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    Democrats liken Trump to Putin after call to use US cities for military training

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    A leading Democrat has compared Donald Trump to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin after the US president told military leaders on Tuesday that the armed forces should use US cities as “training grounds”.JB Pritzker, the governor of Illinois, which is bracing for Trump to deploy national guard troops to his state, questioned the president’s mental health and accused him of behaving like an autocrat.“It appears that Donald Trump not only has dementia set in but he’s copying tactics of Vladimir Putin,” Pritzker said. “Sending troops into cities, thinking that that’s some sort of proving ground for war, or that indeed there’s some sort of internal war going on in the United States is just, frankly, inane and I’m concerned for his health.”Since returning to office in January, Trump has used crime and illegal immigration as a pretext to expand federal agents and national guard troops into cities led by Democrats, often with large African American populations.The president deployed in Los Angeles in June and Washington DC in August despite the objections of local officials and official figures showing that crime is falling. And over the weekend Trump announced plans to send national guard troops to what he described as “war-ravaged” Portland, though the city and state are seeking a restraining order, claiming that the president has overstepped his legal authority.On Tuesday, the attorney general, Pam Bondi, said a federal taskforce operation in Memphis, Tennessee was under way. Meanwhile, Louisiana’s governor asked for a national guard deployment to New Orleans and other cities.Trump dialled up the pressure further on Tuesday at a rare gathering of more than 800 military leaders in Quantico, Virginia. He said: “Last month I signed an executive order to provide training for quick reaction force that can help quell civil disturbances. This is gonna be a big thing for the people in this room, because it’s the enemy from within, and we have to handle it before it gets out of control.”The phrase “enemy within” was used by Senator Joseph McCarthy in a 1950 speech about threats to democracy. McCarthy is best known for his aggressive campaign against alleged communist infiltration in the US government and society.Addressing an auditorium full of top brass from around the world, Trump said he told Pete Hegseth that “we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military.”Trump acknowledged that he had been criticised for deploying the military on US streets but claimed America was in the grips of a battle against immigrants in the country illegally.“America is under invasion from within,” Trump said. “We’re under invasion from within. No different than a foreign enemy, but more difficult in many ways because they don’t wear uniforms. At least when they’re wearing a uniform, you can take them out.”The president encouraged soldiers harassed or assaulted by protesters to “get out of that car and do whatever the hell you want to do”.Democrats condemned the remarks as a dangerous escalation worthy of an authoritarian.Gavin Newsom, the California governor, whose name has been floated as a possible 2028 presidential contender, said the speech should terrify people.“Declaring war on our nation’s cities and using our troops as political pawns is what dictators do. This man cares about nothing but his own ego and power,” Newsom posted on X.Pritzker called for the 25th amendment to the constitution, which deals with the removal of a president incapacitated by a physical or mental illness, to be applied. “There is something genuinely wrong with this man, and the 25th amendment ought to be invoked,” he said.Chuck Schumer, the Democratic minority leader in the Senate, told MSNBC’s Morning Joe: “So, this is totally against the American grain, and it’s one example of many that they’re moving to an autocracy away from a democracy. In dictatorships, the federal military goes into the cities to do bad things.”Civil society groups also condemned the plans. Naureen Shah, director of government affairs of the equality division at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), said: “We don’t need to spell out how dangerous the president’s message is, but here goes: military troops must not police us, let alone be used as a tool to suppress the president’s critics.”The Not Above the Law coalition said in a statement: “Trump’s suggestion that US cities should serve as military ‘training grounds’ represents a fundamental betrayal of American values. Our military exists to defend our nation and protect our freedoms, not to practice combat operations against our neighbors in our communities.”The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 is supposed to prevent presidents from using the military as a domestic police force. But Trump has exploited a loophole by deploying the national guard, a reserve force often used for natural disasters, and creating a new “quick reaction force” for crushing domestic unrest.At Tuesday’s event in Quantico, the defense secretary vowed the military would abolish “overbearing rules of engagement” and “untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralise, hunt and kill the enemies of our country”.There were few visible reactions from the generals and admirals, who sat largely silent and expressionless. Trump, accustomed to roars or laughs at campaign rallies, found his punchlines fell flat. More

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      The Guardian view on Donald Trump’s Ukraine strategy: talking tough and doing very little isn’t working | Editorial

