When Barack Obama teased Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents Dinner in 2011, the man who helped write the withering speech enjoyed “seeing how angry” Trump got, but did not imagine the businessman would one day become president, said The Telegraph.

The disclosure is part of a new oral history of the Obama years that shows that although the Democrat “took on recession, healthcare and Iraq”, what “he didn’t see coming was Trump”, said The New York Times.

Chuckles and anger

For eight years, Obama’s aides “marvelled” that “no amount of mockery, dismissal or scandal could make Donald Trump go away”, said The Associated Press. Their “bewilderment” is “threaded through hundreds of interviews” with officials released in the “far-reaching history of the Obama presidency”, which is the most extensive set of interviews to emerge so far from those years.

The testimonies, released for “the perusal of historians, researchers and the merely curious”, said The New York Times, don’t include interviews with the Obamas or Joe Biden, but do include significant figures like Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Oprah Winfrey.

At the fateful 2011 dinner, speechwriter Jon Favreau was “revelling in the effect of his words”, said The Telegraph. The decision to mock Trump “stemmed from aggravation” over the “continuing lies” about Obama’s birthplace, said The New York Times. “I thought what he was doing was racist,” recalled Favreau, but “not even a brief moment” did he believe Trump would become a political force.

However, David Axelrod, another member of Obama’s team, walked by Trump’s table that evening and overheard the businessman saying he was toying with running for president. Axelrod, in his own words, “chuckled at it and went to my seat”.

‘Demagogic bloviating’

The Obama administration “failed to spot the threat of Trump”, said The New York Times, because they thought him “a thorn in the side with his birther lies and demagogic bloviating”. To them, he was just a “con man”, a “clown” and a “laughing stock”.

But they “missed the shifting mood of the country”. It’s “striking” how “inconceivable” it seemed to Obama and his team that “populist disenchantment with the establishment, globalisation and demographic changes would elevate a figure they scorned”.

The “picture that emerges from the interviews” is a “collapsing popular belief in a system that simply could not, seemingly for its own psychological reasons, grasp what was truly going on”, said The Telegraph. There was a “failure to come to terms with the realities of the moment”.

“It was hard” not to take Trump’s 2016 election victory “personally”, said former White House press secretary Josh Earnest, because the “essence” of Trump’s being, and “everything that he stood for” were “anathema to everything” that the “Obama era” had “been about”.

Obama “started out, like so many”, viewing Trump as “little more than a comical, if malevolent, real-estate hawker”, said The New Yorker. But as well as failing to “anticipate Trump’s victory”, he “failed to comprehend the degree” to which the Republican would, “particularly in his second term, set out to demolish the principles and the institutions” that Obama held dear.

“We have entered the era of the Donroe Doctrine,” said CNN’s Jake Tapper in the aftermath of the US abduction of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro. The term, referencing Donald Trump’s upgrade of a foreign policy doctrine of old, signals this US president’s clear intent to enforce US interests in the Western Hemisphere – a strategy that could have significant implications around the world.

What is the Donroe Doctrine?

It’s a Trumpian twist on the Monroe Doctrine, a US foreign policy principle established in 1823 during the presidency of James Monroe. It warned that “the American continents” must not be “considered as subjects for colonisation” and European powers must not interfere in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere that America now designated as a US sphere of interest.

The Monroe Doctrine was broadened in 1904 by Theodore Roosevelt to sanction US interference in any Latin American country “plagued by wrongdoing or impotence”. Frequently criticised as a form of imperialism, the doctrine was nonetheless invoked by a number of subsequent US presidents to justify intervention in the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Nicaragua. It lay behind Washington’s efforts to oust Fidel Castro in Cuba, and its role in the coups that overthrew Guatemala’s Jacobo Árbenz in 1954 and Chilean leader Salvador Allende in 1973. It was also invoked during the Second World War to make Greenland a de facto US protectorate after Denmark was invaded by Nazi Germany.

In 2013, Barack Obama’s secretary of state, John Kerry, declared that “the era of the Monroe Doctrine is over”, signalling a more collaborative relationship with other nations in the Western Hemisphere.

What’s new about the Donroe Doctrine?

In its new national security strategy, published in November 2025, the Trump administration plainly declared an intention “to reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine and restore American pre-eminence in the Western Hemisphere”. But it also added a "Trump Corollary” to the doctrine, describing US aims to “expand our network in the region” and roll back “foreign influence”.

Recent months have seen US strikes on alleged drug trafficking vessels in the Caribbean, tighter control of migration flows, and the seizure of strategic assets. “The parameters of US national security” now appear “effectively inseparable from advancing US economic interests globally”, said Pablo Uchoa, an international politics expert at the UCL Institute of the Americas, on The Conversation. This “vision of geopolitics” justifies the aggressive pursuit of any resources the US thinks are “beneficial to its interests, from Greenland’s minerals and strategic position to the Panama canal and Venezuelan oil”.

“Donroe Doctrine” is not an official White House term (it seems to have been coined by the New York Post) but Trump “appears to have taken a liking” to it, “as with most things that bear his name”. There is no proper detail behind the idea, John Bolton, Trump’s first-term security adviser and now a harsh foreign policy critic, told The Atlantic. “No matter what he does, there is no grand conceptual framework; it’s whatever suits him at the moment.”

What does it mean for world politics?

With the US “dominating the Western Hemisphere” and China “asserting primacy across the Asia-Pacific”, a world “carved into spheres of influence” could “benefit Beijing”, said The New York Times. It could keep US military forces away from Asia and would certainly “undercut Washington’s criticism of Beijing” when China elbows its way across the South China Sea to menace Taiwan.

“The absence of conspicuous military support for Maduro” from either Moscow or Beijing suggests that neither object to a doctrine “that appears to entitle powerful countries with the right of having spheres of influence”, said Uchoa on The Conversation.

What does that means for the non-superpowers in the Western Hemisphere? Six key areas have already been identified as potential targets for “further American expansion, intervention or annexation”, said CBS News: Greenland, Iran, Cuba, Colombia, Canada and the Panama Canal.

The Jeffrey Epstein scandal is not going away, but President Donald Trump would like to change the subject. That might be why he accused former President Barack Obama of treason this week. The question now is whether Trump's administration will bring charges against Obama.

Trump on Tuesday "escalated his distract-and-deflect strategy" to pivot from reporters' questions about Epstein by accusing Obama of wrongdoing, said The New York Times. Obama tried to "lead a coup" with intelligence assessments that said Russia "favored" Trump's 2016 election, Trump said during a question session at the White House. That accusation is a "weak attempt at distraction," said a spokesman for Obama. Trump suggested he was ready for prosecutions. "It's time to go after people," he said.

The Justice Department on Wednesday formed a "Strike Force" to investigate Trump's allegations against Obama, said The Hill. Investigators will "leave no stone unturned to deliver justice," said Attorney General Pam Bondi. One challenge: The Senate Intelligence Committee (including then-Sen. Marco Rubio, now Trump's secretary of state) in 2017 released a report agreeing that Russia supported Trump's election, though those activities did not include changing or stealing votes. The accusations against Obama are "patently false and unfounded," said James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence.

What did the commentators say?

Trump has "mused about locking up political opponents" since his first run for president, said Garry Kasparov at his Substack newsletter. What happens next depends on "how voters and politicians respond," but there is a good chance that the "public is desensitized" to Trump's breaking of norms after 10 years in politics. Obama will "not find himself behind bars tomorrow, or next month, or even next year." Trump has declared his intent, however. "Public passivity is permission."

The president has "all but ordered his law-enforcement minions to arrest, prosecute and imprison" Obama, said Jackie Calmes at the Los Angeles Times. Trump has seemingly forgotten that last year he "persuaded a deferential Supreme Court to give presidents virtual immunity from criminal prosecution." Or he may believe that notable ruling applies only to himself.

The public "should avoid taking the bait" of Trump's attempts to distract from the Epstein scandal, but false allegations of treason "must command Americans' attention," said Calmes. The irony is that Trump is building a "false case" against Obama to divert attention from the "very real case" involving Epstein.

What next?

"MAGA's expectations are stratospheric," said Axios. Obama has long been one of the right's "biggest bogeymen." Failure by the Justice Department to prosecute the former president "could be seen as a betrayal" by a GOP base already disappointed by Trump's handling of the Epstein matter.

The "biggest problem" for the case against Obama is the "sheer lack of evidence of any wrongdoing," said Aaron Blake at CNN. Even if that were not the case, Obama could "well be immune from any such prosecution" because of the Supreme Court's immunity ruling Trump obtained in his defense against criminal charges stemming from Jan. 6. Trump's overall attitude seems to be "immunity for me, not for thee."

Former President Barack Obama was just 55 years old when he left office after two terms in 2017, making him one of the youngest ex-presidents. While he still has decades to go before reaching Jimmy Carter's record of 43 years of post-presidential retirement, Obama's relatively young age means that barring illness or catastrophe he is likely to remain a figure in American politics and society for some time. He'll also have more time than most chief executives to build his fortune, something that many former presidents either chose to forego or failed at. Ulysses S. Grant, for example, was just 54 when he left office in 1877, and after a failed Mexican railroad gambit and a massive investment in his son Buck's doomed Wall Street brokerage firm, he died virtually penniless.

That is a fate unlikely to befall Obama. Today he is a relatively youthful 64, and has packed a number of ventures into his early retirement years while still emerging periodically to stump for Democratic congressional and presidential candidates, which the party considers an asset given his status as the most popular living former president. He has also launched a film production company with former First Lady Michelle Obama and helmed the non-profit Obama Foundation, which manages the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago. Finally, he and Michelle have published multiple best-selling volumes of their memoirs and appeared as well-compensated speakers at various events around the world, adding considerably to their net worth.

Like all presidents, Obama drew a salary during his time in office that made him a higher earner than 97% of all Americans. His family wealth today, however, is largely derived from royalties and advances from books, speaker fees from public engagements, deals for the couple's production company and real estate holdings. In 2018, the New York Post claimed that the Obamas were worth $135 million, although no methodology was shared with readers. Forbes estimated the Obamas' net worth in September 2024 to be $70 million. That remains the most recent public estimate.

How he made his fortune

22 years ago, Barack Obama, a Harvard Law graduate and University of Chicago law professor, was a little-known Illinois state senator when he was given the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston that nominated then-Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) for the presidency against incumbent George W. Bush. Obama's speech was so well-received that "observers from across the political world hailed the address as an instant classic," a career-altering turn that "captured the nation's attention and opened the way for a run at the presidency," said Chicago Magazine. It was "one of the most electrifying speeches in political convention history," said Politico, although its "aspirational message" now looks like an "almost hopelessly naive relic." Unfortunately for Democrats, it did not help Kerry capture the presidency. That address also propelled sales of Obama's little-known 1995 first book, "Dreams of My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance," which had been re-published a month before the convention. "At a young age and without much experience as a writer, Barack Obama has bravely tackled the complexities of his remarkable upbringing," said The New York Times after the book's 1995 publication. Sales of the book subsequently "took off," and it "sold about 500,000 copies in the United States" in the two years after his breakthrough speech, said The Century Foundation.

Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004, and on the strength of his star turn at the DNC was already a national figure. By then, Obama had made millions from his two memoirs, including "The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream" (2006) before he was elected president in 2008. He also wrote a children's book, "Of Thee I Sing: Letters to My Daughters," which was published in 2010. In 2007 alone, when he announced his longshot 2008 bid for the White House, Obama "earned almost $3.3 million from Random House book royalties," said AOL.

As a senator from Illinois, Obama started at a salary of $162,100 in 2006 and then earned $169,300 in his final year in the chamber in 2009 before collecting $400,000 per year during his eight years as the president. But it was the ongoing sales of his books that sent the Obamas' wealth on a steady upward trajectory during his presidency, with total royalties of $15.6 million between 2009 and 2017. Obama "donated all post-tax profits from the children's book to provide scholarships for children of wounded and fallen soldiers," said Forbes. Fortune estimated the Obamas' net worth to be $12.2 million when they left the White House in January 2017.

Lucrative post-presidency

Throughout this political career, President Obama was as much a celebrity as he was an elected official. The Obamas have long exercised significant influence over popular reading habits by virtue of their book recommendations — and in the Trump era, this often serves as an excruciating reminder "that we used to have a thoughtful, curious, intelligent man leading this country," said Literary Hub. It is therefore not surprising, in retrospect, that entertainment has been central to Obama's activities after his presidency ended. In March 2017, the Obamas signed a joint $65 million deal with Penguin Random House for one memoir each that "appears to be bigger than any previous presidential book deal in history," said Vox. Michelle Obama's book, "Becoming," was published in 2018. It "employs the techniques of a novel more than those of a typical political memoir," resulting in a book that was "surprisingly candid, richly emotional and granularly detailed," said Vanity Fair. It "sold more copies than any other book published in the United States in 2018," said Penguin Random House.

Her 2022 book, "The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times," was also an instant bestseller. Its structure was such that each "chapter is a tool" individuals can use "to help keep yourself together," and the book's insights were "nuanced and never prescriptive," said The New York Times. It was the second-highest selling book of 2022, "​​selling nearly 734,000 copies" despite not being released until November, said Publishers Weekly. Barack Obama's memoir of his time in office, "A Promised Land," was published in 2020. It was "less a personal memoir than an unusual sort of history, one recounted by the man at the center of it," said The Washington Post. It sold almost three million copies in its first year and was the "top print title in 2020," the turbulent year that was "marred by a deadly pandemic and extraordinary political and racial strife," said Publisher's Weekly. He has been working on a second volume of that memoir, and the "new tome is nearing completion," said Deadline in September 2024. A release date has not yet been announced, and the former president has not provided an update on his progress since.

President Obama "reportedly earned $800,000 for two speeches and at least $2 million for three talks" in 2017 alone, said Yahoo Entertainment. Those fees drew widespread scrutiny, as he "immediately stepped into controversy over his post-White House buck-raking," said the Los Angeles Times. In 2018, the Obamas founded a production company, Higher Ground Productions, and signed an agreement for an undisclosed amount of money with the streaming service Netflix. That agreement gave the Obamas a "global platform in the Trump era, connecting them with an audience of more than 120 million Netflix subscribers in more than 190 countries," said NBC News. Some critics assailed the deal as being "more about name recognition than actual content," said The New York Times.

The company has produced scripted and unscripted television and movies, including the children's show "Waffles and Mochi" as well as the 2023 post-apocalyptic thriller "Leave the World Behind." Obama reportedly had a hands-on role in the adaptation of Rumaan Alam's 2020 novel about a family navigating a series of mysterious global events at their vacation rental, but the president's "input came after the story's script was formulated," said Forbes. The film has a "light, practically Spielbergian touch and sense of adventure," and during its runtime the "apocalypse felt fun," said Brianna Zigler at Paste Magazine. Because it didn't get a theatrical release, there is no traditional box office data for the movie.

