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      CDC officials who quit in protest lead call to ‘get politics out of public health’

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      Senior CDC vaccine research and public health leaders who resigned in protest told hundreds of supporters across the street from campus on Thursday that the Trump administration needs to “get politics out of public health”.The agency is reeling from the firing of the CDC chief, Susan Monarez, but Monarez, who was confirmed as CDC chief just a month ago, has refused to be removed. Four senior leaders – Debra Houry, Demetre Daskalakis, Daniel Jernigan and Jennifer Layden – then resigned in protest, citing the alleged spread of misinformation under the Trump administration and political interference in their work. The staffers cheered and applauded them at the event on Thursday.“You are the people that protect America, and America needs to see that you are the people that protect America, and we are going to be your loudest advocates,” said Daskalakis to the throng. Daskalakis, who was accompanied at the rally by Houry and Jernigan, is now the former director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases and is known for his leadership in HIV prevention and vaccination programs and the Biden administration’s response to the mpox outbreak.The three, plus Jennifer Leyden, who led the office of public health data, resigned together on Thursday to make a statement about the damage the administration had done to public vaccine research, and in protest of the administration’s response to vaccine disinformation, they said.“We agreed to do this together. We’ve been talking about it for months, and then past few days, it was just escalating,” said Houry, the CDC’s former chief medical officer. “If one of us retired, it would have been a blip. When the three of us do it together, it’s more powerful and just shows the state of our agency.” She and the others are asking for Congress to intervene, to put a stop to political interference in the organization’s work.The agency is overseen by the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, who in recent days restricted the use of Covid vaccines for Americans and has removed scientific advisers and cut funding for medical research. Kennedy has reportedly tapped the deputy health secretary, Jim O’Neill, an investor in libertarian billionaire Peter Thiel’s orbit, as the CDC’s interim leader. Monarez was the first CDC director in 50 years to not hold a medical degree. O’Neill would be the second.The staff and supporters of the CDC gathered across the street from the campus in Atlanta, and Houry, Daskalakis and Jernigan were met with applause and handshakes, a marked difference from this morning when they were escorted off campus.View image in fullscreen“They are essentially trying to undo a lot of the science that has been settled for vaccine policies,” Jernigan said. The dismissal “was a tipping point for us that we had to say we’ve got to do something. We need to get the politics out of public health. We need to make sure that we’re using objective science in the making of vaccine and other treatment decisions. Until we can do that and get back to that, ideology will be just driving the policies rather than the science driving the policies.”The turmoil at the CDC comes as the agency is still recovering from the attack of a gunman who fired more than 500 rounds into the Atlanta offices before killing the DeKalb police officer David Rose. More than two weeks later, the White House had said nothing about the shooting, Houry said. Staffers were “concerned about speaking about vaccines in our science because they’re worried they’ll be targeted”, she said. “That’s unacceptable … This was an act of domestic terrorism. They need to address this.”The shooting has done more than shaken up the staff. The community is questioning whether their lives are valued by the federal government, said Dr Jasmine Clark, an Emory University professor of microbiology and state representative in the suburbs north of Atlanta, who is running for Congress. The speed with which the event was organized – not a walkout, more like a long lunch – spoke to the sentiment in the building, she said.“So many people in my community said they feel like no one values their life, and what am I doing when I go to work every day? It’s a privilege that people have no idea what happens in that building, and the fact that they don’t know means they’re doing a good job. But unfortunately we have an administration that does not value that work and in fact actively devalues the work and spreads misinformation that cost the life of Officer David Rose.” More

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      Democrats seek ‘immediate answers’ after reported arrests of firefighters by US border agents

