“I’m terribly concerned that one of the implications of this is that LGBTQ children and children with LGBTQ families will see some children having to leave the classroom because they’re reading a book about their families,” Brannen said. “I think it is just a terrible thing to tell young children that there’s something wrong with them so that some children can’t even hear about their family.”Brannen and other authors whose books are at the center of the case fear that the ruling could lead to parents taking their children out of any lessons that they disagree with in the future, including inclusive tellings of history. Additionally, they contend that it’s important that public school education reflects the world, which consists of diverse family structures, gender and sexual identities. Teaching kids about LGBTQ+ people and diverse families can make them more empathetic and socially competent, studies have found. Along with Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, which was illustrated by Lucia Soto, the parents’ complaint included six other books, including Born Ready by Jodie Patterson, My Rainbow by US representative DeShanna Neal and Trinity Neal, and Pride Puppy! by Robin Stevenson.View image in fullscreen“When you start to chip away at what public education was created to do,” said Neal, “you are chipping away at the very foundation of what democracy, and liberty and freedom are supposed to be.”‘Critical thinkers that can move America forward’Research has shown that it is never too young to expose children to diversity, said Rachel H Farr, a University of Kentucky professor and associate chair of psychology. Her work focuses on LGBTQ+ parents and families. She has found that kids with LGBTQ+ parents report having higher social competence than their peers because they have learned to accept that it is OK for people to be different. Exposure to diverse family structures through books, she said, could also help kids with heterosexual parents better understand the world around them.“When children learn about people who may be different than they are, that can help with things like understanding … that people can have a different point of view,” Farr said. “That can help with things like perspective-taking, kindness, empathy, a sense of belonging: things that I think many of us would argue are experiences and skills that we want children and people around us to have.”In Born Ready, a transgender boy expresses his frustration with being misgendered, until he comes to a place where he feels affirmed in his gender identity. For Patterson, the recent ruling symbolizes a shift in education from a place where preconceived beliefs are challenged and individual thoughts are formed, to a space where students are taught from a narrow perspective. It is likely that students will encounter LGBTQ+ people throughout their lives, she said, and it is important that they be prepared.“It is imperative to have experiences that are beyond the belief you might hold at that moment, so that we can be a talented country with critical thinkers that can move America forward,” Patterson said. “And I do believe that all the progress that we’ve seen in America has been through collaboration through thought, through bringing opposing opinions together and finding a space that is not necessarily one or the other but a combination.”If parents can choose to opt their children out of subjects that they don’t believe in, she said, “does that also allow for people like Native Americans to opt out of a story about Christopher Columbus or Black families to opt out of what we call American history, which is often unjustly told through the eyes of white men?” Patterson sees it as dangerous for people to not be exposed to ideas that they disagree with, because it makes them singularly informed.In the dissenting opinion of the ruling, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said that the decision “threatens the very essence of a public education”, adding that it “strikes at the core premise of public schools: that children may come together to learn not the teachings of a particular faith, but a range of concepts and views that reflect our entire society”.View image in fullscreenAccording to Farr’s research, schools are an important platform for children to learn how to form their opinions. Exposure to diversity, she said, has been shown to instill children with values of respect and kindness.“The flip side of not exposing kids to diversity, unfortunately, is that the opposite can happen. It might inadvertently increase bias, suggesting that there is only one right way to think or to be in the world,” Farr said, “as opposed to developing an appreciation that there’s a lot of different ways to be in the world, and to express oneself.”Stevenson, the author of Pride Puppy!, a story about a queer family attending a Pride parade, thinks that allowing students to leave the classroom will also make queer families invisible. The ruling “segregates books about queer people, books about families like mine, and treats these books differently from other books, and in so doing, it sends a terribly harmful message to all kids, but particularly to kids who are LGBTQ+ themselves, and kids from LGBTQ+ families”, Stevenson said. “It also has the potential to accelerate this epidemic of book bans that we are already in the midst of.”As the US supreme court deliberated on the case, DeShanna Neal, a Delaware representative and co-author of My Rainbow, worked with their legislative colleagues on a bill to protect book bans in the state of Delaware. In My Rainbow, Neal makes a rainbow-colored wig for their trans daughter, Trinity, to help her express her gender identity. The Freedom to Read Act passed on 30 June, which Neal sees as a sign that they and their colleagues are working to keep the state safe. After it passed, Neal received a text message from a colleague that read: “You will never have to worry about My Rainbow being banned in Delaware.” More
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Ice ‘politically targeted’ farm worker activist Juarez Zeferino, colleagues say
by Evelyn Reynolds 7 July 2025, 11:00
