America

“The First Hundred Days” was the iconic phrase for Franklin Roosevelt’s rapid-fire acts as the new president. Donald Trump intends to top that with “The First Hundred Hours.” Three months is far too slow for the new president. He made that clear by signing some 200 executive orders on his first day back in office. The media has focused on the substance of those orders, and understandably so. But their substantive content, on the border, birthright citizenship, DEI (Diversity, equity, and inclusion) and more, is only half the story. The other half is the swift, decisive process. Trump had those orders prepared during the weeks between his election in early

Cast your mind back eight years. The day after Donald Trump’s first inauguration, hundreds of thousands of women marched on Washington in opposition to the incoming president. Adorned in pink ‘pussy’ hats, they were joined by protesters in London, Sydney, Zurich and at least 30 other American cities. As I argued at the time, beyond expressing general distaste for the incoming administration the precise aims of this movement were never particularly clear. But it was feminism and therefore good. In his inaugural address, Trump did more for women’s rights than all the cutesy hat-knitters put together Yet in his second inaugural address last night, Trump did more for women’s rights

Joe Biden has bowed out of the White House with a slew of presidential pardons. Today they have been awarded to Anthony Fauci, General Mark Milley, a bunch of family members and an assortment of investigators from the 6 January riots – but Biden also controversially pardoned his son Hunter a month ago, despite promising not to. The presidential pardon has been a part of the constitution since the start – something that the Founding Fathers thought worth keeping from the British monarchy. Historically it’s been quite sparingly used. Most presidents pardoned no more than a few hundred through the first hundred years of the US – with the exception

Hundreds of millions of Americans will have a new president tomorrow. Depending on where you land on America’s increasingly hyper-partisan political spectrum, 20 January will either be a day of dread or joy, a return to the good old times or a step back into rough, unpredictable waters.  The same could be said for policymakers across the Atlantic Ocean. Most of Europe’s political heavyweights, the majority of whom are still content to live in the 1990s as if the geopolitical changes of the last two decades didn’t occur, are dreading Trump’s return. Fresh off another victory, Trump and his administration want to see clear, unambiguous action It doesn’t take a

President-elect Donald Trump is poised to claim his first major foreign policy achievement just days before his inauguration on Monday. If no last-minute obstacles arise, a long-anticipated hostage deal between Israel and Hamas in Gaza could take effect as soon as this Sunday. But while Trump will emerge victorious from this situation, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on the other hand, will find himself humiliated and defeated. For nearly a year, fearing the collapse of his right-wing coalition, Netanyahu has worked hard to prevent the deal from concluding, using all sorts of excuses and hoping that Hamas would eventually derail it and be blamed for it. This has not happened.