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      Patty Murray, the Washington senator, has called for the Trump administration to provide “immediate answers” about reports that two firefighters were detained by border agents as they were responding to a wildfire in the state.Federal immigration authorities on Wednesday staged an operation on the scene of the Bear Gulch fire, a nearly 9,000-acre (3,600-hectare) blaze in the Olympic national forest, where they arrested two people who were part of a contract firefighting crew, the Seattle Times first reported. The fire is the largest currently burning in the state.Authorities made the firefighters line up to show ID, the Seattle Times reported. One firefighter told the newspaper that they were not permitted to say goodbye to their detained colleagues.“I asked them if his [co-workers] can say goodbye to him because they’re family, and they’re just ripping them away,” the firefighter said to the Seattle Times, adding that the federal agent swore and told the firefighter to leave.The operation sparked widespread condemnation in the state. Murray in her statement released on Thursday morning demanded information about the whereabouts of the firefighters and the administration’s policy around immigration enforcement during wildfires.The Trump administration’s immigration policy is “fundamentally sick”, Murray said. She continued: “Trump has wrongfully detained everyone from lawful green-card holders to American citizens – no one should assume this was necessary or appropriate.”The US border patrol later on Thursday released some information on the operation, saying that it had assisted the Bureau of Land Management after that agency requested help after terminating contracts with two companies following a criminal investigation.While verifying the identities of contract personnel, federal agents identified two people “present in the United States illegally”, border patrol said in a statement, including one person who had a previous order of removal.The agency did not provide more details about the nature of the criminal investigation and the identities of the firefighters have not been made public.Authorities arrested the men on charges of illegal entry, and escorted 42 others off federal lands, according to the border patrol statement.The US Forest Service said in a statement that it was aware of the border patrol operation and that the activities did not interfere with firefighting efforts.Murray in her statement said the president had been undercutting firefighting abilities in other ways, including by “decimating” the US Forest Service. The administration significantly cut budgets and staffing at the agencies that manage much of the country’s federal lands, leaving the US unprepared for this year’s fire season, the Guardian previously reported.“Here in the Pacific north-west, wildfires can [burn] and have burned entire towns to the ground. We count on our brave firefighters, who put their lives on the line, to keep our communities safe – this new Republican policy to detain firefighters on the job is as immoral as it is dangerous,” said Murray, who has represented Washington in the US Senate since 1993.“What’s next? Will Trump start detaining immigrant service members? Or will he just maintain his current policy of deporting Purple Heart veterans?”Nearly 430 personnel are responding to the Bear Gulch fire on the state’s Olympic peninsula. Firefighters told the Seattle Times that two contract crews had been sent to cut wood and were waiting for a supervisor when federal law enforcement arrived in the area. More

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      Rwanda accepts seven people from US as part of deportation deal

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      Seven people have arrived in Rwanda as part of a deal to accept deportees from the US, the Rwandan government has said.“The first group of seven vetted migrants arrived in Rwanda in mid-August … Three of the individuals have expressed a desire to return to their home countries, while four wish to stay and build lives in Rwanda,” Yolande Makolo, a government spokesperson, said on Thursday.Officials offered no information on the nationalities of the seven deportees. Rwanda said on 5 August it would accept up to 250 people from the US, and that it would have “the ability to approve each individual proposed for resettlement”.The first arrivals would be “accommodated by an international organisation with visits by the International Organisation on Migration and Rwandan social services”, Makolo said.Donald Trump’s administration has been pushing a deportation drive, negotiating controversial arrangements to send people to third countries, including South Sudan and Eswatini, formerly Swaziland.Rwanda signed a lucrative deal in 2022 to accept migrants from Britain, only for the agreement to be scrapped when Labour came to power last year.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionKigali agreed to the scheme with Washington because “nearly every Rwandan family has experienced the hardships of displacement”, Makolo said earlier this month. Those who arrived in Rwanda would be provided with training, healthcare and accommodation, she added.The Trump administration has said third-country deportations are necessary because home nations sometimes refuse to accept the deportees.Rights experts have said the deportations may break international law by sending people to countries where they face the risk of torture, abduction and other abuses.Rwanda, which has a population of 14 million people, claims to be one of the most stable countries in Africa and has drawn praise for its modern infrastructure. However, the agreement with Britain drew criticism from rights groups and faced a long-running legal challenge.President Paul Kagame’s government has been accused of human rights violations and of crushing political dissent and press freedoms. More

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      CDC chief ‘targeted’ for refusing to ‘rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives’, lawyers say – as it happened

