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      in US Politics

      Donald Trump announces 2024 run for president nearly two years after inspiring deadly Capitol riot

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      Donald Trump announces 2024 run for president nearly two years after inspiring deadly Capitol riotTwice-impeached ex-president makes expected election announcement despite shaky midterms and surge from rival Ron DeSantis00:52Donald Trump on Tuesday night announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, likely sparking another period of tumult in US politics and especially his own political party.“In order to make America great and glorious again, I am tonight announcing my candidacy for president of the United States,” Trump said from ballroom of his private Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, where he stood on a stage crowded with American flags and Make America Great Again banners.Vowing to defeat Joe Biden in 2024, he declared: “America’s golden age is just ahead.”The long-expected announcement by a twice-impeached president who incited a deadly attack on Congress seems guaranteed to deepen a stark partisan divide that has fueled fears of increased political violence.Who’s next? Republicans who might go up against Trump in 2024Read moreBut it also comes as Trump’s standing in the Republican party has suddenly been put into question. Trump spoke at Mar-a-Lago a week after midterm elections in which his Republican party did not make expected gains, losing the Senate and seeming on course for only a narrow majority in the US House.In his remarks, Trump took credit for Republicans’ performance victory in the House, even though they are poised to capture a far narrower majority than anticipated. “Nancy Pelosi has been fired. Isn’t that nice?” he said. The Associated Press has not yet projected which party will win the majority.In a party hitherto dominated by Trump, defeats suffered by high-profile, Trump-endorsed candidates led to open attacks on the former president and calls to delay his announcement or not to run at all. As Trump’s standing has slipped, Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, has surged into strong contention after sailing to reelection last week.Trump’s announcement also coincided on Tuesday with the release of Mike Pence’s memoir, So Help Me God, in which the ex-president’s once-faithful lieutenant criticizes him for his conduct on January 6. The former vice-president is also maneuvering toward a possible 2024 run despite falling out of favor with the Maga base.Brushing past Republican setbacks in 2022 and his defeat in 2020, Trump insisted that he was the only candidate who could deliver a Republican victory in 2024.“This is not a task for a politician or a conventional candidate,” he said. “This is a task for a great movement.”His third candidacy comes as he faces intensifying legal troubles, including investigations by the justice department into the removal of hundreds of classified documents from the White House to his Florida estate and into his role in the 6 January attack. Trump has denied wrongdoing and used the attacks to further his narrative that he has been unfairly targeted by his political opponents and a shadowy “deep state” bureaucracy.“I’m a victim,” Trump said, making reference to the Russia investigation and the raid on his Mar-a-Lago estate. On Tuesday, Trump nevertheless pressed forward with his run.Painting a bleak portrait of the United States, with “blood-soaked” city streets and an “invasion” at the southern border, Trump said his campaign was a “quest to save our country.”In the less than two years since Biden took office, a period Trump referred to as “the pause”, he accused his successor of inflicting “pain, hardship, anxiety and despair” with his economic and domestic policies.Trump offered an alternative vision, which he called the “national greatness agenda”. Among the policy proposals he endorsed on Tuesday were the death penalty for drug dealers, term limits for members of Congress and planting an American flag on Mars. And wading into the social fights he enjoys inflaming, Trump promised to protect “paternal rights” and keep transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports.Though he made no explicit mention of his stolen-election lies, he promised to overhaul the nation’s voting laws, vowing that a winner would be declared on election night. In close contests, it can take several days before enough votes are tabulated in a state to project a winner, but Trump and his allies have seized on the delay to spread baseless conspiracy theories about results.Despite promising to deliver remarks as “elegant” as the gold-plated room he was standing in, Trump’s