Iran has become a “lose-lose issue” for Donald Trump, which is alienating his entire political base, said Zeeshan Aleem on MS Now. When he attacked Iran, he infuriated the isolationist wing of his coalition, who believed his promise that he’d start “no new wars”. Now, his scramble to end the conflict “is alienating the hawkish sector of his party”, who believe it amounts to a humiliating surrender.

One Republican senator described the Memorandum of Understanding signed by Trump last week as “the worst foreign policy blunder in decades”. Texas senator Ted Cruz said Trump must be getting “very poor advice”. Critics are particularly outraged by the potential creation of a $300 billion reconstruction fund for Iran. Fox News contributor Marc Thiessen called the provision a “disaster”, likening it to offering the “Marshall Plan to rebuild Germany while the Nazis were still in power”.

Vance under fire

Furious as they are, many Republican hawks are still reluctant to criticise Trump directly, said Jonathan Chait in The Atlantic. So they’re turning their fire instead on the vice-president, J.D. Vance. “Trump effectively won the war and at the 11th hour Vance is negotiating his way to a loss,” raged one unnamed congressman to a Washington correspondent.

The president has done nothing to discourage such talk. “If it works out, I’m going to take the credit,” he said, half-jokingly, of the peace deal. “If it doesn’t work out, I’m blaming J.D.” The irony, said Jim Geraghty in The Washington Post, is that Vance opposed starting this war. Now it has fallen to him to sell the peace deal and serve as the fall guy when it goes sour. “You almost have to feel sorry for Vance. Almost.”

Face of peace

“Playing the part of Trump’s surrender monkey” will hurt Vance’s image in the short term, said Jonathan V. Last on The Bulwark, but few Republican voters are likely to remember any of this stuff in two years’ time if petrol prices are back to normal and Iran hasn’t tested a nuclear device. Vance will just be the guy who helped bring an unpopular war to an end.

He has certainly been happy to serve as the face of this peace agreement, said Adam Cancryn on CNN. He asked to play a leading role in the talks, rather than being pushed into it. Vance may get the blame if the deal blows up, but he has no doubt concluded that if the two sides return to an intractable conflict, his hopes of becoming president are probably scuppered in any case.

Henry Nowak would “still be alive today” if Britain and Europe had “stood their ground against the politics of self-hatred and the mass invasion of migrants”, said J.D. Vance on X. The “proper response – the only response – is righteous anger”.

The “most outspoken member” of an “evangelistic” administration, Vance’s ire does seem to have a “particular focus on the UK”, said The Times. He has commented on protests around abortion clinics, and told Keir Starmer that there have been “infringements on free speech” in Britain.

Vance is now using the Nowak murder to “bolster” his narrative of Britain as a “once powerful nation” “pandering to liberalism”. This could just be a reminder for American voters that the Republican Party retains an “uncompromising approach to wokeism, borders and policing” in the upcoming mid-terms. But if Vance is anointed successor to the Maga movement, comments such as these could be a sign of things to come.

What did the commentators say?

“J.D. Vance is wrong to intervene in the controversy around the murder of Henry Nowak,” said The Telegraph in an editorial. That said, “there is a good deal of hypocrisy on show”: Labour Remainers had no issue with Barack Obama “intervening” in the Brexit debate, and have had “no compunction about condemning Donald Trump over domestic US policy. “Inevitably, politicians welcome foreign interference only if it suits their arguments”, when “it would be far better if each stayed out of the other’s business”.

Vance was “surely right” to call out the “politics of self-hatred” in the British justice system, said Ameer Kotecha in The Spectator. It is “perfectly legitimate” for the US to comment publicly on what is happening in the UK. The government’s reaction, arguing he has “crossed a red line of diplomatic protocol”, has been hypocritical and “frankly pathetic”.

Britain is just as guilty. For instance, the Labour Party sent 100 activists to campaign for Kamala Harris in 2024. “Rather than engage in shameless pearl-clutching, Starmer’s government should listen to what our closest ally is telling us.”

Interventions like Vance’s are “deepening the split between the Trump administration and Britain’s Labour government”, said Dominic Green in The Wall Street Journal. The division is inherent. Where Vance sees a mission to “stabilise values and societies after decades of self-inflicted confusion”, Britain sees “Bible-bashing and race-baiting”, and hears “only atavistic calls to the wrong kind of identity politics”.

This “political opportunism” against Britain goes far deeper than the vice president, said James Schneider in The New Statesman. “The exploitation of Nowak’s death is of a piece with a clear US state strategy, one which turns Europe into a source for American rhetoric.” Vance talks about Britain “not as an equal, but as a provincial outpost of the imperial system, nominally independent and permanently available for correction”.

What next?

Vance’s stance could have implications for the next election on this side of the Atlantic, said Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian. If Vance remains in the White House as vice president, “or even as Trump’s successor” after the US elections in 2028, it’s hard to imagine him “standing idly by” when the UK goes to the polls, likely in 2029.

At best, the reaction to the Nowak intervention shows us that “plenty of Britons still reflexively dislike being lectured by Americans”. Yet, it has also warned us “not to take our political sovereignty for granted. Sooner or later, we may need to defend it.”

Fresh off a world tour, Vice President JD Vance was in Iowa this week to boost GOP Rep. Zach Nunn in his reelection bid, as Republicans scramble to defend their congressional majorities by November. But no political visit there can escape speculation stemming from Iowa’s role as the nation’s first presidential caucus state. Vance’s Iowa excursion may have been an example of a vice president dutifully doing what the party requires of him. It might also have been a soft launch of a much bigger effort from the veep’s camp.

What did the commentators say?

Vance’s trip to Iowa was “billed as a White House message to American workers” on top of being an “effort to promote Nunn,” NBC News said. But Vance’s appearance, his “first to the state as vice president,” had “added political weight” and an “expectation that the visit would be the first of many for him.” Although most of Vance’s remarks in Iowa “traced back to the midterm elections and, specifically, Nunn’s race,” he also “carefully recognized each of the high-ranking Republicans in the room” in a speech “loaded with personal touches, including biographical details” from his “Hillbilly Elegy” memoir.

Not only do Iowan Republicans see a “high-profile” visit like Vance’s as helping “build momentum” for Republicans ahead of the midterms, Iowans are also “constantly gauging national figures as potential presidential candidates,” said Iowa Public Radio. Iowa Republicans see someone who comes to help in the midterms “as a team player,” State GOP Chair Jeff Kaufmann said to the outlet. That, in turn, “helps” if they “choose later to run for president.”

In a state “more freighted with presidential expectations than any other,” Vance used his time to “woo influential Iowans,” including “Kaufmann, evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats and conservative talk show host Steve Deace,” said The New York Times. “I’ve never supported Trump in a primary,” Deace said to the outlet. Vance, however, is the “leader in the clubhouse for me” in 2028.

Vance’s “association” with Trump’s agenda presents a “high-risk, high-reward proposition” that could “make or break his political future,” Politico said. “That’s the risk of being part of an administration,” Iowa GOP strategist David Kochel, who has advised multiple presidential campaigns in the state, said to the outlet. “This is the Kamala Harris problem.” With Trump not on the ballot this year, Vance “keeping his supporters engaged” in November could be “critical” for holding Nunn’s seat, said Iowa’s KTIV. But Trump himself is “underwater in districts that he won in 2024,” Puck said, including in Nunn’s, where Republicans are “just one point” ahead of Democrats.

During his speech, Vance attempted to “project loyalty” to Trump, despite the administration’s push for a war in Iran that Vance “privately signaled he was not eager to see the United States enter,” The Washington Post said. Vance had also been “slow to return” to Iowa as veep, “even as other ambitious Republicans,” including Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas, “trekked here for widely attended conservative summits and dinners in 2025.”

What next?

Vance is currently the “overwhelming front-runner” for the GOP presidential nomination in 2028, even as he “remains unpopular with the broader electorate,” the Times said. And “unlike other cabinet officials” serving at the pleasure of the president, Vance can campaign for the future “while keeping his day job.”

Still, despite speculation over Vance’s Iowa visit, there was “no special reason the vice president came here this week, as opposed to closer to the general election,” the Post said, citing multiple sources with knowledge of Vance’s schedule. Iowa was “merely next on the White House’s list of swing-state House districts for Vance to visit.” Said one source, simply: “Gotta go to Iowa eventually.”

It has been a busy spring for JD Vance. The diplomatically untested vice president was tapped for wartime negotiations with Iran, became the administration’s mouthpiece in a doctrinal feud with Pope Leo and led the White House in a last-ditch effort to salvage now-ousted Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orbán. It has hardly been an auspicious season for someone positioning themselves to carry the MAGA torch post-Trump.

Can he come back from a string of public flops?

Despite entering office as a “man full of ideas” just over a year ago, Vance and his opinions “matter less and less” within the Trump administration, said Idrees Kahloon at The Atlantic. While his diminished clout may be the “typical fate” of the vice president who is “forever on display but seldom listened to,” Vance’s shrinking footprint is a “major comedown from the role he once seemed likely to fill,” that of “Trumpism after Trump.”

Admittedly, the job of being veep was not “designed to be fun,” Edward Luce at the Financial Times said. But being Trump’s number two “brings unique discomfort.” Vance is “flailing” at backing policies that “often turn 180 degrees overnight,” rendering him “no longer Trump’s obvious successor.” Even if he should “regain his place in the Trumpian firmament,” there is “no such thing as a Vance base” within the modern GOP.

The past few weeks saw Vance bring his “noncharisma to bear” on Orbán’s behalf, prompting voters to “commit themselves to a serious program of Orbán Renewal” before he jetted off to “screw up the Iran peace talks,” Charles Pierce said at Esquire. Vance is playing “both sides against the middle” on Trump’s war in Tehran so as to maintain his “alleged viability in 2028,” while wings of the “elite political media” ready themselves to position him as the “next tinhorn Reasonable Republican.”

The future remains unwritten, but it’s “hard to imagine things going worse” for the veep, largely because Trump “forced Vance into this position,” Asawin Suebsaeng said at Zeteo. Vance may believe in Orbán’s ultra-nationalism as an “ideological pursuit, not a practical one” but it’s hard to “identify any political advantages” to his recent “crusade” on Orbán’s behalf, said Noah Rothman at the National Review. “Conversely, the downsides are becoming increasingly hard to ignore.”

Every time Vance debases himself on Trump’s behalf, “he gets less and less in return,” said Dana Milbank at The New York Times. Not only have his “political fortunes” begun to “dim,” his “soul has become a depreciating asset.” In many ways, Vance has “cast himself as the chief ideologist” of a MAGA movement with “no ideology” beyond the “instincts, impulses and glory of one man,” The Economist said.

Vance’s attempts to “take on” Pope Leo by attacking his “area of expertise” highlight the “deadly sin of pride,” Tom Nichols said at The Atlantic. Describing the “willingness” of someone like Vance to challenge the Vatican “requires a word from Yiddish rather than Latin: chutzpah.” That he would encourage Leo to “stay in his lane” while at the same time spreading “his version of the gospel from his powerful political perch” could prove “one contradiction too many, even for this skilled political chameleon,” Nia-Malika Henderson said at Bloomberg.

The well-positioned ‘heir apparent’

Still, Vance may remain well-positioned ahead of 2028. His “unusual second job” serving as the Republican National Committee’s finance chair is “exactly” what an “ambitious presidential aspirant might dream up,” said Theodore Schleifer and Shane Goldmacher at The New York Times said. While he’s done “some good for the party,” Vance has also done “some good for himself” by “wooing” the GOP’s “richest and most influential patrons,” even as his camp is “leery of being seen as plotting about anything beyond the 2026 midterms.”

In March, Vance was the main attraction at the closed-door spring summit of the Rockbridge Network, a “secretive donor group” that he cofounded in 2019 during his “stint as a private investor,” said Gabe Kaminsky at CBS News. Although his remarks were focused on 2026, the larger question “looming” over the confab was whether he had 2028 plans in place. Given Rockbridge’s reach within the MAGA coalition, Vance seems “poised to stand at the crossroads” of varying GOP interests that, one attendee told the outlet, “want JD to be the heir apparent.”

‘Battle Creek, a Rust Belt icon, battles back as American manufacturing jobs decline’

Chicago Tribune editorial board

For “generations, the Kellogg food company and Battle Creek, Michigan, went together like corn flakes and milk,” but “after decades as an independent public company, Kellogg split in two,” says the Chicago Tribune editorial board. Like “many other small industrial cities across the Midwest, Battle Creek is diversifying beyond its roots,” and its “resilience in the face of change shows that, under pressure, the Rust Belt’s factory towns can carve out a future based on their long-time strengths.”

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‘Universities must reinvent themselves for the intelligent age’

Klaus Schwab at Time

For “more than a century, universities have been among humanity’s most transformative institutions,” but the “world they helped create is now changing at unprecedented speed,” says Klaus Schwab. In the “‘Intelligent Age’ defined by the rise of artificial intelligence and quantum computing, education cannot remain preparation for life.” It “must become a continuous condition of life,” as “our culture is moving irreversibly from learning for life to lifelong learning.” This “demands systemic change across national education systems.”

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‘Why aren’t Republicans thrilled by the fall in teen pregnancies?’

Arwa Mahdawi at The Guardian

The “teenage birth rate in the U.S. fell by 7% in 2025,” and “while this might seem like a positive development, it has been a cause of dismay among the MAGA-adjacent crowd,” says Arwa Mahdawi. Republicans “aren’t just content with overturning the right to a safe and legal abortion; they’re also quietly undercutting access to contraception.” What’s “next? The party of ‘family values’ rallying behind child marriage? Oh, wait, they’ve already ticked that one off.”

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‘The ever-shrinking JD Vance’

Edward Luce at the Financial Times

The vice presidency “was not designed to be fun,” says Edward Luce. But “being Trump’s number two brings unique discomfort.” Defending “policies that often turn 180 degrees overnight — from vowing to destroy a civilization, say, to announcing a new golden age — requires pure acrobatics.” JD Vance “is flailing,” and “he is thus no longer Trump’s obvious successor.” Even “were Vance to regain his place in the Trumpian firmament, there is no such thing as a Vance base.”

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The United States under President Donald Trump is, for the time being, the brightest star in a growing network of ultra-nationalist governments hoping to reshape the global order in their authoritarian mold. While MAGA America is the powerhouse, it’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Hungary that has been the backbone of the worldwide lurch rightward. Yet as Hungarians prepare to vote on April 12, Orbán and his Fidesz party seem headed for an electoral upset that could send shock waves across hard-right spheres.

Government ‘revered by authoritarians everywhere’

A “pro-Kremlin, anti-EU strongman” who has spent nearly two decades “building a template for Christian nationalist rule,” Orbán is now the “cornerstone of President Trump’s vision for Europe,” Axios said. In the 16 years since he was first elected, Orbán forged a “state apparatus — courts, media, election administration — loyal to his party” and has “never lost under the system he built.”

As the “center of the Trump administration’s shifting policy toward Europe,” Orbán’s Hungary “firmly” aligned itself with “far-right parties and immigration restrictionists in countries such as France and Germany,” said Al Jazeera. While this has “mired relationships in Europe,” it has also been a “source of inspiration for the U.S.”

“Whatever Hungary decides will resonate throughout Europe,” said Argentine President Javier Milei, a South American nationalist, during his address at last month’s Conservative Political Action Conference in Budapest. Orbán is a “beacon” for those who “refuse to accept that the West’s destiny is one of managed decline.”

CPAC-Hungary, where Milei spoke, has become an “important calendar event for Euro-Atlantic hard-right networking,” said Balkan Insight. The event hosted “667 foreign guests from 51 countries” who heard from “prominent European political figures” such as far-right Dutch PVV leader Geert Wilders and Alice Weidel of Germany’s ultra-nationalist AfD. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while initially scheduled to appear in person, instead sent a “warm message of support” in pretaped remarks played on the conference’s first day, Cleveland Jewish News said.

Orbán is “revered by authoritarians everywhere,” said Salon. But as a “path-breaking autocrat” who has demonstrated a “new soft fascism,” his potential loss is making many of those same authoritarians “nervous.”

