Hot mics, faux pas and protests: the colourful language of our world leaders
'They don't know what the fuck they're doing,' Donald Trump said after a ceasefire between Israel and Iran was breached on Tuesday. But the US president is not the first politician to swear on camera. From George Bush caught on a hot mic to profanity as protest, we look back at how the world's political leaders have resorted to swearing to express themselves
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
14 minutes ago
- The Guardian
‘We made history': Mamdani celebrates after shocking Cuomo in New York City mayoral primary
Update: Date: 2025-06-25T10:22:37.000Z Title: The Hague Content: We have more from . Reuters is reporting that when asked if the United States would strike again if Iran rebuilt its nuclear enrichment programme, Donald Trump said: 'Sure.' Update: Date: 2025-06-25T10:17:17.000Z Title: US politics Content: Hello and welcome to the live blog. We start with Zohran Mamdani's historic victory in the New York City mayoral primary. In a major upset, Andrew Cuomo who had been a recent favourite - conceded after it was clear the 33-year old democratic had built a substantial lead over the more experienced but scandal-scarred former governor. Mamdani' appeared to have cleared the first hurdle on the road to become New York's first Muslim mayor. In a speech to supporters, Mamdani said: 'We made history,' adding: 'I will be your Democratic nominee for the mayor of New York City.' If his win is confirmed, Mamdani will be seen as the frontrunner for the 4 November mayoral election in New York, a city where Democrats normally dominate. After 93% of votes were counted in the primary's first round, Mamdani, a state representative, had 43.5% of the vote. Cuomo was on 36.4%. Cuomo, who was attempting a political comeback after he resigned from office in 2021 amid a sexual harassment scandal, said he had called Mamdani to congratulate him. 'He put together a great campaign and he touched young people and inspired them and moved them and got them to come out and vote,' Cuomo said. 'I applaud him sincerely for his effort.' However, Cuomo told the New York Times he may still run in the November mayoral election as an independent. 'I want to analyse and talk to some colleagues,' he said. In other developments: Donald Trump hit back at a leaked preliminary US intelligence assessment which cast doubt on the success of US military strikes on three of Iran's nuclear sites. Trump said Iran's nuclear programme had been set back 'decades' by the strikes despite the reports suggesting they had only set it back by months. Ahead of meeting with other world leaders at a Nato Summit in the Hague, he said he believed 'total obliteration' was achieved. 'This was a devastating attack,' Trump told reporters. Asked about the intelligence reports, Trump said 'they really don't know.' He added: 'The intelligence was very inconclusive. The intelligence says we don't know. It could've been very severe. That's what the intelligence suggests.' Steve Witkoff, Trump's special envoy to the Middle East, called the leak 'treasonous' and called for the individual responsible to be investigated Meanwhile Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte was full of praise for the US strikes, saying they 'took out the nuclear capability of Iran', he added that it been carried out in an 'impressive way'. As mentioned, Donald Trump is at The Hague where leaders of the Western defensive alliance have gathered. They are set to commit to a new defence spending target of 5% of GDP and demonstrate that European allies are stepping up. This is Trump's first Nato summit since 2019. At The Hague Trump confirmed commitment to Nato's Article 5 which states that an attack on one member is seen as attack on all members. When asked about Article 5 he said: 'We are with them all the way.' It was in contrast to earlier comments he made en route to The Hague. 'There's numerous definitions of Article Five, you know that right?' he had said. Speaking at The Hague, Trump likened the US strikes on Iran to his country's decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan in the second world war. 'That hit ended the war,' he said. 'That hit ended the war. I don't want to use an example of Hiroshima, I don't want to use an example of Nagasaki, but that was essentially the same thing that ended that war. This ended that, this ended that war. If we didn't take that out, they would have been they'd be fighting right now.'