Farm worker activist Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez Zeferino, 25, was driving his partner to her job on a tulip farm north of Seattle one March morning when they were pulled over by an unmarked car. A plainclothes agent for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) emerged and shattered Juarez Zeferino’s front window before handcuffing him, his partner said.The officer drove Juarez Zeferino to a nondescript warehouse – the same one he and other activists had years ago discovered is an unmarked Ice holding facility. After his 25 March detention, dozens gathered outside to demand his release.Instead, he was transferred to the Northwest Ice Processing Center in Tacoma, Washington, where he has been held ever since.Officially, Juarez Zeferino’s arrest was based on a deportation order. But the activist’s detention comes as the Trump administration has launched an aggressive crackdown against its perceived political enemies, including both immigrants and labor organizers.“We believe, no question, that he was a target,” said Rosalinda Guillen, veteran farm worker organizer and founder of Community to Community Development, where Juarez Zeferino volunteered.The young organizer has played an instrumental role in securing protections for Washington farm workers, including strengthened statewide heat protections for outdoor laborers mandating water breaks when temperatures top 80F, enshrined in 2023. In 2021, he and other activists also won a law guaranteeing farm workers overtime pay. And in 2019, advocacy from Juarez Zeferino and other campaigners about exploitation in the H-2A guest worker program prompted Washington to create the nation’s first-ever oversight committee for foreign workers.“He’s a very humble person, very quiet but yet very determined and willing to go to whatever extent to get victory for his people,” said Edgar Franks, political director of Familias Unidas por la Justicia, an independent farm worker union which Juarez Zeferino helped found.His successful track record has earned him renown in labor and immigrant justice circles across the country. Franks believes it also made him a “political target” for Trump.“We just have to look at the record of everybody that has been targeted by the Trump administration, from the students at Columbia to [the detention of immigration activist Jeanette Vizguerra] in Colorado,” he said. “There’s already a track of people that have been targeted to silence them and to make sure that the people that look up to them get silenced.”Reached for comment, the Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, said that allegations of Ice politically targeting Juarez Zeferino were “categorically FALSE”, calling him “an illegal alien from Mexico with a final order of removal from a judge”.“The only thing that makes someone a target of Ice is if they are in the United States illegally,” she said.She said the activist, whom she called “Juan Juarez-Ceferino,” refused to comply with Ice during his arrest, and that officers used the “minimum amount of force necessary to resolve the situation” and protect themselves.In court, a DHS attorney also said Juarez Zeferino was noncompliant during his arrest, and claimed he was a flight risk because he had previously missed a court hearing.His lawyer Larkin VanDerhoef denied that his client was a flight risk, saying he was unaware of his missed court date. In court, he noted that Juarez Zeferino had received dozens of letters, demonstrating that he is a “positive force”.He said Juarez Zeferino complied with the officers who arrested him. “Lelo had opened his window to talk to officers and was asking to see their warrant for his arrest when they smashed his window,” he said, adding that a group of officers from not only Ice, but also border patrol, homeland security investigations, and the Drug Enforcement Administration worked together to arrest him.Juarez Zeferino’s detention has sparked concern among other immigrant workers fighting for better labor conditions, and since his arrest, others have also been detained. In April armed Customs and Border Protection agents raided a Vermont dairy farm and arrested eight immigrant laborers who were involved with a labor rights campaign. Last month, Ice also arrested farm worker leaders in New York.“This is a good strategy to squelch union organizing as well as farm worker advocacy, but it is horrifying to us that some of the people who make the lowest salaries in our country are being deported even as they provide the necessary workforce to keep our country fed,” said Julie Taylor, executive director of the National Farm Worker Ministry, a faith-based organization which supports farm worker organizing.From a traffic stop to a deportation orderJuarez Zeferino was arrested on the grounds of a 2018 deportation order. It stemmed from a 2015 traffic stop by Bellingham, Washington, police officers who then turned him over to Ice.After the stop, Juarez Zeferino – then a minor – was detained for less than 24 hours. He later sued Bellingham and its police department saying that his arrest was the result of racial profiling; the city settled for $100,000.The farm worker activist’s friends and legal counsel said he was unaware of the deportation order, which was mailed to an address Juarez Zeferino provided but then bounced back to the government.“He wasn’t in hiding,” said Franks. “He was out in the open, doing media and serving on city commissions.”His lawyer VanDerhoef successfully had the order reopened in April this year – just one day before Juarez Zeferino was due to be placed on a deportation flight.But in May, an immigration court judge ruled that she had no jurisdiction to grant bond to Juarez Zeferino – a decision VanDerhoef quickly appealed.VanDerhoef said the judge’s ruling was based on an unusual legal interpretation by Tacoma judges, who routinely argue that they lack jurisdiction to issue bonds to immigrants who entered the country without a visa. He signed his client on to a class-action lawsuit focused on the issue.He also filed a motion to terminate the case against his client. In June, a court denied the motion, so the next step will probably be to apply for asylum in the US.“We’re basically weighing what other options he has, what he can apply for,” VanDerhoef said.Aaron Korthuis, an attorney at the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, who is representing Juarez Zeferino in the class-action lawsuit, said he did not doubt the activist was a political target.