'It's very hard to point to a single concession that Trump has forced Putin to make'
'The shocking part of what's happened over the last couple of weeks is that apparently Trump and Washington are willing to sign off on essentially redrawing international borders at the demands of Vladimir Putin... But I don't think Trump is a Russian agent. I think that's completely childish and stupid'
On the latest Planet Normal podcast, which you can listen to using the audio player above, columnists Liam Halligan and Allison Pearson discuss the war in Ukraine with historian and author Owen Matthews as negotiations for peace continue.
The author of Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin's war on Ukraine sees the war between Ukraine and Russia at a stalemate but also at a 'grim moment', 'The Russians have been attacking and advancing, and Ukrainians have been pushed back in certain places.' He added, 'There's a sense that the Ukrainians are exhausted. They haven't got enough men. They haven't got enough ammunition'
Without continuing support from the US Owen says the burden will fall to closer allies, 'There is no way for Ukraine to make any major military advances without a full commitment of the West.'
Asked to assess the chances of a ceasefire in the coming weeks, Owen concludes ' I think actually, yes, given what we know. It's an extraordinary sort of piece of geopolitical luck that suddenly, for internal American reasons, the US administration suddenly sort of landed in his [Putin's] lap. It's turned his way. The world has turned his way.
Planet Normal, a weekly Telegraph podcast featuring news and views from beyond the bubble. Listen on the audio player above or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your preferred podcast app.
Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
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Noem says Guard wouldn't be needed in LA if Newsom had done his job
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem blamed California Gov. Gavin Newsom for the need to deploy the National Guard to assist in putting down violent clashes between police and immigration protesters in Los Angeles. Newsom has said local authorities don't need the help and accused President Donald Trump of inflaming the situation," calling the move "purposefully inflammatory" and saying it will "only escalate tensions." Noem disagreed with Newsom. "Margaret, if he was doing his, job people wouldn't have gotten hurt the last couple of days," she told CBS' Margaret Brennan on "Face the Nation." "We wouldn't have officers with a shattered wrist from bricks thrown through their vehicles, vehicles being burned, flags burned in the street and Molotov cocktails being thrown." "Governor Newsom has proven that he makes bad decisions, the president knows that he makes bad decisions and that's why the president chose the safety of this community over waiting for Governor Newsom to get some sanity," she said. Ahead of his departure for Camp David from New Jersey on Sunday, President Donald Trump was asked by ABC News' Rachel Scott if he is prepared to invoke the Insurrection Act. "Depends on whether or not there is an insurrection," Trump replied. Pressed on whether he believes there is an insurrection in California, Trump said, "No, no. But you have violent people, and we are not going to let them get away with it." White House border czar Tom Homan said Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass could face charges if their response to Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations exceeds the legal boundaries. "I'll say about anybody: You cross that line, it's a felony to knowingly harbor and conceal an illegal alien. It's a felony to impede law enforcement from doing their job," Homan told NBC News. Noem said Trump was making the move to protect the impacted communities and law enforcement. "So these 2,000 National Guard soldiers that are being engaged today are ones that are specifically trained for this type of crowd situation where they will be with the public and be able to provide safety around buildings and to those that are engaged in peaceful protests and also to our law enforcement officers so they can continue their daily work," she said. Reaction from lawmakers broke along party lines. House Speaker Mike Johnson told ABC News' "This Week" that Trump "did exactly what he needed to do." "These are federal laws and we have to maintain the rule of law. And that is not what is happening. [California Gov.] Gavin Newsom has shown an inability or unwillingness to do what is necessary there." "That is real leadership, and he has the authority and the responsibility to do it," the speaker said, defending Trump's decision. Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., dismissed Newsom's assertion the deploying the Guard would escalate tensions. "Well, words are cheap, especially when you got video. And so you asked me did it look like it was under control, I'll ask you: Did it look like it was under control? It doesn't. It is absolutely not in control. You saw rioters throwing rocks, throwing fireworks. And being extremely aggressive towards not just federal agents, but even the county and the local PD that was there. So does it look like it's under control? Absolutely not," he told CNN's "State of the Union." Democratic Rep. Nanette Barragán, who represents part of the area, said Trump's action will make things worse. "I've spoken to the sheriffs on the ground who have said they have things under control. There is no need for the National Guard. They have the manpower that they need," she said. "So this is really just an escalation of the president coming into California. We haven't asked for the help. "This is him escalating it, causing tensions to rise. It's only going to make things worse." Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar said Trump was "hellbent on inflaming" the situation. "Individual governors look at their states and make decisions, but in this case the president time and time again has shown this willingness to, one, violate the laws, as we've seen across the country in many different situations outside of the immigration context, and, two, inflame situations," Klobuchar told "Face the Nation."
