Donald trump

Friday

Anne Applebaum

If Trump wins the White House, the US could be finished as a world power

Spy novels and James Bond movies; post-war Vienna and East Berlin; Manchurian candidates and Third Men. The pop culture of the Cold War era created a set of stereotypes about hostile foreign intelligence services, especially Russian intelligence services, and they still exist. We still imagine undercover agents, dead drops, messages left under park benches, microphones inside fountain pens. It’s time to forget all of that, because the signature Russian intelligence operation of the future, and indeed of the present, is not going to unfold in secret, but rather in public. It’s not going to involve stolen documents, but rather disinformation operations designed to influence democratic elections. It’s not going to

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Hillary Clinton says ‘Love trumps hate’. But will that message win her the White House?

One of Hillary Clinton’s biggest problems when she took to the stage last night was who had come before her: Barack Obama gave a belting speech at the Democrat convention, which Freddy Gray said was like a band playing back some of their old hits. The audience lapped it up. And her husband Bill’s number also went down well as he showed off some of his famous charm with his potted biography of Hillary & Bill: The love story. So Hillary was in danger of being upstaged before she even took to the stage. But whilst the Democrat nominee’s speech might not have the fiery rhetoric of the man she

Thursday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 28 July 2016

Home The collapse of BHS after Sir Philip Green had extracted large sums and left the business on ‘life support’, with a £571 million pension deficit, was ‘the unacceptable face of capitalism,’ said a report by the Business and the Work and Pensions select committees of the House of Commons. The British economy grew by 0.6 per cent in the quarter ending in June. A man was shot dead at a commercial pool party in Headley, Surrey, organised by Summerlyn Farquharson, known as the Female Boss Krissy, and the Jamaican reggae artist Jason White, known as Braintear Spookie. HMS Ambush, a Royal Navy Astute-class nuclear-powered submarine, was in a ‘glancing collision’ with

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

The Spectator Podcast: Summer of terror

In a week in which both Germany and France have suffered terror attacks, the question of the relationship between Islamic terrorism and Europe’s refugee crisis is once again rearing its head. In his Spectator cover piece, Douglas Murray argues that whilst the public knows that ‘Islamism comes from Islam’, Europe’s political classes are still refusing to tackle the problem at its core. So how can we bridge this gap between what politicians are saying and what the public are thinking? And does Europe have to come to terms with a new reality of domestic terrorism? On this week’s podcast, Douglas Murray speaks to Lara Prendergast. Joining them both to discuss

Anne Applebaum

Trump ♥ Putin

Spy novels and James Bond movies; post-war Vienna and East Berlin; Manchurian candidates and Third Men. The pop culture of the Cold War era created a set of stereotypes about hostile foreign intelligence services, especially Russian intelligence services, and they still exist. We still imagine undercover agents, dead drops, messages left under park benches, microphones inside fountain pens. It’s time to forget all of that, because the signature Russian intelligence operation of the future, and indeed of the present, is not going to unfold in secret, but rather in public. It’s not going to involve stolen documents, but rather disinformation operations designed to influence democratic elections. It’s not going to

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

Enemies of history

At the start of the 21st century, no one felt the need to reach for studies of ‘third-period’ communism to understand British and American politics. By 2016, I would say that they have become essential. Admittedly, connoisseurs of the communist movement’s crimes have always thought that 1928 was a vintage year. The Soviet Union had decided that the first period after the glorious Russian revolution of 1917 had been succeeded by a second period, when the West fought back. But now, comrades, yes, now in the historic year of 1928, Stalin had ruled that we were entering a ‘third period’ when capitalism would die in its final crisis. As the

James Delingpole James Delingpole

The alt-right isn’t all wrong

I got told off this week by a presenter on BBC radio for using a four-letter word live on air. In my defence, I was merely quoting a tweet from a black Hollywood comedy star called Leslie Jones which said: ‘Lord have mercy… white people shit.’ And the only reason I did so was that I thought it important that someone, somewhere, spoke out against the double standards which seem to exist on social media right now: one rule for progressives and accepted victim groups; quite another for everyone else. A good example is the ban recently imposed by Twitter on my friend and colleague Milo Yiannopoulos. Milo had got