“A lot of what this administration is doing is attempting to send a message through its arrests [and] through its removals,” he said. “It shouldn’t shock anyone that who they are targeting for arrest is part and parcel of the larger effort to intimidate, exact retribution, and send a message.”VanDerhoef declined to comment on whether or not his client’s arrest was politically motivated, but said it was unsurprising that it had sparked concern about Trump’s immigration policies among other farm workers. “The last thing I want to do is cause any more fear or panic that is already high among immigrant communities,” he said. “But I do think this administration has shown that nothing is off the table when it comes to who they will target and also the tactics they use.”Experts say the Trump administration has violated court norms and ignored court orders in its attacks on immigrants. The president has also made life harder for immigration attorneys, including in a memorandum claiming they engage in “unscrupulous behavior”. And the sheer number of Ice raids conducted under his administration also makes it harder for such lawyers to do their jobs, said VanDerhoef.In the north-east US, Ice arrests have increased so much that officials are “running into space issues”, said VanDerhoef. The immigration prison where Juarez Zeferino is being held has so far exceeded its capacity that some people have been transferred without warning to facilities in Los Angeles and Alaska.The overcrowding also creates challenges when it comes to representation, VanDerhoef said. These days, visitation rooms are often so overbooked that he and other attorneys are facing “half a day waits” to meet with their clients.He worries that attorneys cannot keep up with the increase in Ice arrests. “There are not significantly more lawyers doing this work even though there are significantly more people being detained,” he said.‘Back to the struggle’Guillen, the veteran farm worker organizer, first met Juarez Zeferino in 2013, when he he was a 13-year-old who had recently arrived in the US from Mexico. He was so small that he looked more like he was 11, she said, but he was “a hard worker” and “fierce”.That year, Juarez Zeferino and about 200 workers on a Washington berry farm walked off the job demanding better working conditions and pay. Over the next four years, they organized work stoppages and boycotts, with Juarez Zeferino – who speaks English, Spanish and his native Mixteco – often serving as a spokesperson.In 2017, the workers were granted a union election, resulting in the formation of Familias Unidas por la Justicia, an independent farm worker union representing hundreds of Indigenous farm workers.It’s a “nightmare” organization for Trump, who doesn’t want to see immigrant laborers organized, said Guillen. “These are communities that normally are marginalized, fighting for their rights and winning,” she said.Since Juarez Zeferino’s arrest, calls for his freedom have met with an outpouring of support, Guillen said.“All the legislators know him, and there was immediate support for him in letters and calls,” she said.But she wishes Democrats would do more to fight for workers like him, including by trying to stop Ice arrests within Washington. “Democrats need to be bolder,” she said.Franks agreed, and said workers like Juarez Zeferino should obtain amnesty from Ice.“Just a couple years ago we were essential workers and the heroes but now we’re the terrorists and the criminals,” he said.Asked if she had visited Juarez Zeferino, Guillen said, “I can’t do it.” She worries about his health and wellbeing in the facility.Franks, too, said he was concerned that the “already skinny” Juarez Zeferino will become malnourished while in detention. But when he has visited the young activist, he said he was “trying to keep his spirits up”.“He’s still messing around and joking around,” he said. “And he’s like, ‘when I get out, we’re going to do this, we’re going to do that.’”Asked what is on that to-do list, Franks said Juarez Zeferino wants to be reunited with his family. “And he wants to get back to the struggle,” he said. More
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It was a milestone for progressive education in California. Then it unraveled
by Evelyn Reynolds 7 July 2025, 11:00
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View image in fullscreenIt was celebrated at the time as a major milestone for progressive education. In 2021, California became the first state to make ethnic studies a graduation requirement, mandating all high schools teach the subject by fall 2025.The idea, championed by California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, was to bring modern concepts into the classroom. At its core, ethnic studies, an academic discipline born on California campuses during the civil rights movement, elevates the experiences of historically marginalized groups. Its materials push students to question their biases, reimagine power structures, and think critically about the enduring legacies of colonialism. In California high schools, courses would bring to the fore the experiences of Chicano, Black and Indigenous communities in the state by diving into issues such as gentrification, the impact of pesticides on farm worker communities and the legacies of Indian boarding schools. Many school districts enthusiastically jumped on board.The idea to make ethnic studies part of the curriculum always had its detractors. But it gained significant support after the racial justice protests of 2020. Today, however, ideas that rose to the vanguard of American culture after that period’s uprising have fallen dramatically out of political favor, and ethnic studies is now the center of an acrimonious battle over what constitutes antisemitism – and whether students should be learning about international conflicts, namely the fraught histories of Israel and Palestine – in courses meant to lift up the diverse experiences of Californians. The controversy has resulted in lawsuits and threats to ban certain concepts and materials entirely.In a dramatic heel turn, state legislators earlier this year proposed a bill that would have significantly restricted how the subject could be taught. While the effort faltered, Newsom has since withheld the funding needed for the new course requirement to go into effect by the fall deadline, potentially propelling the initiative toward anticlimactic collapse. In some cases, districts are reeling initiatives back of their own accord; last week San Francisco unified school district announced it would pause the development of its own ethnic studies curriculum following complaints from parents that the material was too progressive.The saga underscores how deeply politics have infiltrated schools, even in a liberal state like California. It also has illuminated a gaping chasm in worldviews that is playing out nationally: what one side views as inclusivity the other views as leftwing indoctrination, and neither side appears willing to compromise. In the crosshairs are American public schools.California is the birthplace of ethnic studies as a discipline.In the late 1960s, as student protests roiled much of the world, students of color at San Francisco State University launched the longest student strike in US history to protest what they viewed as Eurocentrism in education. Among