Latest news with #politicaldebate
BBC News
15 hours ago
- Politics
- BBC News
Trump orders fresh troop deployment to LA as unrest continues into fourth day
Update: Date: 07:08 BST Title: The war of words between Trump and Newsom Content: Throughout the day, President Trump and California Governor Gavin Newsom have been exchanging jabs through their social media accounts. Here's a breakdown of the things they've said to and about each other: Trump calls Newsom 'incompetent' In a post to his Truth Social account, Trump says LA would be "obliterated" without him. "The very incompetent 'Governor,' Gavin Newscum, and 'Mayor,' Karen Bass, should be saying, 'THANK YOU, PRESIDENT TRUMP, YOU ARE SO WONDERFUL. WE WOULD BE NOTHING WITHOUT YOU, SIR.'" Newsom hits back after Trump calls for his arrest Trump told reporters he thought it would be 'great' if Newsom was arrested. Newsom responded on social media, calling it an 'unmistakable step toward authoritarianism'. Earlier, when Trump border czar Tom Homan threatened the same thing, Newsom didn't mince his words: 'Arrest me,' he said. 'Let's get it over, tough guy.' 'If they spit, we will hit' Trump accused Newsom of inspiring the riots and spitting in the faces of the National Guard. "I promise you they will be hit harder than they have ever been hit before," he said in a Truth Social post. Newsom says Trump is acting like a dictator In a post on X, Newsom says Trump's activation of Marines in LA is a "deranged fantasy". He continued by saying Trump is a "dictatorial president. This is un-American." Newsom tells Trump to 'grow up' Newsom used the words to caption an interview clip in which he said Trump should, "Arrest me. Get it over with". On Saturday, Trump's border tsar, Tom Homan, threatened to arrest individuals who obstruct the immigration enforcement effort. Update: Date: 06:58 BST Title: Governor Newsom threatens to sue over deployment of Marines Content: California Governor Gavin Newsom has said he "will sue" over the deployment of US Marines to LA. Newsom and California's Attorney General Rob Bonta have already sued the Trump administration for deploying National Guard troops to Los Angeles without Newsom's authorisation. Newsom wrote on social media earlier, urging people to "WAKE UP!" "US Marines serve a valuable purpose for this country – defending democracy. They are not political pawns. "The Secretary of Defense is illegally deploying them onto American streets so Trump can have a talking point at his parade this weekend. It's a blatant abuse of power. We will sue to stop this," Newsom wrote. Update: Date: 06:41 BST Title: Unrest across LA continues as Trump activates fresh round of troops Content: Barbara TaschLive reporter The situation is continuing to be tense in California as demonstrations continue into a fourth day. US President Donald Trump is deploying another 2,000 National Guard troops and is activating 700 Marines in the Los Angeles area to help the federal response to protests against immigration raids, the Pentagon confirms. Demonstrations began outside in downtown LA on Friday after it emerged Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers were carrying out raids across the city. Police moved in on protesters on Monday, firing rubber bullets at crowds, which were seen dispersing through LA streets. It is highly unusual for US military troops to be involved in domestic law enforcement - and California Governor Gavin Newsom, who has taken the Trump administration to court for deploying National Guard troops without his authorisation, is now threatening to do the same over the deployment of US Marines. Protests against immigration raids and mass deportations have also started in other cities across the US - with marches in Tampa, Florida, Boston, Massachusetts and Houston, Texas. It's now approaching 23:00 in Los Angeles and our team in California is continuing to report on the situation on the ground. Stay with us as we bring you the latest news and analysis.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Musk inadvertently gives away the game in spat with Trump
In the midst of Donald Trump and Elon Musk throwing insults and threats at each other on their respective social media platforms, Musk accused Donald Trump of being ungrateful to Musk for purchasing the election for him, an admission of sorts that his support for Trump was transactional. Jen Psaki takes a closer look.