In 2022, Higher Ground signed with Creative Artists Agency (CAA), which "signals further growth for their company," said Deadline. CAA is a "powerhouse talent agency" with a "star-studded" roster of "Hollywood actors and sports legends," including actor Meryl Streep and baseball star Shohei Ohtani, said CBS News. That same year, Higher Ground signed a deal with Amazon's Audible service that "includes multiple audio projects that will be distributed worldwide," said CNN.

Higher Ground also produces podcasts, including "IMO With Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson," which debuted in 2025 and replaced her previous program, "The Light Podcast." The new podcast is "marked by a very American tendency to mutual self-congratulation," whose guiding principle seems to be "to stick to banalities," said The Times. The amount of money that the Obamas make from Higher Ground is unknown.

Obama also won an Emmy for Outstanding Narration in 2022 for his voice work on the Netflix documentary series "Our Great National Parks." He won a second Emmy in 2023 for narrating "Working: What We Do All Day," and again in 2024 for another Netflix documentary, "Our Oceans," which is a "nature series you'll want to binge like all your other streaming favorites," said The Daily Beast.

The Obamas bought and moved into a home in Washington, D.C., for $8.1 million in 2017, and still maintain their residence in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago that they purchased in 2005. It remains a "secret how often the former first family stays" in their Chicago residence, but it is "often enough that the tree out front has been cicada-proofed," said Chicago Magazine. They also bought an estate on Martha's Vineyard, an island off the coast of Massachusetts, in 2019 for $11.75 million. The home "sits in an area that is rich with natural and human history" and their purchase was the "first time that a former president has bought property on the Island," said the Vineyard Gazette.

Like many Americans with substantial investments, the Obamas' portfolio has likely fluctuated dramatically in the tumultuous months following President Trump's "Liberation Day" tariff announcements on April 2, 2025, but no details of where the market drama has left them are currently available from public sources. Following the initial tariff announcement, Obama predicted they would have a negative impact but maintained that "he is more concerned with what he described as the White House's infringement of rights," said CNN.

This year's Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to a Japanese organisation of atomic bomb survivors.

Nobel Committee chair Berit Reiss-Andersen praised the "extraordinary efforts" of the Nihon Hidankyo group, saying its activities have "contributed greatly to the establishment of the nuclear taboo".

How is the prize chosen?

This year, there were 286 nominations for the peace prize – comprising 197 individuals and 89 organisations. The selecting committee sends out nomination forms or invitations for proposals to "qualified nominators", and the deadline for their nominations is the end of January.

The list of people who can nominate is "long – very long", said Al Jazeera. They come under several category heads, including members of national assemblies, governments of sovereign states and current heads of state. Other nominators include officials with international peace organisations; and university professors of history, social sciences, law, philosophy and religion. Former recipients can also nominate.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee, the five people chosen by Norway's parliament to select the winner, says the large number of potential nominators ensures a "great variety of candidates", but it does not reveal the nominees or those who nominated them until 50 years later, though people can "self-report their submissions if they choose", said The New York Times.

Why has it been controversial?

Previous winners include Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai (2014); Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk (1993) and Mother Teresa (1979), but some recipients have proven more controversial than others.

When the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Barack Obama, many commentators questioned the choice, as he had become president just 12 days before nominations had closed. The award was "not for anything he's actually done", wrote Michelle Malkin, a conservative commentator, "but for the symbolism of what he might possibly accomplish sometime way off in the future".

Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler have all been nominated in the past, although the latter nomination was meant satirically. None of them won. Meanwhile, Mahatma Gandhi was nominated five times but never actually won either, an omission that is often remarked upon.

Who is this year's winner?

The "grassroots movement" of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki was chosen "for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons" and for "demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again", said the committee.

The group is the only nationwide organisation of atom-bomb survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Its website states that its main objectives include "the prevention of nuclear war and the elimination of nuclear weapons", including "the signing of an international agreement for a total ban and the elimination of nuclear weapons".

The Nobel committee said the organisation's members "help us to describe the indescribable, to think the unthinkable", and "to somehow grasp the incomprehensible pain and suffering caused by nuclear weapons".

There's been a "profound change" in the US election race since Kamala Harris became the Democratic candidate, Keir Starmer said this week – the latest chapter in the pair's transatlantic love-in.

Ministers have "repeatedly said" that Britain would "work with whoever ended up in the White House", but Labour is "understood to significantly favour a Democrat win" said Geraldine Scott in The Times, and pundits are noting growing similarities between the two leaders.

What did the commentators say?

When Harris said at the Democratic National Convention that "you can always trust me to put country above party", it "struck a familiar note in Britain", where Starmer "used much the same phrase" throughout his "relentless march to power", said Mark Landler in the The New York Times.

Harris and Starmer have both "shaken off or soft-pedalled" some of their earlier positions, both are former public prosecutors who "declare a ringing commitment to the rule of law" and "both are operating in a volatile environment, where law and order is threatened by extremist elements".

Once in office their "similarities continued", said Stefan Boscia for Politico, "as each was accused of tacking to the left" and "plotting to impose a woke, liberal agenda on a sceptical nation".

Yet Harris has in fact "hardened her stance on border policy and reversed her opposition to fracking", said Landler, while Starmer has suspended Labour ministers who "balked" at his refusal to abolish a cap on child welfare payments.

Some of Starmer's most trusted Downing Street aides attended the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last week to speak to members of Harris' campaign team. The collaboration is "one strand in a growing transatlantic network" that is "shaping policy and political messaging in Washington and London".

For the first time in almost a quarter of a century, said Matthew McGregor, the former Labour digital director who also worked as a campaign strategist for Barack Obama, the Democrats now believe they have something to learn from Labour, thanks to Starmer's thundering win at the polls.

But there are "many caveats", said Landler, because Trump is "polling neck and neck" with Harris, while Labour "held a double-digit lead over the incumbent Conservative Party for 18 months before the election", and while Starmer ran "as a challenger against a deeply unpopular government", Harris "represents the Biden administration against a challenger".

Also, noted Boscia, Starmer is a "buttoned-down technocrat", more famous for his "caution and quiet ruthlessness than for his rhetorical skills", while Harris "is becoming known for an energetic campaign style mixing high politics and celebrity".

Another difference is that where Starmer "has the votes to carry out a bold programme but lacks the nerve", wrote Robert Kuttner for The American Prospect, Harris "increasingly has the nerve" but "may or may not have the votes to get her programme through Congress".

We could be facing "one of the most ideologically concerning" US-UK leader pairings "in history", argued Zoe Strimpel in The Telegraph, because their combination, "disguised in the sleek slogans and polished do-goodery", is "very bad indeed", and "the great transatlantic axis on which the whole of the West depends is about to sink under its weight".

What next?

Next month, another milestone on the campaign arrives in the shape of a debate between Harris and Trump, to be held by ABC News. As well as standing up to the bolshie Republican, Harris will "need to prove" that she will "follow in the progressive path Starmer has already beaten", namely "defining the party she now leads with an agenda that appeals to swing voters, working class voters, non-college grad voters", said Lindsay Mark Lewis for Progressive Britain.

It is a "tough task", he added, that she is "capable of achieving".

Tim Walz has formally accepted the vice-presidential nomination, telling Democrats that "we'll sleep when we're dead".

Kamala Harris's running mate was "emotional" as he "touted his small-town upbringing" at the Democratic National Convention, said the BBC, but although his party seems "energised" by his place on the ticket, polls still suggest a "very close race" with Donald Trump and his own running mate, JD Vance.

What did the commentators say?

Walz's address in Chicago was a "political speed date" for a man "with limited time to show what he stands for", wrote James Matthews, US correspondent for Sky News. In the "huge" speech, he "won over delegates' hearts and minds", said Ed Pilkington, chief reporter for The Guardian US.  Trump has claimed that vice-presidential running mates make "virtually no impact" on elections, and after Walz's speech, the Republican "better pray he's right".

"At moments", wrote Philip Elliott for Time, it was "plenty clear" that Walz could "make inroads" to moderates and conservative voters who "mightn't be entirely on-board with Harris".

Walz "seems entirely comfortable", if "cornily so", in his "persona as the Dad Next Door" who "never found a cliche he didn't find useful as a proxy for his feelings", and he "also brought sufficient fire" to keep the Democratic base "fired up" without "alienating the centrist core that is this nation".

Allies believe Walz can "broaden" Harris's appeal to "rural and working class voters", wrote Sam Cabral for BBC News. The 60-year-old "brings with him a folksy, plain-spoken and sharp-tongued approach" and political experience, "representing a Republican-leaning district in Congress" and "then later passing left-wing policies as Minnesota's governor", which could have "broad appeal" at a time when US politics is "so polarised".

"In recent years", Bruce Schulman, the William E. Huntington Professor of History at the Boston University College of Arts & Sciences, told BU Today, "the idea of 'balance' has reappeared" in demographic terms. The Democrats have balanced gender on their tickets three times and the Republicans have done it once. "You could consider this a case of both gender and ethnic-racial balance", he added.

Reporting on the first Harris-Walz event, in Philadelphia earlier this month, The Independent's Andrew Feinberg said the arena was "literally packed to the rafters" with an energy that "hasn't been present at any Democratic event in nearly a decade".

The "multiracial, multigenerational" crowd "mirrored the scenes I witnessed during Donald Trump's first campaign for the presidency" and was also "something I hadn't seen since" Barack Obama's campaign for a second term. Harris and Walz may be the underdogs, but Feinberg thinks we could see an "underdog victory on election night".

What next?

With one more day to go, the convention will climax with a speech by Harris this evening, when she'll "face the biggest test of her political life", said Lauren Gambino in The Guardian.

With Walz watching, she is expected to try and "lay out her personal story" as she "bids to become a historic president: the first woman president and the first woman of colour", but she "will also lay out a sharp contrast" between her "positive view of the country's future prospects" and Trump's "almost wholly grim warnings about the state of the nation" and his "focus on immigration and crime".

Trump is "reportedly fretting" over whether Harris's speech will "draw more viewers than his did", said The Independent. The "notoriously ratings-fixated" former president has been asking some media and political allies "what they think the Democratic convention's TV ratings will be like", said Rolling Stone.

A presidential nominee's choice of a running mate is one of the more high-profile decisions made prior to the general election. Political science research shows that these choices have limited impact, but in the kinds of agonizingly close elections that have characterized American presidential politics for most of this century, running mates can be consequential. 

The likely Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, is vetting her short list, and GOP nominee Donald Trump selected Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) earlier this month. Vance has subsequently come under fire for a series of controversial statements over the previous few years, fueling speculation that Trump might dump him from the ticket before it is too late. While it is much too early to say whether Vance will help or harm the Trump campaign, modern history is full of running mates who either helped the ticket across the finish line — or turned out to be a drag on losing campaigns. 

The best picks compensate for a nominee's weaknesses

George H.W. Bush (1980): In 1980, former California Gov. Ronald Reagan's brand of social and fiscal conservatism was in the process of taking over the GOP. But the party still included millions of moderates who were uncomfortable with the hawkish Reagan and considered him too extreme. So Reagan took the unusual step of tapping his moderate rival for the nomination, former U.S. Rep. and C.I.A. Director George H.W. Bush, as his running mate. Bush, who would later run successfully for the nomination and win the presidency in 1988, was from the Republican old guard of social liberals. He helped make voters comfortable with Reagan, who only a few years earlier was considered a firebrand who might accidentally start a nuclear war with the Soviets. The soft-spoken Bush ultimately helped Reagan deliver one of the worst defeats of an incumbent in American history when they vanquished Democratic President Jimmy Carter in a landslide. 

Mike Pence (2016): Critics derided him as "Mike Dense" and mocked Trump's selection of the pious incumbent governor of Indiana. But the staid and steady Pence helped solidify support from white evangelical voters – perhaps the single most important Republican voting bloc – who were uncomfortable with Trump's personal history as a twice-divorced man with a reputation for womanizing. When the infamous Access Hollywood tape that included Trump talking about sexually assaulting women was leaked to the press in October 2016, Pence's standing on the ticket may have made it possible for Trump to survive the episode. Pence's wife, Karen, told him that she "would no longer appear in public if he carried on as Trump's running mate," after hearing the tape, said journalist Tim Alberta. But Pence stuck with Trump, and together they won the election, in part by winning 80% of white evangelical voters, according to exit polls. 

Al Gore (1992): After 12 years of Republican control of the White House and three straight blowout presidential losses, Democrats were desperate to get their nominee right – especially because the incumbent, George H.W. Bush, looked increasingly vulnerable as the party conventions approached. Already dogged by allegations of extra-marital affairs (and possibly worse), Democrats worried that their nominee, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, would be seen as too liberal despite his status as one of the early members of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council (DLC). Gore, a Tennessee senator, was also a charter member of that centrist Democratic group, which wanted to move away from the party's reliance on a brand of liberalism that had become unpopular. Clinton gambled that a young ticket of self-styled ideological moderates would persuade the electorate to once again trust Democrats with the country's highest office, and they were proven right when they won the election decisively.

The worst picks compensate for the wrong problem

Sarah Palin (2008): Palin is the ultimate cautionary tale in running mate selection lore. GOP nominee John McCain, a longtime Arizona senator with a carefully cultivated image as a "maverick," wanted to pick his friend and longtime colleague Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) as his running mate. But Republican strategists feared that the party's base would revolt, and McCain impulsively chose the little-known Palin to increase enthusiasm from the conservative wing of the party. Despite an electric debut at the Republican National Convention, Palin later gave a series of disastrous interviews in the following weeks that led to her enduring Saturday Night Live caricature as an intellectual lightweight. In one infamous exchange, Palin was unable to tell CBS's Katie Couric the names of any newspapers that she read. As the campaign dragged on, even Palin's own staff grew frustrated with her and voters began to doubt her credibility as a possible successor to McCain, who would be 72 by Election Day. McCain went on to lose to Democratic nominee Barack Obama by 7.3 points. The "Palin effect," ultimately "cost McCain almost 2% of the final vote share," according to one 2010 study

Tim Kaine (2016): Riding high in public opinion polls and watching Republicans make the seemingly suicidal choice of Donald Trump as their nominee, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton decided to pick Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) as her running mate. The moderate Kaine was not from a swing state, was not particularly charismatic, and did nothing to shore up Clinton's left flank with progressives still seething from the outcome of the bitter primary contest against Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Reports suggested that Clinton chose Kaine precisely because of their ideological affinity, a callback to her husband Bill Clinton's choice of Al Gore in 1992. Clinton and Kaine "are cut from the same political cloth," said The New Yorker's John Cassidy about the puzzling selection. Kaine was thought by Clinton's advisors to be "someone with whom they might work closely for four or eight years," Cassidy said. Instead, they only got to work together for a few months before their shock loss to the Trump-Pence ticket. 

