New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani proposes city-owned grocery stores amid inflation
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NZ Herald
17 hours ago
- NZ Herald
US House Speaker Mike Johnson and other Republicans break with US President over Epstein
At the same time as Johnson publicly called for the files to be released, he opposed a procedural motion advanced by Democrats that would have set up a House vote to release them. On the podcast, Johnson said that Attorney-General Pam Bondi 'needs to come forward and explain' the confusion she's brewed after she stated in interviews earlier this year that the purported Epstein 'client list' was sitting on her desk for review, suggesting it would be released. Bondi and other Justice Department officials now say the 'client list' - which some claim would reveal the names of powerful figures who allegedly participated in Epstein's crimes - doesn't exist. 'I like Pam, I think she's done a good job, but we need the DOJ focusing on the major priorities, he said. 'I'm anxious to put this behind us.' The rift with the Trump Administration over an issue near to the heart of his Maga base suggests that the roiling debate over Epstein is far from over. Many of the President's supporters believed him when they were promised that once he was restored to the White House, his Administration would release the files Trump long claimed his predecessor was hiding. Now, they are angry. Trump is backing Bondi and has called for his supporters to move on. Today, Trump said Bondi gave him 'a very quick briefing' on the Epstein documents before baselessly blaming previous Democratic administrations for creating the files. 'We've gone through years of [attacks], but she's handled it very well, and it's going to be up to her,' Trump said in defence of Bondi. 'Whatever she thinks is credible, she should release.' Johnson's interview was released moments after Democrats nearly won a significant victory on the House floor that would have forced the Trump Administration to release the Epstein files. If Republicans had not blocked the procedural motion, they would have been forced to vote on a measure to release the Epstein files sponsored by Representative Ro Khanna (Democrat-California) and supported by House Democratic leadership. Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (Democrat-New York) called for transparency on the issue yesterday, saying the 'American people deserve to know the truth'. 'If you're not hiding anything, prove that to the American people,' Jeffries said at his weekly news conference. 'And if you are trying to hide something, as many of Donald Trump's Maga supporters apparently believe, then the Congress should work hard to uncover the truth for the American people.' Majority Whip Tom Emmer (Republican-Minnesota) and his team were seen working to convince holdouts from the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, who appeared willing to join with Democrats to approve the Khanna resolution, which would have required the Justice Department to preserve and release all documents related to Epstein. Representative Andrew Clyde (Republican-Georgia) was seen yelling at Emmer's floor director before voting to block the resolution. Representative Andy Biggs (Republican-Arizona) chose not to cast a vote after Emmer spent minutes talking to him. GOP leaders immediately closed the vote after they notched enough GOP support to block the resolution from moving forward, prompting Representative Becca Balint (Democrat-Vermont) to yell towards Republicans, 'Come on, we need the files!' Several House Republicans want the Epstein files to be released but did not want to join Democrats in forcing the issue. Instead, they hope to convince their colleagues to press the issue further, according to several lawmakers who were granted anonymity to discuss private and ongoing conversations. The episodes marks a pivot in the fight around the Epstein files and shines a spotlight on the cracks among Republicans. The controversy blew up last week after Bondi released a memo denying the existence of an Epstein 'client list', validating a Biden-era Justice Department report that Epstein died by suicide and declaring that the Trump Administration would release no more documents on the matter. Backlash from some prominent corners of Trump's base was fast and brutal. Some high-profile Democrats have also joined the fray, sensing that a perceived lack of transparency is quickly becoming a problem for Republicans in Congress who have long demanded answers on Epstein. 'It has clearly been a very serious situation for the Administration and many people are speaking out online,' Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (Republican-Georgia) told CNN yesterday. 