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      Trump’s defense pick reportedly paid sexual assault accuser but denies claims

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      Peter Hegseth, the military veteran, Fox & Friends chat host and Donald Trump’s pick to head the department of defense, reportedly paid a woman who accused him of sexual assault – an encounter that he insists was consensual.According to the Washington Post, the unnamed woman was paid an unknown sum after signing a nondisclosure agreement.In a statement to the outlet, Hegseth’s attorney said that Hegseth was “visibly intoxicated” at the time of the incident and police who had looked into the woman’s claim had concluded that “the complainant had been the aggressor in the encounter.”In the statement, Hegseth lawyer Timothy Parlatore said his client had agreed to pay an undisclosed amount to the woman because he feared that revelation of the matter “would result in his immediate termination from Fox”.The claim against Hegseth came to light this week after a friend of the accuser supplied the Trump transition team with “a detailed memo” outlining the claim that Hegseth sexually assaulted a 30-year-old conservative group staffer in his room after drinking at a Monterey, California, hotel bar in October 2017.Hegseth was a speaker at a conference of the California Federation of Republican Women conference when the encounter that led to the investigation took place. Police have said a complaint was filed four days after the alleged encounter, and the complainant had bruises to her thigh.Hegseth made a payment to the woman after she threatened litigation in 2020, his attorney confirmed.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Mr Hegseth is completely innocent,” Parlatore said. “Not only did she take advantage of him, but we believe she then extorted him knowing that at the height of the #MeToo movement the mere public allegation would likely result in his immediate termination from Fox News.”Earlier this week, after the claim was revealed Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said “Hegseth has vigorously denied any and all accusations, and no charges were filed. We look forward to his confirmation as United States Secretary of Defense so he can get started on Day One to Make America Safe and Great Again.”Hegseth’s path to Senate confirmation has been complicated over concerns about his inexperience and extreme views. More

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      Musk publicly supports Lutnick for treasury secretary as Trump considers pick

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      Elon Musk has publicly weighed in on Donald Trump’s choice for US treasury secretary, one of the remaining key incoming cabinet nominations the president-elect will make in the coming days.Musk urged followers on X to support a candidate that would not be “business as usual” and “will actually enact change” as he threw his support behind Trump’s transition co-chair Howard Lutnick to lead the treasury department.Lutnick, former CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, a firm that lost 658 employees in the 9/11 attacks, is believed to be up against Scott Bessent, the founder of capital management firm Key Square who has said he wants the US to remain the world’s reserve currency and use tariffs as a negotiating tactic.“My view fwiw is that Bessent is a business-as-usual choice, whereas @howardlutnick will actually enact change,” Musk posted on Saturday. “Business-as-usual is driving America bankrupt, so we need change one way or another.”Musk urged his followers to “weigh in on this for Donald Trump to consider feedback”.Lutnick told the Wall Street Journal recently that whomever Trump hires will “be loyal to the policies of the president”, telling the outlet: “For my whole life I was a fiscal conservative, social liberal … The Democratic Party moved away from me.”Both Lutnick and Bessent are supportive of Trump’s trade tariff polices, a tactic he used against China during his first term. “Tariffs are a means to finally stand up for Americans,” Bessent wrote in an op-ed on Fox News on Friday.But both candidates argue that lowering taxes would offset the higher import costs and promote economic growth.But some economists have warned that tariffs could weaken growth, boost inflation and lower employment. A recent paper by the Peterson Institute for International Economics predicted inflation would climb to at least 6% by 2026, and consumer prices would be 20% higher over the next four years.Musk’s intervention in the battle between Lutnick and Bessent for the key post – one who advises the president on economic and fiscal matters, including spending and taxes – comes amid anxiety over the space and transport entrepreneur’s proximity to Trump.Musk, the world’s wealthiest person, is set to co-chair an advisory department, the department of government efficiency, or Doge, in the new administration to cut departments and reduce as much as $2tn wasteful federal spending.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAccording to the Washington Post, some in Trump’s circle expressed surprise that Musk would weigh in on the choice of treasury secretary. “People are not happy,” one said, according to the outlet, adding that Musk was acting as a “co-president”.Musk, who spent more than $100m in support of Trump’s campaign, has been a near constant presence around the president-elect, including sitting in with Trump on a call with Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.On Saturday, Musk appeared to mock Zelenskyy’s claim Ukraine is an independent country that could not be forced to the negotiating table with Russia, posting on X that the Ukrainian leader’s “sense of humor is amazing”.Musk and Trump later on Saturday sat together ringside at New York’s Madison Square Garden, site of a widely-criticized pre-election rally, for a UFC title fight. Alongside them were house speaker Mike Johnson, Robert F Kennedy Jr, Joe Rogan, Tulsi Gabbard, and Vivek Ramaswamy, who is set to head Doge with Musk. More

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      Experts sound alarm as Trump mulls pardons for January 6 attackers

