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      Former US officials alarmed over Tulsi Gabbard’s alleged ‘sympathy for dictators’

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      Nearly 100 former US diplomats and intelligence and national security officials have called for the Senate to hold closed-door briefings on Donald Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence for her alleged “sympathy for dictators like Vladimir Putin and [Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad]” and other concerns.In an open letter, the officials blasted Tulsi Gabbard, a former presidential candidate and representative from Hawaii, for her lack of experience in the field of intelligence, embracing conspiracy theories regarding the 2022 full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, and “aligning herself with Russian and Syrian officials” after an “uncoordinated” meeting with Assad in Damascus in 2017.The letter was signed by the former deputy secretary of state Wendy Sherman, the former Nato deputy secretary general Rose Gottemoeller, the former national security adviser Anthony Lake, as well as a number of other former ambassadors, intelligence and military officers, and other high-ranking members of the national security apparatus.It was addressed to the current Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, and to the incoming majority leader John Thune, a Republican.In the letter, the officials called on the Senate to “fully exercise its constitutional advice and consent role … including through appropriate vetting, hearings, and regular order”. It called for Senate committees to consider “all information available” in closed sessions to review Gabbard’s qualifications to manage “the protection of our intelligence sources and methods”.Gabbard and her supporters have denounced similar attacks as a smear campaign, saying that her record of anti-interventionism in Syria and Ukraine has been misrepresented by her political enemies.In Washington, she has staked out a unique foreign policy position as a strong supporter of Israel and the “war on terror” – but also as a critic of US rivalries with countries like Russia and Iran (she strongly criticised Trump’s decision to assassinate the Iranian general Qassem Suleimani as an “illegal and unconstitutional act of war”).“When it comes to the war against terrorists, I’m a hawk,” she told a Hawaiian newspaper in 2016. “When it comes to counterproductive wars of regime change, I’m a dove.”But many in Washington’s tightly knit foreign policy and intelligence community see Gabbard as dangerous. The concerns listed in the open letter included Gabbard’s public doubts of Assad’s use of chemical weapons against civilians in spite of “US intelligence reports and overwhelming public reporting” corroborating the attacks.They also noted her online posts after the Russian invasion “insinuating that US-funded labs in Ukraine were developing biological weapons and that Ukraine’s engagement with Nato posed a threat to Russian sovereignty”.Her public sympathy for Putin and Assad, the letter said, “raises questions about her judgement and fitness”.“These unfounded attacks are from the same geniuses who have blood on their hands from decades of faulty ‘intelligence’,” and who use classified government information as a “partisan weapon to smear and imply things about their political enemy”, Alexa Henning, a spokesperson for Gabbard with the Trump team, told ABC News in response to the letter.Activists have told the Guardian that staffers from both parties had expressed concern during a 2018 hearing with a Syrian ex-military whistleblower that Gabbard could leak details of the person’s identity. A person with knowledge of high-level intelligence discussions said that there were concerns over Gabbard’s other contacts in the region as well. More

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      Trump picks Keith Kellogg to serve as special envoy to Ukraine and Russia

