Category Archives: US Politics

Peter Thiel won’t fund any 2024 races after backing Trump in 2016: ‘It was crazier than I thought’

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Thiel says in an interview that Trump had called him earlier this year to solicit $10m and that he turned down the request

Peter Thiel, the tech billionaire who supported Donald Trump in 2016 and sunk millions more into underperforming Maga candidates in subsequent election cycles, has confirmed rumors that he is stepping away from 2024 political funding.

In an interview with the Atlantic, Thiel said voting for Trump “was like a not very articulate scream for help” and that things had not turned out the way he had hoped when he donated $1.25m to Trump and Trump-affiliated political funds eight years ago.

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Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson: I was asked to run for US president by multiple political parties

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Actor and former wrestler says unnamed parties approached him ‘one after the other’ in 2022 after a poll revealed 46% of Americans would support his presidential run

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has revealed that multiple political parties approached him last year to see if he would run for US president, after a poll revealed 46% of Americans would support his campaign.

Appearing as the first guest on Trevor Noah’s new Spotify podcast What Now?, the actor and former WWE wrestler said a 2021 poll of 30,000 American adults led to “the parties” contacting him to ask if he was interested in running at the end of 2022.

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Marjorie Taylor Greene unite in push to free Julian Assange

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Maga Republican and leftwing Democrat among 16 US Congress members lobbying Joe Biden to drop extradition attempts against WikiLeaks founder

Maga Republican and fierce Trump supporter Marjorie Taylor Greene and leftwing Democratic firebrand Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have found common ground in freeing Australian WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

The pair are among 16 members of the US Congress who have written directly to president Joe Biden urging the United States to drop its extradition attempts against Assange and halt any prosecutorial proceedings immediately.

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US Democratic senator Joe Manchin will not seek re-election in 2024

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Controversial West Virginia Democrat, 76, has for years held outsized degree of power within party

West Virginia’s controversial Democratic US senator Joe Manchin has announced that he will not seek re-election in 2024 and will instead “fight to unite the middle”.

The 76-year-old senator, who for years has held an outsized degree of power within the Democratic party and often defied its leadership, appeared in July at an event held by a political group exploring a third-party presidential bid.

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West Virginia Democratic senator Joe Manchin will not seek re-election in 2024 – as it happened

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Joe Biden has hailed the tentative deal reached between SAG-AFTRA and television studios on Wednesday.

In a statement released by the White House on Thursday, Biden said:

Collective bargaining works. I applaud SAG-AFTRA and Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers for working together in good faith towards an agreement that allows our entertainment industry to continue telling the stories of America.

When both sides come to the table to negotiate in earnest they can make businesses stronger and allow workers to secure pay and benefits that help them raise families and retire with dignity.

“She called me four-letter words in each of the last two debates… The reality is this – the Republican party has appropriately I think had scrutiny of Hunter Biden for years. I mean, you know, not only the media but even Republican politicians, correctly,” said Ramaswamy.

“In the last debate…she said, ‘I feel dumber every time I hear you speak’… For using TikTok, the criticism wasn’t of Nikki Haley’s daughter. It was of Nikki Haley for having been completely oblivious to where the next generation of Americans is actually getting their information,” he added.

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Support for Israel and verbal sparring propel fiery third Republican debate

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Candidates clash over Ukraine and immigration and grapple with abortion questions as Donald Trump holds rally nearby

The Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and other foreign policy issues dominated Wednesday’s fiery third debate of Republican presidential hopefuls in Miami. Candidates pledged wholehearted support for Israel’s military response following last month’s Hamas attacks, and clashed over Ukraine, China and immigration.

The debate, minus Donald Trump, the runaway favorite for the party’s 2024 nomination who was hosting his own private rally elsewhere in the area, was a more bitter affair than its predecessors in Wisconsin and California. Lively verbal sparring sometimes regressed into insults, with Nikki Haley at one point calling one of her rivals “scum”.

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Calls to ‘finish’ Hamas and ‘you’re just scum’: key Republican debate takeaways

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Candidates showed unequivocal support for Israel on a night when Nikki Haley shot back at Vivek Ramaswamy’s criticism

The third Republican debate was held in Miami on Wednesday, with frontrunner Donald Trump once again foregoing the debate for his own rally nearby.

