Category Archives: US Politics

Trump admits deportation policy was ‘too tough’ despite promotion of Stephen Miller

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President makes unusual acknowledgement that one of the defining policies of his second administration had become a political liability

Donald Trump has admitted that his deportation policy was “too tough” and has offered to strike an immigration deal with Democrats in a concession following the Republicans’ disastrous defeat in the midterm elections.

In an interview on the CBS network’s 60 Minutes broadcast on Sunday, the president acknowledged that the aggressive crackdown had hurt him politically and said he was open to an arrangement to allow some undocumented immigrants to remain in the US.

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‘Seismic shift’: Native American women made significant gains in US midterms

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Nationwide, voters elected at least 75 Native women or non-binary candidates in Tuesday’s elections, report says

The US midterm elections saw voters elect a slew of historic representatives – from the country’s first Muslim senator to the first Black female governor – but among the most significant gains were those for Native American women.

On Tuesday, voters elected the first Native American woman governor, senator and leaders of two tribal nations. Nationwide, voters elected at least 75 Native women or non-binary and Two Spirit candidates in the November midterms, according to Advance Native Political Leadership and the news site ICT.

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Hakeem Jeffries supports impeachment of Pete Hegseth: ‘He has got to go’

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House Democrat is a ‘hard yes’ on impeachment resolution against defense secretary who ‘has abused his power’

House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, poised to become majority leader, said on Sunday that he strongly supports impeaching defense secretary Pete Hegseth as a Republican lawmaker prepares to force a House vote.

The top Democrat made his position clear during an appearance on ABC’s This Week, declaring himself a “hard yes” on the impeachment resolution targeting Hegseth.

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Stephen Miller, Trump’s incoming chief of staff, pledges ‘total devotion’ to the president

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Hardline aide offers ‘unwavering commitment’ to president amid fears White House will double down on far-right immigration agenda

Stephen Miller, Donald Trump’s most controversial aide and the architect of his sweeping immigration crackdown, has lavished praise on the president after his appointment as White House chief of staff.

In his first public remarks since the move was announced, Miller – who begins the role on Monday – pledged “total devotion” to Trump amid concern the administration is now poised to double down on its far-right, nativist immigration agenda.

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LA’s newer, bluer wave: Nithya Raman leads way as city’s progressives make their mark

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Democratic socialists won the mayorship, a US House seat and powerful positions in Los Angeles – and a large network of volunteers helped them do it

As a blue tsunami overtook US politics this week, Los Angeles saw a major shake-up of its own with a wave of democratic socialists elected to key offices.

Most notably, Nithya Raman, the first democratic socialist to serve on the Los Angeles city council, prevailed over incumbent Karen Bass to become the next mayor. Even in the deep blue city, Raman’s victory was hardly a given, and marked a stunning win for the progressive wing of the party. With her election, America’s two largest cities will now be run by democratic socialist mayors.

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Trump’s elevation of Stephen Miller a middle finger to millions of voters

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Architect of Trump’s far-right immigration agenda is now most powerful unelected figure in government – it suggests White House is moving to a war footing

Donald Trump just gave the middle finger to millions of American voters.

Any other president who suffered the kind of drubbing at the polls that Trump did this week might have felt at least a sliver of humility – and perhaps even an obligation to work with the new opposition in Congress.

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Several Democrats renew calls for datacenter pauses after blue wave

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Tech industry fears delays to its multi-trillion dollar infrastructure buildout meant to power artificial intelligence

Several newly elected Democrats and Senator Bernie Sanders have renewed calls for datacenter moratoriums in the days after the US midterm elections. The sweeping Democratic victory, which was buoyed in part by backlash to the tech industry, has added momentum to efforts to slow down the multi-trillion-dollar buildout of the controversial facilities.

On the social media platform X, Sanders posted a call for an immediate national datacenter moratorium this week. “Americans don’t want Big Tech oligarchs wrecking the environment, gutting jobs and threatening humanity’s future,” Sanders said on Wednesday.