Joe Lieberman (2000): For Democrats, it is hard to think about Joe Lieberman outside the context of what followed his losing campaign with then-Vice President Al Gore in 2000. A social moderate, Lieberman, a veteran senator for Connecticut, became so disenchanted with his party during George W. Bush's two terms that he ran successfully as an independent for another term in 2006.  In 2008 Lieberman campaigned for the Republican nominee, John McCain and appeared at the Republican National Convention. But in 2000, Gore chose him as a way of distancing himself from President Clinton's sordid personal history. Lieberman had given a fiery speech on the Senate floor during Clinton's 1998 impeachment trial denouncing his conduct while still voting to acquit. Lieberman was also the first Jewish candidate to serve on a major-party presidential ticket and was very popular in his home state. But Gore's real problem was with the disenchanted progressive wing of his own party, and enough people deserted him for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader to cost Gore the crucial swing state of Florida and thus the election. 

 British politics has become "hooked" on "begging emails" with "threatening subject lines", according to experts.

With an election "looming", said Politico's John Johnson, fundraising messages from parties to their supporters "litter Britain's inboxes". But the growing number of digital pleas could "turn genuine supporters off".

When did the trend begin?

Fundraising pleas have been pinged out for almost as long as emails have existed, but a more targeted technique was "pioneered" by Barack Obama, said Johnson, and was "aggressively deployed" by Donald Trump during his presidential campaigning.

Such emails "take many forms", said NPR, but a familiar feature is provocative subject lines. In 2015, Ted Cruz's campaign used the header "Dropping out" for an email which then explained that it was his GOP presidential opponent Bobby Jinadal who had quit the White House race, due to a lack of funds. During the same election, the Hillary Clinton campaign used teasing headers ranging from "Bill wants to meet you" to "dinner?".

Here in the UK, recent subject lines include "They're watching" from Labour, "DO NOT IGNORE" from the Tories' London mayoral candidate Susan Hall, and "I need your full attention" from far-right party Britain First.

"Crucially", said Johnson, emails aimed at "drumming up support" for a political party "benefit from fine tuning" using techniques including "A/B" testing, which allows varying subject lines and content to be sent to different subscribers.

India Thorogood, who led Labour's membership mobilisation push for the 2019 election, told the news site that it was common for up to four versions of the same email to be sent, each with tweaks to the language or images. Analysts then scrutinise data on the emails including the open rates, reading times, and the number and size of resulting donations, to "further hone their tactics", said Johnson.

What are the benefits and risks?

The cash raised by email fundraising can be considerable, with Obama pulling in about $500 million during his 2012 re-election bid. 

There are also "PR and mobilisation benefits beyond the balance sheet", said Johnson. "Swathes of small donations" can be "spun to show popular support for a candidate". Jeremy Corbyn raised millions in small donations during his time as Labour leader, "feeding into his team's narrative he represented the many, not the few".

Enlisting new donors can also turn "passing interest into enthusiastic support". Josh Harvey, who has worked on Tory leadership campaigns, told the site that "once someone's spent money on something, they feel automatically, literally, bought into the process".

But while a "cocktail of conversation, guilt and clickbait" can drive donations and engagement "through the roof", said Johnson, fundraising emails can backfire. Emails with misleading subject lines risk annoying voters. And Thorogood "cautions against" guilt-tripping emails, "because they may lead to "long-term disillusionment". 

Asking for "too much, too often" is another risk, said The Washington Post. In the years after he lost the presidency to Joe Biden, Trump sent "so many" emails and text messages asking for money that Republican consultants warned his mailing lists could become "useless". Last year, Trump and his fundraising committees raised $51 million from "small-dollar donors", down from a record $626.6 million in 2020 and $119 million in 2019.

A new podcast series from "Serial" is out today on the history of the Guantánamo Bay detention centre, one of the most controversial episodes in the more than two-decades long "War on Terror".

Opened as a military prison in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks, the US presence in Cuba in fact dates back more a century. Built on land rented from the Cuban government as part of a contested 1903 agreement signed following the 1898 Spanish-American War, the naval base at Guantánamo Bay is under US control though not technically American territory.

It is because of its "uncertain legal status" that the base was chosen as the site of a detention centre, said Georgetown University's Bridge Initiative, "allowing the US government to argue that those detained at the base were not entitled to certain rights under US laws".

Why was it set up?

The first detainees arrived on 11 January 2002. Soon, chained prisoners in orange jumpsuits sitting in cages became the defining images of the US-led "War on Terror".

Initially a "temporary" solution to hold people suspected of being part of the Taliban or al-Qaida, "over the next two decades it hardened into an American institution with its own rules, its own prison, its own court", said Deadline.

At its peak in the early 2000s, the prison housed nearly 800 inmates, many of whom were held indefinitely without charge, unable to qualify as prisoners of war and so excluded from the rights of the Geneva Convention. The detention centre was made up of several distinct camps – the most infamous of these being Camp X-Ray for high-level detainees – which differed in their security level, their transparency, and who was imprisoned there.

"Though not singular among prisons in its harsh treatment and arbitrary detention", said Pardiss Kebriaei, a lawyer representing Guantánamo prisoners, in The Guardian, it was "at least for a time very overt in its extremeness, and what could be seen more plainly than usual caused a reaction".

The brutal treatment of prisoners and opaque legal status of Guantánamo made it, according to Amnesty, "a symbol of torture, rendition and indefinite detention without charge or trial".

Reports of inhumane conditions and the use of so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" led to condemnation around the world and a growing "movement" to close the detention centre down, said Kebriaei.

Barack Obama signed an executive order with the aim of closing the camp within one year of taking office in 2009, but while the number of inmates fell significantly during his presidency, repeated attempts to repatriate the remaining inmates or send them to high-security jails in the US were thwarted by Congress. His successor in the White House, Donald Trump, pledged to fill it with more prisoners, while the Biden administration once again committed to closing it.

Legal and human rights considerations aside, keeping the Guantánamo Bay detention camp open is also "extremely costly", said the Bridge Initiative. Since 2002 the total bill has exceeded $6 billion, and the yearly cost of imprisoning each person is over $13 million, making it "almost certainly" the world's "most expensive detention program", said Carol Rosenberg in The New York Times.

What is it used for today?

Of the 30 men still held at Guantánamo, 11 have been charged with war crimes in the military commissions system, with 10 awaiting trial and one convicted. Three detainees are held in indefinite law-of-war detention and are neither facing tribunal charges nor being recommended for release. Sixteen – known as "forever prisoners" – are held in law-of-war detention but have been recommended for transfer with security arrangements to another country.

"These are detentions that are inescapably bound up with multiple layers of unlawful government conduct over the years – secret transfers, incommunicado interrogations, forced feeding of hunger strikers, torture, enforced disappearance, and a complete lack of due process," said Amnesty International's Daphne Eviatar in a statement ahead of the 20th anniversary of Guantánamo's opening.

In January this year, nearly 100 advocacy organisations sent a letter to President Biden urging him to follow through with his promise and finally close the facility.

Scott Roehm, director of global policy and advocacy at the Center for Victims of Torture, told NPR the failure to close the prison has largely been the result of "a lack of courage and a lack of priority" from the Biden administration.

"What seems most gratuitous here", concluded Kebriaei, "is that those closest to Guantánamo agree that it was a profound mistake, that most of those ever detained never should have been held at all, and that the majority of those still imprisoned after 22 years do not belong there now."

The first two episodes of the Serial podcast on the history of Guantánamo Bay will launch on Thursday 28 March, with episodes released weekly after that.

Commentators say Keir Starmer has become more open during interviews and the man behind the transformation is none other than Barack Obama, says a Labour shadow minister.

Even Starmer's "closest supporters" had become "frustrated by his inability to open up in public", said Politico, but "something has changed recently" after the former US president "urged Starmer to talk more openly".

'Barack just came alive'

An interview with Sky News earlier this month has been cited as evidence of the transformation. Starmer opened up on his "distant" relationship with his late father and said he wishes they had been closer.

Afterwards, the interviewer, Sophy Ridge, reflected that she had previously found Starmer "slightly impenetrable" but she had now "found a side that I hadn't experienced before", and felt "like I got to understand him a little better". Ridge's Sky News colleague, Adam Boulton, wrote that a "flurry of interviews and profiles" of the Labour leader is intended to answer the question of who he "really" is.

Could Obama be responsible for this change? Starmer and the former US president were introduced by Labour MP David Lammy, a friend of both politicians. The shadow foreign secretary said that, during a series of calls on Zoom, Obama told Starmer that 21st-century politicians must “communicate who they really are".

Speaking to the Power Play podcast, Lammy revealed that the former president's key message to the Labour leader was to be authentic. Obama's approach is "always seated in authenticity," said Lammy.

When Starmer began discussing his father during conversations with Obama, “Barack just came alive,” Lammy told the Labour leader's biographer, in a separate interview. The Democrat began "interrogating Keir further," Lammy said, as he thought that the story could become the "architecture for a genuine campaign".

Lammy added that Starmer has been talking a "lot more" about how his mother "struggled terribly with illness for many, many years", and how "his father cared for her". He has now discussed his "backstory, much more comfortably than perhaps we saw a few years ago" and "I know that Obama had strong views that Keir should do that".

'Clinton clone'

This is not the first time that a senior UK politician and a US president have reportedly swapped notes. During the 1997 general election campaign, Tony Blair was compared to Bill Clinton. "People called him a Clinton clone, or Clinton Lite," said Bloomberg at the time.

More recently, Boris Johnson has been compared to Donald Trump. The two men are "dangerously similar", said New Statesman and they have "overlapping lives", said The Spectator. Before he became prime minister, Johnson had quietly met Trump aide Stephen Miller, to swap speech writing tips.

Nancy Pelosi has announced she will not seek another term in the Democratic Party’s leadership, following a historic career that saw her become the first woman to serve as speaker of the US House of Representatives.

For nearly two decades, the 82-year-old congresswoman has led the Democrats in the House, becoming one of the most powerful and polarising figures in recent political history.

She is likely to be succeeded by Republican Kevin McCarthy, who won his party’s nomination to be speaker in the new Republican-controlled House in a secret ballot on Tuesday.

“The hour has come for a new generation to lead the Democratic caucus,” Pelosi told the chamber on Thursday. “Now we must move boldly into the future, grounded by the principles that have propelled us this far, and open to fresh possibilities for the future.”

The announcement came just three weeks after her husband, Paul Pelosi, was assaulted by a man who broke into the couple’s house in San Francisco and attacked him with a hammer, leaving him in need of surgery on a fractured skull.

On Thursday, Pelosi told reporters that she had been experiencing “survivor’s guilt” in the aftermath of the attack. “It made our home a crime scene,” she said, noting that her children and grandchildren were also dealing with trauma as a result of the incident, said The Washington Post.

‘Most consequential speaker’

In a statement on Thursday, President Joe Biden described Pelosi as “the most consequential speaker of the House of Representatives in our history”, while former president Barack Obama said she was “one of most accomplished legislators in American history”.

Pelosi inspired “countless women” to pursue careers in politics, said the Post in a leader column, setting a “standard for leadership for which the nation should be grateful and to which others who hold the gavel should aspire”.

When Pelosi dramatically ripped up a copy of former president Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech after he concluded his 78-minute address in February 2020, the gesture “only reinforced her legendary status among Democrats”, said the Financial Times. “She was Trump’s biggest problem,” Scott Peters, a House Democrat from California, told the paper.

‘Lightning rod for Republican anger’

During her first stint as speaker, from 2007-11, Pelosi said she never intended to win a “popularity contest” – and she was certainly never short of critics.

Over the years, she became a “lightning rod for Republican anger”, said the BBC, because “in their eyes”, she represented the “coastal elites pushing a big-spending, radical platform”.

She even took on a “kind of mythic malice”, added The Guardian’s US columnist Moira Donegan, her “very face” becoming a “shorthand for liberal extremism, a visual code that denotes secularism, taxation and frightening new pronouns”.

But the hate directed at Pelosi didn’t solely come from the right. “The American left tends to hate Pelosi, too”, said Donegan, because her two terms as speaker were “eras of strictly enforced centrism” when “the congressional agenda was kept well to the right of the base’s preferences”.

Her controversial visit to Taiwan earlier this year caused “apoplexy” and “apocalypticism” within both parties, said the Jewish US magazine Commentary. China called the visit “sneaky” and The New York Times’s Tom Friedman described it as “utterly reckless, dangerous, and irresponsible”.

Visiting Taiwan was one example of Pelosi’s history of dipping her toes into divisive geopolitical issues. In 2003, she was one of the highest-profile, most outspoken opponents of the US invasion of Iraq, calling former president George W. Bush’s policy in the region “a grotesque mistake”.

She successfully “whipped much of her party against an Iraq War resolution worked on by [Bush’s administration]”, said ABC News. The broadcaster added that Pelosi is also credited with repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell”, a policy that barred openly LGBTQ members in the military.

What next for Pelosi?

Pelosi’s former chief of staff, John Lawrence, told the BBC that he expects his ex-boss to “play an important role” in mentoring newer members of Congress and “working with the White House now that Democrats [are] in the minority again”.

“There’s never really a good time to leave,” Lawrence said. “When you’re in the ascendancy, you want to accomplish a great deal, and when things are going against you, you want to fight back.”

Former Secretary of Defense Ash Carter unexpectedly passed away, his family said in a statement on Tuesday. He was 68.

According to the statement, Carter died Monday in Boston following a "sudden cardiac event." His family added that Carter had "devoted his professional life to the national security of the United States and teaching students about international affairs ... He was a beloved husband, father, mentor, and friend. His sudden loss will be felt by all who knew him."

Carter served as the 25th U.S. defense secretary from Feb. 2015 to Jan. 2017, and the last under former President Barack Obama.

He was responsible for a number of successful initiatives during his tenure, with his family noting that he "launched the successful campaign to defeat ISIS in Iraq and Syria, opened all combat positions to women, and forged new connections between the Department of Defense and the nation's technology community."

He also enacted a major change within all branches of the military by ending the ban on transgender troops, and changed regulations to allow women to serve in all combat positions.

Carter served under five presidents during his time at the Pentagon, working in a variety of roles within the nation's military brass.

In a statement, Obama called Carter "a keen student of history, a brilliant physicist, and a steadfast defender of men and women in uniform." President Biden also released a statement saying Carter was "guided by a strong, steady moral compass and a vision of using his life for public purpose."

Update Oct. 25, 2022: This story has been updated with statements from President Biden and former President Obama.

Barack Obama has spoken out against “cancel culture” in his own party, claiming that “buzzkill” Democrats are getting caught up in “policy gobbledygook”.

“Sometimes people just want to not feel as if they are walking on eggshells,” the former president told the Pod Save America podcast, “and they want some acknowledgement that life is messy and that all of us, at any given moment, can say things the wrong way, make mistakes.”

Obama “did not give an example, or name anyone”, said The Times, “but the left of his party has been accused of promoting identity politics”.

‘That’s not activism’

This was not the first time that Obama has spoken out about the trend. In 2019, he objected to the prevalence of “call-out culture” and “wokeness”, reported The New York Times.

Speaking about youth activism at the Obama Foundation Summit, he said: “This idea of purity and you’re never compromised and you’re always politically ‘woke’ and all that stuff, you should get over that quickly.”

The former president said that, among some young people, “there is this sense sometimes of: ‘The way of me making change is to be as judgmental as possible about other people,’ and that’s enough.