rambling, hourlong speech turned to name-calling and ridicule, lashing the “fake news”, mocking the former German chancellor Angela Merkel’s accent and accusing Biden of “falling asleep” at international conferences. At one point, he appeared to confuse the civil war with the reconstruction period that followed and scoffed at climate science.Without acknowledging his 2020 defeat, Trump insisted that beating Biden in 2024 would be much easier because “everybody sees what a bad job has been done.”He called Biden the “face of left-wing failure and government corruption” and accused him of worsening inflation and “surrendering” America’s energy independence. He also slammed the administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan as “the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country”.“Our country is being destroyed before your very eyes,” he said, casting his four years in office as a glowing success, despite leaving behind a nation shaken by disease and political turmoil.Now 76, Trump was long seen as a colorful if controversial presence in American life, a thrice-married New York real-estate mogul, reality TV star and tabloid fixture who flirted with politics but never committed.But in 2015, after finding a niche as a prominent voice for rightwing opposition to Barack Obama – and a racist conspiracy theory about Obama’s birth – Trump entered the race for the Republican nomination to succeed the 44th president.Proving immune to scandal, whether over personal conduct, allegations of sexual assault or persistent courting of the far right, he obliterated a huge Republican field then pulled off a historic shock by beating the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, in the 2016 election.Trump’s presidency was chaotic but undoubtedly historic. Senate Republicans playing political and constitutional hardball helped install three supreme court justices, cementing a dominant rightwing majority which has now removed the right to abortion and weakened gun control laws while eyeing further significant change.Trump is running for president again – but these legal battles might stand in the wayRead moreTrump’s third supreme court pick, replacing the liberal justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg with Amy Coney Barrett, a hardline Catholic, came shortly before the 2020 election. That contest, with Obama’s vice-president, Joe Biden, was fought under the shadow of protests for racial justice and the coronavirus pandemic, the latter a test badly mishandled by Trump’s administration as hundreds of thousands died.Trump was conclusively beaten, Biden racking up more than 7m more votes and the same electoral college win, 306-232, that Trump enjoyed over Clinton, a victory Trump then called a landslide.But Trump’s refusal to accept defeat, based on his “big lie” about electoral fraud, fueled election subversion efforts in key states, the deadly January 6 attack on the US Capitol by supporters and far-right groups, a second impeachment for inciting that insurrection (and a second acquittal, if with more Republican defections) and a deepening crisis of US democracy.01:41With a third White House bid, Trump hopes to defy political history. Only one former president, Grover Cleveland, has served two nonconsecutive terms. Cleveland was elected in 1884 and 1892, but, unlike Trump, he won the popular vote in the intervening election of 1888.Trump flirted with announcing a new run throughout Biden’s first two years in power, ultimately delaying until after midterm elections, which did not go as he or his party expected. But while high-profile backers of Trump’s stolen election myth were defeated, among them his choice for Arizona governor, Kari Lake, more than 170 were elected, according to the Washington Post.Until his midterms reversal, Trump dominated polling of potential Republican nominees for 2024. His closest rival in such surveys, DeSantis, reportedly indicated to donors he would not compete with Trump. But the landscape has now changed. DeSantis won re-election by a landslide, gave a confident victory speech to chants of “two more years” and has surged in polling – prompting attacks from Trump. At least one Republican mega donor, Ken Griffin, has said he backs the Florida governor.Should Trump dismiss DeSantis as he has so many other challengers and win the nomination, the 22nd amendment to the US constitution would bar him from running again in 2028. But a rematch of 2020 remains possible. Though Biden will soon turn 80 and has faced questions about whether he should seek a second term himself, he is preparing a re-election campaign.TopicsDonald TrumpUS elections 2024US politicsRepublicansRon DeSantisJoe BidenUS midterm elections 2022newsReuse this content More