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      lf Donald Trump follows through on his promise to pardon people who participated in the January 6 riot at the US Capitol, attorneys and lawmakers who oppose such moves would not be able to stop him, according to legal experts.If Trump does issue the pardons, it could indicate to many of his supporters that there was nothing illegal about the riot to prevent the peaceful transfer of power, and would undermine the US constitution, the experts said.“It gives the message that Trump decides what is and is not actionable under the criminal laws of the United States,” said Kimberly Wehle, a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law who has studied constitutional law and the separation of powers.Trump, who has not conceded that he lost the 2020 presidential election, described the insurrection as a “day of love” and calls the rioters “unbelievable patriots”. Those people, however, damaged the Capitol; injured about 140 police officers – four officers who responded have also since died by suicide – and the FBI declared it an act of “domestic terrorism”.The federal government has filed criminal charges against more than 1,500 people. More than 1,000 people have pleaded guilty or been found guilty. The FBI is also still searching for people who allegedly participated in the attack.During his campaign, Trump said that issuing “full pardons with an apology to many” would be a top priority.Presidents issuing pardons is nothing new, and they are allowed to do so under the constitution. The long list includes President George Washington, who issued a presidential pardon in 1795 to people engaged in Pennsylvania’s Whiskey Rebellion; President Gerald Ford, who gave his predecessor, Richard Nixon, “a full, free, and absolute pardon” for crimes he committed as president; and President Bill Clinton, who pardoned Marc Rich, a fugitive financier who fled the United States after his indictment.“There are many parties that could be criticized historically by those who think that someone was not deserving of that type of dispensation,” said Mary McCord, a former federal prosecutor who is executive director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection.“The difference here is we are talking about over 1,500 people whose efforts, individually and collectively, were not just violent … [they] also were done with the intent to prevent Congress from certifying the electoral college ballots and thereby override the will of the voters.”Since Trump’s election, people convicted of crimes because of their actions on January 6 have said they look forward to pardons. Attorneys for defendants who have not been sentenced have also asked judges to delay court proceedings because of Trump’s pledges to abandon criminal prosecutions.Among those expressing excitement was Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, a security guard at a naval base who was one of the first people to enter the Capitol. He was convicted of obstructing an official proceeding and was sentenced to four years in prison.Hale-Cusanelli also expressed support for Hitler and spoke at Trump’s golf club in New Jersey as part of a fundraiser for January 6 defendants, National Public Radio reported.Trump delivered a video message to attenders in which he called them “amazing patriots”.“I spent three years behind bars for protesting against Biden’s rigged election,” said Hale-Cusanelli, who had previously expressed remorse for his actions, the Washington Post reported. “I waited patiently for this day … All my dudes from the Gulag are coming home from prison … We were innocent on January 6 and we’re still innocent!”Prosecutors, judges and lawmakers would not be able to prevent Trump from taking such actions because article 2 of the constitution gives presidents the right to pardon all “offenses against the United States”, except cases of impeachment.The supreme court gave the president additional authority in July when it ruled in a case concerning Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election that presidents enjoy substantial immunity for actions that fall within the scope of the office’s “core constitutional powers”.That would probably give the president immunity even if he provided a pardon in exchange for a bribe, Wehle said. The court ruled that “any crime that the president commits using official power is above the law and said very specifically that the pardon power is core, so you can’t look into a reason for the pardon”.Still, there is also the chance that public opinion could influence Trump. While Trump resoundingly defeated Kamala Harris, only a third of Americans support such pardons, according to a recent YouGov and Economist survey. About a quarter of Republicans oppose the pardons.During the campaign, a spokesperson said Trump would consider pardoning January 6 defendants on a “case-by-case basis when he is back in the White House”.McCord argued that most people who voted for Trump did so for economic reasons rather than the January 6 issues.“There is nothing in the polling I have seen to suggest that the majority of those who voted for Trump did so because of his campaign promises of political prosecutions and pardons for the January 6 attackers,” McCord said.If Trump follows through on his promise to pardon the rioters, he could later face consequences, including impeachment by Congress, said Jeffrey Crouch, an American University assistant professor and expert on federal executive clemency.“There may be political consequences for the president or their political party at the ballot box,” Crouch said. “Plus, the president always needs to keep the judgment of history in mind.”Wehle said she was more concerned about some of Trump’s other recent moves, like demanding the Senate allow recess appointments, which would mean he could install officials without the lawmakers’ confirmation, and Elon Musk joining Trump’s call with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky.Wehle said: “With Republican sycophants willing to sell out the entire constitution and democracy, which seems to be Donald Trump’s unabashed, unmitigated, publicly stated plan, we’re in very deep water right now on the question of whether our system of government will survive the next four years.” More

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      Haitian immigrants flee Springfield, Ohio, in droves after Trump election win