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      Back in January, with Donald Trump’s campaign promises to end the war in Ukraine “within 24 hours” still fresh in the memory, there was genuine unease in Moscow over the US president’s intentions. When Mr Trump mused that “high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions” on Russia might be necessary, one high-profile and pro-war Moscow commentator wrote: “It’s better to prepare for the worst. Soon, we’ll look back on Biden’s term with nostalgia, like a thaw.”How wrong can you be? Since then, the US president has repeatedly talked the talk without coming close to walking the walk. In May, when Vladimir Putin rejected a 30-day ceasefire, and peace talks in Turkey went nowhere, a “bone-crushing” US sanctions package failed to materialise. An 8 August deadline for Mr Putin to agree to a ceasefire somehow morphed into a red carpet welcome in Alaska, where Mr Trump applauded a leader wanted for war crimes as he disembarked from his plane. The “severe consequences” threatened by Mr Trump if the Alaska talks failed to lead to peace never happened.Emboldened, Mr Putin has thus continued to prosecute his war aims in Ukraine, and probe for western weaknesses. Last week’s incursion of Russian drones into Polish territory laid bare inadequate Nato planning, as F-35 and F-16 fighter jets were hastily scrambled to deal with cheap kamikaze devices that cost around $10,000 each to produce. It also communicated a warning of possible escalation in the event of any future “reassurance force” deploying European troops on Ukrainian soil. Such a provocation called for a robust and unified response, exerting the kind of pressure on the Kremlin which Mr Trump has so far refused to countenance. Instead the US president appears, once again, to prefer bullying his European allies to targeting Mr Putin. In a statement which reeked of bad faith, Mr Trump declared over the weekend that the US was “ready” to impose tougher sanctions on Russia, but only if certain unlikely conditions were met.Eyeing a considerable economic prize, Washington is insisting that the EU must increase its imports of US liquified natural gas at a rate that analysts judge undoable. Other demands include the imposition by the EU of 50%-100% tariffs on Russia’s most important ally, China, and an end to all imports of Russian oil by Nato members. This includes Turkey, which has refused to sanction Moscow, imports 57% of its oil from Russia, and lies outside the EU.Those looking on the bright side in Brussels hope that Mr Trump’s pressure may persuade Maga-friendly governments in Hungary and Slovakia to end their deep dependence on Russian energy imports. That is extremely unlikely to happen, as Mr Trump and his advisers must know. Nor can the EU afford to court the kind of economic retaliation from Beijing that caused Mr Trump himself to back down from a full-blown trade war recently.During this week’s state visit, it will be Sir Keir Starmer’s turn to try to pin Mr Trump down on decisive action. But from the unproductive Alaska talks to his latest diversionary tactics with the EU, Mr Trump keeps finding reasons not to get tough on Russia. Last week’s drone incursion in Poland represented an ominous upping of the ante. Ukraine’s prospects, and wider European security interests, are being steadily undermined by a president who, in this context, barks but never bites.

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      When Trump comes to UK, normal rules of state visits will not apply

