4 d. ago Why dreams of regime change in Iran will end in a rude awakening | Rajan Menon

It would be naive to believe that the US could take a wrecking ball to the Iranian state and walk away unaffectedDuring his three presidential campaigns, Donald Trump lambasted “forever wars” and “regime change” interventions. More than any candidate, he sensed the war-weariness of Americans after the fiascos in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, and especially the dismay of military veterans, 60% of whom voted for him over Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Trump’s maverick, anti-interventionist “America First” narrative also resonated strongly with those in the Maga movement who have never served in the military, particularly blue-collar workers.Now, Trump, once an unsparing critic of military misadventures, has bombed the nuclear enrichment installations of Iran, a country that hadn’t attacked the US, wasn’t preparing to and didn’t even threaten war. Since the bombing, Trump has gone further: he has ruminated about regime change in Iran. His transformation has startled many ...

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4 d. ago Dear heads of state: Donald Trump won’t love you back. He may be the worst boyfriend the world has ever seen | Marina Hyde

The frantic attempts to decode his behaviour reminds me of self-help relationship babble in the 1990s. Then, as now – it’s not you, it’s himUntil it finally opens, there remains much speculation over precisely which artefacts will occupy Donald Trump’s eventual presidential library. My current view is that you could do a lot worse than fill it with all the volumes of text that have been written in the cause of “understanding” him. These increasingly read like the most futile female-targeted self-help books of the 1990s. You Have to Understand He is Very Transactional. Take Him Seriously But Not Literally. Guys, please – no more. We all urgently need rescuing from the Mind, Body & Statecraft section of the bookshop.As I say, so many gazillions of words have been expended on this cause that Trump reminds me a lot of the men of the 1990s – indeed, he was one. Back then, he had emerged from a decade of valiantly avoiding contracting STIs in 1980s Manhattan – a battle he would later ...

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6 d. ago Donald Trump's presidential address IN FULL after US bomb Iran's nuclear sites

Donald Trump addressed the nation standing alongside Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, as he delivered the confident update on the mission

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9 d. ago Musk publicly rips White House aide who prompted his falling out with Trump

The tech billionaire responded to a new report claiming that Sergio Gor – director of presidential personnel and vetting members of Trump’s team – had not vetted himself for the role

Politics

1 week ago Majority of Trump supporters against US military involvement in Israel

Findings reinforce public appetite for peaceful resolution to aim of forcing Iran to give up ambitions of acquiring nuclear weaponsUS politics live – latest updatesA majority of supporters of Donald Trump are against US military involvement in Israel’s conflict with Iran, a poll published Wednesday found, reflecting a growing Republican backlash to the president’s threats to utilize American firepower.A wide ranging Economist/YouGov poll conducted over the weekend revealed that 53% of voters who backed Trump in the 2024 presidential election do not want the country to join in Israel’s strikes. Continue reading...

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1 week ago Most Trump supporters want to keep US military out of Israel

Findings show public appetite for peaceful approach to aim of forcing Iran to give up ambition of acquiring nuclear armsUS politics live – latest updatesA majority of supporters of Donald Trump are against US military involvement in Israel’s conflict with Iran, a poll published on Wednesday found, reflecting a growing Republican backlash to the president’s threats to utilize American firepower.A wide-ranging Economist/YouGov poll conducted over the weekend revealed that 53% of voters who backed Trump in the 2024 presidential election do not want the country to join in Israel’s strikes. Continue reading...

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1 week ago Trump promised riches from ‘liquid gold’ in the US. Now fossil fuel donors are benefiting

How Kelcy Warren, one of Trump’s biggest industry backers, and his pipeline firm are likely to flourish in his second termKelcy Warren was among the top donors for Donald Trump’s 2024 White House bid, personally pouring at least $5m into the campaign and co-hosting a fundraiser for the then presidential hopeful in Houston.Trump’s win appears to already be benefiting Warren and Energy Transfer Partners, the pipeline and energy firm of which he is co-founder, executive chair and primary shareholder. Continue reading...