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      From a tiny office behind a Haitian grocery store on Springfield’s South Limestone Street, Margery Koveleski has spent years helping local Haitians overcome bureaucratic red tape to make their lives in the Ohio city a little bit easier.But Koveleski – whose family is Haitian – has noticed a major change recently.Haitians are now coming to her to figure out how to leave.“Some folks don’t have credit cards or access to the internet, and they want to buy a bus ticket or a plane ticket, so we help them book a flight,” she told the Guardian recently. “People are leaving.”Koveleski, leaders in Springfield’s Haitian community, and others have relayed reports of Haitians fleeing the city of 60,000 people in recent days for fear of being rounded up and deported after Donald Trump’s victory in the 5 November presidential election.“The owner of one store is wondering if he should move back to New York or to Chicago – he says his business is way down,” Koveleski remarked.Trump has repeatedly said he would end immigrants’ temporary protected status (TPS) – the provision through which many Haitians are legally allowed to live and work in the US – and deport Haitians from Springfield once in office.For many, the threats are real.A sheriff in Sidney, a town 40 miles (64km) north-west of Springfield that is home to several dozen Haitian immigrants, allegedly told local police in September to “get a hold of these people and arrest them”.“Bring them – I’ll figure out if they’re legal,” he said, referencing Haitian immigrants in the area.As Jacob Payen, a co-founder of the Haitian Community Alliance who runs a business that includes helping Haitians in Springfield to file tax returns, said: “People are fully aware of the election result, and that is why they are leaving; they are afraid of a mass deportation.“Several of my customers have left. One guy with his family went to New Jersey; others have gone to Boston. I know three families that have gone to Canada.”Some are thought to have moved to nearby cities such as Dayton, where they believe they would be less visible to law enforcement. Others who had temporary asylum in Brazil are pondering going back to the South American country, community leaders say.Springfield’s Haitian community has been in the spotlight since Trump falsely accused immigrants here of eating pets during a presidential debate in September. Since then, the city has seen false bomb threats and marches by neo-Nazi groups after having experienced a revival in recent years in large part because of Haitians who took jobs in local produce packaging and machining factories that many previously there found undesirable.Unofficial results from the presidential election found that Trump beat Harris by fewer than 150 votes in Springfield despite his making false claims about immigrants in the Ohio city a cornerstone of his anti-immigration election campaign.A policy that has been around since 1990, the TPS program currently sees more than 800,000 immigrants who have fled conflict or humanitarian emergencies in 16 countries to live and work legally in the US for a limited time. About 300,000 Haitians fleeing widespread violence in the Caribbean country have been authorized to remain in the US through TPS until at least 3 February 2026.But while it once enjoyed support from both sides of the political aisle, Trump’s first term saw a California court rule in 2020 that his administration could end TPS for citizens of Haiti and three other countries.TPS is granted – and often renewed – by the secretary of homeland security. On Tuesday, reports emerged that Trump had chosen to give the post to the South Dakota governor, Kristi Noem, who has deployed state national guard troops to the US-Mexico border several times in recent years.Trump’s deportation threats are happening at a time when Haiti is experiencing renewed violence from politically connected gangs. The country’s main airport in Port-au-Prince has been closed periodically and was shuttered again on Tuesday after gunfire hit a commercial passenger airplane flying in from the US. That was the second time since October that gunfire had hit an aircraft over Haiti.Though Trump may ultimately succeed in ending TPS for some immigrants, some legal experts believe that is unlikely to happen during the early days of his administration after his second presidency begins on 20 January.“There’s a fear among the Haitian community that TPS is going to end on 20 January, and I don’t think that is very likely for a number of reasons,” said Katie Kersh, a senior attorney at the non-profit law firm Advocates for Basic Legal Equality.“The strain any deportation effort would place on an already stretched immigration court system would be significant.”Even if the program was ended, Kersh says, current law allows for a court hearing that could take months or years to take place. Similarly, immigrants who have asylum applications filed also have an opportunity to have that application heard.By ending TPS, Trump could in fact make the issue of undocumented immigration even worse.“TPS provides employment authorization and a right to reside in the US, so when a TPS grant ends, the people who have it immediately lose employment authorization unless another status which provides it is available to them,” said Ahilan Arulanantham of UCLA’s School of Law, who was among several lawyers to successfully challenge an earlier attempt by Trump to end TPS for Haitians as well as others in 2018.“That effect occurs regardless of whether they later face deportation.”For companies in Springfield and in nearby communities that depend on Haitian labor, Trump’s comments could prove damaging. The Haitians who filled thousands of jobs at area packaging and auto plants have helped rejuvenate once-blighted neighborhoods and contributed to the local economy in myriad ways.While many food products lining the shelves of Springfield’s Caribbean stores are imported, many items – bread from Florida and pinto beans from Nebraska – are American. Chicken, beef and eggs served at Haitian restaurants are regularly sourced from local farms.Recently, a Haitian community organization bought a former fire station it hopes to turn into a facility for English language classes, drivers’ education and a meeting spot.“I pay thousands of dollars in income and property taxes every year,” said Payen, “and – because I work with Haitians to file their taxes – I see their W-2s and so on. If these people leave, that money is gone from the city and the local economy.”Curiously, some Haitians, who do not have the right to vote unless they are citizens, have blamed prominent Democrats such as Bill and Hillary Clinton for destroying their country after a devastating 2010 earthquake killed about a quarter of a million people – and displaced in excess of a million more.Their Clinton Foundation, which ran dozens of projects in the country, had helped raise billions of dollars to assist with reconstruction efforts. But many Haitians believe the funds were siphoned off, which the Clintons deny.Huge numbers of US guns have been trafficked to Haiti in recent years – a fact that is not lost on some in the Springfield community, according to Koveleski.“They don’t have any faith in the Democratic party,” she said. “Some believe that if Donald Trump says, ‘leave Haiti alone,’ he’s going to leave us alone.” More