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      Donald Trump has picked Keith Kellogg to serve as a special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, a newly conceived role given the ongoing war between the two countries.Kellogg, an 80-year-old retired US army lieutenant general, would start in the role as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues into its third year.“Keith has led a distinguished Military and Business career, including serving in highly sensitive National Security roles in my first Administration. He was with me right from the beginning! Together, we will secure PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH, and Make America, and the World, SAFE AGAIN!” Trump said in a Truth Social post.Kellogg previously served as a national security adviser to the former vice-president Mike Pence during Trump’s first presidency. Kellogg later became acting security adviser to Trump himself after Michael Flynn resigned in 2017.As per his plan to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, Kellogg previously told Reuters that he would emphasize getting the two countries to the negotiating table.“We tell the Ukrainians: ‘You’ve got to come to the table, and if you don’t come to the table, support from the United States will dry up,’” Kellogg said in a June interview. “And you tell [Vladimir] Putin [that] he’s got to come to the table and if you don’t come to the table, then we’ll give Ukrainians everything they need to kill you in the field.”Early reactions to Kellogg’s potential confirmation have been tepid, the Hill reported.“It was a gulp – not horrible, not amazing,” said one security analyst based in Washington DC, who spoke anonymously to the publication.Oleh Shamshur, a former Ukrainian ambassador to the US, told the Hill he was pessimistic about Kellogg’s potential appointment.“As I understand, he totally accepts the logic of Trump’s ‘peace plan’ as related by [vice-president-elect JD] Vance,” said Shamshur, referring to Vance’s support of ceding Ukrainian territory to Russia and rejecting plans for Ukraine to join Nato.Luke Coffey, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a conservative thinktank, noted to the New York Times in September that Vance’s plans weren’t “a realistic proposal for peace”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“He offered a plan for a Russian victory,” Coffey told the Times.Trump’s upcoming presidency has prompted questions about the outcome of Russia’s war in Ukraine. He pledged to bring a quick end to the war as one of his main campaign promises, though he has not elaborated on how he will do so.Some Ukraine supporters have voiced concerns that Trump’s steps to end the war could be detrimental to the country’s security or see Ukrainian land ceded to Russia, while Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, says he is certain the war with Russia will “end sooner” than it otherwise would have once Trump takes office.Zelenskyy reportedly had a “constructive exchange” with Trump during a conversation in the aftermath of Trump’s victory the US presidential election. More

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      To protect US democracy from tyrants, we must protect the truly free press | Robert Reich