The Guardian
6 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
The genteel, silver-tongued thinker who fathered US conservatism - and paved the way for Trump
Back when the 'public intellectual' was still a thriving species in America, the conservative writer William F Buckley Jr was one of the most famous – of any political stripe. On the PBS television show Firing Line, which he hosted weekly until 1999, he debated or interviewed people ranging from ardent rightwingers to black nationalists. In between, he edited the magazine National Review, wrote three columns a week, wrote or dictated hundreds of letters a month, and was known to dash off a book while on vacation. He was photographed working at a typewriter in the back of a limousine as a dog looked on. In Aladdin (1992), Robin Williams's genie does Buckley as one of his impressions. Buckley's extraordinary energy is captured in a sweeping new biography that also uses its subject to tell a larger story of the American right. 'As far as I'm concerned, he invented politics as cultural warfare, and that's what we're seeing now,' the writer Sam Tanenhaus said. Tanenhaus spent nearly three decades researching an authorized biography that was published on Tuesday, titled Buckley: The Life and Revolution that Changed America. Buckley is often remembered as the architect of the modern conservative movement. For decades he worked to unite anti-communists, free marketeers, and social conservatives into the coalition behind the Reagan revolution. Yet today, almost two decades since Buckley's death in 2008, the conservative landscape looks different. Free trade is out, economic protectionism is in. The Republican party's base of support, once the most educated and affluent, is now increasingly working-class. Even as Donald Trump remakes the right in his own image, however, Tanenhaus sees Buckley's thumbprints. One of the biggest is Trumpism's suspicion of intellectual elites. Although Buckley was a blue blood and loved the company of artists and literary people, he famously said that he would 'sooner live in a society governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the 2,000 faculty members of Harvard University'. His first book, in 1951, accused professors of indoctrinating students with liberal and secularist ideas – more than half a century before the Trump administration's bruising attempts to pressure Ivy League universities into political fealty. Tanenhaus, the former editor of the New York Times Book Review, spoke to me by video call from his house in Connecticut. He is a gregarious and funny conversationalist. At one point, he paused a digression about Joan Didion to observe: 'Wow. There's a vulture in my backyard. For God's sake.' He said he looked forward to reading my piece about him, 'unless you're saying bad stuff about me. Then send it to me and say: 'My editors made me write this.'' Our free-flowing, one-and-half-hour conversation gave me some sense of why Tanenhaus's biography took so long to write. It also made me better understand how the conservative Buckley was charmed into the decision to allow a self-described 'lifelong unregistered liberal Democrat' unfettered access to his papers, and to give that person the final – or at least most comprehensive – word on his life. The outcome is a lively, balanced and deeply researched book. At more than 1,000 pages, including end matter, the hardback is an engrossing, if occasionally wrist-straining, read. Tanenhaus was born in 1955, three weeks before Buckley published the first issue of National Review. Writing the book, he said, often felt like a kind of 'reconstructive journalism' where he relived history that he had experienced but never considered in its context. As a liberal and an 'unobservant, ignorant, secular Jew', he also had to try to understand someone with whom he had little in common, politically or culturally. Although Buckley's views on some subjects evolved over time, 'he was pretty and firmly entrenched with two foundational ideas,' Tanenhaus said. 'One was Catholicism, which was the most important thing in his life. The second was a kind of evangelical capitalism.' Unlike many of his mentors and allies, who tended to be ex-Marxists or ex-liberals, Buckley was not an ideological convert. His father, a wealthy, devoutly Catholic and rightwing oilman from Texas who raised his large family in Connecticut and across Europe, loomed large over his early life. Buckley and his nine siblings were desperate to impress their father. He was loving to his family and also racist, in a 'genteel Bourbon' way, and antisemitic, in a more vitriolic way. In 1937, when Buckley was 11, his older siblings burned a cross in front of a Jewish resort. He later recounted the story with embarrassment but argued that his siblings did not understand the gravity of what they were doing. Although Buckley came to make a real effort to purge the right of racist, antisemitic and fringe elements, Tanenhaus thinks his upbringing held sway longer than most people realize. One of the most interesting sections of the book concerns Camden, South