'A lot of people in Maga really want to know more information about the people that were involved with Jeffrey Epstein.' Democrats are attacking the issue from all sides, with some introducing legislation demanding the Administration release the files, while others have tucked language into a spending bill to ensure documents related to Epstein are preserved. And in perhaps the most humorous plea for sunlight, Representative Hank Johnson (Democrat-Georgia) posted a video of himself on X playing the guitar and singing a rendition of the indie song Dreamsicle about the saga. 'Epstein died by suicide. Believe that and you must be blind,' Johnson crooned. 'Trump's howling at the moon. Release the Epstein files soon.' Democrats clearly see the opening and are using the little power they have in the congressional minority to try to exert influence. They are putting GOP colleagues in a tough spot, forced to vote on the record against releasing files Republicans have long demanded without launching their own investigations into the matter. It was the second vote on Khanna's amendment calling on Bondi to release all documents related to Epstein. It was earlier rejected by the House Rules panel, where it received support from Representative Ralph Norman (Republican-South Carolina), a member of the Freedom Caucus. Representative Marc Veasey (Democrat-Texas) also yesterday introduced a resolution demanding the Trump Administration release related files and force relevant House committees to investigate a possible cover up, among other measures. It's unlikely to be taken up for a floor vote by a GOP majority, and a similarly worded amendment was rejected by the House Rules Committee. Veasey said that unlike other conspiracy theories Trump and the Maga orbit have pushed in the past, 'people are taking this seriously'. 'Democrats think that there's something in these files. Maga voters think there's something in these files, and when you have that large of a collective voice in the American constituency … then release the files,' he said. Today, 18 House Judiciary Committee Democrats joined Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (Democrat-Maryland) in sending a four-page letter to chairman Jim Jordan (Republican-Ohio), a Trump acolyte, asking him to hold a bipartisan hearing on 'the Trump Administration's recent handling of the Epstein matter', including testimony from Bondi and other officials at the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigations. In the Senate, Senator Chris Van Hollen (Democrat-Maryland) offered an amendment - which was unanimously inserted into a spending bill by the Senate Appropriations Committee - that would force the Justice Department to preserve any evidence related to the Epstein investigation. It's unclear, however, if the underlying legislation will pass the Senate and be adopted in the House. Other Democrats have chosen trolling and theatrics as a tactic. The Democratic National Committee created an X account asking, 'Has Trump released the Epstein files?' Each day it posts 'No'. House Majority PAC, the fundraising arm for House Democrats, immediately launched the 'GOP Epstein Simps Target List', focused on politically vulnerable Republicans on social media who supported blocking Khanna's measure - despite having previously called for the release of the Epstein files. Democratic lawmakers and aides say that there is no co-ordinated strategy to amplify the issue, but that they have noticed that their messaging is breaking through for once and they are looking to exploit a mess of the Republicans own making. House Democrats in particular are betting that by forcing the issue, they can show the American public that they would conduct oversight of the Trump Administration if they win back the majority and are committed to holding billionaires and corrupt politicians to account. 'We're taking this populist sentiment in the country and say, 'No, the rebirth of the Democratic Party, the 'new Democratic Party' is going to be the party that's going to hold the elites accountable and be on the side of transparency and reform,' Khanna said. 'We're willing to call out the establishment, even if they're the establishment on our side.' It's unclear how Democrats will continue to force the issue. Most Republicans believe that the issue will resolve itself, but Democrats aren't convinced. 'I think most of us believe what's appropriate will be released when it is time for the president to release it,' Rules Committee chairwoman Virginia Foxx (Republican-North Carolina) said. 'I don't have the same confidence you do given the flip flopping we've seen,' Representative Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the panel, said. 'I need a neck brace.'
NZ Herald
17 hours ago
- NZ Herald
New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani proposes city-owned grocery stores amid inflation
Among the many buzzy campaign promises that helped Zohran Mamdani clinch the New York City Democratic mayoral primary last month, one has spawned confusion and heated debate: municipal-owned grocery stores, which he says guarantee cheaper prices, especially on staples, as a response to soaring inflation.
The Spinoff
a day ago
- The Spinoff
Have we lost the art of the argument?