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      Reliable and independent sources of news are now threatened by growing alliances of oligarchs and authoritarians.The mainstream media doesn’t use the term “oligarchy” to describe the billionaires who are using their wealth to enlarge their political power around the world, but that is what is happening.This is why I write for and read the Guardian, and why I’m urgently appealing to you to support it.During the US presidential campaign, legacy mainstream media – who mostly answer to corporate or billionaire ownership – refrained from reporting how incoherent and bizarre Donald Trump was becoming, normalizing and “sanewashing” his increasingly wild utterances even as it reported every minor slip by Joe Biden.The New York Times headlined its report on the September 2024 presidential debate between the president-elect and Kamala Harris – in which Trump issued conspiracy theories about stolen elections, crowd sizes, and Haitian immigrants eating pet cats and dogs – as: Harris and Trump bet on their own sharply contrasting views of America.Trump also used virulent rhetoric towards journalists. He has called the free press “scum” and the “enemy within”. During his campaign, he called for revoking the licenses of television networks and jailing journalists who won’t reveal their anonymous sources.Come 20 January, Trump and his toadies – including billionaires such as Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy – will have total control over the executive branch of the United States government. Trump’s Maga Republicans will be in charge of both chambers of Congress as well.Most members of the US supreme court, some of whom have been beneficiaries of billionaire gifts, have already signaled their willingness to consolidate even more power in Trump’s hands, immunize him from criminal liability for anything he does, and further open the floodgates of big money into US politics.All of this is sending a message from the United States that liberalism’s core tenets, including the rule of law and freedom of the press, are up for grabs.Elsewhere around the world, alliances of economic elites and authoritarians similarly threaten public access to the truth, without which democracy cannot thrive.It’s a vicious cycle: citizens have grown cynical about democracy because decision-making has become dominated by economic elites, and that cynicism has ushered in authoritarians who are even more solicitous of such elites.Trump and his lapdogs have lionized Victor Orbán and Hungary’s Fidesz party, which transformed a once-vibrant democracy into a one-party state, muzzling the media and rewarding the wealthy.Trump’s success will likely encourage other authoritarians, such as Marine Le Pen and her National Rally party in France; Alternative in Germany, or AfD; Italy’s far-right Giorgia Meloni; and radical rightwing parties in the Netherlands and Austria.Trump’s triumph will embolden Russia’s Vladimir Putin – the world’s most dangerous authoritarian oligarch – not only in Ukraine and potentially eastern Europe but also in his worldwide campaign of disinformation seeking to undermine democracies.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionEvidence is mounting that Russia and other foreign agents used Musk’s X platform to disrupt the US presidential campaign in favor of Trump. Musk did little to stop them.During the campaign, Musk himself reposted to his 200 million followers a faked version of Harris’s first campaign video with an altered voice track sounding like the vice-president and saying she “does not know the first thing about running the country” and is the “ultimate diversity hire”. Musk tagged the video “amazing”. It received hundreds of millions of views.According to a report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, Musk posted at least 50 false election claims on X, which garnered a total of at least 1.2bn views. None had a “community note” from X’s supposed fact-checking system.Rupert Murdoch, another oligarch who champions authoritarianism, has turned his Fox News, Wall Street Journal, and New York Post into outlets of rightwing propaganda, which have amplified Trump’s lies.Jeff Bezos, the billionaire owner of the Washington Post, prohibited the newspaper from endorsing Kamala Harris. Evidently, he didn’t want to raise Trump’s ire because Bezos’s other businesses depend on government contracts and his largest – Amazon – is already the target of a federal antitrust suit.Bezos’s decision demonstrated that even the possibility of a Trump presidency could force what had been one of the most courageous newspapers in the US to censor itself. Marty Baron, former editor of the Post, called the move “cowardice, with democracy as its casualty”.Citizens concerned about democracy must monitor those in power, act as watchdogs against abuses of power, challenge those abuses, organize and litigate, and sound the alarm about wrongdoing and wrongful policies.But not even the most responsible of citizens can do these things without reliable sources of information. The public doesn’t know what stories have been censored, muted, judged out of bounds, or preemptively not covered by journalists who’d rather not take the risk.In the final weeks before the election, the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times, Patrick Soon-Shiong, blocked his newspaper’s planned endorsement of Harris, prompting the head of the paper’s editorial board to resign. Mariel Garza said she was “not OK with us being silent”, adding: “In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up.”Honest people standing up is precisely what resisting authoritarianism and protecting democracy require. Americans and the citizens of other countries must have access to the truth if we have any hope of standing up to tyranny.The Guardian remains a reliable and trustworthy source of news because it is truly independent. That’s why I’m writing this, and why you’re reading it.Unlike other US media organizations, the Guardian cannot be co-opted by the growing alliances of oligarchs and authoritarians. It does not depend for its existence on billionaires or the good graces of a demagogue; it depends on us.Please support the Guardian today. More

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      Joe Biden’s last-gasp missile decision is momentous for Ukraine – but Putin will retaliate | Simon Tisdall