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      Donald Trump has repeatedly described Keir Starmer as a “good man”, distancing himself from the attacks on the UK prime minister mounted by other figures on the US far right such as Elon Musk.One of the many known unknowns, however, of a Trump state visit is what kind of Trump will show up when a microphone is placed in front of him.The US president is often a bundle of contradictions. During his first state visit in 2018 most UK diplomats said he was a picture of affability, yet he took it upon himself to conduct an interview with the Sun in which he insulted Theresa May, and said Boris Johnson would make a great prime minister. He seemed unaware he might have caused offence.Starmer as host will have to grin and bear whatever brickbats Trump sends his way about the state of free speech in the UK, recognition of the state of Palestine, immigration, or the possibility that Reform will lead the next government in the UK. The one thing the Foreign Office knows is that the normal rules of state visits do not apply.An added loose mooring will be the absence of the former UK ambassador to Washington Peter Mandelson, who was dismissed for his connections to Jeffrey Epstein. Ambassadors are known to personally visit every site of every stop on a state visit. Their job is often quite literally to look round corners for what might be coming. Lord Mandelson, a stickler for detail, would have been poring over every angle of the state visit in conjunction with Buckingham Palace and the White House. Fortunately, most of it will have been battened down weeks ago. But his knowledge of the mood inside the Trump administration in the days before the visit will be missed.Behind the formal glamour, and pre-cooked agreements on tech and nuclear power cooperation, Starmer will have to choose how to spend his limited political capital. The two most pressing foreign policy issues are ones on which the UK and the US cannot agree: Israel’s future relationship with the Arab world, and the threat posed to Europe and Ukraine by Vladimir Putin. But it is the latter on which Starmer hopes to make progress.Speaking at the weekend in Kyiv, Jonathan Powell, the UK’s national security adviser, gave a glimpse of current Downing Street thinking. “Putin’s sport is judo. He likes to counterbalance the action with reaction. He likes having options. If we can close his options off and leave him with only one, he will take it,” Powell said.“The main message we should be sending is real pressure to convince [Putin] the war will go on for a long time if he doesn’t make peace. His summer campaign more or less has failed already, the Russian economic position is not good, the whole economy is a war economy. If we can apply the pressure the US president is talking about in terms of targeted sanctions, and tariffs that he put on India, we might bring him to the table.”But Powell skirted around whether Trump’s latest proposal for sanctions was serious or a smokescreen to avoid doing anything. After months and months of patience-sapping delay, Trump has set out in the past fortnight new preconditions that would need to be in place before the US would ever massively sanction Russia. He said he would only do so if every Nato country, including Turkey, stopped importing Russia energy and also punished China with 50%-100% tariffs for its imports of Russian energy. Trump has already put 25% tariffs on India, the other great importer of Russian energy.The Republican senator Lindsey Graham, who has spent a lot of time trying to blend the European and US approaches to Russia, explained on Sunday: “We have tried the red-carpet approach. It is not working … It is now time for the Europeans to follow President Trump’s lead to go after India and China – if China and India change their practices towards Putin, this war will end.”Starmer intends to test Trump on whether 50% tariffs on China, which would rupture China-Europe trade, is a deal-breaker. Concerted transatlantic sanctions might yet be possible if Trump demanded a ban on Russian crude imports by Hungary and Slovakia, or of imports of fuel made from Russian crude refined in third countries such as India. A ban on seaborne Russian crude oil has already cut the EU’s Russian oil imports by 90%, but Hungary and Slovakia still import it via a pipeline.Starmer’s task will be to steer Trump to more targeted sanctions on Chinese and Indian refineries, as well as yet more measures against the Russian shadow fleet. Trump’s Ukraine special envoy, Keith Kellogg, said: “If you look at the strength of sanctions from a scale of one to 10, we’re at a six. But we are at an enforcement level of three.”Starmer will also try to convince Trump the incursion of about 20 drones into Polish airspace by Russia was not the accident that Trump has suggested. Radosław Sikorski, the Polish foreign minister, ridiculed the accident theory in Kyiv, saying: “We don’t believe in 20 mistakes at the same time.”Behind this argument is the fundamental discussion that Starmer tries to avoid in public – whether Trump knows Putin is stalling on a ceasefire but does not greatly care, since he believes Ukraine will lose the war and inevitably will have to cede large tracts of its territory.That requires going back to the very first principles about the victim and aggressor in Ukraine. More

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      Macron says 26 nations ready to provide postwar military backing to Ukraine