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      Susan Monarez was removed from her position as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday without being told why she was fired, her lawyers said in a statement.“First it was independent advisory committees and career experts. Then it was the dismissal of seasoned scientists. Now, Secretary Kennedy and HHS have set their sights on weaponizing public health for political gain and putting millions of American lives at risk”, her lawyers, Mark Zaid and Abbe David Lowell, said in a statement posted on social media.“When CDC Director Susan Monarez refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts, she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda. For that, she has been targeted. Dr. Monarez has neither resigned nor received notification from the White House that she has been fired, and as a person of integrity and devoted to science, she will not resign.”“This is not about one official,” the lawyers added. “It is about the systematic dismantling of public health institutions, the silencing of experts, and the dangerous politicization of science. The attack on Dr. Monarez is a warning to every American: our evidence-based systems are being undermined from within.”The Department of Health and Human Services offered no explanation when it announced in an unsigned social media post that Monarez, who was confirmed by the Senate as CDC director and sworn in by Kennedy just last month, was no longer in charge of the public health agency.Sources “who spoke anonymously for fear of retribution”, told the New York Times reports that Monarez had objected to sweeping changes to the panel of experts who advise the agency on vaccine policy made by Donald Trump’s anti-vaccine health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.An administration official also told the Times that Kennedy had summoned Monarez to his office on Monday and demanded that she resign. After she refused to do so, she called Dr Bill Cassidy, the Republican chairman of the Senate health committee. Kennedy then accused Monarez of “being a leaker” and said that she would be fired.Hours before Monarez left the agency, Kennedy hailed decisions by the Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday revoking the emergency use authorization for the Covid-19 vaccines manufactured by Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax that CDC experts estimate saved 3.2 million lives in the United States.Vaccines from the three manufacturers are now authorized by the FDA only for people who are 65 and older, or younger people with an underlying medical condition that puts them at risk for severe disease.Even those that qualify for the vaccines will only be able to get them in the US if the advisory panel, reshaped by Kennedy to include Covid vaccine opponents, votes to approve them.This concludes our live coverage of the second Trump administration for the day, but we will be back at it on Thursday morning. Here are the latest developments:

      The leadership of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was thrown into chaos after the health department announced the Senate-confirmed CDC director, Susan Monarez, was no longer in charge, but her lawyers said she refused to resign and had not been fired.

      First it was independent advisory committees and career experts. Then it was the dismissal of seasoned scientists. Now, Robert F Kennedy Jr and HHS have set their sights on “weaponizing public health for political gain” and “putting millions of American lives at risk”, lawyers for Monarez said in a statement. “When CDC Director Susan Monarez refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts, she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda. For that, she has been targeted. Dr. Monarez has neither resigned nor received notification from the White House that she has been fired, and as a person of integrity and devoted to science, she will not resign.”

      At least three CDC senior officials resigned after Monarez was ousted. One squarely blamed Robert F Kennedy Jr’s leadership.

      “I am not able to serve in this role any longer because of the ongoing weaponization of public health,” Dr Demetre Daskalakis, who resigned as director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases told colleagues.

      Public health experts are sounding the alarm about the chaos at the CDC, as at least three senior leaders resigned following the ouster of the apparent ouster of the CDC director.