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      ‘A change from the status quo’: the voters who backed Trump and AOC

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      Politics makes for strange bedfellows. US political minds will be reminding themselves of this fact as the dust settles on America’s election, with some results showing that a few voters were able to simultaneously support Donald Trump and progressive-leaning Democratic candidates.In the Bronx in New York, a strongly Black, Asian and Latino community, Trump’s support jumped 11 points to 33% over 2020, one of the largest margins citywide. At the same time, the leftwing firebrand Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez secured 68.9% of the vote, returning her to Congress for a fourth consecutive term.Welcome to the vote-splitting phenomenon of 2024, another sign of a restive American electorate committed to rejecting business as usual in Washington and voting to shake up a self-serving two-party system they often believe pays only lip service to their concerns.Trump and Ocasio-Cortez, whose politics are poles apart on almost every issue, were seen by at least some voters as sharing one very important thing: an anti-establishment authenticity.“They’re a good counter-balance for each other,” said Mamé, 66, a West African man on his way to a doctor’s appointment in the Bronx. “He’s a bully she doesn’t accept. She’s a fighter, progressive, and she loves democracy.”A Dominican Uber driver called Robin said Trump was better on the economy and security, but Ocasio-Cortez was better on democracy. “The last three years were no good economically: half a million migrants coming to New York, being given a hotel and money, and me working 60 hours a week with three kids.”Last week, Ocasio-Cortez herself prodded her own followers on X – the social media platform formerly known as Twitter – about vote-splitting between her and Trump. “I actually want to learn from you, I want to hear what you were thinking,” she said.Many in response to her appeal said there was no contradiction between supporting Trump and the avowed Democratic socialist.“I feel you are both outsiders compared to the rest of DC, and less ‘establishment’,” said one. Another, “both of you push boundaries and force growth”. And: “It’s real simple … Trump and you care for the working class.”“You are focused on the real issues people care about. Similar to Trump populism in some ways,” said a fourth. Lastly, a respondent said: “You signaled change. Trump signified change. I’ve said lately, Trump sounds more like you.”Ocasio-Cortez told The View on Thursday: “One, there is universal frustration in this country, much of it I actually think justified, that is raging at a political establishment that centers corporate interests [and] billionaires. and puts their needs ahead of the needs of working Americans.”The exchanges on X prompted whoops of joy from Salon, a liberal-leaning outlet, which said there might now be an openness among bruised Democrats to “someone who simply has the sauce … And Ocasio-Cortez has the sauce.”View image in fullscreenTo some extent, the Bronx split-ticket vote phenomenon was repeated across the US. Republicans won the White House and Senate convincingly. But in the House of Representatives, Democrats more or less held their own. (Split-ticket voting had an impact but it still left the House narrowly under Republican control.)“People are looking for people to shake up the system and fight for a bold agenda so they’re voting for candidates who are different and have a clear agenda outside the norms of our political system,” said Jasmine Gripper, co-director of the New York Working Families party.“Trump is not a career politician and challenges the system, and AOC is doing that in a different way. Their approaches and philosophies and values are deeply different, but they both represent a change from the status quo that voters are rejecting.”In 2018, Trump was one of the first to recognize AOC’s rise, warning Joe Crowley, the 10-term Democrat she defeated for the nomination, of her natural political abilities. Crowley later reflected that Trump’s win two years earlier had helped to get Ocasio-Cortez elected.“It lit the fire on to the base of our party, and I think that’s a good thing in many respects,” he said.Trump and Ocasio-Cortez, native New Yorkers and Democrats in their origin stories, have often appeared to be perfect sparring partners, with an innate understanding of how to get under the other’s skin, and clapping back at each other on social media (AOC has 8.1 million Instagram followers).She has called Trump a “racist visionary” and said he is “afraid” of strong Latino women. He has insulted her right back, though mixed with compliments. “Look, she’s a fake, and in all fairness to her, she knows it. But she’s got a good thing going – a good thing for her,” Trump said in August. “She’s got a spark – I will say that. A good spark that’s pretty amazing, actually.”Both know the value of a political stunt. AOC wore a white gown with the message “tax the rich” emblazoned in red to the Met Gala, where tables cost $450,000. “The medium is the message,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Instagram, quoting the Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan.But the Democrat’s ultra-progressive group in Congress, known as “the Squad”, did not fare so well under the softer liberalism of the Biden-Harris administration. Two of the group no longer sit in the House. Despite that, Ocasio-Cortez was a good soldier for Harris and before her, Joe Biden, supporting and enthusiastically campaigning for both.But its too soon to say how much progressives are encouraged by the phenomenon of split-ticket voting and whether it will presage a tack away from traditional party elites, as the Democrats try to regroup in the political wilderness of the next four years. Certainly there are those who think the party needs a dose of economic populism and charismatic outsiders to lead it.“What’s clear is we have to compete in a new information environment that Trump understands, the Democrats struggle with, and AOC is a genius at,” said Billy Wimsatt of the Movement Voter Project. “We need candidates and leaders that people believe in and see as authentic and not as a manufactured politicians.”But what might be more worrying for Democrats are people like 30-year-old Bronx resident Carlos Thomas. “I was rooting for Donald because he’s for business, but I liked the girl he was running against [also],” he said.But he – like tens of millions of other Americans in an election that saw turnout drop – simply failed to vote. More