Yahoo
12 minutes ago
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Trump Is Using the National Guard as Bait
The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. President Donald Trump is about to launch yet another assault on democracy, the Constitution, and American traditions of civil-military relations, this time in Los Angeles. Under a dubious legal rationale, he is activating 2,000 members of the National Guard to confront protests against actions by ICE, the immigration police who have used thuggish tactics against citizens and foreigners alike in the United States. By militarizing the situation in L.A., Trump is goading Americans more generally to take him on in the streets of their own cities, thus enabling his attacks on their constitutional freedoms. As I've listened to him and his advisers over the past several days, they seem almost eager for public violence that would justify the use of armed force against Americans. The president and the men and women around him are acting with great ambition in this moment, and they are likely hoping to achieve three goals in one dramatic action. First, they will turn America's attention away from Trump's many failures and inane feuds, and reestablish his campaign persona as a strongman who will brush aside the law if that's what it takes to keep order in the streets. Perhaps nothing would please Trump more than to replace weird stories about Elon Musk with video of masked protesters burning cars as lines of helmeted police and soldiers march over them and impose draconian silence in one of the nation's largest and most diverse cities. Second, as my colleague David Frum warned this morning, Trump is establishing that he is willing to use the military any way he pleases, perhaps as a proof of concept for suppressing free elections in 2026 or 2028. Trump sees the U.S. military as his personal honor guard and his private muscle. Those are his toy soldiers, and he's going to get a show from his honor guard in a birthday parade next weekend. In the meantime, he's going to flex that muscle, and prove that the officers and service members who will do whatever he orders are the real military. The rest are suckers and losers. During the George Floyd protests in 2020, Trump was furious at what he saw as the fecklessness of military leaders determined to thwart his attempts to use deadly force against protesters. He's learned his lesson: This time, he has installed a hapless sycophant at the Pentagon who is itching to execute the boss's orders. Third, Trump may be hoping to radicalize the citizen-soldiers drawn from the community who serve in the National Guard. (Seizing the California Guard is also a convenient way to humiliate California Governor Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, with the president's often-used narrative that liberals can't control their own cities.) Trump has the right to 'federalize' Guard forces, which is how they were deployed overseas in America's various conflicts. He has never respected the traditions of American civil-military relations, which regard the domestic deployment of the military as an extreme measure to be avoided whenever possible. Using the Guard could be a devious tactic: He may be hoping to set neighbor against neighbor, so that the people called to duty return to their home and workplace with stories of violence and injuries. In the longer run, Trump may be trying to create a national emergency that will enable him to exercise authoritarian control. (Such an emergency was a rationalization, for example, for the tariffs that he has mostly had to abandon.) He has for years been trying to desensitize the citizens of the United States to un-American ideas and unconstitutional actions. The American system of government was never meant to cope with a rogue president. Yet Trump is not unstoppable. Thwarting his authoritarianism will require restraint on the part of the public, some steely nerves on the part of state and local authorities, and vigilant action from national elected representatives, who should be stepping in to raise the alarm and to demand explanations about the president's misuse of the military. As unsatisfying as it may be for some citizens to hear, the last thing anyone should do is take to the streets of Los Angeles and try to confront the military or any of California's law-enforcement authorities. ICE is on a rampage, but physically assaulting or obstructing its agents—and thus causing a confrontation with the cops who have to protect them, whether those police officers like it or not—will provide precisely the pretext that some of the people in Trump's White House are trying to create. The president and his coterie want people walking around taking selfies