their demands was the establishment of ethnic studies departments that would give voice to marginalized groups.View image in fullscreenThe field’s interdisciplinary philosophies would come to be embraced by universities nationwide, and ethnic studies departments were established at a host of college campuses, including in more conservative states. After the racial reckoning of 2020 that came out of the murder of George Floyd, ideas previously reserved for the halls of universities and the pages of academic books – such as postcolonial theory and intersectionality – entered the public conscience.While 24 states have incorporated some elements of ethnic studies into their K-12 curricula, California lawmakers stand alone in having mandated it as a graduation requirement. In some ways, the most diverse state in the nation, where 60% of the population are people of color, was a natural fit for the requirement. But in hindsight, it’s not clear whether lawmakers understood the radical nature of the concepts they legislated into public school curricula.The policy’s rollout has been rife with disagreements from the beginning, stemming in large part from a spirit of flexibility that has made for murky guidelines.The law required California high schools to have a course available by the fall of 2025 and stated that to graduate, members of the class of 2030 would need a one-semester ethnic studies course on their transcript. That course could take a number of forms, depending on the school’s structure, resources and priorities, explained Tricia Gallagher-Geurtsen, an ethnic studies lecturer at the University of San Diego. A school can write its own course based on the state’s model curriculum or use one that has been pre-approved by the University of California system. And while most ethnic studies classes are categorized as history or English courses, there is nothing to stop a school from designating a math course as its ethnic studies prerequisite. “It could be a statistics course that looks into measuring racial inequities,” Gallagher-Geurtsen said.Ultimately, legislators left the development of curricula up to individual schools and teachers who weren’t necessarily trained in ethnic studies, which is a discipline with strict theoretical parameters. This lack of clarity has resulted in experimentation, disagreement and, in some cases, heated animosity, on the ground.In 2019, before the subject was made mandatory, the state released its first draft of an ethnic studies model curriculum that teachers could voluntarily incorporate or adapt for local school board approval. The model text, which was created with input from an 18-member committee of hired academic experts from universities around California, focused on the four populations considered by ethnic studies experts to be the driving force of the discipline in the US: Black, Chicano and Latino, Asian American and Pacific Islander, and American Indian and Native American.View image in fullscreen“This is how ethnic studies categorizes itself,” explained Gallagher-Geurtsen. “[It] centers racialized groups of color first.”Different groups were upset about it for various reasons, but there was recurring protest over the model text’s representation of Israel as a colonial oppressor state: a characterization that academics in the field say is central to ethnic studies as a discipline. That drew protests from Jewish groups that criticized the material’s failure to address antisemitism. Rightwing advocacy organizations also accused the text of promoting a leftwing agenda grounded in critical race theory, objecting, for example, to its claim that the “war on drugs” was fundamentally racist.The curriculum was ultimately rejected by the California board of education, and a new committee was brought in to draft more politically palatable guidelines that were “free of bias”.When that happened, Ndindi Kitonga, an ethnic studies lecturer at California State University, Long Beach and founder of an alternative school in Los Angeles, grew concerned that the new panel lacked direction from experts trained in the academic discipline. She wanted to make sure that the guidelines sent to classrooms reflected topics that are fundamental to the academic field – such as resistance to oppression and solidarity across social movements – rather than the priorities of policymakers. On those points, the discipline cannot compromise, Kitonga and other ethnic studies scholars emphasized.So Kitonga, along with fellow academics and activists in the field, decided to make material of their own for teachers to use. Independent of the state, they designed sample ethnic studies lesson plans for teachers to access free of charge online. The lessons are organized into units themed around the four groups of focus, and primarily focus on teaching hyper-local histories. Students are encouraged to learn about how phenomena such as gentrification have unfolded in their own neighborhoods, for instance, and to visit local archives.But the materials also make connections between the experiences of marginalized groups in America and those of oppressed groups around the globe, including Palestinians.In a slide from a model lesson plan focused on contemporary Arab American identities and experiences, for instance, images showing the loss of land belonging to Indigenous groups in the US is pictured alongside images showing shrinking Palestinian territory in the century that followed the 1917 Balfour Declaration, through which Britain voiced support for the establishment of a Jewish state in the region. Students are invited to draw comparisons between the two histories.View image in fullscreenKitonga and her colleagues called the initiative the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium – “liberated”, that is, from legislators’ interests.The response from teachers in the two dozen districts that have adopted curricula designed by the consortium has been positive, said Gallagher-Geurtsen, who helped found the consortium. “It affirms who students are and recognizes their experiences in a deeper way than any curriculum ever has,” she said. “Teachers have said it’s the most rewarding teaching they’ve ever done in their lives.”Research shows that teaching ethnic studies raises grades and test scores for students of all backgrounds across all subjects, increases graduation rates, and improves relations and understanding across races and ethnicities. And for Kitonga, the controversy distracts from those benefits.