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      in US Politics

      Virginia McLaurin, who danced with Obamas as centenarian, dies at 113

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      Virginia McLaurin, who danced with Obamas as centenarian, dies at 113Washington woman visited White House in 2016 aged 106, and danced with president and first lady in clip that went viral Virginia McLaurin, a Washington woman who was 106 when in 2016 she visited and danced with Barack and Michelle Obama in the White House, has died. She was 113 years old.A family statement on McLaurin’s Facebook page said: “With heavy hearts we share that Ms Virginia McLaurin passed away this morning [Monday]. She had been under hospice care for a few days.“She lived an incredibly full life and appreciated all the love she received from people … everywhere she went. (Before the pandemic that is – for the past few years she largely stayed inside.)”When McLaurin visited the Obamas, footage of the joyous encounter quickly went viral. On the White House Facebook page, the video has now been viewed 70m times.When McLaurin started dancing, the then president said: “She’s dancing! Come on! What’s the secret to dancing at 106?”Speaking to CTV after the visit, McLaurin said she told Barack Obama: “‘It’s Black History Month and I’m here to represent Black history.’ He said, ‘You made our day.’ I was happy. Lord, I’m still happy about that.”Five things about Michelle Obama revealed in her new bookRead moreMcLaurin also said she was usually too stiff to dance but when she met the Obamas, “I was so happy I didn’t care.”She also told the Washington Post she wished she “could have 30 minutes alone with him”, adding: “Oh, you know how women think.”Writing about McLaurin’s visit in the Guardian, Syreeta McFadden said that for a Black woman, the sight of McLaurin’s joy at meeting the first Black president was hugely symbolic.“For Black women born early in the 20th century, when the nation suppressed the civil, social and economic liberties of African Americans, when American society actively resisted the humanity of African Americans, to be alive and witness this particular historical moment – McLaurin’s dance of joy is celebration hard earned and won. My grandmother, like McLaurin, never expected to live to see the day.”McLaurin was 99 when Obama was elected, in November 2008. In the Guardian, McFadden listed other historic moments from McLaurin’s life, from the foundation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in the year of her birth, 1909, through the civil rights March on Washington of 1963, when McLaurin was 54.The family statement announcing McLaurin’s death said: “She had an extraordinary memory, sharing stories of family’s life as sharecroppers in South Carolina before traveling north in the Great Migration.”It also said that while McLaurin became “best known for her visit to the White House in 2016, she spent decades volunteering 40 hours a week at schools after she retired”.At 104, in 2013, McLaurin was honoured in Washington for her volunteer work with disabled students.According to a fundraising page set up to cover funeral costs, McLaurin also “volunteered as a foster grandparent and collaborated with other tenants in the fight for quality living conditions [and] was a devoted member of her church”.The page added: “We encourage you to look out for the other Ms McLaurins in your neighborhood. There are elders in every community who give back to the community and could use some support. They also have stories to tell.“Ms McLaurin came to the attention of the White House after she started recording short oral history interviews.”In a statement on Tuesday, Barack and Michelle Obama said: “Rest in peace, Virginia. We know you’re up there dancing.”TopicsUS newsBarack ObamaUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      in US Politics

      Michelle Obama says Donald Trump’s election victory in 2016 ‘still hurts’

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      Michelle Obama says Donald Trump’s election victory in 2016 ‘still hurts’Former US first lady rules out possibility of running for president herself in future Michelle Obama has said Donald Trump’s rise to power in the 2016 US election “still hurts” but she and her husband had “laid a marker in the sand” with his presidency.The former first lady said “leadership matters” but ruled out the possibility of running for president herself in future.In the run-up to the release of her new book, The Light We Carry, she spoke to BBC Breakfast about the political polarisation in the UK and US.Asked about the American electorate’s decision to replace Barack Obama with Trump, she said it “still hurts”, and she sometimes questioned if her husband’s time in office had mattered.“When I’m in my darkest moment … my most irrational place, I could say, well, maybe (it didn’t matter). Maybe we weren’t good enough.“But then I look around when there is more clarity … and think more rationally, I think well … today there’s a whole world of young people who are thinking differently about themselves because of the work that we’ve done. And that’s where you can’t allow great to be the enemy of the good.“You know, did everything get fixed in the eight years that we were there? Absolutely not. That’s not how change happens. But we laid a marker in the sand. We pushed the wheel forward a bit.“But progress isn’t about a steady climb upward. There are ups and downs and stagnation. That’s the nature of change. And that’s why the work that we’re doing today is about empowering the next generation, the generation that we’re handing the baton over to and making space for them to make their mark on history.”Obama said it was important to have leadership that “reflects the direction that we want to go in as a people” and that made the general public “feel seen”.“Leadership matters,” she said. “The voices at the top matter if we can continue to be susceptible to voices that want to lead by fear and division. That’s why government matters, democracy matters. Voting matters. So I think it starts with having leadership that reflects the direction that we want to go in as a people.”Asked what question she most disliked being asked, she said: “Are you going to run for president?’ I detest it.”“I’m not going to run,” she added.TopicsMichelle ObamaDonald TrumpUS politicsBarack ObamanewsReuse this content More

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      in World Politics

      Could a Rishi Sunak Rise to the Top in Germany?

