America

To manage expectations in the run-up to last night’s debate, Governor Tim Walz, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, let it be known through anonymous sources that he was nervous. He didn’t want to let Kamala Harris down.  Well, he was tense and it showed. The first question was, inevitably, about the big story of the moment, the escalating conflict in the Middle East. Walz, speaking first, fumbled. He said ‘Iran’ when he meant ‘Israel’, twice, which hardly suggested a mastery of international affairs. He then rambled through various points about the ‘fickleness’ of Donald Trump in foreign affairs. The Republican came over as straightforwardly intelligent and perceptive – the Democrat, less

London mayor Sadiq Khan, whose official day job is running the capital, is in New York this week, where he has denounced Donald Trump and urged Americans to vote for Kamala Harris. Trump would set the wrong tone for the rest of the world, Khan declared. ‘What I’d say in a respectful way to Americans is: I don’t think you realise that the rest of the world is watching because we’ve got skin in the game,’ he said. Come again? Trump would set the wrong tone for the rest of the world, Khan declared Americans are choosing a leader for their country. What the world thinks about this – least of

‘Some things are more important than staying in power,’ Joe Biden just told the United Nations, and the General Assembly broke into sustained applause. Biden left the stage clasping his hand to his chest, so touched that he had so touched the crowd.  ‘It’s your people that matter the most,’ said Biden. ‘Never forget we are here to serve the people. Not the other way around.’ It says quite a lot about the state of modern political leadership that such remarks are construed as moving insight.  Let’s try to put aside how bogus Biden’s departing shtick is. The truth, which we all know, is that he spent the best part

Last week, Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance appeared on CNN’s State of the Union where he was interviewed by Dana Bash. During what could best be described as a testy exchange, Vance said he had ‘created’ the story of Haitian immigrants eating pets. Explaining that statement, he said he ‘created’ the story with memes and tweets, not that he created the substance of the story.  Still, no one listened. In America’s media ecosystem, which has little regard for nuance and context, the proverbial die was already cast. Left-leaning media were quick to point to his statement as proof of the story being completely fabricated. Right-leaning media viewed their reactions as another attempt

Rich Lowry, editor-in-chief of National Review, is being cancelled for calling Haitian immigrants the N-word. One problem: he didn’t. Lowry was on Megyn Kelly’s podcast to talk about the claims, amplified by Donald Trump and JD Vance, that Haitians have been snacking on local cats in Springfield, Ohio. He commented on a combative interview Vance gave to CNN’s Dana Bash and scoffed at Bash’s dismissal of the feline-fressing allegations on the grounds that city records only showed complaints about geese. Lowry observed: ‘I think it was in that interview where Dana Bash says the police have gone through 11 months of recordings of calls and they’ve only found two Springfield

A day after nearly being shot again, the 78-year-old Donald Trump is once more being mocked for sounding like a fool while talking about cryptocurrency. In an interview with Farokh Sarmad, another of these hugely popular male influencers whom the vast majority of people have never heard of, Trump ruminated on the importance of making America the ‘crypto capital’ of the planet.  Sitting in Mar-a-Lago, underneath the hilariously kitsch ‘Visionary’ portrait of young Donald in white trousers and a tennis jumper, Trump told the Persian-Canadian Farokh that he learns about crypto from his sons. ‘Barron is a young guy,’ he said. ‘He’s got four wallets or something. I’m saying “explain this

As if there hadn’t been enough drama in America in 2024, Donald Trump has survived another assassination attempt. The attempted killing of the 45th president at his golf course in Palm Beach, Florida yesterday afternoon was not nearly as threatening or deadly as the shooting nine weeks ago in Butler, Pennsylvania, which so nearly ended Trump’s life, killed a spectator and injured others. The Secret Service, who have faced so much criticism for their failings in Butler, found the would-be killer’s weapon before he was able to target Trump, shots were fired, and the suspect appears to have been arrested fleeing the scene. Nobody was seriously harmed. What took place

The first presidential debate of 2024 changed history by killing off Joe Biden’s career. The second presidential debate was nowhere near as dramatic, for the simple reason that it did not feature the President. Instead, Kamala Harris, Biden’s Vice President and now the Democratic party’s nominee, stood on stage at the National Constitution Center in Pennsylvania on Tuesday night and presented herself as a sort of change candidate for continuity, or perhaps a continuity candidate for change. This audacious move ought to be highly implausible, yet so far she seems to have got away with it. Certainly, by any fair measure, she won the debate and was duly rewarded with

George Clooney this week praised Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw from the 2024 election as ‘the most selfless thing that anybody has done since George Washington’. We heard this idea echoing throughout Democratic circles even before Biden stood down in late July – that he was nobly standing aside, in the manner of America’s first president, relinquishing power to save democracy for the greater good. Step forward the 21st century answer to John Adams: Kamala Harris.  It’s all such obvious rubbish. George Washington wanted to retire (for the third time) to Mount Vernon after his first term but was persuaded to run again in 1792 by Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison and

Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, Dave Rubin and Lauren Southern aren’t household names, but they each have enormous, dedicated followings online. Their podcasts and videos all promote similar narratives: liberal values are destroying the West, Ukraine is America’s enemy, Covid vaccines are harmful and pointless and that Donald Trump, though flawed, is the United States’ last hope before it becomes a Communist murderdome ruled by trans Venezuelan drug gangs. When these influencers came together in November last year to launch Tenet Media, it didn’t make a lot of sense. Each already had their own brand and platform. How would this new media company benefit them? RT is awash with cash despite

Barack Obama wrote The Audacity of Hope. The Kamala Harris story of 2024 could be called The Audacity of Desperation. Her brief candidacy has been an awesome display of chutzpah. With just weeks to go before the election, a panicked Democratic party pushed aside their failing Commander-in-Chief and replaced him with Harris, the distinctly unpopular vice-president. She was then shamelessly presented to America and the world as an agent of change, even though she has no clear vision or agenda of her own. Twelve days have passed since Kamala Harris accepted the nomination and still her campaign website offers no clues as to what she might do as president. She has made