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      Chinese business tycoon and Bannon ally Guo Wengui arrested in $1bn fraud conspiracy

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      Guo Wengui, a self-exiled Chinese tycoon with close links to prominent Trumpist Republicans including Steve Bannon, has been indicted on 12 counts relating to an alleged $1bn fraud.The charges announced by the US attorney for the southern district of New York on Wednesday include wire fraud, securities fraud, bank fraud and money laundering.Kin Ming Je, a Hong Kong and UK dual citizen also known as William Je and described as Guo’s financier, was also named in the charges and faced a further count of obstruction of justice.The US attorney for the SDNY, Damian Williams, said Guo “led a complex conspiracy to defraud thousands of his online followers out of over $1bn.“[Guo] is charged with lining his pockets with the money he stole, including buying himself, and his close relatives, a 50,000 sq ft mansion, a $3.5m Ferrari, and even two $36,000 mattresses, and financing a $37m luxury yacht.”Guo was arrested early on Wednesday at his home in a building on 60th Street and Fifth Avenue in New York City. Just after noon, a fire broke out at the same address, according to the New York fire department.ABC News reported that FBI agents were inside the $32.5m penthouse apartment when the fire broke out, and that the bureau is now investigating whether the blaze was related to the arrest.Guo’s contacts in influential circles have been widely reported.In October 2022, the New Yorker described how his application to buy the penthouse at an exclusive building on Fifth Avenue included “a personal recommendation from Tony Blair, Britain’s former prime minister, [who] said, ‘Miles is honest, forthright and has impeccable taste.’”The same report, however, said that in China, Guo was “at the center of a burgeoning scandal involving corruption and espionage”.Guo was also reported to have “paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to Trump advisers, including Steve Bannon, Rudy Giuliani and the attorney L Lin Wood, who joined efforts to overturn the 2020 election”.Bannon, who was Trump’s campaign chair when he was introduced to Guo during the 2016 election, came to call him “the Donald Trump of Beijing”.Bannon was aboard Guo’s yacht on the Long Island Sound when he himself was arrested on fraud charges in August 2020.Guo left China in 2014 during an anti-corruption crackdown led by the president, Xi Jinping.In 2017, Guo made a series of salacious accusations about the Chinese government, accusing officials of having illegitimate children, houses and large sums of money in overseas bank accounts. The Chinese police accused him of paying associates to forge Chinese government documents and requested that Interpol issue a notice for his arrest.Guo claimed that allegations against him in China were launched in retaliation for his efforts to expose graft.On Wednesday, the Department of Justice said Guo, who is also known as Miles Guo and Ho Wan Kwok, was “an exiled Chinese businessman who has resided in the US since in or about 2015 and garnered a substantial online following.“In or about 2018, Kwok founded two purported nonprofit organizations, namely, the Rule of Law Foundation and the Rule of Law Society. Kwok used the nonprofit organisations to amass followers who were aligned with his purported policy objectives in China and who were also inclined to believe Kwok’s statements regarding investment and money-making opportunities.”Je, the department said, “owned and operated numerous companies and investment vehicles central to the scheme and served as its financial architect and key money launderer”.Guo was also charged with laundering hundreds of millions of stolen funds to conceal the conspiracy’s illegal activities and continue the fraud’s operations, Williams said.Michael J Driscoll, assistant director of the FBI, said: “Fraudulent investment scams make victims out of innocent people, ultimately harming the public’s confidence in the integrity of financial systems.“The FBI continues to make investigating complex financial crimes a top priority, and anyone attempting these crimes will be made to face the consequences in the criminal justice system.”Maximum sentences for the charges range from five years in prison, for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, bank fraud, securities fraud and money laundering, to 20 years. More

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      Special relationship becomes personal as Sunak and Biden bond in San Diego

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      It is common for British and American leaders to try to show the “special relationship” between their two countries extends to them personally.When Rishi Sunak landed in San Diego for a flash visit to see Joe Biden, the world’s media were spared any such attempts verging on the grandiose.There was some light banter from Biden about Sunak’s home in California and carefully coordinated invites between the two leaders for future visits.It was a far cry from the scenes of David Cameron playing table tennis with Barack Obama, or Theresa May holding hands with Donald Trump.But when journalists were ushered out of the gym on the naval base in Point Loma, where the leaders of the three Aukus powers had gathered for a summit, the real strength of the relationship between Sunak and Biden became clear.Instead of reams of officials sitting round listening closely, the two leaders spent nearly an hour alone, preferring to have a more personal conversation.There was plenty for them to bond over, before they got into the nitty gritty. Sunak is a big college football fan, from his days as a business student at Stanford. He still has a house in Santa Monica, around three hours’ drive up the west