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      The Fair Observer website uses digital cookies so it can collect statistics on how many visitors come to the site, what content is viewed and for how long, and the general location of the computer network of the visitor. These statistics are collected and processed using the Google Analytics service. Fair Observer uses these aggregate statistics from website visits to help improve the content of the website and to provide regular reports to our current and future donors and funding organizations. The type of digital cookie information collected during your visit and any derived data cannot be used or combined with other information to personally identify you. Fair Observer does not use personal data collected from its website for advertising purposes or to market to you.As a convenience to you, Fair Observer provides buttons that link to popular social media sites, called social sharing buttons, to help you share Fair Observer content and your comments and opinions about it on these social media sites. These social sharing buttons are provided by and are part of these social media sites. They may collect and use personal data as described in their respective policies. Fair Observer does not receive personal data from your use of these social sharing buttons. It is not necessary that you use these buttons to read Fair Observer content or to share on social media. More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      Five things about Michelle Obama revealed in her new book

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      ExplainerFive things about Michelle Obama revealed in her new bookFormer first lady writes on love, knitting and being tall in The Light We Carry Almost four years after her memoir, Becoming, Michelle Obama is once again giving readers insight into her life. In The Light We Carry, Obama shares practical tips and wisdom about everything from overcoming fear to how exactly you can “go high”.Peppered among the advice – from Obama herself and vicariously from family members, friends and colleagues – are stories about her life.Here are five things we’ve learned about the former first lady.She took up knitting during the pandemicObama was “never one for hobbies”, she writes in the first chapter of The Light We Carry, but during the pandemic she found herself ordering a pair of knitting needles online. Knitting was “buried” in her DNA, as she is “the descendant of many seamstresses”.“This was less about passion and more about practicality; sewing was a simple hedge against falling into poverty,” she writes.The Light We Carry by Michelle Obama review – lessons in lifeRead moreWith the pandemic stripping away the structure of her days and feeling like it was “harder to access my own hope or to feel like I could make an actual difference” because of Donald Trump’s handling of the pandemic, Obama says she was “in a low place when I finally got around to picking up the two beginner-sized needles I’d ordered online”.Learning to knit via YouTube videos, Obama discovered knitting narrowed her focus and allowed “my hands to drive the car for a while”.Obama began knitting while speaking on the phone, in Zoom meetings and while watching the news. Among the things she made was a “soft crewneck sweater you give to your Hawaiian-born husband who gets chilled easily in winter”.She and Barack have never been ‘everything’ to each otherObama says in her book that people often approach her “seeking relationship advice”, asking how she and the former president have “managed to stay both married and unmiserable for 30 years now”.Obama says she does not “have the answers”, but one thing she touches on in the book is how she and her husband “have never tried to be each other’s ‘everything’ in life – to single-handedly shoulder the entire load of care that each of us requires”.Instead, writes Obama, the pair “distribute the load” and are “carried by a wide array of friendships”.The Obamas have their own version of the OlympicsA few years into the presidency, Obama organised a surprise birthday trip for the president, inviting 10 of his “guy friends to Camp David for a weekend to celebrate and have some fun”.The trip saw Barack Obama “unplug” with his friends, who all “hurled themselves into every activity Camp David had to offer”.“They played basketball,” writes Obama. “They played cards and threw darts. They did some skeet shooting. They bowled. They had a home-run derby and a football toss.“They kept score on every last thing, trash-talking their way through each event, boisterously reviewing various plays and upsets late into the night.”The gathering would soon become known as “campathlon”, and is now an annual gathering the Obamas host on Martha’s Vineyard, which “has grown to include trophies and an opening ceremony”.Even Michelle Obama has been cheated onLet’s first make clear: not by Barack Obama.But prior to meeting Barack, Obama had dated “men who were less sure of themselves and what they wanted”.Among them was a “player or two”, men she describes as “nice to look at and exciting to be around, but who were often peering over my shoulder, trying to see who else was in a room, what further connections could be made”.Obama says that she had been “cheated on and lied to a few times” by “early loves”. So Barack, who was “direct and clear about what he wanted”, was different from anyone she had known before.Her height often made her feel self-consciousObama writes that many of her early memories of feeling different were connected to her height (she is 5ft 11in). She “showed up tall for the first day of kindergarten and grew steadily from there”.Michelle Obama admits to hating her appearance in new bookRead more“The attention given to my height brought about a new self-consciousness in me, a slight sense of otherness,” she writes.It was her father’s advice – that “no one can make you feel bad if you feel good about yourself” – that helped Obama to overcome her uncertainty around her height, and about other spaces where she felt she stood out for various reasons.
      The Light We Carry by Michelle Obama is published by Viking (£25). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
      TopicsMichelle ObamaBarack ObamaAutobiography and memoirBiography booksUS politicsexplainersReuse this content More