It's a whole-of-politics problem – but is more vexing for the left, because it is progressives who seek change most profoundly. Duncan Greive attempts to persuade you all. There's a clear and present danger in contemporary politics – which is conducted on global platforms and accessible from anywhere – to find yourself drawn to and deeply invested in races which occur thousands of miles away and can only obliquely impact your life. For many of us it's US politics, a subject so transfixing that a former National leader has a podcast devoted to it, and one in which the recent result of a single city's Democratic primary – not even the actual mayoral race – felt more gripping than our own political drama. Zohran Mamdani's victory in the New York Democratic primary felt important, a shifting of the bounds of acceptable policy. It has transfixed people all over the world, with its promise of a new style of leftist populism that is manifestly very popular, particularly when set against the tainted establishment approach of Andrew Cuomo. Simon Wilson at the NZ Herald wrote observantly about the lessons Mamdani's victory might contain for Labour here. But in the context of the US, New York is Wellington Central – the most liberal 3% of a much more ideologically diverse country. I found another US politician more persuasive, one with a powerful theory about change and how to achieve it. Sarah McBride is a first-term congressional representative from Delaware, and notable as the first openly trans person to serve in that institution. On a recent podcast appearance she tabled an argument she summarised as 'we've lost the art of persuasion' – we meaning the Democrats. It presents an explanation for why the progressive left has had trouble convincing people of its positions in recent years. Essentially, McBride's theory is that the left has stopped trying – whether they're aware of that or not. How to change a mind It boils down to the way complex issues are increasingly framed in absolutist versus nuanced terms, and the way that seems to be having the opposite effect of what you presume is intended. Instead of bringing moderates over to a side, the absolutist style chases them away; effectively saying that unless you buy the whole of an argument, you're unwelcome. I'm talking less about our political leaders than their partisans – who might target a slower-moving or more uncertain middle, versus the near-hopeless task of persuading the persuaded. This can be framed in terms of compulsion ('you must believe this') versus persuasion ('let me make my case'). As with so much of our current culture, it was trending a particular way, then supercharged during Covid. It exists in many issues which have high salience to a group along with relevance to wider society – climate change, education reform, crime and policing, trans rights. It often starts with an entrenched and emotive position – say, that trans women should be allowed to compete in elite sports – which polling suggests (we have too little done here, but can extrapolate from international results) gets less popular the more it is discussed. McBride spoke directly to this, noting that in the last few years, during which trans issues have been more present in the public conversation than ever before, 'by every objective metric, support for trans rights is worse now than it was six or seven years ago.' She took care to make clear that is partly the result of a deliberate campaign from opponents. But she also believes that the style of argument – passionate but frequently dismissive of even good faith questions – has not helped achieve its stated aims. That the making of the case (from trans people, but more often their allies) has often hurt more than helped. 'I think some of the cultural mores and norms that started to develop around inclusion of trans people were probably premature for a lot of people,' she said. 'We became absolutist – not just on trans rights but across the progressive movement – and we forgot that in a democracy we have to grapple with where the public authentically is and actually engage with it. 'We decided that we now have to say and fight for and push for every single perfect policy and cultural norm right now, regardless of whether the public is ready. And I think it misunderstands the role that politicians and, frankly, social movements have in maintaining proximity to public opinion, of walking people to a place,' she said. Compromising, in other words. She was talking about trans issues in America, but you could substitute the fight and the location for dozens of others the world over. The rights and wrongs of a particular issue have become less material than the crucial question: is the approach, that style of argument, working? That seems to be the most important element, but one which is not considered nearly so crucial as the moral integrity of the position. It's often about where you spend your energy; in progressive circles it can appear to be scrutinising your supposed allies for ideological purity, then issuing infractions or ostracising those found wanting. It leads to a more ideologically aligned tent, sure, but one smaller than it was before. And because these arguments play out in public, mostly on social platforms, they have the effect of making any quiet observer with private questions or doubts feel like they too are unwelcome. This is an all-of-politics problem, but it is strikingly more prevalent on the left. For example, the level of disagreement between Act and NZ First, our two minor parties of the right, is vast, whereas Te Pāti Māori and The Greens can feel like one movement, such is the level of agreement. NZ First and Act seem to almost enjoy disagreeing disagreeably, whereas even relatively minor differences between leftist parties and supporters can feel anguished to the point of being unresolvable. What might a different technique look like? Instead of policing your own side, the alternative is trying to persuade an open but cautious middle. To do the latter requires a very different approach and perhaps a more strategic theory of change. One which necessarily