Telegraph
15 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Iran executes three men accused of spying for Israel
Iran has executed three men accused of spying for Israel, as it cracks down on suspected foreign interference. Since Israel started bombing the country, hundreds of people have also been arrested. The hangings on Wednesday mean that six people have now been executed on similar charges. The three men – Idris Aali, Azad Shojaei and Rasoul Ahmad Rasoul – were executed at dawn at Urmia prison on charges of 'corruption on Earth through cooperation with hostile foreign states in favour of Israel', according to state media. Iran's Revolutionary Guard-affiliated Fars news agency reported on Wednesday that authorities have arrested more than 700 people across the country on allegations of spying for Israel. Both the arrests and the executions suggest that the Islamic Republic is waging an extensive crackdown going forward as the regime works to regain power and legitimacy after the devastation. Iranian officials are likely more concerned than ever about the risk of espionage given that it has emerged that Israeli intelligence was able to operate from within Iran to launch its initial attack. The executions came one day after Iran accepted a US-brokered ceasefire ending 12 days of war with Israel. All three had been arrested in connection with the 2020 assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a Iranian nuclear scientist. 'Imported assassination equipment' Aali and Shojaei were cross-border porters, known as kolbars, initially detained on alcohol smuggling charges who later confessed under interrogation to importing 'equipment for assassinating nuclear figures', according to authorities. Iran's judiciary-affiliated Mizan news agency claimed that the men had 'imported assassination equipment under the cover of alcohol shipments'. The killings follow Iran's recent execution of Ismail Fekri and Mohammad Amin Mahdavi Shayesteh on espionage charges. The Norway-based Iran Human Rights Organisation said Fekri was 'sentenced to death in a brief 10-minute trial based on confessions made during interrogation' without access to a lawyer in Branch 26 of Tehran's Revolutionary Court. Iran has been cracking down on citizens since the war began, claiming that Israeli agents have deeply infiltrated the country. The 700 arrests happened over 12 days and spanned provinces including Kermanshah, Isfahan, Khuzestan, Fars and Lorestan. No arrest figures were provided for Tehran. Security officials accused the detained individuals of 'directing suicide drones', 'making homemade bombs', 'photographing sensitive military sites' and 'sending information to Israel'. Authorities also claimed to have confiscated more than 10,000 'micro-drones' in Tehran alone. Iranian officials have not provided independent verification of the detainees' identities or case details, and no photographic evidence of alleged confiscated materials has been released. Iran's judiciary announced that it would immediately revise the legal definition of espionage 'to free the hands of the judiciary and security institutions to deal with infiltrators and spies'. Limitations of espionage law Asghar Jahangir, the spokesman for the judiciary, said on Tuesday: 'The current espionage law is general and may not cover many instances of today's events.' He said that if Iran had attempted to prosecute individuals arrested during the war with Israel under existing espionage definitions, authorities would have faced 'limitations and restrictions'. Meanwhile, citizens across Iran reported receiving threatening text messages from the judiciary warning them not to follow social media accounts affiliated with the Israeli government. The messages warned of prosecution under Iran's 'law against hostile actions of the Zionist regime'. Iranian lawyers dismissed the messages as having 'no judicial or legal value' and said they were intended to 'create fear and terror'. Iran Human Rights Organisation has warned that Iran might accelerate executions of prisoners accused of espionage following recent tensions with Israel. Concerns are mounting over the possible execution of Ahmad Reza Jalali, an Iranian-Swedish researcher who was transferred from Evin prison to an undisclosed location after Israel's Monday attack on the detention centre. The fragile ceasefire appeared to hold on Tuesday night after both sides blamed each other for violations. It went into effect after the US bombed Iran's three main nuclear sites over the weekend and the Islamic Republic retaliated by firing missiles at an American base in Qatar.
Reuters
22 minutes ago
- Reuters
Returned deportee Abrego due in US court over bail conditions
NASHVILLE, Tennessee, June 25 (Reuters) - Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the migrant wrongly deported to El Salvador by President Donald Trump's administration only to be returned to the United States to face criminal charges, is due back in court on Wednesday for a judge in Tennessee to set the conditions of his release from jail. Nashville-based U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes ruled on Sunday that the administration could not continue to detain Abrego, 29, pending trial on two charges accusing him of conspiring with at least five other members of a smuggling ring to bring migrants to the United States illegally. Abrego, a Salvadoran national who had been living in Maryland, has pleaded not guilty. His case has become emblematic of the Republican president's aggressive immigration crackdown and the pushback from rights groups. His lawyers have called the charges an effort by the administration to justify its violation of Abrego's rights by deporting him to El Salvador despite a 2019 judicial order barring such a move on the grounds that he could face persecution by gangs in his home country. Holmes scheduled a hearing for Wednesday at 2 p.m. CDT (1900 GMT) after expressing skepticism toward the administration's allegations against Abrego including the credibility of cooperating witnesses. Holmes acknowledged in Sunday's ruling that even if Abrego is released from pre-trial detention, he likely would be taken into immigration custody. But the judge's finding that the government had not shown that Abrego was dangerous amounted to a rebuke of Trump's assertion that Abrego is a "bad guy" with a "horrible past." "The court will give Abrego the due process that he is guaranteed," Holmes wrote, opens new tab. Abrego's wife, their young son, and her two children from another relationship are U.S. citizens and live in Maryland. He was deported on March 15 and was returned on June 6. U.S. officials had called his deportation an "administrative error" but initially said they would not bring him back. That raised concerns among Trump's critics that his administration was disregarding civil liberties and due process in its push to step up deportations. In a separate civil case, another judge is investigating whether administration officials violated her order, later upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, to facilitate Abrego's return to the United States. The Justice Department ultimately brought Abrego back to face an indictment returned by a grand jury in Nashville charging him with plotting to bring migrants to the United States illegally and then transporting them from the U.S.-Mexico border to destinations in the country. According to the indictment, Abrego often picked up migrants in Houston, and made more than 100 trips between Texas and Maryland between 2016 and 2025. In urging Holmes to detain Abrego, prosecutors alleged that he sometimes transported minors and often brought his own young children on the trips to serve as a cover story. Holmes said she gave little weight to those assertions in part because they came from cooperating witnesses seeking reduced sentences in criminal cases or relief from deportation, including the leader of a human smuggling operation who has been deported five times and convicted of felonies twice. "Each cooperating witness upon whose statements the government's argument for detention rests stands to gain something," the judge wrote.