Effects that would ‘reverberate well beyond Hungary’

Should Orbán’s government fall, the “dreams” of his authoritarian admirers in the MAGA movement “might be shattered” as well, said Vox. As a “close Russian ally,” Orbán’s loss would be a “considerable boon to the Ukrainian war effort — and a significant blow to the Kremlin.” Cumulatively, then, Hungary’s elections are “not just like any other vote,” and could end up as “one of the most significant elections of the entire year, and perhaps even the decade.”

An Orbán loss would prompt authoritarian allies to ask “what it could mean for them,” said Salon. “After all,” his “anti-democratic” domestic policies were designed to “not only prevent a defeat from happening” but to “keep people from ever wanting it to happen.” Such a defeat would “reverberate well beyond Hungary,” calling into question the “durability of a political system” marked by “hardline nationalism and an erosion of democratic checks” and “touted as a blueprint for reshaping Western democracy” by many conservatives, said Reuters.

“I am here for a simple reason,” Vice President JD Vance said at a pro-Orbán rally in Budapest this week: “I admire what you are fighting for.” But Vance’s visit may have ultimately done “more harm for Orbán than good,” The Guardian said. By asserting that the Trump administration would work with any eventual Hungarian elected leader, the vice president seemingly undercut Orbán’s campaign promise that “he — and his connections — were the only means of keeping Hungary safe in a volatile world.”

For some observers, Vance’s visit is unlikely to change the electoral calculus in Hungary, where “domestic issues such as the ⁠cost of living dominate the election,” said Reuters. No matter what happens in Hungary’s immediate future, Orbán’s global footprint will surely be felt for years to come.

Traditionally seen as occupying a more staid, straight-laced and “conservative” end of the American political spectrum, the modern Republican party has, under President Donald Trump, become a hub for many of the theories formerly relegated to the fringes of national discourse. Over the past decade, the conservative movement has elevated adherents to claims of demonic possession, extraterrestrial infiltration and, most recently, instantaneous transportation.

Just months after being nominated to lead the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s core Office of Response and Recovery in late 2025, top FEMA official Gregg Phillips became the subject of an investigation into his “rise to prominence” as a “far-right activist” who “spread conspiracy theories,” said CNN. Phillips’ claim that he’d spontaneously teleported to a Waffle House restaurant in the city of Rome, Georgia, has “generated numerous headlines and at least one biting late-night comedy segment,” The New York Times said.

Rep. Tim Burchett: UFO disclosures the country would ‘come unglued’ over

“We need full disclosure,” Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) said to Newsmax in April. “The public has a right to know, dadgummit, it’s your tax dollars. Let’s get it out there.” Asked by host Rob Finnerty about the aliens-exist claims from former Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, Burchett, who sits on both the House Oversight and Foreign Affairs Committees, said he’d been “briefed by just about every alphabet agency there is.” If the national security apparatus were to “release the things that I’ve seen, you’d be up at night worrying about or thinking about it.”

One of Burchett’s recent classified briefings “would have set the earth” on fire and cause the country to “come unglued,” the Tennessee lawmaker said. Outer space revelations are “getting covered up, and the people that know are dying or disappearing.”

Tucker Carlson: demonic origins of atomic weaponry

Onetime Fox News juggernaut Tucker Carlson insists a nocturnal attack from supernatural forces once left him bloody and scarred while his family slept unmolested. The claim, made in footage from the unreleased “Christianities?” documentary, was accompanied by “creepy music, reenactments of Carlson firing a gun and dogs running through the woods in slow motion,” The Seattle Times said.

Nuclear weaponry is also “demonic,” Carlson said on the Bannons War Room podcast to former White House advisor Steve Bannon. Anyone who “claims otherwise” is “either ignorant or doing the bidding of the forces that created nuclear technology in the first place, which were not human forces obviously.”

Matt Gaetz: alien hybrid breeding program

Once a front-runner to lead the Trump administration’s Justice Department, former Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz claimed on The Benny Show podcast in late March that the U.S. government is engaged in a human-extraterrestrial breeding program, with eyes on making inroads to the broader galactic community.

“An actual uniformed member of the United States Army briefed me,” Gaetz said to right-wing political commentator and podcaster Benny Johnson. Despite taking place in a “non-classified setting,” Gaetz said the soldier showed him “locations of hybrid breeding programs where captured aliens were breeding with humans to create some hybrid race that could engage in intergalactic communication.” During the interview, Gaetz “admitted he didn’t verify the whistleblower’s claims,” HuffPost said, but added he was told there were “between six and 12 breeding facilities around the country.”

Marjorie Taylor Greene: Jewish space lasers

Perhaps the most infamous Trump-era Republican flight of sci-fi fancy is that of former Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who in 2018 claimed in a since-deleted Facebook note that a series of catastrophic California wildfires were potentially started by a beam from “space solar generators” under the nebulous control of the Rothschild banking firm — itself a longstanding shibboleth for antisemitic conspiracy theories. In a 2025 interview on “Real Time with Bill Maher,” Greene said she “didn’t even know the Rothschilds were Jewish” and also claimed UFOs “could be fallen angels.”

Roger Stone: demon portal above White House

In 2022, longtime Trump ally and conservative operator Roger Stone claimed on the Eric Metaxas Radio Show that a “demonic portal” had appeared above the White House “around the time that the Bidens moved in.” Insisting he’d been initially skeptical, Stone said he was convinced, in part, by a friend’s sending him a “bunch of documents and also a bunch of notations from the Bible about portals,” adding that he had seen the alleged 1600 Pennsylvania Ave vortex “swirling like a cauldron.” Asked why the apparent rift in space-time hadn’t been reported on by mainstream news outlets, Stone said simply that the media “doesn’t cover a lot of things that are true.”

JD Vance: UFOs as demons

Asked during a recent interview with Benny Johnson about federal tracking of UFOs and other potentially extraterrestrial phenomena, Vice President JD Vance offered a slightly different take on whether or not advanced civilizations were visiting Earth: “I don’t think they’re aliens, I think they’re demons,” Vance said. Pressed to expand on his assertion about “celestial beings who fly around, who do weird things to people,” Vance said there is a “desire to describe everything celestial, everything otherworldly” as “aliens.” Put simply, said Slate, Vance “appears to believe that aliens visit Earth” and that those aliens “are actually demons.”

From his podium at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Donald Trump reminded his base how he differed from past presidents. “It turned out that I was able to stop wars from happening,” he said.

That was in 2024, said Natalie Allison at The Washington Post. A year later, the newly installed president was back at CPAC, boasting about being “a peacemaker, not a conqueror”.

Notable absences

This year, Trump skipped the jamboree for the first time in a decade: he was too busy managing the war with Iran he’d launched a month earlier. And he wasn’t the only high-profile no show, said Katy Balls in The Sunday Times. At the last event, J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio spoke, and Elon Musk ramped up the carnival atmosphere by brandishing a chainsaw on stage; this time, one attendee noted that there were more journalists present than politicians. That the event was rather more subdued than usual was due to several factors – including its relocation from DC to Texas; but the lack of buzz was indicative of the troubled state of the GOP as it gears up for the midterms.

A little over a year into his second term, Trump is discovering that for all his efforts to extend his authority, there are still constraints on what he can do, said Gerard Baker in The Times. Public revulsion has forced him to temper his migrant deportation policy; the Supreme Court has struck out his signature tariffs policy; the markets are squealing about the war in Iran. And even in his own backyard, the voters are restive: in late March, a Florida Democrat seized a red seat that takes in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.

Base betrayal

The die-hards remain intensely loyal, said Elaine Godfrey in The Atlantic, but polls show that Trump is losing support among the coalition of younger Americans and Latinos that gave him his victory in 2024. Many already felt betrayed by his attempt to block the Epstein files and by the impact of his Big Beautiful Bill on the deficit. Now, they’re furious that he has taken the US into a war that is costing billions and further driving up the cost of living.

In the manosphere, prominent voices who rallied behind his “anti-woke” rhetoric in 2024 are complaining that Americans were duped. The podcaster Joe Rogan has called the war “insane, based on what [Trump] ran on”. There is dissent within Maga too, some of which has veered into antisemitism: Tucker Carlson and others have been peddling the line that Israel manipulated Trump into the war. Disenchanted Trump fans are unlikely to vote Democrat in November; but they might easily just tune out of the election – and so inadvertently deliver a “blue wave”.

When US Secretary of State Marco Rubio made the case for Donald Trump’s war in Iran, there was an unexpected distraction: his shoes were “at least two sizes too big”, said Séamas O’Reilly in The New Statesman.

The shoes had been given to him by Trump. The president has gifted pairs of the same shoes to several colleagues who are reportedly too scared to not wear them, even if they don’t fit.

Dangling loose

Trump is handing out Florsheim Oxfords, which cost $145 (£109). This new “stylistic choice” has “caught the public’s eye”, said CNN, after Rubio and Vice President J.D. Vance were pictured wearing “black dress shoes with visible gaps between the shoe’s collar and the wearer’s foot”, which leaves the ankle to “dangle loose in the opening like the clapper in a bell”.

The shoes are the “hottest and most exclusive MAGA status symbol”, said The Wall Street Journal. The president ordered the footwear for colleagues after telling them they had “s***ty shoes”, said the paper. According to Vance, he, Rubio and a third politician gave the president their shoe sizes: 13, 11.5 and 7, respectively. (The UK equivalents are 12, 10.5 and 6.)

But Trump has “taken to guessing people’s shoe size in front of them”, asking an aide to “put in an order” and then, a week later, a brown Florsheim box “arrives at the White House”, said the broadsheet. The president “sometimes signs the box or attaches a note of gratitude”, sources told the paper.

“You can tell a lot about a man by his shoe size,” said Trump, but the shoes he gave the men are “clearly too big”, menswear expert Josh Peskowitz told CNN. So perhaps Vance and Rubio “prefer the ideal of the feet they wish they had to the reality rattling around inside their new shoes”, said the broadcaster.

According to reports, the staff are now “reportedly so terrified of offending” Trump, that they “constantly wear these cheap, ill-fitting shoes any time they’re in his presence”, said The New Statesman. For Trump, the arrangement “seems to work out pretty well”, he told Fox News, adding that his colleagues now “look all spiffy and nice”.

Could this be “hazing”, an “expression of affection” or a “loyalty test”, said Robert Armstrong in the Financial Times. The “weird surface” conceals the “irony” that Florsheims are made in Cambodia, India and – mainly – China. The company has hiked prices after Trump’s tariffs.

Hidden lifts

Politicians and footwear have history. Napoleon Bonaparte, who was around 5ft 6in tall, wore shoes with “hidden lifts”, which “added a few extra inches to his stature”, helping him “reinforce his authority both on the battlefield and in political settings”, said Jennen.

If Trump believes you can tell a lot about a man by his shoe size, he might find food for thought in the fact that Abraham Lincoln had the largest feet of any US president, wearing a size 14 shoe, while Rutherford B. Hayes, in office from 1877 to 1881, had the smallest feet of any US president – a size 7.

Theresa May, who was one of the first foreign leaders to visit Trump in his first term in the White House, was the subject of countless column inches about her choices of footwear. “Love them or loathe them”, it can’t be denied that May’s shoes were “something of a phenomenon”, said Woman & Home.

“Never before had a politician’s feet endured such scrutiny.” She “kickstarted a 60% rise” in sales of leopard-print shoes as home secretary, and as prime minister she was credited with “bringing back the kitten heel”.

Rishi Sunak followed in her footsteps by hitting the headlines for his footwear fashion: super-casual slides, pricey Prada loafers and, most famously, Adidas Sambas.

‘JD Vance must outgrow Trump to become president’

Jesse Edwards at Newsweek

Vice President JD Vance can “only become a serious contender for the White House if he figures out how to get out from under Donald Trump without alienating MAGA in the process,” says Jesse Edwards at Newsweek. He must break from Trump and “convincingly argue that he played along to get close to power, fully aware of who Trump was” if he is to be “remotely appealing.” If Vance “makes the turn clean enough and early enough, people will listen.”

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‘I used cannabis daily for 25 years. I support reform — cautiously.’

Adam Levin at USA Today

As the “country reexamines federal cannabis restrictions, a long-overdue conversation about reform is finally underway,” says Adam Levin at USA Today. “Prohibition failed. Criminalization caused real harm,” and cannabis has “legitimate medical uses.” But there is “something missing from much of the celebration: an honest conversation about addiction.” Legal substances such as alcohol are “widely available, yet regulated, researched and accompanied by public-health messaging because access carries risk. Cannabis deserves the same treatment — not stigma, but honesty.”

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‘The winding path to a good Ukraine deal’

The Washington Post editorial board

Amid the repeated ups and downs of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, the “thorniest issues” continue to be “punted,” says The Washington Post editorial board. But even if President Donald Trump’s latest “peace push hits another dead end, it’s worth noting what has changed.” The “West now has a clear sense of what a minimally acceptable peace would look like.” There are no guarantees, but the West should “bolster shaky promises with ample provisions for arming Ukraine like a porcupine.”

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‘An anti-AI movement is coming. Which party will lead it?’

Michelle Goldberg at The New York Times

Despite artificial intelligence’s promising future, the “list of things it is ruining is long,” says Michelle Goldberg at The New York Times. It is “true that new technologies often inspire dread,” but A.I. is rightfully alarming to many Americans, and it “divides both parties.” Going into 2026, one major question is “which party will speak for the Americans who abhor the incursions of A.I. into their lives and want to see its reach restricted?”

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If there is a boundary setter in the GOP, Vice President JD Vance might be it. MAGAdom is feuding over whether antisemitic figures like Nick Fuentes will be allowed in the Republican coalition when President Donald Trump leaves. Observers watched last weekend’s Turning Point USA convention to see if Vance would draw a red line against bigotry in the party.

He did not. Vance ducked a chance to “condemn a streak of antisemitism” that has roiled the GOP in recent months, said The Associated Press. “I didn’t bring a list of conservatives to denounce or to de-platform,” Vance said during the convention’s closing speech. That came after conservative commentator Ben Shapiro criticized Fuentes, Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson during his own address. Those figures and their allies are “grifters and they do not deserve your time,” Shapiro said. Vance, though, refused to take sides in the feud. MAGA Republicans have “far more important work to do than canceling each other," Vance said.

Vance has repeatedly “refused to pick a side in interparty fights over bigotry,” said The New York Times. The vice president earlier this year dismissed outrage over a Young Republicans chat group that featured racist jokes and memes, and in 2024 “embraced false claims about Haitian Americans.” Antisemitism and ethnic hatred “have no place in the conservative movement,” Vance said in an interview published after his TPUSA speech. But Trump’s America is also a place where “you don’t have to apologize for being white anymore,” he told conventiongoers.

What did the commentators say?

“When presented with the simplest moral test, Vance failed,” said Franklin Foer at The Atlantic. Antisemitism is more than “one more woke fixation.” Trump has “always struggled” to denounce antisemitism, but that seemed mostly a product of a “vanity” that would not let him “speak ill of acolytes” like Kanye West. Vance has “clearly made the calculation that antisemites are part of the Republican Party’s base.” He cannot afford to lose them and be the GOP presidential candidate in 2028. That will give license to right-wing antisemites to “dehumanize Jews with greater abandon.”

Vance’s choice is “clarifying,” said Noah Rothman at the National Review. Rather than condemn antisemitism within the GOP, he chose to suggest that “those who object to the promotion of a bigot” are the party’s real problem. Vance “can read the writing on the wall as well as anyone,” and the signs suggest that young conservatives are increasingly big fans of “Hitlerian Caesarism.” That development “should terrify responsible actors in American public life.”

What next?

Vance has not officially announced a 2028 presidential bid but is already starting to “lock down” support for his campaign, said NBC News. Erika Kirk, CEO of Turning Point USA, endorsed Vance at the convention. That is just one sign the vice president is “finding early success in holding together” the various parts of Trump’s coalition: A straw poll of TPUSA attendees found that 84% want him to be the GOP’s next nominee.

This past weekend, some of the brightest stars in the conservative sky descended on Phoenix, Arizona, for Turning Point USA’s “Americafest 2025” conference. But the far-right revelry and MAGA backslapping quickly shed its veneer of camaraderie to expose deep fracture lines threatening the ultranationalist group’s mission. Across four days of dueling speeches and simmering behind-the-scenes feuds, TPUSA’s first major event since the shooting death of cofounder Charlie Kirk became a microcosm of the broader forces jockeying for MAGA power and influence nationwide.