“That’s never talked about in the news,” she said.Instead, headlines have been drawn to accusations of antisemitism in ethnic studies classrooms.Across the state, groups of concerned parents have sued school districts, alleging that teachers have exposed students to antisemitic material and ideas in ethnic studies lessons that characterize Israel’s actions towards Palestine as an example of colonial oppression and genocide. While these accusations predated the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023 and Israel’s subsequent bombing campaigns in Gaza, the frequency and intensity of tensions have mounted since.In LA, parents lost a suit claiming that teachers who identified as Zionist felt unwelcome in ethnic studies classrooms; in San Jose, an ongoing suit alleges that an ethnic studies teacher characterized Jews and Israelis as oppressors and “exploitative capitalists”, leading Jewish students to be be ostracized and harassed; and in Santa Ana, the school district settled with Jewish parents and community members who claimed to have been deliberately excluded from public discussions in which curricula were developed and approved – a violation of the state’s Brown Act, which demands open legislative meetings.View image in fullscreenRachel Lerman, vice-chair of the Louis D Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, which filed claims on behalf of plaintiffs in the Santa Ana and Sequoia cases, claims that parents in Santa Ana were refused access to class materials after directly approaching schools and teachers, and that school board members considered holding meetings on Passover, a major Jewish holiday, so that Jewish community members could not attend.Lerman said the deliberate exclusion of the Jewish community from civic discourse is both antisemitic and directly harms Jewish kids. “It leads to bullying of Jewish students, to the exclusion of Jewish students from school clubs,” she said, adding that she had spoken with many Jewish parents who have elected to take their children out of local public schools, citing antisemitism.But advocates – as well as school districts and even courts – have pushed back, arguing that criticizing power structures, including foreign governments, drives ethnic studies and is not discriminatory. Last year, a Palo Alto school district rejected parents’ claims that its ethnic studies course was politically radical, while a judge threw out the case brought against LA ethnic studies educators on the grounds that “learning about Israel and Palestine” does not constitute “injury”.Teachers have pushed back, too. In April, Chloe Gentile-Montgomery, a Bay Area ethnic studies teacher who was placed on leave for allegedly including antisemitic material in a slideshow concerning Israel and Palestine, sued her former school district. Gentile-Montgomery claims racial discrimination and failure on the part of her employer to protect her from harassment from students and parents. While other teachers in the district taught about Israel and Palestine without consequence, Gentile-Montgomery, who is Black, was “singled out” and targeted, according to the lawsuit.Asserting that she has seen no convincing evidence of prejudice levied against ethnic studies educators, Gallagher-Geurtsen said that these incidents are examples of antisemitism being conflated with criticisms against a foreign government – with the latter being a perfectly acceptable exercise for high schoolers to undertake, she said.“Curriculum that makes you feel uncomfortable does not violate your rights,” she said.In some ways, the fight against ethnic studies is a story very specific to California. In others, it’s a microcosm of trends playing out on a national stage: polarization, censorship, and a cultural and political retreat from progressive ideas, especially in education.Those divisions have only been exacerbated since the war in Gaza and Donald Trump’s return to office. Since the 7 October attacks, the US Department of Education has investigated at least 40 K-12 schools for discrimination and antisemitism. Under Trump, the assault on educational institutions has escalated dramatically with antisemitism investigations against dozens of universities and a dramatic campaign against the academic independence of schools such as Harvard and Columbia.In California, a group of state lawmakers have tried to address what they describe as an unbridled course mandate that has given teachers too much leeway, paving the way for antisemitism to enter the classroom.“School districts have proceeded with content that isn’t appropriate for all kids and [that is] antisemitic,” said assembly member Rick Chavez Zbur.Zbur and fellow assembly member Dawn Addis co-authored Assembly Bill 1468, which proposed more stringent oversight over how the subject would be taught and the restriction of material to “domestic” experiences. The bill was pulled by its authors last month and replaced with a new bill focused on targeting antisemitism in schools.Zbur, a Democrat, is adamant that his critiques and policy aims have nothing to do with events at the national level. “This is completely separate,” he said. “I wouldn’t even put this in the bucket of things that the federal administration is focusing on.”Academics and policy experts see things differently. To them, ethnic studies is becoming another flashpoint term with academic origins – not unlike critical race theory (CRT) – being used to quash the teaching of subjects like colonialism and racism.“It’s using the language of civil rights to go against civil rights,” said Rachel Perera, a fellow at the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution. “It all seems very similar to trends we’ve seen nationally.”Ben Olinsky, senior vice-president of structural reform and governance at the Center for American Progress, echoed her point. “You have to view all this within a much broader push to censor opposing voices by Trump and folks on the right.”The ethnic studies drama also builds on trends that first emerged during pandemic-era lockdowns and the racial reckoning that followed the murder of George Floyd. Many parents saw what their children were learning in school over Zoom and were unhappy about the content. Rightwing politicians have seized on this, turning what began as local cultural disagreements into a “parents’ rights” movement that seeks to mute the discussion of certain topics – such as race and gender – in schools.