involves taking a position some distance from where you might seek to ultimately end up. We live in a democracy, and even if you, like Te Pāti Māori's Rawiri Waititi, believe it represents the 'tyranny of the majority', that is unlikely to change. As McBride says, movements which progress incrementally and in lockstep with public opinion – ahead of but not out of reach – are more likely to be durable, and far less likely to see a harsh over-correction in response. Civil rights in the 60s and gay rights more recently were games of inches, she says, with legislation and public support walked forward, with an eye on perfection but not a demand that we achieve it immediately. What's hard is that so many of these issues are highly charged, feel urgent, and really do impact people unequally. The planet is heating now. If you consider the police a racist institution, why would you reform it piecemeal and not wholesale? How many generations must wait for a true honouring of Te Tiriti? Trans rights really are backsliding in many places. To give up on that perfect solution can feel like a form of betrayal. But only if understood in those terms. If it's instead framed as a negotiation with a longer time horizon, one which might take years but will more likely endure, then it might be more palatable. To many passionate activists, such compromise might be unacceptable. Also, sometimes fury seems the only appropriate response to reality, and you're less concerned with the outcome than a gut howl. But the question needs to be asked: have the 10 years or so in which this has been the dominant style of argument felt like progress to you? The dangers of the coalition Adjacent to the style of argument is the notion of a coalition. As well as the coalition governments of MMP, all parties are coalitions to some extent – National is famously a mix of farmers and businesspeople. But on the progressive left there is also a kind of moral coalition. How that manifests is a sense that to be a true ally you must believe in a very specific view on a broad basket of issues. That can feel like it goes for everything from charter schools to climate change obligations to LGBTQ rights to tax reform. Each is of consuming interest to various people; yet if you hold a contrary (or even unsure) view on any topic – especially if you're crazy enough to air it – you're at risk of being tossed from the group. To be clear, there is a proportion of the online right which is gleefully encouraging this dynamic, beckoning with open arms to anyone who might feel unwelcome on the left despite agreeing with the majority of its stances. They're beyond activists' control, however – unlike the current progressive approach to persuasion. In his conversation with McBride, podcast host Ezra Klein argued that the absolutist approach to argument has come from 'the movement of politics to these very unusually designed platforms of speech, where what you do really is not talk to people you disagree with but talk about people you disagree with to people you do agree with.' Platforms like Facebook, X and Instagram incentivise the production of content which stakes out increasingly extreme positions, because a more moderate (and often popular to general audiences, according to polling) stance is unlikely to provoke the engagement that expands the reach of any given post. It leads to a paradox, whereby extremely online coalitional activists of both sides draw their parties to ever more fringe positions. The reason it seems to be more damaging to the left's intentions is that even quiet observers of these hard lines can be made to feel rejected. Those on the right are harangued and insulted, but there is less intimation from their peers that they are no longer welcome – just that they're an idiot. There might be good reasons for a high threshold to acceptance: solidarity among different causes is a fundamental tenet of many reforming organisations, from unions to NGOs. But it does have a troublesome interaction with democracy, in that demanding agreement with every joined up position inevitably means losing some small but meaningful support. It's hard to win an election that way, particularly on a national rather than citywide scale. It's a more vexing problem for the left, because it is progressives who seek change most profoundly. The conservative part of the right is about the status quo, seeking to defend an existing position, or return to an imagined vision of the past. The left seeks progress – to change the future. In this way, persuasion matters more, which is why it's strange that it is often practised less, and exists within a framework which allows for little dissent. Is there a better way? There is a deep disdain for moderates or incrementalism today across all sides – big centrist parties have either been hauled to the fringes or seen more radical parties make big gains, if not usurp them entirely. It's easier to describe another approach than perform it, and would require a major change in the philosophy and style of our current politics, and it's made far harder by social platforms which are so resistant to that approach. Yet it's worth at least considering. Activists of many stripes might believe that their goals are sufficiently important as to justify staking out positions well away from public opinion, and sometimes seem indifferent to the fact their actions seem to make their causes less popular. Think of Extinction Rebellion protestors gluing themselves to motorways or splashing paint on artworks, even as the politics of climate change regress, in near lockstep with the more disruptive demonstrations. It's deeply unfashionable (I look forward to the comments lol), but maybe the best way to achieve small yet lasting gains is step back from expectation of perfect policy – at least for now. Holding out for them feels crucial, but if the way you're going about it makes the position less popular, maybe it's worth arguing for something more achievable, to take that first step. In the hope it might actually change a mind, and get you incrementally closer to what you really want, rather than ever further away.