in gas clouds, waving Mexican flags, holding up traffic, and burning cars. Judging by reactions on social media and interviews on television, a lot of people seem to think such performances are heroic—which means they're poised to give Trump's enforcers what they're hoping for. Be warned: Trump is expecting resistance. You will not be heroes. You will be the pretext. [Conor Friedersdorf: Averting the worst-case scenario in Los Angeles] Instead, the most dramatic public action the residents of Southern California could take right now would be to ensure that Trump's forces arrive on calm streets. Imagine the reactions of the Guard members as they look around and wonder what, exactly, the commander in chief was thinking. Why are they carrying their rifles in the streets of downtown America? What does anyone expect them to do? Put another way: What if the president throws a crackdown and nobody comes? This kind of restraint will deny Trump the political oxygen he's trying to generate. He is resorting to the grand theater of militarism because he is losing on multiple fronts in the courts—and he knows it. The law, for most people, is dreary to hear about, but one of the most important stories of Trump's second term is that lawyers and judges are so far holding a vital line against the administration, sometimes at great personal risk. Trump is also losing public support, which is another reason he's zeroing in on California. He is resolutely ignorant in many ways, but he has an excellent instinct for picking the right fights. The fact of the matter is that tens of millions of Americans believe that almost everything about immigration in the United States has long been deeply dysfunctional. (I'm one of them.) If he sends the military into L.A. and Guard members end up clashing in high-definition video with wannabe resistance gladiators in balaclavas, many people who have not been paying attention to his other ghastly antics will support him. (For the record, I am not one of them.) So far, even the Los Angeles Police Department—not exactly a bastion of squishy suburban book-club liberals—has emphasized that the protests have been mostly peaceful. Trump is apparently trying to change that. Sending in the National Guard is meant to provoke, not pacify, and his power will only grow if he succeeds in tempting Americans to intemperate reactions that give him the authoritarian opening he's seeking. Article originally published at The Atlantic
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12 minutes ago
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PHOTO ESSAY: A young trans woman's journey, and her latest destination: World Pride in Washington
WASHINGTON (AP) — As they get ready in their hotel room, Bella Bautista trades makeup tips with the roommate she has just met. Bautista, her cheekbones high and her confidence glowing, asks her roommate to curl her highlighted hair in the back. Jae Douglas obliges cheerfully. Bautista, 22, is a college cheerleader turned pageant contestant. Last month, she competed in the Miss Supranational USA pageant in Miami, representing Tennessee. She hails from Cartersville, a small Georgia town north of Atlanta. She works as a social media intern for the Global Trans Equity Project. She has come to Washington, D.C., to attend World Pride activities in the wake of the Trump administration's policies legislating against gender-affirming care and its rhetoric against transgender girls in sports. During a speech she delivers to the trans community she announces what could be the anthem for her audience: 'I'm not asking for permission to be who I am, I am who I am.' Bautista says she is the first and only transgender woman to compete in the Miss Supranational pageant. It is part of a lengthier process of embracing her identity — both within herself and to the world. Marching in an impending rain with a hundred others from the National Trans Visibility March, en route to the Lincoln Memorial to join the World Pride rally, Bella reflected, 'I'm not fighting for myself anymore. I'm fighting for a larger cause alongside other people, which is good for a change. You know, being the only transgender person from my small town, it's different to be in the capital of the USA. But so many people that are also fighting alongside with me are here, and have that same struggle.' 'In previous years, I felt more compelled to live my life stealth,' Bautista says. 'But with everything going on with the current administration, I felt the need to give an actual face to the issue.' And so she has come to World Pride, determined to be present and to fly the flag of who she is. Coming out was a process When Bautista transitioned during her senior year of high school in 2020, there were many pro-Trump demonstrations by students at her school during school hours. So she started a 'diversity club' to create a safe place for LGBTQ+ students and students of color. 