      As a Senate-confirmed official, only the president has the authority to fire her, and, for once, Donald Trump has been strangely silent as this drams unfolded. But the White House press office issued a statement saying that Monarez had been removed, not by Trump but by “the White House”.
      While differences over vaccines appear to have been central to the rift between the ousted CDC director, Susan Monarez, and Robert F Kennedy Jr, the health secretary, Monarez also stood out from her bosses by mourning for the officer who died defending the agency’s campus in Atlanta from a gunman who was driven by misinformation about the Covid-19 vaccine.While Monarez publicly mourned David Rose, who, as our colleague George Chidi wrote, was murdered by a lie, others in the CDC were distressed that Kennedy said little, and Trump nothing about the attack on their campus.The confusion over whether or not Susan Monarez is still the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, after the health department said she was not, and her lawyers said she has not resigned or been fired, partly stems from the fact that Monarez was confirmed by the Senate last month.As a Senate-confirmed official, only the president has the authority to fire her, and, for once, Donald Trump has been strangely silent as this drama unfolded on Wednesday night.But the White House press office has just issued a statement saying that Monarez has been removed, not by Trump but by “the White House”.“As her attorney’s statement makes abundantly clear, Susan Monarez is not aligned with the President’s agenda of Making America Healthy Again” the White House deputy press secretary, Kush Desai, said in a statement to the Guardian. “Since Susan Monarez refused to resign despite informing HHS leadership of her intent to do so, the White House has terminated Monarez from her position with the CDC.”As Aaron Fritschner, an aide to Don Beyer, a Democratic congressman, observed: “Don’t think ‘the White House’ has the power to terminate the Director of the CDC. The President does, but they didn’t say that he did, which is curious.”Public health experts are sounding the alarm about the chaos at the CDC, as at least three senior leaders resigned following the apparent ouster of the CDC director.“What’s happening at the CDC should frighten every American Regardless of whether you are MAGA, MAHA, neither, or don’t give a damn about labels or politics. It’s unclear whether the CDC director—confirmed just weeks ago—has been fired or not. Absolute shitshow,” Dr Craig Spencer, an emergency medicine doctor and professor at Brown University School of Public Health posted. “And incredible career professionals resigned tonight, sounding a massive alarm,” he added. “This is pure chaos that leaves the country unprepared. Imagine cases of Ebola in the U.S. right now? We would be an absolute mess.”“RFK, Jr is increasingly becoming a liability for the White House,” Dr Jonathan Reiner, a cardiologist and professor of medicine at George Washington University, observed. “I doubt the president feels good about RFK’s incessant attack on his COVID vaccine triumph and he’s likely not going to be pleased that the HHS Sec is usurping the role of the President in hiring/firing senate confirmed officials.”“There is a wholesale destruction of leadership at the CDC. The newly confirmed Director is out,” Dr Ashish Jha, the Biden administration’s coronavirus response coordinator, wrote. “Most of the top leaders who run key centers have resigned en masse. Total implosion. All because of [Secretary Kennedy’s] leadership. What a complete disaster.”Dr Demetre Daskalakis, who resigned on Wednesday from his position as the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the CDC, just posted his full, blistering resignation letter on Instagram.In the letter, the veteran public health official blames the views and erratic leadership of Robert F Kennedy Jr, the health secretary, for making it impossible for him to continue.“I am unable to serve in an environment that treats CDC as a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality and are designed to hurt rather than to improve the public’s health. The recent change in the adult and children’s immunization schedule threaten the lives of the youngest Americans and pregnant people,” Daskalakis wrote, in reference to the decision in May, for the CDC to remove its recommendation of the Covid-19 vaccine for healthy children and pregnant women.He added that the data to support this change was never shared with the CDC and that a public information sheet on the change, “written to support the Secretary’s directive” was circulated by the health department “without input from CDC subject matter experts”.Daskalakis also called out Kennedy’s fondness for “social media posts announcing major policy changes” without consulting CDC experts in advance. “Having to retrofit analyses and policy actions to match inadequately thought-out announcements in poorly scripted videos or page long X posts should not be how organizations responsible for the health of people should function,” he wrote.“The intentional eroding of trust in low-risk vaccines favoring natural infection and unproven remedies will bring us to a pre-vaccine era where only the strong will survive and many if not all will suffer,” he added. “I believe in nutrition and exercise. I believe in making our food supply healthier, and I also believe in using vaccines to prevent death and disability. Eugenics plays prominently in the rhetoric being generated and is derivative of a legacy that good medicine and science should continue to shun.”“The recent shooting at CDC is not why I am resigning,” Daskalakis wrote, drawing attention to the gunman who fired hundreds of rounds into CDC buildings who was motivated by unfounded theories about injuries from the Covid-19 vaccine that Kennedy has promoted.“My grandfather, who I am named after, stood up to fascist forces in Greece and lost his life doing so. I am resigning to make him and his legacy proud. I am resigning because of the cowardice of a leader that cannot admit that HIS and his minions’ words over decades created an environment where violence like this can occur. I reject his and his colleagues’ thoughts and prayers, and advise they direct those to people that they have not actively harmed,” Daskalakis wrote.“For decades, I have been a trusted voice for the LGBTQ community when it comes to critical health topics,” the doctor, who formerly led HIV/AIDS prevention at the CDC, and once dressed in drag to administer meningitis vaccines, added. “I must also cite the recklessness of the administration in their efforts to erase transgender populations, cease critical domestic and international HIV programming, and terminate key research to support equity as part of my decision.”Susan Monarez was removed from her position as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday without being told why she was fired, her lawyers said in a statement.“First it was independent advisory committees and career experts. Then it was the dismissal of seasoned scientists. Now, Secretary Kennedy and HHS have set their sights on weaponizing public health for political gain and putting millions of American lives at risk”, her lawyers, Mark Zaid and Abbe David Lowell, said in a statement posted on social media.