‘Grifters,’ ‘charlatans’ and ‘hilarious’ attempts at deplatforming

Although its annual conferences have been “long billed as a show of unity for young conservatives,” this year’s TPUSA event was a “public airing of deepening fractures inside the MAGA movement,” Salon said. While “clashes over Israel, antisemitism and leadership” dominated the weekend, Kirk’s death and the “absence of a clear successor loomed large” as tributes “veered into ideological disputes, particularly over foreign policy and the influence of far-right figures within the movement.” After speakers “torched each other as pompous, cancerous cowards,” the group that had once been “so lockstep when President Trump was running” found itself “engulfed in an overt power struggle ahead of 2028,” said Axios.

Conservative broadcaster Ben Shapiro used his conference address to lash out at “grifters and charlatans” who he claimed were “guilty of misleading their audiences with falsehoods and conspiracy theories,” CNN said. He took particular aim at former Fox News host Tucker Carlson for interviewing avowed antisemite Nick Fuentes in what Shapiro said was an “act of moral imbecility.”

Carlson returned fire during his speech, calling Shapiro’s attempt at “deplatforming and denouncing people” at a TPUSA event “hilarious.” He then “downplayed the problem of anti-Jewish hate,” said the Times of Israel, in part by framing antisemitism as “less pervasive than bias against white men.”

Speaking Sunday evening, Vice President JD Vance conspicuously declined to condemn the “streak of antisemitism that has divided the Republican Party and roiled the opening days” of the event, The Associated Press said. That includes former TPUSA staff and now popular podcaster Candace Owens, who has “alleged without evidence that Israeli spies were involved in Kirk’s death.” Taken together, the “tension on display” over the weekend “foreshadowed the treacherous political waters” aspiring conservative hopefuls will face before the next election.

All eyes on 2028

The schisms exposed over the weekend “laid bare” the challenge for any conservative hoping to succeed President Donald Trump atop the MAGA movement, The New York Times said: how to address the “explosive debate” over whether conspiracy theorists and extremists should be “embraced or excluded from the conservative coalition.”

In Vance’s remarks, delivered after Kirk’s widow and current TPUSA CEO Erika endorsed him for 2028, the vice president signaled he was “more than willing to forgo imposing any moral red lines.” At the same time, some observers have claimed that the “narrative of tension” and a looming MAGA civil war is “ginned up by people who hope to prevent” Vance’s political ascension, said the AP. “This is a proxy on ’28,” former Trump advisor Steve Bannon said at the convention, per the National Review. “There are people who are mad at JD Vance,” Tucker Carlson said, per the same outlet, and “they’re stirring up a lot of this in order to make sure he doesn’t get the nomination.”

Nick Fuentes is a 27-year-old activist and political commentator best known for his Christian nationalist and racist rhetoric. He first attracted attention as a teenager at the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Since then, he has built up a large following as a social media influencer, particularly via his “America First” broadcasts, on which he airs white supremacist, antisemitic, misogynistic and authoritarian views.

On an episode of his show in March, he summarised his politics as: “Jews are running society, women need to shut the fuck up, blacks need to be imprisoned for the most part, and we would live in paradise. It’s that simple.” He has also repeatedly described Hitler as “cool”.

Where did Fuentes come from?

Fuentes was born and raised in La Grange Park, Illinois. He describes his childhood, in a largely white suburb near Chicago, with a home-maker mother, a breadwinner father of Mexican heritage, and a strong Catholic ethos, as idyllic. He thinks women should stay at home, and shouldn’t have the right to vote. He told Piers Morgan recently that he had never had sex with a woman; he said he was not gay, “but I will say that women are very difficult to be around.” He studied politics at Boston University, but dropped out after his first year to become an activist.

In some ways, Fuentes’s livestream show harks back to a traditional format: he wears a suit, sits behind a desk, and talks rapidly and fluently about current affairs, in a thick Chicago accent. The difference, says Jay Caspian Kang in The New Yorker, is that he inhabits a post-Trump, “post-woke” world, in which “all norms in political commentary have been destroyed”.

Why is he significant?

Because he has become disturbingly influential. His X/Twitter account, which Elon Musk reinstated in 2024, has 1.2 million followers; this month each of his “America First” livestreams have attracted around a million views each. On 27 October, the former Fox News star Tucker Carlson broadcast a sympathetic two-hour interview, which was watched by more than 6.5 million people. Carlson did not challenge Fuentes’s views, which precipitated a major ruction inside the Republican Party and Donald Trump’s Maga movement. Rod Dreher, a conservative columnist, warned that the party has a neo-Nazi problem: between 30% and 40% of Republican staffers in Washington under the age of 30, Dreher said, are “Groypers”.

What is a Groyper?

Fuentes’s fanbase call themselves Groypers, or the “Groyper Army” after their logo: an unwholesome-looking cartoon toad named Groyper, a variant on the “Pepe the Frog” meme that became popular with far-right activists in 2015. More a loose-knit network of internet trolls than an organised movement, they see themselves as Maga’s edgy youth wing, and like to mock right-wing figures who are (relatively) more moderate.

In 2019, Fuentes started to criticise the conservative activist Charlie Kirk, whom he saw as insufficiently right-wing and in the pay of corporate donors. (“Conservative Inc.” is his name for Kirk’s brand of activism.) Fuentes’s supporters often attended Kirk’s events to heckle, in a conflict later referred to as the “Groyper War”.

Unlike the Maga mainstream, Groypers favour Catholic ultra-traditionalism or Eastern Orthodoxy over Evangelical Protestantism, and they oppose US support for Israel. But they’re so steeped in social media in-jokes, memes and irony that it’s hard to know what they really believe.

So what does Fuentes believe?

Being more outrageous than his competitors while suggesting it’s all a big game is a part of Fuentes’s act. As well as praising Hitler and Stalin, he has coined the slogan “Your body, my choice” to needle women concerned about abortion rights after Trump’s second election victory. His irony gives plausible deniability, and helps confuse mainstream critics – but there’s no reason to think he isn’t sincere about his positions: support for an ethnic and religious hierarchy with white Christian men at the top; a belief that black people are inclined to criminality; opposition to legal as well as illegal immigration; vehement anti-feminism; respect for authoritarianism; disdain for democracy.

A former fan (and, in 2022, dinner guest) of Donald Trump, Fuentes now says that “Trump 2.0 has been a disappointment in literally every way”, while Trump himself is “incompetent, corrupt and compromised”. He sees the vice president, J.D. Vance, as a corporate stooge and “a fat, gay race traitor” (Vance’s wife is of Indian descent). He has particularly criticised the administration for its support of Israel.

What are his views on Israel?

He rails against US backing and funding for Israel, questioning the mainstream rationale for the alliance, and suggesting that it serves the interests of Jewish elites rather than the US itself. His thinking often tips over into conspiratorial antisemitic tropes. Central to Fuentes’s thinking is the belief that “organised Jewry” exerts a disproportionate control over US political, financial and media institutions – in ways that harm “traditional America”. He has also said “Hitler was right. And the Holocaust didn’t happen.” Although he later claimed that this was a mere provocation, Fuentes has repeatedly said that the Holocaust is used to push a liberal, multicultural agenda – to “browbeat” whites and suppress white pride.

How is the Republican Party reacting?

Republican mainstays such as Mitch McConnell and Ted Cruz have denounced Fuentes, and Carlson for giving him a platform. Senator Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, made clear his position by declaring: “I’m in the ‘Hitler sucks’ wing of the Republican Party.” Elsewhere, the situation has not been so clearcut. After Carlson’s interview, Kevin Roberts, the director of The Heritage Foundation, a prominent right-wing think-tank, put out a video describing Carlson’s critics as a “venomous coalition” of “the globalist class”. (“Globalists” is often used as code for “Jews”.) This led to resignations at The Heritage Foundation; Roberts eventually had to apologise. However, neither Trump nor Vance has ever condemned Fuentes; presumably because they share some of his beliefs and don’t want to alienate the Groypers.

What does Fuentes want?

Apart from attention and money – his influencing operation is carefully monetised, from paid-for questions to branded merchandise – he has said for years that he wants the Groypers to infiltrate the US establishment and the Republican Party, and to displace traditional conservatism with his brand of far-right white nationalism. “Your job is to get into the Ivy League,” he told his followers. “Your job is to get into these offices and do what you need to do, say what you need to say.” He advises them to hide their views: “Hold it close to the chest.” Fuentes generally demurs when he’s asked if he wants to be president himself. But as the Maga movement begins to contemplate the post-Trump future, there are likely to be opportunities for a white nationalist influencer with a large, fervent online fanbase.

Donald Trump has repeatedly flirted with the idea that he could run for a third term in 2028. “There are methods which you could do it,” the president said in an interview with NBC News earlier in the year. He declined to elaborate further, but last month, during his Asia tour, he told reporters it was “too bad” he was not allowed to seek a third term, adding cryptically: "We'll see what happens”.

While mainstream Republican politicians have generally shied away from the idea of a third Trump term, several leading Maga figures have jumped on the bandwagon. Steve Bannon, the president’s former chief strategist turned influential podcaster, insisted: “Trump is going to be president in ’28, and people ought to just get accommodated with that. At the appropriate time, we’ll lay out what the plan is. But there is a plan.”

What does the constitution say?

The original text does not impose any limits on how long a president can remain in office, but the notion that the presidency should be limited to two terms dates back to the Founding Fathers. George Washington, the first US president, set the pattern by stepping aside after two terms despite clear popular support for him to continue to serve. Thomas Jefferson, who saw “little distinction between a long-serving executive in an elective position and a hereditary monarch”, followed suit, said political scientist and term-limit scholar Michael J. Korzi, so cementing the tradition.

Since 1951, however, presidents have been limited to two terms by the 22nd amendment of the constitution, which states: “no person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice”.

Why was the amendment adopted?

Successive presidents continued to observe the two-term convention until Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was elected to a third term in 1940 and had recently begun a fourth when he died in office in 1945.

When Congress convened for its 1947 session, imposing a constitutional term limit was high on the agenda. The debate was driven by the same “major concern” that motivated Jefferson: “to prevent a president from becoming a king”, said Mark Satta, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Law, Wayne State University, on The Conversation. But the then-recent experience of the Second World War, which had made Americans acutely aware of the dangers of allowing a leader to concentrate their power over a long period, had turned the issue into a priority. One representative said that a presidential term limit would assure the electorate that “we shall never have a dictator in this land”.

Could it be changed?

Not without an extraordinary legislative effort. Amending the constitution would need the approval of two-thirds of both the Senate and the House of Representatives, followed by ratification by at least three-quarters of state legislatures. It is almost impossible to imagine a plan to scrap the two-term limit getting the necessary levels of support, particularly to facilitate a president as divisive as Trump.

That has left Trump supporters pinning their hopes on what they see as a loophole. Under the constitution, the vice-president automatically accedes to the top job in the event an incumbent president dies, resigns or becomes incapacitated.

Some have suggested that Trump could join the 2028 election ticket as the running partner to a presidential candidate, who would then immediately resign after being sworn in. Trump would then automatically step into the role of president.

Legal experts dispute this argument, however. Derek Muller, an election law professor at the University of Notre Dame, told the BBC that the 12th amendment, which states “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of president shall be eligible to that of vice-president of the United States”, closed off that technicality. “I don’t think there’s any ‘one weird trick’ to getting around presidential term limits,” he said.

Would Trump likely try?

If the Supreme Court ruled that the wording of the 12th amendment did not preclude a two-time president serving as vice president, Trump could, in theory, “be president for life”, said Paul Gowder, Professor at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, on FactCheck.org. It would just be a case of “finding people to occupy the top of the ticket”.

But Trump has downplayed the idea of acceding to the presidency by the back door, saying: “I think people wouldn’t like that. It’s too cute. It wouldn't be right”.

A more likely avenue for Trump to retain his power and influence – if not legally his office and title as president – would be to get one of his family members to get elected in their own name, “and then serve as a figurehead president while Mr Trump makes the key decisions”, said The Telegraph.

As perhaps the most publicly religious member of the second Trump administration, Vice President JD Vance has long been an emissary between this White House and the right-wing Christian communities that form a core pillar of the MAGA tent. But Vance’s recent comments about his wife Usha’s faith and upbringing in an Indian Hindu home have drawn intense criticism from multiple religious communities, even as the vice president himself doubles down on hopes that the second lady might someday fully embrace his Christianity.

Vance’s statements about his family’s faith have taken on a layer of potential significance amid a concerted effort by some within the Trump administration to endorse the virtues of Christian Nationalism.

What did Vance say?

Appearing at a Turning Point USA event at the University of Mississippi last week, Vance was asked a question about “raising three children in an interfaith marriage” with his wife, Usha, and why conservatives have framed Christianity as a “prerequisite for being considered a patriotic American,” said The Washington Post. “Do I hope eventually that she is somehow moved by the same thing that I was moved by in church?” Vance said. “Yeah, I honestly do wish that because I believe in the Christian Gospel, and I hope eventually my wife comes to see it the same way.”

Several days later, Vance expanded on his comments on X in reply to an allegation that he’d thrown his wife “under the bus.” The Second Lady “is not a Christian and has no plans to convert,” Vance said. Regardless of if she does convert, Vance said, “I will continue to love and support her and talk to her about faith and life and everything else, because she’s my wife.”

What is he being criticized for?

Vance’s comments were “basically saying that my wife, this aspect of her is just not enough,” said Hindu American Foundation Executive Director Suhag Shukla to The New York Times. Were Vance simply an “ordinary” pastor, “then whatever,” but as vice president, Vance’s comments have “added kind of fuel” to a lot of fears and “uncertainty in the community,” Shukla said. At times, Vance has “postured himself as a kind of theologian in chief,” said the Post, using his own interpretation of Christianity to “justify the Trump administration’s policies through a religious lens.”

The public framing offered by the vice president about his wife’s relationship with Christianity “should give every American — especially those in interfaith families — pause,” said Religion News Service. Vance’s comments are not only a “private conviction” being “amplified through the power of public office” but are a “public reminder that only one faith is really American” for the millions of non-Christians in the country. Converting to Catholicism, as the vice president did in adulthood, has been “transformative for Vance. That is his truth,” RNS said. But for those in interfaith families, “transformation looks different.”

Put aside the “sheer callousness” of the vice president’s comments, and consider the “implications of Vance’s position for the very hope of a secular society,” said The Indian Express. Rather than this being a case of an “overbearing husband publicly humiliating his wife,” Vance is speaking as “VP of an administration increasingly dominated by a version of so-called ‘Christian Nationalism,’ which has effectively excommunicated so many Americans.”

What is the broader context?

The furor over Vance’s comments comes during a “palpable uptick in Christian nationalism vis-a-vis Hindus,” said the Times of India. At a separate Turning Point event recently, Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy was asked “how he would represent the state which is majority Christian when he is a self-professed Hindu,” prompting the onetime Trump administration figure to stress that he is “not running to be pastor of Ohio.”

Along with conservative Hindus, conservative Jews who “threw in with Trump and the GOP” are now “belatedly realizing” what some have warned, said Zeteo CEO and former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan on X: “The Christian nationalists of the MAGA GOP are not their friends.” Hasan’s comments come as the conservative world grapples with a growing antisemitism scandal prompted in part by an interview between broadcaster Tucker Carlson and avowed Nazi Nick Fuentes.

What happened

President Donald Trump and other top White House officials yesterday said they would join a broader Republican push to punish people who cheered or downplayed Charlie Kirk’s murder and target left-leaning groups and nonprofits they alleged supported violent protests against conservatives. “When you see someone celebrating Charlie’s murder, call them out,” Vice President J.D. Vance said on Kirk’s podcast, which he guest-hosted from the White House. “And hell, call their employer.” Dozens of people have been fired over Kirk-related posts.

Who said what

The White House officials offered few names and no evidence that liberal networks were financing or fomenting violence, though Vance accused the Ford Foundation and George Soros-funded Open Society Foundation of funding a “disgusting article” in The Nation that he claimed was used to justify Kirk’s killing. “Neither group appears to have provided money to The Nation in the past five years,” if ever, The Washington Post said, and the motive for Kirk’s slaying “remains unclear.”

Yesterday’s developments “underscore the extraordinary amount of time and resources” the White House has dedicated to advancing Kirk’s legacy and harnessing the “emotions surrounding his killing to potentially suppress dissent,” the Post said. (The Post “fired Karen Attiah, an opinion columnist, for posts” that “quoted Kirk denigrating the intelligence of prominent Black women,” The Associated Press said.)