'I came out to my mom when I was 13, and I asked her, 'Am I a girl?′ She said she didn't know — 'That's something we need to look into.' I didn't know what being trans meant or anything like that. I've always been flexible with my gender and sexuality.' Puberty was an upsetting time for her, before she was able to access gender-affirming care. 'Having male hormones in my body gave me a lot of anxiety, dysphoria. And I felt that testosterone was going to destroy my body,' she says. With her family's assent, she ordered hormones online and medically transitioned at 17, during her senior year. As a gamer, she chose the name 'Bella' online. It stuck. 'When I went to college I chose that name and told people, 'Hi, I am Bella, I'm a woman.' And I was stealth. No one on campus knew I was trans at the start. I just really wanted to live a normal college life, be a normal college girl.' But things changed during her second year at college. She awakened to all the 'harmful stereotypes' — and realized she could use them to help others. 'People would say that I don't look trans, I don't sound trans, so for me to be openly trans, it gives people more perspective,' she says. 'I'm a normal college girl. I'm a cheerleader. This is what I look and sound like. It really resonates with both political parties.' This past winter, she decided to testify at the Georgia State Capitol about her experience as a young trans woman athlete. It was illuminating for her. 'I had to speak in front of Republican members and I would run into them in the hallways or the elevators, or outside the bathroom, and they'd say, 'Oh, you're testifying against my bill but you're amazing, I loved your speech. Politicians politicize trans rights to gain votes. A big part of my platform is saying that my trans identify is not a political agenda for either side.' She later began an organization called 'This Does Not Define Me,' referring to her experiences with PTSD, a speech impediment, being Mexican American and fighting trans stereotypes. The organization is about visibility — and a sense that the challenges faced by people, especially within the trans community, shouldn't define them. 'I hope that as more people meet me I put them at ease,' she says, 'and I get more empathy for the trans community. As people have more interactions with trans people they'll realize we are just normal people, with dreams, and this just happens to be my story.' She dreams about the future, but is right here in the now Bautista's own journey has defined her in many ways, though, including her professional aspirations. She hopes to become a civil rights attorney, to stand up for marginalized people, and someday to run for public office in Georgia. That's later, though. Now, in a climate that doesn't always accept people like her, there is power in just being who she is. 'I think the most powerful thing that I can do right now as a young trans woman is to educate the populace that this is my experience and that I am so much more than just being trans.' Back at the hotel, ahead of attending a conference for the National Trans Visibility March, Bautista has Douglas take a video of her striding through the lobby in a gold gown. It's for her Instagram feed. A family with two young children stops her. 'Are you a model? Where may we have seen you before?' Bella smiles demurely and says, 'Oh, I'm a pageant girl.' She turns to a visitor. 'I get that a lot,' she says. Coming to World Pride from a hometown where she's the only trans person is raising some questions for Bautista. Is allyship enough? Are gay members of the community fully backing trans rights? 'It really feels like it's LGB and then T,' she says. 'We are going through so much. I am hoping these people waving the gay flag are also considering what we are going through at this time.' Add onto that her identity as a Mexican woman and — with the Trump administration's immigration crackdown on many fronts — there is still more she wants to advocate. So much more to do. Bella Bautista was silent for a while. No longer. 'It feels good to represent … something bigger and to be proud of that,' she says. 'I kind of want to be like, 'I'm here,' you know?' she says. 'I'm just a normal college girl, I'm a cheerleader, I do pageants, and I happen to be trans, but that does not define my ability to succeed. Being trans is part of who I am, but I still deserve access to those dreams.' ___ This is a documentary photo story curated by AP photo editors. ___ Jacquelyn Martin is an Associated Press photographer based in Washington.