coast. The prime minister also remains so fond of chocolate chip muffins and Mexican cola that he brought a stash of both home.Of course, Sunak is not always keen to talk publicly about his close ties to the US – particularly the green card he held until 2021 and whether he will publish his US taxes.Biden’s angling for an invite to Sunak’s California home may have left the prime minister wanting to wince.But such encounters are highly valuable.Karen Pierce, Britain’s ambassador to Washington, has made persistent requests for a bilateral meeting between the two leaders. They appear to have paid off, with the prospect of a visit by Biden to Northern Ireland in April, before Sunak returns for a longer trip to the US in June, this time to Washington DC.In between, they will meet again at the G7 summit in Japan in May. Three such meetings in as many months means hopes are not high Biden will come to the UK for the king’s coronation.There are plenty of issues requiring joint engagement by both leaders that will continue in the background. As well as fulfilling plans to give Australia a new fleet of nuclear-powered submarines and working through Britain’s concerns about the US Inflation Reduction Act, the question of how to deal with China’s growing “aggression” is a live one.It is likely to have been one of the main topics the two leaders discussed when they held talks away from prying eyes this week.Biden joined the US Senate in 1973, meaning he has been in frontline politics for longer than Sunak, 42, has been alive. There is a wealth of wisdom and experience for the prime minister to admire, especially when it comes to China.During a career keenly focused on foreign affairs, Biden is said to have spent about 100 hours speaking to President Xi Jinping. Much of that was face to face, instead of on long-distance phone calls, making Biden the western world leader with perhaps the greatest personal insight into Xi’s character.At Monday’s summit of the three Aukus powers, they agreed that the “challenge” posed by China stretched decades ahead.So for Sunak to be able to draw on reflections from Biden looking back long term may prove a helpful counterbalance to hot-headed Tory backbenchers. More

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      ‘I’m a little hard to pin down’: country star Brad Paisley becomes unlikely Ukraine advocate

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      Wearing white cowboy hat, black suit and black tie, country singer and guitar virtuoso Brad Paisley strode on stage in the East Room of the White House before a bipartisan audience.It was a Saturday night and, fittingly, he began the 40-minute set playing his hit song American Saturday Night – but with an amended lyric. “I had to change the second line because it mentioned Russia, and I don’t do that any more,” he explained.When Paisley delivered its substitute – “There’s a Ukrainian flag hanging up behind the bar” – no one applauded louder than Joe Biden in the front row.It was a moment that illustrated Paisley’s engagement with Ukraine’s fight for survival and, before a gathering of governors from blue and red states, his efforts to bridge political divides. The 50-year-old from West Virginia, a three-time Grammy winner, describes himself as hard to categorise but optimistic that America can move beyond what has been called a cold civil war.That night last month at the White House, Paisley compelled Spencer Cox, the Republican governor of Utah and an amateur musician, to join him in a duet. He also performed a new song, Same Here, marking the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.Speaking by phone Nashville, Tennessee, Paisley recalls: “You had most of the states represented and you had all sides. I could see it in the room: let’s not lose what this is saying because it works. Face to face, left to right, it works. That’s the thing about something like this: when you put it out there, it’s going to be uncomfortable, but that’s OK. Art can be uncomfortable. I welcome the discussion.”The commercial release of Same Here features a voiceover from the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, speaking proudly about his country and people. Paisley’s royalties for the track will be donated to the United24 crowdfunding effort to help build housing for thousands of displaced Ukrainians whose homes were destroyed in the war.He describes the song – the first from his new album, Son of the Mountains – as an expression of empathy. “It’s about anybody who longs for freedom. Around this time last year, when I was seeing all this begin to happen, I was moved by the images of people fleeing – mothers, daughters, grandmothers crossing the border, all huddled in the backseat of a car, fleeing for their lives as the husband stayed behind to fight.“It’s unlike anything I’ve seen in my lifetime. It’s unlike anything any of us have seen in our lifetimes. It just felt so helpless to watch this and be a witness to this with nothing we could do. Maybe the most exciting thing for me in having this out is the idea that this is going to help rebuild homes for people, and it’s also raising some awareness.”Zelenskiy has worked tirelessly to promote his cause and build support around the world. The former actor, comedian and screenwriter delivered a rousing speech to the US Congress in Washington and has given video addresses at the Golden Globe and Grammy awards.Paisley reflects: “It’s an amazing thing. Who would have thought? You almost can’t write the script – they did, actually, that was his TV show – but he seems to be the right man at the right time in a way that just seems divine. It’s unbelievable.”The Ukrainian president was happy to collaborate with Paisley and even had some songwriting suggestions. “When he heard it, I got word that there were a few lines that he wondered about and so we worked on those and made sure that it came off the way it did.