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Stephen Miller, architect of Trump’s immigration crackdown, to become White House chief of staff

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US president confirms Susie Wiles, current chief of staff and first woman to serve in the role, will step down

Stephen Miller, Donald Trump’s most controversial aide and the architect of his sweeping immigration crackdown, will become his new White House chief of staff days after Republicans lost control of the US Congress in US midterm elections.

The president announced the extraordinary appointment on Friday, confirming that Susie Wiles – his current chief of staff, and the first woman to serve in the role – had been ousted.

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Judge temporarily halts building work on Trump’s triumphal arch

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Federal judge issues 14-day restraining order on any construction work on Washington monument, hours after it was approved by planning commission

A federal judge has halted construction work on Donald Trump’s towering triumphal arch for 14 days, a major setback for one of the president’s most prominent projects in his vision to remake Washington.

The temporary restraining order was issued by US district judge Tanya Chutkan in the early hours of Friday. It followed a series of steps taken on Thursday by the government, including the final approval of the 250-foot-high (76-meter) arch by the National Capital Planning Commission in an 8-4 vote after a nine-hour hearing where dozens of witnesses opposed the construction.

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Trump signs proclamation to try to prevent changes to gold-covered Oval Office

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President seeks to make Oval Office a national monument to ensure designs are not ‘ripped down by stupid people’

Donald Trump signed a proclamation on Thursday that he says will prevent future administrations from changing his design of the Oval Office and Cabinet Room, spaces which he declared as national monuments that should be preserved.

In the days since his party suffered historic defeats in the midterm elections, the president has seemingly turned his attention to the many renovation projects he has begun across the nation’s capital. Sitting behind the Resolute Desk on Thursday, Trump declared the Oval Office a “national monument”.

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Gavin Newsom commutes more than 500 death sentences in California

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Democrat’s move prevents these people from executions under future governors, after Christa Pike’s failed execution

Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, has commuted the death sentences of more than 500 people on the state’s death row on Thursday, a move that ensures they can never be executed under future administrations.

The Democrat’s mass commutation at the end of his term has converted all of the state’s death sentences to life without the possibility of parole, the largest clearing of any US death row in modern history.

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Elon Musk’s nearly half a billion dollars in midterms spending was a flop

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The tech billionaire set spending record as he poured $446m into campaigns for failed Republican candidates

Elon Musk set a record for election spending this year after pouring nearly half a billion dollars into backing Republicans in the US midterm elections. It turned out to be a poor investment.

The SpaceX and Tesla CEO contributed at least $446m to Republican-aligned Super Pacs and groups over the course of the elections, specifically targeting several key Senate races in an effort to help the Trump administration retain Republican control of Congress. He outdid his own 2024 spending of nearly $290m. Yet as Democrats swept to power across the country on Tuesday night, it became clear that Musk would get nearly nothing in return for his hundreds of millions in spending.

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The midterms were a thumping rebuke of the US-Israel relationship

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Even Trump seems to recognize that the relationship has become a political liability, and may never be the same

On the eve of a midterm election that ended in an unequivocal rejection of his brand of politics, even Donald Trump seemed to recognize that the US-Israel relationship had become a political liability.

Trump’s 11th-hour suggestion, on election morning, that he would cut military aid to Israel at the end of the year because, as he put it, “they don’t need it”, was condemned across the board – with pro-Palestinian advocates dismissing it as “desperate” and pro-Israel ones as “unserious”.

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US stocks rise, dollar slides as investors digest Democrats’ midterm victories

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Government bond yields fall while initial fears ease over impact of election results on world’s biggest economy

US stocks have surged as investors digest the Democrats’ victories in the midterm elections, lifted by hopes that Donald Trump’s turbulent policymaking would be restrained and shaking off initial fears about the impact on growth in the world’s largest economy.

The Dow Jones rose 2%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq and the benchmark S&P 500 gained more than 1% each, turning around overnight falls in US stock futures after the news that the Democratic party won control of the Senate and the House of Representatives.