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      US president Joe Biden’s last-gasp decision to permit Ukraine to fire western-made, long-range missiles at military targets deep inside Russian territory runs the risk of triggering a sharp increase in retaliatory sabotage, such as cyber and arson attacks on Britain and its European Nato partners.Vladimir Putin, who ordered the full-scale, illegal invasion of Ukraine 1,000 days ago tomorrow, has long warned that Kyiv’s expanded use of US-, British- and French-made missiles would be viewed by Moscow as an act of war by Nato, and could trigger catastrophic consequences. Now Putin’s bluff, if it is a bluff, is being called.Much the same may be said of Keir Starmer and the EU. A joint statement by G7 leaders, coinciding with the 1,000-day landmark, pledged “unwavering support for Ukraine for as long as it takes”. Starmer reiterated that commitment en route to this week’s G20 summit in Brazil. Exactly what it means in practice may soon be harshly tested.Biden’s decision is welcome, if overdue. Amid grinding Russian ground advances, EU feuding and Donald Trump’s unpropitious re-election, the war has reached a critical juncture, militarily and diplomatically. The outcome is in the balance as the scales momentarily tip towards more death and destruction, then back towards some form of Trump-imposed land-for-peace sell-out.Russia has the advantage at present. But Kyiv will not and must not give up.Biden was slow to give the missile go-ahead, despite months of pressure from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has argued, with good reason, that Ukraine is fighting with one hand tied behind its back. Russian airfields, military bases and command centres that are used to mount almost daily, lethal missile and drone attacks on Ukraine’s cities and energy infrastructure are out of range.Biden’s tardiness was the product of an excessive caution that has seen the US drag its feet on supplying new weapons from the start. If Ukraine had been armed in 2022 with all the tanks, air-defence systems, missiles and fighter aircraft it has subsequently, belatedly been given, it might not be struggling as it is now.But his hesitation was reportedly reinforced by a recent classified US intelligence assessment. It warned that Putin could respond to the use of the US long-range army tactical missile system (Atacms), and the similarly capable Anglo-French Storm Shadow missiles, AKA Scalp-EG, on Russian soil, with attacks on the US and its allies.Direct, overt Russian armed retaliation against European military bases or territory seems unlikely, although tensions with Poland and other “frontline” Nato countries are running high. Dark threats by Putin cronies such as former president Dmitry Medvedev about using nuclear weapons are dismissed as rhetorical fearmongering.Instead, the intelligence finding suggested, Russia may step up covert, deniable sabotage: cyber, infowar and arson attacks of the type it has undertaken in recent years. This would allow the Kremlin to impose a cost, especially on wavering Nato members such as Olaf Scholz’s Germany, while avoiding all-out east-west war.The GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency, and other state organs are said to have been tasked by Putin with preparing asymmetrical responses for exactly the circumstances that are now unfolding. The overall aim: to alarm and disrupt western societies and publics.The GRU is notorious in Britain for carrying out the non-Ukraine-related Salisbury poisonings in 2018. In March this year, it was linked to arson at a warehouse in east London supposedly used to supply Ukraine. Attacks on a factory in Poland and non-military targets in Latvia and Lithuania are also attributed to the GRU. In May, Donald Tusk, Poland’s prime minister, said 12 people had been arrested for beatings, arson and “acts of sabotage on commission from Russian intelligence services”.These may have been mere practice runs. Kaja Kallas, former prime minister of Estonia and newly nominated EU foreign policy chief, says Moscow is waging a “shadow war” on Europe. Norway’s prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, warns that Russia may target energy producers and arms factories. Europe needed a coordinated approach, Kallas said. “How far do we let them go on our soil?”Nor is the threat confined to land. Last week, in the latest in a series of incidents, a Russian spy ship – officially classed as an “oceanographic research vessel” – was militarily escorted out of the Irish Sea. Its unexplained presence there and around UK coasts has renewed concerns about the security of critical undersea infrastructure, including pipelines and internet cables linking the UK, Ireland, Europe and the US.Described as the latest attempt to probe western defences and vulnerabilities, the incident followed an investigation in Nordic countries last year into suspected Russian state-led espionage ops. Spy ships disguised as fishing vessels were being used to plan future attacks on windfarms and communications cables in the North Sea, it said.However Russia responds – and the initial Kremlin reaction on Monday was wait-and-see – Biden’s decision challenges Ukraine and the European Nato allies, too. Having pressed so hard for so long, Zelenskyy must prove that the missiles make a difference. US officials are sceptical they can change the course of the war. EU officials in Brussels hope they will.What Biden appears to hope is that long-range strikes on North Korean troops newly deployed in Russia’s contested Kursk region will deter Pyongyang from further involvement. That seems improbable, too. Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s ostracised dictator, is Putin’s new best bro. He’s not noted for a caring attitude to human life.With Trump’s advisers threatening a de facto betrayal of Ukraine, Europe’s leaders, including Starmer, must put their money, lots of it, and their weapons where their mouths are – and help Zelenskyy maintain the fight, even without US hardware and financial backing, if need be.The problem is that unity of purpose, and resources, are lacking. Scholz broke with most of the EU last week when he phoned Putin for a chat. The chancellor (who continues to refuse to supply Germany’s Taurus long-range missiles to Kyiv) said he was pursuing peace. But it looked like weakness with snap elections brewing, and it angered other leaders. “No one will stop Putin with phone calls,” Tusk snarled. “Telephone diplomacy cannot replace real support from the whole west for Ukraine.”The “whole west” means France, too. But President Emmanuel Macron, having spoken frequently and passionately about the vital importance for Europe of defeating Russia, now appears to be temporising about actually letting Kyiv fire French missiles. Will Starmer give a green light, or will he also get cold feet?With Ukraine burning, Europe divided, and Biden two months away from oblivion, it’s little wonder that Putin, with a host of dirty tricks up his sleeve, thinks he’s winning the Ukraine missile crisis.