What next?

The “actions being discussed” by the White House included “reviewing the tax-exempt status of left-leaning nonprofit groups and targeting them with anticorruption laws,” The Wall Street Journal said, though both proposals “face hurdles,” including “being accused of hypocrisy, given Trump has for years railed against government weaponization and what he views as attacks on free speech.”

Donald Trump is alive – his appearance and insistence that he has "never felt better" rubbishing rampant online speculation alleging he was dead.

Rumours of his demise had been circling, and were boosted last week by an unusual lack of public presence by the limelight-seeking president for three consecutive days.

Flags at half-mast

The speculation appears to have begun when a photograph of what looked to be bruising on Trump's right hand went viral in June, sparking theories he had been on an IV drip. Weeks later, it was revealed he was being treated for a non-life-threatening condition causing poor circulation and swelling in his lower limbs, said Al Jazeera.

Vice President J.D. Vance unwittingly fanned the flames when he said that if a "terrible tragedy" were to occur, he was ready to step into the role of president, seen by the conspiracy-minded as "evidence that something was awry".

As social media accounts began to call attention to Trump's absence from public engagements, hashtags like #trumpisdead and #whereistrump started trending and users searched for evidence to support the theory that the president was dying or dead, such as flags flying at half-mast at the White House. (This was actually in response to a school shooting.)

The story got a tongue-in-cheek boost when "The Simpsons" creator Matt Groening said the long-running cartoon would end only when "you-know-who dies", a reference to the show's "reputation for supposedly predicting real world events", said The Mirror.

This is not the first time Trump has been rumoured to have passed away, said The Tab. In 2020, at the height of the Covid pandemic, social media was abuzz with hearsay that he'd died from an overdose of the virus treatment hydroxychloroquine. In 2022, a comedian sparked another Trump death hoax, and by 2023 it was enough of a trope that the president's son Donald Trump Jr. joked on Twitter that his father was no longer with us.

'Degree of plausibility'

For rumours to spread, they must "have some degree of plausibility", said Psychology Today, with advanced age adding credence to speculation over the health of leaders. During his presidency, Joe Biden was also the subject of death hoaxes, as well as frequent speculation on his health and mental competence. Trump's physical condition and mental cognition have been called into question repeatedly during both his first and current terms.

Such tales are not new, with historical conspiracies having alleged the premature death of leaders from Joseph Stalin to Fidel Castro. But while nearly every US president has "been the subject of death rumours", most presidents served before social media, where platforms are "notorious for amplifying unverified claims", which can then rapidly "spread in the digital echo chamber".

Continually repeating a claim gives it credibility in an effect known as the "illusion of truth", and it follows then that more people are likely to believe it. Accusations that Trump's alleged death had been covered up simply played into the "widespread distrust" we have of politicians and the media. And in this context, "even the flimsiest of claims" can be accepted.

When President Donald Trump announced JD Vance as his vice presidential pick, he hailed him as someone who would "do everything he can to help me make America great again." But while Vance played the well-established role of campaign pitbull during the race, he has since kept a comparatively lower public profile compared to the televised bombast of other Cabinet members or favored presidential advisers. When asked in February if Vance was his successor to lead the MAGA movement in 2028, Trump demurred, saying it was too early to speculate, while affirming his VP was "very capable."

This week, however, Trump was noticeably more enthusiastic about Vance's future. He called him "most likely, in all fairness," his MAGA successor and "probably favorite at this point."

In 'pole position' with the MAGA base

Trump's qualified endorsement of Vance "appeared to be his strongest public backing" for the vice president's "political future," The New York Times said. By suggesting that Secretary of State Marco Rubio "maybe would get together with JD" as well, Trump signaled a "shift in his thinking over time," after having previously "floated both Vance and Rubio as possible successors" in May. While Trump has "singled out" both men in the past, he has "mostly avoided choosing a favorite," said CBS News.

Vance has "increasingly become one of the president's chief problem solvers," said CNN, with the vice president often involving himself in the administration's "key priorities" right as they "reach their thorniest points." The role has placed Vance in "pole position with the MAGA base early on," even if it also risks "dooming his chances down the road" with a "broader electorate" growing frustrated with the Trump administration. Trump holds "considerable influence with the Republican base," and any signs that he's picked a successor "carries significant implications," said Reuters. That the president has "not hesitated to give Vance high-visibility assignments" is matched by Vance's eagerness to do Trump's "bidding" on everything from "his relationship with Ukraine" to the "fight over records related to the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking scandal," said The Associated Press.

'Thanking his lucky stars'

Vance's growing public profile comes as the Trump administration struggles to contain the spiraling fallout from the ongoing Epstein scandal, which has engulfed the Justice Department and piqued the furor of the party's MAGA base. Given Trump's well-documented relationship with Epstein, Vance is "playing the part of the good soldier" while observing how Trump's "bumbling" has pulled the president into the "conspiratorial narrative" surrounding the Epstein saga, said USA Today. The vice president is likely "thanking his lucky stars" for Trump's handling of the case as he watches the president dig his "Epstein hole deeper and deeper."

Opportunism and an increased profile aside, polling suggests Vance's popularity has "steadily declined" since he assumed office, Newsweek said. While his appeal is "hardening among conservatives," it has eroded among "moderates, liberals, younger voters and communities of color."

What happened

President Donald Trump said Sunday night that the U.S. bombing of three Iranian nuclear sites on Saturday resulted in the "obliteration" of Tehran's nuclear program. The U.S. military and the United Nations said it was too soon to assess the damage. Vice President J.D. Vance insisted the U.S. was "not at war with Iran," just "Iran's nuclear program," and he and other Cabinet officials stated on TV that the Trump administration was not aiming for "regime change." But Trump Sunday night said toppling the "current Iranian regime" was certainly on the table.

Who said what

The Trump administration's "conflicting" messages about the scope of U.S. involvement "highlights the difficulty" it faces as it "tries to navigate the fallout" from "its massive strike on Iran" and "mollify the factions of the MAGA base" opposed to joining Israel's war, Politico said. This is a "risky moment for Trump," The Associated Press said, especially as he has long "belittled his predecessors for tying up America in 'stupid wars'" in the Middle East.

Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Sunday that initial assessments indicated "extremely severe damage and destruction" at the three nuclear facilities — Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan — hit by 30,000-pound U.S. "bunker-buster" bombs and Tomahawk missiles. But Rafael Grossi, the head of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency, said that "at this time, no one, including the IAEA, is in a position to assess the underground damage" at the sites.

U.S. officials also "conceded they did not know the whereabouts of Iran's supply of near-bomb-grade uranium," The New York Times said. A senior Iranian official told Reuters that the highly enriched uranium had been moved to undisclosed locations before the attack, a claim deemed probably true by outside experts and Israeli officials and bolstered by satellite photos.

What next?

At an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council Sunday, Iran's ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani said the U.S. had "recklessly chosen to sacrifice its own security merely to safeguard" Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Tehran's military will decide the "timing, nature and scale of Iran's proportionate response." U.S. intelligence officials had "already detected signs that Iran-backed militias were preparing to attack U.S. bases in Iraq, and possibly Syria," the Times said.

There is a "good chance" that the UK and the US could reach a "great" trade agreement, said US Vice President J.D. Vance in an interview with UnHerd. Donald Trump "really loves the United Kingdom".

Of course, the UK has heard this story before but there might be some substance to Vance's overtures, with a White House official telling The Telegraph that an agreement is expected "soon". "Two weeks," he said, before adding, "Or maybe three."

"While this would be a win" for Keir Starmer, said The Spectator, "questions remain over the substance". What would be included in the deal? And, perhaps most importantly, "can we really believe it will happen?"

What did the commentators say?

In this post-Brexit world, "an ambitious US-UK economic alliance would not only boost economic growth and prosperity, steering the economy away from recession; it would also be an almost unimaginable political prize for the prime minister himself," said The Independent. Starmer would "achieve what eluded all of his immediate Conservative predecessors". And, with only "the most modest" EU reset in sight, the US deal is "the best prospect available among major economies," especially as efforts with China have "yielded relatively little".

But what kind of "deal" is on the table? asked the BBC's Faisal Islam. Talks this time round have focused on science, tech, and AI cooperation, all "in return for avoiding tariffs". The US has also wanted to talk about the UK's "tech tax" on mainly US digital companies, and has raised issues about the Online Safety Act. Yet Britain faces a 10% "reciprocal tariff" and a 25% levy on cars, despite there being "no US trade deficit". The UK side, therefore, "has much to complain about".

Some sort of agreement may be "in the foothills" but to call this a "trade deal" would be "misleading", said Sky News' Mark Stone. It's more accurately "an 'economic deal' to reduce the tariffs". Still, any agreement would mark "a large step forward for the UK, which has been trying to engage America in closer trade alignment since Brexit".

But some in Westminster "are angsty about any compromises that may be offered up to Trump – or demanded by him" in return for a deal, said Politico's Andrew McDonald. Particularly worrisome is "any move to make it easier for US farmers to sell in the UK". That would be likely to anger British farmers, "who’ve already shown their willingness to storm Whitehall in their tractors".

What next?

Deal or not, let's not "lose sight of the big picture as Trump sees it", said Martin Kettle in The Guardian. Trump's tariff war "aims to obliterate" the global trade system and replace it with "a world trade order based on might is right, as represented by the US".

For Britain, therefore, "a free trade agreement with Trump's US can only be fundamentally defensive. It should be seen as a way of protecting British trade interests." And it is "not the key to unlocking UK prosperity".

Starmer will host an EU-UK summit in London on 19 May, as he "seeks to ease trade barriers with Brussels", said The Times. Experts have cautioned that, by aligning more closely with Brussels, Britain risks being drawn into Trump's trade war with the EU. In the meantime, negotiations with the US continue.

Since the post-1968 reforms that opened presidential nominations to binding primaries and caucuses, there have only been four cycles that didn't feature an incumbent or former president. But assuming that President Donald Trump doesn't seek an unconstitutional third term, 2028 will be one of them. These are some of the names being bandied about by political insiders looking ahead to the next election.

The Democrats already jockeying for position

Pete Buttigieg

Buttigieg served as Secretary of Transportation from 2021 to 2025, and his frequent appearances on right-wing outlets like Fox News "have been master classes in poise and articulation," said Advocate. He recently decided not to seek a Senate seat in Michigan, a "decision framed by several allies and people in his inner circle as putting him in the strongest possible position to seek the presidency," said Politico.

Gavin Newsom

Newsom has been governor of California since 2019. He "built his national profile opposing the Republican president during his first term," said Los Angeles Times. But in March Newsom caused a stir by inviting far-right operative Charlie Kirk onto his podcast, "angering many of the liberal activists whom Newsom would need to clinch the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028," said The Washington Post.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

The New York Democrat has taken on a leading role opposing the Trump administration's policies, including barnstorming the country with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-N.Y.). Ocasio-Cortez is "positioning herself well for a run," and the 35-year-old "would bring much-needed youthful vigour to a decaying party," said UnHerd.

JB Pritzker

The governor of Illinois since 2019, Pritzker has chosen a very different lane from Newsom, standing up for communities under fire from the Trump administration. He has distinguished himself by "pitching his potent combination of working-class issues, sharp business sense and reputation as a good-natured brawler," said Bloomberg. But Pritzker, who is not subject to term limits, "has yet to say whether he will seek a rare but not unprecedented third term as governor," said the Chicago Tribune.

Josh Shapiro

Shortlisted as Kamala Harris' running mate in 2024, Pennsylvania's governor is still in his first term. Shapiro has been "performing a balancing act in approaching the Trump administration," said NBC News. He has "cemented his image as a moderate willing to work across the aisle," said The Philadelphia Inquirer but remains "largely untested on the national stage."

Tim Walz

The 2024 Democratic vice presidential nominee remains Minnesota's governor until 2027 and said he would "rather fight Trump from his position as governor" than seek the state's open U.S. Senate seat next year, said The New Yorker. That decision means that Walz may throw his hat in for the 2028 nomination. Walz "launched a national tour of town halls in Republican House districts, traveling the country," said Axios, further fueling speculation about 2028.

Gretchen Whitmer

The two-term Michigan governor was one of the many names discussed to replace former President Joe Biden during the summer of 2024. Her double-digit reelection in a down year for Democrats in 2022 combined with her popularity in the purple state of Michigan turned her into a national figure. In terms of 2028 contenders, "there are few politicians talked about more than" Whitmer, said The New York Times.

Other names

Former vice president and 2024 Democratic nominee Kamala Harris is "expected to make a decision by the end of the summer" about running for governor of California, said the Los Angeles Times, and could still run for president again. Popular Democratic governors like Jared Polis of Colorado could join the fray, as could prominent Trump critics in the Senate like Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.), whose day-long filibuster in April means that he is "most likely going to run again," said The Conversation. Celebrities like businessman Mark Cuban and ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith are also in the mix.

A shorter list of Republicans in the shadow of J.D. Vance

Nikki Haley

In the past, the runner-up in the GOP primary often had the inside track on the next open nomination. It is not clear whether this rule will apply to former UN Ambassador and 2024 GOP runner-up Nikki Haley, who at this point represents a defeated faction in the party. It is also "not likely she would have" President Trump's backing "if she runs in 2028," said Fox News, which could cripple her chances.

Ron DeSantis

Like Haley, the Florida governor's biggest challenge as he prepares a 2028 presidential bid is to "win back supporters of the Republican leader whom he dared to challenge in the last election," said The Associated Press. DeSantis, who ended his 2024 campaign after a disappointing showing in the Iowa GOP caucus, remains popular in Florida and was reelected by nearly 20 points in 2022 in what was once a swing state.

Kristi Noem

Noem, now the Secretary of Homeland Security, was "floated as a potential running mate for Trump last year" before he picked J.D. Vance and "has since become a loyal and vocal supporter of the president, said The Hill. She seems to have survived the scandal from her memoir, in which she found herself "under fire for killing her family's 14-month-old dog and boasting about it," said The New York Times.

Marco Rubio

Rubio ran unsuccessfully for president in 2016, losing the nomination to Trump. Now, the former Florida senator is the Secretary of State in the second Trump administration and "needs to decide how much he wants to go along with things that clearly run counter to his previous principles," such as siding with Russia in the Ukraine conflict, said The Washington Post.

J.D. Vance

The sitting vice president is just 40 years old and will benefit from having a "group of younger, more populist Republicans who are vocally advocating" for him as Trump's successor, said Semafor. No incumbent vice president in the modern period who has sought his or her party's nomination has failed to get it. Even better, "Trump's longtime aides and allies have begun throwing their support behind Vance," said The Independent.

Glenn Youngkin

Rumored as a more mainstream alternative to President Trump for the 2024 GOP nomination, Youngkin never ended up throwing his hat in the ring. Virginia's popular GOP governor is subject to the state's unusual one-term-at-a-time limit and cannot seek re-election in 2025. He is "seen as staunchly conservative but has a broad appeal, stretching outside of the MAGA movement," said The Hill.

Other names

Vance's presumed dominance of the field makes the GOP's long-list considerably shorter than those of the Democrats. But those who received support in a recent Yougov poll include the president's son Donald Trump, Jr., Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, CIA Director Tulsi Gabbard, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Vice President J.D. Vance went to Greenland last week to "make the case for a U.S. takeover," said Clarissa-Jan Lim in MSNBC.com, and was met with a "frosty reception." Vance joined his wife, Usha, for a daylong visit to a U.S. military base, which came amid President Trump's calls for the U.S. to annex the self-governing Danish territory. In a press conference there, Vance said Greenlanders would fare "a lot better" under "the United States' security umbrella" than under Denmark's, and admonished Denmark for "underinvesting" in the territory. But it was a message few seemed interested in hearing. What had been planned as a three-day trip by Usha Vance was dialed back after an "uproar among local officials" and residents; Greenland Prime Minister Mute B. Egede called the visit a "provocation" and declined to meet with U.S. officials. But Trump only doubled down, saying "we have to have Greenland" and refusing to rule out the use of military force.