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      Twenty-six nations have pledged to provide postwar security guarantees to Ukraine, including an international force on land and sea and in the air, Emmanuel Macron said after a summit at which European leaders sought to pin down Donald Trump on the level of support he is willing to give Kyiv.“The day the conflict stops, the security guarantees will be deployed,” the French president told a press conference at the Élysée Palace in Paris, standing alongside Volodymyr Zelenskyy.After the summit, Macron told reporters: “We have today 26 countries who have formally committed – some others have not yet taken a position – to deploy a ‘reassurance force’ troops in Ukraine, or be present on the ground, in the sea or in the air.”The troops would not be deployed “on the frontline” but aim to “prevent any new major aggression”, Macron said.Macron initially said the 26 nations – which he did not name – would deploy to Ukraine. But he later said some countries would provide guarantees while remaining outside Ukraine, for example by helping to train and equip Kyiv’s forces. He did not say how many troops would be involved in the guarantees.The Ukrainian president hailed the move. “I think that today, for the first time in a long time, this is the first such serious concrete step,” he said.US contributions to the guarantees would be finalised in the coming days, Macron said.On Friday, a spokesperson for the Kremlin said that western countries “cannot” provide security guarantees for Ukraine, according to remarks reported by Russian state media.“This cannot be a guarantee of security for Ukraine that would suit our country,” Dmitry Peskov told state news agency RIA Novosti.Thursday’s meeting of 35 leaders from the “coalition of the willing” – of mainly European countries – was intended to finalise security guarantees and ask the US president for the backing that Europeans say is vital to make such guarantees viable.Many European countries including Germany, Spain and Italy have refused so far to provide troop commitments. A German spokesperson said: “The focus should be on financing, arming and training the Ukrainian armed forces,” a formula that is not vastly different from what Europe is now providing.Alarmed European leaders travelled to the White House in the wake of the August Alaska summit between Trump and Vladimir Putin fearing that the US president may be about to force Volodymyr Zelenskyy into a humiliating surrender, including loss of territory.View image in fullscreenTrump responded to the European lobbying by claiming he had won the Russian leader’s agreement to hold direct talks with the Ukrainian president, but Russia rejected any such commitment and largely maintained its demand for the surrender of Ukrainian territory and a commitment that Ukraine will never join Nato.Trump had set a deadline of 1 September for a meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy, but Trump is known to set deadlines that he then ignores.“We had a great relationship,” Trump said of Putin in an interview with the rightwing news website The Daily Caller. He said he was now very disappointed in the Russian president: “Thousands of people are dying; it’s a senseless war.”Europe has been desperate to ensure Trump does not wash his hands of the war, but it has been unable to convert Trump’s stated frustration with Putin into a plan to try to strangle the Russian economy.Macron in Paris sought to give the impression that Europe, unlike Russia, stuck to its commitments. He said: “The contributions that were prepared, documented and confirmed at the level of defence ministers under the strictest secrecy allow us to say: this work is complete and will now be politically approved.”Europe has been hoping for months that Trump would activate long-promised sweeping economic sanctions on countries that import Russian oil. The 50% tariffs that the US imposed on India, partly for importing Russian oil, appear to have driven the traditionally non-aligned Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister, closer into the arms of China and Russia.Stung by his diplomatic failure so far, Trump has given the impression of wanting to focus on domestic policy, including crime and the economy.The US was represented at the Paris talks by Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, who also met Zelenskyy separately.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionView image in fullscreenAfter the summit, Starmer’s office said it was necessary “to go even further to apply pressure on Putin to secure a cessation of hostilities.”“The prime minister said Putin could not be trusted as he continued to delay peace talks and simultaneously carry out egregious attacks on Ukraine,” No 10 added.Russia has said it will not tolerate European troops in postwar Ukraine.The coalition of the willing includes about 30 nations backing Ukraine, mainly European but also Canada, Australia and Japan. It has met repeatedly at military and political level but not published any detailed plan of action, reflecting internal divisions and uncertainty about the nature of the US contribution.In a breakthrough of sorts, the plan for Europeans to buy US arms for use in Ukraine has started to bear fruit. On 28 August, the US state department announced the delivery of 3,350 ERAM long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine, worth $825m (£615m, €705m).The funding came from Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and the US, but the financial contribution of each country was not disclosed. The ERAM missiles have a range similar to that of the Franco-British Scalp-EG missiles, which Ukraine fired at occupied Crimea and the Russian region of Kursk.Zelenskyy said he had not seen “any signs from Russia that they want to end the war”.The Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, said it was not for Putin to decide if European troops would be stationed inside Ukraine. He said: “I think we really have to stop making Putin too powerful.”The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, described Putin as the most severe war criminal of our time.On Wednesday in Beijing, Putin attended a military parade alongside Xi Jinping and hailed Russian forces’ progress in Ukraine, saying troops were advancing on “all fronts”.But there are signs that sanctions are finally taking a toll on the Russian economy after two years of high growth fuelled by defence spending.The Sberbank chief, German Gref, one of Russia’s most powerful bankers, warned on Thursday that the economy was stagnating and that unless the central bank cut interest rates then the country would fall into recession.Russia’s war economy grew at 4.1% in 2023 and 4.3% in 2024 but it is slowing sharply under the weight of high interest rates required to dampen inflation. More

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      Russia says Europe’s leaders don’t want peace in Ukraine as Vance says US will keep trying