“That’s not activism. That’s not bringing about change,” he said. “If all you’re doing is casting stones, you’re probably not going to get that far. That’s easy to do.”

Speaking to CNN in 2021, he warned of “the dangers of cancel culture” going too far in American society, saying there were “people going overboard”, noted The Hill.

Cancel culture ‘isn’t real’

“His comments hold a lot of gratifying truths,” wrote Sarah Ditum for The Observer, following Obama’s remarks in 2019.

She added that cancel culture “can spill into lost jobs, broken friendships and public protests; ultimately, it amounts to an effort to declare the victim a non-person, someone intolerable to decent society” and with “no appeals and no rehabilitation”.

However, wrote Sarah Hagi for Time in the same year, “cancel culture isn’t real, at least not in the way people believe it is”. Rather, “it’s turned into a catch-all for when people in power face consequences for their actions or receive any type of criticism, something that they’re not used to”.

Indeed, writing for The Independent, author Michael Arceneaux said he was “never quite sure if Obama really thinks this naively or if he’s trying to convince certain sects of the population – notably young black folks, whom he just loves to lecture – that it’s better to coddle white people about their prejudices with the hopes of growth rather than speak our minds as we see fit”.

Another to take issue with Obama’s opinion was journalist Ernest Owens. In The New York Times, he wrote that “as a millennial who has participated in using digital platforms to critique powerful people for promoting bigotry or harming others, I can assure you it wasn’t because they had ‘different opinions’.

“It was because they were spreading the kinds of ideas that contribute to the marginalisation of people like me and those I care about.”

Penguin Random House announced Wednesday that it would be renaming one of its most prestigious awards in honor of former first lady Michelle Obama.

The Michelle Obama Award for Memoir will be part of the publishing agency's Creative Writing Awards program. In a statement, Penguin said the award will recognize one talented high school senior with a $10,000 scholarship for an "original literary composition in English in the category of memoir/personal essay."

Penguin's Creative Writing Awards are given out in five different writing categories, and Obama will now stand alongside awards named for Amanda Gorman and Maya Angelou. The program has awarded more than $2.8 million in scholarships to creative writers.

Known for promoting a variety of causes during her time in the White House, Obama has become a prolific writer herself since her husband left office. Her memoir, Becoming, was released in 2018 and chronicled her youth and upbringing in Chicago through her time as the first lady. The book became wildly popular, topping best-seller lists around the world and selling more than 17 million copies, which The Associated Press notes is "by far the most popular book by a modern White House resident."

"After publishing my memoir Becoming, I've learned that writing your own story can be a powerful tool." Obama said in a statement to Penguin. "That's why I am so excited about this new award, and I can't wait to read what this next generation of young writers will share with us all."

It's that time of year again — when Barack Obama releases his annual summer reading and music lists, and we all subsequently wonder how the former president of the United States manages to keep up with trending music and books while our parents have still somehow never heard of Harry Styles.

"I've read a couple of great books this year and wanted to share some of my favorites so far. What have you been reading this summer?" Obama tweeted Tuesday alongside his latest literature shortlist, which included Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel, Why We're Polarized by Ezra Klein, and The Family Chao by Lan Samantha Change.

The former president later shared with followers his 2022 summer playlist, which has him queuing up old classics like Joe Cocker's "Feelin' Alright," Otis Redding's "I've Been Loving You," and Al Green's "I Can't Get Next To You" as well as guaranteed bops like Beyoncé's "Break My Soul," Wet Leg's "Angelica," and Amber Mark's "Bliss" to soundtrack his beach season.

"Every year, I get excited to share my summer playlist because I learn about so many new artists from your replies—it's an example of how music really can bring us all together," he wrote before asking, "What songs would you add?"

Well, we certainly don't see any mention of "Running Up That Hill," Barack! Maybe you're not as up with Gen Z as we thought ...

Barack is back

Former President Barack Obama returned to the White House Tuesday for the first time since leaving office. He was there to commemorate the 12th anniversary of his Affordable Care Act and help President Biden push for further health care reform.

"Thank you, Vice President Biden," Obama said as he stepped up to the podium. It was a joke, one Obama took great pains to downplay, but it accurately reflected the dynamic. Everyone in the room promptly forgot about the most powerful man in the world. Videos show Biden shuffling awkwardly around the room while murmurations of functionaries swirled around Obama. At one point, Biden even placed his hand on Obama's shoulder and said "Barack." Obama didn't even glance at him.

All the energy in the room emanated from and returned to a man whose public life is supposedly over. It shouldn't have to be. Obama should run for Senate.

He's only 60, after all. He's got at least two terms in him. Maybe three. In any blue state, Obama would clear the primary field and win the general in a landslide, and it just so happens that he owns a home in Massachusetts. Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey are both in their 70s.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light

Old fuddy-duddies like Ronald Reagan (who left office at the age of 77) have every right to retire at the end of their presidencies. Go fishing and spend time with the grandkids.

Obama, on the other hand, was only 55 when his second term ended. Bill Clinton was only 54, and George W. Bush only 62. The presidency is a grueling job. Eight years in office lined Obama's face and turned his hair gray, and he certainly earned a few years of leisure. But he has more to offer. So did Bush in 2009. So did Clinton in 2000. Whatever you think of them as human beings or political leaders, these are men of action. The post-presidential lives they're expected to lead are unworthy of them, especially when those long descents to the grave could stretch on for decades.

The last several presidents — with the exception of Trump, who prefers to brood like Megatron in his gilded lair — have all pursued the same combination of writing memoirs, giving paid speeches, dabbling in political kingmaking, and engaging in the sort of philanthropy one suspects is more about preserving a place in the upper echelons than serving the poor. Obama's Netflix deal is a departure from this pattern, but not a significant one. Jimmy Carter, who's done real work in diplomacy and charity, is a glaring exception.

This lingering in the limelight isn't good for former presidents, and it robs us of everything they might still contribute. If they want to retire, fine. But if they want to do something, let's give them something real to do.

Precedents for presidents

What should that "something" be? History provides a number of options. Grover Cleveland played the stock market. James Madison helped revise the Virginia state constitution and served as president of the American Colonization Society, which helped former slaves settle in Liberia. John Adams, like Washington before him, returned to his farm.

The more vigorous former commanders-in-chief could imitate Theodore Roosevelt, who — after failing to win a third term — undertook a grueling expedition to the South American jungle.

Those who aren't quite done with public life are also in good company. In the first century of the republic, three former presidents were elected to public office. One-term president John Quincy Adams won nine terms in the House of Representatives. Six years after leaving the Oval Office, Andrew Johnson was elected as a senator from Tennessee, though he died a few months after taking office. John Tyler's neighbors — all Whigs who considered his presidency a disaster — mockingly elected the former president as the local overseer of roads, a position he took up with the utmost seriousness. Tyler also served briefly in the Confederate Congress.

Princeps or Augustus?

Gaius Octavius, Julius Caesar's adopted heir and the first Roman emperor, held two separate and contradictory titles: Augustus, meaning "illustrious one," and Princeps Civitatis, meaning "first citizen." The first title presented him as an almost godlike figure, standing far above mere mortals. The second gave the opposite impression. "A monarch? Who, me? No way! I'm a citizen, just like you!"

In the United States, we seem torn between the two. We expect our presidents to kiss babies and eat hot dogs, limit them to two terms in office, and hedge them about with legislative, judicial, and bureaucratic checks. And yet, the American presidency still bears on its brow the recognizable imprint of the crown. This was especially clear in the beginning. Alexander Hamilton proposed that the president should hold office for life, John Adams suggested calling the chief executive "His Elected Highness," and George Washington personally led the army dispatched to crush the Whiskey Rebellion.

Today, the pomp of the Inauguration and the State of the Union seem far more appropriate to Elizabeth II than to Boris Johnson, who took office following a simple invitation from the queen and must regularly wrangle with lowly MPs. Recent British prime ministers Gordon Brown and Theresa May both returned to the back benches of Parliament after losing the premiership. It's difficult to imagine a modern president doing the same. Washington's famous imitation of Cincinnatus in stepping away from public life did much to cast the president as princeps. Today, ironically, that same precedent — albeit with a definition of "private life" more suited to the age of air travel and the internet — turns our former chief executives into semi-deified figures considered too pure to do anything but kill time as members of the jet-setting aristocracy.

If the president is some sort of sacramental monarch, who after being anointed with the inaugural oil remains forever after a higher sort of being, then let's acknowledge that. Repeal the term limits and give him a scepter to carry. Keep making scenes like the one we saw at the White House on Tuesday.

But if the president truly is just the first citizen, a public servant who served for a time in a particular capacity, then let's treat him or her that way. It should be considered perfectly normal for former presidents to sit on corporate boards, go into private law practice, run for Senate or governor, or accept an appointment as ambassador. The only possible argument against these activities would be that the former president's lingering aura of majesty would somehow overawe his business partners or opposing counsel or fellow lawmakers or whatever.

I'm sorry. I thought this was a republic. I thought we didn't believe in such things.

1. My husband and I want to split on good terms – thanks to no-fault divorces, we finally can

Anonymous in The Guardian

on a new law

An anonymous writer at The Guardian says she and her husband recently decided to divorce after 15 years of marriage. “This was not a spur-of-the-moment thing – we had agonised over it for a long time.” With two sons, “we were determined to live together as a family and for years we muddled along, functioning almost as a business rather than a marriage”. The couple agreed “not to go down the divorce route until we had been separated for two years” – otherwise, under UK law as it then stood, blame would need to be placed on one party for a divorce to proceed. “We didn’t want to place blame or trivialise” the marriage, and the couple felt they had “no choice but to wait”. The change in law in England and Wales to allow no-fault divorce came with a sense of “relief” that was “indescribable”. This “new, kinder form of divorce” has “given us both a sense of control”, meaning “we can divorce mutually and respectfully with our heads held high”.

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2. The true cause of No. 10’s conversion therapy muddle

Isabel Hardman in The Spectator

on drafting legislation

“The government has had to bow to the inevitable and cancel its own international LGBT conference”, writes Isabel Hardman at The Spectator. More than 100 organisations have withdrawn support following the decision not to ban conversion therapy for transgender people. “The die was cast much further back than last week’s botched double U-turn on a ban on gay conversion therapy: it was when ministers committed to the legislation without thinking it through at all,” she continues. This “row” brings to the fore “serious problems with the way Westminster deals with legislation”, its focus “almost entirely upon the principles at stake, rather than the impact of the way the laws are drafted”. The conversion therapy ban “is just the latest example of the Something Must Be Done instinct in all governments”, but “surely we want legislation that works, rather than merely claims to work,” says Hardman. Ministers “often” jump to a policy “without noticing they have made a logical leap to assuming that this is the one Thing that should be done, without checking that it's the right Thing to do.”

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3. President Obama, your country needs you

Dana Milbank in The Washington Post

on political skill

“Retirement has been good to Barack Obama,” writes Dana Milbank at The Washington Post. Obama returned to the White House this week for the first time since he left office in 2017. “Fit and vigorous, if a bit grayer and more wrinkly”, he returned to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. “Obama has been living his best life, even making a podcast and writing a book with Bruce Springsteen.” But “President Obama: your country needs you,” implores Milbank. “Democracy is on the ropes. This is an all-hands-on-deck moment for the ship of state, and no one is better able to help the cause” than the 44th US President. “America desperately needs Obama in the arena – although not necessarily in the Biden White House.” Biden seemed this week to be “playing Obama’s understudy”. “Where Obama was loose, Biden was stiff”, though Democrats “shouldn’t delude themselves into thinking things would be better now if only Obama were in charge”, despite his “political skill”. But Republicans have “gotten worse” and are “taking aim at democracy itself”. Obama is in “an unrivalled position to mobilise Americans in defence of democracy”.

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4. Dear climate activists, stop alienating the public or you might lose the battle

Sophie Church in The Independent

on disruptive tactics

Last year, climate groups “caused general chaos across the UK”, using “disruptive tactics” in an effort to “force the government to make essential climate policy pledges”, writes Sophie Church at The Independent. “The result? To anger a population already close to breaking point”. The latest round of climate protests has seen “newcomers” Just Stop Oil obstruct access to terminals across England, “aiming to put the blockers on new proposed oil and gas projects. Same thing, different day.” They’ve similarly been glueing their hands to the roads and locking themselves to oil drums, with police deployed “to deal with the demonstrations”. “No one is saying their cause is not just,” writes Church, “it’s more the way they are going about it.” For protest groups, spreading awareness and gaining public supporters “can be a route to making effective change. Infuriating those same members of the public, then, can only do the opposite”. She thinks “there must be another way”.

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5. Shambolic Home Office shames Britain and betrays terrified Ukrainian refugees in need of a home

The Sun editorial board

on a ‘broken’ department

The Sun describes the Home Office as “arrogant, complacent, lazy, useless”. It “shames Britain before the eyes of the world”. The department’s “shambolic failure to green-light more refugees is a betrayal not just of those poor, terrified Ukrainians but of the families who have offered them a home and of Europe’s combined war effort”. The government’s “commitment to Ukraine’s forces” is evidenced by its donations of arms, but “Priti Patel’s department lags woefully behind”. A “supposed 24/7 helpline is swamped because just 15 staff are allegedly tasked with handling thousands of calls a day” and visa applications “take an age to process if they are processed at all”. This “is a disgraceful way to handle this emergency, matched for ineptitude only by the Home Office’s simultaneous failure to stop hundreds of illegal migrants arriving daily across the Channel”. The department is “broken” and “must be fixed”.

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Former President Barack Obama tweeted on Sunday that he has tested positive for COVID-19, and while he has had "a scratchy throat for a couple days," he is "feeling fine otherwise."

Obama said his wife, former first lady Michelle Obama, tested negative for the virus, and both are "grateful to be vaccinated and boosted." He added, "It's a reminder to get vaccinated if you haven't already, even as cases go down."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that 75.2 percent of American adults are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, while 47.7 percent of those who are fully vaccinated have received a booster shot.

Former President Barack Obama was one of many prominent U.S. politicians to comment on Russia's invasion of Ukraine on Thursday, saying it "threatens the foundation of the international order" and offering his perspective on what Americans should do moving forward.

The former president first condemned Moscow's "brutal" attack, despairing at the death and destruction that would leave "untold numbers" of displaced Ukrainians.

He then called on Americans to denounce Russia's actions and put aside political differences to "support President Biden's efforts ... to impose hard hitting sanctions on Russia."

"There may be some economic consequences to such sanctions, given Russia's significant role in global energy markets," Obama continued. "But that's a price we should be willing to pay to take a stand on the side of freedom."

See his full statement below.

Former President Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), and other lawmakers are remembering Harry Reid as "a great leader in the Senate" and "tough-as-nails strong, but caring and compassionate."

Reid, a Nevada Democrat who served as Senate majority leader from 2007 through 2014, died on Tuesday at 82. Reid was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2018, and Obama tweeted that when Reid "was nearing the end," his wife, Landra, asked people to write letters she could read to her husband, as it was difficult for him to speak on the phone. In lieu of a statement, Obama, whose landmark health care legislation was passed thanks to Reid, shared his letter.