It's a remarkable turn of events, said Walter Russell Mead in The Wall Street Journal. For anyone who believes U.S. foreign policy should be guided by partnerships with allies, "respect for international law, and due regard for ethics," Trump's threats toward a NATO ally are "a political absurdity and a moral monstrosity." He risks "blowing up" both NATO and the "framework of international laws and norms" that has guided the post-war era. And for what? Trump says U.S. control of Greenland is key to national security, but Denmark has made clear it is open to the U.S. basing additional forces there. The Vance visit, which included national security adviser Mike Waltz and Energy Secretary Chris Wright, underscored Trump's "territorial ambitions," said David E. Sanger in The New York Times. Over it hung a mystery: "How far Trump is willing to go to achieve his goal."

Don't underestimate the threat here, said Nick Catoggio in The Dispatch. There's a temptation to believe Trump is making chess moves, and that his ulterior aim is to seek expanded access to the island, or signal to NATO that "limiting Russian and Chinese access to the Atlantic" must be a higher priority. But over and over we've seen that failing to take Trump at face value is a mistake. He's telling us that nothing short of annexing Greenland will do, and by now we should understand: "When he says he's going to do something crazy, believe him."

'America's future is Hungary'

Anne Applebaum at The Atlantic

The "nationalist kitsch and tourist traps" of Hungary "hide a different reality," says Anne Applebaum. The Hungarian "prime minister, Viktor Orban, plays an outsize role in the American political debate." There is a "very old, very familiar blueprint for autocratic takeover, one that has been deployed by right-wing and left-wing leaders alike." Orban's "autocratic takeover is precisely what Bannon, Roberts and others admire, and are indeed seeking to carry out in the U.S. right now."

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'Jazz is profoundly American'

Elizabeth Alexander at Time

Jazz is the "most fundamental expression of innovation and creativity in American society, and as such must be both uplifted and protected," says Elizabeth Alexander. Having shaped the "arts and culture in their many different forms in our country, jazz lies at the heart of our great experiment." It's "no wonder then that jazz and the freedom it carries and conveys have long flourished." The "learning and the guiding" must be "preserved if we want jazz to persist."

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'Andrew Tate is back in Romania. How we handle him will reveal what kind of country we really are.'

Andrei Popoviciu at The Guardian

The Tate brothers have "returned to Romania from the U.S. as part of their legal obligations in the investigation against them," which is a "true test of our political and judicial system at a tense time," says Andrei Popoviciu. Will "officials bow down to pressure from the new U.S. administration? What will their handling of the case say about the country we are now?" If "Romania's justice system wants to maintain any credibility, it must remain independent."

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'Sorry, Mr. Vance, things are not the same as people'

Dan McLaughlin at the National Review

J.D. Vance is a "man who knows when he is holding low cards and needs to bluff," says Dan McLaughlin. Vance "still doesn't dispute that he's arguing that all Americans should pay a higher cost of living for the foreseeable future." This "requires an immense faith in politicians that is not grounded in anything." What's "really ridiculous is the argument that advocating free trade is equivalent to arguing that 'it should be illegal for the United States to control our borders.'"

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"I have never seen a breach quite like this". That was the damning assessment of Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, after he was accidentally added to a group chat on Signal where top US defence and intelligence officials were discussing confidential war plans to strike Houthi rebels in Yemen.

This major security "botch" will only further stoke concerns that have "repeatedly been raised about intelligence sharing with the US" under Donald Trump's administration, said Sam Blewett at Politico.

What did the commentators say?

Even before Trump's inauguration in January, Washington's intelligence-sharing partners had "began to assess the need to become more reserved about what they can risk sharing with US partners – and what to hold back", said Keir Giles and John Sipher at Foreign Policy. During Trump's first term, the partners had watched with "horror" when he "challenged his own intelligence services, posted a classified photo of an Iranian missile launch site, and eagerly shared secret intelligence with Russian officials".

With Trump's return to the White House, "fears of sharing sensitive information with Washington will have deepened radically" as it "became clear that the US now places a higher value on partnering with the Kremlin" than on the "concerns of its European allies".

Earlier this month, four former British ambassadors to the US voiced concern about the future of intelligence sharing, following Trump's re-election. One, Sir David Manning, who was ambassador between 2003 and 2007, told a parliamentary committee that some Trump appointees had "strange track records" which would create a "problem on the intelligence front".

In the US, Democrats and even some Republicans have expressed anger and outrage at the latest security breach but, for Keir Starmer, "concern may go deeper than the Signal conversation over the Houthi war plan", said Simon Marks in The i Paper. It is as yet "unknown how many similar conversations about classified operations may have already taken place via insecure technology that is not government-approved, and how many of the West's enemies may have found ways of snooping on them".

What next?

US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, who invited Goldberg to join the Signal chat, "probably ought to resign", said Freddy Gray in The Spectator, and there is already a "furious discussion inside the White House" that he "may need to be forced out", said Politico.

But there remains the much bigger question about the future of Western intelligence sharing, particularly the "Five Eyes" arrangement that the US has with the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

It is "part of the web of cooperation among Washington and its friends that has long underpinned US and Western security", said Foreign Policy. But now, the other four nations would be "entirely justified to wonder just how secure their intelligence can be in the hands of US officials" who not only shared top-secret military plans on Signal but also included "one of America's leading journalists", said The i Paper.

The strongest relationship within Five Eyes has always been the one between the US and UK. The way that these long-standing allies help each other is "unique", Dame Karen Pierce, who stepped down as ambassador to the US in February, told the parliamentary committee last month. So, intelligence sharing would continue, "even if, at the top level, there might be things we might wish to be a bit circumspect about".

"Few public figures have exploded onto the world stage quite like US Vice-President J.D. Vance," said Dominic Sandbrook in The Times.

In his first major foreign speech, at the Munich Security Conference, he caused a stink by berating European leaders about free speech. After that, he laid into Ukraine's President Zelenskyy in the Oval Office for supposedly showing insufficient gratitude to President Trump. And he then upset more people by dismissing talk of UK and French peacekeepers in Ukraine, saying a US mineral deal would protect the nation better than "20,000 troops from some random country that hasn't fought a war in 30 or 40 years". One assumes copies of Vance's misery memoir, "Hillbilly Elegy", aren't "flying off the shelves in Royal Wootton Bassett". Vance has swiftly established himself as a hate figure among critics of the Trump administration, said Marina Hyde in The Guardian. The internet is so awash with parodies that he is now "more meme than man".

This mockery by progressives won't bother Vance, said Yair Rosenberg in The Atlantic. He's used to being "the outlier in the room – whether as a conservative in liberal spaces" such as Yale Law School, or as a self-styled hillbilly "in the halls of Washington and Silicon Valley". The vice-presidency has traditionally been the "booby prize" of US politics, but Vance has proved effective and versatile in the role so far. He has "played the pugilist provocateur on conservative podcasts and the civil conciliator on the vice-presidential debate stage"; he also spends a lot of time on X/Twitter deftly skewering Trump's opponents. If the administration completes its term in decent shape, he'll be well-positioned to replace Trump in the White House.

I suspect Vance and his boss will fall out before then, said Alison Phillips in The i Paper. That partly comes from reading Vance's memoir, in which he angrily relates how, in his youth, he tried to ingratiate himself with his mother's successive boyfriends in a vain attempt to stop them leaving. He got his ear pierced to impress Steve, "a midlife-crisis sufferer", pretended to love police cars to please Chip, an alcoholic police officer, and was kind to the children of Ken, an odd-job man.

Reading this, one can't help but see Trump as just another "father figure" who is destined to let Vance down. The president is "the ultimate transactional politician" – for him, it's all about deals. Vance, at heart, is an "ideologue", with little interest in deals. Sooner or later, that difference in outlook will lead to a rupture.

'My hope for the Tibetan people'

The Dalai Lama at The Washington Post

Tibetans "continue to be deprived of their dignity as a people and their freedom to live according to their own wishes and their culture," says the Dalai Lama. Will China "choose the path of dominance and aggression?" Or "will it choose the path of responsibility and embrace a constructive leading role?" Resolving the "long-standing problem of Tibet through dialogue would be a powerful signal," and "what is required from China's leadership is long-term vision, courage and magnanimity."

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'The FDA's new boss will face an age-old dilemma'

Daniela J. Lamas at The New York Times

FDA commissioner nominee Dr. Marty Makary "would step into a role increasingly defined by the tension between fostering lifesaving innovation and ensuring that the public is protected from unsafe or ineffective drugs," says Daniela J. Lamas. This "will be made even more complicated by the Trump administration's threats to research funding and the distrust of science espoused by Dr. Makary's boss, Robert F. Kennedy Jr." How "will Dr. Makary reconcile all the different priorities?"

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'Trump kills an intrusive housing rule, again'

Stanley Kurtz at National Review

Donald Trump is ending the "notoriously intrusive Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule," which "gives the feds the ability to control zoning regulations and many other aspects of local government," says Stanley Kurtz. It "severely undermines our federalist system, not only by expanding central control but by turning suburban municipalities into helpless satellites of neighboring urban centers." The "death of AFFH at the hands of President Trump is a sign of the times."

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'The latest trend online must be simply devastating for JD Vance'

Scott Nover at Slate

J.D. Vance "speaks the language of the millennial internet. So the latest social media trend must be simply devastating for him," says Scott Nover. When the "vice president scrolls on his phone, does he stare into a fun-house mirror, where he's been stretched into forms once thought unimaginable?" The "Vance edits are a vice presidential body horror," but "perhaps the sharpest barbs take aim at Vance's very real performance in the Oval Office."

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How times change, said Pieter Haeck on Politico (Brussels). When world leaders gathered to discuss artificial intelligence at Bletchley Park a mere 15 months ago, their main preoccupation was with safety – with whether this rapidly developing technology could, you know, "make humanity extinct". Yet those worries are all terribly passé, apparently.

The declaration from last week's AI summit in Paris "mentioned safety only three times"; rather, it stated that AI development had to be "open" and "inclusive", resulting in the US and UK refusing to sign it altogether. With the new fixation on unlocking growth, politicians from around the globe loudly vowed to cut red tape, invest and innovate. "I'm not here to talk about AI safety," insisted US Vice-President J.D. Vance. "I'm here to talk about AI opportunity." "Europe is open for AI and for business," declared the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen.

Rightly so, said Martin Ehl in Hospodárské noviny (Prague). The sudden emergence of China's DeepSeek shows the AI arms race is still wide open, which is why the Trump administration is rightly taking the brakes off its own projects. If Europe wants to compete, it can't keep focusing on regulating, or it will "miss the boat".

I'm sorry, said Laurent Duraisin in Le Quotidien (Eschsur-Alzette), but have we lost our minds? The AI revolution is still in its infancy and already is full of horrors – "infamous deepfakes", AI-generated fraud, you name it: each time this tech develops, so does its ability to wreak havoc. And it's not as if we can rely on the tech giants to protect us. "The geniuses of Silicon Valley", with their mammoth monopolies, find no trouble getting around any national laws that get in the way of their company's bottom line, even without legislators making it easy for them.

Europe faces a "devilish" conundrum, said Daniel Verdú in El País (Madrid). Its leaders have a duty to ensure AI benefits Europe's citizens and businesses, not least by looking to protect them from foreseeable harm. But as Vance warned at the summit, the Trump administration won't tolerate foreign governments "tightening the screws on US companies".

In short, the EU can try to regulate the potential dangers, but the world's largest AI power won't be participating – leaving the old continent at risk of falling even further behind. For its part, the Trump administration is clearly rattled by China, said the FT. But by boldly ripping the guardrails off AI, it's making "a potentially reckless bet – that it can master this game-changing technology first, without anything going wrong along the way".

The reliable pipeline from Ivy League law school to success and riches is well established in the U.S., and Vice President J.D. Vance is no exception. Despite the Trump administration's controversial efforts to undermine the independence and power of the country's most prestigious universities, the vice president would almost certainly not be a wealthy man one heartbeat away from the presidency without the ballast provided by his alma mater. Vance, who wrote in his bestselling memoir "Hillbilly Elegy" about how his childhood in Appalachian Ohio was scarred by his mother's struggles with addiction, parlayed his coveted Yale University legal education into a successful career as an author, lawyer, investor and politician whose rapid ascent from the Senate to the vice presidency is almost without parallel in American history.

Yet unlike President Trump, a billionaire who inherited millions from his father's real estate business, Vance's wealth was self-made through book royalties, investments and employment, leaving him and his wife Usha with a fortune that, while substantial in comparison to the net worth of most ordinary Americans, will not land him on lists of the world's wealthiest individuals anytime soon. Today, the Vances' combined income and investments, including real estate and crypto, is "estimated at between $4.8 million and $11.3 million, according to federal disclosure forms filed in August" of 2024, said CBS News. Forbes estimated the couple's net worth at $10 million in November 2024.

From a difficult childhood to Yale Law School

While the exact circumstances of Vance's childhood in Middletown, Ohio, are a matter of dispute and speculation, he certainly faced trying circumstances. His mother was addicted to painkillers and "raised her own children amid violence, chaos, drugs and strange men," said The New Yorker. But despite the vice president's frequent claims that he grew up in poverty, the Vances "never had to worry about money," said The Conversation. On the contrary, his parents, despite their troubles, made good money and "at one point enjoyed a six-figure income" in addition to being able to draw upon a reservoir of family wealth from Vance's grandfather, said Rolling Stone.

Vance attended Ohio State as an undergraduate and obtained his J.D. from prestigious Yale Law School in 2013. At Yale, he benefited from advice and guidance from "several prominent mentors who would help him move through the world of elite institutions and politics," including "Tiger Mom" author and Professor of Law Amy Chua, said The Guardian. His classmates at the renowned law school, which produced the second-largest number of current federal judges after Harvard University, also helped turn his ambitions into reality.

"In Vance's final year at Yale, he convened a reading group" to look at the lack of mobility and poor social outcomes for white working class Americans, said The Washington Post. The group was where Vance began working on the ideas that would become "Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis," a book that "gave a voice to millions of forgotten Americans across the heartland," said The White House.

The memoir that catapulted Vance to stardom

The book sold more than 1.6 million copies and brought in nearly $500,000 in royalties between its publication in 2016 and 2025. "Hillbilly Elegy" was "mostly a family story" whose key insights included "its challenges to the self-delusional and self-defeating aspects of hillbilly culture," and which was "not notably polemical," said Slate. Many copies were seemingly purchased by dispirited liberals hoping to understand how Donald Trump won the 2016 election. "Hillbilly Elegy" was a "compassionate, discerning sociological analysis of the white underclass that has helped drive the politics of rebellion, particularly the ascent of Donald J. Trump," said The New York Times. In 2019, Netflix "paid $45 million" to acquire the film rights to the book, "with Vance reaping some of that windfall," said Yahoo Finance. The film, directed by Ron Howard and released in 2020, was critically panned and felt "like a package of assorted chicken parts that can’t be assembled back into something approximating the shape of an actual animal," said Vulture. It currently has a critics' score of 24% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Vance's tome enjoyed another run of success and interest when he was selected to be President Trump's running mate during the summer of 2024. The book sold more than 750,000 copies just in the two weeks following Trump's decision, leading his publisher to print "hundreds of thousands of additional copies to keep up with demand," said The New York Times. The centrality of royalties to Vance's wealth is similar to the way that earnings from memoirs like "A Promised Land" are still a key part of former President Barack Obama's net worth.

How Vance's career built his fortune

After law school, Vance served as a clerk for a conservative judge on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in northern Kentucky. Federal clerkships are prestigious apprenticeships that typically go to high-performing graduates of top law schools and are used as a springboard to launch various kinds of legal careers. "Law clerks' salaries cannot match those of some private-sector lawyers," but they are "reasonable" and "adjusted to account for cost-of-living differences nationwide," said Cornell Law School. After the clerkship, Vance worked for Sidley Austin LLP, a law firm where "he focused on complex litigation and regulatory compliance matters, gaining exposure to high-stakes corporate legal issues," said LawFuel. Glassdoor estimates that attorneys at Sidley Austin make an average of $246,000 a year, although that figure was likely lower in 2014.

After his short tenure at Sidley Austin, Vance moved to a biotech startup and then to Peter Thiel's venture capital firm, Mithril Capital, in 2015. He was reportedly rarely seen there, and one colleague "recalled sporadic sightings of Vance" but noted that Vance's "focus seemed to be promoting his book rather than engaging in the day-to-day operations of the VC firm," said Yahoo Finance. In 2017, Vance then moved to "Steve Case's Revolution venture firm," which invested "in companies outside major tech hubs," including in the Midwest, said Business Insider. Vance founded the venture capital firm Narya in 2019 and "still owns pieces of the funds that he helped advise." Narya was "one of the top 10 investors in the video platform Rumble," which "came to prominence as a haven for right-wing and conspiracy-minded users during 2020," said The Guardian.

