Us politics

Could Donald Trump win the Nobel Peace Prize? He would be following in the footsteps of his predecessor but unlike Barack Obama in 2009 his award could be for something significant: helping to bring an end to one of the world’s most intractable conflicts – the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians.  It might sound implausible but Trump may have a better chance of delivering peace – or at least a non-belligerency agreement – than previous presidents, even if those chances do still remain low. Trump’s Middle East peace envoy (and ex-real estate lawyer) Jason Greenblatt, who I met recently, says that the Trump team will soon unveil their plan – the “deal of

REVERSE FERRET! When he edited the Sun, Kelvin MacKenzie used to throw open his office door and bellow this at the newsroom when the paper had got a story wrong. It came from the northern endurance sport of ferret-legging: a pair of razor-toothed ferrets are put down your trousers — no underwear allowed. The Sun would call the ferrets off some hapless public figure and go into full reverse without apology or explanation. If we in the media have spent the past two years getting the Trump-Russia story wrong, simply pulling a reverse ferret now would not be enough. There would have to be something more. But is a mea

If you follow the US president on Twitter, you might think that every day is Donald Day. But Sunday was a particularly good day for Trump After two years of special counsel Robert Mueller investigating possible collusion between Trump, his officials and the Russian government, the verdict was finally delivered: not guilty. The letter from attorney general William Barr to Congress explains “the special counsel did not find that any US person or Trump campaign official conspired or knowingly co-ordinated with Russia.” On the issue of obstructing justice, the evidence “was not sufficient”, and so the “special counsel therefore did not draw a conclusion.” In short, Donald Trump is a free

‘Sometimes you have to walk’, said Donald Trump this morning as talks between him and Kim Jong-un broke down. With no new summit planned, the prospects for a denuclearisation deal with North Korea are not good. Yet South Korea was still keen to look on the bright side: the two leaders had made “more meaningful progress than at any time prior”, a spokesperson for president Moon said. For all the criticism chucked at Trump, this progress (albeit limited) is worth remembering. At least he is trying, after all. But can the same be said for Europe? It’s certainly striking that while Trump and Kim were at the centre of festivities this week,

Donald Trump’s meeting with Kim Jong-un in Hanoi is a diplomatic triumph for Pyongyang. For the second time in under a year, the North Korean leader gets to strut his stuff on the world stage. Kim Jong-un is able to stand next to President Trump as – in his imagination – an equal. The Americans, for their part, have had to come to the table and are going to (among other things) likely hear demands for them to reduce their military presence in and around Korea. No, it’s not dignified, but what else can the president do? Can anything come from these talks? Maybe. Both sides clearly want there to be some progress in the today.

Donald Trump takes no punches. He prides himself on being a counter-puncher, a person who won’t think twice about hitting an opponent in the teeth. It only took a few days for those who hoped the Oval Office and the nuclear button would smooth the edges of his boisterousness, combativeness, and unbounded egotism to learn that Trump wasn’t going to change his personality for the sake of high-powered, politically correct Washingtonians.   Halfway through his first term, however, Trump has learned the hard way how tough it is to enact a legislative agenda when you get on everyone’s bad side. Back in New York, when Trump was the dictator of

 Washington, DC It’s no secret that President Donald Trump has women problems. His relationship with his wife seems strained. Feminists loathe him. His popularity among the opposite sex is lower than ever, according to the polls. And, to rub salt into his wounded machismo, he appears to have just lost a fierce political battle over the government shutdown to Nancy Pelosi, the newly reinstalled Democratic speaker. All week, the commentariat has gushed over the way Pelosi ‘schooled’ Trump in the art of politics by forcing him to reopen the government without giving him the funds he wants to build a wall on the Mexican border. She ‘spanked him’, they say.

When the media falls in love, it falls hard. Its latest crush is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat congressgirl from New York. With Obama gone, she’s their new idol and how they gasp every time she flutters her Bambi eyes from behind those Deirdre Barlow-grade glasses. Brits find the deference US journalists show their president unseemly — all that standing to attention, Hail to the Chief stuff — but their slobbery swooning over every Great Progressive Hope that comes along is just creepy. There was the White House correspondent who offered to fellate Bill Clinton and the New York Times writer who blogged her shower dream about Barack Obama and claimed ‘many

Jon Sopel, the BBC’s North America editor, has given us a pithy and perceptive account of today’s USA in his book If Only They Didn’t Speak English. He described the mood there in 2016 as ‘fearful, angry and impatient for change’. It was the year when Donald Trump was going to be elected to the world’s most powerful position. Could something similar also explain the unpredicted swings in European elections and across the world? If so, does it mean that people are so fed up with the status quo that they will opt for anything contrary? The oft-quoted aphorism from G.K. Chesterton comes to mind: ‘When men choose not to