Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Why has Hollywood got so little to say about Iran?

It was the Golden Globes last night in Tinseltown and as per usual Hollywood’s finest strutted and peacocked on the red carpet to the click and flash of the massed paparazzi cameras. Images of their 1000-watt smiles and 10,000-dollar couture outfits were beamed around the world to a million Instagram and X feeds. Yet, something was missing. These days a celebrity glamfest is not complete without a healthy dose of woke posturing on the issue du jour, whether it be underrepresentation of black people (‘OscarsSoWhite’ or Black Lives Matter), women’s empowerment, climate change, or most recently of course, the plight of the Palestinians. This time, not so much. As the

Spectator Editorial

How far can bravado take the US?

Operation Absolute Resolve, Donald Trump’s rendition of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, was a brilliantly executed coup. The audacious raid did not undermine international law, as many European and Democratic politicians have said. But it did expose the weakness and pomposity of the world’s multilateral bodies. Maduro traded oil for loans with China while helping Moscow avoid sanctions. He permitted the terrorist group Hezbollah and Iran to operate and build drones within his jurisdiction. He rigged elections and had opposition activists shot in the street. He allowed and enabled weapons, fentanyl and illegal migrants to flood towards America’s southern border. Yet it wasn’t the International Criminal Court that arrested Maduro to

Ben Domenech

Could the Donroe Doctrine turn Marco Rubio into the president-in-waiting?

It required an incredible amount of sophistication to achieve the desired result in Caracas: a dictator detained and transported alive. The mission had been planned and mapped out for months, worked and reworked at the behest of the Commander-in-Chief. No American casualties would be tolerated. Special Forces had been circling and at the ready for weeks. The helicopters were easy targets, so a vital part of the mission was to eliminate Nicolás Maduro’s ground- to-air response beforehand and claim total air superiority. There must have been any number of worries that such a risky mission could go wrong, yet mere hours before it started, Marco Rubio was calmly sitting at

Daniel Beurthe

Inside the Democrats’ AI skepticism

Bernie Sanders has been rolling out political hot takes for more than half a century, and in recent years his familiar socialist prescriptions have found a new focus: artificial intelligence. In 2023 he argued that workers who use it should be entitled to a four-day week. In October of last year he called on corporations who employ AI to be hit with a “robot tax”. And, just last month, he made his punchiest proposal yet: a complete moratorium on all AI data centers. In a characteristically plaintive video address, the Vermont Senator argued that halting data center construction would “give democracy a chance to catch up,” preventing the benefits of

Today

January 12, 2026

Brendan O’Neill

Iran’s uprising and the moral bewilderment of Western youth

I’m starting to feel sorry for progressives who are schtum about the revolution in Iran. My contempt for them is giving way to pity. Imagine watching women fling off their hijabs in glorious defiance of the cruel mullahs who rule over them and feeling nothing. Imagine seeing brave youths swarm the streets to confront the tyrants who oppress them and just looking the other way. The extraordinary valor of the young in Iran has exposed the moral bewilderment of the young in the West Imagine seeing that young man in London this weekend scaling the walls of the Iranian Embassy to yank down the flag of a ruthless regime and

Yesterday

January 11, 2026

Klaus Dodds

Trump is playing geopolitical Monopoly with Greenland

Donald Trump is playing hemispheric monopoly. Depending on what day of the week it is, the President’s focus alternates between Venezuela, Canada, the Panama canal – and for the last twelve months or so, Greenland. Given what Trump and his team have said over the past week, their acquisition plans for the island are well advanced. But why exactly does he want Greenland? The world’s largest island is an integral part of the Kingdom of Denmark and is about three times larger than Texas. While the term du jour is geopolitics, perhaps the most plausible reason for why Trump is gunning for Greenland is ego-politics. We have a president eager

Saturday

January 10, 2026

Rachel K. Paulose

The question the FBI must answer in Minnesota ICE shooting

For the third time in a week, Minnesota is making national headlines, and for all the wrong reasons. In a massive show of federal force against a resistant sanctuary metropolis, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) deployed 2,000 federal agents to Minneapolis-St. Paul in the largest immigration enforcement operation in the nation’s history. Against the backdrop of what federal prosecutors described as a nine billion dollar federal fraud scheme centered in Minnesota’s Somali immigrant community, agents have gone door-to-door investigating human trafficking, narcotics and gang activity, and surreptitious employment by illegal aliens. Tensions, already high, erupted on Wednesday when an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent fatally shot Renee Good,

Friday

January 9, 2026

Freddy Gray

Gabbard 2028, anyone?