Carolina, where Buckley's parents had a home. In the 1950s the town became notorious for violence against black people and white liberals. During his research, Tanenhaus discovered that the Buckleys – who were considered by their black domestic workers to be unusually kind relative to the white people of the area – also funded the town's pro-segregation paper and had ties to a local white supremacist group. After a spate of racist attacks in Camden, Buckley wrote a piece in National Review condemning the violence, but not segregation itself. He defended segregation on the grounds that white people were, for the time being, the culturally 'superior' race. Buckley's views on race began to change in the 1960s. He was horrified by the Birmingham church bombing that killed four little girls. During his unsuccessful third-party campaign for mayor of New York in 1965, he surprised both conservatives and liberals by endorsing affirmative action. In 1970 he argued that within a decade the United States might have a black president and that this event would be a 'welcome tonic'. Despite his patrician manner and distinct accent, Buckley had a savvy understanding of the power of mass media and technology. National Review was never read by a wide audience, but Buckley and his conservative vanguard fully embraced radio, television and other media. A technophile, he was one of the first to adopt MCI mail, an early version of email. Tanenhaus thinks he would thrive in the age of Twitter and podcasts. Yet the current era feels a world away in other respects. For one, Buckley's politics rarely affected his many friendships. 'His best friends were liberals,' Tanenhaus said. He greatly admired Jesse Jackson. It was not strange for Eldridge Cleaver, the black nationalist, and Timothy Leary, the psychonaut, to stop by his house. Buckley was deeply embarrassed by the notorious 1968 incident in which Gore Vidal called him a 'crypto-Nazi', on-air, and Buckley responded by calling Vidal an alcoholic 'queer' and threatening to punch him. It was an exception to a code of conduct that Buckley generally tried to live by. 'If he became your friend, and then you told him you joined the Communist party, he would say: 'That is the worst thing you can do, I'm shocked you would do it, but you're still coming over for dinner tomorrow, right?'' Tanenhaus laughed. 'It's just a different worldview, and we don't get it because we take ourselves more seriously than he did.' Being the authorized biographer of a living person entails a special relationship. You become intimately familiar with your subject – perhaps even good friends, as Tanenhaus and his wife did with Buckley and his socialite wife, Pat. Yet you also need critical distance to write honestly. It was impossible to finish the book 'while he was still alive', Tanenhaus said. He realized in retrospect that Buckley's death was 'the only way that I could gain the perspective I needed, the distance from him and the events that he played an important part in, to be able to wrap my arms around them'. He thinks Buckley also understood that a true biography would be a full and frank accounting of his life. 'I think that, in some way, he wanted someone to come along and maybe understand things he didn't understand about himself.' Despite his disagreements with Buckley's politics, Tanenhaus was ultimately left with a positive assessment of him as a person. 'He had a warmth and generosity that are uncommon. When you're a journalist, part of your business is interacting in some way with the great, and the great always remind you that you're not one of them. They have no interest in you. They never ask you about yourself. Buckley was not like that.' He is not sure what he would have made of Trump. Buckley was willing to criticize the right, and was an early critic of the Iraq war, Tanenhaus said. Yet 'conservatives can always find a way to say: 'Whatever our side is doing, the other side is worse.'' This is Tanenhaus's third book about conservatism. I asked what he thinks the left most misunderstands about the right. He instantly responded: 'They don't understand how closely the right has been studying them all these years.' He noted that Buckley surrounded himself with ex-leftists and that he and other conservatives made a point of reading left and liberal books and studying their tactics of political organizing. But that doesn't seem to go the opposite direction. Leftists and liberals 'don't see that the other side should be listened to, that there's anything to learn from them. And they think, no matter how few of them there are, that they're always in the majority.' Buckley once said that his 'idea of a counter-revolution is one in which we overturn the view of society that came out of the New Deal', Tanenhaus said. Today, Trump is aggressively moving, with mixed success, to roll back the federal administrative state – a vestige of Buckley's vision of unfettered capitalism, even if Trump's other economic views aren't exactly Buckley's. 'It would not be far-fetched to say we are now seeing the fulfillment of what he had in mind,' Tanenhaus said.