Friday

Rob Crilly

Donald Trump sets out his dark vision of America and explains why he is the saviour

Well, no-one could accuse Donald Trump of pinching his speech from an Obama. Over an hour-and-a-quarter on Thursday night he set out a dark vision of a crime-ridden America crumbling from neglect, and where decent people live in fear of immigrants and corrupt politicians. And he accepted the Republican nomination in much the same way that he won it, with anger and contempt for his opponents. Above all it was a speech based on fear. It offered Trump as the saviour, the one man who could save the country. These were the main takeaways: 1. Trump is angry. He dialled it all up to ten in the first few minutes

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Be afraid: Donald Trump’s speech could win him the White House

Donald Trump’s speech tonight was not exactly poetry, but it was clear and surprisingly coherent. It was also clever, sort of. And it might just help him win the election in November. People find it disturbing, but Trump’s anti-globalism, America First and law-and order-focus plays very well in America in 2016. Americans are less and less interested in hearing platitudes about ‘freedom’ these days; they want to hear banalities about law and order instead. Because they are more worried about civil breakdown and their economic security than anything else. Freddy Gray and Scott McConnell discuss the American tragedy with Isabel Hardman: After the text leaked a few hours before the

Thursday

Cindy Yu

The Spectator Podcast: The American tragedy

When Donald Trump launched his presidential campaign just over a year ago, few expected him to make it so far. Yet this week’s Republican Convention in Ohio sees Trump’s coronation as the party’s presidential nominee. Freddy Gray, deputy editor of the Spectator, is there this week, and he writes in the magazine about how ‘The Donald’ is making America crazy again. Freddy says that though Trump promises to Make America Great Again, the reality is that he’s Making America Madder Than Ever. On this week’s Spectator Podcast, Freddy is joined by Scott McConnell, the founding editor of the American Conservative, and Isabel Hardman to discuss this dramatic time in American

Rob Crilly

Ted Cruz fails to follow the script as he crashes Trump’s coronation

American political conventions are supposed to be coronations. They are meant to be choreographed and scripted arrangements to ensure that aspiring presidents can be exhibited on prime time TV to their full advantage. Dull. Nothing about this election season has been routine. And this week in Cleveland has been the craziest of the year so far. Not in the streets around the Quicken Loans Arena, where the doom mongers warned of violent clashes between protesters and supporters of Donald Trump. Instead the drama is playing out day after day inside the convention, which has been remade in the image of its divisive candidate. Last night was supposed to be Mike

Conrad Black

What Trump is getting right

Freddy Gray and Scott McConnell discuss the American tragedy with Isabel Hardman: Almost anyone who has followed the US presidential selection process closely could realise what a brilliant campaign Donald Trump has conducted. He saw that in its self-absorption, the US political class had completely failed to grasp the extent of public anger at the deterioration of almost everything. American public policy has brought about the greatest sequence of disasters since the 1920s, when the liquor business was given to gangsters by Prohibition, followed by the equities debt bubble and the Great Depression. In the past 20 years, both parties shared in the creation of the housing bubble, which produced

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

American horror story

Freddy Gray and Scott McConnell discuss the American tragedy with Isabel Hardman:  Cleveland, Ohio ‘Whatever complicates the world more — I do,’ Donald Trump once said. If you can’t decipher what that means, don’t worry, that’s the point. ‘It’s always good to do things nice and complicated,’ he added, by way of explanation, ‘so that nobody can figure it out.’ That was 1996 and Trump was talking about business. But 20 years later, his approach to politics seems informed by the same perplexing mentality. Trump is the confusion candidate for President of the United States, and his platform is chaos. He promises to Make America Great Again. In reality, he’s