“The United States needs to stay out of Venezuela,” said Tulsi Gabbard. “Let the Venezuelan people determine their future. We don’t want other countries to choose our leaders – so we have to stop trying to choose theirs.” That was in 2019, when Gabbard was still a rebellious anti-war Democrat. Nobody then could have predicted that, six years on, she would be Donald Trump’s Director of National Intelligence (DNI). But in 2024, Gabbard jumped aboard the Trump Train and became a key player, alongside Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in the big realignment of that year. Yet now, she finds herself isolated. Her dovish foreign policy views make her a bad

Bill Glahn

2026 is the year of the Somali benefits scandal

All it took was one video from a 23-year-old YouTuber named Nick Shirley to end the 20-year political run of Minnesota’s Tim Walz. Shirley brought his camera to Minneapolis in search of childcare center fraud in a video seen by over a 100 million viewers worldwide – and appeared to find plenty. But, if you thought (or had hoped) that you’ve heard the last from the multi-billion-dollar Minnesota welfare fraud scandals, think again – the issue will remain in the national spotlight throughout 2026. The most prominent date is November 3 – Election Day. Gov. Walz himself, the 2024 Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee, will not be on the ballot, as he

Tom Slater

Britain’s X crackdown is no joke

The internet suddenly went down in Iran last night, as courageous Iranians continued to rise up against the Ayatollah. The UK government was apparently inspired. Not by the rebels, whose plight the Prime Minister has remained remarkably quiet about – but by the mullahs’ digital crackdown. Call me a conspiracy loon, but I dare say Labour’s ire for X isn’t simply about the site’s supposedly insufficient safeguarding policies Britain’s Labour party has issued its most serious threat yet to social-media giant X – whose owner, Elon Musk, has become this rudderless government’s go-to bogeyman. The platform could be banned in Britain, Downing Street sources let it be known, if it

Charlie Gammell

Unrest is spreading across Iran

“If they shut down the internet, you know it’s serious,” said a well-informed observer of Iran to me yesterday morning. The internet blackout came yesterday afternoon – along with over a million Iranians marching in streets across the country. Strikes are continuing in bazaars and the cries for the end of the Islamic Republic are becoming more brazen. A video was sent to me before the blackout from Iran’s upscale northern suburbs, home to the sons and daughters of the regime elites, in which the cries of “death to the dictator” could be heard loud and clear. “We are excited,” was the caption to the video. And this morning there

James Tidmarsh

France’s bistros are dying

Emmanuel Macron says France’s traditional bistros should be granted Unesco world heritage status. Speaking at the Élysée this week, the French president vowed to help save the country’s traditional cafes. “This is a fight that we want to take on, because our cafés and bistros aren’t just selling croissants, baguettes and traditional products – they’re also on the front lines of preserving French craftsmanship and know-how,” Macron told a group of French bakers at the annual Epiphany cake ceremony. France doesn’t need to list its bistros. It needs to decide whether it still wants them Macron is right about what the bistro represents. For generations, it has been a shared meeting

Mani Basharzad

The end is drawing near for Iran's mullahs

As a wave of protests swept across Iran last night, the internet was completely shut down. I have no idea what is happening to my friends, my family, or anyone else. My best friend Champ was at the demonstration. I desperately hope he is safe. Iran is a nation wanting its soul back. Protesters burn the Islamic Republic flag and replace it with Iran’s real flag Overnight, there were protests throughout Iran. From Qom and Mashhad, the most religious cities, to Rasht and Anzali, the most secular, people took to the streets. In Tehran, there were protests in the poorest parts to the richest parts of the city. I couldn’t believe

Thursday

January 8, 2026

Jenna Stocker

What’s the matter with Minnesota?

Just when you thought Minnesota had hit rock bottom, the state achieves a new level of chaos. Once again it is the epicenter of a self-serving, destructive “revolution” at the behest of an incompetent, unhinged and rancorous city and state leadership, helmed by Governor Tim Walz. According to local reports, “A 37-year-old woman was fatally shot by a federal agent on Wednesday, January 7, in south Minneapolis during an immigration enforcement operation. The shooting happened around 9:30 a.m. in the area of East 34th Street and Portland Avenue. The woman, later identified as Renee Nicole Good, died at the hospital.” In a press conference following the incident, Governor Walz threatened

Neal Pollack

RFK Jr.’s health rules: eat, drink and be merry!

The USDA and Department of Health and Human Services has issued a new food pyramid, and it’s simultaneously great and appalling. On extreme upside, the Trump administration, run by someone who enjoys a quarter pounder with cheese for lunch, recommends a diet rich in protein, vegetables and fruits, while demonizing sugars, processed foods, and empty carbohydrates. On the other hand, it indicates that saturated fats are good for us. The pyramid features a thick juicy steak at the top of the pyramid, next to a roasted chicken, an enormous broccoli floret, a chunk of Emmental, a meatloaf and a packet of frozen peas. The next level down is avocado, olive

Jacob Heilbrunn

Will Trump back down in Minnesota?