      Simon Tisdall is the Observer’s foreign affairs commentator More

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      Trump speaks with Putin and advises him not to escalate Ukraine war – report

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      Donald Trump spoke on the phone with Vladimir Putin on Thursday and discussed the war in Ukraine, the Washington Post reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter.The US president-elect advised the Russian president not to escalate the war in Ukraine and reminded him of “Washington’s sizeable military presence in Europe”, the Post reported.It added that Trump expressed interest in follow-up conversations on “the resolution of Ukraine’s war soon”.During the election campaign, Trump said he would find a solution to end the war “within a day”, but did not explain how he would do so.According to one former US official who was familiar with the call and spoke to the Washington Post, Trump likely does not want to begin his second presidential term with an escalation in the Ukraine war, “giving him incentive to want to keep the war from worsening”.In a statement to the outlet, Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said: “President Trump won a historic election decisively and leaders from around the world know America will return to prominence on the world stage. That is why leaders have begun the process of developing stronger relationships with the 45th and 47th president because he represents global peace and stability.”Trump had also spoken to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday, according to media reports.Biden has invited Trump to come to the Oval Office on Wednesday, and on Sunday, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said that Biden’s top message will be his commitment to ensure a peaceful transfer of power. He will also talk to Trump about what’s happening in Europe, in Asia and the Middle East.“President Biden will have the opportunity over the next 70 days to make the case to the Congress and to the incoming administration that the United States should not walk away from Ukraine, that walking away from Ukraine means more instability in Europe,” Sullivan told CBS.Washington has provided tens of billions of dollars worth of US military and economic aid to Ukraine since it was invaded by Russia in February 2022, funding that Trump has repeatedly criticised and rallied against with other Republican lawmakers.Ukraine’s foreign ministry disputed a claim in the Washington Post article that Kyiv was informed of the call and did not object to the conversation taking place. “Reports that the Ukrainian side was informed in advance of the alleged call are false. Subsequently, Ukraine could not have endorsed or opposed the call,” foreign ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi told Reuters.On Friday, the Kremlin said Putin was ready to discuss Ukraine with Trump but that it did not mean that he was willing to alter Moscow’s demands.On 14 June, Putin set out his terms for an end to the war: Ukraine would have to drop its Nato ambitions and withdraw all its troops from all the territory of four regions claimed by Russia.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionUkraine rejected that, saying it would be tantamount to capitulation, and that Zelenskyy has put forward a “victory plan” that includes requests for additional military support from the west.Also on Sunday, Trump spoke to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. “The chancellor emphasised the German government’s willingness to continue the decades of successful cooperation between the two countries’ governments. They also agreed to work together towards a return to peace in Europe,” a German government spokesperson said.In a call last week with South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol, Trump said the US was interested in working with Seoul in the shipbuilding industry, particularly in naval shipbuilding, as well as “promoting genuine peace and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region,”, the South Korean leader said.Trump’s call with Putin comes just a day after Bryan Lanza, a senior political adviser to Trump, told the BBC that Ukraine should focus on achieving peace instead of “a vision for winning”.“When Zelenskyy says we will only stop this fighting, there will only be peace, once Crimea is returned, we’ve got news for President Zelenskyy: Crimea is gone,” Lanza told the BBC.After his comments, a Trump spokesperson said Lanza “was a contractor for the campaign” and that he “does not work for President Trump and does not speak for him”. More