New York Times
23-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Everyone Now Has an Opinion on Jake Tapper
It's not easy getting Megyn Kelly, Jon Stewart and Hunter Biden all rowing in the same direction. Jake Tapper, and his new book, have managed to do just that. Mr. Tapper, the longtime CNN anchor, has become one of the most talked-about figures in the media and political worlds in recent days because of 'Original Sin,' a book released on Tuesday that he wrote with Alex Thompson, a political correspondent for Axios. The book scrutinizes former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s mental and physical fitness while in office, and reports on his staff's attempts to shield any decline from the public. The book's subtitle claims that the efforts amounted to a 'cover-up.' 'Original Sin' has received numerous positive reviews and appears to be a runaway sales hit. It has been on Amazon's best-seller list for over a week, even before its release, and stood at No. 3 on Thursday. The book has also amplified debate about whether more blame should be placed on Democratic leaders, Mr. Biden's staff and the press for not revealing more about the former president earlier. 'It's hard to think of a book which has shifted the political dial to this extent in recent years,' Politico Playbook wrote on Tuesday. But the book has also invited scrutiny of the authors themselves — and Mr. Tapper in particular. Representatives for Mr. Tapper declined to comment for this article. Intentionally or not, by being an author of a major book on the subject, Mr. Tapper has allowed himself to become a symbol of the establishment press that conservatives have long accused of hiding the former president's frailty from the public. Ms. Kelly, the former Fox News star, subjected Mr. Tapper to intense grilling on her popular podcast in an interview that went viral online. 'You covered the Biden presidency aggressively throughout the four years, and you didn't cover mental acuity, hardly at all,' Ms. Kelly said at one point. 'I mean, time and time again when issues came up, you seem to be running cover for the president.' Mr. Tapper denied the charges. 'Conservative media absolutely has every right to say, 'We were hip to this, and the legacy media was not,'' he said later in the interview. 'Now, I do not accept that I was part of a cover-up. I do not accept that I was just providing cover for Joe Biden.' Mr. Stewart, the liberal comedian who hosts 'The Daily Show' on Monday nights, dedicated much of his opening monologue this week to the book. He showed eight different times that Mr. Tapper hawked his book on CNN's airwaves. 'Comes out Tuesday,' Mr. Tapper said in one clip. 'You will not believe what we found out.' 'Breaking news!' Mr. Stewart exclaimed before pausing for comedic effect, then added: 'In a week.' 'The Daily Show' then showed several clips of Mr. Tapper's CNN colleagues also repeatedly bringing up the book, with some arguing that the revelation of Mr. Biden's cancer diagnosis on Sunday may have made the book even more timely. Mr. Stewart vigorously disagreed with that assessment. 'Do these CNN people work on commission?' Mr. Stewart added. 'Like, why are they hawking this thing? Is this a Girl Scouts situation? 'Whoever sells the most Tapper books gets a Schwinn!'' Even Hunter Biden, the former president's son, got in the mix. He went on the record this week with Breaker Media, a media newsletter, to say he had been 'furious' with Mr. Tapper over past reporting. (Mr. Tapper has said Hunter Biden's claims about his reporting are not true.) At every turn, Mr. Tapper seems eager to turn the attention back to the reporting in the book. And its contents have prompted much self-examination within the Democratic Party. 'I can't get into the details, it's still embargoed, but it is enraging,' the 'Pod Save America' co-host Tommy Vietor said a month before the book came out. The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times, among others, praised the book for what it revealed. Mika Brzezinski, co-host of the beltway favorite 'Morning Joe' and Mr. Tapper's competitor at MSNBC, also complimented the book for its 'beautiful' writing, as well as its 'great reporting.' 'I really loved reading the book,' she said. 'Trust me, there has to be a 'but' coming here,' replied her co-host, Joe Scarborough, to a chorus of laughter in the studio. Then Ms. Brzezinski turned to Mr. Tapper and Mr. Thompson, and brought up a subject — the book's use of 'cover up' — that has been criticized elsewhere. 'I want to understand why you're using words like 'cover up,' which insinuates a crime or something,' she said skeptically.
Wall Street Journal
12-05-2025
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
The GOP Surrenders on Medicaid
Democrats may be a minority in the House of Representatives, but they appear to be winning the debate over Medicaid reform. House Republicans have written a bill that lands in the worst possible spot: Exposing GOP Members to Democratic political fire, but ducking the reforms that are worth the effort. The House Energy and Commerce Committee is marking up its bill on Tuesday, and Republicans are in a tight spot. The GOP has to satisfy competing political factions and can barely spare a vote in search of a majority.