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      Russia accused western European leaders on Sunday of not wanting peace in Ukraine, as Moscow’s most senior diplomat praised efforts by Donald Trump to end the war, while Vice-President JD Vance said the US would “keep on trying” to broker talks in the absence of a deal.Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, made the comments during a sometimes contentious interview on NBC on Sunday morning, during which he denied his country had bombed civilian targets in Ukraine.Trump, he said, had set himself above European leaders who accompanied Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy for talks at the White House last week, immediately after the summit between the US president and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, on 15 August.“We want peace in Ukraine. He wants, President Trump wants, peace in Ukraine. The reaction to [the] Anchorage meeting, the gathering in Washington of these European representatives and what they were doing after Washington, indicates that they don’t want peace,” Lavrov said.The Alaska talks produced neither a ceasefire nor an agreement for Zelenskyy and Putin to meet, and was widely considered to be a public relations triumph for the Russian leader.Lavrov brushed aside Trump’s apparent frustration at the outcome and the US warning of “massive sanctions or massive tariffs or both” against Moscow. He said “yes” when asked if Putin wanted peace and said Putin and Trump respected each other, while assailing the alliance of leaders such as France’s Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s Friedrich Merz, Britain’s Keir Starmer and European Union president Ursula von der Leyen who came to the White House last week to bolster Zelenskyy’s visit.European leaders in recent days have pledged to support security guarantees as part of a peace agreement, although Russia has flatly rejected the prospect of troops from countries in Europe being positioned in Ukraine.Trump has ruled out sending the US military, and on Friday it was reported that his administration had blocked Ukraine’s use of US-supplied long-range missiles to attack Russia.Meanwhile, Canadian prime minister Mark Carney told Zelenskyy on Sunday that he backed Ukraine’s calls for robust security guarantees and that Canada would not rule out sending troops.Earlier, Lavrov became defensive when NBC asked him if Putin was “stringing along” Trump by appearing conciliatory to his peace overtures but continuing to bomb Ukraine, attacks which last week included an airstrike on an American electronics manufacturing company in the west of the country.“It is not for the lawmakers or for any media outlet to decide what President Trump is motivated by. We respect President Trump because President Trump defends American national interests. And I have reason to believe that President Trump respects President Putin because he defends Russian national interests,” he said.Critics, including some conservative voices, are alarmed by what they see as Putin manipulating Trump over Ukraine and US elections.Lavrov meanwhile denied that Russia attacks civilian targets including schools, hospitals and churches, hinting at Russia’s extraordinary claims throughout the war that Ukraine is attacking its own people.“Our intelligence has very good information, and we target only military enterprises, military sites or industrial enterprises directly involved in producing military equipment for [the] Ukrainian army,” he said.Vance appeared separately in the same Sunday morning program and insisted Russia deserved credit for indicating it was ready to end a conflict that Trump has said more than 50 times he would solve “in one day”, while in contrast the vice-president warned of a longer process.“I think the Russians have made significant concessions to President Trump for the first time in three and a half years of this conflict,” Vance said.“They’ve recognized that they’re not going to be able to install a puppet regime in Kyiv. That was, of course, a major demand at the beginning. And importantly, they’ve acknowledged that there is going to be some security guarantee to the territorial integrity of Ukraine.”Vance said historically that peace negotiations go “in fits and starts” and warned that he did not think ending the war was “going to happen overnight”.Vance said of Russia, in a comment that was not further clarified: “Should they have started the war? Of course, they haven’t. But we’re making progress”. Trump in February blamed Ukraine, saying, “you never should have started it.”Any sanctions against Russia, Vance said, would be on a “case by case basis”, but he remained hopeful that US efforts could bring Zelenskyy and Putin together.“It’s complicated, but we’re going to keep on trying to convince these parties to talk to each other and continue to play the game of diplomacy, because that’s the only way to get this thing wrapped up.”Lavrov remained adamant that Russia also wanted peace, and acknowledged “Ukraine has the right to exist”. But he said it “must let people go”, referring to Putin’s demand that it give up Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula seized by Russia in 2014, as well as southern and eastern parts, such as the Donbas, captured since 2022, as part of a peace agreement.“In Crimea [they] decided that they belong to the Russian culture,” he said, citing a disputed 2014 referendum condemned by most of the world as illegal.On Friday, Senator Chris Coons, a Democrat of Connecticut, said on CNN that stronger US action was needed because “Putin is not going to stop until we stop him.”

      Reuters contributed reporting More

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      Pentagon has blocked Ukraine from striking deep inside Russia – report