“It’s funny how much better it is now than when we began in the sense that it’s truly remarkable to hear this voice in the middle of this conflict with a melody. He had great suggestions. I don’t know if he’s got aspirations to write songs or not.”Paisley’s public shows of support for Ukraine has drawn attacks from bots – fake, automated accounts that became notorious after Russia employed them in an effort to meddle in the 2016 presidential election.It would be no surprise to find Paisley caught in political crossfire. The perils facing country music artists who venture into the political arena were spelled out when the Dixie Chicks faced fierce blowback for their condemnation of President George W Bush’s invasion of Iraq.During the 2016 election, a survey by the trade publication Country Aircheck found that 46% of industry professionals favored Republican Donald Trump while 41% preferred Democrat Hillary Clinton. Many stars prefer to remain apolitical, which may be pragmatic considering the risk of alienating half their audience.Nashville, the home of country music, has a Democratic mayor, but is surrounded by Republican red in Tennessee. Paisley does not declare himself to be either Democrat or Republican. “The bottom line is I defy category. I definitely am one of the more confusing people that way. The minute you affiliate, ‘Here’s what I am,’ are you all those things? I’m certainly not all of those things on either side.”“I’m a little hard to pin down. There will be songs when this album comes out where a lot of liberals will go, ‘Wait a minute, you can’t say that!’ I have written an album that does not pull punches. If I believe in something or if I want to tell a story, it’s on here on this album. I have literally bled for it – I’ve cut my hand a couple of times playing the guitar. I’ve written it to the degree that I’ve really tried to scope every word all the way from the very first line to the last line of this album.“The far left may say, ‘What are you doing?’ Harlan Howard, one of our great songwriters in country music, they used to give him flak. So many of the songs were cheating songs, drinking songs. They’re like, ‘Why do you write about that so much?’ He said, ‘When people stop, so will I!” He laughs. “That’s the thing people do. If people don’t do that any more then we’ll have to write country songs about all the other things. But there are songs in here about things people do.”It would not be the first time that Paisley has faced criticism from the left. Next month marks the 10th anniversary of Accidental Racist, Paisley’s ill-fated collaboration with rapper LL Cool J.Paisley began the song with an anecdote about a Black man taking offence at his Confederate flag T-shirt, explaining: “The only thing I meant to say is I’m a Skynyrd fan” – a reference to the southern rock band that often used the flag. He went on to sing about white people are “caught between southern pride and southern blame” a century and a half after the civil war.Paisley insisted that he was trying to foster an open discussion of race relations, but critics said it was tone deaf. An analysis by Ta-Nehisi Coates in the Atlantic was headlined: “Why ‘Accidental Racist’ Is Actually Just Racist.” Demetria Irwin of the Black culture website the Grio called it “the worst song in the history of music”. Actor and comedian Patton Oswalt tweeted: “I can’t wait for Brad Paisley & LL Cool J’s next single: “Whoopsy Daisy, Holocaust, My Bad.”Did he learn lessons from the experience?“You can’t think of everything, and at some point the art you make should exist as the way you want it to exist, but if it can be better, and somebody has an opinion, you should listen to them. If it’s a valid opinion, if it’s not a bot, if it’s not some sort of strange agenda. In that sense, it’s all been a part of my journey for sure, learning from these things.”The entire nation has been on a vertiginous learning curve in the 10 years since Accidental Racist, witnessing a racial reckoning that has a reframing of American history via the 1619 Project and the removal of many Confederate statues across the south.Paisley comments: “I drove by these statues my whole life since I was 20 here in Tennessee and never really thought about them at all. Obviously I’m the wrong one to ask on whether they come down. It’s not important what I think. To me it’s about the people that feel something so deeply and feel so much hurt. Let’s talk about that.”The musician has long used his platform to advocate for causes, opening a free grocery store in Nashville with his wife, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, and donating 1m meals during the coronavirus pandemic. He visited US troops in Afghanistan and has talked with Zelenskiy about performing in Ukraine. But he rejects that idea that Same Here is a case of mixing music with politics.“To me in no way, shape or form is it a political statement. I guess I have a world leader on and it’s interesting to say something is avoiding politics when you do that. But truthfully, for me, when you boil it down, here’s what we care about: crying at weddings, having a beer together in a remote place, families and soldiers and flags and freedom and all these things.“To me, if you want to call it political, call it whatever you want to call it. But let’s talk about this. These are key things in life that make us human.” More

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      Biden approves controversial Willow oil drilling project in Alaska