“When CDC Director Susan Monarez refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts, she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda. For that, she has been targeted. Dr. Monarez has neither resigned nor received notification from the White House that she has been fired, and as a person of integrity and devoted to science, she will not resign.”“This is not about one official,” the lawyers added. “It is about the systematic dismantling of public health institutions, the silencing of experts, and the dangerous politicization of science. The attack on Dr. Monarez is a warning to every American: our evidence-based systems are being undermined from within.”The Department of Health and Human Services offered no explanation when it announced in an unsigned social media post that Monarez, who was confirmed by the Senate as CDC director and sworn in by Kennedy just last month, was no longer in charge of the public health agency.Sources “who spoke anonymously for fear of retribution”, told the New York Times reports that Monarez had objected to sweeping changes to the panel of experts who advise the agency on vaccine policy made by Donald Trump’s anti-vaccine health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.An administration official also told the Times that Kennedy had summoned Monarez to his office on Monday and demanded that she resign. After she refused to do so, she called Dr Bill Cassidy, the Republican chairman of the Senate health committee. Kennedy then accused Monarez of “being a leaker” and said that she would be fired.Hours before Monarez left the agency, Kennedy hailed decisions by the Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday revoking the emergency use authorization for the Covid-19 vaccines manufactured by Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax that CDC experts estimate saved 3.2 million lives in the United States.Vaccines from the three manufacturers are now authorized by the FDA only for people who are 65 and older, or younger people with an underlying medical condition that puts them at risk for severe disease.Even those that qualify for the vaccines will only be able to get them in the US if the advisory panel, reshaped by Kennedy to include Covid vaccine opponents, votes to approve them.Inside Medicine, a newsletter written by Jeremy Faust, a public health researcher and emergency medicine physician, just published the full text of email statements three CDC leaders who resigned on Wednesday sent to their colleagues to explain their reasons for leaving the US public health agency after its new director abruptly departed.The most explosive charge came from Dr Demetre Daskalakis, who stepped down as the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. “I am not able to serve in this role any longer because of the ongoing weaponizing of public health. You are the best team I have ever worked with, and you continue to shine despite this dark cloud over the agency and our profession,” Daskalakis wrote. “Please take care of yourself and your teams and make the right decisions for yourselves.”“For the good of the nation and the world, the science at CDC should never be censored or subject to political pauses or interpretations,” Dr Deb Houry, the agency’s chief medical officer, wrote. “Vaccines save lives – this is an indisputable, well-established, scientific fact. Informed consent and shared decision-making must focus not only on the risks but also on the true, life-saving benefits that vaccines provide to individuals and communities. It is, of course, important to question, analyze, and review research and surveillance, but this must be done by experts with the right skills and experience, without bias, and considering the full weight of scientific evidence. Recently, the overstating of risks and the rise of misinformation have cost lives, as demonstrated by the highest number of US measles cases in 30 years and the violent attack on our agency.”Houry’s statement seemed like a clear response to recent statements and actions to limit access to vaccines by the anti-vaccine health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr.Dr Daniel Jernigan, who resigned as director of the premiere US center for the study of emerging and zoonotic infectious diseases, told colleagues: “I believe strongly in the mission of public health and the leadership that CDC has given for almost 80 years; however, given the current context in the Department, I feel it is best for me to offer my resignation.”Jernigan, whose center included the CDC’s Immunization Safety Office, testified to Congress last year that the CDC estimates that the vaccination of children born between 1994 and 2021 “will prevent 472 million illnesses and 29.8 million hospitalizations, help avoid 1,052,000 deaths, and save nearly $2.2 trillion in total societal costs”.He also pointed to research that, as of November 2022, Covid-19 vaccines had “saved more than 3.2 million lives in the United States, prevented more than 18.5 million hospitalizations, and averted over $1.15 trillion in healthcare costs”.“I am not able to serve in this role any longer because of the ongoing weaponization of public health,” Dr Demetre Daskalakis, who resigned on Wednesday from his position as the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the CDC told colleagues in an email obtained by STAT, a health news site.Those concerns were echoed by another departing CDC leader, Dr Deb Houry, the chief medical officer, who wrote that “ongoing changes prevent me from continuing in my job as a leader of the agency” adding that science should “never be censored or subject to political interpretations”.The two CDC leaders, and their colleague Daniel Jernigan, who ran the Center for Emerging Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, quit the agency after the abrupt departure of Susan Monarez, the Senate-confirmed director of the CDC.US officials announced on Wednesday the departure of the director of the nation’s top public health agency, after less than one month in the job.“Susan Monarez is no longer director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We thank her for her dedicated service to the American people,” the US Department of Health and Human Services wrote in a statement posted on social media.HHS officials did not explain why Monarez is no longer with the agency. Before the announcement was made, Monarez told the Associated Press: “I can’t comment.”Three senior officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention resigned on Wednesday after the new CDC director Susan Monarez, abruptly left the agency.Shortly after the US Department of Health and Human Services, HHS, announced on social media that Monarez “is no longer director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention”, at least three CDC leaders resigned: Dr Debra Houry, the chief medical officer; Dr Daniel Jernigan, the director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases; and Dr Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.There was no immediate explanation for why any of the senior leaders have left the top US public health agency. Monarez was sworn in just four weeks ago. More

