Us politics

Donald Trump is becoming increasingly unbuttoned. Last night, he tweeted referring to Kim Jong–un that: ‘I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my button works!’ To Trump, size matters. Yesterday was a big—or bigly—day for Trump. He started it off by taking a swipe at Hillary Clinton’s former aide Huma Abedin, declaring that she should be locked up for email malfeasance, an old charge that he periodically resuscitates. For good measure, he fulminated about the ‘Deep State’ at the Justice Department that be believes, or purports to believe, is conniving to shield Hillary Clinton from prosecution and to undermine

It has not gone unnoticed that a number of commenters to my occasional Spectator blogs harbour keen, if not outright enthusiastic, views of the current occupant of the Oval Office – a touching display of faith that suggests there truly is something special about the relationship between America and the United Kingdom. So in the conciliatory Christmas spirit, I wish to offer five ways that the Donald could surprise his critics and come out on top in the new year. First, the stock market. The professional naysayers are almost unanimous in saying that the era of big gains is over. Then again, they said that last year. What if Trump’s

It’s starting to look as though the historic mission of Donald Trump, who was a registered member of the Democratic party as late as 2009, is to revive American liberalism. On Tuesday night, Trump, who earlier in the day had tweeted ‘Roy Moore will always vote with us’, accomplished his most improbable feat since winning the presidency. He helped hand over a Senate seat in Alabama, sweet home Alabama, the reddest of red states, to the Democratic candidate Doug Jones, a supporter of abortion rights and stricter gun controls. And so there was no sweetness for Trump last night. Instead, he had to eat bitterness, as the Chinese saying has it. A

Here we go again. Donald Trump decertified the Iran nuclear deal in October. Now, in another audacious foray into Middle East diplomacy, Trump is waving goodbye to the waiver about moving the American embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. It appears that the former real estate mogul will embark upon one last construction project. If he couldn’t build in Moscow, why not give Jerusalem a go? Overnight, an international Nimby crowd has formed to decry the move. The Palestinians are announcing that it’s the ‘kiss of death’ to any negotiations about a two-state solution. The Saudis have voiced their firm opposition. Theresa May thinks that ‘The status of Jerusalem should

President Donald J Trump likes nothing better than winning, and he has just had the first major legislative win of his presidency. An enormous $1.4 trillion tax cut has now been passed by the Senate. No Democrat voted for the bill, yet still it passed by 51 to 49 votes. This avoided the anticipated legislative deadlock that would have meant Vice President Mike Pence having to break a 50-50 tie. The bill will now be voted on in the House of Representatives on Monday, where the Republicans have a much larger majority. By getting his tax cut through Congress, Trump answers one of the most stinging critiques of his presidency

As I rode the metro to work this morning, an elderly gentleman holding a sign that read, `Manafort-Flynn. Who’s Next?’ boarded my car at the Judiciary Square stop. It’s a question the Trump administration may be pondering as well. Now that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has flipped former Trump administration national security adviser Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty today to lying to the FBI, speculation is rife about whom he target next, with much of it centring on Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of the president. Thus Bloomberg’s Eli Lake reports that Kushner is being fingered as the person who ordered Flynn to create a backchannel to Russia. For now the administration