Confusion reigns as accounts of attempts to talk president into conceding to Joe Biden are swiftly shot down
As Donald Trump spent Sunday morning visiting one of his golf clubs and doubling down on bogus election fraud claims, conflicting reports emerged about whether the president’s family and top advisers were advising him to admit defeat.
Related: Joe Biden gets to work as president-elect while Trump refuses to concede
Continue reading...The Lincoln Project “will not be intimidated by empty bluster”, a lawyer for the group wrote late on Saturday, in response to a threat from an attorney for Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner over two billboards put up in Times Square.
Related: 'On the brink': US coronavirus cases surge in final days before election
Continue reading...Saudi Arabia’s interventions could result in seismic shift in region’s geopolitics
As the UAE and Bahrain prepared to sign a deal to normalise diplomatic relations with Israel this summer, Saudi Arabia – the regional heavyweight – was quietly urging them on.
For several months before the deals were signed at the White House, the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, had been laying out his rationale for a pact that would overturn regional policies towards a long-term foe.
Continue reading...Sinking in the Swamp says Trump’s ‘lead point of contact’ for US allies seemed unaware of alliance members’ commitment to defend each other from attack
Though Jared Kushner was a “lead point of contact” for US allies worried about Donald Trump’s threats to Nato, the president’s son-in-law did not “seem to know what Nato actually did”, a new book claims.
Related: Jared Kushner may have an ethics problem - to the tune of $90m | Vicky Ward
Continue reading...Though the Palestinian Authority has cut ties with the US and Israel over the Trump administration’s plan for Middle East peace, its author has insisted his plan is not dead yet.
Related: What we Palestinians think does not matter – all that matters is Israel | Diana Buttu
Continue reading...The Palestinian Authority has cut all ties with the US and Israel, including those relating to security, after rejecting a Middle East peace plan presented by Donald Trump, the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, said on Saturday.
Continue reading...Donald Trump’s Arab-Israeli peace plan rests upon the absurdity of the Palestinians accepting a state in name alone. Since 1993’s Oslo accords, hope had been kindled that a “Palestine” could be created from most of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with its capital in East Jerusalem. The Trump administration’s document pays lip service to such an entity while shrinking its size and mutilating its scope to non-existence. It envisages the potential transfer of Palestinian towns out of Israel. It contains a blatant attempt to stop Palestinians seeking justice for war crimes – including those currently under way. Mr Trump boasts he is a dealmaker, offering $50bn in investment if Palestinians trade away their civil and national rights. But Palestinians see a conman with no intention of making good on empty promises.
This proposal is a sop to rightwing ideologues in the US and Israel. It ends the charade that Mr Trump could play a mediating role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has good reason to think his visit to Washington is his finest hour. He once warned Israel would be in mortal danger if a viable Palestine existed alongside it. The indications are Mr Netanyahu’s cabinet will vote in days to begin annexing all settlements in the West Bank as well as the Jordan Valley. The old gibe against the Palestinians – that they never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity for peace – is singularly inappropriate. Mr Trump’s blatant support for Israel and his snub of the Palestinians in drafting his plan has let Mr Netanyahu do whatever he wants.
Continue reading...Netanyahu’s trip a welcome distraction from indictment while election opponent Gantz also visits White House
Donald Trump is set to disclose details of his much-delayed Middle East “peace plan” during meetings with Israeli leaders in Washington on Monday, amid a rising global chorus of doubt about its timing and substance.
The choreography between the US and Israel has been interpreted as a convenient distraction for both Trump, who faces an impeachment trial, and Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces three criminal corruption indictments and an uncertain election campaign.
Continue reading...It is not known how many people Prince Mohammed shared WhatsApp messages with in 2018 other than Jeff Bezos
Jeff Bezos was far from the only American VIP who met Saudi Arabia’s crown prince in the spring of 2018. During a coast-to-coast tour Mohammed bin Salman had personal encounters with dozens of celebrities, politicians and tech titans including George Bush, Richard Branson and Bill Gates.
Continue reading...Andrea Bernstein delivers the goods on the bad business which propelled two New York families to Washington
America’s cold civil war rages, impeachment inches ahead and Donald Trump remains a focal point of conflict. As for Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, he is markedly more unpopular than his wife, her father or her gun-toting brother. Donald Trump Jr and Ivanka Trump are rated among the top Republican contenders for 2024.
Related: Trump Jr and Ivanka Trump ‘knew they were lying’ over ploy to sell condos, book claims
Continue reading...President also told Israeli American Council summit some Jewish people in the US don’t love Israel enough and attacked Ilhan Omar
If Jared Kushner cannot achieve peace between Israel and the Palestinians, Donald Trump claimed on Saturday, “it can’t be done”.
The president also told the Israeli American Council national summit some Jewish people in America don’t love Israel enough, a remark some said was antisemitic, and attacked the Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar for what he called her “despicable rhetoric” about Israel.