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      Ukrainians ask what I’m hearing about our country on the US campaign trail. The truth? We’re all but forgotten | Nataliya Gumenyuk

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      Around a month before the US elections, in the Kharkiv region, I sat down with a group of Ukrainian infantry soldiers together with the American historian Timothy Snyder. I suggested they ask questions of him not only as an American historian, but also as an American citizen.The servicemen were curious about the upcoming election, but mainly the chances of receiving significant military aid any time soon. They expressed pity that many Americans still don’t understand that the Ukrainian fight is not just about us. It’s in the world’s interests to support the fight against blatant breaches of the international order.The anxiety of the American elections is felt more strongly in Kyiv among Ukrainian officials and civil society leaders because Ukraine has become a partisan issue, and part of US domestic politics. These groups have been trying for years to be on good terms with both Democrats and Republicans in the US. This was especially true during the long delays in Congress over the vote for security assistance to Ukraine. But engaging with the Maga camp has become difficult. This only got worse when it was revealed what Donald Trump’s vice-presidential candidate, JD Vance, said in 2022: “I gotta be honest with you, I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another.” During the race, Vance has characterised Vladimir Putin as an “adversary” and “competitor”, rather than an enemy, and has generally argued that the US should be focusing on China, not Russia.Then there are the claims from Trump that he could end the war in “24 hours”, presumably with a phone call to Putin. To be honest, these sort of statements don’t worry Ukrainians that much since they don’t sound remotely realistic. There are no signs the Russian president is changing his goal to destroy Ukraine as a state. What people are really worried about is the slowing down, or even stopping, of US military assistance.In Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, one of the most important battleground states, I had a chance to talk to various Ukrainian Americans, including those from the older, more conservative diaspora, who have traditionally voted Republican. They shared strong anti-communist sentiment in the past but today are more united around ideas of faith and family values. Some of them told me they were worried by Vance’s remarks. Still, their arguments would alight elsewhere: it was the Democrat Barack Obama who didn’t firmly react to the Russian occupation of Crimea in 2014 and refused to provide military aid. Some of those narratives can be heard among conservative Ukrainians back home, too.Ukrainians often ask me what exactly the candidates are saying about our country on the campaign trail. I had to reply that, honestly, Ukraine wasn’t being explicitly mentioned at the rallies, at least the ones I attended. In Saginaw, Michigan, a manufacturing town, Vance didn’t mention Ukraine even once, mainly warning about the risks of local workers losing their jobs because of Chinese electric vehicles. Kamala Harris, at a campaign rally in the university town of Ann Arbor, spoke of Trump’s fascination with authoritarian leaders like Putin.Trump himself, speaking in Pennsylvania, did say at least three times that he wouldn’t spend taxpayers’ money on wars “in countries you have never heard of and don’t want to hear of”. The audience loudly cheered.After Joe Biden dropped out of the race, some people in Kyiv hoped that he could now afford to be less cautious and use his remaining time in office to accelerate support for Ukraine. The speculation was that he would want a positive foreign policy legacy to leave behind, amid the retreat from Afghanistan and tragedy unfolding in the Middle East. By October, it became clear that the current US administration wasn’t planning on doing anything big before the election.Some measures were taken. On 23 October, Washington finalised its $20bn portion of a $50bn loan to Ukraine backed by frozen Russian assets. This will be placed alongside a separate $20bn EU commitment and $10bn split between Britain, Japan and Canada. It is supposed to be repaid with the earnings from the more than $300bn in sovereign Russian assets that were immobilised in February 2022 and are mostly held in Europe.But in the long run, the lives of Ukrainian soldiers depend not just on the funds for military aid but on specific types of weapons. President Zelenskyy has spent recent months lobbying in the west for his “victory plan”, which would involve the US providing long-range missiles to Ukraine, which could strike deep inside Russia – something western powers have been reluctant to approve. His argument is that this may not just turn the tide on the battlefield, but take away the burden from those suffering the most – Ukrainian infantry. Without that, the Ukrainian army is left to rely on exhausted footsoldiers. Whether or not this plan has any chance of progressing will depend in large part on who wins next week.Right after landing in New York, a US colleague asked me if “it was all over for Ukraine if it didn’t receive US assistance after the elections”. I was puzzled by the way the question was asked. I explained that it might be extremely difficult to preserve the lives of Ukrainians if, say, Trump is elected, but it wouldn’t mean the Ukrainian army will stop trying to defend its fellow citizens or simply give up.Travelling from one swing state to another, I detected an extreme sense of anxiety among many Americans. It was so palpable, I felt the need to comfort them. Whatever happens, on the morning of 6 November, life in Ukraine will go on. The same will be true in the US. But it doesn’t mean things will be easy. Ukrainians have learned in recent years that worrying can be a luxury; the best option is to commit yourself to working hard to avoid the worst-case scenario, and fighting for what’s right.