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1 week ago Trump cannot avoid the question much longer – is he going to join Israel’s war or not? | Rajan Menon

If he does nothing, the US president may alienate Israel’s fervent American allies. If he intervenes, he’ll undermine his own foreign policyDuring his three presidential campaigns, Donald Trump ran as an opponent of serial military interventions and wars of “regime change” à la Iraq and Libya, which neoconservatives and liberal internationalists alike had embraced after the end of the cold war. He correctly sensed that many Americans had tired of “forever wars”.Benjamin Netanyahu’s attack on Iran is a watershed moment for Trump. It will force him to reveal whether he truly represents a clean break with the foreign policy establishment, often referred to as “the blob”, or is in fact a continuation of it. It all depends on whether he decides to join Israel’s attacks on Iran.Rajan Menon is a professor emeritus of international relations at the City College of New York and a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies Continue reading...

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2 w. ago ‘They went too far’: Musk says he regrets some of his posts about Trump

Tesla share price rises as former head of president’s ‘efficiency’ drive seems to retreat from explosive falling outBusiness live – latest updatesElon Musk has expressed contrition for some of his tweets about Donald Trump last week, in an apparent effort to retreat from an explosive falling out that has threatened to damage the Tesla boss’s business interests.Musk was by far the biggest donor to Trump’s presidential campaign, but tensions between the two erupted into public view last week and rapidly escalated, as the world’s richest man called for the president’s impeachment and mocked his connections to the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in a series of posts. Continue reading...

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2 w. ago Trump tests the limits of presidential authority by sending troops into LA

Critics warn the administration is increasingly ruling in defiance of the Constitution and political norms

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2 w. ago Trump tests limits of presidential authority by sending troops into LA

Critics warn administration is increasingly ruling in defiance of US constitution and political norms

Politics

3 w. ago Potential location of Trump’s presidential library revealed in new report

Negotiations reportedly underway with Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton over 100-year lease

Politics

3 w. ago British Airways bans cabin crew from taking certain photos on layovers

BA has cited security concerns over potential AI-powered location identification as the main reason for the ban, which follows another set of photo rules for staff that was introduced in 2023

Culture

3 w. ago White House probes Biden aides for allegedly concealing decline

Donald Trump’s order says aides abused power of presidential signatures through use of an ‘autopen’

Politics

3 w. ago Trump orders probe into 'who ran the US' after Biden's alleged cognitive decline

Donald Trump has signed a Presidential Memorandum ordering his administration to investigate whether former President Joe Biden was really running the United States

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3 w. ago Four key reasons for the downfall of Trump and Musk’s presidential bromance

The president and ‘First Buddy’ appear to have fallen out over the ‘big, beautiful bill’

Politics

3 w. ago Justice Department drops lawsuit against Trump adviser Peter Navarro

The Justice Department is dropping a lawsuit it filed against White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, a case in which Navarro was accused of using an unofficial email account for government work and wrongfully retaining presidential records during the first Trump administration

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3 w. ago New official presidential portrait of Donald Trump unveiled at White House

Donald Trump's new official portrait was unveiled by the White House on Monday, 2 June.

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4 w. ago Trump’s pardoning of Black celebrities is a cynical ploy | Tayo Bero

It’s not the first time the president has sought to curry favor this way. His instincts about Black Americans are clearThis week, Trump issued two dozen presidential pardons to a motley crew of wrongdoers, including shady politicians, fraudulent CEOs and other wealthy ne’er-do-wells. On that list were the Louisiana rapper NBA YoungBoy (whose real name is Kentrell Gaulden) and the Chicago gangster Larry Hoover.Regardless of where you stand on American carceral culture and what we know about the ways the criminal justice system squashes Black people who have the misfortune of interacting with it, Trump handing out pardons to Hoover and Gaulden isn’t the magnanimous or justice-focused move he wants us to believe it is. Instead, it’s a clear effort to garner support from the Black community by way of its big names.Tayo Bero is a Guardian US columnist. Continue reading...

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4 w. ago Elon Musk allegedly took large amounts of drugs including ketamine while advising Trump – report

Doge head at times took dissociative daily, along with ecstasy and psychedelic mushroom use, according to NYTUS politics live – latest updatesElon Musk engaged in extensive drug consumption while serving as one of Donald Trump’s closest advisers, taking ketamine so frequently it caused bladder problems and traveling with a daily supply of approximately 20 pills, an investigation from the New York Times revealed.The world’s richest man regularly consumed ketamine, ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms during his rise to political prominence, anonymous sources familiar with his activities told the Times. His drug use reportedly intensified as he donated $275m to Trump’s presidential campaign and later wielded significant power through his role spearheading the “department of government efficiency”, or Doge. Continue reading...

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