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      Gavin Newsom is taking the fight to Trump – but for whom is he fighting? | Arwa Mahdawi

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      Every time you think US politics could not possibly get any stupider, it does. Today’s instalment of “we live in hell, where politicians are passing around the last remaining brain cell” comes via New York and the latest shenanigans of the city’s mayor, Eric Adams. Desperate to distract voters from a steady stream of scandals, the latest of which involves a former aide giving a reporter a crisp packet filled with cash after an Adams mayoral campaign event, he is trying hard to flex his social media muscles.This weekend, Adams joined Andrew Cuomo, the former governor who is running as an independent in November’s election, and others in mocking Zohran Mamdani, the charismatic Democratic candidate and frontrunner, for his weightlifting efforts at a community event. Adams posted a side-by-side video on X of himself and Mamdani bench-pressing with the caption: “67 vs. 33 … The weight of the job is too heavy for ‘Mamscrawny.’ The only thing he can lift is your taxes.” This post was quickly deleted and replaced with one that got Adams’s age right: he is 64.Inventing childish nicknames for your rivals? Classic Donald Trump. Getting basic facts embarrassingly wrong? Super Trumpy. Obsessing over your manliness, rather than focusing on issues voters care about? Trumpy to the max.Adams isn’t the only politician emulating the president’s idiosyncratic communication style. Across the globe, we are witnessing the seemingly unstoppable rise of the trollitician. From the Australian senator Ralph Babet tweeting tirades about “woke ass clowns” to the US vice-president, JD Vance, insulting the IQs of his detractors, an increasing number of politicos seem to be operating like attention-seeking edgelords rather than dignified statespeople. If it worked for Trump, their reasoning seems to go, they too may have a shot at shitposting their way to the top.Playing Trump’s social media game rather better than anyone else at the moment is Gavin Newsom. In recent weeks, the governor of California, clearly readying himself for a 2028 presidential run, has been giving his caps lock key quite the pounding to troll Trump by adopting his social media vernacular. “TRUMP JUST FLED THE PODIUM WITH PUTIN … THE MAN LOOKED LIKE HE’D JUST EATEN 3 BUCKETS OF KFC WITH VLAD,” reads one mocking tweet from the governor’s press office this month.Newsom has also opened an online “Patriot shop”, poking fun at Trump’s tasteless merchandise. There are red-and-white baseball caps emblazoned with “NEWSOM WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING!” and tank tops proclaiming “Trump is not hot”. There is also a Bible priced at $100 (£74). It’s sold out, but if God is good, and supply chains oblige, it will be back in stock soon.Some of Newsom’s posts have been very amusing; they have certainly generated a lot of publicity for him and delighted many liberals. I am no Newsom fan – he has flip-flopped opportunistically on transgender issues and taken a questionable stand on pro-Palestine campus protests – but it’s refreshing to see energy from the opposition. The Democrats are losing voters at a staggering rate and the party’s out-of-touch leaders can’t seem to pull themselves together to challenge Trump effectively. By contrast, Newsom seems ready for a fight.This isn’t to suggest that snarky tweets are the way to defeat Maga. Newsom has said his bombastic posts are meant to shine a light on Trump’s unpresidential behaviour: “If you’ve got issues with what I’m putting out, you sure as hell should have concerns about what he’s putting out as president.” But it doesn’t matter if you shine a stadium’s worth of floodlights on a problem if people wilfully avoid looking. You can’t shame many of Trump’s supporters because they have no shame; you can’t use logic with people in a personality cult.Crucially, however, Newsom isn’t stopping at mean tweets. He has shown that he will not just sit down and whine as the Republicans use dirty tricks such as redrawing the voting map in Texas; he will try to use the same redistricting tactics in California. Newsom has grasped what so many other Democrats are loth to admit: you can’t keep playing by the same old rules when the other side has ripped up the rulebook.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionUltimately, though, being willing to fight isn’t enough. To win, Democrats need to show normal people that they will fight for them. People don’t want silly tweets and underhand tactics; they want politicians who will lower the cost of living and direct taxes towards healthcare and infrastructure rather than bombing starving children in Gaza. Running on popular policies and seemingly authentic empathy is what has made Mamdani – who is still being shunned by Democratic leadership – such an effective candidate. Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist More