“Rightwing groups have a stranglehold on our electeds,” said Gallagher-Geurtsen, claiming the California lawsuits were the product of a rightwing political engine intent on quashing free speech and weakening anti-racist efforts. “This is precisely the moment to step up and show white nationalists that they will not win.”When it comes to the Jewish parents’ antisemitism allegations, she rejects them out of hand. “Are you referring to white supremacist folks who don’t want us talking about race and racism?” she asked.Lerman, who represents Jewish families in several lawsuits, paints a very different picture – one in which progressive parents who want to protect their kids from harassment are being cornered and maligned as hateful racists. In reference to parents who have moved schools as a result of the conflict, she said: “These are liberals who went to live there because they believed in living in a diverse society, because they’ve upheld civil rights for so long, and suddenly their children are being bullied and humiliated and put in a position that’s just untenable,” she said.It is unclear whether there is a middle ground in this battle of opposing worldviews, where each side is convinced the other is perpetuating harmful and discriminatory ideas.The result of such rancor is that the quality of public education goes down, experts say. Teachers, fearing retribution, are silenced or leave the profession entirely; parents with means move their kids to private schools; and school districts see much-needed funding disappear. “These events are going to shape how educators talk about and teach these topics that they know are politically contentious,” said Perera.Perera thinks that the dissolution of America’s public school system, which shapes the minds of 80% of the nation’s K-12 students, is a goal of the Trump administration’s war on education. “That’s the endgame: to dismantle the public education system by sowing distrust and creating poor experiences.”Experts also fear that the infighting and its focus on Israeli politics distracts from what they see as a very real, and growing, threat of antisemitism, especially on the right. “It is really hard to take Trump and his administration seriously on this issue when one of his senior advisers gave a Nazi salute and they seek to weaponize the label of antisemitism to silence protected free speech on campuses,” said Olinsky.Added Kitonga: “Antisemitism is a real and scary phenomenon. Coming for ethnic studies will not resolve any bit of it.” More
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in US Politics
Trump takes on the Fed – but he has little power over central bank, economists say
by Evelyn Reynolds 7 July 2025, 11:00
For months, Donald Trump has ranted on social media and, at one point, threatened to fire the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell. Last week, he took on a new, unusual tactic: a handwritten note.“You have cost the USA a fortune and continue to do so. You should lower the rate – by a lot!” Trump wrote to Powell, whom he calls “Too Late” in one of his less compelling nicknames.That Trump has targeted the Fed isn’t surprising. In the midst of Trump’s trade war, consumers and business owners alike have expressed anxiety about the economy. The stock market tanked in April, when the president announced the highest of his tariffs, and only went on the upswing when he pulled back the bulk of his levies.The Fed has the ability to sway the US economy through its ability to adjust interest rates. When rates are high, as they have been for the last few years, borrowing money becomes more expensive. This means higher rates for mortgages, business loans, credit card debt and more. People are less likely to invest when interest rates are high, which can slow activity in the economy. The Fed lowering interest rates would excite investors and spur economic activity, but the price could be steep in the long run.But how much sway does Trump really have over the Fed?While Trump’s aggression toward the Fed, particularly his personal attacks against Powell, are a remarkable departure from the relationship a US president typically has with the Fed, economists say the structure of the central bank limits the amount of power Trump actually has – at least in the short term.Historically, the Fed has been a nonpartisan, independent central bank within the federal government. Economists have found that countries without central banks are prone to high inflation and unemployment.“A central bank’s independence is pretty much the only thing macroeconomists know of that’s a free lunch,” said Jason Furman, a former economic adviser to Barack Obama. “When you look at authoritarian leaders that have effectively taken over the central banks, like in Turkey, you can end up with 70% inflation rates and really, really big economic problems.”In late June, Trump told reporters that he has zeroed in on “three or four people who I’m going to pick” to replace Powell. When the treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, whose name has been floated, was asked if he would take the job, Bessent said: “I will do what the president wants.”That the White House is already talking about replacing Powell almost a year out from the end of his term has raised concerns that a new appointee would act as Trump’s “shadow chair”, or someone who has power over Powell before he leaves office.But those familiar with the Fed’s structure say that a powerful “shadow chair” is unlikely, especially since the Fed’s structure encourages consensus among its leaders.When setting interest rates, the Fed chair doesn’t act alone. The chair is one of 12 members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), which meets eight times a year to vote on any adjustments to the interest rate.The amount of control Trump has over who gets on to the FOMC is limited. The committee has seven Fed governors who serve 14-year terms. Those governors are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. The other five members are presidents of regional Federal Reserve banks, who are selected within the Federal Reserve system.During the next four years, because of upcoming term limits, Trump will have the ability to appoint two of the 12 members of the FOMC – what would be a small fraction of the committee.“They’re going to have a hard time persuading other people on the committee to go along with anything like what Trump wants,” Furman said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionRyan Sweet, chief US economist for Oxford Economics, said that Fed governors on the FOMC already voice dissenting views on the economy in public, but come together to form a consensus during their meetings.“It’s built [into the Fed] that they go into a meeting and they’ve got to come to a consensus on what the outcome is,” Sweet said.And even though Trump may want to replace Powell before his term is up, the supreme court signaled that the president can’t constitutionally fire him. Sweet pointed out that the court’s preemptive protection of the Fed chair has likely soothed stock markets, which had gone into a panic when Trump first threatened to oust Powell.Powell, whom Trump first appointed in 2018, has publicly resisted the president’s efforts to sway the Fed. He has said he would not step down if Trump asks and has said the Fed will not lower interest rates prematurely, at risk of raising inflation.In his most pointed statement against Trump’s economic policies, Powell said that the Fed paused interest rate cuts “when we saw the size of the tariffs”.“Essentially all inflation forecasts for the United States went up materially as a consequence of tariffs,” Powell said. “We didn’t overreact, in fact we didn’t react at all.” This article was amended on 7 July 2025. Powell said the Fed paused interest rate cuts due to Trump’s tariffs, not interest rate increases. More