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      in Elections

      Pence risks Trump’s wrath by piling on criticisms of ex-president in new book

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      Pence risks Trump’s wrath by piling on criticisms of ex-president in new bookIn memoir, former vice-president protests loyalty but hits out over Charlottesville, Russia, both impeachments and more In his new book, Donald Trump’s vice-president, Mike Pence, protests his loyalty to his former boss but also levels criticisms that will acquire new potency as Trump prepares to announce another presidential run and the Republican party debates whether to stay loyal after disappointment in last week’s midterm elections.‘It’s time to move on’: have the US midterms finally loosened Trump’s grip on the Republican party?Read moreAccording to Pence, Trump mishandled his response to a march staged by neo-Nazis in Charlottesville in August 2017, a costly error that Pence says could have been avoided had Pence called Trump before a fateful press conference in which Trump failed to condemn “the racists and antisemites in Charlottesville by name”.Also in Pence’s judgment, “there was no reason for Trump not to call out Russia’s bad behaviour” early in his term while beset by investigations of Russian election interference on Trump’s behalf and links between Trump and Moscow.“Acknowledging Russian meddling,” Pence writes, would not have “somehow cheapen[ed] our victory” over Hillary Clinton in 2016.Pence does not stop there. Among other judgments which may anger his former boss, he says Trump’s claimed “perfect call” to Volodymyr Zelenskiy of Ukraine in 2019, the subject of Trump’s first impeachment after he withheld military aid in search of political dirt, was in fact “less than perfect” – if not, in Pence’s judgment, impeachable.Pence also says that in January 2021 he urged Trump to make a farewell address to the nation and to encourage unity after the deadly Capitol attack he says Trump incited, the subject of Trump’s second impeachment. Trump remains unrepentant.Pence, famously devout, writes that he prayed for Trump throughout his presidency, and after urging a farewell address as given by “every president since George Washington … urged him one more time to take time to pray”.Perhaps unsurprisingly, the thrice-married, genital-grabbing, greed-worshipping Trump does not appear to have taken the advice to pray or be prayed for. A few days after the conversation about a farewell address, Pence writes, he “reminded” Trump “that I was praying for him”.“Don’t bother,” Trump said.Trump’s reluctance to be told what to do, to be told he is wrong or to credit advisers for anything mean Pence’s book would risk provoking attacks as Trump prepares to announce his next presidential campaign even if Pence were not a potential rival.Pence’s memoir, So Help Me God, will be published in the US on Tuesday. It has been trailed in the US media, including in a column published by the Wall Street Journal which presented the former vice-president’s version of events before, on and after January 6, when supporters incited by Trump attacked Congress in an attempt to stop certification of Joe Biden’s election win.Pence did not do as Trump demanded and reject electoral college results from key states while performing his ceremonial role in Congress. The House January 6 committee has presented Pence as something of a hero, but his reward on the day itself was a rampaging mob, members of which called for him to be hanged as a gallows was erected outside.In excerpts of an interview due to be broadcast on Monday, Pence told ABC News: “The president’s words [on 6 January 2021] were reckless and his actions were reckless. The president’s words that day at the rally endangered me and my family and everyone at the Capitol building.”Until last week, Pence’s book seemed likely to read as something of a balancing act, between loyalty to the president to whom in his own words he “always deferred” – and to that president’s supporters – and the service of ambition which has seen Pence visit early voting states and address conservative groups.Pence writes that after Biden’s victory, he advised Trump to follow a path to the 2024 nomination, treating his defeat as not “a loss – just an intermission”.“Thirteen days after the 2020 election,” Pence writes, “I had lunch with President Trump. I told him that if his legal challenges came up short, he could simply accept the results, move forward with the transition and start a political comeback, winning the Senate runoffs in Georgia, the 2021 Virginia governor’s race, and the House and Senate in 2022. Then he could run for president in 2024 and win. He seemed unmoved, even weary: ‘I don’t know, 2024 is so far off.’”Republicans lost the Senate runoffs in Georgia, won the Virginia governor’s race in large part by distancing their candidate from Trump, then missed their midterms target. Last Tuesday, an expected “red wave” failed to show.Instead, Democrats are celebrating while Republicans find themselves contemplating a narrow and unruly majority in the US House, the far right ascendant, and at least two more years in the Senate minority thanks to Democratic victories in Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania, the only seat flipped so far.A Republican backlash against Trump has formed quickly, particularly over his endorsements of election-denying candidates who lost Senate races and contests for governor and other state posts.01:41To make matters worse for Trump, the Republican governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, enjoyed a landslide re-election, a rare bright spot for the GOP, and has shot to the fore in polls of the nominal field for 2024.Pence blames Trump for events leading to January 6 in new memoirRead moreRegardless, aides to Trump have indicated that he will plough ahead and announce his 2024 campaign – his third consecutive run – at his Mar-a-Lago resort in DeSantis’s state on Tuesday.Trump has repeatedly attacked DeSantis. But regarding the governor, at least, Pence keeps his own powder dry. In his book, the former vice-president and Trump coronavirus taskforce chief mentions his potential primary rival just once, praising him for his handling of the pandemic.Pence doggedly claims the Trump administration passed its Covid test with flying colours, even praising government scientists including Anthony Fauci – “a great source of comfort to millions of Americans” – who are now likely targets for investigation by House Republicans.Under DeSantis, more than 82,000 people have died of Covid-19 in Florida, the third-highest state total. The national death toll is close to 1.1m.TopicsBooksDonald TrumpMike PenceTrump administrationUS elections 2020US midterm elections 2022US elections 2024newsReuse this content More