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      The appointment of Robert F Kennedy has horrified public health experts. Here are his three most dangerous ideas | Devi Sridhar

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      The announcement that Donald Trump has appointed Robert F Kennedy as the US secretary of health and human services has sent shock waves through the health and scientific community. Kennedy ran as an independent presidential candidate before bowing out and supporting Trump’s run in exchange for an influential position, so we have a pretty good idea of his positions on public health.The main goal Kennedy has trumpeted recently is to “Make America healthy again”. At face value, it’s a noble aim. That’s the essence of public health: how to reduce risk factors for disease and mortality at a population level and improve the quality of health and wellbeing. But behind this slogan comes a darker, conspiracy-laden agenda. As someone who has spent a lot of time researching global public health, these are the positions I believe could be the most dangerous.Anti-vaxxer viewsKennedy is well known as a prominent anti-vaxxer. He has claimed that vaccines can cause autism, and also said that “there’s no vaccine that is safe and effective”. He called the Covid-19 vaccine the “deadliest vaccine ever made”. None of these claims are true: repeat studies have shown that the MMR vaccine does not cause autism, we have numerous safe and effective vaccines against childhood killers such as whooping cough and measles, and the Covid-19 vaccines have saved millions of lives globally.Much of what he is saying is what people want to hear: being anti-vax is increasingly a way to build a fanbase. I have seen this as a scientist: if you talk about childhood vaccinations, you get daily abuse. If you talk about the dangers of vaccines, you can end up with a cult following, as Russell Brand and Andrew Wakefield have. It’s not even clear that Kennedy personally believes what he’s saying: guests invited to a holiday party at his home in December 2021 were told to be vaccinated or tested for Covid-19 (he blamed his wife).The big question is about how much harm he can do in the next few years as the man who oversees health agencies in the US. Will he roll back budgetary allocations for vaccination campaigns? Eliminate research into new vaccines? With avian flu continuing to spread in mammals and birds, will he support the stockpiling and rollout of H5N1 vaccines if necessary in a future outbreak or pandemic? If his appointment is approved, experts say that vaccines will be “the first issue on the table”.The “benefits” of raw milkSimilarly, he has tweeted about the benefits of raw milk, which has become a bizarre Maga talking point generally. Raw milk consumption is a risk factor for a number of dangerous illnesses from E coli to salmonella, but is even more worrying with the widespread infection of dairy herds in the US. While pasteurisation has been shown to kill the H5N1 virus in milk and prevent its ability to infect, raw milk retains its pathogens. This year, 24 cats who drank raw milk on a farm become infected by avian flu; 12 died and 12 suffered from blindness, difficulty breathing and other serious health problems. This is when we need federal agencies to regulate what is being sold to the public and ensure clear communication of the health risks. Instead, raw milk demand has gone up, with some vendors claiming that “customers [are] asking for H5N1 milk because they want immunity from it”. (There’s a certain irony in the logic behind vaccination – training our immune system in how to respond to a pathogen – being used in this situation.)Anti-pharmaceutical conspiracy theoriesPart of the problem of the “Make America healthy again” campaign is that it contains nuggets of truth within a larger false narrative. We know that the prices charged by “big pharma” in the US are a problem – but instead of thinking this is a conspiracy to medicate the public when that’s not in their best interests, it’s worth reflecting on how the UK has managed to negotiate more reasonable prices. This is where government can have real power: ensuring fair prices for healthcare providers and individuals, and going after the extraordinary profit margins of pharmaceutical companies. But instead of taking this on – for instance, Trump could have negotiated Covid-19 vaccine prices in his first presidency – it is easier to demonise all pharma companies. Many of them of course play a valuable role in trialling and bringing drugs and vaccines to market. They just need to be regulated.Taking on these ideas will be a challenge when their proponent is leading US health policy. How do you try to engage with those who believe things that are simply not true? It’s hard: a recent Nature study found that the more time you spend on the internet trying to validate what is true and not true, you more you go down the rabbit hole of false information. Those who believe outlandish theories are generally people who think of themselves as more intelligent than the average person, have a lot of time to do their own research on the internet, and are convinced that everyone else is being duped.The US has a big health problem. Life expectancy is going dramatically backwards, Covid-19 killed a huge number of working-age Americans and trust in the federal government is at 23%. But the solution, if we look to healthier countries such as Denmark and South Korea, involves basic public health interventions, access to affordable medical care and trust in government. And not drinking raw milk.

      Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh

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      In this age of rage, it’s easy for Trump to keep stoking people’s anger | Henry Porter

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      Donald Trump and the Republican party may have won a decisive victory, but do not expect the anger that has blighted America since Trump announced he was running for office nine years ago to subside. Anger and grievance are the fuel rods of Maga populism, and they must be kept at dangerously high temperatures for the movement and a second Trump term to operate.Watching the last four weeks of the campaign, the uninhibited rage of Trump and his supporting acts at rallies was very striking. There was no attempt at decent norms. As the election neared, speeches became louder and more laced with vitriol, to the degree that commentators believed they had gone too far for the American public.First lesson of the Democrat defeat is that most US voters lapped it up. This is what they want. America is a very angry place, much more so that than its neighbour to the north, Canada. In the US, dissatisfaction with opportunities, the state of the country and the government have risen sharply since the Reagan era, whereas in Canada dissatisfaction has only increased over the government’s failure to protect the most vulnerable in society. That says a lot about the wildly differing tone of the two societies as well as levels of available empathy.Road rage in the US doubled between 2019 and 2022, with 44 people killed or wounded by gunfire on the roads every month, a ­figure that bucks the trends of violent crime and murder that have been generally declining in the US since 1990.There are a lot of people walking around with the bewildering, hair-trigger rage of John Goodman’s character Walter Sobchak in the Coen brothers’ 1998 film The Big Lebowski. Trump echoes the craziness, amplifies it, then uses the energy tha t it returns to him.This is a feedback loop, but the anger doesn’t just circle with the same intensity between Trump and his people; it steadily increases.At a Trump rally you became aware of the exuberant high of the outrage, that this is a fix enjoyed across America both by those who tend towards unreflective negativity, racism and misogyny and by people who have a genuine complaint about their lives. In both cases they have acquired the habit of rage, and it has become a meaningful and gratifying part of their identity.The anger is not simply going to evaporate when Trump takes over in January, not only because it’s too important to people’s sense of political self but also because the communication channel between the president and his supporters works only at this level. There is no exchange of ideas, of course, no sense that he leads with a vision other than the one that meets their anger with a promise of destruction.The early evidence of this political wrecking machine comes with the appointments of Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, Matt Gaetz as attorney general and Fox News anchor Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon, all of whom cannot fail to vandalise and degrade the institutions they take over. Indeed, that appears to be their brief.When he moves back into the White House with the Senate, Congress and supreme court in the control of the Republican party, he will be one of the most powerful presidents ever to have governed and he will be 100% responsible for the fortunes of Americans.How will his supporters, so used to reflexively blaming Washington and the government, confront his responsibility when he fails to improve their lives, as he certainly will because of a suicidal tariff regime, tax cuts to the rich and corporations that will increase national debt, cuts to Medicaid and mass deportations of undocumented immigrants that will severely damage growth as well as cause unbelievable pain to separated families across America?His failure will be a problem for his supporters, who can’t lose faith in their idol, and also for Trump, who must not let their support fall away. The solution for both parties will be to maintain the anger but divert it away from Trump.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAnd this is where we should fear for America. Trump has been lining up scapegoats. He has promised to persecute “the enemies within” and “radical left communists” like Adam Schiff, the new senator for California, and the former speaker Nancy Pelosi. He has made threats to Michelle Obama and Liz Cheney, who endorsed Democrat candidate Kamala Harris, and has demanded that CBS’s broadcast licence be revoked. He has suggested “one really violent day” and “one rough hour” against petty criminals.He will resort to this list whenever he needs to, but it will be America’s undocumented immigrants who will initially suffer, for next to the economy they topped the concerns of Republican voters. Trump will always be able to satisfy Maga anger by promising new and more cruel actions against immigrants, among which measures are likely to be privately run detention camps.There is no telling where this will end, no sense where national resistance will come in a society that is unused to dealing with an authoritarian who exploits dark and violent emotions as expertly as Trump does.The Democrats are plunged in a round of recriminations about the defeat, but they need to find new leadership and a strategy to deal with the anger that now threatens America and its institutions of government. When fuel rods overheat in a nuclear reactor, the result is usually meltdown. More