The pool has dwindled since the last debate, and Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, Tim Scott and Chris Christie seemed to be more serious and focused this time around as they answered questions on the Israel-Hamas war, immigration, abortion and the federal budget. Even so, the debate had moments where it devolved into a shouting match, with petty barbs and personal attacks.

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House Republicans subpoena Hunter Biden and president’s brother James

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House committee has been searching for evidence of influence peddling when Biden was vice-president to Barack Obama

House Republicans issued subpoenas on Wednesday to members of Joe Biden’s family, taking their most aggressive step yet in an impeachment inquiry bitterly opposed by Democrats that is testing the reach of congressional oversight powers.

The long-awaited move by Representative James Comer, the chairman of the House oversight committee, to subpoena the president’s son Hunter and his brother James comes as Republicans hope to gain ground in their nearly year-long investigation. So far, they have failed to uncover evidence directly implicating the president in any wrongdoing.

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White House decries ‘nasty personal smears’ after House Republicans subpoena Biden family – as it happened

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Philadephia has elected Cherelle Parker, the first female mayor to lead the city.

Following her victory, Parker, who served 10 years as a state representative for northwest Philadelphia, said:

“Thank you Philly. We did it. We made history, or “her” story. As a little girl, I never dreamed that this moment would arrive but it’s here now… From the bottom of my heart, thank you for believing in me and in my vision for a safer, cleaner greener city with economic oppurtunity for all.”

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Supporters rally around Rashida Tlaib after censure while White House denounces use of slogan

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks out in defense of progressive congresswoman censured over criticism of Israel’s attacks in Gaza

Supporters of Rashida Tlaib are donating to and speaking out in defense of the progressive Democratic congresswoman following her censure from Congress, while the White House “strongly disagrees” with her use of the slogan “from the river to the sea”.

Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in the US Congress, was censured on Tuesday over her criticism of Israel’s attacks in Gaza.

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‘Abortion is a winning issue’: rights victories in 2023 US elections raise hopes for 2024

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Democrats will almost certainly use the issue to buoy their party in races, while Republican voters may be abandoning their party over it

More than a year after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, handing states the power to decide if and how to ban abortion, voters have again overwhelmingly rejected attempts to curtail access to the procedure. A string of successes for abortion rights groups on Tuesday are raising hopes among Democrats that, despite recent dismal polls, the issue will lift their odds in 2024.

In Ohio, the only state to hold an abortion-related ballot referendum in 2023, more than 56% of voters agreed to enshrine the right to the procedure into the state constitution. In Virginia, Democrats won back full control of the state legislature after Republicans campaigned on the promise of a “sensible limit” that would ban most abortions past 15 weeks of pregnancy. In Kentucky, the incumbent Democratic governor, Andy Beshear, bested his anti-abortion Republican opponent. And in Pennsylvania, in a race dominated by talk of abortion, Democrats won a seat on the state supreme court.

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House votes to censure Rashida Tlaib over her criticism of Israel

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Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in the chamber, sparked criticism by defending the slogan ‘from the river to the sea’

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted late on Tuesday to censure the Democratic representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan – the only Palestinian American in Congress – in an extraordinary rebuke of her rhetoric about the Israel-Hamas war.

The 234-188 tally came after enough Democrats joined with Republicans to censure Tlaib, a punishment one step below expulsion from the House. The three-term congresswoman has long been a target of criticism for her views on the decades-long conflict in the Middle East.

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Kentucky’s Democratic governor Andy Beshear re-elected in win for abortion rights

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Republican-leaning state rejects GOP challenger Daniel Cameron, after Beshear’s campaign focused on issue

Andy Beshear, the Democratic incumbent governor, won a second term in the Republican-leaning state of Kentucky on Tuesday.

Beshear’s hope that his support of abortion rights would persuade voters was realized even as skepticism of the national Democratic party grows in the state.

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Cherelle Parker becomes first woman elected mayor of Philadelphia

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Parker, who served for 10 years as state representative, promised to make Philly the ‘safest, cleanest, greenest big city in the nation’

Cherelle Parker was elected as Philadelphia’s 100th mayor on Tuesday, becoming the first woman to hold the post.