So much for Minnesota nice, the phrase that Midwesterners like to use to describe their calm dispositions. Three gunshots – fired pointblank in the gelid snows of Minneapolis by a federal immigration officer at Renee Nicole Good, a thirty-seven-year-old white woman and American citizen – have plunged the North Star State into renewed political turmoil. The fatal shooting took place only a few blocks from where George Floyd was killed in May 2020. In responding to the tragedy, President Trump proceeded on his favorite premise: the best defense is a good offense. On social media, he declared that the need for the imposition of law and order by ICE was paramount: “The woman screaming was, obviously, a professional agitator, and the woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer, who

Daniel McCarthy

The plot against J.D. Vance

The Republican establishment is on the verge of extinction. Donald Trump’s first term wasn’t enough to kill it off: Trump came into office in 2017 with establishment figures such as Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan leading the party in Congress, and Trump’s own vice president, Mike Pence, had been chosen for that role as a reassurance to the old guard. Trump made some efforts to staff his administration with outsiders, but the likes of Steve Bannon or the ill-fated Rex Tillerson were heavily outnumbered by Republicans who would have been just as happy – or a great deal happier – to serve in another Bush administration. This time, though, things are

Ross Clark

What Trump should learn from the British empire

One remarkable thing about Donald Trump’s adventure in Venezuela is just how old-fashioned it is. It is a world away from George W. Bush’s neoconservative efforts at nation-building in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is little attempt to justify the arrest of Nicolás Maduro in terms of the human rights of Venezuelan citizens. Little attention appears to have been paid as to how the country will now be governed. Nor have we heard much more about the drugs crimes of Maduro, other than the admission that he perhaps isn’t, after all, quite the lynchpin of an international criminal racket (for all his other offenses against his own people). With the seizure

Wednesday

January 7, 2026

Cockburn

Kai is the queen of Generation Alpha Trumps

Americans hate to love, or love to hate, the country’s First Family, the Trumps, a melodramatic cast of characters that makes the Ewings, the Carringtons, the Bridgertons or the Roys seem small by comparison. But a gee-whiz protagonist for everyone has emerged in the persona of Kai Trump, the President’s granddaughter and the eldest daughter of Donald Trump Jr. Kai, 18, stands out among the Generation Alpha Trumps. Barron, the President’s son, is a dark crypto prince who seems to have adopted his mother’s reclusive profile. The rest of the Trump babies have yet to receive their media debuts. But Kai is everywhere. This week, she appeared on Logan Paul’s

Peter Mandelson

Peter Mandelson: Trump’s lessons for Europe

Donald Trump’s dramatic intervention in Venezuela has achieved much more than to bring a brutal, corrupt dictator and drug trafficker to justice in an American court of law, something which no amount of human rights declarations, international law or indictments in the international criminal court were able to achieve. It took President Trump deciding it was in America’s interests to helicopter Nicolás Maduro to face justice, and this is the awful truth that Europe’s political leaders are coming to terms with: Trump has the means and the will and they don’t. Europe’s growing geopolitical impotence in the world is becoming the issue now, and histrionics about Greenland is confirming this

Freddy Gray

Immigration is foreign policy now

Invade the world, invite the world. That pithy phrase was invented in the 2000s by Steve Sailer, the right-wing writer, to mock the then bipartisan consensus which supported George W. Bush’s war on terror abroad while pushing open borders at home. Or, as Sailer also put it: “Bomb them over there and indulge them over here.” Back then, such analysis was generally dismissed as the preserve of white supremacist cranks. Now, it’s fair to say that Sailerite thinking animates the spirit of the second Donald Trump administration. Disrupt the world, deport the world. That’s the order of the day. Since America’s stunning attack on Venezuela last weekend, almost everybody has

Justin Marozzi

What Trump’s coup in Venezuela means for Iran

In a city awash with visual propaganda, one mural in Caracas is especially striking for the western visitor. In it, Jesus Christ stands alongside Imam Mahdi, a prophesied messianic figure who many Muslims believe will appear with him during the End Times to restore peace and justice to the world. There is only one Venezuelan – the late president Hugo Chavez – among the six smaller figures on the mural. Three are Iranian, including Qasem Soleimani, a commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps elite Quds Force, killed by a US airstrike in 2020. One is an Iraqi commander killed in the same strike, and the last is Lebanese, Imad

James Tidmarsh

Europe’s self-deception over Greenland

As Donald Trump weighs up taking control of Greenland, Britain and the EU has fallen back on a familiar strategy: talk tough, and do nothing. The UK joined France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and Denmark yesterday in making a joint statement affirming that “Greenland belongs to its people.” Arctic security, it said, must respect “sovereignty, territorial integrity and the inviolability of borders.” Invoking it Article 5 the United States would expose NATO’s limits rather than overcome them If Donald Trump decides to take Greenland, Europe’s initial response would be loud, formal and legally impeccable. Europe and the UK would protest loudly, threaten, – and then do almost nothing at all.

Tuesday

January 6, 2026

Cockburn

WATCH: Trump imitates trans weightlifter for House Republicans

President Trump offered Republican members of Congress a stand-up routine involving an imitation of transgender athletes lifting weights at the House GOP Member retreat earlier today. The President said that his wife “hates” when he does this and considers it “unpresidential.” “She said, ‘darling please, the weightlifting is terrible’,” the President recounts, before launching into his impersonation, replete with sound effects. The impression has been a regular feature of Trump’s rally speeches over the last year or so. Melania, he claimed, also said that his audiences didn’t like his dancing, pointing out that FDR would never dance as a counter-example. Trump conceded in his speech that FDR was “an elegant fellow,

donald trump trans weightlifter impression