Though he "made little mark on the tech scene," Vance's relatively brief time working in Silicon Valley "was crucial for forging connections with billionaire executives and investors" like Thiel and Elon Musk, said The New York Times. In 2022, Vance sought and got the Republican nomination for the Ohio Senate seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Rob Portman and won both the GOP primary as well as the general election. Vance earned $174,000 a year as a U.S. Senator from 2023 to 2025. He now makes $235,100 as the vice president and, unlike President Trump, has yet to mint any meme coins or self-branded Bibles to capitalize on his new position.

In 2014, Vance married his law school classmate Usha Chilukuri (now Usha Vance), who clerked for Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts as well as for Brett Kavanaugh while Kavanaugh was an appellate court justice. Between 2018 and 2024, she worked as an attorney for Munger, Tolles & Olson, a San Francisco law firm specializing in "higher education, local government, entertainment and technology," said Vogue. The median pay at the firm today is $239,000, according to Glassdoor. Usha Vance resigned from her position at Munger, Tolles & Olson "to focus on caring for our family," said Vance in a statement to People.

A comfortable perch at the top for the Vances

In 2021, "taxpayers in the top 1% had adjusted gross incomes of at least $682,577," said Investopedia, meaning that the Vance's were likely among or near the top 1% of earners in the United States before he began his political career. They own two homes, one "east of the Capitol building" that is "worth about $850,000 today," as well as "a $1.4 million home in Cincinnati's left-leaning East Walnut Hills," said Forbes. The Cincinnati home is a "five-bedroom property" with "over 6,000 square feet set on 2.29 acres overlooking the Ohio River," said Business Insider.

Today, the Vances' combined income and investments, including real estate and crypto, is "estimated at between $4.8 million and $11.3 million, according to federal disclosure forms filed in August" of 2024, said CBS News. Forbes estimates the couple's net worth at $10 million.

Kindness is so over. Since Donald Trump re-entered the White House, it has become apparent that America is not simply moving past the excesses of progressivism — the compulsory stating of pronouns, the hawking of anti-racism books for babies, the pretending that "Emilia Pérez" is a good movie — but beyond the idea that it's good to care for others at all.

On social media, people have rejoiced at the slashing of U.S. food aid and medicine for people suffering genocide and famine. "Frankly at this point out of f---s to give about Sudanese babies," read one post that appeared on my X timeline. Vice President J.D. Vance has invoked medieval Catholic theology to justify the shuttering of borders to asylum seekers, saying we have a moral obligation to prioritize our nearest and dearest over strangers. Never mind that do-gooding parable of the Good Samaritan stuff.

Then there's the world's richest man, Elon Musk, who can barely contain his glee as he takes a scythe to federal funding for lifesaving biomedical research ("a rip-off!") and foreign aid. Musk once told his biographer how his favorite video game had taught him the "life lesson" that "empathy is not an asset." We're now seeing what happens when that mantra becomes a governing philosophy.

Still, Musk is not entirely without empathy. When a 25-year-old engineer with his Department of Government Efficiency resigned last week after being linked to a series of racist online posts —"Normalize Indian hate," read one from last year — the billionaire benevolently declared that the ex-staffer would be rehired. "To err is human," Musk wrote on X, "to forgive divine."

Vance also called on people to show some compassion. "I don't think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid's life," said the veep, whose wife, Usha, is Indian-American. So perhaps kindness isn't dead after all; it's just being down-sized, like the government. If you're a starving Sudanese kid, sorry, we just don't have the resources to care. But if you're a racist troll who's hit hard times, don't worry, we got you.

This is the editor's letter in the current issue of The Week magazine.

What happened

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts released his annual end-of-year report on the judiciary Tuesday, warning that judges are facing increasing threats of violence and intimidation as public officials threaten to ignore lawful court rulings.

Who said what

"Violence, intimidation and defiance directed at judges because of their work undermine our republic, and are wholly unacceptable," Roberts wrote. Officials "from across the political spectrum have raised the specter of open disregard for federal court rulings," and "these dangerous suggestions" must be "soundly rejected."

Roberts didn't name any officials, and some Democrats have "toyed publicly with declining to enforce court decisions," CNN said. But his report arrived weeks before the inauguration of Donald Trump, who has "repeatedly decried the federal judiciary as rigged." The warning was an "unmistakable — and well-deserved — swipe" at Vice President-elect J.D. Vance, a Yale Law graduate who has recently made several "reckless suggestions" about Trump ignoring federal court rulings, Ruth Marcus said at The Washington Post.

What next?

After a series of polarizing rulings and ethics controversies, "public confidence in the judiciary as a whole has collapsed" and "approval of the Supreme Court remains mired near record lows," the Post said, citing recent Gallup polling.

'How JD Vance could become the most powerful VP in American history'

Jeff Mayhugh at The Hill

J.D. Vance "might be the most powerful vice president in American history," says Jeff Mayhugh. Vance "could use his intellectual prowess, congressional and venture capitalist relationships, and competitive roots to expand the power of the vice presidency." If "Trump recognizes Vance's growing influence and reacts unpredictably, Vance's position as vice president would make him the only person in Trump's inner circle who cannot be fired." Vance has the "potential to wield that power in ways never seen before."

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'What Scotland can teach America about democracy'

Joe Mathews at the San Francisco Chronicle

Earth's "2.3 billion children now represent a rising global superpower," says Joe Mathews, and "children are demanding more of the democratic rights that they are now denied." In Scotland, all children "have been able to register to vote at age 14 and cast ballots at 16." When "looking at the world in Edinburgh, children's power feels like a rising tide. Who, but a fool or an adult, would dare stand in our kids' way?"

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'Abortion has always been more than health care'

Christen Hammock Jones at Time

Abortion "is health care in the broad sense of the term," says Christen Hammock Jones. But "many feminists working towards abortion rights in the 1960s and '70s would have viewed this framing with suspicion." Many "thought medicine itself was a lost cause because of the hierarchy that placed 'expert' doctors above patients." Like "feminists in the 1960s and '70s, those calling for the return of Roe should widen their vision of abortion rights beyond the clinic."

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'Baseball has much larger problems than the farcical "golden at-bat"'

David Lengel at The Guardian

A baseball rule change "would allow a team to send their preferred player to the plate, at any time, even if it wasn't his turn to hit, once a game," but this "transforms the game into a different code," says David Lengel. Baseball needs "real solutions to the crisis of endless arm injuries," but "instead we get the golden at-bat, the equivalent of being bored at 2 a.m. on the Fourth of July and stuffing M-80s inside cinder blocks."

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A little bit of history came out of the presidential election. Usha Vance, the wife of Vice President-elect J.D. Vance, will be the first Indian American second lady. And she'll be the first Hindu.

Vance, 38, took a "more behind-the-scenes role on the campaign trail," said ABC News. She did introduce her husband at the Republican National Convention in July, but that was the end of her public remarks in the runup to the election. "The thing that J.D. asked, and the thing that I certainly agreed to do, is to keep him company," she said to NBC News. Now the Vances and their three children will be moving to the Naval Observatory, the traditional vice presidential residence. Her intent? "Giving them a stable, normal, happy life and upbringing," she said.

Usha Vance has a "conspicuous resume" for a political spouse, said The New York Times. She was a law clerk for Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., then went to work as a litigator for a "prestigious San Francisco law firm." She is the daughter of Indian immigrants who grew up near San Diego, eventually landing at Yale Law School, where she met her husband. But her own views on today's big issues are mostly unknown. Usha Vance is "something of a political cipher," said the Times.

A couple in 'lockstep,' moving right

Even at Yale, Usha Vance's politics were mostly a mystery, said Business Insider. "She was more tight-lipped, at least in my experience, with her political views," said Marvin Lim, a Yale Law School classmate who went into Democratic politics. Usha Vance was a registered Democrat until 2014 — and the law firm she worked for, Munger, Tolles & Olson, has been described as "woke" — but in 2021 she made a donation to conservative Arizona Republican Blake Masters. (She stepped away from the firm when her husband joined the Trump ticket.) The thread through it all? "Her devotion to her husband" since they met at Yale, said Business Insider.

J.D. Vance has "leaned heavily on his wife over the past decade-and-a-half" as he emerged into the national spotlight, said USA Today. Usha Vance's politics may make her an "enigma" in public, but friends and family of the couple say the pair have been in "lockstep" as her husband moved from the Never Trump camp to one of Donald Trump's most reliable allies in the U.S. Senate and eventually to his running mate. The Vances are "a team in every sense of the word," said Jai Chabria, a family friend.

'Some real good for the country'

Usha Vance has told interviewers that she and her husband "don't always agree politically," said Politico. But she told "Fox & Friends" that she's on board for another Trump presidency. "If I didn't feel that the ticket, the Trump-Vance ticket, was able to do some real good for the country, then I wouldn't be here supporting him and J.D. wouldn't have done this," she said. Even when the couple disagrees, she said, Usha Vance trusts her husband's intentions. "There's a nice give and take, but I think it's a pretty happy one."

What happened

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) and Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) faced off Tuesday night in their only scheduled vice-presidential debate. The 90-minute debate, hosted by CBS News in New York, was widely described as cordial and policy-focused, with substantive exchanges on abortion, immigration, housing, health care and democracy.

Who said what

The debate was "something that's become increasingly rare in modern American politics: normal," CNN said. Vance attacked Walz's running mate, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Walz went after Donald Trump, but the two VP nominees disagreed with each other "the way typical Americans argue about contentious issues."

Walz's performance "wasn't great," especially at first, while Vance "appeared much more comfortable in his own skin," Aaron Blake said at The Washington Post. Walz's roughest moment was his rambling acknowledgment he "misspoke" about being in Hong Kong during China's Tiananmen Square massacre — he arrived two months afterward. He was, he said, a "knucklehead at times."

But toward the end of the night, "Walz delivered the argument that Democrats wanted" on abortion rights and Vance's fealty to Trump and his lie about winning the 2020 election, David Weigel said at Semafor. "Did he lose the 2020 election?" Walz asked Vance. "Tim, I'm focused on the future," Vance said, a reply Walz called a "damning non-answer." On Jan. 6, 2021, Walz told Vance, "when Mike Pence made that decision to certify that election, that's why Mike Pence isn't on this stage."

A CBS News-YouGov snap poll of 1,630 likely voters who watched the debate found that 42% thought Vance won while 41% said Walz did, with 17% calling it a tie.

What next?

The debate, CNN said, is "unlikely to change the trajectory of the presidential race." Trump reiterated afterward that he wouldn't debate Harris again, despite her goading, and CBS News said he backed out of a scheduled "60 Minutes" interview with Scott Pelley next Monday; Harris will still participate in the long-running election special.

Last night's "showdown" between vice-presidential candidates Tim Walz and JD Vance may have been the last significant campaign event before the US election, said Politico. 

Polls currently put Kamala Harris and Donald Trump in a "neck-and-neck race" for the White House in November. With no other debates scheduled, this was the last chance for "both men to pitch themselves and their party's vision for the next four years". The Republicans' Vance, in particular, needed to shake off a month of bad headlines and "make up for Trump's poor performance" debating Vice-President Harris last month. 

The stakes in vice-presidential debates are "typically low", said the BBC. But in a race that could be decided by "tens of thousands of votes", any opportunity for "positive attention and political momentum is precious".

What did the commentators say?

If there was "any conventional wisdom" beforehand, it was that both candidates would be "fiery and combative", said Ed Kilgore for New York Magazine's Intelligencer. But the debate was "strangely civil", filled with "small gestures of courtesy and agreement". In Walz's words, "I think there was a lot of commonality here." "Me too, man," agreed Vance.

Walz "wasn't as slick", but bested Vance on several topics – most notably reproductive rights, a crucial weakness for the GOP. But Vance was not "the base-pleasing demagogue" we've come to expect. You do have to wonder if the "temperamental difference" between this newly civil Vance and Trump will "reflect poorly on the latter" among undecided voters. 

Indeed, Walz and Vance spent most of the night "defending their running mates' records", said Politico's Myah Ward and Adam Cancryn. "They were less successful promoting their bosses' plans for the future", which afforded "little opportunity to make a fresh and forceful case to undecided voters".

The "leitmotif " was essentially "two diametrically opposed candidates" that agree on a lot, wrote The Guardian US columnist Moustafa Bayoumi. But the debate "will be forgotten by next week, if only because the world is currently a powder keg". 

It's already been forgotten, "obscured" by the "far more dramatic news" of Iran's strikes on Israel, said The Spectator's deputy editor Freddy Gray. Walz "fumbled" on the big story, saying "Iran" when he meant "Israel", twice, "which hardly suggested a mastery of international affairs". Vance sounded "authoritative, composed, more professional", with a "tight grasp of details".

But Walz also performed "entirely adequately, reinforcing his steady, nice-guy image", said Emma Shortis on The Conversation. The "standout moment", near the end, came when Walz asked Vance whether Trump lost the 2020 election. Vance "refused" to offer the "clear right answer", said Vox senior correspondent Zack Beauchamp. "Tim, I'm focussed on the future," he fudged. It was, as Walz said, "a damning non-answer". 

This was "the only truly important moment of the night" and the fact that there was "no clear winner" likely won't move the dial. 

What next?

The vice-presidential debate might not shift the needle, but the role of vice-president very much does. Soon either Vance or Walz will preside over the Senate and be "empowered to break ties, as Harris has done a record 33 times", said The Associated Press. It's also the VP's job to preside over the certification of electoral results and to take over if something happens to the president. 

If Trump wins, he will be the oldest president in history, and the two recent assassination attempts against him also raise "the saliency of succession", said vice presidential historian Joel K. Goldstein. Voters may not typically see vice-presidential candidates as potential presidents – but "this year could be different".

The debate could also affect the next election, too, said Freddie Hayward in The New Statesman. Political parties "remember past debates when choosing candidates". Vance got the space he needed to "push back against the perception that he's an angry, online poster who talks about women like a creepy anthropologist". His superior performance will "shore up his position" within the GOP, and even makes the prospect of him running for the party's nomination in 2028 more likely.

'Elon Musk is a national security risk'

Andrew Couts at Wired

Elon Musk's deleted X post "could be interpreted as a call to murder President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris," says Andrew Couts. It was the "latest in a long line of increasingly incendiary political posts from Musk, whose substantial defense contracts with the U.S. government may give him access to highly sensitive information." The government's "reliance on companies controlled by Musk has repeatedly raised the hackles of national security experts," and his "post further complicates matters."

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'Vance had better buckle up: His debate might go as badly as Trump's'

Jennifer Rubin at The Washington Post

J.D. Vance has had the "most disastrous vice-presidential run in memory," and "it could get worse" during the vice presidential debate, says Jennifer Rubin. Vance's "record is littered with gaffes, extreme statements and offensive slurs." But the "larger problem for Vance, however, may be that he has not accomplished anything (other than getting on the MAGA ticket) in his two brief years in elected office." His "lack of gravitas and substance may be painfully obvious."

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'Modern wars are wars of attrition'

Sean Durns at The American Conservative

Often it is "attrition that is decisive in modern warfare," says Sean Durns. "Quick wars and conclusive victories, such as Israel's 1967 Six-Day War, are the exception." People are "drawn to the idea of decisive battles," but "focusing on engagements and personalities and failing to appreciate the attritional nature of modern warfare can lead to overly optimistic assessments." Claims that the "latest weapon will make a pivotal difference in the Russian-Ukrainian War should merit skepticism."

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'Is Eric Adams' luck about to run out?'

Ross Barkan at The Nation

There has "never been a mayor like Eric Adams in the modern history of New York City," says Ross Barkan. It "would be too soon to declare Adams' political career over," but he is "deeply unpopular with many voters across the city." Incumbent mayors "almost always win reelection, but Adams is much more damaged than any of his recent predecessors." However, he "can take some solace in the weaknesses of his current challengers."

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What happened

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) said on Sunday that recent Republican "garbage" about Haitian migrants eating pets in Springfield "needs to stop." Springfield Mayor Rob Rue (R) also criticized "federal politicians" who have "negatively spun" his Ohio city and its migrant residents. Sen. J.D. Vance (Ohio), Donald Trump's running mate, defended spreading the baseless "cat meat" rumors.