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

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

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      Trump casts home-town shadow as he weighs role in New York mayor’s race

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      Millions of people will go to the polls in New York City in November, but in a closely watched election for mayor it’s a high-profile, highly unpopular former New Yorker who is attracting most of the attention.Donald Trump, who spent nearly seven decades in New York before leaving town after his first term as president, is the ghost at the feast in America’s biggest city, a looming presence as he weighs whether to insert his considerable heft into the race.In recent weeks, Trump has taken an increased interest in his home town’s mayoral election and is considering whether to back a candidate, according to reports. It’s a development that adds another layer of complexity to a race that has already seen it all: from the leading candidate, Zohran Mamdani, being threatened by Trump with deportation, to an apparent attempt at bribery via cash stuffed into a bag of potato chips.Trump had a phone call about the race with Andrew Cuomo, the former Democratic New York governor and Mamdani’s rival, in recent weeks, according to the New York Times. It came as wealthy New Yorkers are seeking to thwart Mamdani, the 33-year-old Democratic socialist who delighted the American left when he defeated Cuomo in the Democratic primary. Cuomo, who resigned as governor in 2021 amid a sexual misconduct scandal, is attempting to revive his dream of becoming mayor by running as an independent.The president also has links to the incumbent, Eric Adams, who has benefited more than most from Trump’s re-election. Adams, a Republican turned Democrat turned independent, was charged in September last year with accepting bribes and illegal campaign contributions from Turkish officials in exchange for favors. In April this year, the justice department, headed by Trump loyalist Pam Bondi, successfully lobbied for the case against Adams to be dropped – a move which came after Adams took a more hardline, Trumpian stance on immigration.So far, neither man has successfully won over Trump, and a White House official told the Guardian that the president has said he does not intend to get involved. But the speculation of a presidential incursion just won’t go away.Trump has said Cuomo should stay in the race, and even praised Adams in a recent press conference – during which he also described Mamdani as a “communist”.“You have a good independent running: Mayor Adams who is a very good person. I helped him out a little bit. He had a problem and he was unfairly hurt,” Trump said.The intrigue comes as Mamdani, who has terrified New York’s powerful real-estate lobby and billionaire class by promising to freeze rent prices and raise taxes – slightly – on the wealthiest 1% of New Yorkers, is on the verge of running away with the race.For weeks, polls have shown Mamdani ahead of Adams, Cuomo and the Republican Curtis Sliwa. A survey this week showed Mamdani winning 42% of the vote, with his nearest challenger Cuomo on just 23%. The poll, published by AARP, showed that Mamdani’s support would increase if Cuomo or Adams dropped out.Cuomo and Adams have shown signs that they may be open to Trump. In audio obtained by Politico, Cuomo told Trump-friendly donors in the elite enclave of the Hamptons that the president was likely to intervene in his favor in the election.Cuomo predicted to donors that Adams would drop out, and said that they could negate the impact of Sliwa, who has said Trump should stay out of the race.“Trump himself, as well as top Republicans, will say the goal is to stop Mamdani. And you’ll be wasting your vote on Sliwa,” Cuomo said. A spokesman for Cuomo, whose lawyer turned governor father at one point worked for Fred Trump, the wealthy real-estate developer who handed over his business to his son, Donald Trump, in the 1970s, told the Guardian the story was “overblown”.“The governor was asked what he heard to be a hypothetical about how it could become a two-person race and was speculating,” Rich Azzopardi said.