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      Trump’s shock-and-awe approach to transition is both shocking and awful

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      “Welcome back,” Joe Biden told Donald Trump, his predecessor and successor, as the pair shook hands in the Oval Office. For Biden, it was important to show the world that America can still conduct a peaceful transfer of power. “A transition that’s so smooth it’ll be as smooth as it can get,” Trump said.It was an outward show of permanence and stability. But behind the two men a fire was burning fiercely in the grate. TV comedian Stephen Colbert observed: “I do think it was fitting that they held the meeting in front of a roaring metaphor for the future.”Trump will not be president for another two months but he is already dominating the Washington agenda again. This week a flurry of controversial and extremist picks for his cabinet and other high-ranking administration positions came at a hectic pace and with a level of provocation that made heads spin.The choices included a Fox News host, a tech billionaire, an anti-vaccine activist, an alleged apologist for Russia’s Vladimir Putin and a congressman once embroiled in a sex-trafficking investigation. The lineup raised fears of authoritarianism or chaos – or both – once Trump and his allies are back in the Oval Office.Tara Setmayer, a former Republican communications director on Capitol Hill, said: “Their entire political brand is shock and awe. Prior to Trump’s re-election it was notional. Now they have the power to execute all of their depravity with the full backing of American government power virtually unchecked. I don’t think the people who voted for Donald Trump, allegedly because of economic angst, have a full appreciation for what that means.”Trump, who has promised not to be a “dictator” except on “day one”, will enter office with far fewer guardrails and checks on his power than last time. He will return to Washington with a Republican-controlled Congress and a conservative supreme court, containing three justices he appointed, that ruled he is largely immune from prosecution.View image in fullscreenHe has said of his day one plans: “I want to close the border, and I want to drill, drill, drill.” The immigration issue animated his successful election campaign, often coupled with racist rhetoric and falsehoods. Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told Fox News: “We know that on day one he is going to launch the largest mass deportation of illegal immigrants in American history.”To make it happen he is bringing back Tom Homan, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement during his first administration, as his “border czar”. Homan, 62, has said he will prioritise deporting immigrants illegally in the US who posed safety and security threats as well as those working at job sites.He will receive zealous ideological backing from Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff for policy. An immigration hardliner, the 39-year-old was a vocal spokesperson during the presidential campaign for Trump’s priority of mass deportations. At a rally at Madison Square Garden in New York, he adopted nativist language as he asserted that only Trump would stand up and say “America is for Americans and Americans only.”Trump also announced that Kristi Noem, the governor of South Dakota, will serve as the next homeland security secretary, responsible for everything from border protection and immigration to disaster response and the Secret Service. Noem, 52, rose to national prominence after refusing to impose a statewide mask mandate during the coronavirus pandemic.View image in fullscreenA mass deportation effort could face logistical problems as well as a barrage legal challenges from immigration and human rights activists. But when Trump takes the oath of office on 20 January, his team will be expected to hit the ground running.Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota, said: “The world needs to strap in because the first day of the Trump administration has been in the planning for at least a couple of years and so the white papers, the executive orders are already in files and ready to be pulled out.“We can expect certainly that some of the most radical ideas about curtailing immigration into the United States and then the expelling of unauthorised immigrants within the United States will get a boost from the president making a speech or a press conference followed up with directives to the executive branch. That’ll be off and running day one.”Jacobs added: “We can also expect a pretty sharp attack on the independence of the judiciary. This is going to be a rupture in the generations-old practice of political independence in terms of the Department of Justice. That’s coming to an end.”Trump has long said the biggest mistake of his first term was choosing the wrong people. He had arrived in Washington as the first president without prior political and military experience and relied on others for personnel recommendations. He felt frustrated at and betrayed by officials who slow-walked or ignored directives they saw as ill-advised.Having beaten Vice-President Kamala Harris in the 5 November election, Trump is determined to avoid that mistake second time around. His blitz of announcements this week shows the premium he places on absolute loyalty.His early to-do list could include imposing sweeping tariffs on imported goods, pardoning supporters involved in the 6 January 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol, pulling the US out of the Paris climate agreement, reversing protections for transgender students in schools and fulfilling his campaign promise to end the war between Ukraine and Russia “in a day”.Some have been relatively mainstream selections reassuring to the political class. They include Susie Wiles, 67, who will be the first woman to serve as White House chief of staff, and Senator Marco Rubio, 53, now in line to become the first Latino in the role of secretary of state. Rubio is seen as a foreign policy hawk who has previously taken a hard line on foes including China, Iran and Cuba.View image in fullscreenElise Stefanik, 40, a Republican congresswoman and staunch Trump supporter, has been named as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations. Mike