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Iran unveils ‘We will kill Trump’ banner – but US president may now be tempted to resume bombing

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Iran celebrates its claimed role in ‘regime change’ amid pressure on Trump to ‘finish the job’ with attack

Iran this week unveiled a huge billboard and banners over Enqelab Square in central Tehran. The billboard pledged in English: “We will kill Trump” – elevating the degree of personal animus with which Donald Trump is viewed in official Iranian circles.

The poster depicts the US president behind bars with his head bowed. And in a sense, given the US midterm election results on Tuesday, Iran has indeed killed Trump, or at least the second term of his presidency. Trump’s reverse is all the more piquant because it comes on the day Iran’s leadership celebrates the anniversary of the seizure of the US embassy in Tehran in 1979, an event that ensnared Jimmy Carter, and a reminder of how Iran has ruined the prospects of more than one US president.

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US reportedly strikes Iran’s Qeshm Island as Vance voices optimism about a deal

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Iranian state media reported the sound of explosions on the island in the strait of Hormuz, coming on the eve of crucial US midterms

The ⁠US launched limited strikes on ​Iran’s Qeshm Island late on Monday, ⁠according to reports in US media, hours after US vice-president JD Vance said he was optimistic diplomatic efforts to end the war were moving in the right direction.

The strikes were reported as being “defensive”, and not thought to be a signal of a return to full hostilities, but came on the eve of crucial midterm elections in which Donald Trump’s Republican party is expected to be punished by voters for the cascading effect the war has had on the US cost of living.

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Tennessee national guard trained guns on dying man after guard member shot him, video shows

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Footage from prosecutors shows aftermath of shooting of Tyrin Johnson, 20, shot and killed by national guard in July

Tennessee national guard troops in Memphis last summer trained their handguns on a man as he lay dying on a sidewalk after a guard member shot him in the back, video released Monday by county prosecutors shows.

A Memphis police officer can be heard in the footage from an officer’s body camera calling for an ambulance and then asking the troops: “Hey, you guys got a medical kit or anything?”

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Trump’s DoJ charges six more people in ‘voter fraud’ crackdown in California

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Latest arrests come after DoJ unsuccessfully fought to force state election officials to set aside about 20,000 ballots

The US Department of Justice (DoJ) in California has charged six more people with alleged voter fraud crimes, an escalation of the Trump administration’s campaign against the state’s election processes on the eve of the midterms.

Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles and a close ally of the president, announced on Monday that his office was prosecuting six lawful permanent residents accused of unlawfully registering to vote and casting fraudulent ballots. The DoJ filed similar charges against 28 people across California last month and arranged for a dramatic on-camera arrest of one 72-year-old defendant, editing the footage into a DoJ promotional video.

Sam Levine contributed reporting

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E Jean Carroll fights Trump’s last-ditch push to dismiss $83m damages verdict

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Lawyers file opposition to Trump’s request, telling supreme court justices they do not need ‘to bail out this president’

E Jean Carroll’s lawyers are fighting Donald Trump’s efforts to toss her $83m damages verdict in the US supreme court, telling the justices that they do not need “to bail out this president from the consequences of his repeated litigation choices”.

Jurors delivered Carroll the huge award on 26 January 2024, less than one year after the journalist and author won $5m in her sexual abuse and defamation case against Trump. The president has repeatedly denied all wrongdoing in relation to Carroll.

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More than 50m Americans cast ballots in early voting with three days to go before midterms

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Record number of early votes cast, with Democrats outnumbering Republicans in states which collect that information

There has been a surge of early voting for the US midterm elections, with millions more Americans going to the polls compared with the last such election amid a series of tight contests that will determine control of Congress.

More than 50.5m early votes have been cast across the US as of Saturday morning, according to an analysis by the University of Florida. This is already nearly 5m more votes than the total number of early votes made in the last midterm elections, in 2022.

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