Wednesday

Rob Crilly

Donald Trump’s toughest task lies ahead of him

Two days into the Republican National Convention and we have a candidate. But not much sign of unity. On Tuesday night, Donald Trump’s son Donald Jr was given the honour of putting his father over the top by announcing New York’s slate of delegates, turning the presumptive nominee into the actual Republican candidate. Cue wild cheering and celebrations among anyone with the surname Trump. And some – but not all – of the delegates. The final tally showed that some 721 delegates had cast their votes for another candidate making this the most divided nomination since 1976, when Republicans had a contested convention. A day earlier, things were even more

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Donald Trump officially clinches Republican nomination

We were told it should never happen and would never happen. But the impossible has now happened: Donald Trump is officially the Republican candidate in this year’s presidential election. It’s been a near-certainty for some time, but there is no going back after Trump sealed the nomination at the Republican National Convention last night. Some of those at the RNC in Cleveland will have been praying for a miracle and hoping that unbound voters – who, they argued, did not technically have to side with Trump – could have unseated him at the last hurdle. In the end, last night’s nomination process was seamless and the outcome was clear: it’s Trump

Tuesday

Rob Crilly

Trump let his wife get caught out. What sort of man does that?

It’s easy to understand why Donald Trump opted to deploy four of his children and one of his wives on the Republican convention stage in Cleveland this week. For many sceptical voters, his immigrant wife, professional daughters and all American sons reflect the best of the Trump family. And then there was the small matter of so many senior Republicans refusing to share a stage with such a divisive candidate. At least you can rely on family. Just one problem. If something goes wrong, there’s nowhere to hide. It is difficult to disown your wife if she makes a blunder in her speech (even for a man who knows a thing or two

Steerpike Steerpike

Did Melania Trump just out herself as a Democrat?

There’s no love lost between Donald Trump and Barack Obama. And yet for Melania Trump, the President’s wife Michelle appears to be a source of great inspiration. That much seemed clear from the Trump’s wife’s speech to the Republican Convention last night when she channeled Michelle Obama’s address from 2008. Here’s what Trump said: ‘From a young age, my parents impressed on me the values that you work hard for what you want in life; that your word is your bond; that you do what you say.’ And here’s what Michelle said: ‘Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values: like, you work hard for what you want

Monday

Rob Crilly

The Republican convention will be like an episode of ‘At Home with the Trumps’

After weeks of speculation and teasers, hints of A-list stars and promises of razzle dazzle, the programme for the Republican National Convention finally arrives on the eve of proceedings. At the last possible moment. And if you were expecting Donald Trump to remake the GOP election-year gathering in his own image, well, you won’t be disappointed. In fact the week’s convention is looking a lot like an episode of a new reality TV show: At Home with the Trumps. Six are among the 20 headline speakers. On Monday we have his wife and possible future first Lady Melania discussing how to ‘make America safe again’. Until now she has preferred

Saturday

Rob Crilly

Trump’s choice for VP shows what a canny operator he is

In the end Donald Trump’s vice-presidential pick emerged in typical style, blurted out on Twitter. On Thursday night, as the horrors from Nice played out on TV screens, the bombastic billionaire said he was cancelling Friday’s event to unveil his running mate. A rare moment of sensitivity. It didn’t last. Hours later he ended speculation with a Twitter announcement. ‘I am pleased to announce that I have chosen Governor Mike Pence as my Vice Presidential running mate. News conference tomorrow at 11:00am,’ he wrote. It marked the end of what CNN had clumsily dubbed the VPprentice, with Trump publicly announcing his three final candidates almost as if it were a reality TV

Friday

Freddy Gray

Is Donald Trump becoming boring? His choice of running mate suggests so

After some confusion, it is confirmed: Donald Trump has picked Indiana Governor Mike Pence as his vice-presidential running mate. After the terrorist attack in Nice last night, the Trump campaign announced, somewhat melodramatically, that it had postponed its Veep announcement  ‘out of respect’. This led some pundits to suggest that all the reports yesterday saying that Trump had settled on Pence as his running mate had been misinformed. Well, they weren’t: Mike Pence ticks a lot of right-wing boxes, and helps Trump appeal to old-fashioned Republican voters. Pence is a straight conservative, Reaganite figure. ‘Get government out the way’ is his core message. He is House Speaker Paul Ryan with a bit more All-American