"Here's what I want you to know: You were a great leader in the Senate, and early on you were more generous to me than I had any right to expect," Obama wrote to Reid. "I wouldn't have been president had it not been for your encouragement and support, and I wouldn't have got most of what I got done without your skill and determination." He also thanked Reid for being "a good friend," adding, "As different as we are, I think we both saw something of ourselves in each other — a couple of outsiders who defied the odds and knew how to take a punch and cared about the little guy. And you know what, we made a pretty good team."

Schumer said in a statement that Reid was "one of the most amazing individuals I've ever met" and "tough-as-nails strong, but caring and compassionate, and always went out of his way quietly to help people who needed help." Reid was a boxer in college, and Schumer said he "used those boxing instincts to fearlessly fight those who were hurting the poor and the middle class."

Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak (D) praised Reid's commitment to his home state, tweeting, "To say Harry Reid was a giant doesn't fully encapsulate all that he accomplished on behalf of the state of Nevada and for Nevada families; there will never be another leader quite like Sen. Reid. To me, he was a mentor, a father figure, and someone I trusted to always give it to me straight."

Republican lawmakers are also sharing their memories of Reid, with Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) tweeting that "early in our career, we worked together to get a taxpayers bill of rights passed. Even though I am ideologically opposite I must say he did a good job representing the interests of Nevada in the U.S. Senate. As majority leader he ran a tight ship."

It's that time of year again — when Barack Obama reveals his favorite music, movies, and books of the year, and lauded actors, authors, and artists react in glee and perhaps disbelief that their work made an impact on the former president.

On Friday, Obama released his third of the year-end lists, this one featuring his favorite tunes of 2021. Soon after, mentioned artists like Lizzo, Yebba, and Jon Batiste shared his post across social channels, thanking him for listening while relishing in their presidential Spotify win.

Former President Barack Obama reportedly couldn't curb Larry David's enthusiasm when the comedian was cut from the guest list for Obama's somewhat controversial 60th birthday party on Martha's Vineyard last week.

David's apparent elation over getting uninvited mostly seemed to stem from the fact that he initially feared he was going to be expected to perform at the event, which was eventually scaled down because of concerns about the Delta coronavirus variant. In an email to The New York Times' Maureen Dowd, David said he was struggling to come up with a standup routine after Obama's assistant called him with the invite. "I was glum when I finally called back his assistant," David told Dowd.

But then things turnaround for the creator of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm.

"When he told me I was eighty-sixed from the party, I was so relieved I screamed, 'Thank you! Thank you!' He must've though I was insane," David said. "Then I hung up the phone, poured myself a drink, and finished my crossword puzzle." Read Dowd's full column at The New York Times.

It's former President Barack Obama's party, and he can cancel if he wants to. Of course Obama, having planned his 60th birthday party for months, almost certainly did not want to significantly scale back Saturday's big celebration on Martha's Vineyard, but spokeswoman Hannah Hankins said Wednesday morning that "due to the new spread of the Delta variant over the past week," the Obamas "have decided to significantly scale back the event to include only family and close friends." Obama is "appreciative of others sending their birthday wishes from afar and looks forward to seeing people soon," Hankins added.

The hundred of guests expected to attend included George Clooney, Steven Spielberg, and Oprah Winfrey, The New York Times reports, and "many invitees had already arrived on Martha's Vineyard" when Obama announced the change of plans. Obama had appeared eager to proceed with the party even as the virulent Delta strain prompted cities and states to reimpose mask mandates and institute other anti-coronavirus measures.

"They've been concerned about the virus from the beginning, asking invited guests if they had been vaccinated, requesting that they get a test proximate to the event," David Axelrod, a former top Obama adviser, tells the Times. "But when this was planned, the situation was quite different. So they responded to the changing circumstances."

Being first lady of the United States is undoubtedly time-consuming but Jill Biden has made clear that she won’t be giving up her pre-existing responsibilities any time soon.

The teacher, grandmother and long-time cancer research advocate is in the UK with her president husband this week for the G7 summit in Cornwall and is also due to meet the Queen at Windsor Castle on Sunday. But despite her busy schedule as first lady, the doctor of education is continuing her professional career during her husband’s presidential term - a decision that has been met with both praise and criticism.

Speaking to Stephen Colbert on The Late Show in December, she expressed her “surprise” at a controversial article by Joseph Epstein in The Wall Street Journal advising her to “drop the ‘Dr’ before your name” and “settle for the larger thrill of living for the next four years in the best public housing in the world”.

That she has ignored this advice is unlikely to come as a surprise to those who followed her stint as second lady during Joe Biden’s vice-presidency, between 2009 and 2017.

While residing at the VP’s official residence, Number One Observatory Circle in Washington D.C, Jill carried on teaching as professor of writing at the city’s Northern Virginia Community College, a role that she still holds today. “Teaching is not what I do. It’s who I am,” she tweeted in August last year.

Lady of learning

Jill Biden, née Jacobs, was born in the New Jersey town of Hammonton on 3 June 1951, but spent her childhood in Willow Grove, a northern suburb of Philadelphia. The eldest of five daughters, she described herself as “that girl from Philly” - a label that “if you’re from Philadelphia”, you know means she’s “down-to-earth, but also tough”, Kelly Dittmar, a political science professor at New Jersey’s Rutgers University-Camden, told Vox.

The future first lady married her first husband, Bill Stevenson, in 1970 before going on to study at the University of Delaware. She graduated with a degree in English in 1975, the same year that she and Stevenson divorced.

After a stint as a high-school English teacher, she completed a master’s degree in education specialising in reading at West Chester University of Pennsylvania, and then a master’s of arts in English from the state’s Villanova University.

Following years working in community colleges, as well as a psychiatric hospital, she was also received a doctorate in educational leadership from the University of Delaware in 2007.

For better or for worse

The 44-year marriage between Joe and Jill “hasn’t always been a straightforward fairytale romance��, Vogue noted during the former’s stint as VP. His first wife, college sweetheart Neilia, and one-year-old daughter Naomi were killed in a car accident in 1972. His sons Beau and Hunter were also in the car but survived.

The future US leader met Jill three years later, according to the White House - although her first husband told the Daily Mail last year that he suspected she had cheated on him with Biden, with the alleged affair dating back to at least August 1974. Stevenson claimed that he and his then wife had first met Biden while working on his campaign for Senate in 1972.

But those claims have been refuted by multiple sources, who say the future White House residents first met in 1975 on a blind date set up by the president’s brother.

The couple married in 1977, although the then-senator had to propose five times before she accepted. Their daughter, Ashley, was born in 1981.

Tragedy struck in 2015, however, when Beau Biden died from brain cancer. The politician’s son had battled ill health for years, suffering a stroke in 2010 and undergoing surgery to remove a legion from his brain three years later, shortly before being diagnosed with cancer.

Reflecting on her marriage in her 2019 memoir Where the Light Enters: Building a Family, Discovering Myself, Jill wrote that “we have had our hearts wrung and broken”, but added: “One thing in my life has stayed the same: Joe and I have always had each other.”

Triple challenge

During her time as second lady, Jill began “tackling a traditional trio” of causes comprising cancer prevention, the military and education, says Philadelphia Magazine.

Having established the Biden Breast Health Initiative in 1993 to educate girls about breast cancer, in 2016 she helped launch the Cancer Moonshot initiative, a national coalition of cancer researchers. The initiative has “yielded rapid progress in the understanding, detection, and treatment of cancer”, reports The Lancet, which is joining calls for the now president to launch Moonshot 2.0 in order to “expand and amplify this progress”.

The first lady has also authored a children’s book, Don’t Forget, God Bless Our Troops, which was published in 2012 and encourages support of people serving in the military and their families.

And the seasoned educator has long championed the role of community colleges in America’s education system. She hosted the first White House Summit on Community Colleges during Barack Obama’s presidency, and as honorary chair of the College Promise National Advisory Board, advocated for making the first two years of college “as free and universal as high school”.

Taking centre stage

As well as continuing her work for the causes she took up as second lady, along with her teaching job, Jill has spent her first few months as first lady visiting Covid-19 vaccination clinics and healthcare centres across the US, to support for the country’s healthcare workers.

She is also facing calls to help stamp out the Trumps’ legacy in the White House, with more than 79,000 people signing a petition asking her and second gentleman Doug Emhoff to “restore” the famous Rose Garden to its former pre-Melania design.

All the same, as a familiar face in US politics, Jill “hasn't received an overwhelming amount of media attention in the same way some of her predecessors did”, says USA Today.

But “compared to previous first ladies, she’s off to a fast start” , historian Myra Gutin, a professor at New Jersey’s Rider University, told the newspaper. “This is not Jill Biden’s first rodeo - she really does know what goes on at the White House because she had a front-row seat to the first lady's role.”

Barack Obama has claimed new religions could arise if proof of aliens was revealed. The former US president said “new religions would pop up” if alien life were discovered, adding: “Who knows what kind of arguments we’d get into.” However, speaking to the The Ezra Klein Show, he said that such a development would not change his worldview, explaining: “My entire politics is premised on the fact that we are these tiny organisms on this little speck floating out in space”.

Hot weather could make bees angry

Recent hot weather could lead to 20,000-strong swarms of angry bees, experts have warned. Researchers say the sizzling conditions could put the insects in a bad mood, with Beekeeper Daniel Thomas telling the Daily Star: “If you see a swarm arrive it is just like horror movie stuff.” The Met Office is forecasting temperatures as high as 28C after the highest figure recorded in the UK on Tuesday was 26.1C in Cardiff.

Tomato crash leads to ‘horror film’ scenes

A 23-mile stretch of road was left looking “like a scene from a horror film” after a lorry crash spilled tomato puree across the tarmac. After the westbound carriageway of the A14 from Cambridge to Brampton was closed following the collision between two lorries, Cambridgeshire police tweeted: “What looked like the set of a horror film was actually thousands of squashed tomatoes.” An online wag remarked: “I went pasta that. Took a while for the traffic to ketchup.”

Former US president Barack Obama privately called his successor Donald Trump a “corrupt motherfucker”, a “madman” and a “racist, sexist pig”, a new book has claimed.

During Trump’s presidency, “Obama largely abided by the convention that former presidents do not publicly criticise or attack their successors”, The Guardian reports. “But behind the scenes, with donors and advisers, Obama was reportedly much more candid.”

According to Battle for the Soul: Inside the Democrats’ Campaigns to Defeat Donald Trump by Edward-Isaac Dovere, a staff writer at The Atlantic magazine, Obama “first preferred the prospect of Trump as president to Ted Cruz”, the paper adds.

The Democrat considered Trump to be “nowhere near as clever as the hard-right Texas senator, the runner-up in the Republican primary in 2016”, it continues. “But from 2017, as reality swiftly set in, Obama reacted like many in the US and around the world.”

“He’s a madman,” Dovere reports Obama telling “big donors looking to squeeze a reaction out of him in exchange for the big checks they were writing to his foundation”.

“More often” he would say “I didn’t think it would be this bad” or “I didn’t think we’d have a racist, sexist pig”, Dovere continues, adding that “depending on the outrage of the day” Obama would also call Trump “‘that fucking lunatic’ with a shake of his head”.

Obama also described the Republican as a “corrupt motherfucker” in response to “reports that Trump was speaking to foreign leaders – including Vladimir Putin, during the investigation of Russian election interference and links between Trump and Moscow – without any aides on the call”, the paper adds.

While it is perhaps “no shocker that Obama and Trump aren’t each other’s biggest fans”, Obama’s public comments “haven’t come close to the R-rated descriptions alleged in the book”, which is published today, the New York Post reports.

Dovere last night tweeted that “there’s much more about Obama and his reactions to the last four years” in the book, adding: “There’s some cursing from him, but there’s also depth and reflection.”

Obama is also not alone in having his “alleged colourful language” exposed in the book, the New York Post adds. First Lady Jill Biden is quoted as saying that the now Vice-President Kamala Harris could “go fuck herself” after “a memorable debate-stage attack on Joe Biden early in the primary”, The Guardian says.

While Trump is “still kicked off social media, the former president hasn’t been shy about using his blog on his website” to voice opinions on “everything from Republican political machinations to coronavirus vaccines and notably, unpublished books where he is mentioned”, ABC News reports.

Earlier this month Trump wrote that “a guy named Miles Taylor, who I have no idea who he is, don’t remember ever meeting him or having a conversation with, gets more publicity pretending he was in the inner circle of our Administration when he was definitely not” in response to an upcoming book by the former government security official.

Despite this, he is “yet to weigh in on any of the freshly reported comments from Obama”, ABC News adds.

The Week’s daily round-up highlights the five best opinion pieces from across the British and international media, with excerpts from each.

1. Owen Jones in The Guardian

on the Boris vs. Burnham battle

The Tories have treated Manchester as callously as they did the miners

“Johnson has promised the pandemic will not lead to austerity: he is not a man renowned for sticking to his words, but the Tories undoubtedly fear having to hike taxes on big businesses (who form their donor base), or affluent older citizens (their core vote) to pick up the tab. In the 1980s, it was Britain’s miners who were faced down so that other workers could be taught a lesson. As Manchester’s bartenders, bookies and taxi drivers are about to discover, the Conservatives will respond to this pandemic as they do to every crisis: with cold-blooded class warfare.”

2. Stephen Collinson on CNN

on a return to the political frontline

Obama delivers scathing takedown of Trump before final debate

“It was a reminder of Obama's talent as an orator and skill at framing overarching political arguments that won him two White House terms. But the former President was also a singular figure who often struggled to transfer his aura to other Democratic candidates. As he spoke it was impossible not to be reminded that it was also in Philadelphia four years ago where he gave a speech urging Americans to choose Hillary Clinton on election eve in which he also took aim at Trump's policies and temperament. The next day, Trump defied the polls and pulled off a shock win in Pennsylvania en route to a national victory that was in essence a backlash against Obama's eight years in office.”

3. James Nicholls in The i

on taking drugs out of the hands of criminals

We could save lives if we change UK laws and sell cocaine and MDMA in regulated pharmacies

“Rather than a nudge and a wink, the sale will come with harm reduction and health advice as part of a holistic system geared towards encouraging less, not more, consumption. And rather than spending billions policing supply, while every penny of profit goes to a shadow economy, the income from the market can be channelled into the help and support people with drug problems desperately need. Such a proposal may seem far-fetched to some people (although state-run sales of alcohol are normal in Scandinavia, Canada and many other parts of the world). However, making this system work is far less improbable than the unachievable goal of a ‘drug-free world’ that remains the explicit objective of the global war on drugs.”

4. Sherelle Jacobs in The Daily Telegraph

on a method to beat coronavirus

The triumph of China’s Covid spin offers a terrifying glimpse of the West’s future

“The zeal with which we have swallowed Beijing’s guff about the superiority of its draconian approach to pandemics is not a good start to the 21st-century clash of civilisations. It is chilling that China has exported a deadly virus to the West. But it is even more scary that China has exported a Chinese model for dealing with it. Beijing’s useful idiots overlook the glaring flaws in the official CCP version of events. How can China be proof of the effectiveness of lockdowns when it took weeks to close off Wuhan after reports of the virus first surfaced? And given that Beijing likely under-reported deaths in its first wave on an industrial scale, how can we take at face value China’s transformation from the source of ‘Wuhan flu’, to a Covid-zero country zapping isolated cases imported from abroad?”