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      Biden approves controversial Willow oil drilling project in AlaskaEnvironmentalists and some Alaskan Native communities had opposed the plan over climate, wildlife and food-shortage fearsThe Biden administration has approved a controversial $8bn (£6bn) drilling project on Alaska’s North Slope, which has drawn fierce opposition from environmentalists and some Alaska Native communities, who say it will speed up the climate breakdown and undermine food security.The ConocoPhillips Willow project will be one of the largest of its kind on US soil, involving drilling for oil and gas at three sites for multiple decades on the 23m-acre National Petroleum Reserve which is owned by the federal government and is the largest tract of undisturbed public land in the US.It will produce an estimated 576m barrels of oil over 30 years, with a peak of 180,000 barrels of crude a day. This extraction, which ConocoPhillips has said may, ironically, involve refreezing the rapidly thawing Arctic permafrost to stabilize drilling equipment, would create one of the largest “carbon bombs” on US soil, potentially producing more than twice as many emissions than all renewable energy projects on public lands by 2030 would cut combined.In its decision, the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management said that the approval “strikes a balance” by allowing ConocoPhillips to use its longstanding leases in the Arctic while also limiting drilling to three sites rather than five, which the company wanted.But the approval has been met with outrage among environmental campaigners and Native representatives who say it fatally undermines Joe Biden’s climate agenda. In all, the project is expected to create about 260m tons of greenhouse gases over its lifespan, the equivalent of creating about 70 new coal-fired power plants.“Approving the Willow Project is an unacceptable departure from President Biden’s promises to the American people on climate and environmental justice,” said Lena Moffitt, executive director of Evergreen Action, a climate group.“After all that this administration has done to advance climate action and environmental justice, it is heartbreaking to see a decision that we know will poison Arctic communities and lock in decades of climate pollution we simply cannot afford.”The approval came as the interior department announced it was going to ban any future oil and gas drilling in the US Arctic Ocean, as well as protect millions of acres of Alaska land deemed sensitive to Native communities. But the Willow decision has still stirred anger.“The Biden administration’s approval makes it clear that its call for climate action and the protection of biodiversity is talk, not action,” said Sonia Ahkivgak, social outreach coordinator at the Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic group.“The only reasonable solution to the climate emergency is to deny new fossil fuel projects like Willow. Our fight has been long and also it has only begun. We will continue to call for a stop to Willow because the lives of local people and future generations depend on it.”Opposition to the project has included more than a million letters sent to the White House, a Change.org petition with more than 3 million signatories, and a viral #stopwillow campaign waged on TikTok as well as other social media. The approval of the project is almost certain to face legal challenges.On Friday, former US vice-president Al Gore told the Guardian that projects of its kind are “recklessly irresponsible” and that allowing it would cause “climate chaos”.The approval comes after an environmental impact assessment was published last month by the US interior department, which recommended a scaled-back version of the project, reducing the number of sites from five to three, which ConocoPhillips Alaska said it considered a viable option.“Willow is a carbon bomb that cannot be allowed to explode in the Arctic,” Karlin Nageak Itchoak, the senior regional director at the non-profit Wilderness Society, said after the assessment was published in early February.According to the Native Movement, a grassroots Alaska-based collective, Willow developers have done little research on the impact of the cumulative projects across the Arctic slope of Alaska – the birthing grounds of the 60,000 Teshekpuk Lake caribou herd, which are a historically important food source. Residents of Nuiqsut, the closest Alaska Native community, have spoken out about sick fish, malnourished caribou and toxic air quality, directly caused by existing oil and gas extraction within their homelands.Approval has come after a long contentious process.After the project was given the green light by the Trump White House, a federal judge reversed that decision, ruling that an earlier environmental review was flawed.Alongside the interior department’s February review, officials expressed “substantial concerns” about even the scaled-back plan’s impact on wildlife and Native communities.Alaska’s two Republican senators and the state’s sole congressional representative, a Democrat, had urged the administration to approve the project, which they say would boost the state’s economy.Some Alaska Native tribal organizations, including the Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope and the Alaska Federation of Natives, have supported the project for similar reasons.The deal will make it “possible for our community to continue our traditions, while strengthening the economic foundation of our region for decades to come,” according to Nagruk Harcharek, president of the Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat group.But environmental groups and tribes including those in Nuiqsut have countered that any jobs and money the project brings in the short term will be negated by the environmental devastation in the long run.Alaska is at the forefront of the climate breakdown, caused by burning fossil fuels, and communities surrounded by oil and gas operations are already suffering poor air and water quality, health disparities and reduced food sources. The Nuiqsut mayor, Rosemary Ahtuangaruak, whose community of about 525 people is the closest