“We’re not asking for or expecting help from anyone – he [Cuomo] also said the mayor would have to drop out and the mayor said he wasn’t going to. Governor Cuomo is the only chance to beat Mamdani and ensure the greatest city in the world stays the greatest city in the world.”View image in fullscreenStill, with Mamdani comfortably leading in the polls, and Adams and Cuomo seemingly cannibalizing each other’s support, the rightwing elite in New York are becoming increasingly desperate for a Trump intervention.The New York Post, the rightwing tabloid that Trump is known to read, sent a message directly to the president earlier in August, running an editorial with the headline: “President Trump, do what’s right for NYC and endorse Mayor Eric Adams for re-election.”But that wouldn’t necessarily be helpful, said Trip Yang, a Democratic strategist and founder of Trip Yang Strategies.“Donald Trump is one of the least popular individuals in New York City history. Anyone who Donald Trump wants, supports, is automatically going to be a loser in the New York City mayor’s race. He is beyond toxic,” Yang said.Trump won just 30% of the vote in New York City in 2024, a remarkable low for someone born and raised in the city. Although, it does suggest he is more popular than Adams, whose job approval was at a record low of 20% earlier this year.Adams and Cuomo are deeply flawed candidates. Cuomo was plagued by scandal in his final term as governor, stepping down after he was accused of sexual harassment by 11 women, most of whom worked for him. He attempted to defy the odds by entering the New York mayoral election, and was originally the frontrunner, but ran an anonymous race, relying on tightly controlled press conferences over in-person appearances. Despite wealthy backers – some of whom had donated to Trump – pumping millions into his campaign he finished a distant second to Mamdani.While those corruption charges against Adams were dropped, questions remain over the kind of people the mayor surrounds himself with. Multiple people linked to Adams have been charged with corruption, and in a bizarre incident just this week, a volunteer on his campaign, Winnie Greco – who until last year served as Adams’s liaison to the Asian community – handed a reporter from the City a bag of Herr’s ripple potato chips containing a red envelope full of cash. A lawyer for Greco, who has been suspended by the Adams campaign, told the City that the money-in-a-potato-chip-bag ruse was a misunderstanding.“In the Chinese culture, money is often given to others in a gesture of friendship and gratitude,” the lawyer said.In a statement to the Guardian, Adams said: “I have not been accused of any wrongdoing, and my focus remains on serving the 8.5 million New Yorkers by making our city safer and more affordable every day.”Earlier this month, Adams left some wiggle room when asked if he would accept an endorsement from Trump, telling 77 ABC: “I want New Yorkers’ endorsement. I think the president’s going to make a determination on what he’s going to do in his race.” Cuomo has said he would not accept an endorsement.That’s probably wise given Trump’s unpopularity, but there have been suggestions that the president could weigh in behind the scenes, with the New York Times reporting that donors and allies of Adams and Cuomo have “pined” for Trump to intervene.Yang thinks that wouldn’t work.“Sometimes you could pull that off in a very local race that doesn’t get any attention. But look: the New York City mayor’s race, for us here in New York, this is our Super Bowl. Any type of private phone call, private meeting, it’s already shown that it gets leaked immediately to the press,” he said.“It would actually be net negative. It would be a good thing for Mamdani. You can buy a lot of things, but you cannot be associated with Donald Trump in New York City if you’re trying to win an election.”What is clear is that if the election happened today, rather than on Tuesday 4 November, Mamdani would win. And so far the questions about Trump’s links with Adams and Cuomo have seemed to be a blessing for the frontrunner.Mamdani responded to the leaked Cuomo audio this week, writing on Instagram: “This is not just a shady backroom deal by a cynical politician, it is disqualifying. It is a betrayal. Donald Trump is sending masked agents to rip our neighbors off the street, gutting the social services so many New Yorkers rely on, and threatening to deport me for having the audacity to stand up to him and his billionaire friends.”Mamdani added: “The job of New York City mayor is not to be a jester for a wannabe king, it is to protect the people of this city.”With less than three months to go, it remains to be seen whether Trump will move to select a jester, or whether he will leave the people of New York City, the city that spurned him, alone. More