5. Scott Martelle in the Los Angeles Times

on the suffering of migrants

Three years later, hundreds of migrant families remain separated

“The most disturbing aspect of this on-going tragedy is that it was brought about intentionally by the Trump administration, whose representatives cared so little about the human implications of their actions that they didn’t bother to keep track of which families it was destroying. All in service to a hardline, anti-immigrant set of policies that, at the most generous, ignores US and international laws and treaties governing how asylum seekers must be treated. History will not judge this administration lightly for a host of reasons. But the emotional torture intentionally inflicted on migrant children and their families stands alone as an indictment of Trump’s fundamental inhumanity.”

Joe Biden rounded off the four-day Democratic National Convention on Thursday night with an all-encompassing speech in which he pledged to end a “chapter of darkness” in the US.

The former vice president addressed viewers via video link in a 25-minute speech condemning Donald Trump’s record in the White House. Without ever mentioning the president by name, Biden said he “takes no responsibility, refuses to lead, blames others, cozies up to dictators and fans the flames of hate and division”.

Biden has overseen “six straight months of national polls in which Donald Trump has never had a lead”, Politico says, and the widely positive response to his speech looks set to boost that momentum. But what did we learn from Biden’s speech?

Biden plans to use the pandemic as a focal point

The Democratic candidate devoted much of his speech to lashing out at Trump for his handling of the economy, race relations and the unrest across the US in the wake of the killing of George Floyd.

But Biden’s strongest words were reserved for Trump’s tackling of the coronavirus pandemic, which Democrats think “will be top of mind for voters come 3 November and which polls suggest the president scores badly on”, The Telegraph says.

The US has recorded the highest number of infections and deaths from coronavirus in the world by far, with more than 170,000 reported deaths - 65,000 more than Brazil in second place.

“Just judge this president on the facts,” Biden said. “Five million Americans infected with Covid-19. More than 170,000 Americans have died. By far the worst performance of any nation on Earth. Our current president has failed in his most basic duty to the nation: he has failed to protect us.”

A moment of humanity

Biden also spoke to “those who had lost loved ones during the pandemic” by offering his own story of grief, The Guardian reports.

In 1972, shortly after he was sworn in as a senator for Delaware, his wife Neilia Hunter and his one-year-old daughter Naomi were killed in a car accident while Christmas shopping. And in 2015, his son Beau Biden, an Iraq War veteran and former Attorney General of Delaware, died after a lengthy battle with brain cancer.

“I know that deep black hole that opens up in your chest,” Biden told viewers. “I know how mean and cruel and unfair life can be sometimes. I found the best way through pain and loss and grief is to find purpose.”

Writing in the Independent, US author Michael Arceneaux says Biden’s “ability to eloquently speak to grief proved useful” in the current climate, adding: “I don’t expect the president to be America’s grief counselor, but there is something to be said about reading the room and the mood of a nation.”

He revealed his reason for running

Biden also used the speech to reveal the exact moment he knew he would run for president.

Having served as vice president for eight years under Barack Obama, the death of his son Beau toward the end of his time in office saw him take a step back from politics and choosing not to run for president in 2016.

However, Biden said that Trump’s comments in the wake of the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville in 2017, persuaded him to run against the president.

In the aftermath of the rally, in which a counter-protester was killed when in a vehicle ramming attack - Trump infamously stated that there had been “very fine people on both sides”.

Biden recalled these words during his speech, describing them as a “wake-up call for us as a country... and for me, a call to action”.

“At that moment, I knew I’d have to run,” he said. “My father taught us that silence was complicity. And I could not remain silent or complicit. At the time, I said we were in a battle for the soul of this nation. And we are.”

Even Fox News liked it

Biden’s speech was so well received that it even got a begrudging seal of approval from anchors at Fox News, a channel which Vox notes “normally does everything it can to help Trump”.

Chris Wallace, an anchor on the network, called the speech “enormously effective”, adding that Biden’s clear and concise delivery could spell trouble for the president’s most common attack line.

“Remember, Donald Trump has been talking for months about Joe Biden as mentally shot,” Wallace said. “I thought that he blew a hole, a big hole in the characterisation.

“It seems to me that after tonight Donald Trump is going to have to run against a candidate, not a caricature. The Democrats have had a good convention, now it’s the Republicans’ turn.”

Laura Ingraham, one of Fox’s most conservative anchors, said Biden “beat expectations” with the speech, The Guardian adds. Ingraham said that despite it being “devoid of any policy other than universal masking” he still “delivered a good speech for what he was doing, it was very emotional stuff… It was very well delivered”.

Donald Trump has been denounced by his former defence secretary for threatening to deploy “heavily armed” military forces to “dominate the streets” and quell the ongoing race protests.

James Mattis, who quit the Trump administration in 2018, said he was “angry and appalled” by the handling of the nationwide unrest triggered by the police killing of African-American George Floyd.

Mattis told The Atlantic that his former boss was guilty of an “abuse of executive authority”, adding: “Never did I dream that troops... would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the constitutional rights of their fellow citizens.”

What can Trump legally do?

Trump is likely to face serious opposition from within the US security services if he tries to follow through on his threat to deploy troops to act against the citizens taking part in protests across the country. Defence Secretary Mark Esper has already “categorically opposed” such a move, The Guardian reports.

In a televised address to the nation on Monday, the president warned that he would invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act if federal authorities failed “to defend the life and property of their residents”.

But Esper - who “has been supportive of Trump and has avoided contradicting him until now”, notes the newspaper - told journalists in the Pentagon yesterday that “the option to use active-duty forces in a law enforcement role should only be used as a matter of last resort”.

“We are not in one of those situations now. I do not support invoking the Insurrection Act,” he continued.

The act, which dates back to 1807, “gives US presidents the authority to deploy active duty military to maintain or restore peace in times of crisis”, says the History channel website.

As CNN reports, the act was “notably used in the 1950s to enforce desegregation”, and in the following decade “to address riots in Detroit”.

However, “there may be curbs on what Trump can do”, owing to ambiguity in the act, says the broadcaster.

“One section of the law suggests that states must first request help, but other portions of the Insurrection Act do not require a governor or state legislature’s OK, such as when the president determines the situation in a state makes it impossible to enforce US laws or when citizens’ rights are abridged”.

Trump would be unlikely to deploy the military without governors’ approval, according to Michael Brenner, a professor of international affairs at the University of Pittsburgh.

Brenner told the Financial Times that the legislation is “manifestly unconstitutional” and notes that it has “never been tested in courts before”, as governors had always previously supported the use of troops on the ground in their state.

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And the reaction?

In a livestreamed video message to the protesters yesterday, former president Barack Obama said that “the young men and women of colour in this country”, have “witnessed too much violence and too much debt, and too often some of that violence has come from folks who were supposed to be serving and protecting you”.

While not directly referring to Trump’s handling of the crisis, Obama also “urged mayors around the country to review their use-of-force policies”.

That message was echoed by former defence chief Mattis, who said that “militarising our response, as we witnessed in Washington D.C., sets up a conflict... between the military and civilian society”, reports the BBC.

Mattis was referring to events earlier this week when peaceful protesters were dispersed with tear gas and rubber bullets so that Trump could walk across a park close to the White House in order to stage a photo op outside a historic church.

However, not everyone is opposed to the deployment of military force. In a controversial opinion piece in The New York Times (NYT), Republican Arkansas senator Tom Cotton has today called on the president to “send in the troops”.

“One thing above all else will restore order to our streets: an overwhelming show of force to disperse, detain and ultimately deter lawbreakers,” Cotton writes. “But local law enforcement in some cities desperately needs back-up, while delusional politicians in other cities refuse to do what’s necessary to uphold the rule of law.”

Cotton’s article has prompted a fierce backlash, with a number of NYT journalists tweeting that “running this puts Black @NYTimes staff in danger”.

Critics have also pointed out that the publication of the piece coincides with the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, in which hundreds to thousands of peaceful protesters were killed and thousands wounded when troops were deployed to break up demonstrations in Beijing.

Relations between Barack Obama and Donald Trump have reached a new low after the current US president accused his predecessor of unspecified crimes in a so-called “Obamagate” scandal.

Trump spent much of Sunday “diving into the right-wing fever swamps and unleashing a barrage of tweets and retweets” attacking Obama, The Guardian says.

One of those tweets read simply “OBAMAGATE!” - referencing the “gate” suffix inspired by the Watergate scandal that brought down former US president Richard Nixon.

News and entertainment site Deadline reported yesterday that Trump “has been on a Twitter tear the past 48 hours – more than 100 tweets or retweets on Sunday, 25 and counting on Monday”.

The US leader repeatedly used the hashtag “Obamagate”, which he said would make the Watergate scandal “look small time”.

When asked later by White House reporters about the claims, he replied: “It’s been going on for a long time. It’s been going on from before I even got elected. And it’s a disgrace that it happened.”

Pushed by a Washington Post reporter to name Obama’s alleged offences, Trump said: “You know what the crime is. The crime is very obvious to everybody. All you have to do is read the newspapers, except yours.”

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The president went on the offensive after Yahoo! News revealed a leaked recording in which Obama reportedly said the “rule of law is at risk”, following the Justice Department’s decision to drop charges against Trump’s former aide Michael Flynn.

Flynn was fired from his role as as national security adviser in early 2017 for lying to the FBI about his conversations with the Russian ambassador before Trump’s inauguration.

Obama’s alleged comments on the matter appear to have riled the president, who tweeted that his Democrat nemesis had committed “the biggest political crime in American history, by far!”

But his suggestion that the Obama should be investigated “met a unanimous response from Senate Republicans: No thanks”, says Politico.

Some analysts have suggested Trump’s tweets may also have been a bid to distract from his handling of the coronavirus outbreak in the country, which has claimed more than 80,000 lives and triggered a rise in unemployment to levels last seen during the Great Depression.

Attacks on Obama always go down well with Trump’s supporters, according to Republican strategist Ford O’Connell, who says: “Nothing energises Trump’s base more than this, because they feel that they were wronged.”

The president’s tweets are also “indicative of a long-standing obsession”, says The Guardian. “Trump effectively began his political career by pushing the ‘birther’ conspiracy theory that Obama was not born in the US and therefore should not be eligible for the presidency.”

And he has dedicated much of his time at the White House to trying to reverse Obama’s legacy, “attempting to kill the Affordable Care Act, pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal and Paris climate accords, and slashing environmental and other regulations”, the newspaper adds.

But some Democrats are fighting back against Trump’s latest attack with an online assault of their own.

Supporters of Joe Biden, the presumptive nominee to take on Trump in this year’s scheduled presidential election, are using the hashtag “Trumpgate” in links to online campaign ads attacking the president for his response to the Covid-19 crisis.

The Week’s daily round-up highlights the five best opinion pieces from across the British and international media, with excerpts from each.

1. Simon Jenkins in The Guardian

on the tasteless timing of the high speed rail project

HS2 was always a white elephant. To launch it now is a disgrace

“It is beyond cynical. Almost every business in Britain is in lockdown. Shops are shut, factories padlocked, firms bankrupted, millions pushed into short- or long-term unemployment. They are told by the cabinet, ‘We are all in this together’. No we are not. Somewhere contractors are popping the champagne and consultants carting their fees to the bank. These are not medical suppliers, care home operators or testing centres. They are not the broken-backed small businesses to whose half-hearted aid the Treasury still fails to come. The lucky ones are the backers of Boris Johnson’s beloved HS2.”

2. Joe Lockhart on CNN

on expectations in US politics

The secret weapon hidden in Obama's endorsement of Biden

“Sometimes in politics the least surprising development can be the most important. This is a true thing that has often been lost amid the reality show-style administration of our current President. While it was expected, Barack Obama's endorsement Tuesday of Joe Biden is still critically important to the Democrat's chances of winning back the White House. Let's start with the raw politics. Former President Obama's nod reinforces Biden's existing strengths among the Democratic constituencies he needs to win the election, particularly black Americans. More importantly, Obama's help on the campaign trail will motivate young people, many of whom have only recent memories of two presidents in their lives.”

3. Tom Harris in The Daily Telegraph

on how Labour should hit the reset button

Keir Starmer can outflank the Tories if he takes a surprising stance on the economy

“As soon as the current restrictions begin to be lifted, the new Labour leader, Keir Starmer, will come under intense pressure from his party and the trade union movement to take advantage of the new paradigm, one in which the value of public sector workers has finally been recognised by a grateful public, where Left-wing solutions have been implemented even by a Tory government and which demands a radical, socialist approach. Expect louder demands for the long dreamed-of Universal Basic Income (UBI) to take centre stage in Labour’s internal debates. These unprecedented times have created an unprecedented opportunity for the hard Left, one that (we must all hope) will never come again. So will Starmer listen to his movement’s demands to reshape our society and economy in the socialist model?”

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4. Former US national security advisor H.R. McMaster in The Atlantic

on cynicism in the politics of the East

How China sees the world

“As China pursues its strategy of co-option, coercion, and concealment, its authoritarian interventions have become ubiquitous. Inside China, the party’s tolerance for free expression and dissent is minimal, to put it mildly. The repressive and manipulative policies in Tibet, with its Buddhist majority, are well known. The Catholic Church and, in particular, the fast-growing Protestant religions are of deep concern to Xi and the party. Protestant Churches have proved difficult to control, because of their diversity and decentralization, and the party has forcefully removed crosses from the tops of church buildings and even demolished some buildings to set an example.”

5. Robert Fisk in The Independent

on the dangerous power vacuum in the Middle East

Russia is about to face its biggest test yet in Syria

“Russia, we are now led to believe, is losing ground in Libya as its most recent ally, the Libyan-American – and erstwhile friend of Washington – General Khalifa Haftar retreats from Tripoli, losing even the city of Sabratha to the ‘internationally recognised’ government. The quotation marks are important because Turkey’s men and materiel, including mercenaries from the wreckage of the old Free Syrian Army, have been supporting al-Sarraj’s Tripoli government. The Libyan war, just like the Syrian war and the Lebanese civil war before that, is now a playground for quite a lot of my American reader’s gangsters-in-chief.”

Nobody started this year expecting to see "Steph Curry" and "Dr. Anthony Fauci" in a headline together, but, well, here we are. In an Instagram Live session on Thursday morning, the Golden State Warriors star interviewed the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases as some 65,000 people — including former President Barack Obama and Justin Bieber — tuned in.

"This is serious business, we are not overreacting," Fauci emphasized to Curry about the COVID-19 outbreak. "I'd like to get the people in the country to realize that we're dealing with a serious problem."

Obama, in the comments, chimed in to agree: "Listen to the science," he said. "Do your part and take care of each other."

Former US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning has been released from prison.

