America

On this occasion no one can accuse Donald Trump of hyperbole. The President praised the Delta Force team that seized Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro as “incredible.” The operation to capture Maduro – codenamed “Absolute Resolve” – was months in the planning, and Trump watched it unfold in real time. “They broke into places that were not really able to be broken into,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” According to the New York Times, the operation began last August when CIA officers infiltrated Venezuela and began gathering intelligence about the habits and movements of Maduro. They were assisted by stealth drones high in the sky overhead and the

The new naughty list just dropped, as the kids say these days. The pre-Christmas release of the Epstein files, or at least some of them – elves heavily redacted – has brought much-needed good cheer to all of us. Not every red face on Christmas afternoon will be down to port and brandy this year. And the cast of characters – Mick Jagger, Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, Michael Jackson, Richard Branson and all the rest – sounds like the guest list for the worst televised Christmas Special ever. The release of the files as they stand, though, seems to me to add fuel to all sorts of conspiracy theories. In

The 22nd Amendment leaves open several possible ways a two-term president could serve all or part of a third term without being elected. The text of that amendment, as ratified, prohibits a two-term president from “being elected” to a third term, but it doesn’t prohibit him from “serving,” “acting” or “holding” that office. Indeed, the framers explicitly rejected broader exclusionary language that would have made it constitutionally impossible for a two-term president to get anywhere near the Oval Office. Instead they accepted a compromise that created a loophole bigger than the new ballroom in the East Wing of the White House. This doesn’t mean that President Trump will actually run

Peter Thiel has been described variously as “America’s leading public intellectual,” the “architect of Silicon Valley’s contemporary ethos” or as an “incoherent and alarmingly super-nationalistic” malevolent force. The PayPal and Palantir founder, a prominent early supporter of Donald Trump, is one of the world’s richest and most influential men. Throughout his career, his principal concern has always been the future, so when The Spectator asked to interview him, he wanted to talk to young people. To that effect, three young members of the editorial team were sent to Los Angeles to meet him. What follows is an edited transcript of their conversation. WILLIAM ATKINSON: Following Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New