Waltz, 50, a Republican congressman and retired Army Green Beret, is set to be his national security adviser. And John Ratcliffe, 59, a former director of national intelligence, will serve as director of the Central Intelligence Agency.But other picks have almost seemed to be political performance art, designed to goad and outrage Democrats (“owning the libs”) and impose a loyalty test on the Senate Republicans who will have to decide whether to confirm or reject Trump’s cabinet members, judges and ambassadors.On Tuesday night Trump picked Pete Hegseth as his defence secretary. The 44-year-old is a co-host of Fox & Friends Weekend on Rupert Murdoch’s conservative Fox News network and once said he “hasn’t washed hands in 10 years” because “germs are not a real thing”. Hegseth, a military veteran, has opined that women should not serve in combat and expressed disdain for the so-called “woke” policies of Pentagon leaders.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn his recent book, The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free, Hegseth wrote: “The next president of the United States needs to radically overhaul Pentagon senior leadership to make us ready to defend our nation and defeat our enemies. Lots of people need to be fired.”A day later Trump named Tulsi Gabbard, 43, a former Democratic congresswoman and critic of the Biden administration, as his director of national intelligence. Gabbard served in the army national guard for more than two decades, deploying to Iraq and Kuwait. But she secretly met with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in 2017 and blamed the US and Nato for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.View image in fullscreenRick Wilson, a co-founder of the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group, said: “So far the candidates range from the unserious to the terrifying. Tulsi Gabbard is going to send a shock wave through the intelligence community and not in a good way. I can tell you that her Putin sympathies being rather evident to everyone around her is going to become a major issue. I’m not sure Tulsi Gabbard can be confirmed.”Perhaps most outlandish, Trump selected Matt Gaetz, a Florida congressman and “Make America great again” provocateur, for attorney general. The position of America’s top law enforcement official is potentially central to his plans to carry out mass deportations, pardon January 6 rioters and seek retribution against those who prosecuted him over the past four years.The decision prompted howls of derision and doubts over whether Gaetz, 42, will receive Senate confirmation. He was once the subject of a justice department investigation into sex-trafficking allegations involving underage girls, although it ended last year with no federal charges against him.The staunch Trump loyalist was also under scrutiny by the House ethics committee over allegations including sexual misconduct, although that investigation in effect ended on Wednesday when Gaetz resigned from Congress. Republican and Democratic senators on the judiciary committee that would review Gaetz’s nomination are calling for the findings to be made available to them.Senator Dick Durbin, the Democrat who currently chairs the judiciary committee, said Gaetz “would be a disaster” in part because of Trump’s threat to use the justice department “to seek revenge on his political enemies”. John Bolton, a former national security adviser to Trump, described it as “the worst nomination for a cabinet secretary in American history”.Then, on Thursday, Trump delivered the coup de grace by saying he will nominate Robert Kennedy Jr, 70, to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy is one of the most prominent anti-vaccine activists in the world. Long advancing the debunked idea that vaccines cause autism, he has said vaccines have caused a “holocaust” and travelled the world spreading false information about the Covid-19 pandemic.View image in fullscreenKennedy, the nephew of President John F Kennedy, has also said he would recommend that water agencies stop adding fluoride to drinking water and made a variety of other claims not backed by science, such as questioning whether HIV causes Aids and suggesting antidepressants lead to school shootings.Adding to the mix, Trump named Mike Huckabee, 69, as ambassador to Israel. He has rejected a Palestinian homeland in territory occupied by Israel, calling for a so-called “one-state solution”. He has also denied that the West Bank, seized by Israel from Jordan in the 1967 six-day war, is under military occupation.Meanwhile the tech billionaire Elon Musk, 53, a campaign surrogate and increasingly close ally, and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, 39, will lead lead a newly created Department of Government Efficiency. Trump said the pair will reduce government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut waste and restructure federal agencies.Newt Gingrich, a former Republican speaker in the House of Representatives, defended Trump’s team selection as an effort to bypass the establishment. “Einstein once said, thinking there’ll be a different outcome by doing the same thing over and over again is a sign of insanity,” he said.“We’ve been told now for decades that the American people think we’re on the wrong track. We keep hiring people who are marginally more off the track a half-inch and we get the same result. Well, Trump is going to move the track by many feet.”But the rapid-fire onslaught has left many in Washington dazed and confused about the prospect of Trump’s first day in office. Setmayer, co-founder and chief executive of the Seneca Project, a women-led super political action committee, said: “I expect chaos and a series of constitutionally questionable actions exponentially worse than what we saw on day one last time. It’s already started. There will be many of us who said, we warned you.”She added: “The Trump administration is going to plunge America into a cross between The Hunger Games and The Celebrity Apprentice, unfortunately at great expense to the future of our democracy and the humanity of millions of Americans who will suffer at the hands of this gallery of degenerates. The American electorate fucked around and now they’re going to find out.” More