Manning, who leaked hundreds of thousands of documents and diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks in 2010, had been held since May 2019 when she was taken back into custody for refusing to testify to a grand jury investigating the pro-transparency organisation.

Explaining her refusal, she had told the judge: “I have had these values since I was a child, and I've had years of confinement to reflect on them. For much of that time, I depended for survival on my values, my decisions, and my conscience. I will not abandon them now.”

The Intercept, an investigative news site says that has campaigned on her behalf, said she had faced “a year of torturous treatment” in prison.

Her release order on Thursday came shortly after her legal team said she had tried to commit suicide and was recovering in hospital. The Daily Mail says was found in her jail cell where she had attempted to hang herself with a bed sheet.

Police confirmed there was “an incident” involving Manning at the detention centre in Virginia on Wednesday afternoon. “It was handled appropriately by our professional staff and [she] is safe,” a police statement said.

The former intelligence analyst completed several tours of Iraq during her country’s military operations there, when she was known as Bradley Manning.

However, in early 2010, after becoming - in her own words - “beyond frustrated with people and society at large”, she made contact with WikiLeaks and Assange in order to leak military and diplomatic documents relating to US military activity.

Many of the leaked documents contradicted official reports, especially in relation to civilian casualties, and their release contributed to the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011.

She was convicted in 2013 for leaking to WikiLeaks millions of State Department cables and a classified video of a US helicopter firing on civilians and journalists in Iraq in 2007.

Her sentence was commuted by former President Barack Obama and she served about seven years in military prison until her release in May 2017. In 2014, Manning, who was born male, sued the US Department of Defense, claiming it was refusing to give her medical treatment for gender dysphoria.

She tried to commit suicide on at least two occasions and went on hunger strike before being granted hormone therapy.

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Former President Barack Obama celebrated Presidents' Day — or "President's Day," as President Trump tweeted Monday — by subtweeting his successor on the economy.

Trump has been touting the economy in his pitch for re-election, often employing exaggeration, and he got Obama's message.

That could have been the end of it, but Trump is not known for letting things go. So on Tuesday, Trump's trade adviser Peter Navarro, a key proponent of Trump's trade war with China, went on CNN to explain how Trump's economy is much stronger than Obama's. CNN's Poppy Harlow noted that Obama topped 4 percent GDP growth four times while Trump is yet to hit 3 percent, and he created more jobs on average during his second term than Trump has during his first.

Navarro was undeterred. "Back in the Obama-Biden years, it was horrible," he said, listing some talking points until Harlow finally broke in, noting the data doesn't support his argument. "You can look at your numbers, but I lived that," Navarro replied. "The numbers are the numbers, Peter," Harlow said. "This is all politics," Navarro concluded.

Axios took its own look at the numbers and ranked Trump's economy No. 6 out of the last 10 presidential administrations, based on average GDP growth, "the most comprehensive economic scorecard — and something presidents, especially Trump, use as an example of success." Presidents have limited control over the economy, but the average GDP growth under Trump is higher than under Obama, and "some aspects of the Trump economy, like wage growth and business investment, pale in comparison to other periods," Axios notes.

"Unlike other presidents, Trump inherited a steady economy that's since entered the longest stretch of growth in history," Axios says. "Interest rates remain low. Growth picked up in the wake of the 2017 tax cuts, but now the pace has moderated," hitting 2.3 percent in 2019. The juice from Trump's $1.5 trillion tax cut is wearing off and "businesses were too unnerved by the trade war to spend money on new factories or equipment — a key driver of growth," Axios reports. If consumer spending drops, watch Obama's twitter feed.

As 2019 drew to a close, many Americans looked back on the year and the past decade and ran through their accomplishments and things they hope to improve in the 2020s. President Trump apparently did at least the first half of that exercise, tweeting a few hours before midnight on New Year's Eve that one of his "greatest honors" was "to have gotten CHOICE approved for our great Veterans. Others have tried for decades, and failed!" Maybe others failed, but former President Barack Obama did not — he signed the Veterans Choice Act into law in 2014.

What's more, the law was written by the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a frequent Trump critic, and current 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

Trump has been making this same false claim for months. In its fact-check from May, The Associated Press notes that "Trump did expand eligibility for the program," allowing veterans to opt for a private doctor if the VA wait was more than 20 days (28 days for specialists), not 30 days as under the Sanders-McCain bill, or they had to drive more than 30 minutes to a VA facility, not 40 miles. And VA Secretary Robert Wilkie — who also falsely claimed credit for changes implemented under Obama, AP notes — acknowledged that full implementation of the expanded Choice program won't happen for "years." Maybe by that point, the next president can take an undeserved victory lap.

The Week’s daily round-up highlights the five best opinion pieces from across the British and international media, with excerpts from each.

1. Stephen Bush in the New Statesman

on the next potential leader of the opposition

Keir Starmer’s Labour leadership rivals have reason to fear him

“As I wrote at the time, Labour’s 2015 intake was pretty left wing, with not just its big names like Rebecca Long-Bailey, Angela Rayner and Clive Lewis, but the likes of Louise Haigh, Rachael Maskell, and Justin Madders. Just because pitching to the left is in Starmer’s interests doesn’t mean he’s putting on an act. And north London contains multitudes: Islington was the home of Jeremy Corbyn and Tony Blair and Boris Johnson for that matter. Hackney is the home of Diane Abbott and the home of Yvette Cooper. Hampstead is the home of Tulip Siddiq and the home of Ed Milib-ok, that one’s less of a contrast, but you get the point. The Chapman-Philipson argument has more than a grain of truth.”

2. Michelle Goldberg in the New York Times

on making your outrage known

Anti-Trump America, we’re counting on you

“Ultimately, there’s no way to know how small polling fluctuations on impeachment now will affect an election that’s almost a year away. But Trump’s skill at intimidating the political class into believing that he is anything but historically reviled still matters. It keeps his supporters in line and demoralizes his opponents. That’s why, with an impeachment vote in the House expected on Wednesday, it’s important for anti-Trump America to make itself visible. For months now, many people, myself included, have looked at mass protest movements around the world and wondered why Americans horrified by the depravity of this administration aren’t taking to the streets. Well, on Tuesday evening, in every part of the country, many will be.”

3. Poppy Noor in The Guardian

on the waning relevence of a once-great icon

OK boomer: how Barack Obama became the ultimate centrist dad

“At a Rice University gala in 2018, Obama took credit for the oil and gas boom in America. ‘It went up every year I was president. Suddenly America’s the biggest oil producer and the biggest gas. That was me, people, say thank you,’ he said. Oil production grew 88% under Obama’s two terms. The US is also one of the biggest consumers of fossil fuels, and the planet is literally burning – so this is not exactly something to be proud of, but credit where credit is due, I guess.”

4. Shamil Shams in Deutsche Welle

on the separation of army and state

A clear message to the Pakistani military

“The military will never want its ex-chief to be hanged. It would significantly dent its image and curtail its political power in the country. The court verdict has already done a lot of damage to the army. The symbolic value of the ruling should not be underestimated. It sends out a clear message to the military generals that they are not above the law; that they could also be tried and punished for suspending and violating the constitution. It is a message that the military must not interfere in politics and abide by their constitutional role.”

5. Christopher Gunness in Al Jazeera

on standing up for Palestine

Repurposing the UNRWA in a post-truth world

“Seventy years on, the UNRWA and its donors must recommit to their historic mission until the injustices of 1948 which endure to this day are addressed and the dispossession of the Palestinians is resolved. Most of all, the UNRWA must empower Palestinian refugees to present themselves to the world as the owners and agents of their own dignity and destiny. To do this, services must be fully-funded; there must be thorough and ongoing management reforms and robust, rights-based advocacy. These are the three pillars on which the UNRWA's recovery will surely be built.”

Donald Trump has accused Justin Trudeau of being “two-faced” after the Canadian prime minister was caught on camera mocking the US president with other world leaders.

Leaked footage from a Nato summit reception at Buckingham Palace this week shows Boris Johnson jokingly asking French President Emmanuel Macron why he was late. Trudeau responds that “he was late because he takes a 40-minute press conference off the top” - an apparent reference to the US leader, who is known for his long, rambling addresses to the press.

Macron then appears to tell an anecdote, which isn’t picked up on the microphone. An amused Trudeau replies: “Oh yeah, yeah, he announced... [inaudible]. You just watched his team’s jaw drop to the floor!”

Trump later suffered his own “hot mic” moment when he was recorded crowing over his Trudeau jibe after cancelling his final press conference at the London summit to fly home early.

Multiple reporters in the English capital claim to have heard the US leader say: “That was funny when I said that guy was two-faced.”

Here are four other occasions when politicians got caught out.

Bigoted woman

Gordon Brown was doing a live TV interview in Rochdale in 2010 when he was heckled by a woman later identified as Gillian Duffy, who challenged the then-prime minister on immigration.

After Brown agreed to speak to her, she asked: “You can’t say anything about the immigrants, because you’re saying you’re... but all these eastern Europeans what are coming in, where are they flocking from?”

But following their exchange, the Labour leader returned his car without realising he was still wearing a live Sky News microphone, and was heard saying: “That was a disaster.”

Asked what Duffy had said, he replied: “Ugh, everything! She’s just a sort of bigoted woman that said she used to be Labour. I mean, it’s just ridiculous.”

Brown later returned to the Greater Manchester town to apologise to Duffy in person.

Locker room talk

Donald Trump was famously caught making vulgar comments about women while filming segments for US show Access Hollywood in 2005.

Talking to presenter Billy Bush on a bus, Trump - then host of the US version of The Apprentice - is heard saying: “Yeah, that’s her. With the gold. I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her.

“You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful - I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything."

A laughing Bush then says: “Whatever you want.”

Trump replies: “Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.”

The Washington Post later obtained the video footage and published details of the conversation a month before the 2016 presidential election.

Following a backlash, the then-presidential candidate issued a public apology of sorts, saying: “I said it, I was wrong, and I apologise.”

The rest is history.

Start bombing

In 1984, at the height of the Cold War between Russia and the West, then US president Ronald Reagan was caught joking with sound technicians ahead of his weekly radio address to the nation.

“My fellow Americans,” Reagan said. “I’m pleased to tell you today that I’ve signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.”

The USSR was not amused, and Soviet forces were temporarily put on high alert in the Far East.

Obama and Sarkozy’s Israel row

A 2011 conversation between Nicolas Sarkozy and Barack Obama, the respective leaders of France and the US at the time, caused the pair considerable embarrassment after being overheard by journalists and reported across the world.

The journalists had been handed translation boxes to listen to Sarkozy and Obama at a G20 summit in France, but were told not to plug in the devices until the backroom chat had finished.

However, reporters being reporters, a number of them failed to wait - and caught the presidents bemoaning Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“I can’t stand him any more, he’s a liar,” Sarkozy was heard saying.

“You may be sick of him, but me, I have to deal with him every day,” replies Obama.

The exchange highlighted “a breakdown of trust with the Israeli leader” that threatened the Middle East peace process, as the BBC noted at the time.

In one day, two different actors have been cast to play two different U.S. presidents in two different TV shows, because yes, the past 20 years of U.S. politics really have been that dramatic.

Deadline reports that Clive Owen will play Bill Clinton on American Crime Story, which will dramatize the sex scandal that led to his impeachment. Meanwhile, Kingsley Ben-Adir will play Barack Obama in A Higher Loyalty, which will dramatize James Comey's memoir about his tenure as FBI director, which ended in a dramatic firing by President Trump.

If you don't feel like waiting for the shows to premiere, you can get all the spoilers from literally any contemporaneous newspaper. Read more at Deadline.

Many Republicans were highly critical of former President Barack Obama's decision to bail out U.S. automakers after taking office at the peak of the Great Recession. Mitt Romney, now a U.S. senator, even wrote an op-ed urging Obama to let Detroit go bankrupt. President Trump has his own bailout, sending extra federal subsidies to farmers hurt by his trade war with China. The $28 billion and counting isn't fully offsetting the loss of Chinese purchases and markets for U.S. soybeans, pork, and other agricultural products, but it is still relatively generous, as Bloomberg Businessweek notes:

Agriculture was actually one of the few sectors of the American economy that consistently ran a surplus with China, and Trump's tariffs are mostly supposed to be for the long-term benefit of the tech and manufacturing sectors. Farmers say they're upset about the handouts, but so far "there's been no break in Trump's support in rural areas, where his poll numbers are consistently about 12 percentage points higher than they are nationally," Bloomberg notes. And Trump is pretty open about wanting to keep it that way.

"I sometimes see where these horrible dishonest reporters will say that 'Oh jeez, the farmers are upset.' Well, they can't be too upset, because I gave them $12 billion and I gave them $16 billion this year," Trump said in a phone-in to Illinois farmers in late August, adding, "I hope you like me even better than you did in '16."

The Week’s daily round-up highlights the five best opinion pieces from across the British and international media, with excerpts from each.

1. Matthew d’Ancona in the London Evening Standard

on calling the EU referendum

For the record, David Cameron is not the only one to blame for Brexit mess

“Uncomfortable as it is to concede, there would have been a reckoning whether or not Cameron had taken his fateful decision in the form he did. It is convenient, and neat, to blame him for all of it. But it is also incredibly lazy. History has ragged edges and is full of nuance; and, however this particular book is received, history will be kinder to Cameron than you think.”

2. Sean O’Grady in The Independent

on popularity

Boris Johnson thought he was invincible – but meeting the public has left him well and truly humbled

“‘Boris’ the cuddly lovable teddy bear of a politician is a confection, a front, a kind of fiction. His real name, his first name reserved to the closest of friends and family, is Alexander, or Al, and that is the real Johnson, the person rarely glimpsed by the public, if at all. The second name, the comical, distinctive and memorable ‘Boris’ is a trade name, used to create the image we all know so well. Some of it is, to be fair, authentic, some not so, and some is a mash-up when Johnson forgets where Boris ends and Al starts. In any case, the character in the political soap opera called Boris is not well-suited to serious storylines, and the uncomfortable intrusion of reality upon his Wodehousian world.”

3. Sherelle Jacobs in The Daily Telegraph

on Brexit

Euphoric Remainer snobbery has become a fanatical religion

“If Brexit blew up the old world order, a new species of snob has been forged in its fuming embers. For evidence, look no further than the growing tribe of Lib Dem-defecting arch-Remainers. A few years ago, many were self-proclaimed sensible Blairite centrists, judiciously uninspired by politics and possessing no view whatsoever on the EU. But in the space of three years, their anti-Brexit beliefs have become radically spiritual. From their ecstasy in the exaltation that ‘people didn’t know what they voted for’, to their terrified delight in inhaling the smoky incense of an imminent no-deal ‘Armageddon’, hating Brexit – and Brexiteers – has become a religion.”