Who said what

We known "the Haitians who are in Springfield are legal," they came to work, and they are "very good workers," DeWine said to ABC's "This Week." "Frankly, that's helped the economy," but thanks to the misinformation "there are hate groups coming into Springfield." The city is "caught in a political vortex," Rue told Politico. "We've had bomb threats the last two days. We've had personal threats the last two days, and it's increasing, because the national stage is swirling this up." Pets, he added, "are safe in Springfield."

Ohioans are "telling me that this happened," Vance said to CNN. But "if I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that's what I'm going to do because you guys are completely letting Kamala Harris coast." Following last week's grade school evacuations and hospital lockdowns, Springfield's Wittenberg University and Clark State College canceled in-person classes this week due to threats of violence.

What next?

"We talk about abortion, we lose. We talk about immigration, we win," a Trump adviser said to Marc Caputo at The Bulwark. If that takes spreading baseless incendiary stories, "we'll take the hit to prove the bigger point." While the campaign is "not displeased" by the criticism, Caputo said, it's gambling the "pet-eating story becomes centered on immigration," not "the GOP ticket whipping up fear with exaggerations and fabrications."

You think you know the history of World War II: The Nazis were the bad guys and Adolf Hitler was probably the greatest villain the world has ever known — the author of a Holocaust that killed 6 million Jews. End of story, right? Tucker Carlson isn't so sure.

The former Fox News host sparked a right-wing "media meltdown" after interviewing a Holocaust-denying podcaster on his new online platform, Axios said. Carlson called Darryl Cooper "the best and most honest popular historian" in America. Cooper in turn called Winston Churchill the "chief villain of the Second World War," said CNN. Cooper also suggested that the Holocaust was an inadvertent consequence of poor German war planning, in which "millions of people ended up dead." 

That false history prompted a backlash from the White House and Jewish groups. Elon Musk deleted an X post promoting the interview. And the controversy forced a "rare moment of introspection" among conservative media figures, Axios said.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump must "disavow" Carlson, conservative commentator William Galston said at The Wall Street Journal. Donald Trump Jr. and J.D. Vance, the vice presidential nominee, are both scheduled to join Carlson on tour later this month. That can't happen. Trump must "draw a bright line between what's acceptable and what isn't, Galston added." What isn't: "Blatant antisemitism."

'Whackadoo revisionism'

Tucker Carlson's journey into "whackadoo revisionism" has made a dent in his "last cadre of conservative defenders," said another conservative writer, Ben Domenech, at The Spectator. The question: "Why is Tucker doing this?" Carlson's motives are "unknown" but it's clear he's gone from his longtime practice of "skirting the edge of acceptable discourse" to "jumping over the edge." And it's in keeping with the view Carlson has espoused since his career as the "most influential media figure on the right" was cut short after being fired by Fox last year: "America, rather than being the greatest nation in the history of the world, is at home and abroad a force for evil," Domenech said.

"Dubious charges of Nazism are a dime a dozen in U.S. political rhetoric," Sohrab Ahmari said at The Free Press.  But there is no other way to describe Cooper's ideas, nor Carlson's promotion of them. The "obvious fact" is that the Nazis were evil — and that Cooper's casting of Churchill as the war's villain is a "perverse moral inversion." 

'We believe in free speech'

"Is Vance still going to hang out with Tucker Carlson, even now?" the conservative Jim Geraghty said at The Washington Post. Carlson has caused headaches for Vance before: The nominee's infamous "childless cat ladies" comment came on Carlson's Fox News show in 2021. The latest controversy is worse. An "ordinary campaign" would avoid sending its vice presidential candidate to hang out publicly with a "Putin-adoring nutjob conspiracy theorist" ahead of the election, but Trump and Vance aren't running an ordinary campaign. "Let's see whether Vance finally draws the line at hanging with the guy who hosts a revisionist historian with a blind spot for Adolf Hitler," Geraghty said.

It does not look like Vance will skip out on Carlson, said The New York Times. "We believe in free speech and debate," Vance said during a campaign stop. The campaign later issued a statement declaring that Vance "obviously does not share the views of the guest interviewed by Tucker Carlson" but that he also "doesn't believe in guilt-by-association cancel culture." Vance is scheduled to appear onstage with Carlson on September 21. 

What happened

Republican vice-presidential nominee J.D. Vance criticized the media yesterday for making a "national news story" out of the Trump campaign's "little disagreement" with Arlington National Cemetery staff earlier this week. Vance also said Vice President Kamala Harris "can go to hell" for criticizing "Donald Trump because he showed up" at the cemetery to commemorate the 2021 terrorist attack in Kabul that killed 13 U.S. service members as America withdrew from Afghanistan. Harris, campaigning in rural Georgia, had not mentioned the Arlington incident, though Trump faced ire from some veterans for campaigning among gravestones.

Who said what

Trump's team was told beforehand he could visit Section 60 of the cemetery, where Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans are buried, in a personal capacity but with no campaign aides, as federal law prohibits election-related activity military cemeteries, The Washington Post said. Trump's team said it would release footage to refute reports that campaign staff pushed aside an Arlington official who tried to enforce the rules. It hasn't done so, the Post said, but the campaign did "post a TikTok of the event on Wednesday — exactly what military officials tried to prevent."

The family of a Green Beret whose gravestone is visible in the campaign video and a photo of a smiling Trump "giving a 'thumbs up'" to the camera "expressed concern" about Trump's lack of decorum at the "sacred site," The New York Times said. Trump released statements from a Gold Star family saying they had invited him to the grave and welcomed the photos. But it's hard to see Trump's visit as "anything but a campaign stop intended to court the military vote" and "clean up the mess he has created" by repeatedly "denigrating" military service, Charles Sykes said at The Atlantic. 

What next?

The unidentified Arlington official involved in the altercation filed an incident report with military authorities but "declined to press charges," the Times said.

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Before politics, vice presidential candidate Sen. J.D. Vance's claim to fame was his book, "Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis," in which he painted a polarizing picture of Appalachia. The book topped the New York Times bestseller list, but some critics panned Vance for feeding into stereotypes of a region composed mainly of poor rural white people. 

Vance's vision of the area is far from the only example of literature that captures Appalachian culture. Such a diverse region warrants a diverse literary portrait.

'Affrilachia' by Frank X Walker (2000)

Professor and former Kentucky poet laureate Frank X Walker coined the term Affrilachia in the '90s to encapsulate the cultural contributions of Black Americans living in Appalachia. He also co-founded the Affrilachian Poets collective, which included powerhouse writers like Nikki Finney and Nikki Giovanni, who is "still producing some of the region's best poetry," Kendra Winchester said on Book Riot. Walker's poetry collection is an ode to a community often omitted from the narrative of the region's rich cultural history. His childhood in Kentucky inspired some poems, while others look at his present and are "always returning to the question of what it means to be Black in Appalachia," Winchester said. Order here.

'What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia' by Elizabeth Catte (2018)

If you are looking for a book that is a direct response to some of the more problematic aspects of "Hillbilly Elegy," historian Elizabeth Catte's "What You're Getting Wrong About Appalachia" is a solid answer. The East Tennessean's debut nonfiction book examines "what the media (and stereotypes bred from it) get wrong about Appalachia" and is a "primer on art, literature and policy coming out of the region," said People magazine. Catte's book "deconstructs the stereotypes that drive how we use and abuse underclasses" and "digs deep into the Trump-era meme that Appalachia is a 'white ghetto' voting and acting against its own self-interests," fellow Appalachian author Leah Hampton said in the Los Angeles Times. Order here.

'The Prettiest Star' by Carter Sickels (2020)

In "The Prettiest Star," Carter Sickels tells the story of a young gay man in the final stages of HIV returning home to Appalachian, Ohio, during the early years of the AIDS epidemic. After leaving home to live authentically in New York City, Brian Jackson returns to spend the last of his days in a town where "people think homosexuality is a sin and the disease is divine punishment," said Kirkus Reviews. Sickels' cast of characters are "painfully flawed and wholly, believably human in their failings," Kirkus Reviews added. "This unflinching honesty, conveyed in finely crafted prose, makes for a memorable and unsettling novel." Order here.

'Writing Appalachia: An Anthology' edited by Katherine Ledford and Theresa Lloyd (2020)

Appalachian literature has a long, rich history, and this anthology brings together some of that work in a collection that represents the facets of Appalachian culture. The hefty anthology "serves up the region's iconic talents" in "appetizer-sized portions to tempt a reader to go find their longer works," author Barbara Kingsolver said in The New York Times. The "comprehensive sweep" of the collection moves from "Native American oral traditions, enslaved people's narratives and work songs" through the 20th century into a "modern chorus of queer and straight, white, Black and Indigenous voices," Kingsolver said. The anthology will "put away the stereotype of Appalachians as a dull monoculture." Order here.

'Demon Copperhead' by Barbara Kingsolver (2022)

Speaking of Kingsolver, the best-selling author's Pulitzer Prize-winning book "Demon Copperhead" reimagines the hero of Charles Dickens "David Copperfield" as a young man navigating poverty in contemporary Southern Appalachia. In what The Washington Post called "a feat of literary alchemy," Kingsolver used the "fire of that boy's spirit to illuminate — and singe — the darkest recesses of our country." Kingsolver, with "Demon Copperhead," proved her "best demonstration yet of a novel's ability to simultaneously entertain and move and plead for reform," the Post said. Much of that stems from how "cleverly Demon's experience is woven through the tragedy of opioid addiction in the United States." Order here.

'Meeting the China challenge in auto supply chains'

Mick Mulvaney at Newsweek

China is "particularly relevant to the U.S. automotive industry," says former Office of Management and Budget director Mick Mulvaney. China has "become a major player in the global automotive value chain," and its "vast manufacturing capabilities, coupled with its rapidly growing domestic market, have made it an attractive partner for automakers." The U.S. should "safeguard against potential threats posed by Chinese involvement in critical sectors like automotive systems," but a "one-size-fits-all regulatory framework could do as much harm as good to American automobile manufacturers."

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'The myth of female unelectability'

Jerusalem Demsas at The Atlantic

Nothing is "more damaging to women running for office than the idea that voters simply won't pick female candidates," but "there's just one problem: It isn't true," says Jerusalem Demsas. Research "indicates that today's voters do not systematically discriminate against women." This "isn't to say that voters treat men and women the same," but "women win because even if voters hold sexist views, they also hold other views — on economic policy, abortion, immigration, and more."

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'Vance accused Walz of "stolen valor." He should thank him for his service instead.'

Marla Bautista at USA Today

Tim Walz's "service to our nation — not only as a military service member but also as a teacher, coach and elected leader — deserves our thanks," says Marla Bautista. But "because Walz did not endure a combat deployment, Republicans have mocked his service, calling it stolen valor." J.D. Vance's "remarks are not only disrespectful to Walz and all who have served but they also have far-reaching consequences for society's perception of military service."

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'The World Cup is coming to America — and heading for disaster'

Antonio De Loera-Brust at Foreign Policy

The "U.S. Men's National Team's preparations for the 2026 World Cup are in crisis mode," which "bodes poorly for the U.S. team's hopes to impress when it hosts the 2026 World Cup," says Antonio De Loera-Brust. There are also "serious questions about the United States' ability to successfully host" the World Cup following recent "chaos in Miami ahead of the Colombia-Argentina final." It is a "serious wake-up call for the United States ahead of the 2026 World Cup."

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What happened

Sen. J.D. Vance (Ohio), the Republican vice-presidential nominee, attacked his Democratic counterpart Tim Walz's military record on Wednesday, claiming the Minnesota governor "abandoned" his Army National Guard unit before it deployed to Iraq in 2006 and lied about serving in combat. The claims, recycled from Walz's 2018 gubernatorial run, appear to be false or based on subjective interpretation.

Walz filed to run for Congress in February 2005 then retired from the National Guard in May, two months before his unit was told it was being sent to Iraq. Vance served four years in the Marine Corps, including six months in Iraq in a noncombat public affairs role.

Who said what

"There is no evidence that Walz retired to avoid a wartime deployment" and he "never claimed he was a combat veteran," Politico said. Vance's attacks are "reminiscent of the 2004 campaign to discredit the distinguished war record of Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry." Those 2004 "'Swift boat' attacks," The New York Times said, were orchestrated by Chris LaCivita, now a "senior strategist for the Trump campaign."

The attacks on Walz's 24-year military career were "part of the race from both parties to define the relatively unknown governor" after his selection as Kamala Harris' running mate, CNN said. They also "appeared aimed at disrupting what has been a run of positive news coverage of the Democratic ticket," the Times said.

What next?

It "remains to be seen" if Swift-boating "will be as successful 20 years later," Politico said, especially given the record of Vance's running mate. "Anyone who tries to criticize [Walz's] record but looks the other way at Donald Trump's six deferments to Vietnam is beyond the pale," former Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Pa.), a retired Army captain who served in Iraq, told the Times.

'Time is running out to craft smart, effective policy that reverses the trend'

Kathryn Anne Edwards for Bloomberg 

The U.S. fertility rate has been falling for 15 years. "Economists care about fertility because it's difficult to grow an economy with a shrinking population," says Kathryn Anne Edwards. Many families actually want to have children but are "thwarted by circumstances" like "child-care costs, general affordability and too little or no paid leave." Policy shifts to address this issue and lessen the "financial cost of having and raising children" are now essential.

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'The question is whether Trump's chances are better or worse as a result of his support from the Valley'

Janan Ganesh for the Financial Times

Has Trump's embrace of Silicon Valley backfired? "However lavish the campaign donations" from the tech world, "much of the Republicans' perceived abnormality stems from the same place," says Janan Ganesh. "Tech weirdness" involves an "almost teenage eagerness to provoke that jars outside of podcasts and internet chat rooms," and has led directly to J.D. Vance, "who it is hard to imagine as running mate before the tech-Trump entente," Ganesh says. "What the GOP ticket needed was another Mike Pence," but "what emerged was someone on whom Trump is the restraining influence."

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'We shouldn't be so fixated on the ways in which people fail to meet our expectations'

Kitty Ruskin for Time 

A person gets "the ick" when they "suddenly feel repulsed by the person they're dating," says Kitty Ruskin. But this "common parlance among Gen Z and millennial daters" also "reinforces dated and sexist stereotypes," for example that "men shouldn't order Frappuccinos." "Instead of reflecting genuine red flags to look out for in relationships, the ick often speaks to an intolerance of others' quirks or vulnerabilities," but "the quicker we are to dismiss other people, the more isolated we'll feel."

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'The pressure to win is so great that anything less can be an indictment on their sense of self'

Talia Barrington for The Atlantic

Simone Biles' triumph at the 2024 Paris Olympics stands in contrast to her trouble at the 2021 Tokyo Games, and "she has credited therapy and other mental-health care with helping her return to form," says Talia Barrington. But "she's not alone in opening up about such struggles," as other elite athletes have similar experiences. "Depression associated with the pressure of competition can shape an athlete's career and their life after sports," says Barrington. "It has become widespread enough that athletes trying to raise awareness have called depression an epidemic among Olympians."

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'America has too many laws'

Neil Gorsuch and Janie Nitze at The Atlantic

The U.S. has "always been a nation of laws, but something has changed dramatically in recent decades," say Neil Gorsuch and Janie Nitze. Much in this "growing mountain of law isn't exactly intuitive." Legal institutions "have become so complicated and so numerous that even federal agencies cannot agree on how many federal agencies exist." The "explosion of law has taken a very real toll on the lives of everyday Americans" whose "stories must be told."

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'This should be our response to Donald Trump's comments that "you won't have to vote anymore"'

Jonathan Zimmerman at The Philadelphia Inquirer 

Donald Trump "already tried to overturn one election," and "his comment about not having to vote seemed like a threat to end elections altogether," says Jonathan Zimmerman. Instead, everyone "should have to vote. The best way to bolster our sagging democracy would be to make voting compulsory." Compulsory voting "makes [other] governments more representative — and more democratic — than ours is." We "should require everyone to go to the polls, instead of telling them not to worry about it."

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'Population growth isn't a progressive issue. It should be.' 