      Nataliya Gumenyuk is a Ukrainian journalist and CEO of the Public Interest Journalism Lab

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      Will a disturbing scoop about Trump and Putin affect Trump’s electoral chances? | Margaret Sullivan

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      The news from Bob Woodward’s latest book is startling.The legendary Washington Post journalist has reported that as the Covid pandemic raged in 2020, with supplies of tests scarce in the United States, Donald Trump, then president, secretly sent test equipment to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, for his personal use. Meanwhile, in his own country, Trump downplayed – even mocked – the need for Americans to test.Even Putin thought this would be damaging if it got out. “I don’t want you to tell anybody because people will get mad at you, not me,” he reportedly told Trump.Since then, Woodward reports, Trump has kept in touch with the Russian autocrat. Trump may have spoken to Putin as often as seven times since he left office in 2021.Will it matter? Certainly not to the Trump faithful.They have stood resolutely by their man, no matter what. Trump has known this for years, reflecting in early 2016 that he “could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters”.When, shortly before the 2016 election, NBC’s Access Hollywood tape surfaced and Trump could be heard bragging that he was such a star that he could get away with grabbing women’s private parts, his campaign took it as a death knell.But it wasn’t. He got away with that, too.Why does this keep happening, through every scandal and misdeed, through two impeachments, 34 felony convictions, innumerable insults and lies? Why the Teflon?Perhaps it’s simply that Trump’s appeal to his voters is not about ethics, character or patriotism. Rather, it stands apart from the world of facts and accountability. In many ways, it’s not about behavior at all, at least not in the traditional candidate mold.It’s about who he hates, and who his followers hate.“He’s a character, he’s an avatar for a certain set of grievances,” a Princeton professor, Eddie S Glaude Jr, recently observed on MSNBC. The grievances are fear-based: suspicion of the “other”, portrayed as the killer-immigrant, the outsider who will take your job and your safety and your daughter’s spot on a sports team.United in grievance, the voter and the candidate cannot be separated by something as comparatively powerless as betrayal of country or lack of humanity.Still, for those not in the cult, each new offense seems like the end.How could this one – for instance, the debate-stage rant that Haitian immigrants in Ohio are “eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats” – not have been the end?Yet the end never comes.“Imagine if we learned today that Kamala Harris was having regular conversations with Vladimir Putin, had sent him a special Covid testing kit, falsely claimed to have visited Gaza, was repeatedly lying about the federal hurricane response and said that the country had bad genes,” wrote the anti-Trump lawyer George Conway.The media would be in a frenzy, the negative attention would be unrelenting, and all of that would capsize her campaign.But Trump sails on. Imagine if Kamala Harris had first agreed to, then backed out of, an interview on CBS’s 60 Minutes, as Trump did – at least in part because he didn’t want to be fact-checked or subjected to tough questions.By now, eight years past the Access Hollywood tape, the different sets of standards are baked in. One candidate – whether Biden or Harris – has been held to old-style judgments, with every word parsed and criticized.The other is held to almost no standards, because his base simply refuses to care.And the scandals build on each other. They pile up, intertwined.Thus, the report that Trump and Putin remained in contact gives a whole new dimension to knowing that the former president had a trove of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, and did not willingly turn them over.It gives a whole new dimension to Trump’s pressuring Republicans to block military aid to Ukraine.It brings deeper understanding to how Trump says the conflict between Ukraine and Russia would never have started under him and that it will be immediately over if he wins another term. We know what this really means; Putin would simply have his way.Former Trump officials, right up to former vice-president Mike Pence, and some conscientious Republicans, have denounced the former president or even endorsed Harris. They know.But Trump’s poll numbers and approval ratings don’t seem to budge. The faithful remain faithful, unperturbed – couched in their indifference, as a Paul Simon lyric put it.Trump doesn’t often tell the truth. But when it came to his observation about shooting someone on Fifth Avenue, he got something very right.

      Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture More

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      More than 700 national security officials endorse Kamala Harris for president

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      More than 700 national security leaders and former military officials publicly endorsed Kamala Harris for president in a letter released on Sunday, calling her a candidate who “defends America’s democratic ideals”.They also said her Republican rival, Donald Trump, was “unfit” for the job.The letter, signed by retired US navy R Adm Michael Smith and hundreds of others, criticized the former president’s remarks about “terminating” the US constitution over his lie that the 2020 election was stolen and his suggestion of becoming a “dictator” if re-elected.The group also condemned Trump’s lack of remorse for the January 6 Capitol attack.The letter is a further boost to the vice-president and her bid for the White House. Since Joe Biden dropped his bid for re-election in July, Harris has opened up a narrow lead over Trump and performed more strongly in the crucial swing states needed for victory. She has also secured the endorsement of some key anti-Trump Republicans.The security and military officials wrote in the latter that Harris “grasps the reality of American military deterrence, promising to preserve the American military’s status as the most ‘lethal’ force in the world”.“The contrast with Mr Trump is clear: where Vice President Harris is prepared and strategic, he is impulsive and ill-informed,” the letter reads.Among those signing the letter is the former secretary of state and 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Jeff Bleich, who served as the US ambassador to Australia under Barack Obama, and the former CIA director John Deutch.In her new book, Clinton expressed her excitement of the prospect of a woman becoming president.“When I imagine Kamala standing before the Capitol next January, taking the oath of office as our first woman president, my heart leaps,” she said. “After hard years of division, it will prove that our best days are still ahead and that we are making progress on our long journey toward a more perfect union.”The letter made public also criticized Trump’s relationship with leaders overseas, including China’s president, Xi Jinping, the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe national security leaders also slammed Trump’s decision to criticize leaders in the UK, Israel, Australia, Canada and Germany.“Mr Trump denigrates our great country and does not believe in the American ideal that our leaders should reflect the will of the people,” says the letter. “Mr Trump is the first president in American history to actively undermine the peaceful transfer of power, the bedrock of American democracy.”The pro-Harris letter comes on the heels of another endorsement earlier this month by a group of 10 retired top US military officials, including retired Gen Larry Ellis, condemning Trump’s comments disparaging members of the military.Last month, Trump was pictured giving a thumbs up with family members at a ceremony to mark the deaths of US soldiers in Afghanistan. The army accused two campaign officials of pushing aside a worker at the cemetery who told them that it was not permitted to take photographs at the graves of recently deceased soldiers. More