Voters were also choosing a new leader for Allegheny county, which is home to Pittsburgh. The races will set the electoral stage for 2024, when Pennsylvania will be a presidential battleground state, with candidates taking lessons about how Democrats see crime and the strength of progressives in local races into the next election cycle.

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Virginia Democrats appear on track to keep majority in state senate

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House of delegates still too close to call as Republican governor Glenn Youngkin’s goal of full control of legislature slips away

Virginia Democrats appeared to be on track to retain their majority in the state senate on Tuesday, depriving Republican governor Glenn Youngkin of a legislative trifecta that would have allowed him to swiftly enact his policy agenda.

Two hours after polls closed in Virginia, where all 140 seats of the state legislature were up for grabs, the house of delegates remained too close to call. Virginia Republicans still hoped to keep their majority in the lower chamber, even as their goal of taking full control of the legislature slipped away.

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Election day 2023: polls close in Ohio and Virginia where abortion rights are at stake; Mississippi partially extends voting – as it happened

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US supreme court justices on today appeared inclined to uphold the legality of a federal law that makes it a crime for people under domestic violence restraining orders to have guns in the latest major case to test the willingness of its conservative majority to further expand gun rights, Reuters reports.

The justices heard arguments in an appeal by Joe Biden’s administration of a lower court’s ruling striking down the law – intended to protect victims of domestic abuse - as a violation of the US constitution’s second amendment right to “keep and bear arms”.

I mean, not taking your recycling to the curb on Thursdays, if it’s a serious problem it’s irresponsible,” Roberts said.

What seems irresponsible to some people might seem like, well, it’s not a big deal to others.”

And the reason that we use the term ‘not responsible’ is because it is the standard this court has articulated” in its three major gun rights rulings in the past 15 years, Prelogar said.

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Mike Johnson says in resurfaced video he uses app that helps people ‘quit porn’

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House speaker says in clip he and son use Covenant Eyes, which bills itself as a tool that ‘helps you live porn-free with confidence’

Mike Johnson, the hardline conservative and outspoken Christian who was elected House speaker in October, has raised eyebrows after he admitted using an app which bills itself as a tool to help people “quit porn”.

A year-old clip posted online over the weekend showed Johnson discussing how he and his son use Covenant Eyes, an app which tracks users’ phone and computer use, to monitor each others’ online activity.

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Blumenthal: Democrats have ‘work cut out’ as Biden trails Trump in five swing states

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New poll shows Biden ahead in Wisconsin, but Trump leading in Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Michigan

Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal said on Sunday that the party has “its work cut out for us” in response to new polling that shows President Joe Biden trailing Donald Trump in five of six swing states.

The survey by the New York Times and Siena College of voters in six battleground states, was released with 365 days to go until the 2024 presidential election.

Reuters contributed to this report

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Bernie Sanders calls for end to Israeli strikes and killing of thousands

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In his strongest words in the 30-day war, Vermont senator demands end to killing of ‘innocent men, women and children’

Bernie Sanders has stepped up his calls for a humanitarian pause in Gaza, demanding an immediate stop to Israeli bombing and an end to the killing of thousands of “innocent men, women and children” in the enclave.

In some of his strongest words in the 30-day war, the independent US senator from Vermont decried the 7 October Hamas attack inside Israel. He labelled Hamas as an “awful terrorist organization” that had “slaughtered 1,400 people in cold blood”, reiterating his belief that Israel had the right to defend itself.

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Trump angry over trials but happy with attack and delay strategy, insiders say

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Well-worn legal playbook in recent weeks has brought former president victories in court that have buoyed and emboldened him

Donald Trump has appeared at times angrily under siege as he stews over his predicament in the New York civil fraud case, according to people close to the former president, particularly furious in recent weeks with the witness testimony that could result in the end of the Trump Organization empire.

The rulings from the presiding New York state supreme court justice Arthur Engoron, who found that Trump and co-defendants were liable for fraud and ordered all of Trump’s adult children to testify at the ongoing trial, for instance, have taken a toll.

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