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The Trump administration pushed out a university president – its latest bid to close the American mind | Robert Reich
by Evelyn Reynolds 7 July 2025, 10:00
Under pressure from the Trump administration, the University of Virginia’s president of nearly seven years, James Ryan, stepped down on Friday, declaring that while he was committed to the university and inclined to fight, he could not in good conscience push back just to save his job.The Department of Justice demanded that Ryan resign in order to resolve an investigation into whether UVA had sufficiently complied with Donald Trump’s orders banning diversity, equity and inclusion.UVA dissolved its DEI office in March, though Trump’s lackeys claim the university didn’t go far enough in rooting out DEI.This is the first time the Trump regime has pushed for the resignation of a university official. It’s unlikely to be the last.On Monday, the Trump regime said Harvard University had violated federal civil rights law over the treatment of Jewish students on campus.On Tuesday, the regime released $175m in previously frozen federal funding to the University of Pennsylvania, after the school agreed to bar transgender athletes from women’s teams and delete the swimmer Lia Thomas’s records.Let’s be clear: DEI, antisemitism and transgender athletes are not the real reasons for these attacks on higher education. They’re excuses to give the Trump regime power over America’s colleges and universities.Why do Trump and his lackeys want this power?They’re following Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán’s playbook for creating an “illiberal democracy” – an authoritarian state masquerading as a democracy. The playbook goes like this:First, take over military and intelligence operations by purging career officers and substituting ones personally loyal to you. Check.Next, intimidate legislators by warning that if they don’t bend to your wishes, you’ll run loyalists against them. (Make sure they also worry about what your violent supporters could do to them and their families.) Check.Next, subdue the courts by ignoring or threatening to ignore court rulings you disagree with. Check in process.Then focus on independent sources of information. Sue media that publish critical stories and block their access to news conferences and interviews. Check.Then go after the universities.Crapping on higher education is also good politics, as demonstrated by the congresswoman Elise Stefanik (Harvard 2006) who browbeat the presidents of Harvard, University of Pennsylvania and MIT over their responses to student protests against Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, leading to several of them being fired.It’s good politics, because many of the 60% of adult Americans who lack college degrees are stuck in lousy jobs. Many resent the college-educated, who lord it over them economically and culturally.But behind this cultural populism lies a deeper anti-intellectual, anti-Enlightenment ideology closer to fascism than authoritarianism.JD Vance (Yale Law 2013) has called university professors “the enemy” and suggested using Orbán’s method for ending “leftwing domination” of universities. Vance laid it all out on CBS’s Face the Nation on 19 May 2024:
Universities are controlled by leftwing foundations. They’re not controlled by the American taxpayer and yet the American taxpayer is sending hundreds of billions of dollars to these universities every single year.
I’m not endorsing every single thing that Viktor Orbán has ever done [but] I do think that he’s made some smart decisions there that we could learn from.
His way has to be the model for us: not to eliminate universities, but to give them a choice between survival or taking a much less biased approach to teaching. [The government should be] aggressively reforming institutions … in a way to where they’re much more open to conservative ideas.”
Yet what, exactly, constitutes a “conservative idea?” That dictatorship is preferable to democracy? That white Christian nationalism is better than tolerance and openness? That social Darwinism is superior to human decency?The claim that higher education must be more open to such “conservative ideas” is dangerous drivel.So what’s the real, underlying reason for the Trump regime’s attack on education?Not incidentally, that attack extends to grade school. Trump’s education department announced on Tuesday it’s withholding $6.8bn in funding for schools, and Trump has promised to dismantle the department.Why? Because the greatest obstacle to dictatorship is an educated populace. Ignorance is the handmaiden of tyranny.That’s why enslavers prohibited enslaved people from learning to read. Fascists burn books. Tyrants close universities.In their quest to destroy democracy, Trump, Vance and their cronies are intent on shutting the American mind.
Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com More
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Donald Trump calls Elon Musk’s new political party ‘ridiculous’ and says Tesla owner is ‘off the rails’ – US politics live
by Evelyn Reynolds 7 July 2025, 09:44
Welcome to our live coverage of US politics and the second Trump administration.Donald Trump has hit out at Elon Musk’s decision to start and bankroll a new US political party that the tech billionaire believes can offer a viable alternative to the Democrats and Republicans.Speaking to reporters before boarding Air Force One yesterday, the US president said:
I think it’s ridiculous to start a third party. It’s always been a two-party system and I think starting a third party just adds to the confusion.
Shortly after speaking about his former ally, Trump posted further comments on his Truth Social platform, writing:
I am saddened to watch Elon Musk go completely ‘off the rails,’ essentially becoming a TRAIN WRECK over the past five weeks.
