Us politics

Wednesday

Jacob Heilbrunn

Donald Trump’s presidency lurches from embarrassment to disaster

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

Sylvia Rothschild

Trump’s Jerusalem decision may extinguish hope in the Middle East

Let’s face it, Jerusalem is politically, diplomatically and religiously special. It is important to the faith traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. And it is important to the political aspirations of Israelis and Palestinians.  Generations of diplomats have kicked the issue of the status of Jerusalem into the long grass, deciding it to be so intractable it could only be dealt with at the very end of the peace process when all other problems were resolved. In November 1947, the United Nations agreed to divide Palestine into two states, one Arab, one Jewish, and designated Jerusalem as ‘corpus separatum’, an internationally administered separate territory. That plan did not last long.

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Donald Trump gives Israel a Hanukkah present to remember

It’s Hanukkah next week, and President Donald J Trump has decided to give the state of Israel a big present. He will today recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and it is understood that America will shortly move its embassy from Tel Aviv to the Holy City.  This is something that Israeli diplomats have long hoped for but did not think possible before President Trump entered the White House this year. His kindness will go down very well with most Israelis and supporters of Israel. However, the Arab world sees it as a deep affront.  Jared Kushner, the president’s 36 year old son-in-law, himself an Orthodox Jew, has been handling Middle

Saturday

Freddy Gray

Donald Trump’s tax cut has united the Republicans

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

Robert Hardman

Should Donald Trump be invited to the Royal Wedding?

Two golden rules of royal weddings. First, it’s always wonderful on the day. Second, there is always an almighty official spat beforehand which no one saw coming. When Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer, there was a Spanish boycott because the honeymoon included Gibraltar. In 2011, Prince William’s marriage plans had a crisis moment when it turned out the guest list had included the Syrian ambassador but not ex-PMs Blair and Brown. We can already spot one sensitive issue. Should Donald Trump be invited? For: the bride is American. Against: she backed Hillary. In fact, Mr Trump is unlikely to be invited because he is not a friend and this

Friday

Jacob Heilbrunn

Now that Mueller has flipped Flynn, will he target Kushner next?

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

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: Should Trump’s state visit go ahead?

Donald Trump’s January visit to Britain now looks to be in doubt following the furore over his tweets. Diplomats in the United States are said to have put the plans on ice, according to the Daily Telegraph. Good, says the Guardian in its editorial this morning: it’s time to ditch the state visit. Tump’s decision to retweet anti-Muslim videos shows ‘again that he panders to bigots and is no friend of this country’, the paper argues. Brexit already makes this a ‘dangerous’ moment for Britain, says the paper, which goes on to suggest that further allying ourselves to a ‘thuggish narcissist’ will hardly help matters. Theresa May was right to

Wednesday

Freddy Gray

By sharing jihadi porn, Donald Trump plays into the Islamists’ hands

Britain First hasn’t really taken off as a political movement in Britain, but it has caught the attention of the most powerful man on the planet. Today President Donald J Trump decided to brighten his and everyone else’s morning by retweeting three videos, posted by Jayda Fransen, the deputy leader of Britain First, purporting to show Muslims doing horrible things. One is a video that shows a young thug – ‘a Muslim migrant’, according to Jayda – beating up a boy on crutches, the other shows a Muslim cleric smashing a statue of the Virgin Mary and saying Takbir, and another shows Isis-types throwing a boy from a roof and

Friday

Jacob Heilbrunn

Is the net closing in on Jared Kushner?

Is the net closing in on Jared Kushner? It is now being reported that Trump’s son-in-law received a ‘Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite’, which he also reportedly forwarded on. Both Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley and Dianne Feinstein are alleging that Kushner did not turn over several important documents to investigators despite numerous requests. If Kushner is engaging in these kind of shenanigans with special counsel Robert Mueller he will be in truly hot water. Kushner’s lawyer has said he was ‘open to responding to any additional requests’. Each day seems to bring a new story about the Trump campaign and Russia, whether it is Kushner or Donald

Sunday

Tina Brown

America has outrage overload

It’s remarkable how fast the unthinkable becomes the expected. It felt almost routine to pick up the New York Post last Sunday morning and see the front page mocked up as a wanted poster for Harvey Weinstein and the news that the NYPD is preparing to arrest him for alleged rape. Between the daily barrage of Trump’s lies and excesses and the sexual harassment tsunami, America has outrage overload. The result is that all the predations, political or sexual or both, come close to drowning each other out. Already Weinstein’s legal advocates are test-driving the theory that the Harvey ‘pile-on’ is really about Trump — that thwarted feminist fury at the serial

Monday

Steerpike

All you need is Kompromat! Did the New York Times fall for a great Trump-Russia hoax?