to the proposed development, is a prominent opponent, who has called the project a “climate disaster waiting to happen”. She said it will negatively affect the livelihoods and health of community members.Biden suspended oil and gas lease sales after taking office and promised to overhaul the government’s fossil fuels program. However, the administration dropped its resistance to leasing in a compromise over last year’s climate law.The administration’s continued embrace of oil and gas drilling has caused consternation among Democrats, with two dozen progressive members of Congress recently writing to Biden, warning that the Willow project will “pose a significant threat to US progress on climate issues”. The group called upon the president to block an “ill-conceived and misguided project”.The Biden administration has offered less acreage for lease than previous administrations. But environmentalists say the administration has not done enough. The US interior secretary, Deb Haaland, in a recent interview declined direct comment on Willow but said that “public lands belong to every single American, not just one industry”.Increased oil and gas extraction in the Alaska region has already affected caribou populations, which several communities in the area hunt for subsistence.The Associated Press contributed reportingTopicsAlaskaEnergyOilOil and gas companiesUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      John Bolton chose not to brief Trump on Russia Havana syndrome suspicion

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      John Bolton chose not to brief Trump on Russia Havana syndrome suspicionFormer national security adviser tells podcast ‘we didn’t feel we would get support’ from president during Russia investigationDonald Trump’s third national security adviser, John Bolton, did not brief the president on suspicions Russia might be behind mysterious “Havana syndrome” attacks on US diplomats because he did not think Trump would support him.‘Havana syndrome’ not caused by foreign adversary, US intelligence saysRead more“Since our concern was that one of the perpetrators – maybe the perpetrator – was Russia,” Bolton said, “we didn’t feel we would get support from President Trump if we said, ‘We think the Russians are coming after American personnel.’”Bolton makes the startling admission in an interview for an episode of a podcast, The Sound: Mystery of Havana Syndrome, hosted by the former Guardian journalist Nicky Woolf and released on Monday.Bolton was national security adviser from April 2018 to September 2019, a period of intense scrutiny on Trump’s relations with Russia, primarily via special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian election interference and links between Trump and Moscow.Mueller issued his report in April 2019. He did not prove collusion between Trump and Moscow in his 2016 election victory over Hillary Clinton but the former FBI director did secure indictments of figures close to Trump and lay out extensive evidence of possible obstruction of justice.Trump angrily rejected allegations of wrongdoing and claimed to be the victim of a witch-hunt. But he also closely courted Vladimir Putin, even seeming, in Helsinki in July 2018, to side with the Russian president against his own intelligence agencies.“Havana syndrome” refers to the investigation of more than 1,000 “anomalous health incidents” involving diplomats, spies and other US government employees around the world. The first cases emerged in 2016.Symptoms have included brain injuries, hearing loss, vertigo and unusual auditory sensations. Speculation about directed energy weapons has persisted, though earlier this month an official report said “available intelligence consistently points against the involvement of US adversaries in causing the reported incidents”.Havana syndrome got its name because, as Bolton told The Sound, “the first reports came from Cuba [so] it would not be unreasonable to say the Cubans were doing it”.But, he said, “it becomes counterintuitive pretty quickly. If they wanted to keep the American embassy open, you wouldn’t attack it. That tended to show that it was some other government. And a government with more capabilities than we thought the Cubans had.”The Trump administration cracked down on Cuba anyway, returning it to the “state sponsor of terror” list, ending a diplomatic thaw begun by Barack Obama. Bolton, a famous rightwing foreign policy hawk, told The Sound he favoured taking that step anyway, regardless of the origin of the Havana syndrome attacks.He also said he and other national security staffers “felt that because it was possible – not certain, but possible – this emanated from a hostile foreign power and we had our ideas who that might be … we thought more needed to be done to consider that possibility and either find evidence to rule it in or rule it out”.If the attack theory was real, Bolton said, there was “no shortage of evidence that would point to Russia as … at least the top suspect”.Nonetheless, he said, he decided not to take that suspicion to Trump.“Who knows what he would’ve said,” Bolton said of his decision not to brief Trump on his suspicions about Russia and Havana syndrome.“He might’ve said, ‘Do nothing at all.’ I didn’t want to chance that, because I did feel it was serious.”Trump fired Bolton in September 2019. The following year, Bolton released a book, The Room Where It Happened, in which he was highly critical of his former boss. Trump sought to prevent publication. Bolton has said he could run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 if it is a way to stop Trump, who he has called “poison” to the Republican party.Speaking to The Sound, Bolton suggested the decision not to brief Trump about suspicions about Russia damaged attempts to investigate the Havana syndrome mystery.“When you don’t have the ability to bring the hammer down and say, ‘Find the answer out,’ … it’s much easier for the bureaucracy to resist.”TopicsDonald TrumpJohn BoltonTrump administrationTrump-Russia investigationUS politicsUS national securityUS foreign policynewsReuse this content More