Trump and Musk were formerly close allies, with the Tesla boss and X owner appointed to slash federal spending through the unofficial Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) from January through May.Musk fell out with the Republican president over his sprawling tax and spending plan, signed into law on Friday, which is expected to add at least $3 trillion (£2.2 trillion) to the US’s already huge $37tn (£27tn) debt pile. Musk has argued that the bill, which he has described as “utterly insane and destructive”, would irresponsibly add to the US national debt.Musk, the world’s richest person, posted on X over the weekend that he had set up the America Party to challenge the Republican and Democratic “Uniparty”. The details of the structure of the new venture or a timeline for its creation are still unclear.But some of his social media posts suggests the new political party would focus on two or three Senate seats, and eight to 10 House districts.We will have more on this and other US politics stories throughout the day so stick with us.Donald Trump has said his administration plans to start sending letters on Monday to US trade partners dictating new tariffs, amid confusion over when the new rates will come into effect.“It could be 12, maybe 15 [letters],” the president told reporters, “and we’ve made deals also, so we’re going to have a combination of letters and some deals have been made.”With his previously announced 90-day pause on tariffs set to end on 9 July, the president was asked if the new rates would come into effect this week or on 1 August, as some officials had suggested.“No, there are going to be tariffs, the tariffs, the tariffs are going to be, the tariffs,” the president began uncertainly. “I think we’ll have most countries done by July 9, yeah. Either a letter or a deal.”Sensing the confusion, his commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, jumped in to add: “But they go into effect on August 1. Tariffs go into effect August 1, but the president is setting the rates and the deals right now.”You can read the full story, by my colleagues Robert Mackey, Lauren Almeida and Lisa O’Carroll, here:The US is extremely mindful of BRICS’ economic might and its growing influence on the diplomatic stage. The group, often described as the developing world’s alternative to the G7 group of nations, has undergone a recent rapid expansion.BRICS was founded by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, but the group last year expanded to include Indonesia, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and the UAE.Some of its members have denounced US tariff policies and have suggested reforms to how major currencies are valued.The group pushes for greater representation for emerging economies and thinks western countries have a disproportionate influence on global organisations like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.In other news, Donald Trump has widened his trade war after saying the US will impose an additional 10% tariff on any countries aligning themselves with the “anti-American policies” of the BRICS group of developing nations that include China and Russia.Trump wrote on social media:
Any country aligning themselves with the Anti-American policies of BRICS, will be charged an ADDITIONAL 10% tariff. There will be no exceptions to this policy.
His comments came after a joint Sunday statement from the opening of the BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro in which the group warned the rise in tariffs threatened global trade, continuing its veiled criticism of Trump’s erratic tariff policies.Since his return to the White House, Trump has announced a series of steep import taxes on foreign goods, arguing they will protect American jobs and the US manufacturing industry.In April, in line with this protectionist view, Trump announced a 10% base tariff rate on most countries and additional duties ranging up to 50%, although he later delayed the effective date for all but 10% duties until 9 July.The negotiating window until 9 July has led to announced deals only with the UK and Vietnam. You can read more on Trump’s tariff threat in our business live blog.My colleagues Richard Luscombe and Robert Mackey have a little more detail about how the feud between the world’s richest man and the world’s most powerful man has recently escalated. Here is an extract from their story:
When the pair fell out earlier in the summer, Musk lashed out during an astonishing social media duel in which he stated Trump’s name was in the files relating to associates of the late pedophile and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
Musk later deleted the post and apologized to the president as they embarked on an uneasy truce. On Sunday, however, Musk returned to the subject, reposting a photo of the jailed Epstein facilitator Ghislaine Maxwell that questioned why she was the only person in prison while men who engaged in sex with underage girls – a crime colloquially known in the US as statutory rape – were not.
In other posts he said it would be “not hard” to break the two-party stranglehold in US politics enjoyed by Democrats and Republicans…
Trump has made clear his feelings about his former friend in recent days after criticism of the bill. In response to Musk’s posts calling the bill “insane”, Trump said he might “look into” deporting the South African-born, naturalized US citizen billionaire.
Welcome to our live coverage of US politics and the second Trump administration.Donald Trump has hit out at Elon Musk’s decision to start and bankroll a new US political party that the tech billionaire believes can offer a viable alternative to the Democrats and Republicans.Speaking to reporters before boarding Air Force One yesterday, the US president said:
I think it’s ridiculous to start a third party. It’s always been a two-party system and I think starting a third party just adds to the confusion.
Shortly after speaking about his former ally, Trump posted further comments on his Truth Social platform, writing:
I am saddened to watch Elon Musk go completely ‘off the rails,’ essentially becoming a TRAIN WRECK over the past five weeks.
Trump and Musk were formerly close allies, with the Tesla boss and X owner appointed to slash federal spending through the unofficial Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) from January through May.Musk fell out with the Republican president over his sprawling tax and spending plan, signed into law on Friday, which is expected to add at least $3 trillion (£2.2 trillion) to the US’s already huge $37tn (£27tn) debt pile. Musk has argued that the bill, which he has described as “utterly insane and destructive”, would irresponsibly add to the US national debt.Musk, the world’s richest person, posted on X over the weekend that he had set up the America Party to challenge the Republican and Democratic “Uniparty”. The details of the structure of the new venture or a timeline for its creation are still unclear.But some of his social media posts suggests the new political party would focus on two or three Senate seats, and eight to 10 House districts.We will have more on this and other US politics stories throughout the day so stick with us. More

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