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As Trump carries on with his rally in North Carolina, we’re going to wrap up the liveblog for today. Check The Guardian’s homepage for updates.
Congressman Will Hurd of Texas, a critic of Trump and one of the few Republican lawmakers who voted to condemn Trump’s racist attacks, announced that he will not be seeking reelection in order to “pursue opportunities outside the halls of Congress”.
I have made the decision to not seek reelection for the 23rd Congressional District of Texas in order to pursue opportunities outside the halls of Congress to solve problems at the nexus between technology and national security. https://t.co/GeZ4Hh264f
Continue reading...Senior adviser to Trump found no interest in his proposals for ending Israel/Palestine conflict
In the end, the ‘deal of the century’ was little more than a failed clearance sale. Jared Kushner arrived in Bahrain touting bedrock principles at untenable discounts. And even then there were no buyers.
The conference that was supposed to offer a new way out of the malaise of the Israel/Palestine conflict provided little of the sort. Its central premise of prosperity as a precursor to a lasting solution barely appeared to register on either side of the separation wall.
Continue reading...Plan demands Palestinians put a price on their surrender or risk losing even more ground
In the long, lamented history of Israeli-Palestinian peace plans, rarely have expectations been so low. As Jared Kushner took to the stage in Bahrain to effectively lay waste to decades of doctrine on how to solve the conflict, a solution seemed more out of reach than ever.
Kushner’s proposal has been put together by hardliners who have tossed out the rulebook and written a formula of their own serving the interests of the Israeli rightwing.
Continue reading...No Israelis or Palestinians present for launch of plan that shreds decades of diplomacy
The first phase of the Trump administration’s long-awaited peace plan for Israel and Palestine has been rolled out to scepticism, anger and outright derision.
A conference hall of regional officials – with no Israelis or Palestinians present – was the first to hear details of the US-brokered deal, an economic blueprint that shreds decades of diplomacy and which even its mooted financial backers seemed reluctant to embrace.
Continue reading...Trump son-in-law’s plan, which ignores the key political issues, is dismissed as ‘a fantasy that is completely divorced from reality’
A US-designed economic blueprint for Israeli-Palestinian peace will be launched in Bahrain on Tuesday, without the participation of either Palestinian or Israeli officials.
The Palestinians are boycotting the conference and a late decision was taken not to invite Israelis. A relative handful of Palestinian business leaders are expected in Bahrain, for what is widely seen as a “vanity project” for Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
Continue reading...Overseas investment flowed to Cadre while Trump’s son-in-law works as US envoy, raising conflict of interest questions
A real estate company part-owned by Jared Kushner has received $90m in foreign funding from an opaque offshore vehicle since he entered the White House as a senior adviser to his father-in-law Donald Trump.
Investment has flowed from overseas to the company, Cadre, while Kushner works as an international envoy for the US, according to corporate filings and interviews. The money came through a vehicle run by Goldman Sachs in the Cayman Islands, a tax haven that guarantees corporate secrecy.
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Looks like it’s going to be a twofer on 11 June:
NEW: House Majority @LeaderHoyer says contempt vote Tuesday, June 11th will be for both Attorney General Barr AND former White House Counsel McGahn “to comply with Congressional subpoenas that have been duly issued by the House Judiciary Committee”
Mark your calendars. It’s looking like the contempt proceedings for attorney general William Barr, who skipped out on his House judiciary committee hearing last month after a barnburner of a Senate judiciary committee hearing, are set to begin next week.
CONFIRMED: House Dems voting next week to hold AG Bill Barr in contempt of Congress for refusing to hand over unredacted Mueller Report, sources in leadership meeting say. Politico first reported.
Others could also receive House floor vote, including former WH lawyer Don McGahn, according to sources. https://t.co/64tMAfAq9T
The full House will vote on June 11th to hold AG Barr in contempt of Congress for not complying w/ the House Judiciary Cmte’s subpoena for Mueller's full unredacted report + underlying evidence, according to 3 Dem sources. Still TBD if other ppl are included in this contempt vote
Continue reading...White House senior adviser says he hopes Palestinians will become ‘capable of governing’ and denies Trump is racist in rare interview
White House senior adviser Jared Kushner has expressed uncertainty over the ability of Palestinians to self-govern, in a rare television interview broadcast on Sunday night.
Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and an architect of the White House’s yet-to-be-released Middle East peace plan, told the “Axios on HBO” television program it would be a “high bar” when asked if the Palestinians could expect freedom from Israeli military and government interference.
Continue reading...Snap polls threaten Trump’s ‘deal of the century’ as Netanyahu reveals gift of map from his son-in-law during visit
Jared Kushner’s visit to Jerusalem to promote his troubled Middle East peace plan appeared to abruptly lose its remaining energy after an overnight crisis in Israeli politics plunged the country into a months-long election campaign.
With no guarantees that Benjamin Netanyahu’s Trump-friendly government will stay in power past the summer, any progress made with Kushner – Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser – is at risk of being revoked by the next Israeli administration.
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