The big story that British journos are now desperate to break is ‘How Russia hacked Brexit’. Once that rolls out, Britain can be like America, where nobody knows if Vladimir Putin is their true master or just the bogeyman of a paranoid elite. But newspapers should be wary: Russia collusion stories can make the press look deeply silly. Mr Steerpike hears, for instance, that this summer the New York Times fell hook, line and sinker for a great Trump-Russia hoax in London. Apparently, an unknown source contacted the Gray Lady to say he had Russia-related kompromat material which could bring down the US President — but he had to give

Wednesday

Brendan O’Neill

New York now refuses to be terrorised

I am marvelling at the resilience of New York City. Yesterday afternoon a real monster visited Lower Manhattan, weaponising a truck in the foul Isis fashion to mow down scores of citizens, killing eight. Yet just a few hours later the streets of Manhattan were thronging with pretend monsters. With vampires, skeletons, witches, Leatherfaces and other fancy-dress freaks, blood-stained and drunk, acting at being menacing but really being merry, gathered in their thousands for the Halloween Parade. Where I watched them stream by, at the corner of Sixth Avenue and 14th St, there were hundreds of people pressed together, a heaving, happy crowd. They whooped and Instagrammed as floats with

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

New York suffers its deadliest terror attack since 9/11: what we know so far

Eight people have been killed in yesterday’s terror attack in New York – the deadliest such incident in the city since 9/11. The alleged attacker has been named as Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov, a 29-year-old Uzbekistan national who came to the United States in 2010 and worked as an Uber driver. The New York Times is reporting that notes written in Arabic were discovered in the vehicle used in the attack pledging allegiance to Isis. It is believed the attacker drove a truck along a cycle path close to the Hudson River in Manhattan yesterday afternoon at around 3pm local time, crashing into a number of people. A group of five

Saturday

Jonathan Mirsky

Richard Nixon: the nightmare president of his age

In this giant, prodigiously sourced and insightful biography, John A. Farrell shows how Richard Milhous Nixon was the nightmare of the age for many Americans, even as he won years of near-adulation from many others. One can only think of Donald Trump. Nixon appealed to lower- and  lower-middle-class whites from the heartland, whose hatred of the press and the east-coast elite, and feelings of having been short-changed and despised by snobs, held steady until their hero and champion unmistakably broke the law and had to resign his second-term presidency. Nixon won a smashing re-election in 1972, even as it was apparent that the White House was awash with skulduggery. His

Friday

Stephen Daisley

The Democrats are on course to be Corbynised

Donald Trump’s approval ratings have dropped in every single state. He has failed to repeal Obamacare, build a wall or move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Trump has also lost his chief strategist, chief of staff, deputy chief of staff, four communications aides, three security advisers, an FBI director, a US attorney, a cabinet secretary, and his ethics director. After the torch-lit rally in Charlottesville, he managed to stick up for white nationalists, distance himself from them, and stick up for them again in the space of 48 hours. So what all-conquering, gravity-defying, poll-shifting political machine could possibly get this president re-elected? Step forward, the Democrats. The New York

Wednesday

Jacob Heilbrunn

Donald Trump and Theresa May desperately need each other’s help

In June, I mooted the possibility that Theresa May might consider emigrating to the United States to join the Trump administration, preferably as chief of staff. I’m sorry to see that she has spurned my request and that the charms of No. 10 Downing Street are proving more alluring than decamping for the White House. But I am somewhat consoled by the Telegraph’s report yesterday that May and her advisers are contemplating something even more radical—British entry into NAFTA, an accord that President Trump has dubbed the worst in the history of the American republic. This move could help make not just America, but also Britain great again. A revived

Rose Asani

Russia damaged Turkey’s economy in the name of diplomacy. Is the US about to do the same?

Istanbul President Erdogan has spent much of this year slinging muck at Europe’s heads of state, and he has damaged a number of already precarious relationships. Now it looks as if he is about to come up against the force of US diplomacy and Turkey may find itself in trouble. Turkey and the US have been Nato allies since 1952. During that time, Turkey has played up its strategic position for military bases close to the Middle East. In turn, the US has downplayed a number of disputes between the two countries, particularly in recent years as the conflict in Syria has raged on. Even as they seemed to be

Monday

Ross Clark

The Bombardier dispute could actually bring down May’s government

When governments fall it often comes from an unexpected quarter. Thirty eight years ago, James Callaghan’s government fell not as a direct result of the Winter of Discontent but from the fallout over a failed referendum on Scottish devolution. Over the past week we have heard plenty of speculation about Theresa May losing her job thanks to her cough at Manchester or through Brexit-induced civil war in her cabinet. But could we be missing something more obscure but at the same time more ominous? The more I think about it, the gravest danger to the government comes not from its handling of Brexit, universal credit, inflation or any of the

Thursday

Eric Weinberger

‘Taking the knee’ is a flawed form of protest

Kneeling, fundamentally an act of humility or deference, doesn’t seem the obvious protest against injustice when the National Anthem plays before a major American sporting event. The quarterback Colin Kaepernick made the gesture famous—and personal, since only he (and sometimes a couple of teammates) did it before his San Francisco 49ers took to the field for games in 2016. But two weeks ago, inflamed by President Trump, dozens of players (mainly black players, who make up around 75 per cent of the National Football League) did it, across the NFL. Their kneeling took different forms, and some contortions seemed to suggest ambivalence, with players kneeling then rising once the music

Jacob Heilbrunn

Rex Tillerson is the captain of a ghost ship

The US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s press conference yesterday was moronic. Earlier this week, NBC News broke the story that Tillerson, exasperated by Donald Trump’s shenanigans, called him a `moron’ during a meeting in July at the Pentagon. It took the intervention of vice-president Mike Pence, in the role of Trump administration life coach, to counsel Tillerson to remain in his post. Now, months later, Tillerson appeared at the State Department, which he has been steadily working to denude of any remaining diplomats or civil servants, to engage in a self-rectification session, pledging his fealty to Trump as well as his devotion to making America great again. Even Tillerson, however,