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      Tucker Carlson firestorm over Trump texts threatens to engulf Fox News

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      Tucker Carlson firestorm over Trump texts threatens to engulf Fox News The network is facing a $1.6bn false-claims lawsuit – and its top star’s private texts about the ex-president are causing anguishTucker Carlson was once seen as untouchable. Now the most popular TV host on American cable news is at the center of a firestorm threatening to engulf Fox News and also anger Donald Trump, whose conspiracy theory-laden political cause he has long championed and who his audience loves.Court filings attached to the $1.6bn Dominion Voting Systems defamation suit accuse Fox News of allowing its stars to broadcast false accusations about rigged voting machines in the 2020 presidential election.Donald Trump Access Hollywood tape can be used in civil rape trial, judge rulesRead moreThe documents contained numerous emails detailing the private views and concerns of senior Fox management and its stars, which often seemed at odds with what they were publicly broadcasting to their audience.While anchors Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo have been singled out for pushing false claims of a fraudulent election, the fallout has landed primarily on Carlson.In group chats obtained by Dominion, the network’s biggest names – Carlson, Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity – appeared to doubt claims of election fraud that were featured prominently on the network. At the same time, Fox owner Rupert Murdoch said in a court deposition that anyone who knowingly allowed lies to be broadcast “should be reprimanded, maybe got rid of”.So far, Fox is standing by its stars. On Thursday, Lachlan Murdoch, Murdoch’s eldest son, heir apparent and executive chairman and chief executive of Fox Corporation, voiced support for management, its roster of stars and backed Fox New’s editorial standards.“A news organization has an obligation – and it is an obligation – to report news fulsomely, wholesomely and without fear or favor. That’s what Fox News has always done and that’s what Fox News will always do,” he said.That might not wash with many observers and media critics. But likely of equal concern, especially for Carlson, are some of the private opinions voiced about Trump. The Dominion lawsuit revealed a text from Carlson declaring: “I hate him passionately.”Nor is that the only political fight Carlson became mired in last week. Carlson was directly criticized by the White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates for describing the January 6 rioters as “orderly and meek … sightseers” as he began broadcasting footage from the insurrection handed to him by Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy.Ironically, news of Carlson’s antipathy for Trump broke around the same time the ex-president was praising Carlson as doing a “great job” in his presentation of Capitol security video.Many people – including some Republicans – reacted with outrage to Carlson’s broadcasts, with chimed with a broader far-right push in the US to recast the January 6 attack on the Capitol as an overly enthusiastic demonstration and the hundreds of people jailed for it as political prisoners.The White House, Bates said, “agrees with the chief of the Capitol police and the wide range of bipartisan lawmakers who have condemned this false depiction of the unprecedented, violent attack on our constitution and the rule of law – which cost police officers their lives.”The Guardian contacted Fox for comment but received no reply.Carlson, for his part, has been unapologetic. He claimed the clips offered “conclusive” evidence that Democrats and the select committee that organized last year’s January 6 hearings misinformed the public about what had taken place.Some experts see the current crises at the network as serious, as it seeks to keep a Trump-loving audience glued to its screens – no matter the cost, and no matter what its executives privately think.“They feel that they have to appease a certain audience they’ve trained to expect a certain kind of information flow. And at the same they see that if you take it too far, you risk serious legal and financial liability – to say nothing of embarrassment that comes when internal communications are exposed,” said Bill Grueskin, a faculty professor at Columbia Journalism School.The news-opinion formula worked for Fox News through the Trump presidency, but in the aftermath of Trump’s election fraud claims and the Capitol riot, it is starting to show signs of strain, Grueskin said.If Fox managers and anchors doubted Trump’s election fraud claims and went along with them to maintain ratings dominance, particularly over other emerging rightwing outlets, their anxieties were confirmed when Fox News viewers fled after it declared Arizona for Joe Biden.“The Murdochs think about this almost exclusively in terms of ratings, audience and money,” said Grueskin. “If they were concerned about Tucker Carlson’s truthfulness, they might have done something about this months or years ago.”And they might be right. After Dominion filed internal Fox News communications last month viewership rose by 2.4%, compared to total viewership for the first full week of February.More so, Carlson likes controversy. He remains hugely powerful, and may be beyond the reach or will of the organization to rein in. He has survived controversies over racist comments and his embracing of tenets of white nationalism.Fox News primetime anchors, particularly Carlson and Hannity, exert so much power in that organization that even the Murdochs have to dance around it, Grueskin said.“It goes beyond Tucker Carlson,” he says. “Rupert Murdoch may be the smartest media person in the world, but you can’t fix this problem they’ve created for themselves.”TopicsFox NewsDonald TrumpUS politicsUS elections 2024US elections 2020newsReuse this content More