Victor Kumar at The New York Times

Population decline is "widely seen as a conservative issue," so "many progressives don’t seem to worry about it. But they should," says Victor Kumar. If "left unchecked, population decline could worsen many of the problems that progressives care about, including economic inequality and the vulnerability of marginalized social groups." This "doesn't mean adopting the conservative case wholesale," but "right-wing packaging should not obscure the genuine perils to which pronatalism is a response."

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'More bike lanes? Let's vote.'

Alan Wirzbicki at The Boston Globe

Holding a vote "seems like a good way to lower the temperature on bike lane battles," says Alan Wirzbicki. One of the "features of fights over bike lanes is that both sides tend to view themselves as victims." There are "situations where putting things to a popular vote wouldn’t be appropriate," but it's "perfectly reasonable in a democracy to let voters decide how to divvy up a limited public resource — in this case, street space. 

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'Behind Russia's absence at the Olympics, a deepening fury'

Lee Hockstader at The Washington Post 

Russia has not "disguised its rage at having been all but excluded from the 2024 Summer Games," says Lee Hockstader. The 15 neutral Russian athletes reflect the "extent to which the Kremlin is convinced, and has persuaded Russians, that the war in Ukraine is a proxy for a long-term struggle with the West." Russia has become an "increasingly galvanized society led by elites who see the Western powers as Moscow's sworn enemy," which is a "recipe for generational struggle."

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'I'm from Appalachia. JD Vance isn't. He got our story wrong.'

Riley Crabtree at USA Today / Columbus Dispatch

J.D. Vance "painted Appalachia as a place to escape" and "insinuated Appalachians were stubborn folks with no value and no real culture," says Riley Crabtree. His "portrayal of my part of America was personal — not universal," and for many Appalachians, "achieving even a career that can provide for your family is difficult." Because of Appalachia, "I have lived a wonderful life" with a "tight-knit family," which is "quite different from Vance's image of the region."

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'Hochul's Covid report leaves NY still lacking answers four years later'

New York Post editorial board

Four years after Covid began, New Yorkers "still have no reliable, independent assessment of how well their leaders responded," says the New York Post editorial board. Without this, it's "hard to hold anyone accountable for failures and to better prepare better for the next epidemic." This is a "serious problem, because many" of these policies "were monumentally tragic mistakes." There should be an "independent commission, with subpoena power, to provide the comprehensive accounting New Yorkers want."

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'Trump's crypto turnaround heralds an economic nightmare'

David Gerard at Foreign Policy

Donald Trump's crypto courting is a "surprise given Trump's previous strong opposition to crypto," says David Gerard. What "Trump wants from the crypto industry is money," and "many in Silicon Valley would like an authoritarian who they think will let them run free with the money." If Trump "allowed crypto free rein, it might help further the collapse of the U.S. economy." But it's "more likely that Trump will be happy to take crypto's money and run." 

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For years, Democrats (and a small number of Republicans) have been working on how best to frame Donald Trump and his MAGA movement to persuadable voters. At various points over the past decade, Trump has been portrayed as a "threat to democracy," a "fraud," and a "con man," all in an attempt to impart a sense of looming and existential endangerment over his political ascendency. 

This year, however, as a reenergized Democratic party rallies around Vice President Kamala Harris as its new standard-bearer following President Joe Biden's decision to end his reelection campaign, a growing number of lawmakers have rolled out a new line of attack on Trump and his vice presidential pick, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance: They're just weird. Although perhaps not the most sophisticated line of attack, it's a message that has nevertheless gained traction, first among campaign surrogates and potential vice presidential nominees like Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, and then Harris' own team and the Democratic party at large. 

It remains to be seen whether the Democrats can ride this "weird" wave all the way to an electoral victory, but it seems clear that the party sees this tonal shift as impactful — at least for now. 

'Weird people' was an online hit

While the trend arguably began with Minnesota's Walz, whose "description last week of 'weird people on the other side' was an online hit with Democrats," The New York Times said, the Harris campaign's embrace of that same framing should come as little surprise. Preparing for a one-on-one debate with Trump in 2018, Harris went so far as to tell aides that if he attempted to stalk behind her onstage as he did Hillary Clinton in 2016, she would turn and ask him "why are you being so weird?" CNN said. Recently, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg similarly described Trump as getting "older and stranger," and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Vance is "weird" and "erratic." Harris added her campaign's official seal of approval, writing in a memo of takeaways from a recent Trump interview that "Trump is old and quite weird?" 

The Democratic National Committee itself followed suit shortly thereafter.

Previous attempts by Democrats to use "high-minded defenses of our principles or elegant rhetorical phrases aren't doing the job," said The Bulwark. "Neither is existential dread." Labeling Trump and Vance as weird is "less lofty and more grounded in daily reality." The tactic "conspicuously stands apart from the Democrats' usual 'when they go low, we go high' modus operandi," ABC News said. Notably, the "weird" attacks make up a "unified Democratic firing line" that stands in "sharp contrast to the Republicans, who have yet to emerge with their own effective message to counter Harris' 'honeymoon' period," The Independent said. 

Biden couldn't "authentically call his opposition 'weird,'" said Amanda Litman, co-founder of the progressive group Run for Something, to Politico. Harris' embrace of the term is in part "about being free from the obligation to speak in Biden's voice." The previous era of 'strained decorum is — or at least should be — over,' said Rolling Stone. 

'Cut the crap please'

To a lesser extent, Republicans have "also gotten in on the action," including releasing a campaign memo for Senate candidates highlighting Harris' "weird" behavior, such as loving Venn diagrams, Semafor said. 

The GOP's attempt to flip the "weird" attack back at Harris might be "one way to undermine Harris' personal appeal without getting into more sensitive territory" like race and gender, Semafor said. Not all Republicans seem to agree, however. Former GOP presidential candidate and fervent Trump backer Vivek Ramaswamy decried the Democrats as acting "dumb & juvenile" and urged them to "win on policy if you can, but cut the crap please" in a post on X. 

Vance, for his part, has denied being affected by the "weird" attacks. "It doesn't hurt my feelings," said Vance in a brief Fox News interview this week. Vance also called the "weird" label the "price of admission" for running for high office, and "ultimately an honor."

When Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance (R) stood before the Republican National Convention this month to accept his party's nomination for vice president of the United States, he made a special point to promise to "never take for granted" the trust placed in him by Donald Trump. Perfunctory obsequiousness to the GOP's standard-bearer notwithstanding, Vance is correct that in choosing him as his running mate, Trump was indeed conferring onto him a measure of trust — not simply as a potential presidential successor, but as a campaign asset whose presence on the ticket would energize the MAGA base. Then the ground shifted under their feet. 

What had once seemed like an inevitable Trump rout over President Joe Biden suddenly became a serious contest after the president ended his campaign and endorsed now-presumptive nominee Vice President Kamala Harris in his stead. In an instant, the dynamics that led Trump — at the urging of his son Don Jr. — to select Vance had been turned upside down. At the same time, Vance's initial outings as a candidate were widely criticized as awkward and non-compelling. 

Has the freshman Ohio senator and intended scion of the MAGA movement become a drag on the very ticket he was meant to energize, or does Vance remain a potent force for Trump on the campaign trail?

'The road got a lot harder'

Vance has contributed little to Trump's reelection campaign, say some Republicans, while introducing a host of vulnerabilities. He is the "worst choice of all the options," one House Republican said to The Hill on condition of anonymity. "He adds nothing to the Trump ticket. He energizes the same people that love Trump." If Trump were to lose in November, it would be "because of this pick," another House Republican said. 

Noting that Trump is "all about casting" in an interview with CNN, former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci said Vance is "not living up to the expectations" set during the selection process. Trump "hated Vance's [RNC] speech, he doesn't like Vance's performance on stage. He thinks he's very dull."

Trump picked Vance at the "peak of the party's confidence about the 2024 election," Axios said. Biden's decision shortly thereafter to drop out ended up "scrambling the polls and detonating the Trump campaign's assumptions about the electoral playing field." Trump's electoral road "got a lot harder" after Biden's decision, said one House Republican to the outlet. Vance was the "only pick that wasn't the safe pick. And I think everyone has now realized that."

Vance is "making history as the least liked VP nominee (non-incumbent) since 1980 following his/her party's convention," CNN's Harry Enten said on X. 

Vance is "barreling toward Palin territory," Talking Point Memo's Josh Marshall said, referencing 2008 vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin. People have begun to "expect news about him to be weird or embarrassing. Hard to undo that once it takes hold, especially if you are super weird and embarrassing."

'What matters to the vast majority of voters'

As much as Vance may have struggled in the opening days of his time on the ticket, "Trump has shown no indication that he has buyer's remorse" over his pick, Axios said. "I'd do the same pick. He's doing really well. He's really caught on," Trump said on a recent press call, after being asked whether he'd have chosen Vance knowing that Harris would be the Democratic nominee. 

Although Vance may struggle at campaign rallies, he has "quickly settled into his role as chief Trump surrogate" during television interviews, CNN said. And rather than serve as a strike against him, the fact that Vance is a former "never-Trumper" has only raised his appeal among some Republicans. Vance's path to MAGA-dom means he "learned and saw, and that's what I encourage all people to do, whether they be Democrats or Republicans," said Roanoke Valley Republican Women President Barbara Duerk to the network. 

Ultimately, Vance's struggles are not, in and of themselves, a liability for the Trump campaign, since he "isn’t so unpopular that he would seem to be a reason for Trump-inclined voters to abandon Trump," The Washington Post said. The name on the top of the ticket is "what matters to the vast majority of voters."

'The embrace between Big Tech and Big Government is growing tighter'

John Mac Ghlionn at Newsweek

With the appointment of retired General Paul Nakasone to its board, OpenAI made a major shift in "alignment toward national security issues, a development that should concern us all," says John Mac Ghlionn. Tech giants like Amazon, Google and Microsoft have "increasingly aligned themselves with governmental and military agendas under the guise of 'security' and 'keeping Americans safe.'" But in reality, these platforms have "gradually transformed into tools of surveillance and control." 

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'Without Yale Law School, there could be no phenomenon of JD Vance'

Noah Feldman at Bloomberg 

Yale Law's program has played a "vital role in legal conservatism," says Noah Feldman, producing Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh, plus Trump's VP candidate, J.D. Vance. "Admission to Yale was his main accomplishment when he wrote his best-selling memoir, 'Hillbilly Elegy,'" says Feldman. "It framed Vance as an effective source to 'explain' poor white politics" to the public. Yale Law is largely liberal, and these politicians' "rarity is doubtless one reason Yale Law conservatives ascend so quickly."  

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'Granting approval to this questionable therapy cannot become the norm'

Liam Bendicksen, Edward Cliff and Aaron S. Kesselheim at The Washington Post

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has frequently fallen short of ensuring that approved drugs are effective, say Liam Bendicksen, Edward Cliff and Aaron S. Kesselheim. The FDA recently approved Elevidys to treat Duchenne muscular dystrophy, but the "drug did not demonstrate a clear benefit for patients," and "giving full FDA validation to a drug with exceedingly limited and uncertain evidence of effectiveness exposes patients to substantial downsides." 

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'Our weather is on track to get far more violent and costly'

William S. Becker at The Hill

Inflation dropped last month, but a "new villain has arrived on the scene. Call it 'climate inflation,'" says William S. Becker. "Anyone worried about rising costs of living … should be concerned." Last year, 28 weather disasters cost America $93 billion. But climate change will affect individuals too. As "historic heat waves" threaten Americans, says Becker, the "average price to cool a home will be $719 this summer, up 9% over last year." Extreme weather also raises the cost of food and home insurance and lowers the value of at-risk houses.

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'Donald Trump's shooting wasn't a complete surprise'

Garen Wintemute at the Los Angeles Times

Political figures "have engaged in rhetoric that seems to endorse and promote violence" for years, says Garen Wintemute, like noting the "possibility of a 'bloodbath' if election results are not to their liking." In a large survey conducted by UC Davis in 2023, 25% of American adults said political violence was justified, but 70% would not commit it themselves. Thus, the "great majority of us who reject violence must become agents for change," says Wintemute, "telling our elected officials" that their "pro-violence rhetoric is unacceptable."

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'Vance … had no business speaking for the people of Appalachia'

Cassie Chambers Armstrong at The Atlantic

Donald Trump's VP pick and the author of "Hillbilly Elegy," J.D. Vance, capitalized on Americans' interest in Appalachia, says Cassie Chambers Armstrong. He turned a "tenuous family connection to the mountains into a lucrative and powerful platform. He then abandoned Appalachia when he ran for Senate." The Appalachian people have been impacted by Vance's policies — particularly his advice to remain in bad or abusive marriages and his support of "an extreme abortion ban with no exceptions for rape or incest," which "particularly harms women in rural communities."

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'This class gap in professional success is about as big as those found by race and gender'

Soumaya Keynes at The Financial Times

A new MIT paper considering the class gap among U.S. PhD holders found that while "one might hope that having 'Dr.' in front of one's name would be enough to wash away any childhood disadvantage," says Soumaya Keynes, "it seems not." Academics "whose parents did not have a college degree are 13% less likely to end up with tenure at a top university than those with more educated parents," and "they also tend to end up at lower-ranked institutions."

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'Individual Americans pay a price, Big Tech firms pay little or nothing at all'

Adonis Hoffman at The Hill

Big Tech, comprised of companies like Facebook, Amazon and Google, "have changed the world," says Adonis Hoffman, "but their business practices, sheer size and market dominance are a very big problem for society." That's because Big Tech firms "have untold access to our most sensitive health, financial and personal data," and we give it to them willingly in exchange for their goods. "When consumers blithely accept those freebies, we consent to relinquishing our personal information and privacy as conditions of free and continued use," says Hoffman. 

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'Will Jewish students be safe this fall?' 

Jason L. Riley at The Wall Street Journal 

"Old habits die hard," says Jason L. Riley, and it "isn't clear that Jewish students returning to campus in the fall will feel any safer than they did in the spring, when buildings were occupied, property was destroyed, classes were held remotely, and graduation ceremonies were canceled." Colleges are "making a show of addressing antisemitism, but they're also equivocating." Students "disrupting classes, threatening fellow students and calling for the genocide of Jews isn't protected speech."

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'JD Vance keeps selling his soul. He's got plenty of buyers.'

Ed Simon at The New York Times

A brand of striving "so strong that it compels Faustus to sell what is most essential to him, must lie somewhere in the makeup of Sen. J.D. Vance," says Ed Simon. While "all politicians are ambitious," there is "something particularly noxious about Mr. Vance's posturing, which exceeds the run-of-the-mill Machiavellian self-interestedness that characterizes politics." Vance, a "possible heir to the MAGA movement," is also an "infernal creation of the powerful liberals who championed his writing and elevated his platform."

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'Shannen Doherty was painted as a bad-girl "Veronica" stereotype. She deserved better.'

Rhonda Garelick at the Los Angeles Times

Shannen Doherty "represented a bit of reverse typecasting," says Rhonda Garelick. She "developed an off-camera 'bad girl' reputation" that was a "classic example of how much pop culture relies on stories of good and bad girls." This was "just a small part of a much larger, more profound narrative about heaven and hell, sin and morality." Doherty should be "seen as worthy of redemption, or better still, to be worthy of a more complex, honest and human narrative."

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'Azerbaijan ethnically cleansed Armenians. It should pay a price.'

Thomas Becker at Newsweek 

Azerbaijan's 2023 attack on Nagorno-Karabakh was "not merely a regional issue but a profound violation of human rights that demands global action," says Thomas Becker. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev is "constantly ratcheting up vitriolic rhetoric and aggressive action against Armenians." The world "can begin redeeming itself by holding Azerbaijan to account," which would "not only constitute justice but would be critical to avoid incentivizing bad-faith players in the world ecosystem from carrying out other atrocities."

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What happened

Donald Trump on Monday ended months of speculation by announcing he had selected Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as his running mate. In a statement posted to his Truth Social account, Trump called Vance the "person best suited to assume the position of vice president of the United States" and someone who will "continue to fight for our Constitution, stand with our Troops, and will do everything he can to help me MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN."

Who said what

While Vance "rose to prominence as a Trump critic," Politico said, he is now a "staunch ally and young GOP star." In picking him, Trump is "wagering that the young senator will bring fresh energy to the Republican ticket," The New York Times said, "and ensure that the movement Mr. Trump began nearly a decade ago can live on after him." 

What next?

Vance appeared alongside Trump on the first night of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Monday and is expected to join him on the campaign trail soon.