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      in US Politics

      The Successor review: life of Lachlan Murdoch pulls punches all too often

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      The Successor review: life of Lachlan Murdoch pulls punches all too oftenReaders of Paddy Manning’s book should keep in mind the words of Media Matters: Fox News is ‘an unchained pro-Trump propaganda outlet that promotes white nationalism’ The Murdochs are in many ways the most important media story of the last 50 years. On three continents their shoddy journalism, blind political ambition, outright racism and unlimited greed have done more damage to democracy than the actions of all their rivals put together.From George Floyd to Hunter Biden: Lachlan Murdoch, Fox News and the year that tested AmericaRead moreThe family’s internal competitions and political alliances are the subjects of dozens of books and documentaries, as well as the inspiration for Succession, the HBO hit now filming its fourth season.The Australian journalist Paddy Manning’s new book focuses on Lachlan Murdoch, the family’s current leader who will be fully in charge if his 91-year old father, Rupert, ever completely retires.This 359-page volume is a gigantic clip shop, giving us the greatest hits of everyone from Roger Ailes’s biographer, Gabe Sherman, to the Vanity Fair media writer Sarah Ellison and the investigative reporter Nick Davies, who broke so many of the details of the Murdoch newspapers’ illegal hacking of voicemails in the pages of this paper.The author’s main problem is that he has no judgment about what’s important to include and what ought to be left out. As a result he gives us equally dense accounts of Lachlan Murdoch’s early, disastrous media investments, the family’s efforts to create a new rugby competition in Australia and the sexual harassment scandal that finally ended the career of Ailes at Fox News.Manning also has no idea about which parts of this story are most important. An early section describes Rupert Murdoch’s brush with insolvency after he over-extended himself in the 1980s. But Manning never mentions the main reason: Murdoch’s vast overpayment of $3bn for Walter Annenberg’s TV Guide and his other Triangle properties in 1988, a purchase which turned out to be about as sensible as Elon Musk’s $44bn purchase of Twitter. Annenberg said he called Warren Buffet for advice about whether to take Murdoch’s bid, and Buffet replied: “Run to the bank!”None of the details of the TV Guide deal appear in these pages. Serious students of the Murdoch saga won’t learn anything new. But there are plenty of eye-popping numbers to remind most of us that the rich are not at all like you and me.The Successor opens with Lachlan relaxing with his wife on a new $30m yacht – a present for Sarah’s 50th birthday – which turns out to be a placeholder for a $175m yacht under construction in a Dutch shipyard. The couple paid “a stunning $37m for a boatshed and jetty at Point Piper, a few minutes’ drive form their $100m Bellevue Hill Mansion”.In 2007, the Murdoch family trust filed notice that each of Rupert Murdoch’s six children was getting $100m of News Corp stock, plus $50m in cash. Which sounds like a lot until you find out that after Disney paid $71bn for various Fox assets, each Murdoch child received “roughly $2bn” in Disney stock.Manning’s inability to make sensible judgments about any of this is suggested by his decision to quote the Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren’s spot-on description of Fox News as a “hate-for-profit racket” – and then offer, in his very next sentence, his judgment that Lachlan was “a laid-back Australian and all-round smooth operator: spectacularly rich, impeccably mannered, handsome, open minded, adventurous, savvy, fun”.Similarly, after describing a Sydney mansion bought for $23m in 2009 and renovated for $11.7m, with room for two custom-built Porsche Panamera sedans at $300,000 each, just a few pages later Manning credulously quotes the Murdoch lackey Col Allan on Lachlan’s “deep appreciation of that part of America that’s ignored by the coastal liberal elites. I think