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      US defense officials have blocked Ukraine from using US-supplied long-range missiles to strike targets inside Russia since late spring as part of a Trump administration effort to get Vladimir Putin to engage in peace talks , according to a report on Saturday.The Wall Street Journal reports that the Pentagon has blocked Ukraine from using US-made Army Tactical Missile Systems, or Atacms.Two US officials told the outlet that on at least one occasion, Ukraine had sought to use Atacms against a target but was denied under a “review mechanism” developed by Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon’s undersecretary for policy, that governs how US long-range weapons or those provided by European allies that rely on American intelligence and components can be used.The review process also applies to Britain’s Storm Shadow cruise missile because it depends on US targeting data, according to two US officials and a British official, the Journal said.The review system reportedly gives US defense secretary Pete Hegseth approval over the use of the Atacms, which have a range of nearly 190 miles (305km). Ukraine was previously given authority by the Biden administration to use the missile system against targets inside Russia in November after North Korean troops entered the war.Before the inauguration in January, Trump told Time magazine that the decision to allow Ukraine to use US weapons systems to attack targets inside Russia had been a mistake.“I disagree very vehemently with sending missiles hundreds of miles into Russia. Why are we doing that? We’re just escalating this war and making it worse. That should not have been allowed to be done,” he said.It is unclear whether the US defense department’s review process amounts to a formal policy change. But it comes alongside increasing control of munitions to Ukraine as US stocks are themselves depleted.In a statement to the Journal, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump “has been very clear that the war in Ukraine needs to end. There has been no change in military posture in Russia-Ukraine at this time.”But last week, amid efforts to broker talks between the Russian president and Voldomyr Zelenskyy, Trump said that Ukraine couldn’t defeat Russia unless it could “play offense” in the war.“It is very hard, if not impossible, to win a war without attacking an invader’s country,” Trump wrote on Thursday. “It’s like a great team in sports that has a fantastic defense, but is not allowed to play offense. There is no chance of winning.”Last month, the US agreed to supply Ukraine with new weapons systems but only if European nations paid for them. While Trump has said that the US is “not looking” to provide longer-range weapons that could reach Moscow, US officials told the Journal that the administration has approved the sale of 3,350 Extended Range Attack Munition air-launched missiles, or Erams, which have a range of 280 miles (400km). More

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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      Trump says lawyers are drafting executive order to end mail-in voting

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      Donald Trump on Monday announced that lawyers are drafting an executive order to eliminate mail-in voting, days after Vladimir Putin told him US elections were rigged because of postal ballots.In a White House meeting alongside Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump said: “We’re going to start with an executive order that’s being written right now by the best lawyers in the country to end mail in ballots because they’re corrupt.”The push follows Trump’s meeting with Putin in Alaska on Friday, when the Russian president allegedly told him that the 2020 election “was rigged because you have mail-in voting”, according to Trump’s subsequent interview with Sean Hannity.Trump falsely claimed that late former president Jimmy Carter opposed mail-in voting, saying: “Even Jimmy Carter with this commission, they set it up. He said, the one thing about mail in voting, you will never have an honest election if you have mail in it.”In reality, Carter urged the opposite during the 2020 Covid pandemic, with the Carter Center arguing that the best way to tackle potential voter fraud in a vote-by-mail situation is to strengthen safeguards and expand voting access.“I urge political leaders across the country to take immediate steps to expand vote-by-mail and other measures that can help protect the core of American democracy – the right of our citizens to vote,” Carter said in a statement.Trump started off his Monday morning by making a lengthy Truth Social post, in which he said: “I am going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS,” while also targeting “Highly ‘Inaccurate,’ Very Expensive, and Seriously Controversial VOTING MACHINES” which he claimed cost “Ten Times more than accurate and sophisticated Watermark Paper”.In that post, Trump falsely asserted that the US was “now the only Country in the World that uses Mail-In Voting” and claimed “All others gave it up because of the MASSIVE VOTER FRAUD ENCOUNTERED.”Data from International Idea contradicts this claim, showing that 34 countries worldwide allow mail-in voting, with 12 allowing it for all voters and 22 for some voters. Most European countries offer some form of mail voting, and more than 100 countries let their citizens vote by mail when living abroad.US courts rejected numerous fraud allegations after the 2020 presidential election, finding no evidence of widespread irregularities.Across the US, 28 states let voters request a mail ballot without giving a reason, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Eight states and Washington DC send everyone their ballot in the mail automatically, and about one in five American voters lives in one of those states.The president’s opposition to mail-in voting comes despite his own use of the method. In 2020, both Trump and the first lady, Melania Trump, submitted vote-by-mail ballots in Florida ahead of the state’s primaries, which Palm Beach county confirmed receiving.Trump also claimed states are “merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government” and must follow presidential orders on elections. That’s wrong: the constitution gives states control over how they conduct elections.Mail voting has exploded in popularity – from fewer than one in 10 voters in 1996 to nearly half during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. As of 2022, it was used by about one in three voters, according to a report by the MIT Election Data and Science Lab. Supporters have long said mail ballots make voting easier for people who can’t get to polling stations – those with disabilities, parents with young kids, or workers with long shifts, while also giving voters more time to research candidates at home. More