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      George Santos: Republican fabulist praises ‘genuine’ actors in Oscars picks

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      George Santos: Republican fabulist praises ‘genuine’ actors in Oscars picksNew Yorker with mostly made-up CV and multiple investigations calls nominee Angela Bassett ‘Meryl Streep, the Black version’Asked for his Oscars predictions, the Republican congressman and fabulist George Santos said he liked actors who were “genuine”.“I have my favorite actors,” said the New Yorker, who has been shown to have made up most of his résumé and whose behaviour before and after entering politics is the subject of multiple investigations.Oscars 2023: final predictions, timetable and how to watchRead more“And then I have the actors I think are charismatic. JLo, The Rock. Melissa McCarthy. They’re genuine.”None of them were however nominated for the Academy Awards set to be handed out in Hollywood on Sunday night.Santos has admitted “embellishing” a résumé shown to include false claims about his family, educational and professional background, fueling questions about his very identity, given activities under another name, Anthony Devolder.He has repeatedly said he has done nothing illegal, even as his campaign finances, an allegation of sexual harassment and multiple claims of financial wrongdoing are investigated at local, state, federal, congressional and international levels.He has rebuffed calls to resign from constituents in Queens and Long Island as well as Democrats in Congress and his fellow New York Republicans.He withdrew from committee assignments but retains the support of Republican leaders, after backing Kevin McCarthy through 15 votes for House speaker, a role the Californian must play with a narrow majority, prey to rightwing rebellion.Santos discussed the Oscars and his film tastes with Matthew Foldi, a reporter who has also interviewed him for the Spectator, in an interview published on Sunday on Pirate Wires, a site “focused on the intersection of technology, politics, and culture”.The discussion started with “the Slap”, the moment last year when Will Smith left the Oscars audience to hit the host, Chris Rock, over a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith, Smith’s wife.“Quite frankly, it was fucking stupid,” Santos said. “Chris Rock is a genius.”Santos said he would not watch the Oscars this year, because “they won’t really put box [office] sellers there” and he did not want to see a celebration of “fancy people” and “elitists” such as Quentin Tarantino and James Cameron.Those two directors and Steven Spielberg (who has three nominees for The Fabelmans to one for Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water) had “fallen to the woke”, Santos said.Santos said he liked comedy and horror films, adding: “Let’s be honest, Saw was a fucking great horror movie. But the Oscars don’t have a horror category. Resident Evil, great cinematics. Milla Jovovich is arguably one of my favorite actresses of all time. It’s her, Morgan Freeman, Angela Bassett and Gerard Butler.”Bassett is nominated this year for best supporting actress, for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Santos said she should be up for best actress, because: “I’m not trying to be racist, but she’s Meryl Streep, the Black version. She’s just as good. She’s fantastic.”The congressman lamented the academy’s relative neglect of Leonardo DiCaprio (who won best actor for The Revenant in 2016) but criticised Tom Cruise, producer and star of Top Gun: Maverick, a best picture nominee this year.“Tom Cruise has given me enough evidence of what he thinks of America to make me not like him,” Santos said, going on to criticise the actor Jane Fonda in similar terms, for “decid[ing] to make her entire life political”.The professional politician professed not to know the “political beliefs” of actors including Bassett, Freeman, Denzel Washington and Mel Gibson, “because they don’t share them. And you know why that is? Because we look to them for entertainment. I appreciate these people so much because they’re not activists.”Of Gibson, Foldi wrote: “We do know his views on Jews … and they are not favorable.”Santos’s claim to be Jewish has been debunked. Openly gay, he was once married to a woman. Accusing Hollywood of caving to Chinese censors – although “as a good old capitalist, I don’t blame them” – he told Foldi: “Woke wants everything gay, and pro-China-beholden-Hollywood can’t have that.“To me, it becomes a cannibalistic event that I would actually enjoy watching. That’s a movie I would watch. Woke Hollywood takes on Chinese-influenced Hollywood.”Santos also lamented the declining fortunes of other favourites including Steven Seagal, the pro-Putin action star who Santos said once shone in “hyper-action police movies” but was out of favour because “instead of giving the police a platform, we just want to defund them and burn them to the ground”.In comedy, Santos said, “You’re not going to see another Adam Sandler or Vince Vaughn or Chris Rock or Kevin Hart. Well, Kevin Hart survives because – I guess he gets a pass because he’s a little Black guy. People aren’t gonna want to make his life miserable.”Towards the end of the interview, Foldi said, the man whose performance as a politician has captured the national spotlight “turned reflective”.“I’m very, very close-minded about actors these days,” Santos said. “Because the more I learn about your non-performative career, the less interested I am in you.”A spokesperson for Santos did not immediately reply to a request for comment.TopicsGeorge SantosOscarsOscars 2023Awards and prizesUS politicsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesReuse this content More