it is true that Australia and its egalitarianism has had a profound and very positive effect on Lachlan’s nature and his cultural views”.Egalitarianism?The cost of Rupert Murdoch’s naked nepotism included a $139m settlement News Corp paid in 2013 after the Massachusetts Laborers’ Pension & Annuity Funds alleged that his children on the News Corp board “should be liable for its refusal to investigate and to stop known misconduct at the company”. It was “the largest derivative settlement in the history of Delaware’s court of chancery”.The book veers beyond implausibility when it describes the relationship between Lachlan and Tucker Carlson, who has become one of the Murdochs’ biggest cash cows by pushing racism, xenophobia and wild conspiracy theories. According to Manning the two men, “close in age”, share “a kind of philosophical bent”.After far-right protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 shouted “Jews will not replace us”, Kathryn Hufschmid, married to Lachlan’s brother James, insisted they issue a statement declaring “standing up to Nazis is essential; there are no good Nazis”. According to the New York Times, Kathryn said to her husband: “If we’re not going to say something about fucking Nazis marching Virginia, when are we going to say something?” Lachlan never followed his brother’s lead.The pervasive power of Rupert Murdoch: an extract from Hack Attack by Nick DaviesRead moreCarlson refused to condemn the neo-Nazi protesters and did “a bizarre segment on slavery in which he listed good people who had owned slaves, including Plato, the Aztecs and Thomas Jefferson”.To his credit, Manning quotes the judgment of the activist group Media Matters, that Fox News had become “an unchained pro-Trump propaganda outlet that promotes white nationalism” just “as Lachlan Murdoch’s control over the network steadily increased … he is happy to profit from the forces he continues to unleash”.But then, incredibly, the author describes Lachlan as devoted to “a vibrant marketplace of ideas, serving to raise the standard of public debate”, which “must offer a diversity of news and opinion … His closest advisers say a belief in free speech, in all its diversity, is Lachlan’s ‘north star’”.Why would anyone trust an author who can’t distinguish between racism for profit and celebration of free speech?
      The Successor: The High-Stakes Life of Lachlan Murdoch is published in the US by Sutherland House Books
      TopicsBooksLachlan MurdochRupert MurdochJames MurdochNews CorporationMedia businessFox NewsreviewsReuse this content More

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      in World Politics

      New Congressional Amendment Benefits War Profiteers, Risks World War III

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      The Fair Observer website uses digital cookies so it can collect statistics on how many visitors come to the site, what content is viewed and for how long, and the general location of the computer network of the visitor. These statistics are collected and processed using the Google Analytics service. Fair Observer uses these aggregate statistics from website visits to help improve the content of the website and to provide regular reports to our current and future donors and funding organizations. The type of digital cookie information collected during your visit and any derived data cannot be used or combined with other information to personally identify you. Fair Observer does not use personal data collected from its website for advertising purposes or to market to you.As a convenience to you, Fair Observer provides buttons that link to popular social media sites, called social sharing buttons, to help you share Fair Observer content and your comments and opinions about it on these social media sites. These social sharing buttons are provided by and are part of these social media sites. They may collect and use personal data as described in their respective policies. Fair Observer does not receive personal data from your use of these social sharing buttons. It is not necessary that you use these buttons to read Fair Observer content or to share on social media. More