4. George Monbiot in The Guardian

on climate change

For the sake of life on Earth, we must put a limit on wealth

“A series of research papers shows that income is by far the most important determinant of environmental impact. It doesn’t matter how green you think you are; if you have surplus money, you spend it. The only form of consumption that’s clearly and positively correlated with good environmental intentions is diet: people who see themselves as green tend to eat less meat and more organic vegetables. But attitudes have little bearing on the amount of transport fuel, home energy and other materials you consume. Money conquers all. The disastrous effects of spending power are compounded by the psychological impacts of being wealthy. Plenty of studies show that the richer you are, the less you are able to connect with other people. Wealth suppresses empathy. One paper reveals that drivers in expensive cars are less likely to stop for people using pedestrian crossings than drivers in cheap cars. Another revealed that rich people were less able than poorer people to feel compassion towards children with cancer. Though they are disproportionately responsible for our environmental crises, the rich will be hurt least and last by planetary disaster, while the poor are hurt first and worst. The richer people are, the research suggests, the less such knowledge is likely to trouble them.”

5. Farhad Manjoo in the New York Times

on Obama’s legacy

Barack Obama’s Biggest Mistake

“In the Obama years, the government let corporations get bigger and economic power grow more concentrated. Obama’s regulators declined to push antimonopoly measures against Google and Facebook, against airlines and against big food and agriculture companies. It is true that Obama succeeded in passing a groundbreaking universal health care law. It’s also true that over the course of his presidency, inequality grew, and Obama did little to stop it. While much of the rest of the country struggled to get by, the wealthy got wealthier and multimillionaires and billionaires achieved greater political and cultural power.”

Barack Obama made a range of controversial decisions during his reign as US president but few triggered such widespread debate as that surrounding what was dubbed Tan-gate.

On 28 August 2014, the then president wore a light tan suit to a White House briefing, provoking a debate that inspired more than 4,000 tweets during the press conference alone, reports The Independent.

Indeed, the focus of the briefing - the fight against Islamic State in Syria - was all but forgotten amid the outcry over his outfit, created by presidential tailor Georges de Paris.

New York Representative Peter King suggested that the Democrat leader’s suit indicated he wasn’t taking national security threats seriously, while Esquire magazine simply dubbed it a “monstrosity”.

But five years on, the row is being used as a measure of Obama’s controversies compared to those of his successor.

What’s so bad about wearing a tan suit anyway?

Nothing, according to Esquire, which insisted: “There is nothing wrong with a high-quality tan suit!”

But “this looks like something Uncle Phil would wear before throwing Jazz out of the house”, the magazine added, in a reference to hit 1990s sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

Fox News presenter Lou Dobbs called the suit “un-presidential” and suggested that Obama could be sending a secret message, possibly to enemies of the US, says CNN.

Those views were echoed by New York Congressman King. Speaking to Newsmax TV the day after Obama’s press briefing, King said: “There’s no way I think any of us can excuse what the president did yesterday… for him to walk out…in a light suit, light tan suit…

“Isis is watching. If you were the head of Isis, if you were Baghdadi, if you were anyone in the Isis, would you come away from yesterday afraid of the United States? Would you be afraid that the United States was going to use all its power to crush Isis?”

In response, then-White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters: “The president stands squarely behind the decision that he made yesterday to wear his summer suit at yesterday’s news conference.”

And a senior White House official said: “He loves that suit.”

What is the reaction five years on?

Many Donald Trump critics have taken to Twitter this week to accuse Republicans of hypocrisy in their silence over the current president’s failures after having been so vocal in their criticisms of Obama.

A retired US serviceman tweeted: “Five years ago today, Republicans lost their minds because Barack Obama wore a tan suit to a press conference.

“Today, they’re silent as Donald Trump separates families, makes health care less affordable, and stands up for Vladimir Putin.”

The Washington Post argues that the backlash over Obama’s clothing choices has come “to symbolise the relative dearth of scandals during the Obama administration”, with Tan-gate starting “to feel like a memory from a more innocent time, when a beige jacket was the most important issue dividing the nation”.

The newspaper also points out that “Ronald Reagan wore tan suits during his presidency. So did Dwight D. Eisenhower, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush” - yet only Obama was slated for it.

Post journalist Jason Rezaian, who was arrested in Iran on spying charges a month before Tan-gate, this week tweeted: “We are indeed the most privileged - and perhaps pettiest - nation ever.”

Meanwhile, Pete Souza, chief White House photographer under Obama, mocked the backlash to the suit with a post on Instagram saying: “August 28 (even years only) is known as scandal day in the Obama administration.

“On this day in 2014, President Obama draped a TAN SUIT on the back of his chair in the Oval Office, and then WORE THE SUIT IN THE WHITE HOUSE BRIEFING ROOM.”

How do Trump’s controversies compare?

The current president’s scandals are both more numerous and generally more substantial.

“This week alone, it’s been reported President Donald Trump has discussed nuking hurricanes, waffled on Chinese trade deals, implied the first lady of the United States had gotten to know the North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, and wished a happy birthday to the man who runs World Wrestling Entertainment,” says CNN.

Trump has also recently proclaimed himself “the chosen one”, demanded that US companies leave China and said he wants to hold next year’s G7 meeting at his Mar-a-Lago golf resort.

His previous many memorable statements include claiming that there were “very fine people on both sides” at the Charlottesville white-nationalist rally in 2017.

And during the 2016 election campaign, tapes were released featuring Trump bragging about groping women without their consent. “When you’re a star, they let you do it,” he says in the recording.

“You can do anything…grab them by the pussy.”

All the same, “to say that Obama had a flawless presidency is to gloss over his penchant for drone strikes and unpopular immigration policies, to name a few”, says Esquire in an article published to mark the fifth anniversary of Tan-gate.

But the magazine adds: “As far as personal ‘scandals,’ though? The suit was pretty much it, which makes the attention it drew even more insane.”

President Trump surprised, amused, and left lots of people aghast when he abruptly announced Tuesday evening that, because Denmark isn't willing to discuss selling Greenland, he is no longer visiting the country, its leaders, and its queen in the beginning of September. Maggie Haberman at The New York Times, for one, isn't buying Trump's stated reason for scrapping the visit — which, to be fair, is pretty unbelievable.

Haberman doesn't offer her own explanation. But in the wake of Trump's announcement, Twitter discovered a local Danish news report from last week: Coincidentally, former President Barack Obama is visiting Denmark again at the end of September. And some unkind wags drew their own conclusions.

It's clearly a coincidence that Trump called off his visit to Denmark a week after Obama's trip was announced — geopolitics isn't quite that petty. And yet...

Obama will speak and take questions from business leaders and students at Aalborg University in northern Denmark, The Local reports. Rich Henningsen, the moderator of the event, told local media that "President Obama is one of the people I look up to most in the in the world," while Aalborg's mayor, Thomas Kastrup-Larsen, gushed awkwardly: "I do not doubt for a moment that this will be a new climax for Aalborg and the whole of northern Jutland."

Meanwhile, a month before Trump's visit, thousands of people had "already signed up for a demonstration against him," the Copenhagen Post reported last week. "So it looks like the Danes prefer Obama over Trump after all. ..." Apropos of nothing.

Barack Obama has called on Americans to reject language from any of their leaders that feeds hatred or normalises racism, after 31 people died in mass shootings in Texas and Ohio.

Although the former US president did not name anyone, the BBC points out that his “rare comments” came after Donald Trump sought to “deflect” criticism that his “anti-immigrant rhetoric” had “fuelled violence”.

Obama’s words were a clear “swipe at Trump”, Buzzfeed says.

In his statement released on Twitter, Obama said: “We should soundly reject language coming out of the mouths of any of our leaders that feeds a climate of fear and hatred or normalises racist sentiments; leaders who demonise those who don't look like us, or suggest that other people, including immigrants, threaten our way of life, or refer to other people as sub-human, or imply that America belongs to just one certain type of people.”

He continued: “It has no place in our politics and our public life. And it's time for the overwhelming majority of Americans of goodwill, of every race and faith and political party, to say as much - clearly and unequivocally.”

The Atlantic praised Obama for rising to the moment, saying he “still sounds like a president”.

This is not the first time that the Democrat has criticised his White House successor. During a speech at the University of Illinois last year, he referred to Trump’s response to the deadly attack during a neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville.

"We're supposed to stand up to discrimination, and we're sure as heck supposed to stand up clearly and unequivocally to Nazi sympathisers. How hard can that be, saying that Nazis are bad?"

In July, Obama tweeted a link to an article written by 149 black staffers who worked on his administration, criticising Trump after he said congresswomen Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib should “go back” to their countries.

Obama released his latest statement after Trump responded to the mass shootings over the weekend. Speaking at the White House, the US president said “Mental illness and hate pull the trigger, not the gun.”

He continued: “In one voice, our nation must condemn racism, bigotry and white supremacy. These sinister ideologies must be defeated. Hate has no place in America.”

He called for enhanced co-operation between government agencies and social media companies, reforms to mental health laws and the end of the “glorification of violence”.

He said the internet and “gruesome” video games promote violence in society, saying: “It is too easy today for troubled youth to surround themselves with a culture that celebrates violence.”

Responding to the president’s statement, CNN’s Zachary B. Wolf wrote that Trump blamed “everything but his own” words for hate in America.

Volunteers at a Chicago food bank were joined by an unexpected guest to help them prepare Thanksgiving food parcels – former president Barack Obama.

The Greater Chicago Food Depository distributes free groceries to the city’s neediest families all year round, including special Thanksgiving meal packages to mark America’s national holiday, which falls today.

The organisation’s volunteers were working to prepare the holiday food parcels on Tuesday when the former president “arrived with bags of donated food and donned latex gloves to work side by side with volunteers”, CNN reports.

During his stint, Obama chatted with fellow workers and “helped fill bags of potatoes”, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.

Mobbed by starstruck volunteers, the ex-commander in chief “dished out hugs and handshakes” as well as food, says ABC, but otherwise kept a low-profile in jeans and a baseball cap.

Obama, who began his political career in Chicago, was back in the city for the annual conference of the Obama Foundation, a philanthropic organisation he founded with his wife, Michelle, after leaving the White House.

After the Obama Foundation shared a photo of the surprise appearance on its Twitter account, the former president retweeted the image with his own holiday message.

“I am grateful for the next generation of leaders – the young people who are tolerant, creative, idealistic and doing the work to create the world as it should be. Who understand that hope requires action,” he wrote. “From the Obama family to yours, Happy Thanksgiving.”

Former first lady Michelle Obama has revealed intimate details about her life in a newly published memoir.

The book, titled Becoming, covers the time before, during and after her husband Barack’s eight years as president. Here are five things we learned.

Why she will never forgive Trump

In an extract that she read to ABC News, the former first lady explains why she will never forgive Donald Trump for his hateful “birther” campaign against her husband in 2011, when Republicans questioned whether the then president was actually a US citizen.

“It was... dangerous, deliberately meant to stir up the wingnuts and kooks... Donald Trump, with his loud and reckless innuendos, was putting my family’s safety at risk. And for this, I’d never forgive him,” she writes.

A purposeful frown

Obama says she was unable and unwilling to put on a happy face at Trump’s inauguration, in January last year.

“I will always wonder about what led so many women, in particular, to reject an exceptionally qualified female candidate and instead choose a misogynist as their president,” she says. “I stopped even trying to smile.”

Coming into her identity

The first section of the memoir details her childhood growing up in a “cramped apartment on the South Side of Chicago”, with parents who pushed her to work hard and excel at school.

A dedicated student, Obama later attended the Princeton University, where she stood out on the Ivy League campus, reports the NPR news site.

The university had launched a diversity campaign and “the hope was that all of us would mingle in heterogeneous harmony”, Obama writes. However, she says, the burden was put on the minority students for that to work.

She faced further problems of stereotyping after her husband announced his run for president in 2007.

“I was female, black and strong, which to certain people ... translated only to ‘angry’. It was another damaging cliche, one that’s been forever used to sweep minority women to the perimeter of every room,” she says.

Doubts during campaign

The former first lady admits she was apprehensive about joining the 2008 campaign trail during her husband’s first presidential race, not least because of the stress it put on her family, according to The Guardian.

“I said yes because I believed that Barack could be a great president... I said yes because I loved him and had faith in what he could do,” she writes.

Being a ‘first’ First Lady

Obama was wary of becoming the first African-American first lady of the US, but says she was met with overwhelming support.

“I was ‘other’ almost by default. If there was a presumed grace assigned to my white predecessors, I knew it wasn’t likely to be the same for me,” she explains.

Yet outgoing first lady Laura Bush was quick to offer a hand of friendship, telling Obama that she was only a phone call away.

Recalling that time in Becoming, she says: “This was all heartening. I already looked forward to the day I could pass whatever wisdom I picked up to the next first lady in line.”

She offered to do exactly that for Melania Trump, but has yet to be taken up on the offer, Obama recently told ABC News.

If there is one thing that all Americans can agree on as they prepare to cast their ballots in today’s make-or-break mid-terms, it’s that this election matters.

Yet with so much at stake in a campaign that has smashed spending records, turnout is still only expected to be around 50% of the electorate.

So is compulsory voting the answer and how would it change the electoral map?

“Non-voters can be seen as the deserters of democracy; or, from another point of view, the conscientious objectors. Alternatively, their absence could be diagnosed as a form of exclusion – a deliberate attempt to keep the ‘wrong people’ out of the political process,” writes Peter Franklin on UnHerd.

This latter view is especially prevalent on the left of politics, not least because non-voters in the US are disproportionately young, low-paid and non-white.

Aware of this, former president Barack Obama has made getting out the vote central to his stump speech.

Speaking on his former speechwriter's podcast last month, Obama said:

“This isn’t really a 50-50 country. It’s like a 60-40 country. Democrats could and will do even better if every one of your listeners not only votes but makes sure that all your wishy-washy, excuse-making, internet-surfing, TV-watching, grumbling-but-not-doing-nothing friends and family members get to the polls.”

Emily Badger in the New York Times writes that “many political scientists say that policies that make voting easier would also make American democracy more representative and less likely to favour the interests of wealthier, older and white voters who typically turn out at higher rates”.

In Australia, where voting has been mandatory since 1924, The Age says “conservatives would love to make voting non-compulsory, being certain that only their base voters would be certain to vote, and would be easier to mobilise with 'dog-whistle' campaigns such as religious 'freedom'.”

“I’m not comfortable recommending any kind of compulsion,” Tim Montgomerie wrote in The Times back in 2015. “But I’m much more uncomfortable at the prospect of Britain becoming some sort of gerontocracy where older (and richer) people decide who is in power. This is a much greater social evil.”

The figures bear the view that non-compulsory voting favours conservatives out. Re-running the 2016 US presidential election assuming everyone polled voted, Badger found Clinton would have taken the White House by winning swing states such as Texas, North Caroline and Florida that ultimately went to Donald Trump.

In the UK, habitual non-voters had a key role in the shock results of the Brexit referendum and the 2017 general elections.

In the final days of the mid-term campaign, much has been made of alleged instances of voter suppression. However, those excluded from voting represent a drop in the ocean compared to the millions who either by choice or apathy don’t make it to the polls.

“Far from being non-participants in our democracy, non-voters are a crucial component – a psephological Sword of Damocles, hanging over the political establishment”, says Franklin.