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      Trump should quit 2024 race if indicted in New York, Republican rival says

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      Trump should quit 2024 race if indicted in New York, Republican rival saysEx-Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson: man facing charge over porn star payment should ‘respect institution of the presidency’Donald Trump should quit the race for the Republican nomination in 2024 if he is indicted in New York over a hush money payment to a porn star during his victorious run in 2016, a prospective rival said.Is Fox News finally falling out of love with Trump? It’s complicatedRead more“It doesn’t mean that he’s guilty of it or he should be charged,” said Asa Hutchinson, a former governor of Arkansas. “But it’s just such a distraction that would be unnecessary for somebody who’s seeking the highest office in the land.”Hutchinson has not declared a run. Nikki Haley, a former South Carolina governor, remains Trump’s only declared opponent from the Republican mainstream. The governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, is Trump’s only serious challenger in polling.Like other relative moderates, Hutchinson is a vanishingly small presence in polls regarding the nascent field.He told USA Today: “When you’re looking at Trump, it’s going to be a circus.”Widespread reporting has said an indictment is expected soon in the hush money case, which involves the payment of $130,000 to Stormy Daniels, an adult film maker and actor who says she had an affair with Trump in 2006.Trump denies the claim, often abusing Daniels in misogynistic terms. But the man Trump directed to pay Daniels, his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, is due to testify before a grand jury on Monday.Trump has also been invited to testify, a sign an indictment is near. The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, is reported to be preparing to criminally charge Trump for false accounting business records with an intent to defraud, in relation to New York election law.Mark Pomerantz, a prosecutor who quit Bragg’s team, recently called the Daniels payment a “zombie case” that would not die.But David Shapiro, a former FBI agent who now lectures at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told the Associated Press it could be “especially difficult” for Bragg to prove intent and knowledge of wrongdoing.Trump, Shapiro said, is “loud, he’s brash, so proving that he had specific intent to fraud, one is almost left with the idea that, ‘Well, if he has that specific intent of fraud, he has it all of the time, because that’s his personality.’”Trump claims Bragg is politically motivated, as a Democrat, and racist because he is Black.At CPAC earlier this month, the former president told reporters he “won’t even think about leaving” the race, as an indictment would “probably … enhance my numbers”.Optimistically, Hutchinson told USA Today the man who left office twice impeached, the second time for inciting a deadly attack on Congress in an attempt to stay in power, should withdraw “out of respect for the institution of the presidency of the United States.“And that’s a distraction [and it] is difficult to run for the highest office in the land under those circumstances.Mike Pence: Donald Trump was wrong, history will hold him accountableRead more“I know he’s going to say [the charges are] politically motivated and all of those things, but the fact is, there’s just a lot of turmoil out there with the number of investigations going on.”Trump also faces federal investigation of his election subversion attempts, incitement of the January 6 attack and retention of classified records. A state investigation of his election subversion in Georgia is well advanced.In New York, his business faces a civil fraud suit and his chief financial officer was sentenced on tax charges in January. Trump also faces trial in a defamation suit from a writer who says he raped her.Trump denies all wrongdoing, claiming witch hunts by his political enemies.On Sunday, on NBC’s Meet the Press, Kevin Cramer, a Republican senator from North Dakota, was asked if Trump should step aside if he is indicted in “Manhattan or Atlanta or Washington”.“Donald Trump’s not going to take advice from the party or from me,” Cramer said.“But I think what will happen is, if he’s indicted, that becomes one of the factors in whether he wins primaries or not. The other factor is who else is in the race and who can make the best case.”DeSantis, Cramer said, “has certainly earned the right to be at the head of the class, not just through his political rhetoric but through his successful governing of a very large state.“We’ve seen him out on the stump a little more now doing the things that potential presidential candidates do. I think it will help that debate along. The challenge becomes if there are too many people in the race.”Polling has shown how a split field could hand Trump the nomination without a majority, as happened in 2016.Cramer said: “Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, certainly my friend Tim Scott would all be good candidates who understand the Trump doctrine but have a demeanor that’s probably more suitable to the swing voter.“And at the end of the day, what’s most important for primary voters to think about is not just who they love the most but who can win for the country and who can win for the party. Because we’re in desperate need of some new leadership.”TopicsUS elections 2024Donald TrumpRepublicansUS politicsArkansasNew YorknewsReuse this content More